Several times a year Google announces the release of a new version of its Android operating system, one of the most popular mobile platforms in the world. But, unfortunately, these updates have nothing to do with most devices. Many Android users are often frustrated to learn that their newly purchased gadget is not updated, or worse, it was originally running outdated software. In the case of budget devices, this state of affairs has already become the norm.
The ecosystem of Android devices differs from that of Apple, which is more careful about firmware updates. Not surprisingly, since 2007, Apple has announced only six generations of the iPhone. At the same time, Android is an open operating system available for use by any developer of various devices. That is why, over the same seven years, about a thousand models of mobile phones running Android have been released. They used a variety of hardware, and prices ranged from the lowest, targeted at populations in developing countries, to more than the iPhone, typical of flagship models with impressive technical capabilities. Android powers a wide variety of devices, from refrigerators and televisions to video screens for e-zines.
In order for the new version of the OS to work on a particular device, manufacturers themselves need to take care of its adaptation to their platform. To do this, developers need to write new drivers based on the source code. Google's challenge is to provide a new version of its operating system for mass distribution. The key role is assigned to the manufacturers themselves, who must port it to devices, taking into account all the hardware features.
Sometimes updates are developed that have overestimated requirements for the telephone "stuffing", which outdated models do not have. The same goes for iPhone and Windows Phone. In addition, even after the official announcement, manufacturers take the time to add special functions and distinctive features of the OS, inherent only to their phones (interfaces Samsung TouchWiz, HTC Sense, Motorola Motoblur and others). Thus, the delivery of the update to the user may be delayed.
Therefore, the main culprits for the fact that the OS of your phone is not updated can be considered the developers of the devices themselves, postponing the release for a long time or abandoning it altogether. So Samsung has never updated the Galaxy S to Android 4.0, explaining that the smartphone does not have enough RAM to simultaneously run the latest firmware version and the TouchWiz user interface. Although Galaxy S owners have asked to abandon TouchWiz in favor of an OS update, manufacturers have not made concessions, and users have to work on the outdated Android 2.3. There is an opinion that manufacturers by their policies simply force people to buy new mobile phones.
The situation is similar with old iOS phones. Newer versions of Apple's operating system tend to be rolled out to older devices. But the problem is that most of the important functions are simply not available on them. iPhone 3GS supports iOS 6, but it cannot provide navigation capabilities, Siri assistant, location-based notifications, FaceTime, AirPlay and many other options for which, by and large, users turn to OS updates.
If we talk about Windows Phone, then the situation with phones running this operating system can be called even more sad. During the transition from the sixth version of the OS to the seventh, not a single device was updated. Microsoft has given hope to its fans by creating a "Where's My Phone Update?" (“Where's the update for my phone?”), Where you could check when the new version will be available for each device, but later this site was closed. The update from Windows Phone 7 to Windows Phone 8, again, did not affect any smartphones. Each time a new generation OS was released, the user had to buy a new device in order to get fresh software.
The policy of the developers suggests only one thought: in order to update the operating system of your smartphone, you will have to rely only on your own strength. Since Android is open source software, users can use the source code to make changes to the OS. This is called "applying a custom ROM" or, in more understandable language, installing a third-party firmware. If you are the owner of a popular phone, for sure, there is a firmware version for your device developed by other users. There are the following popular types of firmware in the world: CyanogenMod (perhaps the most famous in the world), MIUI (offers a wide range of interface customization options), AOKP (a fairly young but promising project), Slim ICS (has a narrow focus on smartphones from Samsung on the ICS platform ).
Each of the above versions has many online installation instructions and lists of all compatible devices. It is important to keep in mind that if you use a third-party firmware, you will most likely void the warranty for your smartphone. But, if you look at the situation from the other side, such software helps customers to use the combination of hardware and software that is convenient for them. You can buy not the newest, but rather productive smartphone such as Galaxy S3 or HTC One X, all the manufacturer's settings and update the OS to the current version - as a result, you will get a smartphone that is not inferior to the current flagships, but half the price.
If you want to take advantage of all the latest Android OS features and take the risk of manually changing settings, it is important to choose the right device initially. So, smartphones and tablets of the Nexus series provide the simplest access to all updates from Google without delay. Choosing an expensive "flagship" phone, you can also count on access to the latest version of the OS, although this may happen a month after the official release from Google and the appearance of the ROM on the network. In addition, the support times (that is, the release of new software updates) even for flagship smartphones nowadays rarely exceed two years. Therefore, sooner or later you will have to make a choice between buying a new device or installing a new firmware on the old one.
