At its IFA press event at the beginning of this month, Samsung ended its Gear S2 announcement by teasing an upcoming big tablet called Galaxy View. Although the Korean company did not out any other details, we’ve only had one huge Samsung tablet being rumored recently.

According to past leaks, its model number is SM-T670. And now a mobile device bearing that exact same model number has been certified by the Bluetooth SIG.

Although we can’t yet be sure this is what’s going to be sold as the Galaxy View, it’s really unlikely that the company would out two different huge tablets running Android in the next few weeks. After all, with a rumored screen size of 18.4″, the T670 (or Galaxy View) would be a niche device at best. Two of them would thus make little sense.

So we assume that this is in fact the Galaxy View. The certification means it will almost surely launch before the end of the year, though it’s still unclear when exactly.

It should come with a TFT LCD touchscreen with 1080p resolution, the Exynos 7580 SoC with a 1.6 GHz octa-core CPU, 2GB of RAM, 32GB of expandable storage, an 8 MP rear camera, a 2 MP front-facing camera, and a 5,700 mAh battery. It will reportedly run Android 5.1 Lollipop.

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Just yesterday we saw the upcoming Huawei Nexus 6 (codenamed Angler) in the database of the Geekbench benchmark for Android. That helpfully confirmed a couple of key specs of the device, namely the Snapdragon 810 chipset it uses, the fact that it comes with 3GB of RAM, and it runs Android 6.0 Marshmallow.

Today the same handset decided to run GFXBench too, and this benchmark’s information screen thankfully lists even more specs for it.

As such, we now know that Huawei’s first Nexus smartphone will have a 5.7-inch QHD touchscreen, 32GB of storage, a 12 or 13 MP rear camera with 4K video capture support and LED flash, an 8 MP selfie shooter, an accelerometer, a barometer, a gyro, a compass, NFC, GPS, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, as well as a pedometer.

The use of the Snapdragon 810 SoC paired with 3GB of RAM is confirmed yet again, so at this point the only big mystery remains the battery capacity of the Huawei Nexus 6.

Google is expected to announce this device alongside the LG Nexus 5X at an event on September 29. The two phones may then go up for pre-order on October 13.

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If you’re getting excited about the upcoming Windows Phone flagship from Microsoft you probably don’t want to hear about another mid-ranger, but here it is. The Microsoft Lumia 550 has cropped up in a Swiss store for CHF 114 ($117/€104) and it could become the first of the 5-series to support LTE.

Specs for the phone (RM-1127 and RM-1128, probably the single and dual-SIM versions) show a Snapdragon 210 chipset (quad A53 at 1.1GHz plus Adreno 304) and a 4.7″ screen with 720 x 1,280px resolution. The phone is listed with 8GB of storage and will launch with Windows 10 Mobile.

GFX Benchmark also detected a 5MP/720p main camera and 1.2MP/720p selfie camera. We may be looking at 1GB of RAM though GFX reported only half that. Leaked specs of the 550 show 1GB RAM, but also a 5″ 540 x 960px screen.

Microsoft scheduled an event for October 6 and we were really, really hoping for the mythical Lumia 940 but we may be getting mid-rangers too.

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Earlier this year a Samsung official announced that the company is building a bendable phone – think a flip phone with one continuous screen that covers the insides of both halves. A popular leakster on Weibo claims to have internal knowledge of the endeavor, dubbed Project Valley (aka Project V).

Samsung is reportedly testing both Snapdragon 620 and 820 for the phone. It doesn’t become clear if that’s for two separate versions of the phone or just looking for the most suitable chipset. Either way, it will have 3GB of RAM.

The battery will be non-removable – no surprise since it would need to be a custom solution – but Samsung Project Valley will allegedly have a microSD slot. The screen will certainly be OLED, there are no bendy LCDs.

Project Valley will reportedly be ready in January next year. Perhaps we’ll see an introduction at the MWC (end of February) or a separate event earlier than that.

The Sony Tablet P was a similar attempt back in 2012, but it used two separate screens (with an ugly bezel in the middle), the tech wasn’t ready back then. But this is one approach to continue growing smartphone screens without stretching out people’s pockets.

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After the Opera Mini update, the browser maker has issued a new version of its core product – desktop Opera. The update brings improved privacy, security and personalization options.

First up is support for SurfEasy – Opera’s own VPN network that lets you browse the web from anywhere in the world privately and anonymously. The browser will offer to download SurfEasy when you open a private window or a security badge.

The new version adds support for password syncing between devices. You can enable it from the settings panel.

Opera already syncs tabs and bookmarks, but now you get a better way to browse those bookmarks – the bookmark tree. It’s available in the dropdown menu and in the bookmark manager.

Finally, you can now install and create animated themes for Opera – any short video can serve as background on your Speed Dial…

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Qualcomm held its own dedicated event today to detail its next premium chip offer as well as a couple of midrange offerings. The beastly Snapdragon 820 was hastily announced back in March, during MWC 2015, undoubtedly to draw attention away from the Snapdragon 810 overheating fiasco. Since then, Qualcomm has been feeding us bits and pieces of info on the silicon one at a time, most-probably not long after the decision themselves are made in the active development process.

