24K gold plated iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus out in China

Gold is everywhere these days (in the mobile world that is). We're starting to see more and more 'gold' versions of smartphones, the latest being Microsoft's Lumia 930 and Lumia 830, which were just announced a couple of days ago. But those are still nothing more than new colors - they aren't using actual gold. The Chinese company NavJack, however,...

Oppo U3 is now official, launches on January 14

Oppo U3 has been in the news since last November, but it is just now the company has made the device official. It's a capable 5.9" phablet with an octa-core processor and 13MP rear cam with 4x optical zoom. Oppo U3 is expected to draw lots of attention just a day before Xiaomi announces its next flagship phone in China. The U3 packs a 5.9" 1080p display...

Xiaomi to unveil the Redmi Note 2 on January 15, not Mi 5

Xiaomi is holding an event on January 15, and so far the rumors have been pretty adamant that we should see the Mi 5 or Mi 4s unveiled on that occasion. Now though, things are becoming less clear. A pretty well known reseller of Chinese smartphones has listed the yet unannounced Xiaomi Redmi Note 2. This is supposed to be the successor to the company's...

Polaroid's new Selfie smartphone faces legal trouble with Oppo

Following the hustle and bustle taking place at CES 2015, Polaroid somehow managed to slip through the cracks with its latest Selfie smartphone. The Polaroid Selfie rocks a familiar hardware design, which features a rotating 13MP camera. Image source: AndroidAuthority.com The phone is built around a 5.5" IPS display of 720p resolution and under the...

All iPhone 6 and 6 Plus models are now in stock at Apple

It finally looks like Apple was able to sort out its production issues for the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus. Ever since their release last year, certain variations of the two models have been intermittently unavailable in the company's online store, almost certainly due to supply chain woes. Not anymore, though. For the first time all of the iPhone...

Sony Xperia T3 gets the Android 4.4.4 KitKat update

Sony has issued a new firmware upgrade today, this time for its Xperia T3 smartphone. That said, this isn't Android 5.0 Lollipop we're talking about, even if that is technically the latest iteration of Google's mobile OS. Instead, Sony has made the Xperia T3 run what is the last variation of KitKat, namely Android 4.4.4. This represents a rather minor...

Samsung Galaxy S4 Google Play Edition is no more

A couple of days ago the Moto G Google Play Edition vanished from the Play Store forever, and now another smartphone has had the exact same fate. It certainly looks like Google Play Edition devices are going extinct soon. Today the Samsung Galaxy S4 GPE "is no longer available for sale", to quote the exact language used by Google in its online storefront....

Xiaomi's next flagship promises to be extremely thin

Xiaomi's next flagship, allegedly dubbed Mi5, is due to launch on January 15, which is less than a week away. Still, impatient leaksters continue to contribute. This time around it's a drawing, dated back to mid-November, of a metal chassis with dimensions 140.89 x 71.4 x 5.1mm. Previous info on the device has suggested a nearly bezelless screen and...

Ongoing funding for TOR-protected BOSS Phone

Do you want to have a phone with maximum possible security? Maybe the BOSS Phone is the gadget you've been waiting for. It's not yet available, but its crowd funding id doing great so far, and it you may have it this fall if everything goes as planned. So, the BOSS Phone, not Hugo Boss or BOSS Audio, is a 7" phablet secured with TOR encryption operating...

Consumer Electronics Show 2015 wrap-up

Much to the disappointment of tech geeks, CES 2015 couldn't go on forever. Some rumored announcements didn't take place, yet we got to see intriguing unexpected releases. In the following paragraphs you can check out what grabbed our attention. Samsung decided to delay the highly anticipated Galaxy S6 unveiling probably until the MWC in March. Instead...

Refurbished Lumia 928 goes for $240, new 925 for $262

Most Windows Phone deals typically involve a Lumia 530 or 630 if Microsoft is feeling generous. For a higher-end offering - though a refurbished one - there's the Nokia Lumia 928 from Verizon, which currently goes for $240, available in Black and White. Amazon has a similar deal but gets you a new device for $275. Both can be had for $0/$1 if you're...

Xiaomi's $65, LTE-enabled Android passes through TENAA

What's the cheapest LTE-enabled phone you can buy? The answer may be this (yet to be named) Xiaomi, which recently passed the certification process at TENAA. By the looks of it it's a variation of the new Xiaomi Redmi 2, but while that one costs CNY 700, this new model will be just CNY 400 ($65/€55). Late last year Xiaomi struck a patent deal with...

