AppLock+: Your phone’s security is at risk without it [Review]

AppLock+ offers a unique spin on mobile device security. Instead of being relegated to a one time pin unlock to access your device, AppLock+ offers you the ability lock and require a pin code for any and every app on your device.

Developer: AVIRA

Cost: Free (further features unlockable via in-app purchase)

Highlights

• Beautiful, simple, and effective user interface
• Affordable
• Unique take on mobile security

Review

At this point in time, most of us are pretty used to the standard unlock features for our mobile devices; we either swipe to unlock, hold to unlock, or, for extra security, we enter a pin number. There’s nothing wrong with this setup in and of itself, but some people just need a little more security for their devices. Enter AppLock+.

AppLock+ is unlike any security application I’ve ever seen. What makes it unique is that it offers you the ability to lock down individual apps and features on you device with and require a pin number to access them. And that’s only the tip of the iceberg. You can further customize these locks by scheduling a specific app, or group of apps, to lock and unlock on specific days and times of the week, and you can even configure apps to lock based upon your geographic location.

This also brings me to the next feature I really like about AppLock+: grouping. Some of us have tons and tons of apps on our phones and the idea of going through each of them individually and configuring a lock for them can seem daunting and troublesome. AppLock+ has you covered by offering app grouping. You can lock down apps in groups based on their function. For example, your social media apps will be grouped together under AppLock’s Group tab, and you can configure lock options for all of them in bulk versus configuring locks for each of them individually. If you decide that you want specific lock configurations for any of these apps, however, you still have the ability to configure them individually.

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Group locking in AppLock+ is not perfect. The default groups AppLock creates for you are pretty effective. You can also create and customize your own groups, but the default ones AppLock creates will suffice for most users. Unfortunately, you really start running into problems when you want to configure lock settings for an individual app that happens to be nested in a group.

Using social media apps as an example once again: if I want to configure a lock for, say, Google + by itself, I have to go into the Groups tab, select ‘Social media apps’ and then swipe the Google + entry to the left to delete it from the group. I then have to go back to the Apps tab and find Google +, select it, and then I can configure the lock options for it individually. This does not take that much time to do in the scheme of things, but it’s inconvenient and I would love to be able to just go to the Apps tab and configure the apps individually without having to mess with the app’s group if it happens to be in one.

On the settings front, AppLock+ is pretty simple. The Settings menu consists of six items:

• Enabled
• Change Pin
• Change Recovery Password
• Device Administrator – AppLock+ needs this permission to allow you to lock down individual apps
• Unlock Duration
• Lock apps when screen is off

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My favorite setting in AppLock is the ability to set an unlock duration. I had mine set at five minutes. Essentially what this feature does, is it will not require you to enter your pin code for a recently used app, after closing it, for a designated amount of time; in my case, five minutes. This can be quite convenient and help eliminate potential frustration by having to enter your pin every time you re-open an app that you were using just recently. This is great for multi-tasking on your device.

User Interface

AppLock+ is beautiful. I bragged about it’s UI to a fellow AndroidGuy’s writer not long after installing it on my phone. I like that there’s not a lot of menus and sub menus to navigate. The white color scheme works really well. It almost has sort of a futuristic lab feel. In my opinion, AppLock+ defines what I would call minimalistic effectiveness, in that it offers a very basic and simple UI that still captures the power and features you would find in a complex and convoluted UI. I applaud AVIRA for accomplishing this.

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Apps tab

Groups tab

In-app Purchases

As much as I dislike in-app purchases, AppLock+ is very reasonable about them. The app will be effective and adequate for most users without requiring them to spend a dime. You can, however, unlock the geo-lock and schedule lock features individually, or as a bundle. The bundle unlock was $2.21 at the time of this review.

Conclusion

I am very impressed with AppLock+. It’s a great solution if you’re looking for a little extra security for you device. AVIRA definitely needs to make the above suggested changes to the app’s grouping feature, and I would also like to see them make the numbers on the pin screen bigger and with more space in between them. I found myself mistyping my pin if I was entering it very quickly. Despite these issues, AppLock+ is a great app and is definitely worthy of your consideration.

AppLock+ – Google Play Store

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FiiO X7 Android-powered digital audio player review

The growing desire for higher audio quality means that Android is showing more presence in the digital audio player (DAP) world. Folks may see it silly to carry around an additional device when our smartphones can play audio, but unfortunately, the quality isn’t great on phones yet. LG has recently shown an effort to remedy this with it’s B&O HiFi module for the LG G5.

Therefore, things are getting interesting in the portable audio market, as manufacturers try for the first time to power their devices with Android. A promising attempt that we’re reviewing today is the FiiO X7. FiiO is a Chinese manufacturer that has made a boom with audio lovers by producing great bang for the buck devices.

However, the X7 isn’t such device. It’s new territory for FiiO – a premium flagship (with a premium price). And Android is along for the ride. Let’s check out if that was a good move.

Design

FiiO takes the typical “premium” approach to design with the X7 by building it from a block of metal. That’s no understatement. It’s thick, as if FiiO doesn’t care whatsoever about device thinness like the rest of the industry does.

I’m personally not one to care for the thin fetish that surrounds mobile devices, but the X7 does manage find my limit. It shows through a pocket and is heavy (220 grams). It’s not a huge deal, but I wish that FiiO would have recognized the considerable girth and worked it down.

The X7 is 16.6mm thick

If we look at the profile, you’ll see that part of thickness is attributed to a hump on the back and an elevated display. It would have been nice if the front and back were flush with the body, and the protruding display is a bit worrisome. That makes the glass more vulnerable to life’s perils.

FiiO put in some nice looking design cues in the metal to up the aesthetics. The edges on both front and back have a shiny chamfer, the finish on the metal is super smooth, and the physical buttons have a flashy circular texture.

The panel under the display has a sweet brushed-metal look. Something you won’t notice until you turn the X7 on is that there’s a blue light embedded between the glass and metal. There’s no real purpose for it that I can tell, I think it’s just merely to look cool.

You’ll notice a symmetric button layout on both sides. The left side has the power button and volume rocker, and the right side has the play/pause button and back/forward track rocker. Also on the left is support for microSD expansion – always a welcomed feature. You can drop in up to 128GB extra on top of the on-board 32GB.

The bottom of the X7 is pretty simple; there’s the 3.5mm headphone jack and microUSB port.

But there’s actually more than meets the eye here. The portion of the X7 below the display is the amp component and is removable via the T5 Torx screws on the sides. FiiO designed the device to be able to accept different amp modules for headphones with higher power requirements.

The unit comes with the lowest power module installed (which works just fine with most headphones), but if you find yourself needing more volume headroom, FiiO produced two higher power tiers that you can purchase. There’s also a module that can do a balanced output.

Lastly, on the top of the X7, you’ll just find a 3.5mm jack for line out or coaxial output.

Performance

Let’s take a look at what’s under the hood.

• Chipset: Rockchip RK3188 SoC (quad-core @ 1.4GHz) and 1GB of RAM
• Display: 3.97″ IPS LCD, 480×800 resolution
• Storage: 32GB internal, with microSD expandability up to 128GB
• Battery: 3,500mAh (non-removable)
• DAC: SABRE ESS ES9018S
• Connectivity: WiFi (2.4GHz, 802.11 b/g/n) and Bluetooth 2.4GHz V4.0 + EDR
• Software: Android 4.4.4 (KitKat), customized and FiiO Music app
• Supported audio formats: WAV, FLAC, APE, ALAC, WMA, MP3, OGG, DXD, DSD64/128, and PCM (up to 384kHz/64-bit)

The core specs are yesteryear, but this is a digital audio player first and foremost. FiiO packs the X7 where it counts in that regard – there’s a hefty battery, plenty of storage, and a proven digital-to-analog converter (DAC).

The performance is where you’d expect from a lower spec’d device. It gets the job done, but doesn’t necessarily fly. In my use, there was the occasional hiccup, but navigation has been surprisingly smooth overall.

The same can be said for the display. It functions just fine. The low resolution is a little hard to swallow if you’re a snob like me, but the fact that it’s a small 4″ size helps the ppi a little bit. Viewing angles are decent; the image slightly dims but you can see the content at even the most extreme angle.

