android
Archos Arnova 8b G2 tablet unveiled
For those shopping about for a new tablet, a recent release by Archos in the form of the Arnova 8b G2 tablet. If you’re wondering why that sounds familiar, it’s because the Arnova 8b G2 is a slight variation of the Arnova 8 G2 tablet that has been available for the past several months.
The tablet appears to sport a newer design and does not feature physical buttons for home, back, menu and search. This could be an indication that the Arnova 8b G2 could be in line to receive the Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich in the future, although at the moment it will come shipped with Android 2.3 Gingerbread on board.
As far as the rest of its specs are concerned, the tablet will feature a 1GHz ARM Cortex-A8 single core processor under the hood with 512MB of RAM, an 8” 800×600 display and will offer 4GB-8GB worth of internal storage. It will also sport a front-facing camera and a microSDHC card slot for memory expansion and WiFi connectivity. It will also support the Archos 3G USB stick if you wish to add 3G support.
While no release date or pricing, for the Archos Arnova 8b G2 tablet has been announced, with the Arnova 8 G2 going for $149, we don’t expect the 8b G2 to deviate too far from that price point.
The Fairphone 2 was first unveiled in June earlier this year, where this particular handset carried a modular design while featuring majority of its components that have been sourced from conflict-free mines. It seems that this particular handset that you can purchase with a clear conscience has begun to ship to those who happen to live across Europe.
Fairphone announced in a blog post, “It’s been almost two years in the making, and some of the earliest buyers have been patiently waiting since July to receive their new phones. As community manager, I want to personally welcome the new batch of Fairphone owners to our community.” The initial 1,000 units are tipped to ship this month, before the other pre-orders follow in January 2016.
In terms of hardware specifications, the Fairphone 2 will run on a Snapdragon 801 chipset, has a 5″ 1080p screen with Gorilla Glass 3 protection, 2GB of RAM, an 8MP camera, with Android 5.1 Lollipop in tow. It will be a dual SIM capable handset with a microSD memory card slot and plays nice with 4G LTE networks, retailing for approximately €525 a pop.
It looks like the upcoming flagship model from Xiaomi will feature NFC support, at least based on a document that was released by China UnionPay. Just in case you are scratching your head and wondering who China UnionPay is, they happen to be the only domestic payment gateway supplier and card organization, and hence, to see them offer detailed support concerning the newly released NFC-based payment system points to the very real possibility of the upcoming Xiaomi Mi 5 featuring NFC capability.
After all, the Xiaomi Mi 3 was also mentioned on the list, which so happens to feature NFC, and there is no mention of the Xiaomi Mi 4 which does not come with NFC. Still, such a new payment system would be the ideal tool to see the reintroduction of NFC to the flagship model.
OnePlus did make an announcement in the previous month that the Ceramic variant of the OnePlus X will be released on November 24. True to their word, they did exactly that – although only a pitiful number of units were made available, and not only that, this was through a charity auction. Thankfully for the rest of the masses who are on the lookout for this device, it has gone on sale officially already.
Needless to say, this particular variant is available only by an invitation, although do bear in mind that standard OnePlus X invites are not good here – you will still need to snag yourself a specific Ceramic variant invite before you make a purchase. OnePlus is also on the lookout to offer additional methods of picking up this smartphone, although no further details were revealed.
The OnePlus X Ceramic will be available only in select markets, where among them include Europe, India, and Hong Kong. To date, we do know that OnePlus had made only 10,000 units of the handset available. A case of the early bird getting the proverbial worm here?