Author: batteryforpc

If you live in the United States and you own a Samsung, chances are that you are enjoying much better download speeds than people using iPhones. That’s one of the findings from independent network analysis firm Opensignal.

According to the company’s latest report — published this month under the title “How the smartphone affects mobile network experience” — Samsung users in the United States “experience download speeds 8.2 Mbps faster than iPhone users” on average. In Norway, if you have a Galaxy you will enjoy a whooping 14 Mbps advantage over iPhone users and 12 Mbps more than Huawei users.

In total, Opensignal found that Samsung had faster download speeds in 35% of the 40 countries analyzed. Apple bested the rest of the manufacturers in 17.5% of the countries, including Taiwan and United Arab Emirates. The remaining 48% countries didn’t have a clear winner although “Huawei users,” the firm says, “were joint-fastest in seven countries.”

Globally, the latest Samsung top flagships experienced faster speeds than Apple and Huawei’s — the average download speeds clock at 26.6 Mbps, 25.1 Mbps, and 24.4 Mbps respectively. But if you go for the mid-range, Opensignal claims that Apple wins that race, while the low-end is dominated by Huawei smartphones.

The company also found differences in latency, which measures the responsiveness of the mobile network and can deliver a smoother experience when playing multiplayer games like Fortnite. High-tier smartphones were 14% faster than mid-tier phones and 18% faster than lower-tier phones.

Opensignal claims that it analyzes the status of mobile networks worldwide based on real user experiences on 18,000 unique smartphone models from hundreds of smartphone manufacturers. The company measures factors like download speed and latency, gathering and analyzing that data to help operators on their network optimization strategies. In the presentation of this research results, the company says that, because the latest flagships have the best network technologies, they are “a leading indicator of what the mobile experience will be in the future.”

The analysis firm says that several things can affect the user experience. The mobile network is one of them but especially it is the technologies inside of each handset, from the number of frequency bands you can connect to, carrier aggregation abilities connecting to more than one radio band at the same time, modulation type and use of multiple simultaneous antennas, and the modem supplier.

With 5G networks now being deployed and Apple not expected to launch a 5G phone until 2020, the company risks falling further behind Samsung over the next year.

Google Assistant has quietly received a major upgrade to its messaging features, giving the AI helper the ability to read messages from third-party apps.

The lack of official announcement for the new feature is odd, especially considering Android users have wanted this functionality for some time. Previously, Google Assistant could only read messages from Android Messages and Google Hangouts aloud—and not very well, either. Now, the sky is the limit: Google Assistant can read your messages from third-party apps such as Slack, WhatsApp, Discord, Telegram, and even Google’s own finicky apps like Google Voice.

Start by calling up up the Google Assistant with a “Hey, Google,” “Okay, Google,” or by pressing the Google Assistant button/icon on your device if it has one. Then, tell it to “read my messages.”

The assistant will then dictate all unread messages you have, in order, and will even swap between different apps if you have a backlog across multiple messaging services. The only exception is media messages, where Google Assistant simply says that the message contains media but doesn’t open the attached file.

In addition to the reading the messages itself, you can also request to hear who the sender is and which app it was sent from. And once Google Assistant has read the message out loud, it’s removed from your notifications.

To respond to any of your messages, you can use Google Assistant to reply via voice or by typing your response. Once you’ve sent your response, you can continue listening to your lingering unread messages.

The $79 Razer Viper is the lightest wired gaming mouse I’ve ever used. It weighs just 69 grams, which I learned is the weight of two standard-sized light bulbs. What are the benefits of such a feather-light gaming mouse? It depends on who you ask. Those who prefer a hefty mouse with added weights won’t want much to do with it, but during my week with the Viper, I really liked how easy it was to flick along the mouse pad whenever the in-game moment demands some brisk, twitchy movement.

The relative weightlessness — at least compared to the Logitech G502 Lightspeed I’ve been using, which weighs 130 grams with all of its added weight installed — doesn’t come at the expense of ergonomics. The Viper molds well to my hand, and its ambidextrous design accommodates both left- and right-handed people with two macro buttons on each of its sides. It also doesn’t come at the expense of innovative hardware features.

The Viper uses optical switches in place of mechanical ones under its main left and right mouse buttons. These improve on standard mechanical switches in some important ways. Physical switches have to hit a metallic contact to send a signal to your PC, and that signal is inherently slower and sometimes more prone to accidental misfires due to the fact that they bounce several times when you press them. Optical switches are more responsive, says Razer, and more reliable than their physical counterparts.

This is Razer’s first mouse with optical switches, though it’s not the first to market on the technology. Razer says that it helps to boost the Viper’s lifespan to an impressive 70 million clicks, which is 20 million more than the mechanical switches in Razer’s DeathAdder Elite (which is featured in our best gaming mice roundup) are capable of, and generally, well ahead of where its competitors are.

