A couple of weeks ago, I went to the Acer pop-up store in Bondi Junction and put down my debit card for an Iconia W511, a convertible tablet in the style of the Asus Transformer series, but running Windows 8 and with a SIM slot for 3G connectivity. It didn’t have to be this way. In a parallel universe, I would have bought a Chromebook or a Nexus 10 and I would’ve thrived in the growing ecosystem of Android or Chrome OS apps. In the end, however, I made the purchasing decision I did because, based on what’s happened in the tech industry lately, I came to this realisation: that Google has shown no long-term interest in letting me …

Google’s Play Store was only just updated to bring users the new Holo look that came with the introduction of v4.0. The new version, which is currently rolling out, updates the client to v4.1.6.

Image source: AndroidOS

Appearance-wise, the main changes appear as soon as you open up the new application. The content button’s have switched from having a pure white (left picture) background, to a colourful (right picture) one, which matches its content. You will also notice that the old black background for the settings and menu items sections have changed to the holo design.

‘My Wishlist’ has become more consistent with the updated Play Store, in that it now displays all items in the card grid format, rather …

HP have surprised us today by announcing a new convertible Android-based laptop, the Slatebook x2. The Slatebook x2 goes for $479.99, which includes the keyboard dock.

For a smidgen under $500 this new convertible includes a whole lot of bang for your buck. It features some great specifications, with some of the highest quality internals you can find on the market. Further, this is the first non-NVIDIA device to come packing the Tegra 4 processor, which is no lightweight.

The Slatebook x2 features:

• Android 4.2.2 Jelly Bean
• 1920×1200 full HD 10.2″ display
• NVIDIA Tegra 4 processor
• 16GB storage (expandable via microSD)
• 2GB RAM
• Included keyboard dock

The keyboard dock extends your battery life, which can supposedly push it 8 hours …

You know that when Google I/O is only days away and the company begins to roll out updates to their applications, that it’s going to get people’s attention. Well, the current update to ‘Google Play Services’, from v3.0.27 to v3.1.36 , is no exception. Ron Amadeo over at AP has done his usual teardown on the APK and has found some exciting additions to the app, including the up-and-coming Google ‘Play Games’.

Play Games

Google Play Games is a new service which is expected to be announced at Google’s I/O. We have heard rumours floating around about what Google Play Games actually is, but now we all but have proof. Play Games will include a bunch of different features including …

As if it wasn’t already quite clear that Android is selling rather well, we have a new statistic to show us just how quickly Android is spreading. Mary Meeker, a partner in the firm KPCB, gave a little preview to her usual annual Internet Trends report at an event last night in San Francisco, and thankfully Techcrunch were there to grab some shots and let us know what she said. Although we’ll have to wait for the full report to get the details, there’s some interesting tidbits in there to be shared right now.

The highlight of the of the presentation was the finding that Android adoption is now increasing 6 times faster than iPhone adoption, up from …

So, you’ve heard the news. Google’s new Nexus 4 has become a reality and it’s going to be up for sale starting November 13th. But, the age old question stands – should you buy it?

The best way that we can help you with your decision is definitely to provide you with a comparison of the best phones around. Of course, the ‘best’ phones are open to interpretation, but we’ve taken the flagship of Windows Phone 8, the iPhone 5, the famed Galaxy S III 4G and the brand-spanking new and shiny Nexus 4.

So, where do we start. We already know a lot about the other phones and have compared them before, so the main feature of this …

Anyone out there have a Samsung Galaxy S III from Vodafone? Would you like some yummy Jelly Beans on that slab? Of course you do! Fortunately it looks like the wait may soon be over for people waiting for JellyBean on their Samsung flagship, according to the following tweet just posted by Vodafone Australia:

Jelly Bean has arrived in our labs for the Samsung GALAXY S III. Read all the latest on software update news here: http://bddy.me/PBhwsp 

And that is all we can tell you other than their update page also lists the update as having arrived, and stating that testing will commence “shortly”. So there you have it, Samsung has handed over the Jelly Bean update for the Galaxsy …

That talk we’ve heard before of a 5-inch 1080p HTC Nexus phone? It’s one massive step closer to reality. The Verge was in Tokyo today for the launch of the HTC J Butterfly, a 5-inch phone with a Full HD 1080p Super LCD 3 display, which is headed to KDDI AU (the second largest carrier in Japan).

They’ve had a hands-on look at HTC’s latest creation, and reckon the 440 ppi pixel density and the colour reproduction of the curved-glass display is “astonishing”, par excellence.  The rest of the phone’s specs match the ridiculous screen, with a Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 Pro SoC, 2GB of RAM, an 8MP camera, all running Android 4.1 Jelly Bean. Interestingly, HTC are still sticking …

Us Melbournians on Android have been unfortunate enough to be without one of the most useful iOS apps out there. This comes in the form of tramTRACKER and I’m sure you can guess what it is used for. The app itself has been very widely used on iOS devices and something that Android sorely lacked – an official tram tracking device. On iOS tramTRACKER has been downloaded 20,000 times a month and enjoys 800,000 tram requests per day.

Yes, we’ve had Tram Hunter that I have personally used almost on a daily basis and works quite well, but an official app is always welcome.

The tramTRACKER application comes with a whole host of welcome features. It allows you to locate …

On Tuesday morning, Motorola held their On Display event at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Sydney to show off their latest phones, the RAZR HD and the RAZR M (pictured above), both exclusive to Telstra. We had a chance to take a hands-on look at these two phones, so read on for our first impressions!

We’re here today at the Motorola On Display event in Sydney and have just been told of the release dates of Motorola’s latest and greatest offerings. Motorola has announced two 4G LTE enabled phones that will be exclusive to Telstra, namely, the Motorola RAZR HD and RAZR M.

Motorola’s highest end device, the RAZR HD, will be available in Telstra stores from today onwards. The RAZR HD will also come pre-loaded with Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich, with Jelly Bean hitting it by Christmas. For all of you who like to keep up-to-date, this is a very positive move from Motorola. Here’s the specifications of the RAZR HD:

• 4.7-inch Super AMOLED HD display
• 2500mAh battery
• Android 4.0.4  (soon to be

…

Samsung has recently been at the courts against Apple in the US. Unfortunately, as we all know, Apple has had one major win against Samsung – resulting in a $1.05 billion fine for the South Korean tech giant.

So, when Apple went on to announce (and soon release) the iPhone 5, Samsung wasn’t going to take this lying down. Samsung have made a quite hilarious poster which displays the similarities and differences of the iPhone 5 and the Samsung Galaxy S III.

It’s probably worth mentioning too that we don’t know the exact differences between the A6 and Exynos 4 chips found inside – but we do know that the Galaxy S III’s Exynos is quite a powerful chip set. …