ARCHOS unveils new line of Marshmallow-powered Oxygen tablets

ARCHOS has announced three new Android tablets, each of which it plans to show off next week at Mobile World Congress 2016 in Barcelona. The 7-inch 70 Oxygen, 8-inch 80 Oxygen, and 10.1-inch 101b Oxygen all feature 1080p full HD displays, and each tablet will run Android 6.0 Marshmallow at launch.

Apart from screen sizes, the new Oxygen tablets mostly feature identical specifications. They run on 1.3GHz quad-core processors, and have 2GB of RAM. The 80 Oxygen also features a 4,000mAh battery, while the 101b Oxygen has a large 6,000mAh battery. They also have front and back cameras, though ARCHOS is mum on details at this time.

More information on these tablets is expected at MWC 2016. All three models are scheduled to go on sale in May. Pricing details are not yet available.

HTC to integrate Keeper Security password manager in upcoming smartphones

HTC has announced that upcoming mobile phones will feature Keeper Security, a popular password management app, built-in at the system level. There are already a number of options available, like 1Password, LastPass and others, but with this HTC will make things even easier for its customers. The integration will begin later this year on select HTC smartphones, allowing the customers to generate, store and access their login information without the need to install another app.

With the deeper integration, HTC owners will be able to access login information in Keeper by tapping a menu that will be embedded in log in screens of websites and native applications. You can check out all of the details of the new partnership below.

Press release:

HTC Selects Keeper to Enhance Mobile Device Security

Keeper Security, Inc., the creator of Keeper, the world’s most downloaded password manager and digital vault, announced today that HTC, a leading smartphone innovator, has chosen Keeper as its global partner to protect its customers’ passwords and private information. HTC conducted a comprehensive review of the best password management applications and selected Keeper based on its superior security, features and in-depth experience working with leading OEMs and mobile operators. Keeper will be available this year on select HTC models. Users will have the option to use the premium or free version.

Through this partnership, HTC customers will now have an easy-to-use and secure application that generates strong passwords and autofills login credentials across native applications and browsers. Keeper and HTC collaborated to create a unique and intuitive user experience to ensure that mobile subscribers are securely storing their information and utilizing Keeper. When consumers reach the login screen of a website or native application on their HTC device, they will be prompted to sign up for Keeper in order to manage and store their login credentials and passwords. By clicking a “snackbar” embedded into the login screen, consumers can immediately activate their Keeper account.

“Providing security on our devices is a top priority to ensure an optimal customer experience,” said Paavan Avadhanula, AVP of Corporate Development and Partnership with HTC. “Our partnership with Keeper will help protect our customers and make good password management easier than ever.”

“Smartphones are the unified devices for online access. Convenience, security and privacy are all major concerns for mobile users. With Keeper, HTC customers can access their apps, sites and private information quickly and at the same time, feel safe knowing their passwords, photos and private information are secure in their Keeper vault,” said Keeper Security CEO and Co-Founder, Darren Guccione. “HTC is one of the world’s leading mobile brands. We are proud to partner with them on their mobile security initiatives.”

Samsung Galaxy S6 edge+, six months on

As we prepare to welcome a new generation of Samsung flagships, what’s to be made of the Galaxy S6 edge+?

At some point or another, everyone makes a bad call — a decision that seems like a good idea at the time, but under the harsh spotlight of hindsight is just really, obviously dumb. And sometimes you look back on that choice, and how everyone told you that thing was a mistake, and think: How could I have been so stupid?

On a completely unrelated note, Samsung in mid-2015 opted to forego the release of the Galaxy Note 5 in Europe. The move unceremoniously curtailed a series of phones that had been extremely popular with European buyers. Carriers wanted to sell it. Customers wanted to buy it. But nope: Instead, Europeans would have to make do with the similar but slightly different Galaxy S6 edge+.

Just about no-one outside of Samsung thought it was a good idea to exclude the Note 5 from Europe. But whatever — the S6 edge+ was what we had, and it seemed like a pretty good phone regardless.

It boasted the same internals and screen size as the Note, but with the surprisingly popular dual-edge screens from the original Galaxy S6 edge instead of the S Pen, and a flattened glass back in contrast to the Note’s curved rear.

