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Meet "London," Marshall's First Android Smartphone

Posted by timothy on from the are-they-stackable? dept.

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.

34 of 67 comments (clear)

  1. Case Colour by Nighttime · · Score: 1

    It's like, how much more black could this be? and the answer is none. None more black.

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  2. Who else will jump on this bandwagon? by pinzvidz · · Score: 1

    Next we'll see HMV bring out an Android phone made out of mahogany.

    1. Re:Who else will jump on this bandwagon? by dhaen · · Score: 1

      With a horn and dog.

  3. Big deal by jonwil · · Score: 1

    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.

    1. Re:Big deal by smallfries · · Score: 2, Insightful

      And a tiny 16GB of storage. For music lovers. You know, the kind who would use flac instead of mp3. Just saying

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    2. Re: Big deal by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Informative

      Don't forget the microsd slot...

    3. Re:Big deal by wooferhound · · Score: 1

      But it has Front Facing tiny speakers

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    4. Re:Big deal by mlts · · Score: 1

      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 some high-quality, name-brand apps for basic mixing/mastering/recording. Maybe even have more than one USB slot so the phone can function with a breakout box as a decent recorder, with the breakout box having a tube or two as well as a good DAC/ADC pair.

      Commodore's smartphone should not just have some apps to emulate the PET, but perhaps come with a breakout box that can actually allow for a monitor and keyboard. Even better would be functionality like the Atrix, a docking station and a Linux distro for better desktop emulation.

      There are ways to have a generic Android phone and build on it. Vertu makes money hand over fist selling smartphones for insane prices, and bundling concierge service at the press of a button.

    5. Re:Big deal by ArcadeMan · · Score: 1

      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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    6. Re:Big deal by dinfinity · · Score: 1

      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/...

      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.

    7. Re:Big deal by adolf · · Score: 1

      What Android needs is less-than-terrible audio latency.

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  4. Re:All the way to 11 by Demonoid-Penguin · · Score: 1

    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".

  5. Almost... by Kokuyo · · Score: 1

    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...

  6. Re:London? by aliquis · · Score: 1

    To sell to the Beatles? (Or any other Music loving Brits.)

  7. Re:All the way to 11 by wooferhound · · Score: 1

    But . . . can you plug a guitar into it ?

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  8. Does the volume go up to 11? by heretic108 · · Score: 1

    Just askin' ;)

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  9. looks like Jim has really left the company by dr.piwi · · Score: 2

    Since he passed away the marketing boy's have taken over the place. Too much overpriced crap products

  10. Audiophile aftermarket opportunities by BlacKSacrificE · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Screw your diamond encrusted case, I'll take mine with Brilliant Pebbles please.

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    1. Re:Audiophile aftermarket opportunities by PopeRatzo · · Score: 2

      Brilliant Pebbles

      I don't think I've ever before said that I was gobsmacked, but that actually smacked my gob.

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  11. Moto G? by drinkypoo · · Score: 1

    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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    1. Re: Moto G? by drinkypoo · · Score: 1

      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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    2. Re: Moto G? by drinkypoo · · Score: 1

      We didn't ask you, fucking faggot.

      First you wanna kiss me, then you wanna kill me

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    3. Re: Moto G? by Shirley+Marquez · · Score: 1

      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 of those has increased over time, but still stops short of the full thing. That means that iOS doesn't need to have as many apps resident in RAM. Android can also suspend things to disk if necessary, but that tends to mess with the expectation that you can switch instantly to another app. Chrome can also minimize its memory use if the device is running low on RAM; mostly it does that by discarding tabs other than the currently selected one, with the consequence that switching to other tabs is slower because they may have to be rerendered or even downloaded again.

    4. Re: Moto G? by macs4all · · Score: 1

      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.

  12. Re:All the way to 11 by Demonoid-Penguin · · Score: 1

    But . . . can you plug a guitar into it ?

    Will it go to ELEVEN!?

    Your GENNIUS award is in the mail. Wear it with pride.

  13. Not great design by argStyopa · · Score: 1

    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?

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    -Styopa
    1. Re: Not great design by unami · · Score: 1

      probably the "lock" function...

    2. Re:Not great design by BlacKSacrificE · · Score: 1

      My bigger concern would be liquid and/or dust ingress. The great thing about buttons is they are fixed onto an [flexable material] bed, which apart from supporting the button cap also forms an inside/outside world seal. An actual thumbwheel? not so much. Granted the housing which contains the thumbwheel mechanism can be sealed, isolating it from the gubbins proper of the phone, but I can't see a mechanical device (nor the encoder which reads its position, be it optical or push-button based) standing up to sweat, pocket lint, and all the other munge which inevitably builds up in these types of spaces over any appreciable period of time.

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  14. i don't get the hate... by unami · · Score: 2

    looks like a phone with decent specs and unique features and design. i don't see the need for the best specs on paper bundled together in a crappy phone with bloatware and a general purpose OS that's far from optimized for the hardware. which still won't have the unique features this one has. it's like saying "that dodge over there is crap, because it won't be as fast as my honda over here, but costs more". really, are some android-people so insecure that they always have to deride users of other phones than the ones they got, just to feel better? you'll hardly find those type of comments in windows-phone, blackberry or iphone forums. maybe the phone is their only pride & status - symbol in life?

    1. Re:i don't get the hate... by ArcadeMan · · Score: 1

      I find that it's the same as most Windows users. It's all about the hardware, because the software sucks.

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  15. Damn kids by ArcadeMan · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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.

    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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    1. Re:Damn kids by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Compared to similarly priced phones, this phone is shit in the specs dept.

  16. that's more by guygo · · Score: 1

    and the Volume goes to 11. That's more.

  17. Re:designed by real people by Shirley+Marquez · · Score: 1

    The only spec that is totally out of line is the price tag. But the US price is likely to be significantly lower because it won't include VAT. If it is sold for something more like $400 it might appeal to some people who might have otherwise bought a midrange phone plus a standalone audio player like a HiFi Walkman, FiiO, Pono, etc. But we'll have to hear some real world reports on the sound quality before we'll know whether that market (if it even exists) will be buying.