Android phones, apps and tablets

Motorola is a dead brand in anywhere other than the US these days and Lenovo already have the supply channels they need for smartphones.

Motorola has some pretty good manufacturing capability and a good track record of modest success in Android. There are definitely Motorola phones I would have bought if they'd been more available and their releases were timed better for my contract renewals.

It's down to Samsung being more aggressive with their negotiations with networks that meant stuff like the Motorola Milestone never became readily available as a contract-upgrade option.

Android version of the Star Tac? Get on it Lenovo.

The problem with the Nexus range is that Google sell them at wafer thin margins, so anyone else seeking to do a mid-range Android device can't compete on price with Google. That annoys the vendors, because Google appear to want to have their cake and eat it.

If this Samsung deal is true, then I'm not sure that helps much, as everyone else will remain second class citizens as all the new features come to market on Samsung products first.

In buying Nest, Google have Tony Fadell. Tony is a product guy, who was key to the iPod. Nest has made automated home systems a consumer-friendly product market rather than a geek niche. Tony could push the Nexus line to greater mainstream success than any of the current Google guys.

I wonder if they might try and move the Nexus brand into more home automation stuff. So not being an 'android phone' hardware company, but more connected home hardware company?

https://play.google.com/store/devices/details/Nexus_Q?id=nexus_q&hl=en_GB
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nexus_Q
http://www.engadget.com/products/google/nexus/q/

Samsung scaling down its UI and app store/content developments in favor of Google Play

thank god! finally we'll be free of all that useless crap

What ever happened to the nexus q?

Pretty happy with Nexus/android in first week.

Though a bit confused as to how I can isolate individual message alerts (whatsapp / email / texts etc) and turn them off/on?

You do it inside the app.

So for gmail you go into settings, then click on the account you want notifications for, then set it there.
Likewise in hangouts/sms.
Whatsap has more options for different types of messages, but again they should all be in the settings section

wicked. Thanks. I feel like an old person asking those questions

Hehe no worries. We're not always rabid fanbois with flame cannons ;)

Does the N5 have a coloured LED notification light? If so LightFlow is quite a cool app as it allows you to set different colours and pulse times (and normal notification stuff), which is great if you have it on silent

yeah it's got a light - will check that app. Sound great - I really missed the flashing blackberry light when I moved to iPhone

Me too, was useful to know what notification I'm getting without turning the phone on.

have set up a billion different colours now - hm. May need to rethink this.

Ha.

Not sure if you can do it with the free version, but you can use the pulse settings to good effect - I have SMS/MMS/Whatsapp all on the green light, but with different length pulses to show which version of a message it is

I paid for it. Assumed the free version would be full of ads and other junk.

I'm enjoying my Moto-G.

Is there a secret way of scrolling up to the top of a web-page?

In Safari you simply tap the top of the screen, whereas in Chrome you seem to have to do it manually.

Good question. Would be handy.

Glad you're enjoying it.

My new work phone is an iPhone 5s. Didn't quite realise how much I like my N4. Yes the screen on the 5s is amazeballz but it's too small. Battery life is a joke too. On the upside, push email still doesn't work.

I'm enjoying my Moto-G.

Is there a secret way of scrolling up to the top of a web-page?

In Safari you simply tap the top of the screen, whereas in Chrome you seem to have to do it manually.

It's a patent issue. Google can't use it, basically.

Anyone else on giffgaff with an android? I can't seem to get the MMS working - there seem to be a billion different variations of the settings floating around on the giffgaff help forums - can someone help me with a definitive set that will work with a Nexus 5?

When I was still on Giffgaff, I used the Tweakker APN and the giffgaffAPN apps, and both of those worked, although that was on a N4

giffgaff apn doesn't seem to want to work with N5. Will try tweaker I guess

I did think (hope?) that they had solved that issue a long time ago (giffgaff themselves, not the app), but clearly not

giff gaff is seriously testing my patience these days