Android News - Page 187 of 375 - CNX Software

January 8, 2016 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 19 Comments

F68 Smart Watch Review

After No.1 D3 and SMA-Q smartwatches, Makibes F68, or just F68, is my third attempt at reviewing a smartwatch, and on paper it matches all of my main requirements namely always-on display, fitness tracking with heart rate monitor, one week of battery life, and IP67 ingress protection rating to have some waterproofness. I’ve already taken pictures of the device, so today I’ll go through the user interface on the watch, and Android app, and report my experience after using the watch for over 10 days. The watch has an e-Paper display with decent viewing angles, and very good readability during the day, however at night, you’ll need to find the light switch or use a torchlight, as the watch does not have backlight at all, and it’s unreadable. There’s actually no buttons at all and everything is controlled via the touchscreen, and/or the app available for Android or iOS. The […]

January 7, 2016January 7, 2016 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 16 Comments

Remix OS 2.0 for PC Will Run on Most Intel and AMD Computers

Remix OS is a fork of Android developed by Jide and optimized for desktop use, in a similar way to what Rockchip is doing with Light Biz OS, except the developers do not limit themselves to one specific SoC vendor with the operating system found in Remix Mini (Allwinner A64), and Remix Ultra-tablet (Nvidia Tegra 4), as well as several firmware images for popular Android devices such as Nexus 9 & 10. Now the company is planning to release Remix OS 2.0 for Intel and AMD based computer including PCs and Macs. How do they achieved that? Technically same way as Console OS by forking Android-x86 project, except they did it with less contention, and instead Jide partnered with Android-x86 developers. Remix OS for PCs alpha is a version of Remix OS 2.0 based on Android 5.0 with the taskbar, multiple windows, better memory management (it will try not to […]

January 6, 2016January 6, 2016 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 21 Comments

Omron Project Zero BP6000 is Both a Blood Pressure Monitor and a Smartwatch

Many smartwaches or fitness trackers include an heart rate monitor, but instead many people need to monitor their blood pressure to make sure it’s not too high (hypertension) or low (hypotension). Usually this involves either going to the doctor, or doing measurements at home with a blood pressure monitor by placing a cuff on the upper arm, and in this should take a short time, but many people may still not want to bother with the procedure. So Omron has designed a new blood pressure monitor that looks like a large smartwatch, and includes the same function as fitness monitors, in order to simply the process further, and have more people regularly measure their blood pressure. Technical details about Project Zero wrist blood pressure monitor (BPM) are not fully available yet, but we do now the company is going through FDA approval, so contrary to gadgets with heat rate monitors […]

January 3, 2016May 16, 2016 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 37 Comments

Raspberry Pi Zero, C.H.I.P, and Orange Pi One Boards’ Features and Price Comparisons

With Raspberry Pi Zero, Next Thing C.H.I.P, and Orange Pi One, we now have have three ARM Linux development boards selling (now or soon) for less than $10 excluding shipping and taxes. So I’d think it would be interesting to compare the features of the boards, and prices for different use cases. The comparison table below shows the three boards features side-by-side with items highlighted in green for the best or extra features, and in red for the weakest. Some cells will have to be filled later as data is currently not available (marked TBD). Raspberry Pi Zero C.H.I.P Orange Pi One Processor Broadcom BCM2835 single core ARM11 processor @ 1GHz (~1250 DMIPS) Allwinner R8 Cortex A8 processor @ 1 GHz (2000 DMIPS) Allwinner H3 quad core Cortex A7 processor @ 1.2 GHz (4x 2280 DMIPS) GPU VideoCore IV ARM Mali-400 ARM Mali-400MP2 Video Decoding 1080p30 for H.264, MPEG2* and […]

January 2, 2016December 19, 2017 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 52 Comments

Orange Pi One is a $10 Quad Core Board with Ethernet and HDMI

Until recently, Orange Pi PC was probably the most cost efficient ARM hardware, but with the launch of Raspberry Pi Zero, and to some extent C.H.I.P computer, they had some competitors in the ultra low cost space, so Shenzhen Xunlong Software developed two more cost effective Orange Pi boards, with Orange Pi One selling for $9.99 with Ethernet, and Orange Pi Lite for $12 with WiFi, also referred to as versions B and A. Orange Pi One & Lite (preliminary) Specifications: SoC – Allwinner H3 quad core Cortex A7 @ 1.2 GHz with an ARM Mali-400MP2 GPU up to 600 MHz System Memory – 512 MB DDR3 Storage – micro SD card slot Video & Audio Output – HDMI Connectivity Orange Pi One – 10/100M Ethernet Orange Pi Lite – WiFi USB Orange Pi One – 1x USB 2.0 host ports, 1x micro USB OTG port Orange Pi Lite – […]

December 30, 2015December 30, 2015 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 30 Comments

Why Doesn’t your Android TV Box Play Full HD or 4K Videos in Netflix?

I’m not a Netflix user myself, but I know many of my readers are, and a frequent complain was the inability to play Full HD or 4K content, except on specific devices such as WeTek Core or Nvidia Shield Android TV. Until now, I thought most TV box manufacturers did not get DRM and Netflix support to reduce costs, but after reading one article about this very subject on AndroidPCReview, I realized it was more complicated than that. Beside the obvious hardware requirements that you need a Full HD or 4K capable player and television, the device needs to be certified by Google, and Widevine Level 1 DRM is required to stream anything above SD resolution from premium apps such as HBO Go or Netflix. However while many devices are certified by Google, only a few are officially supported by Netflix. The company also ranks device by categories such as […]

December 29, 2015December 29, 2015 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 25 Comments

Mini Review of HD23 Android Mini PC with Skype and Google Hangouts

HD23 is an Android TV box based on Allwinner H3 quad core processor that includes a 2.0MP camera and a microphone that should allow you to make and receive video calls. I’ve already taken some pictures of the device, and opened it to have a look at the hardware including the camera and microphone in HD23 unboxing and teardown post, so today I’ll specifically test the device’s camera and mic with Skype and Google Hangouts. HD23 Installation The device is made to connect to the top of your TV, so you’ll probably want to limit the weight on the back of the device, and I only connected the HDMI cable, the RF dongle for MINIX NEO A2 Lite air mouse, and the power supply cable. For the purpose of the review, I also connected a USB keyboard via the USB OTG adapter in order to take screenshots. If you wonder […]

December 28, 2015February 5, 2016 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 2 Comments

Ugoos AM1 4K Android TV Box Unboxing and Teardown

Together with Ugoos UT4 octa-core Android mini PC, Ugoos sent me Ugoos AM1 TV box based on Amlogic S905 quad core Cortex A53 processor. There are basically two category of products with S905: entry level with 1GB RAM, and 8GB flash, which represents the majority of devices on the market, and mid range with 2GB RAM, 16 GB eMMC flash, 802.11ac WiFi and Gigabit Ethernet with devices such as MINIX NEO U1 or Tronsmart Vega S95 Telos. Ugoos AM1 is part of the second category so it will be interesting to compare its performance to the other two. But in the meantime, I’ve taken some pictures of the media player and its board to find out more about the hardware design. Ugoos AM1 Unboxing Pictures and Video All new Ugoos devices look alike, and even the retail package follows the same theme across their new devices. I got a blue […]