Galaxy S7 Vs. Clone

Smartphone clones have always been around and always will be. For this video, Harris compare a Galaxy S7 to a clone of the same device. Let's see how it holds up.

Packaging

Unless you know what to look for, one could easily be fooled into thinking the packaging of the clone is legitimate. The Galaxy logo looks identical to the real product. The only places where the packaging differs is on the back where the information is listen, and on the bottom where the IMEI and S/N would be shown.

Build Quality

This is where the differences become immediately obvious. The cheap plastic on the clone device is an instant giveaway that this is not a premium smartphone. The display has a very grey color compared to the S7. The camera module sticks out slightly higher than the real S7 does. When it comes to the buttons, ports and speakers, everything looks the same across both devices. Lastly, there is no fingerprint scanner or water resistance to be found on the clone device.

Software

The software on the clone runs very slow due to the weak processor. The clone does look and feel just like the touchwiz setup you'd find on an official Galaxy phone. The clone wasn't able to complete any benchmarks, so you can imagine that it's probably not going to run very in general.

Check out the video to see this clone device in action.

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Win an UMi Z: The First Phone with Helio X27

We're excited to be giving away the UMi Z (contest is open to all countries!), the company's latest premium phone that happens to be one of the first (if not the first) phone on the market with the MediaTek Helio X27 decacore flagship CPU. This new chipset features a tri-cluster configuration to better manage performance and efficiency. You can read more about it here.

The UMi Z is an all-metal phone that comes in at $279.99. Here's a look at the specs:

• Helio X27 at 2.6GHz, 4GB RAM
• Samsung 13MP + 13MP Front and Rear Camera with dual focus
• 3780mAh battery with USB Type-C
• Full metal unibody
• Pure Android 7.0

Use the below contest widget to enter to win a Z.

Win an UMi Z!

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Stable Nougat for OnePlus 3 and Nougat Open Beta 1 for OnePlus 3T Are Here

OnePlus promised we'd see Android Nougat hit the OnePlus 3 before the end of the year, and that the OnePlus 3T would see an Android Nougat beta when the OnePlus 3 received its stable release. With just a few hours left on the clock and barely two days after the last beta release, OnePlus delivered.

Carl Pei took to twitter to announce that they'd be releasing the Open Beta 1 for the OnePlus 3T, which is already live on their forums, and the Android N stable OTA for the OnePlus 3 and OnePlus 3T, surprisingly. Carl Pei also claimed that many members of their R&D are not taking time off to celebrate New Year.

If you are interested in the OxygenOS Open Beta 1 for the OnePlus 3T, you should visit this thread on the official OnePlus forums. If you want to jump right in, here is a direct link to the ROM — you need to sideload this through ADB. The list of changes are what you'd expect:

• Upgraded to Android 7.0 Nougat
  • New Notifications Design
  • New Settings Menu Design
  • Multi-Window View
  • Notification Direct Reply
  • Custom DPI Support
• Added Status Bar Icon Options
• Added Quick Launch For 3rd Party Applications
• Improved Shelf Customization

Keep in mind that flashing the Open Beta will allow you to receive Open Beta OTA updates, but you will need to manually flash the stable release should you decide to change. If you are wanting to check out the stable releases for both the OnePlus 3 and OnePlus 3T, you will have to wait for the OTA to hit your device. It's an incremental rollout, but it's likely that the OTA will be captured by someone in our forums, so stay tuned!

We must commend OnePlus for staying true to their promise once again; by waiting until the very last day, hype levels went through the roof among OnePlus users, but negativity was also abound as many thought it'd be odd for them to release both the stable OnePlus 3 Nougat update and the beta on the same day. Luckily, OnePlus 3 and 3T owners get to wrap up 2016 with a neat new update, or at the very least, knowledge that it'll hit their devices very shortly.

What do you think about Android Nougat for the OnePlus 3 and 3T? Let us know your thoughts below!

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2016 in Review: What was the Best New Feature Introduced in Android this year?

As we enter the final days of the year, it's time to get your opinion on all the events, news, releases and controversies that we witnessed so far in 2016.