The 3,500mAh battery performed well in my experience. I typically stream HiFi music using TIDAL over WiFi and the battery dissipated roughly 10% an hour.

With my on/off usage, I was glad that the X7 minimally sips battery on idle. You can further efficiency by setting the device to turn off after a certain time. And of course, the battery life is a little better on offline mode.

Software

*It’s crucial to update the firmware upon receiving the X7. FiiO has since made important updates, such as sound quality improvements and additional software features. This review uses Firmware v1.8.

I was somewhat surprised to see that the X7 runs a pretty old version of Android – 4.4.4 (KitKat). Any newer Android device should be at least running Lollipop. But it is what it is. The X7 is meant to be a digital audio player with Android capabilities. Let’s go over what that means.

FiiO subtly but heavily customized Android for its own. When you boot up the X7, you’re greeted with a fairly bare-bones, stock interface. You’ll however find significant tweaks here and there. For instance, the top pull-down has a tile layout of different functions, as opposed to notifications.

This isn’t a phone, so notifications aren’t so crucial. Weirdly, sometimes the pull-down does show me notifications. And I, for the life of me, can’t figure out how the system decides to show me either the tiles of functions or notifications. I’d be nice if FiiO incorporates a way to flip between them.

The lock screen always shows the basic playback controls – play/pause and previous or next track. Fortunately, the controls aren’t just tied to FiiO’s own music app, but third-party services as well. That goes for the X7’s physical button controls too. I use TIDAL for my HiFi listening, and had no major problems with integration on the X7. The only bug that I found is when you pause the music for a while, the play button doesn’t reinitiate it. You have to go back into the app and hit play.

You’ll also find that FiiO made some additions to the system settings. Under Sound Settings, you can change the Gain (amplification) between High and Low, or alter the L/R channel balance.

Some folks (including myself) found that blue light on the front of the X7 to be annoying in dark environments. Within the Display settings, FiiO considerately added control for its brightness and status when the device charging or playing (the light can be lit, pulsing, or off).

A few more notable, custom features:

• Powertimer setting – Set an idle timer, for X7 to sleep or power off.
• Power-on mode – FiiO has two modes that the X7 can operate, in Android mode or FiiO Music only. The FiiO Music mode only gives you access to the music app. It saves battery if you only plan to use the X7 to listen to stored music.
• USB DAC function – The X7 can be used as an external DAC, if you wish to use another source.

Unfortunately, there is no global EQ setting. The custom FiiO music app keeps its 10-band, customizable equalizer for itself.

Speaking of the FiiO music app, it’s nicely user-friendly. The app scans device’s storage for any music and organizes it in the interface. Navigation is pretty intuitive, except, you may not know what some of the icon buttons mean until you try them.

Tap the Now Playing bar on the bottom to expand it. You then have typical playback controls, a favorites button, and a shortcut to the EQ. The settings cog shows up on the top left corner. There’s not much more that the app’s settings offer than the system’s sound settings, it’s mainly options for the app’s UI.

Sound

*For my testing, I used the X7 with Sennheiser IE 800 and Shure SE846 earphones.

Being that the X7 is FiiO’s top-end audio device, you can probably guess that the sound is killer. Indeed. Let’s go over how it excels and what you should know.

Overall, the sound is clean and concise. This is what a DAC should do – articulate the signal so that you can clearly hear each element of the sound. You won’t find muddied frequencies here.

The treble and the soundstage are two aspects that stood out to me, and made my headphones shine. The X7 gives highs a wonderful presence, where sometimes inferior DACs allow the detail to get lost in the mix. The soundstage is satisfyingly wide. It brings another level to the music and experience.

The mid-range frequencies are right behind. Shure’s headphones are known for prominent mids, and together with the X7, I get full power from my SE846 earphones. Guitar strums feel like they’re right on your ears. I have heard deeper vocal details from the iFi Micro iDSD DAC I’ve reviewed, but the X7 isn’t far behind.

However, the X7 is “reference” sounding to my ears. That’s not necessarily a bad thing; it depends what you like. To me, the sound could be livelier, particularly on the low-end. The bass detail is great, but I could use more oomph. I wish that FiiO had included an analog bass boost like many audio manufacturers do on their units.

I must mention that at times I hear some static noise when streaming music. I checked with FiiO and turns out that the X7 can transmits some interference while listening on WiFi. In this case, it happens when the tracks buffer (for a few seconds). You can check out their response on Head-Fi.org, but in short, that’s just how it is on the X7. Adding interference resistance could compromise audio quality, and FiiO does not want to risk that.

That’s understandable, and you could download offline content from streaming services, which would bypass the interference. I just can’t help feel like device isn’t finished until this issue is addressed. The X7 is marketed as an online-capable player; it should be able to do that efficiently.

Final Thoughts

The FiiO X7 is a great device overall. Is it perfect? No. There are a few standout things that need work. It’s too thick, the Android version is old, and there’s some interference noise when streaming. But I figure that these concerns would be minor to most audio lovers who pick this up. We can’t forget that the X7 is a dedicated audio player above all.

But then I look at the steep retail price tag – $700. My feeling is that a device like the X7 should be perfect at that price-point, and have more audio features (like a bass boost or balanced output out of the box). The amp module concept does add some uniqueness and versatility, so props to FiiO for that. There also aren’t many Android HiFi players out there, and the X7 is a real fine one out of the bunch.

FiiO X7 product page

Bouncing Journey: the little ball that could [Review]

Summary –

Bouncing Journey is the story of a blue ball (apparently his name is Zhee) that is intent on rescuing the princess ball who was captured by the evil squares. On this journey, you will help Zhee collect stars, defeat squares, and make is way through the maze-like levels to rescue his fair maiden.

Developer: Lohf-Zigomard Productions

Highlights

• Free to download (supported by ads between levels)
• Exceptional physics engine
• Vibrant colors

Setup –

Setup is fairly straight forward. Download the application from Google Play and launch (no Google Play Games integration). The download is pretty large for not requiring wifi (184MB) but depending on your data plan it may not be a big deal.

Impression –

Have you ever wanted to turn into a ball and travel through the world rolling on trampolines that randomly toss you into the air? If you have, Bouncing Journey is for you; if not, then you can enjoy being the god that tosses the ball (Zhee) in whatever direction you please.

The gameplay experience is wonderful. The controls are responsive and the physics are great. Things fall as you expect and bounce, or not, appropriately on surfaces. The first level quickly tells the story of the princess getting kidnapped and Zhee being dropped into a dungeon from which he must escape to rescue her.

Five worlds to play through

There are two objectives to each level; collecting all of the stars and finding the finish line. The stars (like many other games) are a rating of how well you complete each level. The stars become increasingly difficult to get to get as the levels progress. Unfortunately, there is no advantage to collecting all the stars; I would love to see something added here to make it worth my while to collect them.

Getting to the finish line is the main goal of each level. When you reach the end of the level the square that holds the princess is there to taunt you and continues his escape with the princess (he is a cheater – he can fly).

Falling from the sky

Unfortunately, the graphics are the major letdown. While they have included bright, vibrant colors the graphic style used here is sub-par. If these were tuned up and refined this could make this game a must play.

Likes:

• Bright colors
• Great physics

Dislikes:

• Graphics could use refinement
• Limited depth
• Stars are not beneficial

Conclusion –

Bouncing Journey is an entertaining game with complexity, dungeons, and great physics. Improving the graphics and adding some reward for collecting stars would move this game to another level. If you feel like helping Zhee rescue his princess please download and give Bouncing Journey a shot.

Your smartphone is really dirty. Start controlling the grime and bacteria with an all in one tool (Hans Swipe)

I was watching Jimmy Kimmel the other night and he reminded me of an old article I read from Time Magazine about the dirtiness of our hands and smartphones.

According to London scientists, 1 in 6 phones has fecal matter on it. In another word, there is a high chance your smartphone has poop on it. The study reasoned that people do not wash their hands after using the restroom, and transfer the fecal matter onto their phones. The vast majority of us do not know what others do in the restroom, but many people are seen going into stalls with smartphones in hand. That contributes to the nastiness too.

