World Of Tanks Blitz Brings The Popular PC MOBA To The Play Store With Android-iOS Cross-Platform Battles

Fans of online PC action games will be aware of World of Tanks, a popular free-to-play tank simulator that's frequently updated with added content. iOS has had access to a simplified version for over a year, which would normally cause some ire among Android gamers. But I'm prepared to give developer Wargaming a pass on this one, since World of Tanks Blitz is launching with cross-platform play between Android and iOS, ensuring a healthy population of online players right from the start.

World Of Tanks Blitz Brings The Popular PC MOBA To The Play Store With Android-iOS Cross-Platform Battles was written by the awesome team at Android Police.

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Dual Review: Lenovo Yoga 2 and Yoga 2 Pro

Lenovo’s Yoga line of Android tablets have been my favorite for the past few years, and no they are not paying me to say that. There’s a pretty big reason why I’ve loved the Yoga tablets so much. One is the battery life, it’s just unbeatable. But the other reason is to do with why it’s a Yoga. The fold out stand on the bottom. Prior to the Yoga 2 and Yoga Pro 2, the Yoga tablets stands worked in three modes, now you can adjust it anywhere you like. Which is really nice. I like having a tablet that I can just go ahead and stand up and watch a movie on without needing to hold it. One reason why I really like my iPad Air with the smart cover, as it folds up to stand up the tablet for me. Pretty awesome.

This year, Lenovo went even further with the new Yoga tablets. Including making a 13-inch model. We’ll be reviewing both the 13 and 10.1 inch models here. We didn’t think we needed to go out and do two separate reviews on these since there’s not a whole lot different between the two. So let’s get started with the review already.

Hardware

On the Lenovo Yoga 2 we’ve got a 10.1-inch 1920×1200 resolution IPS display, Intel Z3745 quad-core processor which is clocked at 1.86GHz, along with 2GB of RAM and 16GB of storage. We do have room for a microSD card slot as well. And it’s running on Android 4.4 KitKat. Now the Yoga 2 Pro has a 13.3-inch 2560×1440 IPS display, along with the Intel Z3745 quad-core processor at 1.86GHz. There’s also 2GB of RAM, 32GB of internal storage along with a microSD card slot, and it’s running on Android 4.4 KitKat. The major differences between these two tablets is that the 13.3-inch Yoga 2 Pro has a larger display and a QHD display, but also has a projector on the side. Which I have to say is pretty damn cool. Especially since it actually works.

Nothing much has changed with the build quality on the Yoga, which is now in it’s third generation. It’s still all aluminum, except for the front which is glass, but even the bottom part of the front is aluminum. We do have front facing speakers here, and on the Yoga 2 Pro we have a JBL Subwoofer on the back. Making it an amazing experience for watching movies. On one side of the hump you have the power button and the other side is the projector. Meanwhile on the Yoga 2, the side with the projector just has the 3.5mm headphone jack.

Onto the displays. The displays look really nice on both models. Obviously the 13.3-inch model is going to look better as it is a QHD display. But even the full HD on the 10.1-inch model looks stunning. Additionally the viewing angles are great and there’s no hint at light bleed, at least not on the review models that Lenovo sent me. So all in all, no complaints on the displays here for both the Yoga tablets.

So what about that projector? Well it’s amazing. I had the Yoga 2 Pro hanging on the wall and projecting a movie onto the other wall and it worked great, and looked amazing. It doesn’t use a ton of battery, but it will use some, obviously. Also when the projector is active, it will dim the display a bit.

Software

Here’s where things get a little interesting, and a little familiar. Lenovo is a Chinese manufacturer, so you’ll see a lot of things here that remind you of Meizu, Xiaomi, and other Chinese smartphones and tablets. One of those is the copying of Apple’s features. For instance, pull down the notification bar. What do you see? No quick settings right? That’s because you need to swipe up from the bottom of the screen to get to those. Just like on an iPad. And in fact, the layout is even the same, check out the two images below and you’ll see what I mean.

