Phandroid
OnePlus One to be under 350€ in Europe
OnePlus was quick to tell those of us in the states that we’d be enjoying the OnePlus One — their first smartphone — for under $400, and now early pricing details have leaked for our friends over in Europe. OnePlus has announced that the device will be available for under 350€ over in those parts of the world, news which many expressed rejoice over.
There’s reason for Europeans to be celebrating this news, as most OEMs tend to mark device pricing up outside of the Americas, often citing the need to meet current economic conditions or wanting stick with more… consistent pricing. Thankfully, it seems OnePlus One isn’t at all interested in traditional conventions of the phone business.
The type of phone we’re told to expect for these prices is quite remarkable, with a 5-5inch 1080p display, Snapdragon 801 processor, a 13 megapixel camera and more. The phone will also own the distinction of being the first built for CyanogenMod from the ground up, with unique features such as touchless voice activation and a new lock-screen coming along for the ride (something which those on community versions of CyanogenMod won’t be getting).
We’re a mere 20 days away from seeing what this thing is all about — we haven’t even gotten a peek at the actual device itself — so you know we’re as anxious as we’ve ever been. Good news like this certainly doesn’t help that anxiety at all.
[via Twitter]
Amazon Fire TV teardown features a tight device packing a big punch
We’ve already gotten a little down and dirty with the Amazon Fire TV, but we haven’t been able to get quite as deep as the guys at iFixIt have. You know what that means — teardown time! No way to spend a Friday like looking at the disgusting guts of a beautiful piece of tech.
We noted in our initial impressions that the Fire TV was small, yet quite heavy. It had to be, of course, considering Amazon packed it with some beefy internals compared to the competition. Revealed beneath the chassis of the set-top box, remote and gaming controller is a result of seemingly beautiful and expert engineering.
Everything is nice and neat, though that won’t mean much to you. What you should be worrying about is how easy this thing is to repair in the event that it breaks. iFixIt rated it a 6 out of 10, where 10 is a device that’s quite easy to repair. While that’s above average, there are a couple of things to note:
- The heat-sink is secured with enough glue to make a criminal charge stick
- The outer-case is a bit unforgiving when taking it apart, but nothing that a bit of tender love and care can’t handle
- There’s little modularity in the way the components are put together, so if something breaks you’re most likely going to have to replace the entire motherboard.
All of that is to say that it’s probably worth picking up an insurance plan for Amazon if you’re going to grab one, because if anything ever happens to the unit it probably wouldn’t be worth replacing it yourself. Hopefully you’ll never have to cross that bridge.
[via iFixIt]
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