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Nexus Rumour Round Up: May 2013

May 1, 2013 By Jez 1 Comment

Google’s I/O conference is now only two weeks away, this is where Google will share the latest on their product development, including the Nexus range. Google I/O

Hopefully there will be some official announcement on one or all of; the new Nexus 5, the second generation Nexus 7 or Android 5 (Key Lime Pie).

For those that don’t follow the Android news sites, here’s a round up of what you need to know.

2nd Gen Nexus 7

Rumours of an update to the Nexus 7 tablet have been circulating since last year, these have included the possibility of an ultra cheap model at half the current price, or an overhaul of the tech to pack in more pixels and boost the power.

We won’t know for sure what to expect until the official announcement but it does look increasingly likely that we will see a refresh of the Nexus 7 this summer.

So what are the Google watchers expecting to see in a second generation Nexus 7?

Higher screen resolution
Thinner bezel
Qualcomm chipset (improved power performance over the Nvidia Tegra chipset)
Asus manufactured
Same price bracket

The refreshed model is expected around July time.

I’m not sure there is anything in there to tempt an existing owner to “upgrade” to the second generation 7″ tablet, but nonetheless it keeps it competitive when lined up next to the rival Kindle Fire HD and iPad Mini.

Nexus 5

The Nexus 5 smart phone will be the latest in the Google range. What isn’t clear is whether it will succeed the Nexus 4, or whether it will be sold simultaneously pitched in the Phablet market against the likes of the Galaxy Note.

Their device naming strategy might not be clear yet, but they sure can’t keep incrementing the phone’s number as they’re will be two releases from a clash with the N7 tablet! It is likely that the number will loosely correlate with screen size.

The rumoured specs for the Nexus 5 mobile phone:

5-inch display
1080 HD resolution
Snapdragon 600 processor
2GB of RAM
8 and 16GB storage options
3140 mAh Battery
Nikon constructed camera lense
Android 5

An improved camera would certainly be tempting to me as an N4 owner. However I’m not so sure that I want a larger device. Either way, this seems the more interesting product for existing Nexus fans.

Android 5

Given that Google announced the last major Android update at the 2012 I/O conference we should hope to see Android 5 announced officially this month. This is the big news for Nexus owners as we should expect to see the new operating system pushed out to our phones and tablets soon after release.

Whilst having great hardware is always desirable, it doesn’t mean a lot if you don’t have the software to run on it. The new version of Android should deliver some very welcome benefits, pushing the O/S even further ahead of its competitors.

What’s in?

There is little known about what might be included at this time, here are a couple of update rumours that have been floating around the net:

Google Babel, the cross platform unified chat experience set to unify messaging across Google Talk, Google+, etc.
Gaming centre to power multi player games and communities, according to MyGlass tear down.
Native Google video chat app, makes sense, right now the only alternative is the Microsoft owned Skype!
Tighter social networking integration, I guess we could install Facebook Home, or related widgets but its not the same. Even Microsoft managed to do this well in Windows 8 mobile.

There is growing evidence for another Jelly Bean release taking us up to Android 4.3, it is looking more and more likely that we might see this before Android 5 makes it out.

Motorola X

Whilst not branded as a Nexus product, I thought it was worth mentioning the new Motorola X smartphone. As you probably know, Google bought up Motorola a while back, but up until now they’ve been working through an inherited backlog that is now clearing.

We expect to see the first Google produced phone from Motorola this August.

Nexus owners will be keen to follow developments as it is thought that the X Phone will provide the “Pure” Android experience – something that has been a big draw for Nexus fans to date. It is also going to be highly customisable, with various options available to buyers at checkout, for example, a whole range of colours will be on offer.

The phone will be pitched as a top range flagship model designed to compete with the likes of the Samsung Galaxy S IV and Apple iPhone, coupled with the latest Android software the X phone is likely to be one of the must have gadgets of the year.

That’s it for now, nxtab doesn’t cover every last rumour that drips out onto the net, that’s not what we are really about. We will of course round up all the confirmed Nexus news after Google make their announcements.

Filed Under: News Tagged With: 2G nexus 7, Android 5, nexus 5

Android GPS Map Tracking App: Google Tracks

April 21, 2013 By Jez 3 Comments

The Google Tracks app has been around for a while but it doesn’t seem to be one of Google’s best known offerings.