EE adds 5.7M LTE users last year, becomes largest LTE carrier in EU

British carrier EE had a good year, adding 5.7 million 4G LTE users to its flock, bringing the total to 7.7 million - enough to makes it the biggest LTE carrier in Europe. EE now covers 80% of the country's population, aiming to bring that up to 98% by the end of this year. Coverage includes 510 cities that number 10,000 people or more 200 of which...

Lenovo A6000 with Snapdragon 410 unveiled

Lenovo is hitting CES 2015 hard with a lot of interesting new device announcements and outshining a lot of the competition. Besides the Vibe X2 Pro and the Lenovo P90, along with an array of new laptops, including an improved ThinkPad X1 Carbon, and a smart band the Chinese giant has unveiled yet another smartphone - the Lenovo A6000. The Lenovo A6000...

Polaroid's L7 and L10 are budget-friendly Android tablets

Polaroid, the company best known for making instant cameras, has updated its L series tablet lineup with the addition of a couple of new devices. Dubbed L7 and L10, both are currently on display at the ongoing Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas. Although details are scarce, the L7 (pictured above) is a 7-inch tablet, while the L10 (pictured...

Nokia sells 20,000 N1 tablets in China in 4 minutes

The Nokia N1 went on sale in China today, and the Finnish company exhausted the initial batch of 20,000 units in record time. It only took four minutes and two seconds to go through all that inventory. It looks like Nokia chose to go the flash sale route, perhaps inspired by Xiaomi's success with this model. The next opportunity to buy the N1 will...

Alcatel launches its own online store in the US

Huawei already has its own online store in the US, through which it sells the Ascend Mate 2 in unlocked form along with a bunch of accessories. And now fellow Chinese company TCL has created a virtual storefront of its own, for the Alcatel brand. Unlike Huawei, though, Alcatel also lists those devices that it has customized for carriers. So if you're...

Golden Lumia 930 and 830 officially announced

Earlier today we saw the leaked images of a golden Lumia 930, and now Microsoft officially confirmed its existence, as well as that of a golden Lumia 830. Die-hard bling-bling fans shouldn't rejoice though, as the exact words used in the press release were "anodized gold color". Meaning you get the same aluminum frame (which is no bad thing all in...

CES 2015: BLU hands-on

BLU may be a comparatively small operation, but it brought out a lot more phones than most of the big players. They range from supremely thin to super-juiced, but none of them go north of the $200 mark when grab them off contract...Source: http://www.gsmarena.com/ces_2015_blu-review-1194.p...

Samsung Galaxy A3 and A5 finally coming to Europe

Following the official launch in India of the Galaxy A3 and A5 two days ago, it appears the European market will not be left out. Firmware versions have been made available by Samsung for both smartphones for an extensive list of countries, indicating that initial production issues have been resolved and a European launch is imminent. Specs of the...

Samsung expects Q4 2014 profits to drop 37% year-on-year

Samsung has announced its earnings guidance for the fourth quarter of 2014, revealing an operating profit of 5.2 trillion won ($4.7 billion), down approximately 37% from the year ago quarter, but still better than the 4.06 trillion-won figure it reported in Q3 2014, as well as analysts' expectations of 4.9 trillion won. While the South Korean company's...

Verizon begins selling Galaxy Note Edge for $399.99 on-contract

After US Cellular, the biggest carrier in the United States, Verizon, has also launched the Samsung Galaxy Note Edge on its network. The Big Red is selling the device for $399.99 on a two-year contract or $799.99 unlocked. You can also get it for $33.33 per month on the company's Edge early upgrade program. As you'd probably know, aside from the curved...

Selfie-centered Samsung Grand Max unveiled in Korea

Samsung's event at CES 2015 was lacking in smartphone flair, instead focusing on domestic appliances and what they called SUHD television. In South Korea though, they are launching the Galaxy Grand Max which is to hit local shelves on January 9 at KWR 319,000 ($290). From the front the device is an unmistakable member of the family, so much so that...

Samsung shows its thinnest phone yet - the Galaxy A7

Samsung has hit somewhat of a stride as of late, releasing the Galaxy A5 and Galaxy A3 in India and officially announcing the Galaxy E7 and Galaxy E5 alongside them. And now at an official Samsung Galaxy A launch in Malaysia, Samsung also showed for the first time the new Galaxy A7 - it's thinnest smartphone yet. Samsung Galaxy A7 The Samsung Galaxy...

