Samsung was the first to create a “phablet” and it looks like it’s also the first to create a “phomera”. OK, my silly name doesn’t really exist, but the device I’m referring to actually does.

On Wednesday, Samsung introduced the Galaxy Zoom: an Android phone that includes a 10x optical camera zoom (24-240mm, F/3.1 to F/6.3). Essentially the rear part of the phone looks like a traditional Galaxy handset. Turn the device around and it looks more like a point-and-shoot camera. Supplementing the zoom lens is a 16 megapixel sensor and Optical Image Stabilization (OIS) to reduce camera shake. Samsung also added a Zoom Ring to quickly access the camera functions: In-Call Photo Share, camera mode choice and other controls.

Of course, since this is a phone, it has the expected connectivity choices: GSM, HSPA+, and LTE. The device runs Android 4.2 on a 1.5 GHz dual-core processor. Samsung hasn’t offered specifics on the exact chip, nor does it mention how much RAM is in the Zoom. That rear display on the camera — or is the front display of the phone? — is a 4.3-inch qHD resolution screen: 960 x 540.

From what I can tell, this isn’t going to be a high-end smartphone with better camera optics but should appeal to photo fanatics that want a solid Android experience. I’m curious how the added camera optics will affect holding the device on a phone call, however.

In tablet news, more details surfaced on the next-generation Nexus 7. This week, FCC testing documents were found for a Nexus-branded, Asus built 7-inch slate. The device (or devices, as there are different models) will have Wi-Fi and LTE options and use a Qualcomm Snapdragon chip in lieu of Nvidia’s silicon that powers the current Nexus 7. The biggest detail missing so far is: what resolution will the new tablet have? My hope is for two options: a lower-cost 1280 x 800 unit and a premium-priced 1080p version.

And HTC looks sure to follow Samsung’s lead in making a mini version of its flagship phone. Bloomberg reported this week that the HTC One Mini will launch this August. The “mini” refers to the smaller design and display: Expect a 4.3-inch screen with 720p resolution; that compares to the HTC One’s 4.7-inch, 1080p display.

Engadget has a reported picture of the new Mini next to the existing HTC One, showing similar design cues. That’s a smart move by HTC, given that its current flagship is regarded by many, including me, to be the best built and designed Android phone available today. You’ll likely give up some performance if you opt for the smaller version though: a dual-core chip and possibly a lower camera resolution. For some, a more manageable size could trump those feature reductions.

Blogger clearly benefits from a larger screen, yet Android tablet owners haven't had a native editing space since the Blogger app launched on their platform. Thankfully, Google is rectifying that problem today: the Android release now occupies a tablet's full screen space while users compose and review their posts. The refresh also offers WYSIWYG editing for current entries, regardless of the screen size. However much they'll use the improved workspace, would-be Android auteurs just have to swing by Google Play for the update.

If all you do with your Android phone or tablet’s keyboard is tap out words, you’re missing a lot of great features. There’s more to learn about a keyboard than you might expect.

Of course, you can just type out words without paying attention to any of these features — but mastering them will help you type faster and save time while entering text.

Voice Typing

If your hands aren’t free — or you just feel like dictating — you can tap the microphone button on the keyboard and enter words just by speaking them.

This feature sends your voice input to Google’s speech recognition service, where it’s examined, converted to text, and sent back to your phone. This means that it requires an Internet connection, but the approach of using Google’s massive computing power makes it surprisingly accurate.

To enter punctuation marks while using voice recognition, just say “period,” “comma,” “question mark,” “exclamation mark,” or “exclamation point.” Android will enter the appropriate punctuation mark instead of the words.

Offline Voice Typing

If you’re using Android 4.2 or a newer version of Android, you can now use voice typing offline. You’ll just need to install the appropriate voice-recognition language dictionaries. Note that voice recognition is slightly less accurate in offline mode.

To install the dictionaries, open the Settings screen, tap Language & input, and tap the settings button to the right of Google voice typing.

Download the languages you want to use offline from the Offline Speech Recognition screen.

Swipe to Type

The default keyboard in Android 4.2 gained the ability to type words simply by swiping your finger over them.

