Month: February 2017

BARCELONA, SPAIN—We're at Mobile World Congress and tons of new smartphones are launching, but MWC is also serving as the debut of a brand-new Android OEM. That company is HMD, a new Finnish upstart that seems like it was purpose-built to undo the damage Microsoft did to the Nokia smartphone brand. The company is made up of a ton of old-guard Nokia employees and has licensed the Nokia brand for smartphones.

Unfortunately, HMD didn't announce a high-end flagship smartphone at its MWC event. It did bring the Nokia 6, Nokia 5, and Nokia 3, which all start with a Snapdragon 430 and work their way down the spec totem pole form there. This is a brand-new OEM though, so a look at the Nokia 6 will help us get to know HMD a bit better.

Enlarge (credit: Getty | Michael Bradley )

Dangerous multidrug-resistant infections are surging in children across the country, researchers report in the Journal of the Pediatric Infectious Diseases Society.

From 2007 to 2015, the number of kids treated in hospitals for certain types of multidrug-resistant infections rose 750 percent, researchers found. Though overall incidence is still low, researchers say the study’s findings are pointing to worry trends—namely, silent spreading within communities, and severe, potentially life-threatening infections becoming common.

"The rate of rise was very rapid," the study’s lead author, pediatrician Sharon Meropol of Case Western Reserve University, told CIDRAP News. "And if that continues it's not going to be long before we get much higher rates."

Andrew Williams

BARCELONA, Spain—Since 2013, the Moto G in its various guises has been an easy phone to recommend to anyone who wants a decent phone for about £200. Last year, though, a "Plus" version of the Moto G4 emerged. You had a budget version and a slightly-less-budget phone to choose from. The Moto G5 Plus makes that decision all the more difficult, with greater differences between it and the normal Moto G5. The good news is, you still get your money's worth with the Moto G5 Plus.

Let’s start with the design. The Lenovo Moto G5 Plus takes a few cues from budget rivals like the Huawei Ascend G8 in its use of metal. From 2013 to 2016 Motorola avoided overt flashiness in its Moto G designs, using mostly plastic shells. The Moto G5 Plus has a plate of aluminium on its back, which ostensibly injects an extra shot of high-end-like flavour.

Andrew Williams

BARCELONA, Spain—Somewhat unusually for a newer phone, the Moto G5 isn't a flat-out better phone than the Moto G4 in every respect. It's just... different.

The biggest upgrade is in the Moto G5’s build. There’s a lot more metal than before. The best way to tell metal parts from plastic ones is to chill a phone to see which parts get colder than others. But because I no longer wheel a freezer behind me when I attend conferences like MWC, I have to make do with a simpler fingernail scratch test. It would appear that the rear of the Moto G5 is metal but the sides are plastic with a convincing metal finish.