How to root the Nexus 6

Posted on by Joe Levi

Yesterday I talked about why I rooted my Nexus 6. No, it wasn’t to run a custom ROM (though that’s a great reason to root your smartphone). No, it wasn’t so I could run a custom kernel (although that’s another wonderful reason to root as well). My reasons for rooting the Nexus 6 were much more basic: so I can run tools and utilities, and make configuration changes that I wouldn’t otherwise be able to do. Many of you mirrored my sentiment, and even ...

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HTC hints at new Desire launch in CES teaser: “Always Desire more”

Posted on by Rithvik Rao

Yesterday, we came across a rather off-the-wall rumor that HTC’s big 2015 flagship would debut just next week at CES 2015. And today, now that we have another HTC CES teaser in, we can all but guarantee that the behemoth won’t be using the Las Vegas trade show as a launchpad, but will instead defer that position to a more mid-range Desire model (or multiple). How do we know this? Well, simple. HTC told us to “Always Desire ...

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Second-gen Moto G shows up in LTE form on Brazilian Motorola site

Posted on by Rithvik Rao

One of the omissions with the second-gen Moto G that we weren’t so happy about was LTE access. The device caps out at HSPA+ speeds and isn’t capable of accessing the best networks US carriers have to offer, which made it an even worse buy for some than last year’s LTE Moto G model (first-gen). Now, it looks as though the second-gen Moto G may be getting the same treatment, considering the fact that Motorola’s Brazilian site seemingly leaked information about a 2014 Moto G LTE variant.According to the specifications that were briefly live on the website, two things ...

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Samsung’s Galaxy A7 will go official on January 14, rumor suggests

Posted on by Rithvik Rao

We’ve been hearing about Samsung’s Galaxy A7 for quite a bit now, rumors swirling for months at this point, and it looks like we may finally have a date to settle on for the true South Korean debut of the phone. The A7 is highly-anticipated by many, and for a variety of reasons too, so that’s why finally having a Samsung Galaxy A7 launch date comes as a relief to some.The A7 would be the best in the Galaxy A-series of smartphones, which currently includes the Alpha and A5. It’ll even be the thinnest smartphone Samsung has ever launched, according to rumors, which is ...

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Biggest disappointments of 2014

Posted on by Anton D. Nagy

As usual, at the end of every year, we’re looking back at what happened over the course of twelve exciting months — that got us a lot of extraordinary products and services. We not only do this because it’s fun and important to recap some crucial events, but also because we usually also look at the future, trying to anticipate what the next year will bring us; and, in order to realistically try to predict things from the future, we need to know what happened in the past.Just yesterday, we looked at what we think were the

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Galaxy Note 4 Prime, HTC CES plans, New LG & more – Pocketnow Daily

Posted on by Jaime Rivera

Watch today’s Pocketnow Daily as we talk about the recent launch of an LTE-A variant of the Galaxy Note 4. Then we continue talking about Samsung, but with the surprising rumors of the cancelation of the Galaxy Alpha. HTC follows as we learn of its CES plans in what pertains to the Hima flagship, in addition to some entry-level smartphones. Apple then takes the stage as the company has just changed its refund policies in some countries. We end today’s show talking about Qualcomm and LG, and their plans for CES 2015.All this and more after the break.Stories:–

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Xiaomi scores massive valuation during latest round of funding

Posted on by Stephen Schenck

What’s being the number-three smartphone manufacturer in the world worth to a company? Over the past year, Xiaomi’s exploded out of the gate and went from a 1.5 percent share of total smartphone shipments to a healthy 5.2 percent, neck-and-neck with Huawei for third place (heck, what with the scant handful of phones separating some of these places and the sheer momentum of sales involved, Xiaomi may already be ahead) and within sight (especially with that massive growth) of Apple’s ...

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What’s Qualcomm teasing in this CES 2015 preview?