To type a word with swiping, simply touch the first letter and glide your finger over the letters — for example, to type Geek, touch the G, move your finger to the E, and then move your finger to the K. Android will try to guess what you’re typing, displaying it above the keyboard. Lift your finger and the word will be typed. You can do this to quickly type many words in sequence, lifting your finger from the screen in between them.

Word Prediction and Auto-correction

When tapping in a word, Android 4.2′s keyboard will try to think ahead and guess the word you’re about to type. For example, type Messa and  “Message” will appear above the keyboard. You can then tap the space bar to move to the next word and Android will automatically fill in the rest of the word it’s expecting you to type.

The keyboard will even use context to guess which word you’re likely to type, even if you haven’t started typing a word yet. Tap one of the suggestions to type it.

Keyboard Settings

You can customize your keyboard’s behavior, too. Open the Settings screen, tap Language & input, and tap the settings button to the right of the Android keyboard.

The keyboard settings screen contains options for disabling features like swiping, auto-correction, auto-capitalization, and next-word suggestions. You can also make auto-correction even more aggressive or switch to other keyboard layouts, like the French QWERTZ layout.

Third-Party Keyboard Replacements

Android’s included keyboard is just one of many options — in fact, your phone’s manufacturer may have already included third-party keyboards like Swype for you to use. You can install other third-party keyboards from Google Play and switch between them. For example, many people consider SwiftKey to have the best auto-correction features, while Swype is the original swipe-over-letters-to-type-them keyboard.

Such experimental features are usually found on Android first — you can find a wide variety of different keyboards, all with their own ideas of how to make text input faster and more efficient.

Android doesn’t have an iTunes-like desktop program, so the process of syncing your data may not be as obvious as it is with an iPhone.  However, you don’t need a desktop syncing app — even iPhone users are leaving iTunes behind.

While you can move files back and forth with a USB cable or wireless network connection, the ideal way to keep data in sync between your devices is by relying on online services that do the work for you.

Transfer Files Manually to Your Phone

If you do want to transfer files the old-fashioned way, you can copy files directly to your Android device. This is ideal if you want to copy music, videos, or other media files to your Android phone or tablet. After copying the files over, they should be automatically appear in your Android media player app. You can also use a file manager app to view them.

• USB Cables: Connect your Android phone directly to your computer using the USB cable you use to charge it. It will appear as a new drive in the Computer window, where you can copy files back and forth like you would from a USB flash drive. Older Android devices may require you to pull down the notification bar on your phone and tap the Turn on USB storage option to make the Android’s storage accessible on the PC after plugging it in.

• Wireless File Transfers: If you want to transfer files wirelessly, you have a wide variety of options. AirDroid is one of the most convenient. Install the AirDroid app and you’ll be able to access your phone from a web browser, giving you the ability to copy files back and forth. You can also set up Windows networking or create an FTP server to allow your phone to access your PC’s storage.

• Cloud Storage: Copying files the old-fashioned way is best if they’re very large — for example, if you want to copy a video file to your Android phone. However, transferring small files and keeping files in sync is easier if you use cloud storage. Whether you use Dropbox, Google Drive, SkyDrive, or another cloud storage service, you can drop the file into the cloud storage folder on your computer and open the associated app on your phone. This will give you access to the file without having to transfer it to your phone manually.

There are third-party syncing apps that try to replicate that iTunes experience with an Android phone, but you don’t need them.

Sync Your Browser Data

Want all your browser bookmarks, open tabs, history settings, and other data to follow you between your phone and computer? Just enable the sync option in your web browser, install the appropriate browser on your Android phone, and activate the sync option there, too.

• Google Chrome: Log into Chrome on your PC with your Google account and use the Google Chrome browser on Android.
• Mozilla Firefox: Enable Firefox Sync on your PC and use Firefox for Android.
• Opera: If you’re an Opera user, you can enable Opera Link and use Opera for Android.

Users of Internet Explorer or Safari don’t have an official syncing solution. There are unofficial sync apps available, but we haven’t tested them.

