Week 43 in review: Galaxy S5 Plus, Android 5.0 whitelist

Week In Review is back to recap all the major announcements of the week, which you might have missed. Week 43 saw the announcement of the Samsung Galaxy S5 Plus, which features a Snapdragon 805 chipset and Cat6 LTE. With the dust starting to settle around the announcement of Android 5.0 Lollipop, we made a comprehensive list of the phones that are...

Samsung launches the Galaxy Mega 2 in India

The Samsung Galaxy Mega 2 has reached India today. Samsung has officially launched the mid-range phablet in the subcontinent. This comes after the Mega 2 has previously gone on sale in Malaysia, and got listed on the official Samsung website in Thailand. In the US, AT&T is due to start offering it today too. Over in India, the Galaxy Mega 2 is...

Upcoming Huawei Honor 4X may cost $146 after all

A few days ago, we saw the Huawei Honor 4X comprehensively leaked after it got certified for sale on the Chinese market. The leak brought us some pictures of the handset, its specs, as well as a rumored price point of CNY 800 (that would be $130 or €103 at the current exchange rates). New information, however, seems to contradict that. According to...

HTC Nexus 9 hands-on: First look

The Nexus 9 by HTC was a hotly anticipated device on several fronts - it's the first tablet with Android 5.0 Lollipop, it brings HTC back into the tablet game, it's the first big Nexus tablet in two years and it's the first Nexus tablet that goes after a more premium market...Source: http://www.gsmarena.com/htc_google_nexus_9-review-1154.p...

Sony rumored to release a 12-inch tablet in early 2015

Sony is working on a 12-inch tablet, a rumor originating with "Taiwan-based supply chain makers" claims. This tablet is reportedly going to become available in the first quarter of next year, so before the end of March. It will be a high-end slate, and will also feature a stylus, apparently targeting markets with demand for graphics-related applications....

Leak details where the Galaxy S5 Active will land in Europe

The Samsung Galaxy S5 Active is coming soon to Europe, that much has been made abundantly clear by some recent leaks. When exactly that will happen is still quite a mystery, but today we get to find out more about the 'where'. That is, which places in Europe will be lucky enough to get the rugged version of the Galaxy S5 on sale. This list is based...

Samsung Galaxy S5 now said to get Lollipop in December

The Samsung Galaxy S5 may join the LG G3 in getting updated to Android 5.0 Lollipop before the end of this year. Earlier today, an LG rep apparently said as much regarding his company's current flagship smartphone. Now though it looks like LG's arch-rival from its home country of South Korea doesn't want to be left behind. According to a new rumor,...

Samsung Galaxy Note 4 reaches 4.5 million sales in a month

According to South Korean outlet News1 the Samsung Galaxy Note 4 has hit 4.5 million sales globally about a month after its launch (it launched September 26). That's a little lower than the 5 million units its predecessor sold in its first month, but the Galaxy Note 3 got a wider release initially. The Galaxy Note 4 started off in South Korea and...

Meizu MX4 Pro live image, benchmarks appear

A live photo of the Meizu MX4 Pro has surfaced confirming the phone looks as we saw it in a couple of official photos last week. Additionally, the phone went through GFX Benchmark testing, confirming its key specs in the process. The Meizu MX4 Pro comes with a 5.36" display with a 2560 x 1536 pixel resolution (557 ppi) and is powered by an the Samsung...

Amazon loses $437M in Q3, $170M due to Fire Phone failure

Amazon posted its Q3 earnings for this year - the company achieved $20.58 billion revenue which is a 20% increase compared to last year's Q3 when it pulled in $17.09 billion. The company's operating loss tips the scales at $544 million, though, a whopping increase compared to last year's Q3 loss of just $25 million. Net loss is $437 million. Amazon's...

Samsung Galaxy A7 1080p screen, 64-bit processor confirmed

Last month there was some confusion about the screen resolution of the upcoming Samsung Galaxy A7, some sources said 720p others 1080p. A leaked User Agent Profile confirms the 1080p number for the SM-A700FD, which is a dual-SIM version of the device. The screen will have a 5.5" diagonal, giving it 400ppi pixel density, up from Galaxy Alpha's 312ppi....

Oppo confirms two device launches for October 29

As the date for Oppo's grand event for the N3 comes closers, the company intensifies its teasers giving us more hints about what we can expect. The latest one shows a second device standing next to the teased Oppo N3 behind a red curtain. This teasers gives some credential to previous leaks, which revealed an Oppo N3 with a different design than what...

