Meet "London," Marshall's First Android Smartphone 67
MojoKid writes: Marshall may be better known for its music equipment, but that isn't stopping the company from bringing a better audio experience to the smartphone market with its London handset. Given its highly customizable nature, it should come as no surprise that London runs Google's Android operating system (Lollipop 5.0.2). The London features dual front-facing speakers, a Wolfson WM8281 sound processor, Bluetooth atpX support, and a gold-tinged scroll wheel on the right side of the device that handle volume control, which Marshall says offers "tactile precision [that] allows you to find that sweet spot of sonic goodness." Once you get past the audio-centric functionality, there's a lot of lower-end hardware under the hood of the London. You'll find a 4.7-inch 720p display, a quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 410 processor with 2GB of RAM, 16GB of internal storage, a microSD slot, LTE connectivity, 8MP rear camera, 2MP front-facing camera, and a removable 2500 mAh battery. In other words, those specs make the London more in line with the Moto G.
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Battery, sound, signal. Had to be said.
Gold-tinged thingie-wheel so you can find that "sonic sweet spot"®.
"Makes it sound just like you're right there in the same auditorium as the tiny band".
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But . . . can you plug a guitar into it ?
Will it go to ELEVEN!?
Your GENNIUS award is in the mail. Wear it with pride.
Case Colour (Score:1)
It's like, how much more black could this be? and the answer is none. None more black.
Who else will jump on this bandwagon? (Score:1)
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Big deal (Score:2)
Its a mid-range smartphone with some slightly-better-than-usual-for-the-specs audio hardware (but nothing you couldn't find on any number of fairly decent smartphones) and a fancy name attached to it.
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And a tiny 16GB of storage. For music lovers. You know, the kind who would use flac instead of mp3. Just saying
Re: Big deal (Score:4, Informative)
Don't forget the microsd slot...
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With all the Android phones out, why can't we get one that is actually worth the cost, and not just a run of the mill device? For example:
A vape stick + a phone. Since the vape battery has a lot of amp-hours, might as well have a phone built in.
A phone made by a musical instrument company should be up to snuff for musicians. For example, it would have a beefed up DAC, at least 128-256 gigs of storage (or at the minimum, two MicroSDxC ports with 16-128 GB of base internal storage), FLAC, and bundled with
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What Android needs is less-than-terrible audio latency.
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. . . but does it come with Monster Cables . . . ? Audiophiles really can hear the difference, even if it is only in their own minds . . .
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I was arguing with a friend yesterday, he told me that audio via toslink sounded much better than audio via HDMI (using the same speakers). Toslink and HDMI are both digital, so I don't know what he's talking about. Any audiophile want to answer that?
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They can sound differently due to the way the device(s) provide the input and/or to the settings on the receiver (because yes, they are both digital).
A simple indication of things that can happen is provided in the second post here:
http://www.avsforum.com/forum/... [avsforum.com]
A proper test would have the input devices doing only bitstreaming of medium-bandwidth audio in a format supported by the receiver and the receiver applying no or exactly the same postprocessing (including gain, obviously) to the decoded streams.
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Almost... (Score:2)
I don't need the fancy audio but I like the front facing speakers and the modest hardware. Now if ony screen and battery size were larger...
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To sell to the Beatles? (Or any other Music loving Brits.)
Does the volume go up to 11? (Score:2)
looks like Jim has really left the company (Score:2)
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Audiophile aftermarket opportunities (Score:4, Insightful)
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I don't think I've ever before said that I was gobsmacked, but that actually smacked my gob.
Moto G? (Score:2)
Moto G? The phone with 1GB of RAM? I have one, and let me tell you, you REALLY notice the difference coming from a 2GB phone. It doesn't really impact my lifestyle or anything, but the difference in responsiveness is actually dramatic.
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needs 2gb of ram? sounds like a poorly written OS...
You can have proper multitasking and use it or you can have the OS be responsive all the time or you can add more RAM and have both. Which OS doesn't matter much.
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We didn't ask you, fucking faggot.
First you wanna kiss me, then you wanna kill me
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It's not so much that the OS needs huge amounts of memory. It's that the apps do, and that amount keeps increasing over time. The resident size of the current Facebook app on Android, for example, is over 100MB, and since it checks frequently for updates it can't be effectively suspended and thrown out of RAM. Some of Google's own apps, notably the Chrome browser, are also culprits.
iOS doesn't need as much RAM because it's not a full-bore multitasking OS. It does limited background operations, and the scope
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iOS doesn't need as much RAM because it's not a full-bore multitasking OS.
Actually, it is a fully preemptive-multitasking OS.
But it has been essentially "throttled" in that respect due to considerations over battery life. However, IIRC, the core of iOS is still Darwin, and that IS a multitasking OS.
Not great design (Score:2)
Don't get me wrong, I prefer analog volume dials to the crappy push button volume controls almost everywhere, but a phones a dumb place to have one.
What's going to prevent that dial turning every time it's put into a pocket?
Re: Not great design (Score:2)
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i don't get the hate... (Score:3)
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I find that it's the same as most Windows users. It's all about the hardware, because the software sucks.
Damn kids (Score:5, Interesting)
A 720p display, a quad-core CPU with 2GB of RAM and an 8MP camera is "low-end hardware" now. In your freakin' pocket, too.
I guess kids these days don't have a clue about how much we've advanced in the last 30 years.
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Compared to similarly priced phones, this phone is shit in the specs dept.
that's more (Score:1)