Motorola hasn’t released a solid premium flagship competitor in several years. Motorola President Sergio Buniac announced in December that that would change in early 2020. We expect this will come in the form of the rumored Motorola Edge Plus.

Unfortunately, the company seems to have done a decent job of keeping leaks at bay, so there isn’t much we know about the device yet. For now, this is everything we expect from Motorola’s upcoming flagship.

Related: Here’s how Motorola’s next flagship can take the fight to Samsung, Huawei

Motorola Edge Plus: Name and design

XDA Developers

We have yet to see any renders or pictures of the Motorola Edge Plus come through Android Authority, though we have caught a glimpse of the device’s rumored mid-tier counterpart (pictured above). What we do know is that the device is rumored to come with one of 2019’s most polarizing features: a waterfall display.

This feature is likely one of the things that led to the device’s rumored Motorola Edge Plus name. It’s also possible the device could come with the “Motorola One 2020” moniker, but we will stick with the Edge Plus title for now.

Read also: Motorola Moto G8, G8 Power, G8 Stylus renders surface online

Recent rumors suggest the device could come with a hole-punch selfie camera at the top left corner. This camera cutout should be smaller than the ones seen on Motorola’s previous phones like the Motorola One Vision.

Aside from that, we can also expect Motorola to include some of the other staple premium flagship design features we’ve come to expect from recent devices. This could consist of a glass and metal chassis, thin bezels, or some form of biometric authentication, whether that be a fingerprint scanner or facial recognition sensor.

Motorola Edge Plus: Specs and features

We expect the Motorola Edge Plus to come with a 6.67-inch, 2,340 X 1,080 waterfall display. This display should run to the edges of the device, and it will most likely support a 90Hz display refresh rate. It’s also expected to come with Qualcomm’s latest Snapdragon 865, 8GB or 12GB of RAM, a 5,170mAh battery, and Android 10.

The device should also tout 5G support, and Motorola President Buniac said it would be the “fastest 5G phone on Qualcomm’s flagship platform” with “5G speeds greater than 5Gbps.” Other than that, we are unaware of the rest of the device’s hardware specs.

Motorola could take this opportunity to launch several new applications as well.

Software, on the other hand, is another story. Motorola could take this opportunity to launch several new applications with the phone, including Moto Edge Assistant, Moto Gametime, and Moto Audio.

Moto Edge Assistant will reportedly help users take full advantage of the new curved display. This app should allow them to tweak and customize tap actions on the edges of the screen.

Moto Gametime should introduce a customizable toolbar for users to easily access settings and other tools useful during gaming sessions. Some of these features could include notification blocking, brightness locking, and more. Users should be able to access this toolbar with a tap of a floating button or swipe in from one of the device edges.

Read also: Best Motorola phones at every price point

Moto Audio should allow the Motorola Edge Plus to tune audio profiles to match specific types of content automatically. It could boost voice clarity during calls or increase the bass while you play music. This would be possible thanks to the various audio profiles for gaming, movies, music, and more.

Motorola Edge Plus: Price and release date

We expected Motorola to announce the Motorola Edge Plus on February 23, a day ahead of the official start of Mobile World Congress 2020. Unfortunately, this year’s MWC event was canceled due to concerns surrounding the current coronavirus outbreak.

Since the initial event date was scheduled for just over a week away from now, Motorola could unveil the Edge Plus at any time within the next couple of weeks. We don’t know where the device will be made available, but we hope to see a global rollout with this handset.

Read also: The Motorola Razr is back: Is this the foldable you were waiting for?

We haven’t heard any rumors on pricing yet either, but we expect this device will fall within a premium territory. However, we don’t expect it to come anywhere near the new Galaxy S20 series or even Motorola’s new Razr foldable. It’s more likely that the device will fall somewhere between the $ 700-$ 900 price range, though that’s just speculation at this point.

Those are all the details we have on the Motorola Edge Plus so far! Be sure to bookmark this page and check back often as we will update it with new information as we get our hands on it.

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Android Authority

December has been a relatively quiet month in the world of Android development, with fewer posts over at the Android Developers blog than usual, and many other sites taking a break for the holidays. Hey, devs need a break every now and then too!

That said, there have still been a few exciting announcements to cover, including the release of a new Android Game SDK, and a powerful code search tool. Consider this a case of quality-over-quantity, then. Read below for the full scoop.

News and announcements

Code Search with Cross References for the Android Open Source Project – Google announces what may prove an extremely useful tool for Android developers: a search engine for code. See more below.

From Google

Android Game SDK – Android Game SDK offers a selection of libraries direct from Google to enhance game development on the platform. The first library that will land as part of this new initiative is designed to help developers with frame pacing.