LG G3 to get Android 5.0 Lollipop update by the end of 2014

The LG G3 is going to sport Android 5.0 Lollipop by the end of the year, according to an LG representative for the Netherlands and Belgium cited by TechTastic. He didn't give a more specific time frame, as we suspect the company is going to make an official announcement regarding its update plans. The LG G3 is probably going to be joined by the LG...

GT Advanced and Apple terminate their partnership

GT Advanced Technologies, the company supplying Apple with sapphire for the Apple Watch, has announced the partnership between the two companies is over. Less than a year old, the deal drove GT Advanced to bankruptcy after the company didn't stick to the agreed timelines for sapphire production and Apple had to abandon its plans for sapphire-protected...

It's official - Lumia phones will be branded 'Microsoft Lumia'

The Nokia Lumia brand is no more - from now on there will only be Microsoft Lumia. However the Nokia phone brand isn't completely dead, Microsoft will continue to sell current Nokia Lumia handsets and provide the support that users expect. Also, features phones like the Nokia 130 will continue to be sold, we should also see new feature phones being...

Microsoft sold a record 9.3 million Lumia smartphones last quarter

Microsoft released its earnings report for the first quarter of the fiscal 2015. The Redmond-based tech giant took home net income $4.5 billion from $23.2 billion of revenue. The company's quarterly revenue is a drastic improvement over the $18.53 billion it achieved for the same period last year. Net income has dropped from last year's $5.24 billion...

LG G3 Screen goes official with NUCLUN octa-core chipset

LG officially announced the G3 Screen phablet. Designed for its home market, the previously leaked handset comes with LG's first application processor, which is dubbed NUCLUN. The brand new chipset features ARM big.LITTLE technology for efficient multitasking. Its octa-core setup consists of four 1.5GHz ARM Cortex A-15 cores for high performance computing...

Google's Project Ara will have a store for its modular bits

Google's modular smartphone effort, codenamed Project Ara, seems to be chugging along nicely ahead of its expected release in 2015. Team leader Paul Eremenko said in an interview at Purdue University that there will be a special store for Ara components, complete with recommendations and reviews. This will emulate the Google Play Store and its software...

Apple may pay Foxconn more for each iPhone 6 Plus

A media report from Taiwan claims Apple could be ready to pay more to Foxconn for its manufacturing services for the iPhone 6 Plus. This would hopefully have the effect of encouraging the Taiwanese company to make more iPhone 6 Plus units. Those are needed because the market demand for Apple's first phablet apparently exceeded expectations. So Apple...

HTC One Mini 2 gets a pink version in the UK

If you're interested in the HTC One Mini 2, but so far haven't found its color variations appealing, then this is for you. Aside from the grey and gold hues which have been available for quite a while, over in the UK Carphone Warehouse has started selling the smartphone in pink too. What's more, the pink version is exclusive to this particular retailer....

LG announces global rollout plans for the G Watch R

Following a report saying the round LG G Watch R would become available for purchase in the UK as soon as tomorrow, the Korean device maker has put out a press release outlining its rollout plans for the wearable. The G Watch R is LG's second smartwatch running Android Wear, coming after the original square G Watch introduced earlier this year. LG...

Great deal: Nokia Lumia 530 only 50 pounds in the UK

If you want to get a smartphone that's dirt cheap but isn't dirt or filled with dirt this may just be the deal for you. UK customers are being treated to a superb promotion for the Nokia Lumia 530 - £49.95 with a prepaid SIM or even £29.95 for pay as you go users that are eligible for an upgrade. You'll need to get a £10 top-up for the SIM which puts...

Huawei hits 16.8 million shipments in Q3 this year

Huawei is transitioning to a big player with premium options and already has concrete results to show. The company has shipped 16.8 million smartphones in Q3 this year and 26% of them were mid to high-end devices. It grew 23% overall compared to last year and 18% in its home country of China. The company also showed impressive growths in developing...

LG G Watch R hits the UK tomorrow for £224.99

If you've been waiting for the LG G Watch R, you will finally be able to purchase one tomorrow, provided you are in the UK. The G Watch R will be available online through Clove for £224.99 (including VAT) in black color only. The LG G Watch R is the first Android Wear device with a full circular display, unlike the semicircular display on the Moto...

LG Liger (F490L) photographed, benchmarked extensively

The LG Liger (F490L) made a bold appearance before its official announcement - complete with specs, hands-on photos and even benchmarks and chipset info. The phone will join the LG G3 family with similar looks but a bigger display (5.9") and LG's own Odin chipset. LG Liger (F490L) hands-on photos The chipset features four Cortex-A15 cores and four...