There’s also no app drawer here. Which is normal for most Chinese OEMs. They don’t use app drawers, now I don’t know if that’s because Apple doesn’t have one, or just how they’ve always done things. But on the Yoga 2 you’ve got pages of apps. However, on the Yoga 2 Pro, there is one page with empty folders and when you download apps the Yoga 2 Pro will ask you if you want to put that app into a specific folder. Which keeps things organized. Especially if you install a lot of apps. There’s also a lot of apps that are pre-installed here like Security HD, SYNCit HD, SHAREit, CLONEit, Dolby, Lenovo eFrame, Yoga Tablet 2, Gamestore, Skype, Facebook, Twitter, Evernote, Kingsoft Office, and Amazon Kindle.

Lenovo has skinned their devices recently, but in all honesty, it’s not that bad compared to some other OEMs. Lenovo added some nifty features like multi-window so you can have two apps open side by side but you can also have an app open on top of another one and minimize it to the navigation bar. Which I think is a great way to utilize all that extra space.

Battery Life

Battery is pretty amazing on the Yoga Tablets. I let the Yoga 2 sit on standby for 13 days and it still had 62% left so standby is a beast. But when using it, it’s still pretty good. On the charge shown above on the Yoga 2 Pro, I got over a day of battery with 5 hour on screen. And more than half of that time I was watching YouTube. So if you’re just surfing, you can probably get a whole lot more then that. So not bad at all.

Camera

I don’t suggest taking pictures with a tablet, especially a 13.3-inch tablet. But if you needed to, you’d get not great pictures. I never really expect great pictures from a tablet, but here are the ones we got with the Yoga 2 tablets.

Final Thoughts

If you’re looking for a tablet, usually the question is “Which Samsung or Apple tablet should I get?” but I’d say to toss Lenovo into the hat there. The 13.3-inch Yoga 2 Pro is just $499. That’s the price of the entry model iPad Air 2 from Apple which is a 9.7-inch display, and the Yoga 2 Pro has much better specs, not to mention amazing speakers. It’s definitely a tablet that you should look twice at this holiday season.

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Deal: Urban Beatz RockOn Solo Rugged Weatherproof Wireless Bluetooth Speaker – $29.99

The RockOn Solo lets you enjoy music while at the pool, on a camping trip, or working in the yard. An IPX4 rating seals out splashing water, and it provides shock absorption against any accidental drops. And it’s available for just $29.99 right now on Groupon. It’s normal price is $79.99, making this 63% off. So it’s a pretty good steal right now. You can grab it from the link below.

Urban Beatz RockOn Solo Rugged Weatherproof Wireless Bluetooth Speaker – $29.99

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Check Out The Component Costs Of The Samsung Galaxy S5 Against The iPhone 6

The relationship between Apple and Samsung almost seems to be of a Game Of Thrones status. They are after all, two families that seem eternally set for war against each other. Maybe it was destiny or maybe not. They started on friendlier terms, but it now seems the water under that bridge is far too murky and muddy for them to ever meet in the middle. While they battle out the last of their court cases between them it seems the folks over at IEEE Spectrum have been busy looking at the costs of the various iPhone and Samsung Galaxy S range devices and it makes for interesting reading.

The chart below shows the various manufacturing costs for both the iPhones and Samsung Galaxy S range of devices. As you can see the overall manufacturing costs of the two warring groups are not that different and much similar than you might expect. But what is interesting, is the manufacturing costs over time. While the iPhone 3 had a manufacturing cost of $187.44. The latest offering from Apple, the iPhone 6 costs a much more expensive $228.07. In contrast, Samsung’s Galaxy S started off with a manufacturing cost of $178.81 and the latest Samsung Galaxy S5 costing $215.44. So it would seem Apple had (and still do) have a slightly higher manufacturing cost than Samsung do for the Galaxy S range. Although as the evolutions have come through, it seems Samsung have managed to keep their costs at a steadier rate than apple.

What is as interesting, is the breakdown of the costs for each of the two (this year) flagship devices, the iPhone 6 and Galaxy S5. For instance, Samsung’s camera cost was equivalent to 9.37% of the overall S5 cost. While Apple’s camera only accounted for 7.61%. On the other hand, it seems Apple’s core electronics cost was higher than Samsung’s with 25.12% and 22.2% respectively. There are a number of other aspects also compared in the chart below including the cost of ‘Connectivity’, Display/Touch Panel/Glass, Final Assembly/Test, Memory, Other Electrical and Mechanical, Power and lastly Sensors. You can see the cost for any of the models by hovering over the image. Let us know if anything surprised you.