In fact I only happened across it by chance last week and have been giving it a little test run over the last couple of days. I thought it was worth sharing as chances are you haven’t heard of it either?

Google tracks is a tracking application that uses the GPS functionality in your Nexus 4 mobile phone, or in your Nexus 7 / 10 tablet, to keep a record of your journey. It is then able to report back various stats relating to your trip and overlay the route on Google maps.

02 - Google Tracks

Google Ecosystem Integration

There are a number of Android tracking apps on the market but if you are a Nexus fan then you are probably heavily invested in the Google world. Tracks therefore makes a good choice as it is tightly integrated with the Google cloud, allowing you to easily share your recorded trips on Drive.

Re-playing your journeys with Google Earth is also a fun neat feature, you can watch as your Nexus zooms through the route you’ve just recorded.

Tracks will record your path, speed, distance, and even elevation while you walk, run, bike, etc.

The app doesn’t have the best interface in the world, and it was frustrating to see it start recording before my Nexus 4 had even locked onto the GPS satellite, but other than those minor gripes Tracks does its job and makes recalling previous expeditions easy.

Google Tracks is actually an open source project which opens it up for various third party integration, for those who are into serious fitness tracking there are even Bluetooth biometric sensors that can be hooked up.

Download from Google Play

Filed Under: Applications Tagged With: google tacks, gps

Nexus 4 Output to TV via HDMI: SlimPort Review

April 6, 2013 By Jez Leave a Comment

One of the great features on the Nexus 4 is the ability to show your phone’s display on a big screen.

There are actually two cool ways to do this, one is via a cable, and the other is over WiFi using Miracast. The latter is more expensive, uses more power and right now doesn’t seem too easy to find compatible devices to beam to. No doubt I will get it going in the future but for now I decided to try out SlimPort.

I’m afraid this one is for Nexus 4 owners only, this won’t work on the Nexus 7 tablet. I also don’t see SlimPort listed on the Nexus 10 spec sheet but please let me know if it is compatible.

What is SlimPort?

SlimPort branded products use the Mobility DisplayPort standard to display HD quality images on your big screen television. A SlimPort cable is compatible with any enabled micro USB port such as the one found on the Nexus 4 mobile phone.

SlimPort boasts the following advantages:

Display Hi Res images up to 4K x 2K at 60Hz
Low power consumption
Ability to charge whilst viewing
Available with HDMI, VGA and HDTV connectors

Review – SlimPort on the Nexus 4

Using the SlimPort cable on the Nexus 4 couldn’t be easier.

Plug the SlimPort cable into the phone
If using the HDMI version like me, you then plug your Television’s HDMI cable into the SlimPort adapter.
Change your Television’s source to the appropriate HDMI port.
Switch on your Nexus 4 and your display will appear simultaneously on the TV and phone’s screen.

The quality of the SlimPort image on the screen was very crisp and clear, and when it comes to viewing streaming video it seemed only limited by the app being used. Below are two demos I took, apologies for the less than ideal quality, but hey, this is an amateur blog – whadya expect!

But seriously, I hope you can see that the TV catchup streaming video actually looked good and sitting back on the sofa it was as clear as any image I normally get on my TV. The iPlayer stream was blocky, but this has always seemed to be a problem with streaming to the BBC’s Android app. It was watchable but slightly depressing that a decent picture was unavailable. I’ll be sticking to my Raspberry Pi for iPlayer viewing!

Here are the demos, apologies that the sound didn’t come through, it is there but my camera didn’t seem to pick it up very well.

TV Catchup on a 32″ Samsung Series 5 TV via a Nexus 4 Phone. This looked great, clear and crisp and a nice high resolution.

And iPlayer via a SlimPort cable and Nexus 4 Phone. This on the other hand didn’t look so good, somewhat blocky.

Like the battery pack I discussed in my last post, this is perhaps not something I will be using regularly but will be a neat little gadget to have up my sleeve when I want to show some footage on the big screen. It could be useful when stuck in a hotel with free WiFi but no decent TV stations, or for showing video footage shot

You can buy the SlimPort from Amazon.co.uk