AndromiumOS Review

Today Miles is going to review the AndromiumOS in a new XDA TV video. Over the years smartphones have become powerful enough that many modders are developing ROMs that can replace your desktop OS. RemixOS is the most popular option which turns your tablet into a desktop-like environment. AndromiumOS is a simple app that can be downloaded at no cost. Lets take a closer look.

The Superbook

The Superbook started a kickstarter campaign to develop an external screen and keyboard that would be powered by your phone. The campaign looks promising and while the product hasn’t been released yet, we can use Andromium to get a very similar result.

Andromium App

The AndromiumOS comes in the form of a free app that you can grab from the Play store. To push the UI to an external display, you’ll have the option of HDMI or Cast.

Download

There isn’t much built into the OS as it’s still a fairly new app. There are about 6 apps ready to go, the first one being the browser. It’s nothing too exciting but it does what it’s supposed to. You can run multiple tabs, save bookmarks, and video playback is surprisingly smooth.

The file explorer is clean and simple. It will give you access to all of the files on your android device.

The video and audio media player is still going through some beta pains. You’ll only get a few seconds of playback before it starts to skip and freak out.

You’ll also find some basic apps like a calculator and minesweeper.

As of right now it’s far from a desktop replacement. We will see where projects like this go in the future and keep a close eye on them.

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Xiaomi Mi 5 Battery Catches on Fire

While it’s still rare for smartphone batteries to catch on fire, this marks the second incident from an Xiaomi device in a short time. This time it was from the company’s Mi 5 smartphone, a device that went on sale in China on March 1st. It’s unclear if this person was using Xiaomi’s official charger and cable at this time.

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Sony Shifts its Business Strategy in India

After losing millions in its mobile business, Sony has recently started to only focus on selling premium smartphones and it’s worked out rather well for them. The company says they will continue with this shift in the price-sensitive country of India. This could actually be the result of Sony spending less time and effort in markets like India, China, USA and Brazil.

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Microsoft Launches Flow App in the Play Store

Microsoft Flow is the company’s attempt at competing with the growing popularity of IFTTT. In June, they released an iOS application for the service and now there’s a version for Android in the Play Store. It’s not 100% stable yet though, as you will need to opt-in to become a tester before you can try out the application for yourself.

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Nixon Mission Smartwatch gets Certified by the FCC

The Nixon Mission smartwatch will have 20 bands and 15 different bezels to choose from so you can completely customize your Android Wear experience. The device just received FCC certification and is expected to be released “soon.” This level of customization will be expensive though, as it has a base price tag of $400 upon release.

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Google Reduces Image Quality of Icons in the Play Store

Over the weekend, it was discovered that the latest Play Store update reduced the quality of app icon & thumbnails. An official confirmation or announcement has yet to be made, but some feel this will greatly benefit “the next billion” that have to spend a lot of money on their mobile data. Bug, or feature?

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honor Unveils the honor Note 8 with a 6.6″ QHD Display

Big is in these days, it seems. Coming hot on the heels of its big competitor launching the Mi Max, Huawei’s honor division has launched the bigger and supposedly better honor Note 8.

How big are we talking about here? The honor Note 8 comes in with a display that measures 6.6″ diagonally, with a resolution of 1440 x 2560 pixels. This QHD resolution on such a large display give us a pixel density of 443 ppi. Needless to say, the screen is definitely the main draw here.

But that does not mean that the honor Note 8 skimps on the internal specs either. Underneath the giant display is an excellent HiSilicon Kirin 955 SoC, the same that powers Huawei’s current P9 and P9 Plus flagships. The GPU end of things is handled by the Mali-T880 GPU, which is the same configuration as on the P9 and P9 Plus, except that the display on both of these was still FHD resolution, so it’ll be interesting to see if the GPU holds up (keep in mind it’s less powerful than Qualcomm’s latest offerings). Moving on to the other specs, the honor Note 8 comes in with 4GB of RAM, options of internal storages at 32/64/128GB along with microSD expandability via the hybrid dual SIM slots. The camera setup on the device is a simpler affari with a single 13MP rear camera and a 8MP front camera — there’s no dual camera setup here.

How does the Note 8 stack against the competition, which mainly is Xiaomi’s Mi Max? For starters, the display on the Note 8 is larger (6.6″ vs 6.44″) and the resolution also receives a bump upto QHD. The effects of a larger screen include a larger body and more device weight, so the Note 8 is bigger and heavier than the Mi Max. The SoC on the device is theoretically more powerful, but the Snapdragon 650/652 aren’t slouches either so this area is something that isn’t entirely black and white for the average consumer. Very curiously, the battery on the Note 8 is smaller in physical capacity than the Mi Max (4500 mAh vs 4850 mAh), and with the bigger and more pixel-packed display, battery life is sure to have differences — but you never know, we might be in for a surprise.

The honor Note 8 goes on sale in China on August 9th, with the base variant costing CNY 2299 ($345), the 64GB variant costing CNY 2499 ($375) and the top 128GB variant costing CNY 2799 ($420). Pricing and availability for the rest of the world is unknown at this stage, but the device will likely reach the markets that honor targets its products in.

With a tablet this small phone this big, a sensible thing to do would be to try out the product in hand before you purchase it. Giant screen phones are not for everyone, and most users would be uncomfortable handling a phone of this size. Try one before you buy it, trust me!

Via: Android Central

What are your thoughts on the honor Note 8? Let us know in the comments below!

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