Author Archives: Jason Cross

The release of the latest Galaxy S phone is always a major event, and with good reason. Samsung’s premium flagship practically defines our expectations for high-end, high-price Android phones for the year to come. The Galaxy S8 and S8+ deliver a smorgasbord of features, top-tier hardware, a great camera, and bleeding-edge design. This, together with Samsung’s marketing muscle, make them the most popular premium Android phones. 

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If you haven’t yet read our extensive review of the Galaxy S8+, you should. Nearly everything said about that phone applies to the smaller Galaxy S8. It’s got the same gorgeous design, the same best-ever display, the same awesome camera, same processor, memory, storage, features…it’s just smaller.

The display is 5.8 inches instead of 6.2, and the battery is 3,000 mAh instead of 3,500. These differences, and a price tag about $130 lower, are all the separate the Galaxy S8 from the S8+. 

That means the problems with the S8+ are apparent here as well, namely an unbelievably bad fingerprint sensor location and the lackluster debut of Samsung’s Bixby AI assistant. Both are annoying, but generally avoidable, and thus only slightly tarnish the Galaxy S8’s shine.

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If you haven’t yet read our extensive review of the Galaxy S8+, you should. Nearly everything said about that phone applies to the smaller Galaxy S8. It’s got the same gorgeous design, the same best-ever display, the same awesome camera, same processor, memory, storage, features…it’s just smaller.

The display is 5.8 inches instead of 6.2, and the battery is 3,000 mAh instead of 3,500. These differences, and a price tag about $130 lower, are all the separate the Galaxy S8 from the S8+. 

That means the problems with the S8+ are apparent here as well, namely an unbelievably bad fingerprint sensor location and the lackluster debut of Samsung’s Bixby AI assistant. Both are annoying, but generally avoidable, and thus only slightly tarnish the Galaxy S8’s shine.

To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Motorola’s G series phones have been darlings of the Android community for their ability to deliver exceptional value. You can’t expect the world from a $200 phone, but Moto G phones are usually “good enough” to make budget-conscious buyers balk at spending two or three times as much for a premium phone.

The company is looking to continue that trend with the Moto G5 and G5 Plus. The G5 will cost only 199€ (it’s not coming to the U.S.), while the G5 Plus will be only $229 when it ships here in March. For the price, they seem quite good. The bodies, now metal, aren’t going to win any design awards, but they feel a bit more premium than the old plastic G series phones.

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The LG G6 has a particularly tall and narrow display. 

That’s it. That’s “the thing.” That’s the marquee feature that is meant to grab your attention and make you think that this is your next gotta-have-it phone.

Oh, sure, the G6 has all the other things we expect from a high-end flagship in early 2017. It has a high-end processor, the Snapdragon 821, as waiting for the 835 would have meant shipping the phone months later. It’s also got USB-C with Quick Charge 3.0, waterproofing, and dual rear cameras. There’s even wireless changing support, if you happen to get a U.S. model.

But the tall 18:9 display, that’s the thing that really makes this phone different from every other phone available.

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After an accidental leak earlier in the day, Qualcomm just announced the details of its next high-end System-on-Chip (SoC), the Snapdragon 835. It’s a big deal: Most of the hottest phones that make headlines run on Qualcomm’s chips, and this is the one that we’re likely to see in the U.S. variant of the Galaxy S8 as well as the 2017 flagships from LG, HTC, Moto, and maybe even the next Pixel phone.

The list of features is mind-numbingly long, but you don’t need to know all those little details. Here are the most important aspects of the new chip, and what they mean for the phones of 2017.

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It seems Google would like people to think the Pixel is the first phone it has ever produced with its “Made by Google” ad campaign. The most devoted fans of the Android platform have never seen it that way. To them, the Nexus phones were about “pure Android,” but now they’re suddenly finding their phones have been demoted.

Google has said there will be no new Nexus phones, and what’s more, the Pixel and Pixel XL will get exclusive features that aren’t coming to the current Nexus line, and Nexus owners are understandably upset. How upset? Well, we cannot reprint some of what’s been said, if that gives you an idea.

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