Posted on by Stephen Schenck

Next Monday, technically before CES formally gets started, we’ll be checking out the latest announcements from a whole mess of CES-attending companies during the expo’s media day. That means press events from the likes of LG and Samsung, but we’ve also got component makers on the schedule, like Qualcomm. While that could lead to news of some next-gen silicon, the company is also thinking about the phones that its chips end up going into, and tweeted about just such a device a couple hours back. But just what ...

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Apple brings new digital return policies to EU shoppers

Posted on by Stephen Schenck

Returning a smartphone or tablet is one thing: whether you’re dealing with a retailer or the manufacturer directly, you’ve often got a couple weeks (if not months or longer) to bring the issue to their attention, and these companies are often pretty good about making things right (assuming, of course, that you didn’t accidentally damage your new phone and are just trying to game the system – shame!). But the situation has been far less pleasant when it comes to digital items, ...

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Samsung Galaxy Alpha due for retirement already?

Posted on by Stephen Schenck

Some mobile devices really do end up with preposterously short lifespans. For manufacturers like Sony, where it makes a point of getting out its new Xperia Z models as quickly as possible, we expect such things, but other times we’re taken by surprise. A few years back, we saw the Motorola Droid 4 land just seven months after the Droid 3, or more recently the iPad 3 was replaced by the iPad 4 after a similar seventh months on the market. Samsung launched its metallic Galaxy Alpha back in August, and it ...

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Samsung launches new Galaxy Note 4 with tri-band LTE-A

Posted on by Stephen Schenck

For the past few weeks now, we’ve been hearing rumors about something new from Samsung and its Galaxy Note 4. From the looks of things, the manufacturer was testing a new Note 4 variant powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 810 chip, unlike the 805 in the non-Exynos version of the existing phablet. Would we see the release of an updated version of the Note 4’s hardware, just like Samsung delivered for handsets like the Galaxy S4 and S5 in the past? Well, that SoC question is still up in the ...

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HTC CES event may introduce new “Hima” flagship

Posted on by Stephen Schenck

Just how many full-on flagship smartphones can we hope to see premiere at CES next week, and how many manufacturers will be saving their hottest of those new wares for announcements a little further on out into 2015? Sure, there’s a decent chance we might see some new Sony phones, but the odds of getting something very substantial from other OEMs has felt a bit more hit-and-miss; for instance, while we’ve heard the occasional claim that Samsung might have the Galaxy S6 ready to go for the show, ...

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Here’s why I rooted my Nexus 6

Posted on by Joe Levi

There was a time (not that long ago) when Power Users needed to root their Android-powered smartphones to do anything really powerful with them. Primary among those reason was to flash a custom ROM. These days stock Android includes many of the features and functionality that were previously the exclusive realm of custom ROMs. Sure, there are still ample reasons to flash a custom ROM, but for an increasing number of us Power Users, “stock plus root” is good enough. Here’s why I went with a Nexus 6 root, but kept the stock ROM.Tethering

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The best and worst apps of 2014

Posted on by Anton D. Nagy

As usual, at the end of every year, we’re looking back at what happened over the course of twelve exciting months — that got us a lot of extraordinary products and services. We not only do this because it’s fun and important to recap some crucial events, but also because we usually also look at the future, trying to anticipate what the next year will bring us; and, in order to realistically try to predict things from the future, we need to know what happened in the past.We’re kicking off the year-end series today with the best apps, as well as the not so ...

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The smartphone simultasking revolution

Posted on by Adam Doud

To give us something to think about over the upcoming holidays and extra days off, we’re going to look at a little more of a complicated issue. It’s complicated because this is not a binary issue – it’s not a 1/0, yes/no type of situation. It, like it’s subject matter, is more in depth than that, so let’s just give it a go.We’re talking about simultasking. First, it’s important to make the distinction between multi-tasking and simultasking. Multi tasking is doing a lot of tasks, one at a time, and switching between tasks quickly. Simultasking is actually doing two (or more) ...

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