LG

New Tricks with Old Technology at Mobile World Congress

By Paul B. Kaiser on February 19, 2016

The Mobile World Congress (MWC) held in Barcelona starts this weekend and the new phones make their entrance for the year. Not expected to be a stellar year in breakthroughs, the manufacturers are digging deep to make little improvements look like magical technology. It could be we have reached our peak in smartphone technology. There will be some cool enhancements but no major shifts. Let’s take a look at the big guys.

LG G5 is ON for Launch

The new LG G5 will be announced in its flagship smartphone line. It will have an always-on display, like smartwatches. They will play nice with some new touch-enabled flip cases. LG’s mobile division posted the GIF below on Twitter but didn’t say to much. We only know the flagship phone will have a screen that is literally always on.

Huawei Dual-Boot Tablet

Rumor also has it Huawei is planning a Windows/Android dual-boot hybrid tablet. It’s an idea we’ve seen and heard of before, though previous attempts by other companies were gashed by stringent policies from Microsoft and Google. ASUS tried launching a similar tablet and because of the licensing issues it never launched. Let’s see if Huawei somehow found a loophole to make it happen.

Samsung S7 and S7 Edge

Samsung will launch the next phones in their line. The Galaxy S7 will not sport a different look but it will have a few new tricks. The Galaxy S7 will have a retina scanner and a MicroSD card slot. If the retina scanner actually works and is reliable, maybe passwords will be a bad dream. In true Samsung spirit they will launch some “Apple-like” features: its own version of 3D touch and Live Photos.

You can now pre-order at Best Buy.

Videos on the LG G5 and Samsung

Android Wear – The Other Watch.

By Paul B. Kaiser on May 7, 2015

We all know that Apple is making watches now, but Android wear has been in the market for 2 years already. How have they been performing, and what is the Android wear strategy moving forward – AAW (After Apple Watch)?

Among the many different Android wear watches available, Samsung, Moto 360, ASUS, and LG, are the most popular. I have only researched them, not worn them, but looking at them online, in person, and on paper, the LG watches seem to be the ones I would purchase. That is not to say the other ones do not have their positives and do great things. I love competition.

And look at the bands they have – so many colors and textures.

The new LG Urbane is a pretty cool looking watch. I mean, it looks like a watch, but does so much more.

AN UPDATE WILL MAKE FOR BETTER APPS

A few weeks ago, Google announced Android Wear 5.1.1, and while the version number doesn’t suggest major improvements, the update will make third-party apps much more useful.

One notable change extends Android Wear’s always-on display capabilities to third-party apps, so they can leave information on the screen in a low-power, black-and-white mode. Prior to the update, Android Wear would always revert to the clock screen after a few seconds of inactivity, regardless of what you were doing.

“With the new always-on feature, we can bring this hands-free experience to the next level,” says Benedikt Lehnert, chief design officer for the task management app Wunderlist. “Simply select your grocery list and have it visible the entire time you’re shopping. No need to constantly touch the screen or move your wrist, so you can focus on juggling all the goodies you want to buy.”

Google will also make it easier to open smartwatch apps in the first place with a launcher that users can open by tapping on the main screen. When Android Wear first launched, Google seemed to deliberately hide the launcher, preferring that app makers focus on actionable notifications. But developers say Google may have gotten ahead of itself with that plan.

“My guess is they went a bit too fast going notification-only, and they found users are confused by the lack of structure,” says Q42 developer Taco Ekkel, who created an app for controlling Philips Hue lightbulbs. “The notification-instead-of-apps model is the future, but people (both users and many app developers) need time to get there.”

In the meantime, the launcher will give users easier access to functions that might not come up through notifications alone. Aaron Sarazan, who leads Android development for the personal finance app Level Money, says notifications are great for showing a record of recent transactions, but not so much for letting users look up how much they can spend. “Just by virtue of removing the number of taps to get to the app list, that helps a lot,” he says.