Limited edition Gold Nokia Lumia 930 photos surface

A few days ago we reported on a new golden line of Lumia devices that Microsoft intends to release in limited qualities on the Chinese market. As it turns out the two devices on the initial banner are the Lumia 830 and the Lumia 930, just like we thought. A leaked set of photos, portraying the Nokia Lumia 930 with a golden finish prove that the device...

Huawei bringing contract-free Honor devices to US

Although Huawei is among the top five smartphone manufacturers in the world, it has little presence in the US. But that could change in the future as the company is bringing its Honor line of smartphones to the world's second largest smartphone market, according to a Wall Street Journal report. Although Huawei hasn't announced an exact date, the company...

Updated Android distribution chart shows gains for KitKat

Google has made its monthly update to the Android developer dashboard, specifically the "Platform Versions" chart. This tells us how much market share each Android iteration still has among currently active devices. The data is collected from the Google Play Store app. KitKat is now at 39.1% of the pie (and up 5.2%), though the three different versions...

Amazon's Fire Phone is now down to $189 unlocked

Let's face it, Amazon's Fire Phone has been anything but successful, despite its overhyped introduction. The company's first smartphone has, in fact, been such a flop that it's already caused some $170 million in losses. That's quite the amount, even for such a big retailer. Since it banked on the Fire Phone's success, Amazon apparently ordered quite...

iOS 8 now powers 68% of Apple's mobile devices

According to the latest data from Apple itself, iOS 8 is now on 68% of the devices that are currently registered with the iTunes App Store. Thus, we can assume that the same percentage of Apple mobile devices currently in use are running the latest version of the OS. That's up from 64% on December 22 of last year, 56% on November 12, 52% on October...

Sony to sell both FHD and QHD versions of the Xperia Z4

Taiwanese ePrice has been a frequent source of rumors and the latest batch concerns the upcoming Sony Xperia Z4. According to an unnamed source, the next Sony flagship smartphone is going to be available in two versions - one with a 1080p display and another with a QHD one. The version with a higher-resolution display is going to retail in the US,...

Kantar: iOS gaining at the expense of Android

Kantar Worldpanel, a popular research agency has recently put out a report on mobile OS popularity. It covers major Europe, US and Asia markets and crunches usage numbers from September, October and November 2014 and it happens to show a shrinking gap between Android and iOS. According to the data in the US Google's OS had 48.4%, which is a 2.1% drop...

Update finally ends touch issues on dual-SIM Lumia 535

The Microsoft Lumia 535 (first MS Lumia device ever) was well received by users on a tight budget but exhibited issues with touch sensitivity soon after launch. Microsoft was quick to provide a fix for the single-SIM variant of the phone but those with the slightly more expensive dual-SIM version were left out. But now Microsoft is issuing a firmware...

BLU unveils 7 new phones: thin, powerful, Lollipop and more

BLU unveiled a large swath of new Android smartphones and not one of them is more expensive than $200. Yet there are premium features like super thin metal bodies, octa-core processors, LTE connectivity, massive batteries and more. BLU Vivo Air A rebadged Gionee Elife S5.1, the BLU Vivo Air has an impressively thin 5.1mm chassis. Its frame is made...

BLU unveils 8 new phones: thin, powerful, Lollipop and more

BLU unveiled a large swath of new Android smartphones and not one of them is more expensive than $200. Yet there are premium features like super thin metal bodies, octa-core processors, LTE connectivity, massive batteries and more. BLU Vivo Air A rebadged Gionee Elife S5.1, the BLU Vivo Air has an impressively thin 5.1mm chassis. Its frame is made...

Xiaomi to announce super-thin flagship smartphone next week

Xiaomi has unveiled its plans to host a launch event for a new, super-thin flagship smartphone. The company is holding the event on January 15 at the National Conference Center in Beijing and has outed a teaser image to focus on the upcoming phone's thinness. There aren't any rumors regarding the specs of the phone so far. However, a Xiaomi representative...

New superMHL will one day bring 8K@120fps output to phones

The MHL Consortium is looking to future-proof its TV-out connector with the new superMHL standard. Laughing in the face of 4K TVs everywhere the new connector can output 8K image. At 120 frames per second. And 48-bit color depth. Our condolences to internal storage and microSD cards alike. The superMHL connector supports HDR imagery and can power...

CES 2015: Samsung Galaxy A5, Avengers movie props hands-on

Samsung's press conference at CES didn't include any new mobile phones or tablets. The Korean manufacturer focused on its innovative SUHD TV, portable SSD drive and Milk Music...Source: http://www.gsmarena.com/ces_2015_samsung-review-1193.p...

