Andrew is the Executive Editor, U.S. at Android Central. He has been a mobile enthusiast since the Windows Mobile days, and covering all things Android-related with a unique perspective at AC since 2012. For suggestions and updates, you can reach him at andrew.martonik@androidcentral.com or on Twitter at @andrewmartonik.
The ZTE Engage, a mid-range Ice Cream Sandwich device, is coming exclusively to Cricket for $249.99 without a contract on Tuesday, October 2nd. The Engage takes advantage of Cricket's new Muve Music service, which lets users choose a plan that has the service built-in to the cost and offers unlimited downloads to the device. For the service, a 4GB MicroSD card is built into the device...
Sure, NFC hasn't quite taken over the world yet, but that doesn't mean it can't be useful. And MOO, maker of extremely cool business cards (it's where we do business), will be adding an NFC option. You can't order them just yet, but MOO's slipping an NFC-enabled card into new orders (it says it's got 150,000 of them to give away), to whet appetites. MOO says it'll have its own NFC-...
The rumored HTC One X+ just got a step closer to reality, as it's has made its way into a brochure for the UK carrier O2. What we're seeing looks delightful, fir an updated 1.7GHz CPU (likely Tegra3 based), 64GB of on-device storage, HTC stellar camera, and Android 4.1 Jelly Bean out-of-the-box. Here in the states we've see a version come through the FCC toting AT&T's LTE radio...
Twinmomma416 asks in the Android Central forums, My contract with AT&T is up, and we are switching providers due to limited tower availability near our home. We will be switching to Sprint which does surprisingly well where we are at. I was a BlackBerry power user who switched to iPhone two years ago. I loved it. Ease of use, all the apps, etc. ... Disappointed in the lack of...
The official eBay for Android app hit v2.0 with a huge UI redesign a couple weeks ago. It was exciting at the time, as the eBay app was feeling a bit stale. Unfortunately, the latest update was pulled quickly citing many bugs and constant force closes. Today, eBay is going to give it another try and has put the update back in the Google Play Store, bringing everyone back to v2.0....
Bad Piggies launched on Android and iOS today, mashing together the physics-based, build-it-yourself gameplay of Amazing Alex with the highly recognizable green pigs from Rovio’s first smash hit, Angry Birds. Angry Birds is a hard act to follow even by its own creator. Can this pig fly and do Rovio’s heritage justice, or are we just seeing a lot of lipstick? Audio and graphics Bad...
Well we heard officially last night that ASUS was going to start pushing the Jelly Bean update to Transformer Prime (TF201) users today, and it seems that the rollout is now in full effect. If you haven't been notified of the update yet, you can check in About tablet > System Firmware Update, and then wait for the download and install. Users report that the reboot can take a while...
Following on from its recent Xperia Acro S announcement, Sony Mobile USA has revealed that it's to launch the Xperia Tipo -- its current entry-level model for Europe -- alongside a new dual-SIM variant, known as the Xperia Tipo Dual. Both phones share the budget-oriented internals of their European cousin, which is to say there's nothing too fancy inside. The Tipo is powered by an...
It seems that sponsoring the Olympics wasn't enough for Samsung. The South Korean company has reportedly signed a deal for their smartphones and tablets to appear on the X Factor UK starting this Saturday, Sept. 29. The new partnership will also see online advertising on the X Factor website in the form of Samsung banners and in addition there will be a dedicated Android application for...
ZOMG a $99 Nexus tablet! It's just all so exciting! It's going to revolutionize the way we do ... things! Let's not get too far ahead of ourselves, folks. First off, this $99 Nexus tablet is another one of those Digitimes supply chain rumors that's actually part of a two-fer. Two new tablets, slimmer than the current Nexus 7. Yes. A newer, slimmer device. If we had presses, we wouldn't...
BlueStacks, the folks who brought Android apps to Windows and Mac computers via their "Layercake" emulation magic has announced that they are partnering with AMD to offer access to Android apps on Windows computers using AMD's storefront. At current count, BlueStacks figures there will be over 500,000 Android apps available to over 100 million Windows computers. That's a lot of apps on...
Right on cue, mobile game developer Rovio has released Bad Piggies, the swine-centric Angry Birds spin-off, on Google Play and other platforms. The game is available now as a free download from Google's app store, and comes in regular and HD (tablet-optimized) flavors. Bad Piggies sees players take on the role of the mischievous green pigs from Angry Birds, building all manner of...
ASUS has been dancing around a bit on the final release date of its big updates for the Transformer TF201 (Prime) and TF700 (Infinity), but now we've got a complete changelog for the updates. Users will be happy to see their devices updated to Android 4.1 Jelly Bean, meaning Project Butter and all of the small visual tweaks are coming. Additionally, there are a few other bugfixes and...
Although Huawei has already launched the Ascend P1, and unveiled the Ascend P1 LTE at length several months ago, we're learning more now about the upcoming availability of the LTE model. The Ascend P1 LTE will be coming exclusively to the UK on the EE (formerly Everything Everywhere) network, with announcements on other carriers to follow. Given the crazy number of LTE frequencies in...
Qualcomm has announced that two new Snapdragon S4s are on the way, with both touting quad-core CPUs with a budget-friendly price. The MSM8225Q and MSM8625Q both build on the S4 design, complete with support for LPDDR2 memory, Wifi, Bluetooth 4.0 and FM connectivity using the Qualcomm Atheros AR6005 and WCN2243 chips. The major difference between the two chips is that the Snapdragon S4...
Google's Chrome for Android browser, much loved by those with an Android 4.0 and above device, has finally been updated to be fully compatible with x86 devices. This is a big deal, as one of the snags when it came to Android devices running Intel chips (OK, there aren't that many yet) was incompatibility of apps -- even popular ones like Chrome. What this shows us is that Google is...
Yesterday we heard that ASUS was rolling out the Jelly Bean update for the Transformer Prime in Sweden, and today we have confirmation from ASUS' Gary Key that users in the U.S. and Canada will be seeing Android 4.1 for their Prime and the Transformer Infinity in the next 72 hours. The version number will be 10.4.4.14.1, which is Android 4.1. We have no further details other than what...
Google is rolling out Google Play services starting today, bringing another of the great developer tools they showcased at Google I/O to the public. For those of us that aren't developers, it's pretty easy to wrap your head around. If your device runs Froyo or higher and has access to the Google Play store, you'll have a new Google component to download. It's a set of libraries and...
We noticed just shy of a week ago that some users were reporting that an update was available for their AT&T Xperia Ion. AT&T has spilled the beans now, and announced officially that the Ion has an Ice Cream Sandwich update ready to go. Along with the entire host of usual Android 4.0 improvements such as an improved lock screen, redone browser and new home screen folders, AT...
Samsung has announced the South Korean launch of its new 5.5-inch smartphone, the Galaxy Note 2. By now we're all familiar with the Note 2's impressive spec sheet -- a 1.6GHz quad-core Exynos CPU, 2GB of RAM, 5.5-inch 720p non-PenTile HD SuperAMOLED display, 4G LTE connectivity. Today the device launches across all three main South Korean carriers -- SKT, LG U+ and KT, where it'll be...