A major missing puzzle piece was connectivity and at today’s Qualcomm event in China it became clear that the Snapdragon 820 will offer top-notch mobile data bandwidth – up to 600Mbps downstream and 150Mbps up over LTE-Advanced (X12 LTE). Also Wi-Fi 802.11ad will be supported for next-gen local connectivity.

The Snapdragon 820 will use four custom 64-bit Kryo cores, so no more standard Cortex solutions. The Kryo processor has been manufactured via Samsung’s 14nm FinFET process, so it promises to go easy on the battery as well. And speaking of the Korean tech giant, rumors hint that it is already busy testing the Snapdragon 820 for integration inside the next Galaxy S7 flagship.

The quad-core Kryo CPU with 64-bit architecture found in the Snapdragon 820 has been integrated tightly with the Adreno 530 GPU and the Hexagon 680 DSP of the chipset. All 5-series Adrenos will support OpenGL 3.1 (with 3.2 coming later) and the new Vulcan API. Qualcomm claims a 40% jump in performance along with a 40% cut in power usage. The GPUs support HDMI 2.0 and up to 4K @ 60fps output, they’ll even manage 4K output wirelessly (though capped at 30fps).

Other Impressive technological innovations inside the Snapdragon 820 include a new ISP. Dubbed Spectra camera Image Signal Processor it will handle small camera pixels better, hybrid autofocus (i.e. added phase detection AF), low-light performance and will lean on the GPU for software “optical zoom.”

The event also saw the announcement of two brand new Qualcomm chipsets – the Snapdragon 617 and Snapdragon 430. Both use eight standard Cortex-A53 cores, clocked at 1.5GHz and 1.2GHz respectively.

The higher-end 617 comes with X8 LTE modem with Cat.7 speeds (300 Mbps download and 100Mbps upload) and an Adreno 405 GPU. The 430 is equipped with X6 LTE with Cat.4 speeds (150 Mbps down and 75Mbps up) and, interestingly enough a newer Adreno 505 GPU. Both chips also have Dual-ISPs, powering up to 21MP cameras.

The company also confirmed all new chips will support its latest Quick Charge 3.0 standard. The technology claims to be 27% faster that version 2.0, while using less power and thus preserving the health of the battery pack longer.

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Samsung has finally gotten round to the Galaxy Tab Pro 12.2 LTE (SM-T905) and is treating the once flagship tablet to Android Lollipop. The largest slate in the lineup moves straight to the latest 5.1.1 OS version from its current 4.4.2 KitKat state.

The firmware build is dated September 3 and comes in the form of a 1.3GB download. The rollout has started from the Nordic countries, but should hopefully make its way to the rest of the markets where the tablet was originally available.

Given that the latest update was last year around this time, one can reasonably expect that the tablet will no longer receive newer releases. We’re yet to see when and if Lollipop is coming to the Wi-Fi-only version of the Galaxy Note Tab Pro 12.2 (SM-T900), or the equally sized S-Pen-packing Galaxy Note Pro 12.2…

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Vodafone UK has partnered with Sony to offer an exclusive edition of the Sony Xperia Z5, the Bond phone. It will come with some special Spectre content – Bond themes and wallpapers plus a behind-the-scenes blog from Moneypenny (who also stars in the new Bond/Z5 promo).

The Bond phone will go up on pre-order on September 16 – that’s tomorrow. If you pre-order you’ll get the chance to win one of 50 Aston Martin Experience Days to feel more like Bond.

And if you get the Xperia Z5 on Vodafone’s Red 4GB Value 4G plan, you can also purchase a Sony AZ1VR Action Cam Mini for £50 (normally it costs £250).

PS: keep in mind that the plain Xperia Z5 will be available from other carriers and stores…

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Less than a week after it was spotted on Geekbench running Android 5.1.1 Lollipop, a new rumor is suggesting that HTC’s upcoming One A9 flagship (codenamed Aero) will run Android 6.0 Marshmallow out of the box.

Hima_Aero will run Android 6.0 and Sense 7 GP on the launch…— LlabTooFeR (@LlabTooFeR) September 14, 2015

The information came courtesy of prominent HTC leaker @LlabTooFeR, who also revealed that the handset will be launched in the October-November time frame, which is in-line with earlier rumors.

@Kraaaw Nope, October-November….— LlabTooFeR (@LlabTooFeR) September 14, 2015

Needless to say, none of this has been officially confirmed, so take it with a pinch of salt.

For those aren’t already aware, the Taiwanese company has scheduled a press event on September 29, where it is expected to unveil the One A9 flagship along with the Butterfly 3 smartphone.

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Following the revelation that popular media streaming service Plex is planning to support Apple TV, VideoLAN has also announced that it is working on a VLC app for the Cupertino-based company’s set-top-box.

The announcement was made by VideoLAN lead developer Jean-Baptiste Kempf in a blog post. “Finally, some code to build VLCKit for the new tvOS was merged,” he said. “It’s very early though, but we have video playback! :).”

If you aren’t in the know, VLC is a free and open source cross-platform multimedia player that is capable of playing most multimedia files as well as DVDs, Audio CDs, VCDs, and various streaming protocols. It is already available for several other set-top-boxes, including the Android TV and Amazon Fire…

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