New Nexus 7 release date is July 30 for Best Buy, alleged ad says

What looks like a leaked Best Buy ad seems to indicate that the new Nexus 7 will be launched next week, on July 30.

A few days ago, a similar leak suggested that Staples will start selling the new tablet on July 31, with shipments coming in as soon as July 24, which are to be kept under locked until launch.

The new Best Buy ad, discovered by Phone Arena, says the tablet will start selling “Tuesday.” Considering that next Tuesday is July 23 – and Google’s media event during which we believed the new Nexus 7 will be announced takes place on July 24 – it makes sense to assume that Best Buy would launch it a week later, on July 30.

The publication says that according to the tipster who sent the image, the Best Buy flyer is set to run next Sunday, or July 28.

While the July 30 date is implied rather than explicitly confirmed, the ad does clearly list the device’s price and some of its specs. We’re looking at a 16GB new Nexus 7 version that packs a 1920 x 1200 display, and costs $229.99, a price in line with previous leaks.

Furthermore, the tablet is listed as “Google Nexus 7″ and the device is apparently also shown in the ad, and marked as a “new” arrival. For what it’s worth, the device has a different wallpaper than the first-gen Nexus 7′s, similar to the current wallpaper of the Nexus 10.

That said, we’ll have to wait for Google to announce the tablet to get official details about its launch.

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Galaxy Mega 6.3 and Galaxy Mega 5.8 official: specs, features, release

date and pricing

Samsung on Thursday announced two new Galaxy smartphones, the Galaxy Mega 6.3 and the Galaxy Mega 5.8, both devices that appeared in a previous series of leaks and rumors.

The Mega is a new subfamily of the Galaxy tree, one that seems to include even bigger handsets than the Note series.

Specs and features

We have seen rumored specs and features for both devices already but it’s time to look at the real deal. From the start, we’re going to tell you that these aren’t necessarily flagship devices by 2013 standards, although they’re certainly going to offer you a great Android experience.

Galaxy Mega 6.3

• 6.3-inch LCD HD display with 720p resolution
• 1.7GHz dual-core processor
• 1.5GB of RAM
• 8GB/16GB storage
• microSD support up to 64GB
• 8-megapixel camera
• 1.9-megapixel front-facing camera
• Bluetooth 4.0
• Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac, Wi-Fi Direct
• GPS, GLONASS
• LTE support
• IR sensor
• NFC
• MHL
• Size: 167.6 x 88 x 7.9mm
• Weight: 199g
• 3200mAh battery
• Android 4.2 Jelly Bean with Samsung’s TouchWiz on top
• Samsung apps: Group Play, Samsung WatchON, Samsung Link, S Translator, ChatON, S Memo, S Planner, S Travel, Story Album, Air View

Galaxy Mega 5.8

• 5.8-inch LCD display with qHD resolution (960 x 540)
• 1.4GHz dual-core processor
• 1.5GB of RAM
• 8GB storage
• microSD support up to 64GB
• 8-megapixel camera
• 1.9-megapixel front-facing camera
• Bluetooth 4.0
• Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n, Wi-Fi Direct
• GPS, GLONASS
• IR sensor
• Size: 162.6 x 82.4 x 9.0mm
• Weight: 182g
• 2600mAh battery
• Android 4.2 Jelly Bean with Samsung’s TouchWiz on top
• Samsung apps: Group Play, Samsung WatchON, Samsung Link, S Translator, ChatON, S Memo, S Planner, S Travel, Story Album, Air View

Release date and pricing

As usual, official press releases for new products aren’t ready to reveal that many availability details for said devices. The same goes for the new Galaxy Mega smartphones announcement.

Samsung says the handsets will launch “globally” starting with May when they’ll hit “Europe and Russia.” Since Samsung makes a clear distinction between Europe and Russia, does this mean that Russian Android fans will be the first ones to get the new devices? We’ll have to get back to you on that once Samsung and carrier partners will be ready to share more information.

The company didn’t specifically mention any release dates for the U.S. market at this time.

Pricing details for the either model aren’t available at this time either, so we’ll just have to wait for retailers to share more details about their Galaxy Mega launch plans. At least one retailer in Germany has started taking Galaxy Mega 6.3 pre-orders even before Samsung announced the smartphone (priced at €699), but we’ll advise you to stay away for such offers until we actually get official pricing for the new devices.

