DATA collected by Google on the first week of November tells us the sorry state of Android. It turns out that Android Nougat, the latest version of the mobile operating system released on August 22, is installed on less than 0.4 percent of all Android devices. Most are still stuck on Android Lollipop.
Apple iPhone 7 Plus review: King of big phones
IT’S New iPhone Day in the Philippines! Apple’s Plus-sized iPhone has historically been one of the best phones money can buy, and now it’s back for another encore. And if you’re still on the fence about whether the iPhone 7 Plus is the right smartphone for the job, you’ve come to the right place — as long as you can afford it.
LTE speed in PH improves, but still one of world’s slowest — report
WIRELESS-COVERAGE mapping company OpenSignal’s latest State of LTE report is out. The good news? Data taken between July to September 2016 showed that average download 4G connection speed in the Philippines increased from 6Mbps in the fourth quarter of 2015 to 7.27Mbps this time. The bad news? We still lagged behind most other countries in the world.
OPPO F1s review: Beyond selfies
TODAY, OPPO Philippines is launching a limited gray version of the OPPO F1s (click for complete specs) to coincide with the company’s official announcement of Alden Richards as an endorser. Almost three months after its gold and rose-gold variants were first released on the local market for P13,990, is the smartphone — now costing P12,990 — still worth considering? Read on.
Smart iPhone 7, iPhone 7 Plus postpaid plans revealed
A week before the official Philippine launch of the iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus on November 11, Smart Communications has finally revealed its complete postpaid offerings for Apple’s latest smartphones. Globe Telecom had earlier posted its own postpaid plans.
New Huawei Mate 9 said to become faster the more you use it
THERE’S a newly launched large-screened smartphone that’s looking to fill the void left by the Samsung Galaxy Note 7. Meet the Huawei Mate 9, the smaller, 5.9-inch successor to last year’s 6-inch Mate 8.
Cherry Mobile Flare 5 review: incremental improvements
CHERRY Mobile, the leading mobile brand in the Philippines, unveiled six new Flare smartphones last month. Devices, it hopes, will carry the Flare label past the “5 million phones sold” mark in 2016. Much of that burden falls on the Cherry Mobile Flare 5, the cheapest of the bunch. Priced at P5,499 — a tad higher than the Flare 4 (pictured in the background above) that cost P4,999 at launch — it falls into the company’s most profitable demographic whose tastes are often ultimately swayed by price.
Beyond the Box reveals iPhone 7, iPhone 7 Plus prices
THE wait is nearly over for Apple fans around the country. Beyond the Box, one among several official Apple resellers in the Philippines, recently posted the off-contract prices of all iPhone 7 (click for complete specs) and iPhone 7 Plus (click for full specs) models on its social media accounts and website.
Here are Globe’s iPhone 7, iPhone 7 Plus postpaid plans
A few hours after Smart Communications put up its registration page for the Apple iPhone 7 and 7 Plus, Globe Telecom’s reservation page went live, but with more info than you can find on Smart’s. It already shows how much your cash-out for each of the model is for every plan being offered by Globe.
Smart iPhone 7, iPhone 7 Plus registration page is up
NOVEMBER is around the corner, and you know what that means for Apple fans for the past three years: A new iPhone is about to be launched in the Philippines. True enough, Smart Communications just put up their registration page for the iPhone 7 and 7 Plus, coincidentally on the day Apple announced a new MacBook Pro. You can register your interest on this page.
10 smartphones powered by Qualcomm Snapdragon 821
SPEED has always been a big talking point within the smartphone community — though we would be quick to argue that having more CPU cores and more RAM are not necessarily as advantageous as some companies make them out to be. The iPhone 7, to wit, has a quad-core processor and 2GB of RAM, but it handily beats its Android counterparts in real-word and synthetic tests.
Xiaomi Mi MIX, the future of smartphones, is here
XIAOMI dropped a bomb on us at the launch of the Mi Note 2 (click for full specs): It announced the Xiaomi Mi MIX, a concept product that could very well be the smartphone of your dreams. Except that unlike other concept devices which you won’t find in stores at any time soon, it will already be available starting November 4.
Note 7 owners may get Galaxy S8, Note 8 for half the price of S7, but…
SAMSUNG Electronics Philippines marketing director Chad Sotelo has confirmed that the tech giant has an upgrade program for Galaxy Note 7 owners. Unfortunately, it’s being offered only in South Korea — for now.
The resurrection of Moto: Why it might be successful in PH this time
WATCHING the re-entry of Moto to the Philippine market is like witnessing the resurrection of a dearly departed — twice. Motorola Philippines, which had been in the country since 1979, ceased operations in 2009. It returned in July 2015 as a company now owned by Lenovo, but went silent early this year. This week saw its comeback, and Moto might just make it this time around.
OPPO R9s, R9s Plus are new ZenFone 3, ZenFone 3 Ultra contenders
THE ASUS ZenFone 3 and ZenFone 3 Ultra are facing new competitors with the launch of the OPPO R9s and R9s Plus, successors to the R9 — also known as the OPPO F1 Plus in the Philippines — and R9 Plus phones that were announced in March 2016.
Sony Xperia XZ, another Note 7 alternative, launched in PH
ANOTHER Samsung Galaxy Note 7 alternative just launched in the Philippines. This time, we’re looking at the flagship phone Sony had announced at IFA 2016 in Berlin on September 1, the Sony Xperia XZ.
2016 Cherry Mobile Flare phones: First impressions
IT’S been a while since Cherry Mobile gathered dealers and members of the media to launch a slew of devices. That day has finally come with the unveiling of six new phones from what is arguably its most successful series, Flare, and the timing couldn’t be any better — Christmas is just around the corner.
What we know about the OPPO R9s thus far
THE rumor mills are in full swing days before the October 19 launch of the OPPO R9s in China. In fact, OPPO itself has already made the “early registration” page for the smartphone public.
LG V20: How much it will cost, when it will be released in PH
LG Philippines has announced the price and date of availability of its other signature phone, the LG V20. This Korean manufacturer’s counter to arch-rival Samsung’s Galaxy Note 7, which is now discontinued after a botched recall and multiple fire reports, is the first non-Google handset to ship with the new Android 7.0 Nougat operating system. We’ve listed it as a good alternative to the Note phone.