The feature was born out of a company hackathon, and is also included in the Android Handwriting Input app Google introduced last week. The Android Wear team decided to turn the one-off idea into a feature, but needed help in making it work for potentially millions of people. It ended up turning to other Googlers who were used as guinea pigs to figure out a kind of common handwriting language for things like thumbs up signs, hamburgers, and yes — even poop.

Probably the most fun part of the update is the new support for drawing emoji characters. Instead of replying with a canned response or awkwardly speaking into your wrist, you can draw an emoji character and Android Wear will do its best to recognize it and convert it to an actual emoji. In practice, it ends up being entertaining, both when it gets it right, and when it fails horribly.

VOICE COMMANDS ARE ABOUT TO GET SMARTER

Even as Google backtracks on some of its original ideas for Android Wear, it’s also taking a step forward by opening up more voice commands to third-party apps.

Top things you can do with your watch.

Whats Next?

THE STAGE IS SET FOR IOS SUPPORT

Despite these improvements, Android Wear is still held back by the fact that it only works with Android phones. With the average Android phone costing less than $300, and smartwatch prices starting at $200, chances are that many Android users aren’t going to bother with a smartwatch anytime soon. Meanwhile, studies have shown that iPhone users tend to be younger and more affluent, suggesting that they have more money to spend on smartwatches. Google likely realizes that it can’t ignore this group, which is why we’ve seen so many rumors of Android Wear support coming to iOS.

At the end of the day, you are either an Apple person or you are a Android dude. Both watches have pros and cons, but Android wear has many options among several manufacturers. Im sure this is only the beginning of wearables.

Here’s a biased Android Wear vs Apple Watch comparison – Enjoy!

The New LG G4 Is An Awesome Camera And There’s A Phone Attached To It!

By Paul B. Kaiser on April 28, 2015

The new LG G4 was announced today in NY and London, and will be available in South Korea tomorrow. It should hit the US by June. I have the LG G2 and I have been very happy with it. The LG G3 was a better smartphone and the G4 does not disappoint. Why? It has the most awesome camera out there. And let’s face it, we use the camera on our phones as our primary camera anymore – right?. I would say I use it 50% of the time while on my phone. I think this was a smart move by LG and will make this a popular choice. I think it will also push other manufacturers to bump up their camera capabilities. I have been waiting for specs like this on my phone never mind the camera. Also check out the unique models with leather.

Note: It has a removable battery! The front camera alone is 8 Megapixels. The specs on the main camera will blow you away, and it saves images in Raw format – photographers awaken!

The new camera sensors.

LG G4 specs – see LG website for full specs

5.5-inch Quad HD LCD display (2560 x 1440 resolution and 538ppi)
Weight: 155g
Qualcomm Snapdragon 808 processor
3GB of DDR3 RAM
32GB eMMC flash memory
microSD support
16-megapixel main camera with f/1.8 aperture, color spectrum and optical image stabilization (OIS)
8-megapixel front-facing camera with f/1.8 aperture
LTE-Advanced support
802.11 a/b/g/n/ac Wi-Fi
Bluetooth 4.1
NFC
3,000 mAh user replaceable battery (440 hours of standby and 14 hours of talk time)
Wireless charging support
Android 5.1 Lollipop with LG UX 4.0 on top
Ceramic colors: Metallic Gray / Ceramic White / Shiny Gold
Leather colors: Black / Brown / Red / Sky Blue / Beige / Yellow

Photos and Video for the LG G4

Good video from Android Central just a few hours ago

The official LG video

The official press release from LG

NEW YORK, April 28, 2015 /PRNewswire/ — LG Electronics (LG) unveiled its eagerly anticipated LG G4 smartphone today and announced that U.S. customers will be able to purchase it soon on Verizon, AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile, U.S. Cellular and at Best Buy. The market has clearly responded enthusiastically for the G4, the anticipated successor to the G3, which exceeded all expectations in terms of sales and industry awards. Among the first users of the LG G4 will be 4,000 lucky customers from around the world who will receive the new smartphone before it goes on sale, as part of the company’s largest-ever consumer experience campaign.

