Triplicate Thoughts

After the lull of the new year, the smartphone market is ready to kick off again. LG and Samsung have each unveiled their respective flagships for the year - the G6 and the Galaxy S8/S8+ - and we can expect many more phones to be released in the coming months. If you are an Android fan, the process of choosing a smartphone can be rather daunting, as there are hundreds of phones released each year. According to GSM Arena , there were over 500 Android phones released in 2016 all over the globe. Admittedly, these include region-specific devices, but that’s still a lot of devices to choose from.  So how do you choose one phone from hundreds? What do you look for? What do you avoid? I’m going to help you answer these questions by explaining certain aspects of smartphones and giving my personal recommendations for each so you won’t get a headache when you choose your next smartphone. Size The most important physical aspect of your phone will be its size. Too big and it becom...

Every Android purists favourite OEM, Motorola, yesterday announced their 2015 smartphone lineup. In a nutshell, it was a huge hit. Just 11 hours earlier OnePlus had taken the wraps of their 2015 flagship, the OnePlus Two , but after the Motorola event, it was all but forgotten. Motorola did what OnePlus wanted to do, and seriously disrupted the market by offering a pair incredible smartphones at prices that they promised will be about half the price of competing flagships. Many people were worried if Motorola would stay the same after the acquisition by Lenovo. Based on yesterday's event, we have absolutely nothing to worry about. Motorola is here to Play, and they are doing it in Style (lame I know). Here are my initial impressions on both of Motorola's 2015 Moto X's.

After all the hype, the OnePlus Two is now official . Based on what I've seen on Google+ thus far, this is probably the most community-dividing phone since the Nexus 6. Many people are thrilled with the phone, but many others are appalled by some of the decisions OnePlus made for the "2016 flagship killer". As for myself, this is probably one of the most mixed bags we've seen so far when it comes to smartphones. Some great features are present, but at the same time some head-scratching omissions can't be ignored. With Motorola set to unveil its own flagship in less than an hour, it's important OnePlus released a phone that will be just as disruptive as the OnePlus One was last year. Here's a quick rundown of what I feel are the best aspects of the OnePlus Two, and the worst.

After many leaks and teasers from LG about their 2015 flagship, the LG G4 was finally announced a few days ago. It retains many of the same features as its predecessor, both in terms of aesthetics and functionality, but adds quite a few new tricks and modifications to further improve upon the phone that was awarded the GSMA Best Smartphone of the Year award at MWC back in March. Add on to that the 26% increase in smartphone shipments over the past year and LG is having a good time in the mobile industry. With critical acclaim and commercial success fuelling LG's growth, many people have high hopes for the G4. As always, here are my initial impressions after scouring the web and collecting info on LG's newest Android flagship of the year.

About three months ago, I wrote an article explaining why  Telegram is a better messaging service compared to WhatsApp . It did quite well, and quickly shot up to be my third most popular post of all time. As a quick recap, the reasons I mentioned were faster and more frequent updates, Telegram is cloud-based which allows it to be used on multiple devices simultaneously and also allows users to store shared media in the cloud rather than on devices, usernames as a way to connect instead of phone numbers, and the ability to send files. I never planned to write another article on the issue, but Telegram just has so many benefits over WhatsApp, a single article wouldn't be sufficient. So here are five more reasons why Telegram is better than WhatsApp, and why you should make the switch.

Alongside the HTC One M9 that was announced at MWC 2015, Samsung unveiled its newest flagship too. Well, two actually. The Galaxy S6 now comes with a more edgy companion, the Galaxy S6 Edge. Samsung is looking to build on the "Edge" brand not only by releasing a second Edge product, but by releasing a product which has the curved display on both sides of the display, as opposed to a single edge on the Note Edge. It even comes with a modified feature set, different from what the Note Edge offers. Both the S6 and S6 Edge represent the largest shift in design language Samsung has ever taken with its products since the Galaxy S3 back in 2012. Not only that, but two features  of the Galaxy brand   which have long been fan favourites were removed by Samsung as well, meaning the S6 and S6 Edge are not only huge departures from Samsung's previous products in terms of appearance, but functionality as well. Read on to see what I think about Samsung's latest flagship(s).

The internet is raging. After seeing some stunning renders based off of leaked images posted by evleaks , almost everyone was let down by HTC when they finally saw the HTC One M9 unveiled at MWC 2015. There's no getting around how similar the M9 looks like the M8, prompting many to call it the M8s as a reference to Apple's now famous "s" iPhones which use the exact same body as the previous year's model. The M9 is definitely an evolutionary upgrade over the M8. It's the third generation of the reborn One brand that started with the M7 two years ago. So is it really that bad for the M9 to look so similar to the M8? Are the hardware and software improvements enough to justify making a brand new phone using the same design? After watching several videos and reading a few reports, here are my initial impressions of the HTC One M9.