So six months on, as we prepare for a fresh round of Samsung flagships, how has the Galaxy S6 edge+ fared? Read on for some long-term thoughts.

I’ve been using a GS6 edge+ as my daily driver for most of the past six months. Having passed up the smaller GS6 models on account of their fairly crappy battery life, this was my first extended experience of the revolution in build and software quality that Samsung had brought in 2015. Whereas the Note 4 — which I’d used a lot previously — straddled the old and new Samsung design philosophies, the edge+ was all-new.

Picking the GS6 edge+ up felt like holding a piece of the future.

On both the inside and the outside this was more polished than any Samsung phone I had used. And more importantly, picking it up and using it felt like holding a piece of the future. Much of that futuristic feel comes not just from the improved materials, but also the gorgeous SuperAMOLED display and impressive (though largely useless) edge screens. There’s nothing that the slide-out edge panel does that couldn’t be replicated on a flat display. It’s about looking cool, not being useful.

You can pin contacts and apps to the edge screen, and use it as a glorified night clock between certain hours. But everything the edge screen does feels like it’s there to try and justify its existence. It’s not a bad thing that the edges are curved — just don’t kid yourself that there’s any real practical benefit there.

While it’s not the most ergonomic phone I’ve ever held, I haven’t had much difficulty handling the edge+ over the past few months. For a 5.7-inch phone, it’s actually surprisingly easy to hold — notably more so than the chunkier and slipperier Nexus 6P. The back glass doesn’t have any kind of oleophobic coating, which means it gets gunked up with fingerprints really easily — and that’s especially noticeable on the black model I’ve been using. But that also makes it a little easier to grip than other glass-backed phones like Sony’s various Xperia devices.

The hardware itself has held up well over the past few months, weathering several overseas trips without any major signs of wear. Nor has the software slowed noticeably over time — though your mileage may vary in this area.

As for software, it’s worth mentioning that Samsung, once again, is taking its time with updates to Android 6.0 Marshmallow, and as such the GS6 edge+ is currently sitting on Android 5.1.1, Lollipop. It’s not all bad news, though, as the company has been keeping up to speed with Google’s monthly security patches — which is arguably the more important thing to keep up-to-date.

What’s more, modern TouchWiz — Samsung’s UI layer — has improved considerably in a relatively short space of time, to the point where much of the visual clutter is gone, and there’s a coherent design language throughout much of the software. Whereas TouchWiz was once the ugly duckling of the Android UI family, now it’s one of the better-looking interfaces. (We’ve come a long way from the hated TouchWiz Nature UX of old.)

TouchWiz is much improved, but some software jank remains.

A few irritations remain, however. When it comes to bugs, I’ve noticed very occasional instances of the phone just freezing up completely for a few seconds — usually when unlocking — with the only solution being to wait for it to catch up with itself. There’s no reliable pattern to this strange software jank, but it’s persisted across each software update I’ve used on my device.

The other major gripe has to do with how noisy a couple of Samsung’s software features are. All top-tier Samsung phones have an “app optimization” feature (powered by CleanMaster), which stops unused apps from taking up background resources. The only problem is when anything gets added to the list of “optimized” apps, there’s a confusingly-worded notification to deal with. And there’s no way to turn this off and simply let the feature do its thing in the background.

Secondly, Samsung’s Gallery app has grown an automatic video highlight feature, similar to Google Photos or HTC Zoe. Unlike these two, though, the feature is implemented terribly. It’ll try and pull event info from your calendar and combine it with location info from your shots. That means if you’re like me and have a shared work calendar in the stock Calendar app, you’ll get all kinds of weird descriptions for your video highlights that bear no resemblance to what you were actually doing at the time. And it’ll also pester you with notifications every so often, which, again, you can’t disable.

Fortunately the GS6 edge+ — like all phones with the GS6’s camera configuration — excels at photography. Being able to load the camera instantly with a double-tap of the home key is huge, and this feature is implemented better than any of Samsung’s rivals. (Such as the LG G4 with its double-tap volume shortcut, or the Nexus 6P with its double-tap of the power button.)

