The OnePlus One Review

The OnePlus One has been one of the most hyped smartphones of 2014. There’s really not much else to be said, as OnePlus’ marketing has been quite noticeable amongst Android enthusiasts. The OnePlus One seems to come from nowhere, although there is a noticeable resemblance to the Oppo Find 7A which is produced in the same factory. The OnePlus One is said to be a flagship killer, as its high-end specs come with a mid-range price. The 16GB version starts at 299 USD and the 64GB version starts at 349 USD. With a 5.5″ 1080p display, Snapdragon 801 SoC, and plenty of other bits and pieces to go around, the specs are certainly enough to make it into a flagship phone. Of course, the real question is whether it really is. After all, while specs provide the foundation, what makes a phone bad, good, or great has to do with the entire phone, not just the spec sheet. To find out how it does in our testing, read on for the full review.

Motorola Begins Rollout of Android 5.0 Lollipop

Motorola has done a good job with keeping their devices updated. The fact that they don’t ship dozens of different devices and use software that is close to what would be called stock Android certainly helps with this. Today Motorola has put up a posting on their blog which announces the beginning of their Android Lollipop rollout for their new Moto X and Moto G. Currently the update is rolling out in phases to the following three versions of those devices:

• Moto X (2nd Gen.) Pure Edition
• Moto G (2nd Gen.) US GSM 
• Moto G (2nd Gen.) Global GSM retail versions sold in the US

The source for Lollipop was released only a week ago, and so this is a very good turnaround time from Motorola. There’s no information about the original Moto X, Moto G, and Moto E, so we’ll have to wait and see how those fit into Motorola’s software support roadmap.

The Nexus 6 Review

When consumers think of Google’s Nexus devices, they think about the promise of receiving the latest updates for Android essentially as soon as they release. They also think about the value proposition that Nexus devices provide by giving good hardware at a price significantly lower than other smartphones. However, this was not always the case. The Nexus One, Nexus S, and Galaxy Nexus were all priced at the same level as other flagship smartphones. It was only with the launch of the Nexus 7 at $199 that we began to see a trend of inexpensive but still high quality devices coming from Google. That hasn’t changed at all in the past few weeks. The Nexus 5 and Nexus 7 are both still available, and they still provide a very high quality experience, arguably better than some other smartphones that are both newer and more expensive. But Google’s newest devices take aim directly at other flagship devices with both their specs and their prices. At $399 the Nexus 9 positions itself against Apple’s iPad Mini 3, while the Nexus 6 at $649 goes up against essentially every other flagship smartphone. Read on for our full review of Google’s Nexus 6.