Category: Android

After being announced back in February at Mobile World Congress, the Android Go based ZTE Tempo Go phone is now available for purchase here in the United States.  The $80 is available directly from ZTE on their site.  Sporting a 5″ FWVGA display, the Tempo Go is aimed at the entry level market and has a price point that will be hard to pass up, especially considering the phone comes with Android Oreo and will be regularly updated as part of the Go program.

The ZTE Tempo Go is powered by the Snapdragon 210 quad-core SoC.  It has 1GB of RAM, 8GB of storage but that storage can be expanded by an additional 32GB thanks to the MicroSD slot.  Powering all of this is a 2200mAh battery that is recharged via the MicroUSB port.

The 2-factor authentication app from Microsoft, Microsoft Authenticator, has a new update rolling out that brings a slightly refreshed look to the app as well as compliance with the new General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) directive in the European Union.  The new update is version 6.2.26 for those keeping score at home and it has been released to the Play Store.

As for the new look, it is a slight one compared to the older version of the app.  Now an account is shaded grey if it isn’t setup for identify verification and is only used to access organizational resources.

Following AT&T, Sprint & Verizon, T-Mobile has now released their Android Oreo update for the Samsung Galaxy Note8 for customers on their network.  The news came from Desmond Smith, T-Mobile’s product evangelist, via Twitter late last night.

THIS JUST IN! @TMobile #GalaxyNote8 #Android #Oreo update approved! Will start hitting customers phones as early as Sunday night!!! (No April Fool’s here) 🤘 – Des pic.twitter.com/r1yEl2myMW

— Des 📷 📱 (@askdes) March 30, 2018

With the update just now being released, it is going to take a few days before it gets to everyone’s Galaxy Note8 in the wild.

As part of a promotion to kick of Spring, the Huawei Mate 10 Pro is now on sale for $649.99 through various retailers including Amazon.  The special promotional pricing will be good now through April 14th.  That is a savings of $150 off the regular price and is the lowest price so far on the flagship phablet from Huawei.

I reviewed the Huawei Mate 10 Pro last month and as I put in that review, it is one of the best phones out there right now.  Huawei has done a fantastic job with the overall design of the phone and the Android Oreo built EMUI 8 user experience is excellent.

Good news for those of you who have the Razer Phone:  Android Oreo 8.1 is coming your way in just a few weeks.  The company, who bought Nextbit to get their first phone out the door last year, has announced that they are skipping Oreo 8.0, going straight to 8.1, and that a developer preview of the build is now available too.

The preview is only available for sideloading at the moment so unless you are comfortable with that process (unlocking the bootloader, ADB commands, etc), I recommend you wait until it is officially released next month.

About two months ago, Google Play Books picked up the ability to play audiobooks natively and overall, the experience was pretty good.  But Google is wanting to make the experience better, especially when audiobooks are played in conjunction with Google Assistant.

First, you now have what Google is calling Smart Resume.  When you are interrupted by something on your phone and you need to pause your audiobook mid-sentence, when you return, Smart Resume will rewind you back to the beginning of the word or sentence you were on so you can pick back up where you left off.  Prior to this update, you had to manually rewind so this make that feature far more helpful.