The camera itself is largely a known quantity, being identical to the that of the regular GS6 and Note 5. That’s a good thing — this camera can still go toe-to-toe with the best out there, producing crisp, clear shots with colors that range from accurate to a little over-saturated. Optical image stabilization means that the edge+ can handle low-light shots pretty well too, though there’s some tendency to overexpose night shots.

That’s one of the areas where the new manual mode comes in handy, letting you tweak ISO, shutter speeds and more to take full control over your shots. Most of the time you won’t need to, but it’s a useful option to have.

The GS6 edge+ has been one of the most capable phone cameras I’ve used to date. (And it’s been a year of pretty good cameras.) In most areas it goes toe-to-toe with the LG G4 — and it’s often faster to shoot than LG’s camera too. LG pulls ahead in low light though, with the GS6 camera tending to need a bit of manual control to bring out details and colors as well as LG does automatically.

All in all, though, it’s an exceptional camera experience, and I’ve enjoyed taking some impressive shots using Samsung’s latest hardware.

Battery life was a sore point for the smaller two GS6 models, however the jump up to a 3,000mAh cell in the GS6 edge+ (and Note 5) has alleviated this somewhat. The phone isn’t exactly a battery champion, but at least we’re at the point where a full day of use is an expectation, not a fringe case. I’ve been using my GS6 edge+ with a pair of Samsung’s official fast wireless chargers, which means the only time I end up plugging the phone in is when I’m on the go — mainly using the official Samsung quick-charging power bank. The 5,200mAh external battery is small enough to fit in a pocket comfortably (it’s around the size of the standard Galaxy S6 edge), and packs enough juice for a full charge and then some. Between wireless charging and quick charging, and the increased battery capacity, I’m not feeling really missing a removable battery.

If the rumors are to be believed, a 5.5-inch Galaxy S7 edge is about to drop at Mobile World Congress 2016, putting the GS6 edge+ in a precarious position. It’s unlikely it’ll see any direct successor, and the edge+ itself may well be prematurely killed off in favor of the larger, curvy GS7. Nevertheless, if you can find it at a reduced price, perhaps with a conveniently timed Marshmallow update, the Galaxy S6 edge+ could be worth your time, even as we step into a new generation of flagship phones.

How to shop smart and save big using Amazon coupons

Everyone likes to save a buck when shopping, and Amazon offers an extensive selection of coupons to choose from for a variety of products.

One of the great features of shopping on Amazon are the endless savings up for grabs every day on tech, personal care items, groceries, office supplies, and much more. Here’s a rundown on how to find Amazon coupons, apply them to your order, and the extra benefits available for Prime members.

• How to find Amazon Coupons
• How to use Amazon Coupons
• The Benefits of Prime Pantry
• How to use Prime Pantry Coupons

How to find Amazon coupons

On the Amazon homepage, click on Today’s Deals located right below the search bar.

Then, click on the Coupons link below the same search bar.

Find and click on your desired category in the menu on the left.

Browse the options to view various coupons.

There are plenty of categories to sift through, so spend some time finding the best deals for you. Amazon will always keep their lists up-to-date with the hottest deals.

How to use Amazon coupons

On the Amazon homepage, click on Today’s Deals located right below the search bar.

Then click on the Coupons link below the same search bar.

Find a discounted product you’re interested in and click Clip Coupon.

Then, click on that item to view its Product Page.

Below the list price of the product you’ll find your Coupon Savings.

Add the item to your cart to automatically apply the savings at checkout.

From here, you can continue shopping other deals and clipping coupons, or checkout to get your item(s) shipped!

The Benefits of Prime Pantry

A great way to save on household items is by using Prime Pantry, available for all Amazon Prime members. Using Prime Pantry, members can fill their virtual box of items and have it shipped to their door for a flat fee of $5.99 per box. Although you won’t receive free shipping like you would with normal Prime purchases, there are still amazing coupons available that you can’t find anywhere else.

How to use Prime Pantry Coupons

On the Amazon homepage, click on Today’s Deals located right below the search bar.

