As part of a broad collaborative agreement with Google, Qualcomm this week said that that it will be adopting the RISC-V instruction set architecture (ISA) for a future Snapdragon Wear platform. Working together, the two companies will be bootstrapping a RISC-V ecosystem for Wear OS devices, with Qualcomm providing the hardware while Google expands its wearables OS and associated ecosystem of tools to support the new processor architecture. Qualcomm's Wear processors have been the de facto chip of choice for Wear OS devices since the launch of Google's wearables platform almost a decade ago, with Qualcomm employing multiple generations of Arm CPU designs. This makes Qualcomm's decision to develop a RISC-V wearables SoC especially significant, as it not only represents one of the highest profile...
Google Updates Chrome for iOS With Material Design and Handoff
Google has updated Chrome for iOS to version 40, specifically version 40.0.2214.61. With it comes a number of improvements that definitely justify the major increase in version number. The...
14 by Brandon Chester on 1/20/2015
Wearables: 2014 and Beyond
As the year 2014 has come to a close, now is a good time to inventory changes in the consumer electronics market and project those trends forward. One of...
79 by Stephen Barrett on 1/15/2015
Understanding Brightness in AMOLED and LCD Displays
While we generally avoid going into deep detail when it comes to our display testing, in light of statements that seemingly contradict our testing it becomes important to contextualize...
85 by Joshua Ho & Brandon Chester on 12/22/2014
The Android 5.0 Lollipop Review
Google has been very busy with their expansion of Android as a platform this year. At Google IO we saw the announcement of endeavors like Android TV and Android...
126 by Brandon Chester on 12/1/2014
Best Tablets: Holiday 2014
With the holidays approaching, it's time for our annual recommendations for devices in various product categories. Today we're taking a look at what tablets provide the best value and...
87 by Brandon Chester on 11/28/2014
The OnePlus One Review
The OnePlus One has been one of the most hyped smartphones of 2014. There's really not much else to be said, as OnePlus' marketing has been quite noticeable amongst...
148 by Joshua Ho on 11/19/2014
The Nexus 6 Review
When consumers think of Google's Nexus devices, they think about the promise of receiving the latest updates for Android essentially as soon as they release. They also think about...
136 by Brandon Chester on 11/12/2014
Quick Note: Android Camera2 and Support For External ISPs
While we've written about Android's Camera2 API before, there was one notable aspect of the discussion that was missing. The missing piece was a discussion of the physical link...
8 by Joshua Ho on 11/9/2014
Google Nexus 9: Preliminary Findings
For a few years now, Google has had a generally consistent tablet strategy. Instead of chasing after the ~10 inch tablet segment and focusing upon the high end, we’ve...
146 by Joshua Ho on 11/3/2014
Google Introduces Inbox for Gmail
Today Google announced a new Gmail related product that has been years in the making. It's called Inbox, and it's a re-imagining of the email inbox to adapt to...
23 by Brandon Chester on 10/22/2014
Google Announces the Nexus 6 and Nexus 9 Running Android Lollipop
Today Google has officially announced the newest devices in the Nexus line, just one day before Apple's October event. Both devices have been rumored for some time now, and...
148 by Brandon Chester on 10/15/2014
The Samsung Galaxy Note 4 Review
At this point, the Galaxy Note line needs little introduction. After all, the Galaxy Note is Samsung’s biggest success in mobile. While Apple redefined the smartphone and tablet segment...
195 by Joshua Ho on 10/15/2014
The New Motorola Moto X (2nd Gen) Review
While I talked about Motorola’s issues in the launch article for the new Moto X, it’s well worth repeating. Motorola has been through a lot these past few years...
179 by Joshua Ho on 9/17/2014
NVIDIA Opens Pre-Orders For The SHIELD Tablet With LTE and 32GB Of Storage
NVIDIA's SHIELD Tablet arrived earlier this year and it was one of the first devices to use NVIDIA's Tegra K1 platform with 4 Cortex A15 cores and a single...
16 by Brandon Chester on 9/16/2014
HTC Announces the Desire 820
According to HTC, the Desire 816 proved to be a popular device in the mid-range smartphone market. Now, only a bit longer than six months after its release, the...
13 by Brandon Chester on 9/4/2014
Samsung Announces Galaxy Note Edge: Hands On
Following on the heels of the Galaxy Note 4, Samsung is also announcing a new product named the Galaxy Note Edge. In terms of basic hardware, not much changes...
17 by Joshua Ho on 9/3/2014
HTC Announces Desire 510: First 64-bit Android Phone
While normally one might expect high end phones to get the latest and greatest features first, this time we see a bit of a surprising reversal. The Desire 510...
47 by Joshua Ho on 8/27/2014
Google's News & Weather App Updated to Version 2.0
Today Google has rolled out an unexpected update to an app that seemed long forgotten. It's the News & Weather application that comes on Android phones running software maintained...
23 by Brandon Chester on 8/26/2014
A Month with the iPhone 5s: Impressions from an Android User
I must confess that the last time I used an iPhone was three or four years ago. While I’ve followed the hardware changes from generation to generation, I’ve never...
197 by Joshua Ho on 8/24/2014
Revisiting SHIELD Tablet: Gaming Battery Life and Temperatures
While the original SHIELD Tablet review hit most of the critical points in the review, there wasn't enough time to investigate everything. One of the areas where there wasn't...
39 by Joshua Ho & Andrei Frumusanu on 8/8/2014
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