Google's latest big thing for the world of Android was Nougat-y flavored. Android 7.0 Nougat incorporated many new quality of life enhancements for the end user, ranging from multi-window support to notification panel redesigns. On a system level, Nougat also introduced support for the Vulkan Graphics API as well as to seamless system updates based on Chrome OS.

So, our question to you is,

What was the best new feature introduced in Android 7.0 Nougat? What about features introduced in OEM specific user interfaces? How has this feature influenced your daily smartphone use?

Let us know in the comments below!

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Android 7.0/EMUI 5 is Available For The Huawei Nova Without Unlocking the Bootloader

Using EMUI's download mode you can update your European Huawei Nova to EMUI 5/Android 7.0 Nougat without the need to unlock your bootloader. Senior Member Jozinek has gathered the files and created a quick guide explaining the update process over in the thread.

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Wileyfox to Issue Update to Migrate Away from CyanogenOS

Wileyfox is not a well-known global brand, but for its humble beginnings, it has its own loyal customers in the European Union and U.K. The company is known for its affordable smartphones ship with decent specifications and, most notably, close to stock Android software in the form of Cyanogen OS.

But, as we all know by now, Cyanogen Inc. now plans to refocus their efforts onto the Cyanogen OS Modular program. This means that devices that ran on Cyanogen OS, such as those from Wileyfox, are unlikely to see further software support from the company. Users of devices which ran Cyanogen OS were anxious that this meant their devices would no longer receive any updates, but Wileyfox has reassured its customers that they will not be forgotten.

In a post on their official Facebook page, Wileyfox has informed its customers that the company plans to provide an OTA update to migrate away from Cyanogen OS on to a "purer Android experience." Wileyfox was expecting these recent developments, and the company is confident that the transition will be smoothly executed via an upcoming OTA for the entire Wileyfox product range.

We have been ruthlessly testing this and planning a distribution for this update, with a rollout to be released beginning today with immediate effect. Once this transition is implemented and users accept this upcoming update, our first order of business is to focus on delivering Android Nougat 7.0 across the portfolio beginning as early as February, and the entire portfolio by end of Q1 2017.

The migration update has already begun seeding, so users are recommended to download and install the transition update immediately upon receiving the update. Wileyfox is assuming full and direct control on all upgrades across all of its devices, and not just current flagships. They still maintain that they are committed to a bloatware-free OS and continuous security and Android updates for their entire user base. We hope they remain true to their word.

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Do you own a Wileyfox device? How has your experience been, for both software and hardware? Let us know in the comments below!

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XDA Forums Dedicated to LineageOS Now Live!

Ever since Cyanogen Inc. announced that they will be discontinuing all Cyanogen OS related services, many users wondered what would happen to CyanogenMod. Unfortunately, the worst scenario played out this past weekend, and CyanogenMod was declared officially dead.

We've covered all of this in a separate article on how the death of CyanogenMod might affect development, so we recommend you check that out. While it is heartbreaking to see CyanogenMod meet such a fate, the beauty of open source means that it will not completely die — it will simply change form. This is where LineageOS comes in.

LineageOS in its current form is the re-branding of CyanogenMod. While developers and maintainers work to smoothly migrate all of their resources, custom ROM users have been looking for a place to discuss the new distribution. We at XDA-Developers would like to expand our forums to such users and developers alike.

The core objective on which XDA-Developers was launched in 2003 was to provide a common area for developers around the world to come together to modify, tweak, and generally improve the usability of their chosen devices. While the XDA forums were initially created with PDAs in mind, the advent of Windows Mobile OS and later Android made the website accessible to more users who were looking to get the most out of their devices.

Thus, CyanogenMod was born. The Android distribution traces its first steps on similar objectives — to modify, tweak, and improve the usability of Android devices. CyanogenMod started off rather humbly in the HTC Dream (G1) forum under the care of Steve 'Cyanogen' Kondik. With version after version and release after release, the ROM exploded in popularity and later expanded onto other, newer devices with more developers contributing to the project. The rest, as they say, is history.

The need of the hour is cooperation and collaboration, as the custom ROM community tries to revive perhaps the biggest contributor of development of any device to its former glory. In such times, we extend our forums as a place for developers and users alike to come together and work for the combined, greater good.

>>> Join the LineageOS forum!

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