E.Coli is commonly found in human fecal matter and can make you very sick if ingested. E. Coli was behind the massive food poisonings earlier this year from Chipotle, and I am not linking smartphones to that incident, but am simply stating what E.Coli can do to you.

Smartphones are a somewhat new phenomena, only gaining massive acceptance over the last 10 years, so we haven’t had a lot of time to dissect their overall impacts on our daily lives. We have learned over the past few hundred years how good hygiene, like cleaning teeth, pasteurizing milk, washing hands, and bathing can all lead to longer lives. Yet for many of us, we NEVER clean our smartphones with anything more than the back of our t-shirts or sweaters.

Our phones go practically everywhere with us: the bathroom, changing diapers, in the kitchen for recipes, the gym, at the dinner table, in the office and car. They’re with us more than any other device and they are dragging the germs they have accumulated along with them. Logic would tell us we need to start cleaning our smartphones a little better than what we have been doing.

I use a multitude of device cleaners when I am home, but the one I have in the office and in my car is the HÄNS Swipe all in one cleaning kit.

Description

HÄNS is a dual-sided, all-in-one device cleaner for complete and convenient on-the-go use. It’s very simple to use and you can control the cleanliness of your smartphone or tablet in less than one minute.

First, Swipe with the Cleaning Side to apply HÄNS Cleaning Solution and begin actively cleaning and cutting through and lifting grease, grime, dirt, and oils.

Then flip and Swipe to Polish; removing any remaining residue.

HÄNS works that easily and that well. Clean your smartphones, tablets, touchscreens, car touchscreens, plus cases and covers and more. ” Germs can live up to a week in the grease, grime and oil that builds up when not properly cleaned, making your device’s surface a germ breeding ground!”

Even if you don’t care about germs, you should be at a minimum using some sort of cleaner to give you the best pictures possible.

Fully cleaned.

Grease build up on the camera lens can completely ruin a picture and trying to wipe off grease with cotton isn’t going to work.

I highly recommend the Hans Swipe all in one cleaning tool for everyone who owns a smartphone or tablet. Don’t bring the gym bacteria to the dinner table with your smartphone. Wash your smartphone like you wash your hands.

I also use a variety of other cleaners when I am at home. I listed them below and they are great for cleaning larger devices like televisions. Consider picking one up for yourself and loved ones too.

HÄNS Swipe : Clean 1:1 Bundle – $22.95 Amazon

• HÄNS – A Dual-Sided Clean like never before
• First apply HÄNS Cleaning Solution to actively clean. Second, use the Polishing Side to remove any remaining residue
• Refill for 1000’s of more cleans – Creating Zero Waste
• Helps control the spread of germs
• 1:1 Bundle contains 1 HÄNS Swipe – Clean and 1 Refill bottle of HÄNS Cleaning Solution

HÄNS Swipe – $14.95 Amazon

• Easy to use – Swipe On, Swipe Off for an On-Demand Clean
• Antimicrobial – Clean without the use of harsh chemicals
• Pre-Loaded with HÄNS Cleaning Solution to last hundreds of Cleans, Refillable for 1,000’s more
• Helps control the spread of germs
• All-In-One, On-The-Go Design – Clean Anywhere, Anytime

Screen Cleaner ROGGE DUO-Clean – $14.95 Amazon

• Streak-Free, Antibacterial, Antistatic, Allergy-Free, Alcohol-Free, Ammonia-Free Screen Cleaner.
• Removes grease, dust, oils, fingerprints, smears and other dirts safely and efficiently.
• Authorized and recommended by leading computer and TV screen manufacturers.
• Perfect for all LED, LCD, OLED, Ultra HD, Curved, Plasma, Flat TV, Computer, Phone, Tablet, Touch Screens and other sensitive surfaces.
• Screen cleaning kit includes: 8.4 FLOZ (250ml) Cleaning Spray & Extra Large Microfiber Cloth.

Screen Mom Screen Cleaner Kit – $15.95 Amazon

• Incredible Value – Costs less than 1 penny per spray; Clean your TV or laptop 100 times for less than $1
• Safe and Natural – Plant based product with no odor, alcohol, ammonia, or harmful phosphates; safe to use around family and pets
• Streak Free – ScreenMom gives your screen a like new appearance again that you will love
• Gently Cleans – HD TVs, PC monitors, Kindle Fire, Tablet, Laptops, Smartphone display, Apple Mac Products, iPhone, and cell phones displays
• Product Tested – on all major brands

iCloth Touchscreen Cleaning Wipes – $24.99 Amazon

• Designed to clean all tech device displays and touchscreen surfaces. Fast and effective. No drips, no streaks, no film. Suitable for daily use.
• Achieve maximum optical clarity by easily removing residue, smears, dirt, fingerprint grease, sweat, makeup, everyday grime and gunk. Smooths surface for optimal Stylus response. Equally good for eyewear.
• Proudly made in America. Our NO-RISK GUARANTEE: If your iCloth experience is not 100% positive we will make it right or refund your money.
• Preserve good resale value: our aerospace-grade soft fabric wipes are premoistened with our purified water-based formula – contains isopropyl alcohol (not harmful ethyl alcohol) and proprietary ingredients that are safe on all sensitive optics and specialty coatings.

AppLock+: Your phone’s security is at risk without it [Review]

AppLock+ offers a unique spin on mobile device security. Instead of being relegated to a one time pin unlock to access your device, AppLock+ offers you the ability lock and require a pin code for any and every app on your device.

Developer: AVIRA

Cost: Free (further features unlockable via in-app purchase)

Highlights

• Beautiful, simple, and effective user interface
• Affordable
• Unique take on mobile security

Review

At this point in time, most of us are pretty used to the standard unlock features for our mobile devices; we either swipe to unlock, hold to unlock, or, for extra security, we enter a pin number. There’s nothing wrong with this setup in and of itself, but some people just need a little more security for their devices. Enter AppLock+.

AppLock+ is unlike any security application I’ve ever seen. What makes it unique is that it offers you the ability to lock down individual apps and features on you device with and require a pin number to access them. And that’s only the tip of the iceberg. You can further customize these locks by scheduling a specific app, or group of apps, to lock and unlock on specific days and times of the week, and you can even configure apps to lock based upon your geographic location.

This also brings me to the next feature I really like about AppLock+: grouping. Some of us have tons and tons of apps on our phones and the idea of going through each of them individually and configuring a lock for them can seem daunting and troublesome. AppLock+ has you covered by offering app grouping. You can lock down apps in groups based on their function. For example, your social media apps will be grouped together under AppLock’s Group tab, and you can configure lock options for all of them in bulk versus configuring locks for each of them individually. If you decide that you want specific lock configurations for any of these apps, however, you still have the ability to configure them individually.

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Group locking in AppLock+ is not perfect. The default groups AppLock creates for you are pretty effective. You can also create and customize your own groups, but the default ones AppLock creates will suffice for most users. Unfortunately, you really start running into problems when you want to configure lock settings for an individual app that happens to be nested in a group.

Using social media apps as an example once again: if I want to configure a lock for, say, Google + by itself, I have to go into the Groups tab, select ‘Social media apps’ and then swipe the Google + entry to the left to delete it from the group. I then have to go back to the Apps tab and find Google +, select it, and then I can configure the lock options for it individually. This does not take that much time to do in the scheme of things, but it’s inconvenient and I would love to be able to just go to the Apps tab and configure the apps individually without having to mess with the app’s group if it happens to be in one.

On the settings front, AppLock+ is pretty simple. The Settings menu consists of six items:

• Enabled
• Change Pin
• Change Recovery Password
• Device Administrator – AppLock+ needs this permission to allow you to lock down individual apps
• Unlock Duration
• Lock apps when screen is off

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My favorite setting in AppLock is the ability to set an unlock duration. I had mine set at five minutes. Essentially what this feature does, is it will not require you to enter your pin code for a recently used app, after closing it, for a designated amount of time; in my case, five minutes. This can be quite convenient and help eliminate potential frustration by having to enter your pin every time you re-open an app that you were using just recently. This is great for multi-tasking on your device.