Razer is also making a big deal of its new braided “Speedflex” cable leading off of the mouse. It’s lightweight, like the mouse, and its smooth texture aids in preventing snags as it glides along your mouse pad. Razer says that it’s especially useful if you use a low DPI setting and really like to make large, sweeping arm movements when you play. The fabric that wraps around the cable looks similar to what’s used on most other braided cables, but the Viper’s cable is far more bendy, and it feels more like actual fabric than other braided cords that I’ve used.

The Viper is lean in terms of features, but, unsurprisingly, Razer squeezed a Chroma LED inside. The color and lighting pattern of the Razer logo on its top can be customized in Razer’s Synapse companion app, and it’s easy enough to find a setting that looks subdued, or if you want, the complete opposite of that. The only other LED on this mouse is on the bottom where you’ll find a textured button next to it that switches DPI settings. I’m accustomed to this button being on the top of most mice that I use, but Razer said that the overwhelming majority of professional gamers wanted it on the bottom to avoid accidental toggling it during a match.

The five DPI levels default at 400, 800, 1,200, 1,800, 2,400, and 3,200 DPI, though each can be customized in Synapse (up to 16,000 DPI). Reaching for this button might take some getting used to, but Synapse helps you stay focused on the screen with a small pop-up window that tells you what DPI selection that’s been made.

Personally, I do miss having the button on top, since I don’t play games with thousands of dollars at stake (or any dollars, for that matter), but Synapse lets me remap the buttons to my liking. Since I’m right-handed, the side buttons reserved for left-handed players are perfect candidates to handle DPI switching. It’s still a little cumbersome, but Razer’s software mostly solved this problem for me.

Like most gaming PC peripherals, the new Razer Viper is built with professional gamers, and those who aspire to be one, in mind. But this one isn’t built for all gamers. For some, its lack of a customizable weight and a small selection of macro buttons might be deal-breakers. Though, if you’re not in that crowd, the Viper’s lightweight, ambidextrous build makes it a fun addition to Razer’s lineup. And, with its optical switches advertised 70-million click limit, the $79.99 investment should last you quite some time.

With the release of Android Q Beta 5, Google announced that they would be hosting a Reddit AMA, to answer our burning questions about Android Q and almost everything else Android related. That AMA took place this afternoon, with the Android engineering team providing fun and interesting tidbits about, among other things, Android Q and what may be coming with Android R.

Screen recording

In the early releases of the Android Q beta, it was possible, with only a minor Settings change, to enable a handy, built-in screen recording UI. Unfortunately, this screen recorder was short-lived, disappearing in the third beta, outside of a change via ADB.

One redditor asked when we should expect built-in screen recording to return, outside of “super sketchy apps.” To this, the product manager for Android UI, Allen Huang, shared that screen recording is just one part of what we should expect for Android R.

Given Dave’s signed us up for scrollable screenshots AND how often users are taking screenshots – we’re taking a close look at how we can improve the whole screen-[X] experience for R. We certainly think that these types of functions are things that should be core to the operating system.

Dark theme improvements

One of the hottest topics of Android Q has been native dark mode support. Naturally, it came up multiple times throughout today’s Android Q AMA. More specifically, a few redditors asked about Dark Mode being able to be triggered automatically.

One model Google had previously considered for switching to and from dark mode was based on sunset and sunrise time, but this was scrapped due to it requiring fairly accurate location data. Allowing users to set dark mode based on time of day is being considered, but will apparently not be possible in stock Android Q.

Privacy improvements

Having been asked a question about Play Store policy enforcement, product manager for privacy on Android, Charmaine D’Silva, shared an interesting statistic. You may recall last year that Google made a significant change, restricting permission to Android call and text logs almost exclusively to the primary phone call or texting app on your device. While that change was controversial at the time, D’Silva has shared the upside to that privacy change:

For example, last fall, we introduced the SMS and Call Log policies that limited the types of apps that could request for these permissions. As a result, today, the number of apps with access to this sensitive information has decreased by more than 98%. The vast majority of developers were able to switch to an alternative or eliminate minor functionality.

Open Source Wear OS?

As you may know, Google’s Wear OS, having once been called Android Wear, is based heavily on Android. However, unlike Android, Wear OS is not open source, meaning OEMs and developers are not able to read through the code to gain a deeper understanding of the system or even make changes.

When asked whether Wear OS would ever be open sourced, tech lead manager of the Android Open Source Project, Jeff Bailey, had “nothing new to share at this time.”

Changes to Android’s future development

As you may know, Google has a public bug/issue tracker where users and developers can share issues with Android — and certain other Google products — more or less directly with Google. However, while some issues posted may catch traction with some public attention, many go ignored for months at a time or are rejected in a confusing manner — this was the case for the original request for scrolling screenshots earlier this year.

A concerned redditor brought up the possibility of Google taking issues raised by developers and the public more seriously in the future. Jeff Bailey tackled this question first by pointing out that the issue tracker has high potential to be overwhelmed, as more tech-savvy people become aware of it. But he didn’t close the door on the idea, stating that it’s possible that some teams may work directly with “external” bugs in the future.