Then click on the Coupons link below the same search bar.

On the left navigation menu, under Popular Coupons, click Prime Pantry.

Add to your cart the desired Prime Pantry to apply the coupon.

It’s as easy at that! The coupons provided through Prime Pantry are only available to Amazon Prime members and they don’t last long, so jump on the savings while you can!

MOAR COUPONS!

There’s always a chance to save using Amazon coupons, whether you’re a Prime member or not. Of course, if you prefer to do all your shopping from home, Amazon’s Prime Pantry feature is a sweet deal that provides some amazing savings on home essentials. Either way, now you know where to get your coupon fix!

Sign up for Amazon Prime

1Password for Families lets you manage passwords for your entire clan

AgileBits, the developer of 1Password, has announced a new family program for the password manager. 1Password for Families allows passwords, secure notes, and more to be shared between up to five people for $5 per month, and you can add more people for $1 per person.

With 1Password for Families, each family member gets their own copy of 1Password, and all 1Password apps come free with the subscription. The person in charge of the shared family vault can use the Admin Console to manage members and sharing, just like with 1Password for Teams. In addition to the shared vault, each family member can store their own private information in personal vaults.

Right now, AgileBits is running a special for those that sign up before March 21. You’ll get $10 added to your family account, on top of getting the first month free. You can also get 2GB of secure document storage, up from the 1GB normally offered. Finally, you can add two more family members for free, for a total of seven.

You can sign up for 1Password for Families right now.

Source: AgileBits

Grab one of Dell’s Venue 7000 series tablets for half off

If you’re in the market for a new tablet, you may want to check out the big savings that Dell is offering on its Venue 7000 line. For a limited time, you can grab the Dell Venue 8 7000 for just $199, a savings of $200 from its $399 list price, or if you need a larger display you can opt for the Venue 10 7000 for an additional $100. This drops the price of the 10.5-inch tablet down to $299 compared to its list price of $629, and you even score a free keyboard for the tablet.

• Check out our review of the Dell Venue 8 7000
• Check out our review of the Dell Venue 10 7000

Availability on these tablets is limited, so if you are interested you’ll want to get your order in quickly. Will you be grabbing one of these as your next tablet? Let us know your thoughts in the comments.

• Dell Venue 8 7000 at Dell
• Dell Venue 10 7000 at Dell

Via: ArsTechnica

LG G4 owners, how’s the Marshmallow update treating you?

With updates now rolling out on AT&T and T-Mobile, it’s time to reflect on the LG G4’s march towards Marshmallow.

It seems like the LG G4 has been updating to Android 6.0 Marshmallow for about as long as the latest version of Android has been around. The update first landed in Poland in October, and since then it’s been slowly spreading throughout the world. This week, U.S. carriers AT&T, Verizon and T-Mobile updated their G4 variants to Marshmallow.

All about the LG G4

• Read our full review
• Get the latest news
• Get help and tips
• Camera showdown vs. GS6 and iPhone 6!
• Complete LG G4 specs
• Join the discussion
• Where to buy the LG G4

Newer model: LG G5

Like most LG OS updates, the top-level changes that Android 6.0 brings to the G4 are relatively few and far between. Performance is a little slicker. Some of the animation transitions have been tightened up a bit, most notably in the app switcher. These are all tiny changes that only eagle-eyed G4 owners will have noticed.

So on the surface, the phone looks and behaves just as it did on Lollipop. (We’ll likely have to wait for the LG G5 to deliver any meaningful changes to LG’s own software layer.) But the many under-the-hood improvements in Marshmallow are important too — like Google Now on Tap and the Doze feature that cuts down on background power consumption when the phone is idle.

One feature G4 owners will miss out on is Adoptable Storage — the ability to directly link your SD card to the internal storage as one big block of storage space. Maybe that’s not too surprising though, given that it’s easy to remove the G4’s microSD card without pulling the battery.

As for battery life, there are mixed reports from G4 owners on the Android Central forums, with some reporting no change in longevity outside of doze mode, and others reporting a slight drop in battery performance.