User Interface

AppLock+ is beautiful. I bragged about it’s UI to a fellow AndroidGuy’s writer not long after installing it on my phone. I like that there’s not a lot of menus and sub menus to navigate. The white color scheme works really well. It almost has sort of a futuristic lab feel. In my opinion, AppLock+ defines what I would call minimalistic effectiveness, in that it offers a very basic and simple UI that still captures the power and features you would find in a complex and convoluted UI. I applaud AVIRA for accomplishing this.

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Apps tab

Groups tab

In-app Purchases

As much as I dislike in-app purchases, AppLock+ is very reasonable about them. The app will be effective and adequate for most users without requiring them to spend a dime. You can, however, unlock the geo-lock and schedule lock features individually, or as a bundle. The bundle unlock was $2.21 at the time of this review.

Conclusion

I am very impressed with AppLock+. It’s a great solution if you’re looking for a little extra security for you device. AVIRA definitely needs to make the above suggested changes to the app’s grouping feature, and I would also like to see them make the numbers on the pin screen bigger and with more space in between them. I found myself mistyping my pin if I was entering it very quickly. Despite these issues, AppLock+ is a great app and is definitely worthy of your consideration.

AppLock+ – Google Play Store

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FiiO X7 Android-powered digital audio player review

The growing desire for higher audio quality means that Android is showing more presence in the digital audio player (DAP) world. Folks may see it silly to carry around an additional device when our smartphones can play audio, but unfortunately, the quality isn’t great on phones yet. LG has recently shown an effort to remedy this with it’s B&O HiFi module for the LG G5.

Therefore, things are getting interesting in the portable audio market, as manufacturers try for the first time to power their devices with Android. A promising attempt that we’re reviewing today is the FiiO X7. FiiO is a Chinese manufacturer that has made a boom with audio lovers by producing great bang for the buck devices.

However, the X7 isn’t such device. It’s new territory for FiiO – a premium flagship (with a premium price). And Android is along for the ride. Let’s check out if that was a good move.

Design

FiiO takes the typical “premium” approach to design with the X7 by building it from a block of metal. That’s no understatement. It’s thick, as if FiiO doesn’t care whatsoever about device thinness like the rest of the industry does.

I’m personally not one to care for the thin fetish that surrounds mobile devices, but the X7 does manage find my limit. It shows through a pocket and is heavy (220 grams). It’s not a huge deal, but I wish that FiiO would have recognized the considerable girth and worked it down.

The X7 is 16.6mm thick

If we look at the profile, you’ll see that part of thickness is attributed to a hump on the back and an elevated display. It would have been nice if the front and back were flush with the body, and the protruding display is a bit worrisome. That makes the glass more vulnerable to life’s perils.

FiiO put in some nice looking design cues in the metal to up the aesthetics. The edges on both front and back have a shiny chamfer, the finish on the metal is super smooth, and the physical buttons have a flashy circular texture.

The panel under the display has a sweet brushed-metal look. Something you won’t notice until you turn the X7 on is that there’s a blue light embedded between the glass and metal. There’s no real purpose for it that I can tell, I think it’s just merely to look cool.

You’ll notice a symmetric button layout on both sides. The left side has the power button and volume rocker, and the right side has the play/pause button and back/forward track rocker. Also on the left is support for microSD expansion – always a welcomed feature. You can drop in up to 128GB extra on top of the on-board 32GB.

The bottom of the X7 is pretty simple; there’s the 3.5mm headphone jack and microUSB port.

But there’s actually more than meets the eye here. The portion of the X7 below the display is the amp component and is removable via the T5 Torx screws on the sides. FiiO designed the device to be able to accept different amp modules for headphones with higher power requirements.

The unit comes with the lowest power module installed (which works just fine with most headphones), but if you find yourself needing more volume headroom, FiiO produced two higher power tiers that you can purchase. There’s also a module that can do a balanced output.

Lastly, on the top of the X7, you’ll just find a 3.5mm jack for line out or coaxial output.

Performance

Let’s take a look at what’s under the hood.

• Chipset: Rockchip RK3188 SoC (quad-core @ 1.4GHz) and 1GB of RAM
• Display: 3.97″ IPS LCD, 480×800 resolution
• Storage: 32GB internal, with microSD expandability up to 128GB
• Battery: 3,500mAh (non-removable)
• DAC: SABRE ESS ES9018S
• Connectivity: WiFi (2.4GHz, 802.11 b/g/n) and Bluetooth 2.4GHz V4.0 + EDR
• Software: Android 4.4.4 (KitKat), customized and FiiO Music app
• Supported audio formats: WAV, FLAC, APE, ALAC, WMA, MP3, OGG, DXD, DSD64/128, and PCM (up to 384kHz/64-bit)

The core specs are yesteryear, but this is a digital audio player first and foremost. FiiO packs the X7 where it counts in that regard – there’s a hefty battery, plenty of storage, and a proven digital-to-analog converter (DAC).

The performance is where you’d expect from a lower spec’d device. It gets the job done, but doesn’t necessarily fly. In my use, there was the occasional hiccup, but navigation has been surprisingly smooth overall.

The same can be said for the display. It functions just fine. The low resolution is a little hard to swallow if you’re a snob like me, but the fact that it’s a small 4″ size helps the ppi a little bit. Viewing angles are decent; the image slightly dims but you can see the content at even the most extreme angle.

The 3,500mAh battery performed well in my experience. I typically stream HiFi music using TIDAL over WiFi and the battery dissipated roughly 10% an hour.

With my on/off usage, I was glad that the X7 minimally sips battery on idle. You can further efficiency by setting the device to turn off after a certain time. And of course, the battery life is a little better on offline mode.

Software

*It’s crucial to update the firmware upon receiving the X7. FiiO has since made important updates, such as sound quality improvements and additional software features. This review uses Firmware v1.8.

I was somewhat surprised to see that the X7 runs a pretty old version of Android – 4.4.4 (KitKat). Any newer Android device should be at least running Lollipop. But it is what it is. The X7 is meant to be a digital audio player with Android capabilities. Let’s go over what that means.

FiiO subtly but heavily customized Android for its own. When you boot up the X7, you’re greeted with a fairly bare-bones, stock interface. You’ll however find significant tweaks here and there. For instance, the top pull-down has a tile layout of different functions, as opposed to notifications.

This isn’t a phone, so notifications aren’t so crucial. Weirdly, sometimes the pull-down does show me notifications. And I, for the life of me, can’t figure out how the system decides to show me either the tiles of functions or notifications. I’d be nice if FiiO incorporates a way to flip between them.

The lock screen always shows the basic playback controls – play/pause and previous or next track. Fortunately, the controls aren’t just tied to FiiO’s own music app, but third-party services as well. That goes for the X7’s physical button controls too. I use TIDAL for my HiFi listening, and had no major problems with integration on the X7. The only bug that I found is when you pause the music for a while, the play button doesn’t reinitiate it. You have to go back into the app and hit play.

You’ll also find that FiiO made some additions to the system settings. Under Sound Settings, you can change the Gain (amplification) between High and Low, or alter the L/R channel balance.

Some folks (including myself) found that blue light on the front of the X7 to be annoying in dark environments. Within the Display settings, FiiO considerately added control for its brightness and status when the device charging or playing (the light can be lit, pulsing, or off).

A few more notable, custom features:

• Powertimer setting – Set an idle timer, for X7 to sleep or power off.
• Power-on mode – FiiO has two modes that the X7 can operate, in Android mode or FiiO Music only. The FiiO Music mode only gives you access to the music app. It saves battery if you only plan to use the X7 to listen to stored music.
• USB DAC function – The X7 can be used as an external DAC, if you wish to use another source.

Unfortunately, there is no global EQ setting. The custom FiiO music app keeps its 10-band, customizable equalizer for itself.

Speaking of the FiiO music app, it’s nicely user-friendly. The app scans device’s storage for any music and organizes it in the interface. Navigation is pretty intuitive, except, you may not know what some of the icon buttons mean until you try them.