Source There are two kinds of people in the world - those who argue over whether Android or iOS is better, and those who don't. I'm in the former group, though I tend to stay away from mindless name-calling fanboy fights and reserve my energy for more, mature conversations. When geeks get together and discuss/argue about iOS and Android, most of the conversation revolves around, well, geeky stuff. Open source vs closed, custom ROMs and kernels, sideloading app APKs, etc. Mostly stuff that the average consumer either knows nothing about, or just doesn't care about. But even if we leave out all the technical arguments, there are still quite a few reasons why I believe Android is better than iOS. Things that even the average consumer can understand and appreciate. You see, while we geeks argue over all the technical stuff, at the end of the day it's the user experience which determines how good a platform really is. And you don't need to be a tech enthusiasts to u...

In a world filled with several variations of the Android experience, the Nexus brand stands out as the brand for purists, tinkerers, and fans of Google's own vision for Android. I myself prefer the Google experience. I got a taste for it back when I got the 2012 Nexus 7. I then flashed a stock custom ROM on my HTC One X, and eventually replaced it with my current Nexus 5. Unlike most enthusiasts, I don't buy a new phone every year, so the Nexus 6 was never on my radar. In addition to that, my Nexus 5 is still a very good phone despite being a year old , so I'm happy to keep using it. My only concern before the Nexus 6 was released was how tempting it would be to replace my Nexus 5 with it. Luckily for me, that concern was thrown out the window as soon as rumours that the Nexus 6 would be a 6" phone started going around. When the phone finally did launch, there was a lot about it that I did like, but also a few things I didn't. Which is normal, since the perfect p...

Messaging apps are some of the most popular among smartphone users. Three of the top five free apps in the Play Store are messaging apps, and there are many more as well. When it comes to sheer user base, none can boast a higher number of users than WhatsApp. As of August 2014, WhatsApp reports a total of 600 million active monthly users . WeChat is second by a huge 132 million user margin. But as in other markets, just because something is the most popular, doesn't mean it's the best. WhatsApp will always benefit from being one of the earliest cross-platform messaging apps in the market. They've had years to build up their massive user base, and as long as they have that, competing apps will find it difficult to get a foothold in the market. The problem newer messaging apps face is that not many people will use a service if none of their friends and family are. What good is a messaging app if you don't have anybody to send messages to? Telegram is very young compared...

There are many utility apps in the Play Store, but Pushbullet is easily one of the best apps you can have on your device. Simply put, it acts as a bridge between your mobile device(s) and your computer(s), allowing you to perform several tasks between them. Initially it was just used to easily send data between all your connected devices like links and files, but the devs are amazing at adding new functionality. The app has grown to be much more than just a tool to send files between your devices. You can also receive your phone's notifications on your computer, send SMSes from your computer, have one clipboard for all your devices, and it even has an RSS-like feature called Channels. If you want to find a way to productively connect all your devices together, this is definitely an app to checkout.

Android 5.0 Lollipop is the biggest jump for the platform since Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich, which was released back in 2011. Ever since then, Android has been taking small steps towards becoming a more powerful platform, such as the introduction of Google Now in Android 4.1 Jelly Bean, and to look more polished and elegant, with the shift towards a lighter-coloured environment in Android 4.4 KitKat. But Lollipop is by far the biggest change for the platform, as you can probably guess by the version number. With this change comes a lot of new functionality, in addition to a huge design overhaul to make "stock" Android look more like a finished product, rather than a bare bones foundation for others to build on. I won't go through every new feature in Lollipop, there are various videos and articles out there already. I'm just going to share with you the five features which I like the most, and which I think will make the biggest impact on everyday use for the avera...

Source image: BGR " The best or most important thing owned or produced by a particular organization ". That is the definition of a flagship. For smartphone manufacturers, it's the phone that receives the most marketing, has the best software features, the best hardware specs, the best after sales software support, so on and so forth. Typically, smartphone manufacturers release one flagship a year, and if you use Android, this wasn't really a problem. In fact, it still isn't. With various flagships released each year from several different OEMs, everyone's needs were all pretty much covered. If one OEM's flagship didn't suit you, you could still choose from any of the other flagships from other OEMs. But as we've been seeing lately, the market is growing at such a rapid pace that OEMs are no longer satisfied with releasing just one flagship a year any more. Android OEMs would normally release one main flagship a year, and fill out their portf...

The new Moto's. Image: Ars Technica If there was one word I would use to describe Motorola, it would be "different". The Motorola we know today is not the same Motorola we knew before the acquisition by Google. In the sea of Android OEMs all competing to be top dog, Motorola do things differently from others. And Motorola's approach in making mobile devices too, is different from the others. Last year, I like many other Android enthusiasts were amazed at this different approach that Motorola took, both with their Moto X and Moto G. There was a lot that I felt other OEMs could learn from Motorola , and I even considered Motorola as my best OEM of 2013 . The Moto X introduced a renewed focus on the software and user experience, while other OEMs focused more on numbers on the specs sheet. And the Moto G was probably the first decently priced mid-range Android phone which was actually good, which is why it became Motorola's best selling smartphone of all time . W...