So if you’re using an LG G4 and have already updated to Marshmallow, we want to hear from you. Are you happy with the relatively small changes to the way the phone works, or were you hoping for more? And have you noticed any alterations or upgrades that we’ve missed? Shout out in the comments below, and hit up the Android Central G4 forums for more discussion.

5 Amazon shipping tricks for people who can’t afford Prime – CNET

If you’re like me, you love shopping on Amazon but you hate paying for shipping — even though a $99 Amazon Prime membership is apparently a fabulous deal if you like to make tiny impulse purchases.

So, here are some tricks you can use to get free or discounted shipping from the world’s largest online retailer.

Bump up your total with preorders

Amazon offers free shipping on eligible (read: most) items if your purchase totals $35 or more. If you can’t seem to find $35 worth of stuff you need right this second, throw in a few preorders, like this “Star Wars: The Force Awakens” Blu-ray.

Sarah Jacobsson Purewal/CNET

Amazon bills for items as they ship, so your card won’t get charged for the Blu-ray but your pens will still ship for free. And if, for some reason, you decide that you don’t want another Star Wars Blu-ray to add to your collection after all…you can always cancel your preorder before it ships.

Bonus: You can also use this preorder trick to purchase Amazon add on items (items that can only be shipped with an order of $25 or more).

Find filler items

Sarah Jacobsson Purewal/CNET

Maybe you feel a little bad about preordering items you know you’re going to cancel — maybe you have a conscience. If that’s the case, you can also look for cheap filler items that will help you hit the $35 limit without spending a cent more than you need to. You can find these items with a service like Filler Item Finder, which lets you plug in the amount you need for free shipping and filter your results by category.

Ship to multiple addresses for free

Here’s another way to take advantage of Amazon’s $35 free shipping minimum without ordering $35 worth of stuff you don’t need: Gifts for your friends and family! If you can’t hit the minimum, add in a gift or two for your parents and click Proceed to checkout.

Sarah Jacobsson Purewal/CNET

On the next screen, where you select a shipping address, you should see the option to Ship to multiple addresses in the upper right corner. Click this, and choose the individual address you’d like each item to ship to from the drop-down menus. Hit Continue, go through the payment screen, and make sure you choose free shipping for all of your items. You’ll look like a model child and everything will ship for free!

Be a student

You can get Amazon Prime for just $49/year — if you’re a college student. Well, a college student or someone with a working .edu email address (and the willingness to lie about your expected graduation date). Sign up for Amazon Student here, and you’ll get six months of Amazon Prime free. After that you’ll, only pay $49/year for up to four years, after which you’ll be billed for the full price of Amazon Prime.

Share your Prime membership

You don’t have to be a student to get $49/year Prime — you could just be someone with a super close buddy you happen trust with your credit card information. Amazon lets you share your Prime account with one other adult via Amazon Households. This adult doesn’t have to live with you, though both adults need to be present to verify their accounts to create a household, and both adults have to agree to share wallets (credit/debit card information). The idea here, obviously, is that two adults in a household will be spouses or significant others — but you could also set up a household with someone you trust not to steal your credit card info, like a sibling, parent or BFF.

Make your Wi-Fi more friendly to smart-home devices – CNET

Tyler Lizenby/CNET

The idea of a smart home is beautiful. You come home from work and the door unlocks, the kitchen and living room lights turn on, your entertainment system powers on, the TV switches to your favorite channel and the Nest turns up the heat a few degrees. All this happens without lifting a finger.

Getting everything set up to work as intended, however, can be a chore. Here are some Wi-Fi settings tips that can make the setup process go more smoothly.

5GHz may cause problems

A 5GHz network comes with a solid set of advantages. It’s typically not as crowded as 2.4GHz, especially if you live in an apartment. This leads to less interference with Bluetooth devices, faster data rates and fewer problems with disconnects.

The unfortunate part is that not all smart devices are compatible with 5GHz. For instance, only Google’s new Chromecast supports 5GHz. The older model supports only 2.4GHz. Many other smart home products, such as the August Smart Lock, only support 2.4GHz, as well.

For compatibility reasons, the best option is to stick to 2.4GHz for smart home products or use both 2.4GHz and 5GHz, if your router supports it.