Tap the Now Playing bar on the bottom to expand it. You then have typical playback controls, a favorites button, and a shortcut to the EQ. The settings cog shows up on the top left corner. There’s not much more that the app’s settings offer than the system’s sound settings, it’s mainly options for the app’s UI.

Sound

*For my testing, I used the X7 with Sennheiser IE 800 and Shure SE846 earphones.

Being that the X7 is FiiO’s top-end audio device, you can probably guess that the sound is killer. Indeed. Let’s go over how it excels and what you should know.

Overall, the sound is clean and concise. This is what a DAC should do – articulate the signal so that you can clearly hear each element of the sound. You won’t find muddied frequencies here.

The treble and the soundstage are two aspects that stood out to me, and made my headphones shine. The X7 gives highs a wonderful presence, where sometimes inferior DACs allow the detail to get lost in the mix. The soundstage is satisfyingly wide. It brings another level to the music and experience.

The mid-range frequencies are right behind. Shure’s headphones are known for prominent mids, and together with the X7, I get full power from my SE846 earphones. Guitar strums feel like they’re right on your ears. I have heard deeper vocal details from the iFi Micro iDSD DAC I’ve reviewed, but the X7 isn’t far behind.

However, the X7 is “reference” sounding to my ears. That’s not necessarily a bad thing; it depends what you like. To me, the sound could be livelier, particularly on the low-end. The bass detail is great, but I could use more oomph. I wish that FiiO had included an analog bass boost like many audio manufacturers do on their units.

I must mention that at times I hear some static noise when streaming music. I checked with FiiO and turns out that the X7 can transmits some interference while listening on WiFi. In this case, it happens when the tracks buffer (for a few seconds). You can check out their response on Head-Fi.org, but in short, that’s just how it is on the X7. Adding interference resistance could compromise audio quality, and FiiO does not want to risk that.

That’s understandable, and you could download offline content from streaming services, which would bypass the interference. I just can’t help feel like device isn’t finished until this issue is addressed. The X7 is marketed as an online-capable player; it should be able to do that efficiently.

Final Thoughts

The FiiO X7 is a great device overall. Is it perfect? No. There are a few standout things that need work. It’s too thick, the Android version is old, and there’s some interference noise when streaming. But I figure that these concerns would be minor to most audio lovers who pick this up. We can’t forget that the X7 is a dedicated audio player above all.

But then I look at the steep retail price tag – $700. My feeling is that a device like the X7 should be perfect at that price-point, and have more audio features (like a bass boost or balanced output out of the box). The amp module concept does add some uniqueness and versatility, so props to FiiO for that. There also aren’t many Android HiFi players out there, and the X7 is a real fine one out of the bunch.

FiiO X7 product page

Bouncing Journey: the little ball that could [Review]

Summary –

Bouncing Journey is the story of a blue ball (apparently his name is Zhee) that is intent on rescuing the princess ball who was captured by the evil squares. On this journey, you will help Zhee collect stars, defeat squares, and make is way through the maze-like levels to rescue his fair maiden.

Developer: Lohf-Zigomard Productions

Highlights

• Free to download (supported by ads between levels)
• Exceptional physics engine
• Vibrant colors

Setup –

Setup is fairly straight forward. Download the application from Google Play and launch (no Google Play Games integration). The download is pretty large for not requiring wifi (184MB) but depending on your data plan it may not be a big deal.

Impression –

Have you ever wanted to turn into a ball and travel through the world rolling on trampolines that randomly toss you into the air? If you have, Bouncing Journey is for you; if not, then you can enjoy being the god that tosses the ball (Zhee) in whatever direction you please.

The gameplay experience is wonderful. The controls are responsive and the physics are great. Things fall as you expect and bounce, or not, appropriately on surfaces. The first level quickly tells the story of the princess getting kidnapped and Zhee being dropped into a dungeon from which he must escape to rescue her.

Five worlds to play through

There are two objectives to each level; collecting all of the stars and finding the finish line. The stars (like many other games) are a rating of how well you complete each level. The stars become increasingly difficult to get to get as the levels progress. Unfortunately, there is no advantage to collecting all the stars; I would love to see something added here to make it worth my while to collect them.

Getting to the finish line is the main goal of each level. When you reach the end of the level the square that holds the princess is there to taunt you and continues his escape with the princess (he is a cheater – he can fly).

Falling from the sky

Unfortunately, the graphics are the major letdown. While they have included bright, vibrant colors the graphic style used here is sub-par. If these were tuned up and refined this could make this game a must play.

Likes:

• Bright colors
• Great physics

Dislikes:

• Graphics could use refinement
• Limited depth
• Stars are not beneficial

Conclusion –

Bouncing Journey is an entertaining game with complexity, dungeons, and great physics. Improving the graphics and adding some reward for collecting stars would move this game to another level. If you feel like helping Zhee rescue his princess please download and give Bouncing Journey a shot.

Your smartphone is really dirty. Start controlling the grime and bacteria with an all in one tool (Hans Swipe)

I was watching Jimmy Kimmel the other night and he reminded me of an old article I read from Time Magazine about the dirtiness of our hands and smartphones.

According to London scientists, 1 in 6 phones has fecal matter on it. In another word, there is a high chance your smartphone has poop on it. The study reasoned that people do not wash their hands after using the restroom, and transfer the fecal matter onto their phones. The vast majority of us do not know what others do in the restroom, but many people are seen going into stalls with smartphones in hand. That contributes to the nastiness too.

E.Coli is commonly found in human fecal matter and can make you very sick if ingested. E. Coli was behind the massive food poisonings earlier this year from Chipotle, and I am not linking smartphones to that incident, but am simply stating what E.Coli can do to you.

Smartphones are a somewhat new phenomena, only gaining massive acceptance over the last 10 years, so we haven’t had a lot of time to dissect their overall impacts on our daily lives. We have learned over the past few hundred years how good hygiene, like cleaning teeth, pasteurizing milk, washing hands, and bathing can all lead to longer lives. Yet for many of us, we NEVER clean our smartphones with anything more than the back of our t-shirts or sweaters.

Our phones go practically everywhere with us: the bathroom, changing diapers, in the kitchen for recipes, the gym, at the dinner table, in the office and car. They’re with us more than any other device and they are dragging the germs they have accumulated along with them. Logic would tell us we need to start cleaning our smartphones a little better than what we have been doing.

I use a multitude of device cleaners when I am home, but the one I have in the office and in my car is the HÄNS Swipe all in one cleaning kit.

Description

HÄNS is a dual-sided, all-in-one device cleaner for complete and convenient on-the-go use. It’s very simple to use and you can control the cleanliness of your smartphone or tablet in less than one minute.

First, Swipe with the Cleaning Side to apply HÄNS Cleaning Solution and begin actively cleaning and cutting through and lifting grease, grime, dirt, and oils.

Then flip and Swipe to Polish; removing any remaining residue.

HÄNS works that easily and that well. Clean your smartphones, tablets, touchscreens, car touchscreens, plus cases and covers and more. ” Germs can live up to a week in the grease, grime and oil that builds up when not properly cleaned, making your device’s surface a germ breeding ground!”

Even if you don’t care about germs, you should be at a minimum using some sort of cleaner to give you the best pictures possible.

Fully cleaned.

Grease build up on the camera lens can completely ruin a picture and trying to wipe off grease with cotton isn’t going to work.

I highly recommend the Hans Swipe all in one cleaning tool for everyone who owns a smartphone or tablet. Don’t bring the gym bacteria to the dinner table with your smartphone. Wash your smartphone like you wash your hands.

I also use a variety of other cleaners when I am at home. I listed them below and they are great for cleaning larger devices like televisions. Consider picking one up for yourself and loved ones too.