Apple iPad Air 2 GPU tested, outclasses Tegra K1

Someone has put the Apple iPad Air 2 through GFXBench's 2.7 T-Rex and 3.0 Manhattan's onscreen and offscreen (1080p) platform and we get to ogle at the framerates posted. The results show the iPad Air 2 is just as good and even at times better than the promising Tegra K1 chip and its Kepler GPU, which was the previous graphics champ. The scores below...

HTC One (M8 Eye) won't be coming to Europe

An updated flavor of HTC One (M8) with a 13MP dual camera setup on the back was recently launched in China and India. The phone is called HTC One (M8 Eye) and is otherwise absolutely identical with the original HTC One (M8). HTC's UltraPixel technology was always criticized for sacrificing good light performance to achieve a small gain in low-light...

Motorola Droid Turbo leaks out in live photos

Motorola Droid Turbo for Verizon Wireless made yet another unscheduled appearance. This time around, the soon to be revealed Android powerhouse showed up in number of live photos. In line with past leaks, the images showcase the upcoming device in black color scheme. The photos also confirm the handset's specs. Speaking of specs, they include 5.2-inch...

Samsung Galaxy Note 4 Developer Edition is headed to Verizon

Samsung Galaxy Note 4 Developer Edition quietly appeared on the manufacturer's website in the United States. The developer-friendly flagship phablet is headed to Verizon Wireless in the near future. Curiously, the Developer Edition is cheaper than the regular Samsung Galaxy Note 4 at full price with no contact. The version with unlockable bootloader...

Archos 50 Diamond with 4G LTE announced for 2015

At an event in Paris today, Archos officially announced the 50 Diamond. This is actually quite a high-end phone for the French company that usually focuses on extremely cheap devices. The Archos 50 Diamond comes with a 5-inch 1080p IPS touchscreen, a 16 MP rear camera with LED flash, and an 8 MP front snapper. Powering things up is a 64-bit Qualcomm...

Gigabyte GSmart Mika M3 becomes official in Greece

Last month Gigabyte introduced a lot of new Android smartphones, but it looks like there's going to be a new Mika model to complement the GSmart Mika M2 in the company's portfolio. This is the Gigabyte GSmart Mika M3, which has just become official at a special event in Greece, during which the other, already announced devices were present too. Gigabyte...

Sony Xperia Z3 Tablet Compact review: Rain or shine

True to its name, the Sony Xperia Z3 Tablet Compact is small, light, durable and powerful. Hardly a surprise to anyone who's been watching Sony lately. Two generations of mini superphones saw the Z Compact series become the benchmark for design...Source: http://www.gsmarena.com/sony_xperia_z3_tablet_compact-review-1152.p...

LG Liger (F490L) with in-house chipset gets pictured

LG's first foray in the mobile chipset business has definitely been a very long time coming. The SoC codenamed Odin is going to make its debut very soon, though, after almost one full year of leaks about it. And the first device to be powered by the LG Odin chip is apparently going to be the F490L, codenamed Liger. Thanks to a some marketing material...

Samsung Galaxy Note 4 duos quietly launches in China

Samsung has unveiled three dual-SIM versions of its Galaxy Note 4 flagship. All three are China-centric, one will come to China Telecom, one to China Unicom and one is intended for SIM-free release. The first SIM on all three models boasts LTE - both TDD and FDD flavors (that is Chinese and international) - while the second SIM is 2G only (900/1800/1900)....

Meizu MX4 with YunOS goes on pre-order today

The Meizu MX4 has been on sale for a while now but Meizu in partnership with Alibaba are launching pre-orders for a YunOS version of the smartphone. The pre-orders start today and end on November 10, they are for China only for now. To reserve an MX4 you'll need to deposit CNY 99 ($16), just make sure the payment goes through by November 10. The total...

New Oppo N3 leak reveals pricing, confirms 5.5

Just when we thought we'd go a day without any Oppo N3 leaks as the company has not posted any new teaser, here comes an impatient retailer to fill in the gap. An ad board in front of a Chinese phone shop has spilled the beans on a few of the specs of the upcoming smartphone, including its price. The board that you see pictured confirms that the Oppo...

ASUS Japan teases new Zenfones and Zenwatch

ASUS is teasing a launch of a smartphone and a smartwatch on its Japanese website. We'll know for sure what the company has in store for Japan on October 28, but until then we can only assume what ASUS is preparing. The company unveiled the ZenWatch at IFA 2014 sporting a a 1.63" AMOLED display with a resolution of 320 x 320px, resulting in 278ppi...

LG G3 gets a software update, improved UI responsiveness

LG has issued a software update for the G3. The major fix the company brings to its Android flagship is fixed user interface responsiveness, following a number of complaints from unhappy owners. The LG G3 update weighs 174MB, but sadly, there's no official changelog so far. Users, who've already flashed it report improved battery life in addition...

