Author: Clinton

The expansion of Google Assistant and Google Home globally continues with India becoming the latest country where you can buy the smart speakers.  The Home and Home Mini are now available there and support a wide range of apps and services found in country.  As for price, the Google Home is  ₹9,999 (roughly $154 US) while the Home Mini is  ₹4,499, or $69 US.  Both are available exclusively through Flipkart.

While Google recently rolled out Hindi support for Google Assistant, they aren’t supported in India on the Home devices just yet.  For now, users will have to use English (India) as their settings but Hindi support is expected shortly.

Today’s Deal is on one of my personal favorite phones from the past few years, the Sony Xperia X Compact.  Right now you can pick up this 4.6″ phone for just $289, by far the lowest price ever for this 2016 phone.  Why would you want to pick up a phone from 2016?  Well, in this case, Sony has already updated the X Compact to Android Oreo which makes it a compelling phone, especially at this price point.

I reviewed the Xperia X Compact in November of 2016 for those that want to read my comments about the phone.  It’s compact size is great but the overall performance and camera quality is excellent.

2018 is shaping up to be a great year for Chrome OS devices, especially tablets.  HP has jumped into the fray with their latest detachable design, the HP Chromebook X2.  The 12.3″ Chromebook starts at $599 and comes with the detaching keyboard and stylus.

Powered by the Intel Core m3 Kaby Lake processor, the Chromebook X2 comes with 4GB of RAM and 32GB of storage.  It has 2400 x 1600 resolution, stereo speakers, a 13MP rear camera, two USB-C ports, a MicroSD slot and has about 10.5 hours of battery life according to HP.

Essential has released a new update for the Essential Phone, bringing a handful of improvements to the flagship phone.  The new build is OPM1.180104.141 and it is already rolling out to owners.  With the roll out, the Essential Phone becomes one of the first phones to get the April Android Security Update patch outside of Google Pixel devices.  As you may recall, this month’s security patch had a huge number of patches so it is good to see it already rolling out to non-Google branded devices.  And, frankly, Essential is always great at getting these updates quickly.

Along with the security patch, Bluetooth 5.0 is finally supported on the PH-1.  The hardware has been there all along but the software stack didn’t support it.  Now it does so you will get all the benefits of that on your phone now too.

The Chromium team has released a rare third update to Chrome 65 in the Chrome OS Stable Channel today.  The new build is 65.0.3325.209 (Platform version: 10323.67/68) and will be arriving on all systems over the course of the next few days.  It is not uncommon for there to be two Stable Channel releases with each major build of Chrome OS.  Usually the first one is for non-Android app running Chromebooks while the second, about a week later, brings the new build to Android running Chromebooks.

A third update however doesn’t happen often (it hasn’t happened since Chrome 62) and usually is reflective of the team finding a significant security flaw or bug that is impacting a high number of users.

For the fourth time in as many weeks, there is a new build of the Chrome for Android beta app available in the Play Store.  The new build number is 66.0.3359.82 for those keeping score at home and if you have the beta app installed, you likely already have the update waiting for you.

As a reminder, with the Chrome Beta app is a seperate app in the Play Store which you can download without having to join a formal beta program.  You can use it along side your stable version of Chrome on your phone with no problem.