HÄNS Swipe : Clean 1:1 Bundle – $22.95 Amazon

• HÄNS – A Dual-Sided Clean like never before
• First apply HÄNS Cleaning Solution to actively clean. Second, use the Polishing Side to remove any remaining residue
• Refill for 1000’s of more cleans – Creating Zero Waste
• Helps control the spread of germs
• 1:1 Bundle contains 1 HÄNS Swipe – Clean and 1 Refill bottle of HÄNS Cleaning Solution

HÄNS Swipe – $14.95 Amazon

• Easy to use – Swipe On, Swipe Off for an On-Demand Clean
• Antimicrobial – Clean without the use of harsh chemicals
• Pre-Loaded with HÄNS Cleaning Solution to last hundreds of Cleans, Refillable for 1,000’s more
• Helps control the spread of germs
• All-In-One, On-The-Go Design – Clean Anywhere, Anytime

Screen Cleaner ROGGE DUO-Clean – $14.95 Amazon

• Streak-Free, Antibacterial, Antistatic, Allergy-Free, Alcohol-Free, Ammonia-Free Screen Cleaner.
• Removes grease, dust, oils, fingerprints, smears and other dirts safely and efficiently.
• Authorized and recommended by leading computer and TV screen manufacturers.
• Perfect for all LED, LCD, OLED, Ultra HD, Curved, Plasma, Flat TV, Computer, Phone, Tablet, Touch Screens and other sensitive surfaces.
• Screen cleaning kit includes: 8.4 FLOZ (250ml) Cleaning Spray & Extra Large Microfiber Cloth.

Screen Mom Screen Cleaner Kit – $15.95 Amazon

• Incredible Value – Costs less than 1 penny per spray; Clean your TV or laptop 100 times for less than $1
• Safe and Natural – Plant based product with no odor, alcohol, ammonia, or harmful phosphates; safe to use around family and pets
• Streak Free – ScreenMom gives your screen a like new appearance again that you will love
• Gently Cleans – HD TVs, PC monitors, Kindle Fire, Tablet, Laptops, Smartphone display, Apple Mac Products, iPhone, and cell phones displays
• Product Tested – on all major brands

iCloth Touchscreen Cleaning Wipes – $24.99 Amazon

• Designed to clean all tech device displays and touchscreen surfaces. Fast and effective. No drips, no streaks, no film. Suitable for daily use.
• Achieve maximum optical clarity by easily removing residue, smears, dirt, fingerprint grease, sweat, makeup, everyday grime and gunk. Smooths surface for optimal Stylus response. Equally good for eyewear.
• Proudly made in America. Our NO-RISK GUARANTEE: If your iCloth experience is not 100% positive we will make it right or refund your money.
• Preserve good resale value: our aerospace-grade soft fabric wipes are premoistened with our purified water-based formula – contains isopropyl alcohol (not harmful ethyl alcohol) and proprietary ingredients that are safe on all sensitive optics and specialty coatings.

Nexus 5X review: is the “all-around champ” back?

Another year, another Nexus. Except this time around, Google has released two Nexus phones. One of which is the phablet sized Nexus 6P, the all-metal Huawei smartphone that packs a punch in nearly every way possible. The other is the LG made Nexus 5X, marketed towards those looking for affordability and a smaller sized phone. Plenty of attention and anticipation has been given to the Nexus 5X this year, as it is the successor to the top sold Nexus phone back in 2013, the Nexus 5. The 5X attempts to fill the big shoes of its predecessor by bringing the year’s high-end specifications into a minimal, rectangular slab of plastic that’s around half the price of most premium flagship phones. Do Google and LG succeed this time around?

Before I start the review, a point must be made. Ever since last year, the smartphone market has taken a new direction. Many smartphone manufacturers now realize the potential of more affordable handsets, and have begun offering stellar hardware for almost half the price of the competition. We’re seeing more and more consumers purchasing these more affordable unlocked smartphones rather than the subsidized versions offered by many carriers.

High-end smartphones are entering into the “mid-range” price point, which is around $200-$300 less than they use to be a few years ago. Mid-range smartphones are going for price points between $100-$300 unlocked, and budget phones can be found for less than $100 outright, a la Moto E.

What’s my point? Compared to a couple years ago when the Nexus 5 came out, the current Nexus line has some heavy competition when it comes to price unlocked. No more can we say, “this is an amazing phone… for the price.” because there are currently a plethora of amazing phones… for the price. This leads me to the first category of the review, the overall design and build quality.

 

Design and Build Quality

My daily driver before the 5X was the Moto X 2014, another 5.2 inch phone, which currently goes for $299 unlocked. My immediate impressions of first holding the 5X left me with no excitement. I was holding a phone that felt lighter, cheaper, and more uncomfortable to hold. The first thing I noticed about the Nexus 5X design was how tall it was. Google went with an HTC kind of style that gives the phone a giant top and bottom bezel, making it look tall and narrow. I would be okay with this if there was a solid reason for how tall these bezels are, especially compared to the much more compact feeling Nexus 5 of two years ago. So far, I can’t seem to find one.

Sure, the 5X includes what looks like top and bottom front-facing speakers, but similar to the Moto X 2nd gen., only the bottom speaker provides sound for audio, while the top is merely there for voice calls.

“Who cares? At least the speaker is facing the right direction!” Well, while that statement is very popular, you won’t be very impressed with the sound coming out the 5X’s speaker. I usually love turning my phone speaker up to full volume to listen to music and for YouTube videos, but the 5X is almost painful to hear at that volume. It gets loud, louder than my Moto X, but the quality is just not there and not worth listening to at high volumes.

It’s just a bit of a bummer that the smallest Nexus offering from Google is still barely qualified to be held and used with one hand. I don’t have the biggest hands on the block, which is why I use smaller handsets and loved the original Nexus 5, but I feel betrayed that even by holding the 5X with my pinky on the bottom for support, I can barely reach the notification bar of the screen, thanks to the giant bottom chin of the phone.

As for the build quality, I have mixed feelings. The device is very light at 136 grams, but it almost feels hollow. As I tap the front or back of the phone, I feel a “springing” reaction inside, as if there is a lot of empty space. This makes me even more confused as to why Google would add so much space to the top and bottom of the phone. I cannot accept the excuse that the phone’s build quality and materials resembles the price asked, because it doesn’t. There are numerous phones that feel twice as solid and premium for the same price if not less.

Not to point out specific devices, but believe when I say the 5X build quality could be better for the price.

Negatives aside, I like the feeling of the matte plastic on the sides and back of the phone, mainly because of how smooth the backs feels when I hold it. The buttons on the right side feel great and durable, however I’ve gotten used to barely using the power button thanks to the addition of a fingerprint scanner on the back, AKA Nexus Imprint.

Nexus Imprint

One of my favorite features of the 5X is the new fingerprint scanner that Google calls Nexus Imprint. It’s placed on the back of the device right beneath the camera, and performs amazingly. The best part about it? It wakes the device without even needing to press the power button. Just place your finger on the scanner for a split second and your phone is awake. I did a quick test with my roommate’s iPhone 6 to see which scanner is faster at going to the homescreen from the unlock screen, and while it was extremely close, the Nexus 5X definitely unlocked faster. LG and Google nailed this part of the phone.

Performance

The Nexus 5X uses the Snapdragon 808 hexa-core chip capable of 64-bit computing. While this isn’t the fastest Snapdragon chip offered by Qualcomm this year, every day performance of it is incredibly close to the more powerful 810 chip. Apps launch quickly, animations are very smooth, and overall navigation of the device is easily one of the smoothest experiences of any phone out there.

The only downside to the Nexus 5X in terms of performance is multitasking, but only slightly. When using both my Nexus 5X and 6P and switching between apps, it was obvious which device had 3GB of RAM and which one only has 2GB. On average, I found that I could switch back and fourth between 5-7 regular apps (not games) before they were closed by the system and had to relaunch. If I kept the device on without powering it off for almost a week, the amount of apps the phone could keep running shrunk down to around 3-4 before closing them.

Gaming on the device is also quite smooth, as I played Modern Combat 5 Blackout, Contre Jour, Smashy Road, and Asphalt 8. Modern Combat wasn’t a very smooth gameplay experience, averaging about 25 frames per second, but other games performed just fine. From the one second launch of Google’s camera app, to scrolling through Google Now, Google+ and Chrome, the Nexus 5X is a solid performance upgrade from the original Nexus 5 and many other phones.

Battery

For a phone with a 5.2 1080p display and 2,700mAh battery, I was expecting a bit more from the 5X. My day starts at around 9:00 when I take the phone off the charger, and typically I was getting till about 8:30 pm. when the battery reached about 10% and I made the move to plug it back in. I consider myself a moderate smartphone user. I watch a couple YouTube videos (especially now that it’s holiday video game season), text using Google’s Messenger app, install and app or two and browse reddit quite a bit.