Get Music On Your Phone

You could connect a USB cable and copy all your music files to your phone, but that won’t be ideal if you have too much music to fit on your phone. Instead, try using Google Music Manager, which will upload a copy of your music files to Google’s servers for free. You can then use Google’s Play Music app on your phone to listen to your entire music collection if you have an Internet connection, or cache music on your device to make it accessible offline.

You may also want to try using a third-party music apps, instead. Read more about ways to get music on your Android without iTunes here.

Use Online Services

In the old days, people synchronized their palm pilots and old smartphones with their computers to keep their contacts, calendar events, and other data in sync between their PC and their handheld device. This isn’t the way things are done anymore — in fact, you’d have trouble finding a software solution that let you sync your data in this way.

Instead, data is synced by relying on online (“cloud”) services, and Android does this by default. Your Android’s contacts and calendar events are automatically synchronized with Gmail’s Contacts and Google Calendar, where you can access them from a web browser by logging in with the same Google account. Any changes you make to the Contacts or Calendar from your browser will replicate themselves on your phone.

Instead of worrying about synchronizing data back and forth, look for services that have solid Android apps and useful websites or desktop apps and use them to keep your data in sync across your devices. For example, it’s much easier to use the popular Evernote (or another note-taking app, such as Google’s own Google Keep) to keep your notes in sync across your devices than it is to take text notes on your Android and copy them back and forth using a USB connection.

Assuming you use the same services on your PC and your phone, keeping their data in sync should be a snap. This part should happen automatically.

As the prevalence of Android malware grows, its sophistication is naturally growing as well. Kaspersky researcher Roman Unuchek writes that he and his team recently stumbled upon a new Android Trojan that he calls the most sophisticated one he’s ever seen. What makes this Trojan, dubbed “Backdoor.AndroidOS.Obad.a,” so bad? Unuchek says that it’s a “multi-functional Trojan” capable of “sending SMS to premium-rate numbers; downloading other malware programs, installing them on the infected device and/or sending them further via Bluetooth; and remotely performing commands in the console.”

What’s more, the researcher says that although “malware writers typically try to make the codes in their creations as complicated as possible… it is rare to see concealment as advanced as Odad.a’s in mobile malware.” In other words, it sounds like the everything bagel of Android malware: Not only can it perform multiple malicious functions, but it’s enormously complex to dissect as well.

BlackBerry Messenger may seem like a distant memory for many who have made the jump to iOS or Android, but it'll soon be time to get reacquainted. According to a tweet from T-Mobile UK, we should expect to see the service arrive on both platforms on June 27th. BBM should be available as a free download specifically for anyone using iOS 6 and Android 4.0 or above, so make sure your device is properly updated before the end of the month -- hopefully the messaging service will make you want to create new memories in addition to the ones you've relished in years past.

Cerberus is one of the most highly regarded Android security apps in Google Play, and now it can be yours forever at zero cost. All you have to do is download AppGratis from Google Play (if you haven't already) and confirm that free things are of interest to you.

Unlike a lot of AppGratis' free app deals, this one links directly to the Play Store edition of Cerberus. That means you will get updates as they come out, and the app can be re-downloaded at any time. The catch is the license has to be activated on your device today. A license for Cerberus usually costs €2.99, or almost 4 freedom-bucks.

Cerberus has a ton of features including SIM locking, device alarms, remote lock, remote wipe, location tracking, front camera support, and that's just the start. It can also be installed as a system app on rooted devices so it can't be removed by a third-party. So go now, and enjoy the added security.

AMD continues to soldier forward in the PC market, but CEO Rory Read wants the company to get at least 20 percent of its revenue from other sources by the end of this year. Some of this money will come in from next-generation game consoles like the PlayStation 4 or the Xbox One. And some of it, according to a report from PC World, will soon be coming from Android tablets and Chromebooks.

"We are very committed to Windows 8; we think it's a great operating system, but we also see a market for Android and Chrome developing as well," AMD Senior Vice President and General Manager Lisa Su said at this week's Computex trade show. This runs counter to her statements from earlier this year, when the company was "betting heavily on Windows 8" and had no immediate plans to support Android.