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It just so happened that technologies reach Russia with a great delay, and this is especially true of modern wireless communication algorithms. 3G networks are far from everywhere, and 4G Internet is available only to residents of very large cities, and there are still very few smartphones with their support in the budget segment. One of the first devices with a 4G module, officially sold in Russia in the category "up to 7000 rubles", was the BQ Strike LTE.
The camera phone is a separate class of smartphones, sharpened primarily for obtaining high-quality images. As a rule, the main focus is on either the main or the front camera, depending on the positioning of a particular model, although there are some exceptions.
Officially, the BQ Strike Selfie Max smartphone is presented as a tool for creating self-portraits and then uploading them to various Internet services, but in fact, its main camera is also capable of much, plus the device itself has high performance due to the large amount of RAM.
You can increase the autonomy of a smartphone in different ways, for example, use modern components, which will ultimately lead to an increase in the final cost. You can also take a medium-capacity battery and combine it with outdated hardware that does not require high energy consumption.
But there is a third option: to assemble a smartphone from quite relevant components and equip it with a very capacious battery, as they did with the new BQ Strike Powermax 4G. This smartphone is already on sale in the Russian market at a price of 7,500 rubles, and it is available in three body colors - black, gold and gray.
Today we are testing an extremely unusual smartphone for 2017 - BQ Strike Mini, which stands out not only from the crowd, but even among its classmates. The device turned out to be as original as it is affordable - it costs much, much less than $ 100, so even in crisis Russia everyone can afford it.
But what is there, the BQ Strike Mini is even cheaper than the much-praised Nokia 3310 of 2017, but the Mini is a full-fledged smartphone on the modern version of Android, while the 3310 is a regular dialer with buttons, albeit with a sonorous, well-known name.
One of the main trends in 2017 in the smartphone segment is a dual main camera for sharpening images or creating a bokeh effect, depending on the configuration of the second module. Every major manufacturer has already introduced at least one corresponding phone model, and BQ is no exception. Its new smartphone with a dual camera is called Vision, and it is already on sale in the Russian market.
Every driver in Russia at least once in his life faced an attempt to dishonestly take money from traffic police officers or scammers. Both are always afraid when their words or actions are recorded on the camera, but using a smartphone for this is not always convenient, and you simply may not have time to capture the right moment.
In this case, DVRs come to the rescue, but not Chinese ones for $ 15 from AliExpress, from which there is practically no sense, but modern and high-quality ones. Today we are testing a new product for the Russian market - the Prestigio Roadrunner 330i recorder, which recently went on sale in our country.
The lineup of Prestigio tablet computers, which is relevant for the Russian market, has been supplemented by the inexpensive Wize 3418 4G model with functionality extended for its price range. On the one hand, this is a classic tablet for recreation and entertainment, but, on the other hand, it has a number of features, one of which is put right in the name.
Relatively recently, we tested the Onyx Boox Prometheus e-book, and more recently, its second generation with the quite logical name Onyx Boox Prometheus 2 went on sale. The concept of the reader remains the same - it is still a book with a large premium screen for working with both and with graphs, formulas, scans of newspapers and magazines, and so on.
All changes are hidden inside the book and affect the hardware - the Pearl generation screen in the previous modification was replaced with a more modern Carta. The developers also worked on the packaging design and brought it to a new general style, which, judging by other models, has been introduced on an ongoing basis.
Onyx Boox has redefined the design of its pocket e-books, changing both the ergonomics and the type of materials used. Robinson Crusoe became one of the first readers in a new version available in Russia.
The new Onyx Boox Robinson Crusoe inherited from the previous generation of books, which include Darwin, Magellan and others, refined ergonomics, recognizable style and premium performance, plus, in the case of this model, you can observe a complete set extended by the standards of readers sold in crisis Russia.
A key feature of modern low-cost smartphones is a small amount of standard storage - as a rule, it is 16 or even 8 gigabytes, which is not enough by modern standards. In this situation, you have to invest additional money in the purchase of a memory card, but not everyone wants to bear these costs.
The BQ Space smartphone, which recently went on sale in our country, does not have such shortcomings: while other models available in Russia, endowed with a similar cost, can offer only 16 GB of ROM, it easily accommodates twice as much information. At the time of the test review, Space was estimated at 11,000 rubles. Let's see if it has other competitive advantages.
Not all modern smartphones have reliable protection even from moisture, not to mention such factors harmful to mobile electronics as dust, water and falls. At the same time, the appearance of the current models of communication means is unified so as to optimally suit both women and men.
Nevertheless, there are instances that do not belong to this rule, and one of them is the newest BQ Shark, a new smartphone for the Russian market. At first glance, it immediately becomes clear that this candy bar is unlikely to be bent in your pocket, like the iPhone 6, and it certainly is not afraid of high humidity or rain.