I have about three one hour long classes a day that I don’t use the phone at all either, so the 5X seems to have a heavy battery drain when the screen is on. I think this is because LG is still using some pretty old LCD technology that’s not very battery efficient, but I’ll talk about that in the display section of the review. However, when the screen is off and the phone is sleeping, that’s when the real battery saving magic happens. Doze, which is one of Android 6.0’s newest features, is a battery saving software optimization that restricts heavy app activity when the phone is sleeping. With my Moto X ’14, I lose about 3-5% battery when my phone is off during my hour class. With the 5X, I didn’t lose a single percent.

So, if you’re a user that doesn’t have the screen on all the time and keeps the phone asleep a lot, you’re going to be getting great battery life.

Software

The premier feature of Google’s Nexus phone are the promise of the latest and greatest Android updates before any other phone. The Nexus 5X ships with Android 6.0 AKA Marshmallow. Marshmallow is a much more polished and speedy version of Android 5.0 Lollipop. Performance of Android 6.0 on this phone flies through anything you throw at it, and because this phone will be updated for quite some time with newer version of Android, you should not expect this software to slow down anytime soon, especially compared to other smartphones on the market that weigh themselves down with heavy UI skins.

Android has needed better battery management for a long time, and Google’s finally taking steps to improve this with Doze. Doze has eliminated my fear of not plugging in my phone overnight, risking the loss of 5-15% battery life. Now, I’ll be surprised if I lose more than one percent overnight. Doze works fantastically.

Google Now on Tap is a new feature exclusively for Marshmallow that allows the users to hold the home button on any screen to scan all words present to provide an overlay of Google search results right on top of the screen pertaining to information you need. It’s a really neat feature that works almost flawlessly, and I can’t wait to see what Google does next with it.

Overall, the software of this phone leaves me with the impression I’ve never experienced before with Android. I no longer feel like I’m beta testing Android. I feel like I’m using an incredibly polished software that does just what I need it to and more.

Display

The Nexus 5X sports a 5.2 inch 1920x1080p display using IPS LCD technology. If you have any worry that images won’t look as sharp as a 1440p display, ditch that thought now. The 1080p display on this phone is incredibly crisp and you’re not going to be noticing any pixels. The only problem with this display is the fact that LG is using the same screen tech that the original Nexus 5 had, which was considered cost-effective even in 2013. The only difference is this screen is .2 inches bigger. When you compared this screen against the Nexus 6P or most newer AMOLED panels, you’re definitely going to prefer the latter.

Colors are a bit washed out    and don’t pop as much as AMOLED panels. What’s most troubling is the fact that LG is capable of making LCD panels look amazing, such as their Quantum Dot displays on the G4 and V10 smartphones. Yet they still use dated LCD panels for the 5X because it’s considered a “budget phone”. Overall, I consider this screen average for today’s offerings, and wasn’t made to “wow” anyone.

Camera

Nexus devices have always lacked an impressive camera, but Google aims to change that this year. The Nexus 5X and 6P share the same 12.3 megapixel camera with laser auto-focus and dual flash. While this doesn’t sound as impressive as other camera offerings on paper, such as the Galaxy S6 and G4’s 16 megapixel camera, the real world results are exceptional.

“The best all-around camera we’ve ever put into a Nexus shines in low-light conditions.” Google was not kidding when they stated this on the device page.

The camera on the 5X captures the perfect amount of detail and is the best camera I’ve ever used in low light situations. As I took a walk through campus at night, I was amazed with the clarity the 5X was able to capture. Take a look at some of the pictures below. I wouldn’t dare attempt these with my beloved Moto X 2nd gen.

Switching to the front of the phone, the 5X offers a large 5 megapixel camera, and it performs just as it should. I use my front-facing camera mainly for Snapchat, and I was very impressed with the camera capturing low-light selfies without much noise.

I don’t record very much video with my phones, but my judgement on the Nexus 5X’s video recording capabilities are average. The detail and focusing abilities are great for me, but I really wish they included optical image stabilization, something the original Nexus 5 included. Even with the software image stabilization enabled, the videos were shakier than I would have liked. The new Sony Xperia series, as well as LG and Samsung flagships provide much better stabilization in their cameras.

Conclusion

The Nexus 5X is almost everything I wanted for the successor to Google’s 2013 flagship phone, but it’s not enough for me to keep as my new daily driver. The build quality feels cheaper than it should be considering other options in the same price range with better build materials, such as the new Moto X, OnePlus 2, OnePlus X, and more. I also don’t see why Google couldn’t have included the Snapdragon 810 instead of 808, considering they used the latest and greatest Snapdragon 800 in 2013’s Nexus 5. Google also skipped out on higher RAM memory, and it definitely shows when multitasking slows down when not powering the phone off after a few days.

However, the Nexus 5X offers a camera that competes heavily for best smartphone camera of 2015, the best battery life of any Nexus phone, and zippy performance that bests just about any high-end Android phone today. On top of this, you’re getting the latest Android updates before any other phone, and monthly security updates from Google, keeping this one of the most secure phones available today. Google currently offers this phone for $329, but that will go back up soon. For that price, I heavily recommend this phone. But once the price goes back up to the original offer, that recommendation is a lot harder to make.

Nexus 5X at the Google Store

 

The Asus Zenfone 2 is the perfect example of why unlocked phones will rule the market in 2016 (Review)

Being a writer definitely has its perks. The last two phones I reviewed were the Google Nexus 6P and the Samsung Galaxy Note 5. Both define  “flagship”, and impress in just about every way. You can argue that both phones would please almost any Android fan, but the major downside to both devices is the hefty price tag that is associated with them. The Nexus 6P starts at $499 while the Galaxy Note 5 starts at $749 excluding any deals. Unfortunately for our readers, when we only review flagship devices, we are missing out on saving you money by reviewing budget and mid-range devices.

In the U.S. we basically have access to high-end devices like the Galaxy lineup, the Nexus lineup and iPhones, or we have over the counter type pre-paid phones which run anywhere from $20 to $100 dollars and offer bare minimum features. So basically, you either have to shell out a ton of money for a full-featured smartphone, or you can give up all features for a basic phone that can text, make phone calls and send emails.

Why aren’t there many mid-range phones in the U.S.? I really don’t have the answer to this question, but overseas you can find dozens of smartphones in the $150-300 price range that may not feature the super powerful internal hardware specs of flagships, but they do feature hardware that performs quite well.

The review today is the first of many I will be doing, of low to mid range devices, in the coming months to provide you with a full and unbiased alternative to phones that cost over $500.

The Asus Zenfone 2

Asus should be a name you’re familiar with, since they make a wide range of consumer electronics for the U.S. market. They may not have a strong hold on the smartphone market locally, but they have made the Nexus 7 which has a 4.5/5 star rating from over 6,000 reviewers on Amazon.com. Asus also makes Chromebooks, home PCs, and laptops. You just may not have used a smartphone from Asus, but that’s the purpose of this review.

The Zenfone 2 has been my daily driver for the last full three weeks and let me tell you all about it.

Design and Hardware

The Asus Zenfone 2 is a full featured Android Lollipop device at a price less than $250. I have been using the international unlocked, dual SIM 5.5″ 1080p IPS display version. Powering the Zenfone 2 is an Intel Atom processor, with a hefty 4GB of RAM and 32GB of internal memory(expandable via microSD up to 128GB).

With a 5.5″ display, curved back, brushed plastic back, the Zenfone 2 reminds me of the LG G3, which was a favorite phone of mine from a year ago. The volume rocker on the Zenfone 2 is even on the back of the device, directly under the camera and LED flash. Holding the Zenfone 2 is extremely nice as it feels light and balanced, while the brushed back gives it a texture that makes it rather grippable.

Many people complain about having plastic phones but the Zenfone 2 does not at all feel or look cheaply made. The back is curved making this device extremely comfortable to hold, much more so than the Samsung Galaxy Note 5.