Sony Xperia E3 gets a $60 price cut in the United States

Sony Xperia E3 received a serious price cut in the United States. The entry-level LTE smartphone is available for $139.99 with no contract. The deal is offered by the online retailer Expansys. The new price tag is $60 less than the original $199.99 that the seller was asking for the Sony Xperia E3. Announced alongside the Xperia Z3 and Xperia Z3 Compact...

Samsung Galaxy Core Max goes official in China

Samsung launched the Galaxy Core Max in China. Sporting the model number SM-G5108Q. The dual-SIM smartphone combines mid-range specs and TouchWiz-ed Android 4.4 KitKat. Samsung Galaxy Core Max features 1.2GHz quad-core CPU, a gig of RAM, and 8GB of built-in, expandable memory. The display is a 4.8" Super AMOLED unit with qHD resolution (960 x 540...

iPad Air 2 benchmark reveals 3-core CPU and 2GB of RAM

Apple iPad Air 2 made a trip to the popular Geekbench benchmark and revealed juicy bits about itself. The freshly announced full-size tablet from Cupertino sports 2GB of RAM and rather curious 3-core CPU. While 2GB of RAM are hardly a surprise due to a number of leaks that suggested the memory bump, the CPU setup surely is a curious one. Past iPad...

iPad Air 2 and iPad Mini 3 arrive at T-Mobile on October 29

If you've been wondering just when you'll be able to purchase an iPad Air 2 or iPad Mini 3 from T-Mobile, the mystery has been solved today. The magenta carrier itself has unveiled both the pre-order date as well as the actual release date for Apple's new tablets. They will be up for pre-order starting tomorrow, October 22. And they will become available...

Dual-SIM Samsung Galaxy A3 visits the FCC sans 4G LTE

Samsung's upcoming Galaxy A3, A5, and A7 smartphones have so far been leaked a lot. That said, none of them has gotten official yet, so to get information about these handsets we have to look to other sources. Take the FCC for example. The US certification authority has just given the all clear to the Samsung SM-A300H/DS. According to the FCC documentation,...

Nokia brand to be replaced with Microsoft Lumia

If you've seen Microsoft's recent articles about Lumia you know it was coming. The Nokia brand has been phased out by calling the phones just "Lumia" and redirecting Nokia online properties to Microsoft.com. This rebranding effort will expand and soon the lineup will become "Microsoft Lumia". Lumia is already the de facto face of Windows Phone - it...

Samsung unveils Galaxy S5 Plus with Snapdragon 805

With a quiet whisper Samsung unveiled the Galaxy S5 Plus - a Snapdragon 805 version of the company's 2014 flagship. This is the small late season upgrade, similar to the Galaxy S4 LTE-A that launched late last year. Just like its predecessor the new Plus model brings a faster LTE connection in addition to the improved performance. The Galaxy S5 originally...

Apple Watch the most anticipated wearable, PwC study finds

PricewaterhouseCoopers has published a study on the smart wearables market, which shows that the Apple Watch is the most hotly anticipated device. 59% of people questioned said they are looking forward to trying the first Apple smartwatch. A potential smartwatch by Amazon would also enjoy significant interest - 57% of the survey participants would...

Apple now requires iOS developers to use 64-bit code

Ever since Apple unveiled the iPhone 5s, it has been keen to brag about the 64-bit support of the Apple A7 chip. Starting February, it will require developers to develop their apps to work on the 64-bit architecture as well as the 32-bit one. This means that the company is slowly but surely moving to a 64-bit only support in iOS. There are currently...

Meizu MX4 gets a gold version, pre-orders start tomorrow

Looking to get an MX4 with a touch of extra bling? Meizu has you covered as the company has just announced a gold version of its latest flagship. The new variant was announced at a Flyme + YunOS presentation held in China today and pre-orders will start tomorrow. You can book your unit from Taobao, Tmall and through Weibo starting from 10 AM tomorrow...

Latest Oppo N3 teaser confirms fingerprint scanner

Oppo keeps its N3 teaser campaign going and the latest image it has shared once again is once again about the rotating camera of its upcoming phablet. And while the precision optics are clearly the focal point, the most interesting bit is a bit further down the back of the phone. The image shows the fingerprint sensor, which we first saw in a leaked...

LG's Odin-powered phone coming this month, joining the G3 family

LG's in-house chipset codenamed Odin has been in the rurmorland for two years already. As the rumors have it, the Odin smartphone was delayed numerous times due to overheating issues and production hiccups. According to the latest report though those have been solved and we are going to see the mysterious phone announced any moment now. If those report...