In the lineup of BQ, the second generation of the popular Strike smartphone model has appeared, which received the quite natural name Strike 2. The monoblock is presented in a plastic case with a metal back panel and may well be positioned as an anti-crisis one, since it costs around $ 100 at the current exchange rate, possessing at this series of interesting competitive advantages.
In the modern world full of dangers and temptations, every parent wants to know about the whereabouts of their child at any given time. But calling the child every 15 minutes and asking him where he is now and with whom is a bad practice leading to the child's unwillingness to answer such calls.
In this case, the children's smart watch Elari Fixitime2, created just to track the location of the offspring, including without his knowledge, will come to the rescue. And the children themselves will be delighted with such a gadget, because this is not just a wristwatch, but a real watch phone, quite capable of making and receiving calls without connecting to a smartphone.
The phrase "a smartphone with a physical keyboard" immediately evokes associations with devices from BlackBerry and Nokia - there are indeed similar models in the assortment of these major brands. But not only they produce this kind of gadgets: for example, the SafePhone smartphone has recently been released under the Elari brand, and it is already available for purchase in our country.
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A new smartphone Cirrus 13 has been released under the Fly brand, the first in the lineup already supplied from the factory based on Google Android 7.0 Nougat OS. In this model, the manufacturer has applied many solutions typical of flagship devices - this is a metal case with a minimum thickness, and reduced screen frames, and a good display with high resolution.
Micromax introduced the Q398 smartphone to the Russian market, also known as Canvas Power 2. This is the direct successor of the original Canvas Power AQ5001, which we previously tested, and compared to its predecessor, the smartphone has changed a lot.
The main feature of Micromax Q398, for which they will buy it, is a very capacious battery for the price category in which it is located. Moreover, even in comparison with the 2017 flagships from Samsung, Xiaomi and LG, the battery capacity in the Power 2 is significantly larger, which can provide a longer battery life.
In Russia, a new compact smartphone Micromax Q4101 from sunny India is presented, developed for connoisseurs of compact communications by modern standards. The device really has very small dimensions and is relatively inexpensive, which will arouse the interest of opponents of modern phablets with screens from 5.5 inches and above.
Today we will test the new Micromax Q4101 to understand how such a small smartphone feels under Android 6, and also try to find out how relevant it is in 2017. For the test we got a version in a dark gray color of the case with black accents, which is optimal for the male half of humanity, while the fair sex will certainly give preference to the second color option - golden.
Turbo X5 Max is one of the novelties on the domestic cellular market, a smartphone from the budget segment. Available to most consumers, it has a number of differences from other models in its price range, and each of these differences can have a positive impact on purchasing decisions.
Previously, we have already tested a number of smartphones of this brand and each time we noted the manufacturer's attention to various little things that make a good impression of the device throughout its entire life cycle. In the case of the Turbo X5 Max, everything is exactly the same: the developers again pleasantly surprised us by showing that even an inexpensive smartphone can be really high-quality, and that it is not at all necessary to spend tens of thousands on a mobile phone so that it evokes a feeling of joy every day. possession of it.
Q354 is a new smartphone from the Indian company Micromax, recently introduced to the Russian mobile electronics market. The model belongs to the initial price segment, but at the same time it can offer a number of interesting features that are not typical for budget communications.
In domestic retail, the Micromax Q354 smartphone is distributed in three colors of its plastic case - gold, silver and copper-gold. It was the golden version with a copper tint that came to our test, and this shade is very suitable for this device: in white or black colors, in which inexpensive phones are usually sold, it would not look so impressive.
In the assortment of the Indian company Micromax, widely known in Russia, a new smartphone Q3551 has recently appeared with a price tag from budget models and a design from representatives of the hi-end class. The device constantly runs from the initial segment to the middle one, depending on the parameter of interest, while maintaining a very attractive price and not forgetting to boast of fresh software.
Laptops are slowly becoming niche devices, yielding to the mass market for large-screen smartphones and tablets with plug-in keyboards. Yes, the demand for them is falling, but what you cannot deny is the convenience and ease of use, which is very important for busy people who do not want to understand the intricacies of transformers or suffer while working with documents and mail on the screen of a mobile phone.
Prestigio has presented a new tablet computer Wize 3401 3G on the Russian market - a kind of universal solution for those who both watch movies, read books, and surf the Internet. Moreover, the gadget offers all of the above for quite sane money - in the region of 6,000 rubles at the time of this writing.
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These gadgets include Turbo X5 Hero, a newcomer to the Russian mobile electronics market. It costs a little more than $ 100 at the current dollar rate, and it comes with a regular 4000 mAh battery. With such a battery, he should definitely forget what charging is, for at least three days, and now we will find out how he really is with autonomy.