• Color –Black/Red/Gray/Gold
• Dimensions –77.2 x 152.5 x 3.9 mm (WxDxH) ~ 10.9 mm
• Weight –170 g
• CPU
  Intel® Atom™ Quad Core Z3580 (2.3GHz), PowerVR G6430, with OpenGL 3.0 support
  Intel® Atom™ Quad Core Z3560 (1.8GHz), PowerVR G6430, with OpenGL 3.0 support
• Memory
  2GB/4GB LPDDR3 RAM
• Storage
  16GB/32GB/64GB eMMC Flash
• Memory Slot –MicroSD card (up to 128 GB)
• Modem
  Intel 7262 + Intel 2230
• Connectivity Technology
  WLAN 802.11 ac
  USB
  Bluetooth V4.0, NFC
  Dual Micro SIM card
• Network Standard

  Data Rate:
  HSPA+: UL 5.76 / DL 42 Mbps
  DC-HSPA+: UL 5.76 / DL 42 Mbps
  LTE Cat4:UL 50 / DL 150 Mbps Network type: GSM+WCDMA+LTE-FDD
  2G: GSM 850/900/1800/1900MHz
  3G: WCDMA 850/900/1900/2100MHz
  4G: FDD-LTE 1800/2100MHz

• GPS/GLONASS/QZSS/SBAS/BDS
• Display
  5.5inches, Full HD 1920×1080,IPS
  Corning® Gorilla® Glass 3
• Battery
  3000 mAh Li-Polymer (non-removable)
• Camera
  Front 5 Mega-Pixel, Fix Focus, Wide View, PixelMaster
  Rear 13 Mega-Pixel, Auto Focus, PixelMaster
• Sensor
  G-Sensor/E-Compass/Gyroscope/Proximity/Ambient Light Sensor

Daily Usage

I am definitely one of the least technical writers here at AndroidGuys and my reviews reflect that as such. I don’t root, customize, or do other things that require an advanced knowledge of software. I have a full time job outside of writing, and don’t have the time nor willpower to learn those types of things. As long as my phone works well is all that really matters to me.

AT&T is my mobile service provider and happens to be compatible with my Asus Zenfone 2. In order to activate my Asus Zenfone 2, all I had to do was throw in my SIM card from my Nexus 6P. The Nexus 6P does use a Nano SIM card, whereas the Zenfone 2 uses a larger Micro SIM card, so my options were to go and get a free Micro SIM from AT&T or use a SIM adapter. I used the SIM adapter, inserted the card into the Zenfone 2 and within a minute I was up and running on the AT&T network.

The Asus Zenfone 2 is a 4g LTE capable phone, but in my area all I could connect to was the HSPA network. HSPA is theoretically slower than the latest LTE speeds, but in practice proved to be no slower or faster than the full LTE network in North County San Diego. Using the Speedtest app, I averaged 7-10mb/s download on the Zenfone 2, which is quite comparable to the 9-12mb/s I averaged on my Nexus 6P. Without getting too deep into technical details on network speed, the overall speed of my cellular connection felt identical to the Nexus 6P.

Phone calls came in as clear as any other phone I have used, which is a must have for me, because I do use my smartphone as my primary work device. I have two to four conference calls per week, so voice clarity and loudness is something I simply cannot live without. The Zenfone 2 has been a pleasant surprise and has completely impressed me for a device that can be purchased for less than $250.

 

Camera

The Asus Zenfone 2 comes with a 13MP rear camera that takes great pictures, even in less that ideal lighting conditions. No this camera isn’t as good as what you’re going to get on the Note 5, but very few cameras are. The Nexus 6P camera doesn’t even live up to the Samsung Galaxy Note 5 camera, but that doesn’t mean the Zenfone 2 camera is at all unacceptable. In some low-light conditions the camera did produce some grainy results, but in full day light and with the flash, the pictures came out quite nicely. I am more than happy with the results.

[df-gallery url=”http://www.androidguys.com/gallery/asus-zenfone-2-camera-examples/”]

 

Software

If there is one downside about this phone it really comes to the customization of Android. LG and Samsung definitely are guilty of over-customization too, but the Asus Zenfone 2 does come with many features built atop Android 5.0. Although, bear in mind, I just came from a stock Android device in the Nexus 6P, and customization of software is a subjective point of view. Some people like it and some people hate it.

Although being an unlocked device, I am VERY happy that AT&T could not get its paws on the software, and install loads of useless apps it pre-installs on devices it sell directly. In order to keep things simplified, I just installed the Google Now launcher and immediately my Zenfone 2 felt like I was using a stock Android device.

The most important factor about the software is that it felt fast. In no way did any of the customization slow the phone down. I really pushed hard on the Zenfone 2 as I do with any of my daily drivers. I make calls, send texts, use social media, take notes, play games, watch movies and capture plenty of memories with my camera. I was thoroughly impressed with the speed of the phone. It may not win benchmark tests, but neither does the Nexus 6P or Nexus 5X. What matters most is daily performance, and if a device is free of lags and memory leaks it is a winner in my book

The Samsung Galaxy Note 5 wins almost all benchmark tests, yet frequently runs into software issues. Just because a smartphone has the latest and greatest processor does not necessarily mean it will translate into the best performance. The Zenfone 2 shines in the software performance category. It just has a little too much customization that I find useless.

Although there are some nice features like “Tap to Wake Up” or Zenmotion which allows you to draw a “C’ on the screen to open up the camera. Software customization is purely subjective. What matters most is that the customization do not effect performance.

 

Display

One major area where budget and mid-range phones save money is the display, because the display is one of the major areas of build cost. The Asus Zenfone 2 does come with a 1080p IPS display, and if you have ever read my reviews, you would know I much prefer AMOLED technology to LCD or LED. AMOLED offers superior contrast levels when it comes to blacks, and it also offers fantastic color saturation.

One reason for my preference of AMOLED display is that there is never any back light bleed. Back light bleed, where you can sometimes see an abundance of light around the perimeter of the display is a pet peeve of mine. I hate it. Also IPS displays sometimes look a little washed out when it comes to color.

To my surprise, the Asus Zenfone 2 has absolutely no back light bleed, and the colors on the display look accurate and rich. Not as rich as on the Nexus 6P, but rich enough to make me happy. Display performance is something that I care about second to overall performance. If a display looks bad, I simply will not like the phone. The Zenfone 2 display is very clear and is easy on my aging eyes. The 5.5″ display falls into the sweet spot of sizes that I prefer.

 

Summary

Overall I could not be more happy than to start my journey into the budget to mid-range devices with the Asus Zenfone 2. I picked this phone to start with, because I know Asus has a great track record for creating great products at affordable prices like the Nexus 7. Intel has also proven to be quite impressive, with its relatively unknown mobile Atom chip, as it performed incredible smoothly paired with 4GB of RAM. 32GB of internal memory should be the minimum all devices come with these days, and having expandable memory is a bonus too.

Should I travel overseas I will definitely be taking advantage of the second SIM card slot. The absolute best feature of the Asus Zenfone 2 is that it can be purchased brand new for less than $250. That’s half the price of the Nexus 6P and $500 cheaper than the Samsung Galaxy Note 5. It truly makes me question why you need to spend the extra money on a flagship device. There will always be a market for flagships phones, but unlocked budget and mid-range devices are definitely worth taking a gander at. The Asus Zenfone 2 is a rock star when it comes to performance versus price.

Look for more reviews of budget and mid-range devices in the near future.

I will be giving this phone away to a lucky reader. All you have to do is make a comment below, and/or follow us on Instagram and tell us you read the Asus Zenfone 2 review. If you happen to be the winner of the Zenfone 2, please let us know how you like it.

If you would like to make a purchase, head on over to gearbest.com and check out the Asus Zenfone 2. It is currently on sale for $233 with free shipping, and a 100% 45-day satisfaction guarantee. Unlocked international smartphones are designed to work on GSM networks such as T-Mobile and AT&T.

Gearbest.com LINK

There are other models of the Zenfone 2 at gearbest.com:

Asus Zenfone 2 Selfie – $237 (limited time price)

The 6.0″ Asus Zenfone 2 Laser – $324