The Frame Pacing Library will use Android’s Choreographer API to synchronize with the display system. This helps ensure frames appear when they should, to avoid buffering and stuttering, and to keep audio in-pace.

Android 10 on Android TV – Pretty much this article is what it says on the tin. On December 10, Google brought Android API level 29 to Android TV. This will mean faster updates through Project Treble, more secure storage, and other goodies from the latest iteration of Android.

Another new TV-centric feature for developers is ADT-3. This is a dongle aimed at developers to test their apps on the platform. It will be made available soon, and you can be sure to find out about it here in the coming months.

Features and resources from around the web

Making an app with no programming experience: What are your options? – This post explores how you might set about developing an app with no coding skills. It covers app builders, as well as numerous other options.

Code Search – Code Search is a new tool from Google that has the potential to be extremely useful. This is a search engine that focuses specifically on Android code, sorting through git repositories like github, gitweb, etc. What’s unique about this, is that you can actually search within the code itself for specific commands or keywords. In short, you can actually view the code before you decide if you might be interested in using it.

We all know that programming is essentially a process of lifting bits of code and stitching them together like a Frankenstein’s monster (right?). This has potentially to streamline that process considerably!

Kotlin/Everywhere – it’s a wrap! – At Google I/O, Google announced it would be increasingly placing the focus of Android development on Kotlin. Kotlin/Everywhere was a series of events discussing the language. This post includes links to various talks and resources for those that missed the live events.

Workplace for Kotlin code in IDE – This post shares a method for testing snippets of Kotlin code without deploying your entire app, via REPL.

Lost Crypt 2D sample project for Unity – Unity has introduced a host of new 2D features pertinent to Android developers over recent months. This new sample project serves as a useful demonstration of how best to use them.

From Unity

Speed up your Android dynamic features flow testing – Dynamic delivery has a lot of uses for devs and can enhance the user experience significantly. However, testing these features can be tricky. This post explains the solution, using the Gradle Play Publisher plugin.

Gesture Navigation: Insets – Insets help to improve gesture navigation by avoiding conflicts with existing UI features.

Migrating from Fingerprint Manager to BiometricPrompt – A handy guide (pun intended) to switching to the newish AndroidX Biometric Library.

And that’s it – see you next month!

Android Authority

Pine64

It’s no secret that two operating systems hold the lion’s share of the mobile market — Android and iOS. This current duopoly doesn’t give users much choice in the way of OS offerings, even though there is no shortage of hardware. In the past, Microsoft tried to break into the market to no avail, and Huawei will release its own offering soon enough.

But what if there was another alternative, one that’s more privacy-respecting and encourages tinkering? Enter the PinePhone by Pine64. This device isn’t quite ready for the mass market yet, but if you are looking for a unique alternative to Android and iOS devices, you’ll want to keep an eye on this one.

The company behind the PinePhone

Pine64

Pine64 is a small, community-driven company that specializes in developing ARM devices. It began by producing single-board computers similar to the Raspberry Pi. Eventually, the company also started developing laptops that run on these single-board computers, and now the company is branching into the mobile phone market — hence the PinePhone. Pine64 also plans on releasing a smartwatch and a tablet in the future, but those are conversations for another day.

What exactly is the PinePhone?

Pine64

The PinePhone is a fully open-sourced smartphone, and it is Pine64’s most ambitious project to date. And unlike most devices you can get buy today, Pine64 didn’t design the PinePhone to run Android or iOS. The company developed the device to run Linux.

The PinePhone may be a little too complicated for the average consumer.

We don’t know for sure which specific operating system the consumer-ready device will ship with, but Pine64 says it supports all available major Linux phone projects. Some notable projects include Ubuntu Touch, Sailfish OS, and Plasma Mobile. Each OS comes with its own pros and cons, and that variety is one of the PinePhone’s competitive advantages.

Users can choose which platform best suits their needs instead of simply using the one manufacturers want them to use. That means, depending on what OS they choose, they may have a vastly different experience from someone else who chooses a different OS for their PinePhone. On the flip side, users may have to load these operating systems on the device themselves, making the PinePhone a little too complicated for the average consumer.

What about the PinePhone specs?

Pine64

The PinePhone will come in at a grand total of $ 150, and the specs match that price tag. It will come with the Allwinner A64 quad-core SoC, Mali 400 MP2 GPU, 2GB of RAM, and a 2,000mAh battery.

The display will be a 5.95-inch 1,440×720 LCD panel. The rear camera will tout a 5MP shooter, while the selfie camera sports a measly 2MP sensor.

You shouldn’t get this device if you are looking for high-end specs.

It will also include a USB-C charging port, a headphone jack, and a plastic chassis. Altogether, the device will weigh somewhere between 180 and 200 grams. Needless to say, you shouldn’t get this device if you are looking for high-end specs.

Will it run my favorite mobile apps?