The Note 4 and its sibling, the Note Edge. Image: Tabtec While Sony had a very good lineup on display at IFA 2014, there's no doubt that all eyes were on Samsung. The fourth generation Galaxy Note was teased immensely leading up to the event, and rumours were swirling about a phone with a curved display making an appearance. That rumour turned out to be accurate, as we also got the Galaxy Note Edge to accompany the more traditional Note. What started out as an experiment back in 2011, the Galaxy Note line has thrived. At first, the 5.3" Note was considered to be ridiculously huge, but people have adapted, and Samsung has continuously improved the device year after year. More tellingly, Samsung's gamble with the Note line has seen the ultimate sign of acceptance when its largest competitor, Apple, released a 5.5" iPhone 6 Plus (I'll be writing about this too in the future). Samsung thoroughly deserved the Twitter attack on Apple that came afterwards. Known f...

Image: The Verge It's been a very busy week for tech heads, especially Android enthusiasts. IFA kicked off in Berlin earlier in the month, and we've been bombarded with countless new smartphones, tablets, and of course, smartwatches. Sony unveiled their new Z3 lineup, a trio of devices including the Z3 flagship, successor to the Z2 which was announced just half a year ago at MWC, the Z3 Compact, successor to the Z1 Compact, and the Z3 Tablet Compact, their first small tablet in the Z series. I'm not much of a tablet person, so I won't be touching on the Z3 Tablet Compact. Instead I'll just be sharing some initial thoughts on the Z3 and the Z3 Compact. Now for those of you who haven't read any of my previous initial impression posts , you should know that my thoughts are merely from watching videos and reading articles from tech journalists, I don't have any hands on time with any of the products. In other words, my thoughts are those of the average cons...

I've been on Google+ for quite a while now, and it's common to see people asking for advice before they purchase a new smartphone. When the question is asking about choosing between two or more smartphones that are already on the market, it makes the task of answering that question much easier. But when people ask about choosing between a phone currently on the market, and a phone that's coming soon, that's a bit more of a challenge. Not knowing for a fact what that unannounced smartphone will bring to the market makes comparing the devices pretty much pointless. Sure we have rumours, but nothing is confirmed until it's confirmed. Remember how the Nexus 5 was rumoured to have a 3000 mAh battery ? Or how everyone was convinced that the next version of android after JB was going to be Key Lime Pie ? Rumours no matter the source are just that, rumours. So what do you do when someone asks "Should I get the Nexus 5, or wait for the next Nexus?" , which has st...

Image: Android Central Google I/O. When every Google fan and Android enthusiast geek-out over anything and everything Google announce. I gotta admit, I geeked-out pretty hard during the keynote (you can tell by all the posts I shared during the event). Even though a lot of what was announced had already been leaked before the event, there were still plenty of surprise announcements during the keynote which kept me wide awake (the event started at midnight here) until the end, almost . There were announcements regarding Android, Android Wear, Android Auto, Android TV (yes, a lot of Android), ChromeOS, Google Drive and many more. Now, this won't be a summary of the best announcements made during the keynote, there are plenty of those already out there written by journalists who attended the event. This will just be some of my personal favourite announcements from the keynote. It was difficult to narrow it down to just five, because there were so many awesome announcements. So I...

Image: Android Central We've seen Sony's Xperia Z2 , Samsung's Galaxy S5 , and HTC's One M8 . Now it's time to take a quick look at the next major Android flagship of 2014, LG's G3. The G3 was quite possibly the most anticipated phone of the year thus far. The G2 of last year was a welcome break from the traditional smartphones we are used to, thanks in no small part to the rear-mounted power and volume buttons. With the G3, we knew we would be getting the same thing, but everyone was also intrigued by LG's 1440p screen that would be coming on the G3, and something to do with lasers. Ever since the LG-made Nexus 4 launched, people have been looking at LG in a different light. They are no longer known as that company that made that square phone (although, a successor is coming for some strange reason). LG are now very much a major Android OEM, and the G3 just cements their place in the spotlight.

Image: Android Police While Samsung dominate the consumer market, Nexus devices are the preferred choice of many Android enthusiasts around the world. Being one of the oldest brands in the Android ecosystem, the only brand to ship with Android the way Google intended it, in addition to having the best after-market software support courtesy of the people from XDA, the Nexus brand is loved by many Android fanboys, myself included. So when news broke that Google might be killing it in favour of something called Android Silver , you can only imagine the heartbreak that must've been felt by Nexus fans. While it is still only a rumour, the amount of respectable sites that have published the story seem to indicate that there may actually be some truth to the rumour. While the details may still be uncertain, it does look like Android Silver could indeed be a real thing in the future. So based on what we have read from reports, I believe the Android Silver programme could actually be ...