If at first you don’t succeed, power cycle

This may seem obvious, but if you’re having trouble with your smart devices — of any kind — recognizing your wireless network, reboot everything. Reboot the smartphone or laptop you’re using to setup the device and power cycle the router and smart device.

In setting up four separate Lifx bulbs and a Chromecast, I had trouble getting them to recognize my wireless network. A power cycle of every device involved seemed to help.

The important part here is patience. After power cycling everything, just walk away. Waiting for 5 to 10 minutes before trying to perform the setup again will improve the chances of everything going more smoothly.

SSID and security settings

In most scenarios, like if you live in a large neighborhood or an apartment, you’re definitely going to want to secure your wireless network.

To configure your network, log in to your router’s admin page by navigating to the router’s IP address in a Web browser and using the default credentials to sign in. The credentials vary by brand, but are generally very easy to find, often on the bottom of the router itself or with a quick Internet search.

Once in the admin panel, choose an SSID that is easily differentiated from other nearby networks. It’s also smart to steer clear of network names that may not be supported or recognized by smart devices, like emoji.

Next, secure the network. The best encryption to use for smart devices is WPA2. Finally, choose and set a passphrase that is easy to remember.

9 easy ways to speed up your Wi-Fi

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When all else fails, factory reset

If you’ve tried everything and are still having issues with the setup process, you may need to factory reset your smart device. Most smart home devices are very easily reset.

For example, to reset a Lifx bulb, turn the light switch off, unscrew the bulb from the socket, flip the small switch on the side of the bulb, screw it back in and turn the light switch back on. If successful, the bulb will cycle through several colors before returning to white.

Even though my bulbs and other smart devices are set up and work flawlessly, the vast majority of the time, it’s often easier and faster to factory reset them and go through a setup again than it is to try to troubleshoot a light bulb by endlessly flipping the switch off and on or power-cycling your phone.

Elgato Eve Energy review – CNET

The Good The Elgato Eve Energy smart plug is compact, HomeKit enabled and features one of the deeper HomeKit apps out there.

The Bad The $50 price tag still feels a little high for products like this, and the app lacks the intuitive user interface of its competition. Worst of all, you can’t control it remotely without an Apple TV.

The Bottom Line Elgato’s Eve Energy smart plug is a solid product, but doesn’t leave enough of an impression in an already-saturated market.

Visit manufacturer site for details.

Elgato, the company that brought us products like the Eve Room and the Thunderbolt Drive, is shooting for a tough goal with its Eve Energy Switch and Power Meter: to make a difference in the saturated market of connected outlets. The recent proliferation of these products makes sense. Their simple retrofit approach to automating homes is affordable and accessible to casual consumers. Want to schedule when your light bulbs turn on? Or track your TV’s energy consumption? Or smarten up dumb appliances, like humidifiers or speakers? Smart plugs could be the solution.

The problem is, at $50 a pop — and the Elgato Eve Energy’s price is par for the course — users want a plug that really feels smart. After all, remote control plugs cost only a couple bucks, and timed plugs are the same story. And Elgato almost succeeds. I can schedule commands, control it with Siri, track energy usage, and set up scenes. But while the Eve Energy boasts those features, it also succumbs to a big problem: you need an Apple TV to control it remotely. So it may be a solid purchase for Apple TV users, but it’s definitely not a must-buy. And for non-Apple TV users, it’s just not the best plug on the market.

Can Siri and Energy find synergy? (pictures)
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How does Eve compare?

Eve Energy’s biggest competitor is the iDevices Switch — the other big HomeKit-enabled smart plug. Although Eve works better with Siri thanks to the customizable device naming in the app, iDevices wins out on many of the features. Most notably, you don’t need an Apple TV to control it remotely.

Eve’s competition

• iDevices Switch
• Zuli Smart Plug
• Belkin WeMo Insight Switch

If Elgato wants to compete in the broader market, it also needs to take fuller advantage of its Bluetooth technology. For instance, Eve doesn’t take any advantage of Bluetooth’s unique capabilities to detect user-presence and respond accordingly, as the Zuli Smart Plug does.