Alcatel unveils LTE-packing Pop 2 phones, Pop 10 tablet

Alcatel's new Pop 2 devices are bringing LTE connectivity in multiple form factors and at a reasonable price. Announced at CES 2015, the four new members of the Pop family start with a 4" Android smartphone and scale to a 10" tablet with a dedicated keyboard dock. All three Pop 2 phones are powered by a Snapdragon 410 chipset with a quad-core 64-bit...

Chinese manufacturer TCL is reviving Palm

Palm is one of those legendary companies that every self-respecting tech geek knows in detail and holds in high regard. This is more than justified as the American former tech leader had a tremendous influence on the smartphone world back in its date and was at the forefront of mobile innovation thanks to its superb devices and the revolutionary Palm...

Oppo U3 may pack 4x optical zoom, but probably not

Oppo love being able to attach "world's bestest" monikers to their new devices and this time is no different. According to information from Chinese regulator TENAA, their engineers have managed to fit a 4x zoom lens (if slightly protruding) into the 9mm thick body of the upcoming Oppo U3, thus beating the just-announced Asus Zenfone Zoom in both range...

Nokia N1 launches in China with a $260 price tag

Just as scheduled, the Nokia N1 officially launched today in China following a special event in Beijing. At its official announcement in November, the Nokia N1 was detailed to cost $249 without taxes and the Chinese price is similar at CNY 1,599 or roughly $257. The Nokia N1 comes with a 7.9-inch 2,048x1,536 pixel touchscreen display and an Intel...

Moto G Google Play edition gets discontinued

The first generation Moto G, which was available on the Play Store in Google Play edition form, is no longer being sold. The phone was launched last year shortly after the standard version, and perplexed many as the standard version had close to stock software already and as such didn't differ much from the Google Play edition. The first generation...

Apple Watch to go on sale in March, new report says

Apple is on track to launch the Apple Watch by the end of March this year, and retail training is set to start next month, according to a new report. The company had earlier only said that device would launch in early 2015. As per the report, the tech giant is currently wrapping up work on the smartwatch software, and it is now busy with other things...

Motorola reenters China with Moto G, Moto X, and new Moto X Pro

Motorola is reentering the Chinese market following the acquisition by Lenovo and it is doing so by launching three phones in the market. These include the Moto G 4G LTE, the Moto X, and the new Moto X Pro. While the first two are familiar to us, the third one isn't too different than something that goes by the name of Nexus 6. Indeed, the Moto X...

HTC Hima may employ a MediaTek SoC, at least in China

HTC's successor for the One (M8) from last year is clearly in the works, and it's allegedly codenamed Hima. We've known this for quite a while now, and we've even seen multiple rounds of leaked specs for this device. All of those did have one thing in common - a Qualcomm Snapdragon chipset for the Hima. But the phone may not employ that silicon in...

CES 2015 Misc brands: Sony, Nokia, Acer, Lamborghini

CES 2015 is now well under way and we've already seen numerous intriguing devices come out under various brands, big and small. Smartphones may be our specialty, but we're also in other smart gadgets too.Source: http://www.gsmarena.com/ces_2015_various-review-1191.p...

CES 2015: HTC Desire 826 hands-on

HTC announced two new Desire smartphones at CES 2015 in Vegas - the high-end Desire 826 and affordable Desire 320. The latter is already on sale in North America, while the HTC Desire 826 is yet to be released later in January...Source: http://www.gsmarena.com/ces_2015_htc-review-1192.p...

Kodak announces its first Android smartphone, the IM5

The latest entrant into the smartphone realm is none other than Kodak, though what it has unveiled today is less of a camera running Android, and more of an actual smartphone. It looks like one and has smartphone specs, so it's definitely (just) a smartphone. The Kodak IM5 comes with midrange innards mostly, except for the camera which features "unique...

CES 2015: Lenovo Vibe X2 Pro, P90 hands-on

Lenovo brought so many new devices at CES - phones, a wrist band, tablets and laptops, and we are still digging through the press releases just to be sure we didn't miss anything...Source: http://www.gsmarena.com/ces_2015_lenovo-review-1190.p...

New ZTE Nubia Z9 images confirm extremely slim bezels

It's not the first time we've seen alleged live photos of the successor to the ZTE Nubia Z7 but a new batch has just popped up. Sadly we didn't get any technical specs this time either. If you couldn't tell that the home button is the distinctive Nubia red circle, the inscription on the back leaves no doubt about which family the device belongs to....