Nokia-branded Android smartphones will launch in first half of 2017

Once coveted for their immaculate design and build quality, the Nokia brand has plummeted in value due to the rise in smartphones.

Struggling to compete with Apple's iPhone, Nokia was forced to decide which mobile operating system, between Android or Windows Mobile, the company would stake its life on. In a deal with Microsoft in 2011, they chose Windows Mobile 7 as their platform of choice. Unfortunately for Nokia, Windows Mobile failed to make significant ground, resulting in the ultimate demise of the company's mobile division. Nokia sold its mobile division to Microsoft in 2014, who began selling Windows Mobile smartphones without the Finnish company's branding.

While it appeared that the Nokia brand would cease to exist, a silver lining appeared amidst Microsoft's continued failure to make progress with Windows Mobile in the market. Microsoft eventually sold off its mobile phone business to a fledgling HMD Global – a Finnish company which acquired the licensing rights to the Nokia brand. HMD Global is devoted to restoring the glory of the Nokia brand in the eyes of consumers, and today the company has announced a major step forward in their plans to bring back the iconic Nokia build. Through a 10 year licensing agreement with Nokia, HMD global will begin selling Nokia-branded feature phones to be eventually followed by full-fledged Android smartphones in the first-half of 2017.

"Driven by the extremely positive reception we have received since HMD was announced earlier this year, we are excited about building the next chapter for Nokia phones. We see this as a brilliant opportunity to solve real life consumer problems and to deliver on the quality and designs that the Nokia brand has been always known for. Our talented and passionate team is uniquely placed in this modern setup to deliver our promise of reliable, beautifully crafted and fun Nokia phones for consumers across the globe."

-Arto Nummela, CEO of HMD Global

Like most other OEMs, HMD Global will not be manufacturing the smartphones themselves, rather leaving that in the hands of Foxconn. Instead, HMD Global will focus on the design and marketing of the new Nokia-branded smartphones. The company is employing many former Nokia employees as well as hand-picking some of the best designers in the industry to produce Android smartphones with quality on par with the Nokia feature phones of yesteryear. HMD Global is hoping to ride a wave of Nokia brand nostalgia when they enter the Android smartphone market. How successful HMD Global will be in its initiative can only be seen once we receive further details of their first Android smartphones, but fans of Nokia have much to look forward to.

Source: PR Newswire

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November Prizes Awarded for Honor Incentive Program

We're back to hand out prizes to the most active members of our Honor forums through our community incentive program (as a result of a partnership we have with Honor which so far has resulted in some great developments). As a reminder, we have a special script running that looks at everyone that participates in any Honor forums and assigns points, each day, based on post and thread quality, plus other factors. Then, we apply a ranking to those with the top points, and give out prizes. The program applies to all Honor forums on XDA (that's the Honor 8, Honor 5X, Honor 7, Honor 6/6X, Honor 5C, Honor 4X, Honor 4C, and Honor 3C).

Honor 8:

adriansticoid

Honor 5X:

vsriram92
zinko_pt

Honor Band Z1:

venom007
DigiGoon

Engine Earphones:

muradulislam
PalakMi

Selfie Stick:

krispy321
crpalmer
shashank1320
HonorCasper
jsbeyond

These members will be contacted via XDA PM to arrange shipping for their prizes. And for everyone else: stay active in the Honor forums, because in another month, we'll be back with more prizes!

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Sony begins Nougat roll-out for Xperia XZ and X Performance while Huawei unveils their update plans

While Google Nexus and Pixel owners have been relishing in sweet Nougat-y goodness for the past few months, most users on other smartphones have been patiently – and eagerly – awaiting the promised Android 7.0 Nougat update for their device.

Some companies pounced on the initial Nougat hype and rushed out of the gate with announcements for which devices they will be bringing up to date. Sony, for instance, announced their Nougat plans back in August. The company promised support for the following 11 devices:

• Xperia Z3+
• Xperia Z4 Tablet
• Xperia Z5
• Xperia Z5 Compact
• Xperia Z5 Premium
• Xperia X
• Xperia XA
• Xperia XA Ultra
• Xperia X Performance
• Xperia XZ
• Xperia X Compact

A little over 3 months after the announcement, Sony is finally delivering on its promise. The company has just announced its Android 7.0 Nougat update for the Xperia XZ and Xperia X Performance. Rolling out to these two devices starting today, the Nougat update will bring support for Android's Multi-Window, better battery life thanks to an improved doze mode, manual camera settings for the X Performance, and a Google Now-integrated launcher.

