Google Nexus 5

Google Nexus 5! The latest iteration of the Nexus series. This Google's flagship phones are made by LG, and it truly deserves the Nexus name. Like its predecessors, Google Nexus 5 is comparatively cheaper than almost similar Android phones. 

It runs a Android 4.4 KitKat operating system on a quad-core 2.26GHz Snapdragon 800 processor. It has a 4.95 inches IPS LCD touchscreen with Full HD (1080p). For the price of USD 400, Nexus 5 can be considered as a top-tiered phone with a cheap price tag. 

Nexus 5's depth is only 0.34 inches and only weighs 4.59 oz. Which makes it thinner than a HTC One and the same weight as a Samsung Galaxy S4. The pixels per inch is quite impressive with a higher PPI  (445 ppi) compared to a Samsung Galaxy S4 (441 ppi). 

Nexus 5 is sturdier than Nexus 4, and packs a punch with all its internal specs. A fast CPU, with a 450MHz Adreno 330 GPU. This means it should be faster than a Samsung Galaxy S4 and HTC One which were run on Snapdragon 600 processors. 

Other specs are 2,300mAh battery, 2GB of RAM and supports the latest Wi-Fi 2.4GHz and 5GHz standards (802.11 a/b/g/n/ac). It also has NFC, Bluetooth 4.0 LE and wireless charging. There is no slot for additional storage, but the phone comes with 16GB or 32GB of storage. 

All in all, Google Nexus 5 is a powerhouse. Like any other Nexuses before it, Nexus 5 is the best integrated phone with the Google Android OS. If you want to experience the best of KitKat, you can't go wrong with Google Nexus 5. 

Ubuntu Touch Released

Ubuntu Touch for smartphones has been launched. That adds to the smartphone OS race, and might add to more choices for the end users. Like its PC counterpart, the Ubuntu Touch is an open source, and supported by Canonical.

Some call it Ubuntu Touch, but on their website, there isn't any sign that the operating system is going to be called Touch. Maybe they wanted to steer away from confusion if Ubuntu for the PC decides to make a computer OS for touch.

Basically what Ubuntu is trying to do here is to combine the two gadgets that people always use, the smartphone and the computer. That is a good intention, but not many people know how to change their phone OS, and another setback would be, not many percentage of people really use an Ubuntu Linux.

The project can easily be killed if Microsoft could grasp the idea and combine their Windows phone and Windows computer successfully. Nevertheless, it is not a bad thing for Ubuntu to try the smartphone OS market. They're even a step ahead of Firefox OS.

For those who have Galaxy Nexus and Nexus 4, why don't you try and install the new OS. This is the link. From the looks of the instructions, it doesn't look very difficult. Just don't forget to save and backup all your data, especially the original Android OS. It will come handy when you're bored with the Ubuntu Touch OS.

I just can't wait for one of these new OSes to become matured. Android has been around for quite some time, they should have be very very stable, reliable and fast but it doesn't. So somebody, let it Ubuntu Touch or Firefox OS should step in and show Google the right way to do it. 

Samsung Galaxy Round

Please do not change your display settings. The phone that is shown above has a curved screen and body. It is called the Samsung Galaxy Round. Samsung, voted as the best gadget company at T3 2013, has come out with this device days after LG stating that they will produce a curved phone in 2014. 

The phone will ship with latest Android OS, and is currently planned for South Korea only. It has a 5.7 inch curved AMOLED (Active Matrix Organic Light-Emitting Diode) display. It also has a curved body, but I wonder whether it also has a curved circuit board?

The Samsung Galaxy Round comes with some interesting features such as, tilting the phone a bit to show the date, time and some other information. They are also telling that you can skip songs and something like that just by tilting the phone a bit.

It might feels a little bit weird to talk using the phone, and to watch movies. But other than that, it is quite interesting to have a curvy phone. We'll be getting a lot more bendy gadgets in the future. Several bendy TV are already available on the market.

No exact release date for the rest of the world yet, maybe that will up to the reception of Samsung Galaxy Round in South Korea. Nice.