With the G4, LG focused on delivering comfortable elegance, a great visual experience and a human-centric user experience. The LG G4 camera features a rare-in-smartphones F1.8 aperture lens, which allows 80 percent more light to hit the image sensor than in the LG G3. The innovative camera module is paired with the new IPS Quantum Display that is better in every way than the innovative Quad HD display introduced to the world in the LG G3. The LG G4 embodies human sensibility that is clearly visible in its Slim Arc exterior design and graphical user interface.

“We are living up to our promise of innovation for a better life with a fashionable premium smartphone that is more focused on delivering a balanced user experience that can compete with the best of the best,” said Juno Cho, president and CEO of LG Electronics Mobile Communications Company. “We wanted to give consumers a truly human-centric device that combined the analog sensibilities with technologies that delivered real world performance. From the design to the camera to the display to the UX, this is the most ambitious phone we’ve ever created.”

Comfortable & Elegant Design

LG paid special attention to the materials used in its newest flagship. The LG G4 is available in genuine full-grain leather in six beautiful colors. The meticulous tanning process employed is an age-old tradition that requires skilled craftsmen to produce and dye the leather. The colors of the leather on the G4 are rich with warm tones that look authentic and change over time. Other material options for the G4 rear cover include pure Ceramic White with 3D patterns, artisan-forged Metallic Gray as well as lustrous Gold.

The comfortable elegance of the LG G4 is a refreshing change from the uniformly flat, full metal designs that have been become standard across the industry. The LG G4’s design is defined by the Slim Arc, which runs along its entire body and is highlighted by a display with a subtle curvature. More than just a design accent, Slim Arc offers 20 percent better durability than a flat smartphone in face-down drops and gives the smartphone a more comfortable and secure feel in the hand.

The exterior design is also reflected in the smartphone’s user interface, which includes simple, naturally intuitive graphics. In the LG G4, the icon colors are more vibrant with icons that have rounded corners, consistent with the Slim Arc design. What’s more, the Smart Notice widget automatically changes its background and text color based on the home screen image selected by the user.

Great Visual Experience

LG designed the 16MP camera in the LG G4 to capture beautiful images, even under less than ideal lighting conditions. The camera module features a wide F1.8 aperture lens that allows 80 percent more light to reach the sensor over LG G3. LG improved low-light performance even further with OIS 2.0, which doubles the performance of the improved OIS+ by expanding the range of image stabilization from one degree to two degrees on the X- and Y-axis and adding a third axis for the first time.

New for G4, Manual Mode allows experienced photographers the ability to exercise more artistic expression by letting them directly control the focus, shutter speed, ISO, exposure compensation and white balance for every shot. Advanced photographers can also save their photos in RAW format, in addition to JPEG, for more precise editing with no loss of details.

The advanced camera in the LG G4 is complemented by Color Spectrum Sensor (CSS), the first feature of its kind to find its way into a smartphone. CSS improves color accuracy by precisely reading the RGB values of the ambient light in a scene, as well as the infrared light reflected from objects. CSS uses this information to adjust the camera’s white balance and flash color to create images that are as close to what one would see with the naked eye. With Color Spectrum Sensor, no longer will reds appear as bright orange or whites as dull yellow.

For selfies good enough to frame, LG included an industry-leading 8MP front-facing camera for sharp, detailed portraits and group shots. Gesture Shot has been improved by taking four shots spaced two seconds apart, increasing the chance of getting that perfect shot under the most difficult conditions. Triggering the shutter is as simple as opening and closing one’s hand twice in front of the camera.