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Kicked from the Play Store, new Adblock Plus for Android app released

A new version of the Adblock Plus app for Android has been released, but you’ll have to get it straight from the developer’s site in order to get updates from now on, since the app has been removed from the Google Play Store.

The developers of the app have made it available on their website and note that you need so set your Android device to allow the installation of apps from Unknown sources in order to install it. To get the app, just go to the address in the source link and scan the QR code with your smartphone or tablet. If that doesn’t work for some reason, downloading the apk file to your computer and then copying it to your smartphone should do the trick.

The new version includes a few fixes and also makes manual proxy configuration easier – you do have to configure proxy settings yourself, but it’s quite easy. Also, most importantly, the AdBlock updates automatically.

Adblock Plus Android was removed from the Google Play Store on March 14, together with a number of other ad blocking apps, due to the fact that it was breaching the Google Play Developer Program Policies; namely, it was breaching the part about interfering with ads on a third-party application. The removal caused quite a bit of stir at that moment.

Do you use Adblock Plus or another ad-blocking app on your Android device?

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Rumor indicates Amazon is preparing to release a $99 7-Inch Kindle Fire HD

The 7-inch and 8-inch tablet market continues to heat up with plenty of new players joining all the time. Amazon might be one of the leaders in the cheap tablet space, but they need to do something big if they want to keep it that way. If a new rumor is to be believed, that ‘something big’ is a $99 Kindle Fire HD.
At $99, the Kindle Fire HD is said to come equipped with a 1280 x 800 resolution display, just like the current 7-inch Kindle Fire HD. As for the processor, Amazon supposedly will continue using chips from Texas Instruments. Beyond that, it isn’t clear how Amazon will adjust the specs to reach such a low price tag.
It might seem a little odd that Amazon is still planning on going with TI, considering Texas Instruments has essentially moved away from the mobile chip business. The idea, as suggested by IDC Research Director Tom Mainelli, is that Amazon might be cutting a deal with TI to buy up remaining stock from TI on the cheap.
Keep in mind that this is all rumor and speculation at this stage, but it does make sense for Amazon to bring down their pricing structure even more than they have already. Amazon is continually seeing pressure from both ‘true’ Android tablets and even the iPad Mini. Let’s not forget that the Nexus 7 2 could be just around the corner, and then there is the low cost Android tablets from brands like Coby.
The idea of a $99 Amazon tablet seems crazy-cheap, but if vendors like Coby can do it, so can Amazon. This is especially true when you consider that Amazon doesn’t need to make money on its tablets, it can sell at cost and make back the money through its services.
Despite the writing on the wall that indicates Amazon needs a cheaper offering to stay competitive, Amazon actually denies a price drop of this magnitude is coming. “We are already at the lowest price points possible for that hardware,” a company representative claimed to TechCrunch. Of course they did say that hardware, and didn’t directly deny that they could be preparing a cheaper version with similar hardware.
What do you think, would you pay $99 for a Kindle Fire HD, or does its locked-down Android fork keep you from being interested?

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Facebook releases updated Android app to Google Play

A new Facebook update has now hit the Google Play Store, bringing with it the ability to change profile pictures from within the app. Additionally, it is now easier to manage unwanted stories and spam from within the News Feed. Outside of these two changes, Facebook also made improvements that make it easy to start a group message with fewer taps and less hassle.

As you can see, nothing truly ground-breaking was introduced with this update, though Facebook is changing up the way it launches updates. Even though this update is just now hitting Google Play, some users have had it since Friday.

How does that work exactly? Apparently Facebook has a new beta program that is designed to push out updates to beta testers. The method works silently in the background, outside of Google Play. This gives testers a chance to provide feedback before the update hits a wider range of users via Google Play.

According to Facebook, the silent update feature will be used for testers going forward as a way to make sure that new updates work as they should. It is actually seems like a pretty wise move, as it gives a few willing volunteers early access to updates and at the same time means Facebook can discover bugs and other problems before updates launch. Beyond volunteer testers, Facebook doesn’t seem interested in using this silent update method to replace normal Google Play delivery.

What do you think of the idea of the changes in this new update? Additionally, what do you think of the new silent update method for Google Play testers?

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