Gadgetory

this episode of android weekly is brought to you by Linda calm go to Linda calm forward slash Android to learn more welcome back to Android weekly my name is Jason this is where we cover the week's Android use and what an eventful week it was at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona Spain we were underwhelmed by the s5 tickled by the z2 and hopeful about project aria but you know what else now the wider public can download the Google Experience launcher and that makes a TD people like me just giddy with excitement you know what's coming next it will not work on your phone time for you to take a nap all right Android army let's start with project Aria we just learned last week that Google will hold its first project are a developer conference this coming April in Mountain View project re is this idea that you can build a smartphone that has individual components that can be upgraded when those best components become available I know it sounds like a geeks dream but it intends to be even more than that according to google's official are a page their goal with aura is to ultimately make modern smartphone technology more accessible for the masses in order to reach this lofty goal though Google's are a project head Paul II remain co says that the device could go on sale sometime next year for as little as fifty dollars now call me skeptical I mean I know it's gotten a lot of press and it's a wonderful lofty idea and I get excited about it too but I really think it's a geeks dream and it's going to start and end there here's why I'm not a hardware engineer but i do know enough to know that when you tell a hardware or designer hey you know most of the components of this phone needs to be modular you're seriously limiting their design options when we've seen the most meaningful innovation with smartphones it wasn't due to an individual component like a great battery life or a great system on a chip the average person doesn't know or care about that stuff what they care about is the whole user experience that's where we've seen the most innovation with smartphones when you think about designing the phone as a whole now for approve of this you look back on the PC revolution I was a hardcore geek I built my own pcs for gaming right from the ground up right from the motherboard to the CPU to the water cooling system the whole bit i did everything ok the vast majority of people in the world don't care they were you'd be lucky if they upgraded the ram maybe their hard drive but you start talking about their mother board and they have no idea what you're talking about I think this is a geeks dream but we shall see how it goes moving on to the pleasant surprise that is the Xperia z2 now although the z2 looks very similar to the z1 there have been significant improvements the Xperia z2 comes in with a 5.2 inch display at 1080p it has a two point three gigahertz quad-core Snapdragon 801 and in Adreno 330 GPU it has three gigs of RAM a fantastic 20 megapixel camera that captures 4k video with steady shot image stabilization it has digital noise cancellation technology a whopping 3200 milliamp hour battery it is waterproof and dustproof and is running Android 4.4 KitKat so many experiment owners will want to know about the viewing angles if you were not looking at the Xperia z1 directly the images would be significantly diminished but according to first impressions from Josh the viewing angles on the Xperia z2 are fantastic move it on to the Google Experience launcher which is now called the Google now launcher you can go to the Google Play Store and download it now maybe that's right you heard correctly the Google now launcher is available to anyone with a Nexus device or a google play edition device Google now is now part of your home screen after activating it in the launcher settings you simply swipe left of the main home screen and it will be there waiting for you saying OK Google while at the home screen should automatically open the voice search for everyone instead of a pop-up box though long pressing the home screen allows you to add widgets wallpapers and enter the launcher settings and even a larger viewing area is offered thanks to the trans lucien status of navigation bars where supported so for us the only real downside to the Google now launcher is its lack of customization options now if you're a fan of nova launcher for example the Google now launcher may not be the best alternative for you because hardcore Andhra geeks are well hardcore which compels me to point out that if you are one of those people who messaged me about the most obscure Android questions you may be one of those people who would enjoy learning how to code and there are affordable options for high quality instructions I myself used linda.com to learn how to edit videos professionally and look where it got me I get to talk to you about what I love to talk about and get paid to do it yeah check out the easy to follow video tutorials to help you learn software business and creative skills go to Linda calm forward slash Android and please get started last week on Android weekly where we covered the official announcement of the galaxy s5 none of the press including android authority was very clear on which system on a chip was being used in the s5 so we went with the best information we had a time which was the Snapdragon 800 but we now have fermer details it turns out Qualcomm has confirmed that the galaxy s5 will actually run a 2.5 gigahertz Snapdragon 801 CPU the Snapdragon 801 is essentially a Snapdragon 800 with a faster clock speed and support for faster GPU frequency aside from the Qualcomm Snapdragon 801 model samsung told Engadget that they will also use a 2.1 giga hurt octa-core exynos variant just as we saw last year with the galaxy s4 following past trends the Exynos model will likely be pushed into international markets with North America and some parts of Europe getting the Snapdragon 801 all right Android army i know i hear you many of you were very disappointed with the specs surrounding the samsung galaxy s5 you were expecting more i was too but manufacturers tend to do these things right they want to incrementally improve their phones because that's how they maximize profit but my question to you is which phone will become the premier flagship phone of 2014 will it be the s5 the new HTC One the m8 or will it be a phone we have not heard from yet or maybe the z2 will surprise everybody and be the best phone of the year what do you think tell me on Google+ or Twitter in the comments below I'd love to hear your opinion you don't want to forget about my brother's an Android over here Josh Joe and a tech ninja Kevin and Christopher I shall see you next week on Android weekly