Su didn't give a timeframe for when either Chrome OS or Android versions compatible with AMD chips would be available. However, the company did recently announce some low-voltage APUs (codenamed Temash) with TDPs of as little as 3.9 watts that could easily fit into this type of device. Those chips will supposedly be shipping soon, if they aren't already.

Moving to support other operating systems is a smart move for AMD, if one that they're a bit late with. Undercutting Intel on price has long been part of the company's business strategy, and both Chromebooks and Android tablets are continually trying to push prices lower. Current sub-$249 Chromebooks are powered by both ARM and Intel, and ARM-based Android tablets under $199 are also plentiful (and Intel is reportedly aiming for that price point with its forthcoming Bay Trail Atoms). At the right price, AMD's OK-CPU-good-integrated-GPU combination could be just what these devices are looking for.

Even after its press events earlier this week, ASUS still had something up its sleeve for Computex. At a Qualcomm keynote just now, ASUS CEO Jerry Shen took the opportunity to tease an unannounced Android tablet, which is due Q3 this year. Given that it was a Qualcomm event, it was no surprise that the exec confirmed the presence of a Snapdragon chip along with LTE radio on this mysterious slate.

Shen also mentioned a full HD display, and given the similar appearance but with a different port layout, we are led to believe that this device will simply be an LTE variant of the new MeMo Pad FHD 10 sans Intel Atom. This could even turn out to be the K005 that we saw in the FCC database, as the MeMo Pad FHD 10 carries the K00A model number. Anyhow, here's Shen's full speech about the tablet:

"In Q3 of this year, we will raise the bar of mobile devices by launching an incredible LTE tablet, which will have Qualcomm Snapdragon, full HD display and ASUS SonicMaster to bring our consumers the most superior and seamless mobile experience. I will save the rest for our launch event in the fall."

Although companies are starting to open up more to Android, Apple phones and tablets still dominate when it comes to business use of mobile devices.

“Android is clearly growing quickly,” Good Technology CEO Christy Wyatt said in an interview. “It shouldn’t shock anyone that iOS is still out in the lead.”

But Wyatt said she is somewhat surprised the iPad remains so dominant in the tablet space some three years after its introduction. Nearly nine in 10 tablets in connecting to Good’s software are iPads.

Overall, Good’s quarterly look at its customers showed three in four device activations were iPhones or iPads, though that is down five percentage points from a year earlier.

As for Windows Phone, Wyatt said it remains less than 1 percent of devices connecting to its software, but interest is growing with more companies wanting to make sure it is something Good supports.

Other findings from the quarterly survey include:

*The iPhone 5 was the most popular phone, followed by the iPhone 4S with Apple devices making up all of the top five devices and six of the top 10 devices.

*The Galaxy S3 was the most popular Android device, accounting for 5 percent of total device activations and one in five Android devices.

*As far as industries adopting iPads, the business, professional services, financial services and insurance industries were the most active, while the life sciences was the fastest growing sector, with adoption double that of a year earlier.

Gmail 4.5 started rolling out today to Android devices (have you installed your update yet?), and immediately some of you noticed that it has definitely shuffled some things around. The bottom bar moved up top, the navigation is now on the left, and the multi-select checkboxes are gone. Don't worry, though - multi-select functionality hasn't disappeared. In fact, it's still very easy to use.

With the addition of sender images, two separate scenarios exist for using good old multi-select. Let me demonstrate.

Sender Images Enabled

Sender images are kind of neat - they instantly let you tell what kind of correspondence you're looking at in a very visual way. I personally love them. Some of you may not - if you are one of those people, go to the next section.

By the way, in case you haven't figured it out yet, if a sender image is missing, the first letter of the sender's name is used instead.

Here's the thing about sender images - they are your multi-select checkboxes. Just tap them. Easy, right?

  

Sender Images Disabled

So you hate sender images and decided to disable them. Don't worry - you can still select multiple messages. Just long-press one of the emails until it gets highlighted and then simply single tap others. A little bit more effort, but it still works and works well.

 

Now if we could get an option to restore the bottom button bar, I'd be a happy camper.