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Huawei's Plans for Android Nougat

Not one to be left out of the update game, Huawei has also unwrapped their plans for several of their flagship devices. Android 7.0 Nougat will roll out to Huawei devices with EMUI 5.0 on board sometime during Q1 2017. The company has promised to bring Android Nougat to the following devices:

• Huawei Mate 8
• Huawei P9
• Huawei P9 Plus
• Huawei Nova/Nova Plus

The update will first roll out to the Huawei Mate 8 and Huawei P9, followed by other devices. Unlike the Nougat update for other OEMs, such as the recent OnePlus 3 Nougat update with OxygenOS, we already have a fairly good idea of what the Nougat update for Huawei devices will entail. Nougat for the Mate 8 has previously leaked, official beta testing has begun on the Honor 8, and our upcoming month-long Huawei Mate 9 review should paint a pretty good picture of what you can expect for the EMUI v5 software experience.

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Source: Sony

Source: GSMArena

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Meizu Officially Announces the Pro 6 Plus and M3X running on Flyme 6

Chinese Android smartphone manufacturer Meizu has had a rather busy week, to say the least.

The company just announced two new smartphones, a big update to their OEM skin, and their plans for which devices will be getting the Flyme 6 update. We've heard whispers about the existence of the following two smartphones for quite some time, but Meizu has finally made it official. The Meizu Pro 6 Plus and the Meizu M3X will be joining the Meizu line-up as the first two devices running on Flyme OS version 6.

The Meizu Pro 6 Plus has a metal unibody build with the Samsung Exynos 8890 SoC. For reference, this is the same chip found in the Exynos variant of the Samsung Galaxy S7 and Galaxy S7 Edge. The Pro 6 Plus will ship in two variants – a 64GB storage model with an underclocked CPU and a 128GB storage model clocked a little higher. Both variants will sport 4GBs of RAM, a 5.7″ Super AMOLED 1440p display, a 5MP, f/2.0 front camera, a 12MP 1/2.9" Sony IMX386 Exmor RS sensor with 1.25µm f/2.0 rear camera, and a 3,400mAh capacity battery.

The Meizu M3X is a mid-range device with its MediaTek Helio P20 SoC, a 5.5″ 1080p Sharp TDDI LCD display with "2.5D" curved glass, a 5MP front-facing camera, a 12MP 1.25 μm f/2.0 Sony camera on the rear, 3GBs of RAM, 32GBs of internal storage, and a 3,200mAh capacity battery.

Both the Pro 6 Plus and the M3X will feature the company's updated mTouch 2.1 fingerprint scanner along with their mCharge fast charging technology that promises to charge 40% in 30 minutes thanks to its 18W charger. In addition, both of these new smartphones will be running on Meizu's latest Flyme OS version 6 OEM skin that is built on top of Android 6.0 Marshmallow. Meizu has also announced their plans for which devices will receive the Flyme 6 update. So if you have any of the following, you should look forward to an OTA update over the coming months

• Meizu Pro 6
• Meizu MX6
• Meizu Pro 5
• Meizu MX5
• Meizu MX4 Pro
• Meizu MX4
• Meizu M3 Max
• Meizu M3 Note
• Meizu M3E
• Meizu M3s
• Meizu M2 Note
• Meizu M2
• Meizu M1 Note
• Meizu U20
• Meizu U10

Source 1: AnandTech Source 2: FoneArena

Source 3: @MEIZU

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MediaTek Announces the Helio X23 and Helio X27

After unveiling their flagship SoC, the 10nm-based Helio X30, earlier in September, MediaTek has announced two other upgrades in the Helio family: the MediaTek Helio X23 and the MediaTek Helio X27. The new Helio SoCs upgrade the overall performance, camera quality and power consumption of the SoC family.

The aim here is to improve the user experience along with offering a range of performance options for OEMs for their product differentiation needs.
Both the MediatTek Helio X23 and the X27 continue along MediaTek's Tri-Cluster Deca-Core architecture on a 20nm process, with cluster setups of 2x Cortex-A72 + 4x Cortex-A53 + 4x Cortex-A53, which is similar to the previously released Helio X20 and X25. The differences manifest themselves in the various clock speeds of the clusters, the clock speeds of the GPU and the presence of what MediaTek is calling "EnergySmart Screen" feature.

