Android Authority this week - September 19, 2015

It’s been a busy week in the world of Android, and much of the buzz was generated by an unlikely player – BlackBerry. Check out our BlackBerry Venice close-up and the other news of the week: Qualcomm announced details about Snapdragon 820 and Quick Charge 3; more rumors about the HTCOne A9 surfaced; Google announced the date of its Nexus event; Google Now on Tap became available; Amazon introduced its newest Android tablets; and details about the next Chromecast leaked out.

Inside AA HQ

Can we still be excited for new smartphones? In a world where leaks are the norm and truly new features and designs are increasingly rare, is there room left for genuine surprises? Matt wrote a very interesting piece on how the “leak culture” makes it increasingly hard to experience the joyful wonderment that used to accompany new product announcements “back in the day.” But while genuine surprises are harder to come by, we just can’t quit our addiction. “It is this lust for more that paradoxically encourages further leaks, and yet in the process, only further traps us into the vicious cycle of information excess,” as Matt puts it.

It’s definitely ironic that just a couple of days after Matt published his post, we brought you an exciting (and exclusive) leak. Perhaps even more ironic, the device that’s got all of us excited is a slider-phone with a mechanical keyboard from BlackBerry. And it runs Android. Those are words I never thought I would ever type. Check out hands-on images and video tour of the BlackBerry Venice, and thanks again to the fine folks at Baka Mobile for sending the media our way.

Sunday Giveaway: A big congratulations to last week’s winner of the OnePlus 2 giveaway: Sergiy G. from Ukraine. This week we are giving away a Samsung Galaxy Note 5, enter here.