Taking a quantum leap in display technology, the LG G4 is the first smartphone to use LG Display’s new 5.5-inch IPS Quantum Display, which offers 20 percent greater color reproduction, 25 percent improvement in brightness and 50 percent greater contrast over LG G3. This new display is calibrated for DCI (Digital Cinema Initiatives) standards for color expression, championed by topHollywood studios.

Power and Performance

With G4, the higher quality display doesn’t come at the expense of battery life. The LG G4 is equipped with a high-capacity 3,000mAh removable battery, a rare feature in today’s high-end smartphones. Combined with the benefits offered by the snappy yet energy-thrifty Qualcomm^® Snapdragon™ 808 processor with X10 LTE, the LG G4 has no trouble getting through a full day of normal use. In fact, the LG G4 is estimated to last 20 percent longer than the G3, from the same capacity battery.

To mark the first public unveiling of its Snapdragon™ 808 processor, Dr. Paul E. Jacobs, executive chairman of Qualcomm International joined Mr. Cho on stage in New York City.

“LG and Qualcomm Technologies collaborated from the initial stage of the Snapdragon 808 introduction to expertly tune the technologies and make several of the LG G4’s unique features possible,” said Jacobs, “The resulting G4 smartphone is an ideal example of how the best optimized technologies come together to meet consumers’ needs.”

Human-Centric UX

The LG G4 is the first phone to use the new human-centric UX 4.0 that promises to be simpler and more intuitive to better understand and respond to the needs of each user. The improved UX eliminates unnecessary steps while providing more configuration options for advanced users.

Quick Shot allows customers to take pictures without opening the camera app by double tapping the phone’s Rear Key while the display is off. LG G4 also has an incredibly fast camera startup time of just six-tenths of a second.
The new Gallery makes it extremely fast to scroll through thousands of pictures and view them on a timeline. The Memories feature automatically organizes photos and videos into event albums based on the time and place they were taken, without having to upload to the cloud.
Event Pocket allows users to create one, unified calendar by dragging and dropping appointments and activities from multiple calendars and social media sites. After the initial setup, there’s no need to log into multiple calendars.
The improved Smart Notice provides more personalized notifications for weather, travel and more by analyzing habits, such as how a user commutes to work. This allows Smart Notice to issue personalized messages such as, “Make sure to take an umbrella on your way to the subway.”
Quick Help allows users to search for instant answers to any questions about operating the LG G4, right in the Smart Notice widget. Quick Help can guide users through the LG G4’s settings and even schedule a call with customer service.

LG has sought out partnerships to enhance the overall user experience of the G4. Google Office comes pre-installed on the LG G4 for easy collaboration on-the-go and G4 owners will receive an additional 100GB of Google Drive storage free for two years. With MirrorLink and LG G4, owners of Volkswagen vehicles will be able to view a car-friendly version of the G4 interface on the in-dash display for full integration with contacts, navigation and music on the smartphone.

U.S. prices and availability will be announced by carriers soon, making the LG G4 available on approximately 180 carriers worldwide.

Key Specifications:*

Chipset: Qualcomm Snapdragon™ 808 Processor with X10 LTE
Display: 5.5-inch Quad HD IPS Quantum Display (2560 x 1440, 538ppi)
Memory: 32GB eMMC ROM, 3GB LPDDR3 RAM / microSD slot
Camera: Rear 16MP with F1.8 Aperture / OIS 2.0 / Front 8MP with F2.0 Aperture
Battery: 3,000mAh (removable)
Operating System: Android 5.1 Lollipop
Size: 148.9 x 76.1 x 6.3 – 9.8 mm
Weight: 155g
Network: 4G / LTE / HSPA+ 21 Mbps (3G)
Connectivity: Wi-Fi 802.11 a, b, g, n, ac / Bluetooth 4.1LE / NFC / USB 2.0
Colors: (Ceramic) Metallic Gray / Ceramic White / (Genuine Leather) Black / Brown /
Other: Manual Mode / Gesture Shot / Quick Shot

LG