The answer to this question is not as simple as we might hope. Depending on which OS you choose, you will get access to vastly different application libraries. Some of the supported operating systems aim to include full Linux app support. Others want to develop their own mobile app ecosystem.

Expect to make some sacrifices as far as mobile app selection is concerned.

Thanks to Ubuntu Touch’s emphasis on web apps, it probably offers the most complete mobile app ecosystem out of the box. Sailfish OS’ native apps leave much to be desired, but it allows users to install some Android apps on specific devices. Hopefully, the PinePhone will get this ability too.

Other than that, app options are limited with the other offerings. If you are thinking about purchasing this device, expect to make some sacrifices as far as mobile app selection is concerned.

What is the PinePhone’s launch date, price, and availability?

Pine64

Right now, you can preorder a version of the device called the BraveHeart Edition, though I wouldn’t recommend you buy one. Pine64 made this version of the PinePhone solely for developers and early adopters, and it is not daily driver material.

The consumer-ready version will retail for $ 150, and Pine64 says it will launch sometime in Spring 2020. The device will ship worldwide, but some markets may be subject to extra shipping costs.

I don’t know about you, but I am pumped about this device. The idea of a completely open-source smartphone that is designed to be tinkered with excites me like none other.

Am I expecting the Pinephone to replace everyone’s Android device? Absolutely not. But do I think you should purchase one anyway? I do. It will only cost about as much as the average smart display, and it has the potential to expand our imaginations into what mobile computing could look like, not just what it is.

What about you? Are you excited about this device? Let us know in the poll below, and tell us why or why not in the comments section.

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Android Authority

LG announced its new G4 flagship just hours ago, and we’ve already gone hands-on with the device. If you can’t tell by our first impressions video (attached above), this is a really nice smartphone. Many of you are probably wondering where you can get this beauty. Well, since it was just announced earlier today, not many carriers have confirmed exact availability dates quite yet, but many have come forward to say that they’ll eventually carry the device.

The LG G4 has a 5.5-inch Quad HD IPS Quantum Display with a 1440 x 2560 resolution and 538ppi. It boasts a Qualcomm Snapdragon 808 processor, Adreno 418 GPU, 3GB of RAM, 32GB of on-board storage and MicroSD expansion up to 128GB. It also has a 16MP rear-facing camera with an f/1.8 aperture and OIS 2.0, an 8MP front-facing camera with an f/2.0 aperture, a removable 3000mAh battery and runs Android 5.1 Lollipop.

Of course, we’ll update this post as we learn more details on the phone’s availability, but here’s what we know so far:

U.S. Availability

T-Mobile – T-Mobile is launching an exclusive sweepstakes and preview program, and will give out one LG G4 per day to some lucky folks on the carrier’s network. You can sign up for the sweepstakes here though May 25th. T-Mobile says it will begin carrying the device in June.

Sprint – Sprint will begin carrying the G4 in June, in both Metallic Gray and Black Genuine Leather variants. You can pre-register for the device by following this link, and signing up will also put you in the running to win one of eight free G4 units on the carrier’s network.

Verizon –  Verizon has announced that the LG G4 is ‘coming soon’ to the carrier with Advanced Calling for HD Voice and Video support, though no information was given regarding the availability date or price.

AT&T – According to LG,  the G4 will make its way to AT&T, though we’ve heard no official word from the carrier yet.

U.S. Cellular – U.S. Cellular has announced its plans to carry the device in June, though no pricing information has been given quite yet.

Korea

The G4 will be available in Korea beginning Wednesday, April 29th.

UK

Carphone Warehouse – Carphone Warehouse will be offering the LG G4 exclusively in Black Genuine Leather with metallic gray front from today until June 30th. You can pre-register for the device through the retailer by following this link.

O2 – O2 will be the only carrier to offer the LG G4 in Brown Genuine Leather with metallic gray front, though the carrier didn’t mention how long the exclusivity would last.

Vodafone – Vodafone has also confirmed that it will carry the handset, though no timeframe, pricing, or color option information has been announced.

Three – Three has confirmed that the device will make its way to the carrier, though no pricing or availability information has been given.

Canada

LG has announced that the G4 will be available this summer through Bell, Rogers, TELUS, Videotron and WIND Mobile. No pricing or exact availability information has been unveiled yet.

Online

We know the device will be available through a number of online retailers, though we’ve heard little to no information regarding which stores will carry the device.

Know any others?

That’s all the regions and carriers we know so far, but will keep updating as we learn more. Have any carrier ideas specific to your region that we didn’t mention? Please let us know in the comments!

Read more on the LG G4:

• LG G4 officially announced: what you need to know
• LG G4 first look and hands-on preview
• LG G4 vs Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge quick look
• LG G4 vs iPhone 6 – quick comparison

Android Authority