As the number would imply, the X27 takes over the X25 as the currently highest-end SoC in the X20 Series, while the X23 offers an improvement over the X20 in clock speeds. Further, the Helio X27 also leads the pack in the GPU, with a slight increase in speed of the Mali-T880 MP4 from 850MHz in the X25 to 875MHz. The table below better encapsulates the differences in the SoCs:

MediaTek is claiming best in-class performance and power consumption with the new SoCs, with overall processing improvement of more than 20% and "significant" increases in Web browsing and application launching speeds. The SoCs also support dual camera photography with MediaTek's upgraded Imagiq ISP (Image Signal-Processing) solution, which MediaTek claims is the first ISP to integrate color and mono cameras and depth-of-field applications into a single ISP.

With regards to MiraVision EnergySmart Screen technology, this is a power-saving tech which modifies the display parameters based on the on-screen content and ambient lighting, claiming up to 25% reduction in display power consumption while maintaining the best visual experience possible. It will be interesting to see this technology in practice through competent OEMs on good displays and experience the quality tradeoff (or as MediaTek claims, the lack of tradeoff).

The press release provided by MediaTek does not mention any timeline for the SoCs, but assures that smartphones powered by these new SoCs will be available soon.

What are your thoughts on the newest additions to the X20 series? Let us know in the comments below!

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Netflix Brings Offline Downloads for Mobile Devices

For years, fans of the most popular video streaming service, Netflix, have been clamoring for offline playback support.

We've seen this feature included with competitor services such as Amazon Prime Video for well over a year now. Even other competitors like Starz and now YouTube Red offer the ability to download video content onto a mobile device so users can play their favorite media back at a later time when they are without Internet access. Netflix resisted this trend initially, but eventually caved and recognized that users in many parts of the world simply do not have access to the Internet everywhere they go. Thus, the company launched an offline playback feature – but only for select markets. Yesterday though, Netflix officially launched its offline viewing feature worldwide for Android and iOS smartphones and tablets.

For iOS users, you must be running version 8.0 or higher whereas Android users will need to be on Android 4.4.2 KitKat or higher. As long as you're on a compatible version of Android or iOS and have updated to the latest version of the Netflix application, you can download select TV shows and movies for offline playback. You'll simply need to look for the download button located on the details page of a TV show or movie.

At this time, unfortunately, not every title on the service supports offline playback. Although more movies and TV shows are promised to support offline playback in the future, right now we're told you can download many of the most popular shows such as Orange Is the New Black, Narcos, House of Cards, Stranger Things, Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, Master of None, and The Crown right now. Next Wednesday, other titles like Breaking Bad, Supernatural, The Office, The Flash, Minions, Kung Fu Panda 3, and Home will be made available, with more to presumably follow.

Source: Netflix Media Center

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Fitbit Reportedly Buying Pebble For $40 Million

Fitness wearables and smartwatches share a lot of their use cases, to the point where one encompasses the other. Most smartwatches come with fitness tracking as one of their features, and a few fitness wearables also seek to integrate smart services into their functionality. The end result is that both of these categories end up competing for the same spot on your wrist, and some might not survive the competition.

You might have heard of Pebble before. Pebble is one of the most influential campaigns on Kickstarter, with the original Pebble campaign taking over $10 Million in funding for its $100,000 goal, the Pebble Time getting over $20 Million for its $500,000 goal, and the Pebble 2 campaign getting over $12 Million in funding for its $1 Million goal. With all of this money pouring in, one might get the impression that all was smooth sailing. But the picture was not as rosy, as Pebble had to lay off around 25% of its employees in March this year. The company also had to resort to debt funding and loans, according to Techcrunch.

Amidst all of these tough decisions, new reports coming in from The Information [subscription needed] and confirmed by Techcrunch, point that wearable giant Fitbit is nearing a deal to purchase Pebble. The Information mentions that the acquisition involves a "small amount", but Techcrunch goes on to mention a sum between $34 and $40 Million for Pebble, "barely covering their debts". The acquisition deal will see Pebble and its products closed down over time, with Fitbit acquiing the compny's assets including intellectual property and software.

This deal is not the first one that Pebble received. Watch maker Citizen expressed interest in purchasing Pebble for $740 Million in 2015, while Intel made an offer of $70 Million before the launch of Pebble 2. Pebble's CEO turned down both offers.

Spokesperson from Fitbit declined to comment on rumors and speculation, while Pebble is yet to respond to the request to comment from Techcrunch.

What are your thoughts on this acquisition deal? Let us know in the comments below!

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