Learn About Tableau

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Amazon’s Gold Box Deal of the Day Has Select Bluetooth Speakers for up to 70% Off

Over on Amazon, they’ve got a slew of Bluetooth speakers that are on sale for up to 70% off right now. This includes speakers from iHome, BOSS, TDK, Eton and more. This deal is today only and will end at midnight, so you better act fast. You can grab these from the link below.

Amazon Gold Box Deal of the Day: Up to 70% Off Select Portable Bluetooth Speakers

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Meizu’s VP: We’ll Introduce A New Handset Made For “Young People” On December 8th

Meizu enjoyed great success with companies MX4 handset which launched back in September, so much so that the company had issues meeting the demand at first, luckily they solved those issues rather fast. Meizu MX4 Pro turned out to be yet another home run for the company. MX4 Pro was pre-ordered over 6.7 million times in first 2 weeks of its pre-order availability and the device was sold out in under a minute today when it went on sale in China. Meizu and most of the MX4 Pro resellers quickly ran out of stock, hopefully Meizu will be able to replenish the stock soon and sell the device again because the demand is obviously very high over there.

That being said, we’ve been hearing some rumors and getting reports regarding yet another Meizu handset for quite some time now. On one hand, rumors have been saying the company will launch 1 or 2 devices before the end of the year, while other rumors have been saying the device(s) will launch in January next year. We really didn’t know what to believe, but now we have a confirmation of Meizu’s VP, Li Nan, that a new device will arrive on December 8th, which is in two days. Chinese portal, ZOL, held an interview with Mr. Nan and he confirmed that the event will be held on Monday while also mentioning that this device is aimed at “young people” and that we’re talking about a “quality smartphone”. Meizu’s VP also mentioned that the company won’t introduce MX Mini models because they don’t feel the need to do so, he believe that Meizu MX4 (5.36-inch display) and MX4 Pro (5.5-inch display) fit basically everyone (as far as flagships go), even people who love smaller handsets.

The mysterious handset is quite probably the Meizu K52 handset which appeared on GFXBench a couple of days ago. According to the listing, this handset will feature a 4.6-inch 1080p display along with 2GB of RAM and 16GB of internal storage. MediaTek’s MT6752 64-bit octa-core processor clocked at 1.7GHz is expected to power on this thing and Mali T760 GPU will take care of graphics. According to rumors, this handset will cost somewhere between 1000 and 1300 Yuan ($163-211), which is actually not a bad price, especially considering the mentioned specifications. Meizu will quite probably position this handset as its mid-range offering, an extremely capable mid-range offering. Let’s wait and see, the announcement is only 2 days away.

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Even Xiaomi Designers Think MIUI Resembles iOS Way Too Much

Xiaomi is doing great as far as smartphone sales go. The company is selling tons of their devices and will cross the 60 million mark this year, which is astonishing considering they sold “only” 19 million devices in 2013. Xiaomi actually plans to sell over 100 million devices in 2015, so that would be interesting to see, but it’s actually really possible considering all the planned expansions and what not. Either way, this way an extremely interesting and exciting year for Xiaomi and it remains to be seen if they can have yet another extremely successful year and sell as many devices as they planned.

We’re not here to talk about Xiaomi sales though, but something else. It’s not exactly a secret that Xiaomi is Apple-inspired, you’ll notice that the second you take a look at their handsets and / or Android IU (MIUI). That doesn’t have to be a bad thing though, Xiaomi makes great devices and many people seem to like their software offering. Latest report from China claims that even MIUI designers think that MIUI is Apple-inspired, though that might change to some extent in the future. Considering Xiaomi’s expansion plans and the possible lawsuits the company will face if they leave the Asian market and start doing business elsewhere, might force the company to alter the design of their Android skin, perhaps even the design of their upcoming Mi5 flagship. There’s nothing wrong with MIUI or Mi5, but Apple will almost surely sue the company when they launch their products in certain markets, though Apple is not the only one, other companies might do the same for the violation of patents.

I always see similarities in design, whether we’re talking about smartphone design or software design, it’s hard to design something completely different, products will always resemble something, though the fact that even the MIUI designer think MIUI is way too similar to iOS is somewhat concerning I guess. It remains to be seen if Xiaomi will re-design MIUI and if they’ll go a different path with Mi5’s design. What do you think, do you think Xiaomi is just a copycat or do you think they should keep doing what they’ve been doing thus far?

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