We are now fast approaching the official unveiling for the iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus. Apple has held such events at the beginning of September for the past few years, and that month is almost upon us.

Thus, more and more leaks nowadays focus on when you’ll be able to buy the two new devices. Today we get a leaked image purported to have originated at a carrier in France.

This company is allegedly informing its employees that pre-orders for the iPhone 6s and 6s Plus are due to start on September 11. That’s a Friday, which also fits with Apple’s actions in the past. If the company sticks to its traditional schedules, we should see the announcement that Tuesday or Wednesday, on September 8 or 9.

On the other hand, actual availability of the new smartphones in the countries that will be part of the first wave could happen on September 18, again based on what Apple’s previously done with such launches.

These dates have also been rumored quite a bit in the past few weeks, so at this point we assume the only thing left to happen is for Apple to send the media invites for its event.

The new iPhones have been said to come with 12 MP cameras, a new A9 SoC, 2GB of RAM, and touchscreens with support for “Force Touch”. Otherwise, they should be pretty much identical to their predecessors from last year.

Source (in French) |…

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A few weeks ago we got word that Samsung may be working on a gigantic 18.4-inch tablet thanks to an import listing. Back then, though, its existence was the only thing revealed. Yet now a new rumor comes to confirm it’s real, and even thankfully shares its most important specs.

So, this device will have the model number SM-T670. It will come with a TFT LCD touchscreen with just 1080p resolution, which makes for a measly 119 ppi pixel density. The tablet should also sport 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 2.1 MP front-facing unit, and a 5,700 mAh battery.

It will allegedly run Android 5.1 Lollipop when it launches, and its dimensions are said to be 451.8 x 275.8 x 11.9 mm. There’s currently no telling when we’ll see it in stores, or how much it will cost. Though with that size we assume this will be targeted at some pretty niche use-cases.

Recently Samsung has also been rumored to be working on a 12-inch Windows 10 tablet, so the Korean company seems to be pretty serious about large (and extra large) tablets this…

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Earlier this year HTC started showing ads in the BlinkFeed screen in its devices, and people were not happy. So we assume that people won’t be happy this time around either, since Samsung has apparently decided that showing people ads in their devices’ notification panes is a good idea.

The ads show up “automagically” and they look like auto-expanded notifications. They are sent out by the Samsung Push Service app, which is one of those Samsung services that come preinstalled on all of the company’s smartphones.

For now, the only such ad spotted by users has been the one you can see above, which is for the Galaxy S6 edge+ handset. You’re being announced that the S6 edge+ is now available to buy, and if you tap on the notification you’re taken to a website where you can actually order one.

This may of course be just a test or a limited rollout for now, but if so Samsung could have made it opt-in. As it is, you might just wake up one day to see your phone’s notification pane overrun with ads. And that would not be a nice sight.

In somewhat related news, the Peel Smart Remote app, which comes bundled on the Galaxy S6, has also started showing some notification ads of its own. It’s unclear if Samsung itself has anything to do with this, though. Currently these ads are for TV shows, and when you tap on the notification the Peel app opens and you can set a reminder to watch that particular…

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A lot of people were understandably upset when Motorola announced that the Moto X Play would not be sold in the US. However, it turns out that the Lenovo-owned company may not have meant what everyone thought it meant. Namely, it could just be that the Moto X Play won’t be offered in the US under that name.

Instead, it might be rebranded for Verizon and transformed into the carrier’s Droid Maxx 2. With its huge battery the Maxx title is certainly warranted, and there have been no hints so far that Big Red is going to drop the Droid line this year.

Alongside the Droid Maxx 2 (which will actually be the Moto X Play under another name), Verizon is also expected to launch the Droid Turbo 2 before the end of 2015. Whether this will turn out to be just a rebranded Moto X Style remains to be seen though.

This information comes from a Hong Kong-based leaker of all things Motorola-related, who has gotten certain things right in the past. Thus, while you should take all of it with a grain of salt, there is a chance, however small, for this to be real.

So you may just be able to purchase a Moto X Play in the US soon. That’s the good news. The bad news is that if this is accurate, Verizon will be getting it exclusively.

Source |…

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At its big event last month, Motorola announced three smartphones but no new smartwatch. Still, the company is quite clearly working on a successor to last year’s Moto 360, as has been revealed multiple times so far. The new wearable may even be offered in two different sizes, a la Apple.

Today a few images have been leaked showing the new model in the wild, on people’s wrists actually.

Although it bears quite a resemblance to its predecessor, including that ‘flat tire’ for the screen, this is the next generation Moto 360 – and you can tell because of the position of its button.

On the original this was placed at the 3 o’clock mark, while this time around Motorola’s moved it to 2 o’clock for whatever reason.

These shots allegedly come from around Chicago, an area in which Motorola has its US headquarters. So these may be company employees testing the device.

As before, it looks like Motorola will bet big on customization. These pictures show two different versions of the 360, an all-black one with leather strap, and another with a Rose Gold casing and Cognac band.

We could be quite close to the new smartwatch’s announcement now that it’s being internally tested.

Source 1 • Source 2 |…

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Samsung Galaxy E5 and Galaxy E7 were promised Android Lollipop upgrades earlier this year. Their updates were scheduled for release in Q3 2015. Well, we are in Q3 and naturally people started asking some questions.

Samsung UK answered such a question via its official Twitter account and the news is not good. The Galaxy E7 Lollipop development was dropped for an unknown reason.

What’s really odd is that the Galaxy E5 has been already treated with Android Lollipop. Both E5 and E7 feature almost identical specs, the E7 even has more RAM. It’s beyond us why it won’t be getting Lollipop.

There is a chance the Lollipop update for the Galaxy E7 is canned only for the UK as the tweet comes from there, but things are definitely not looking good.

Source |…

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Samsung is enjoying a comfortable performance lead with its Exynos 7420 that it didn’t even overclock it for the Galaxy Note5, usually we see the Note get a souped up version of what the Galaxy S got. But how fast is it? Faster than the LG G4? Faster than the much more affordable OnePlus 2? This video intends to find out.

Here’s an unscientific (but telling) test. Keep in mind that the Samsung Galaxy Note5 and OnePlus 2 have octa-core processors and 4GB of RAM, while the LG G4 has only six cores and 3GB of RAM (there are 2GB versions too).

In terms of screen resolution, both the Note5 and G3 are at QHD (1,440×2,560px), while the OnePlus is at 1080p (1,080×1,920px). The LG G4 should finish last, right? Well, here’s why you shouldn’t trust “on paper” specifications.

The power of the Exynos chipset is plainly visible in the video encoding part of the test. The downclocked Snapdragon 810 in the OnePlus 2 didn’t really seem faster than the Snapdragon 808 in the LG G3.

The video doesn’t show how high-end games perform though – S810’s better GPU smokes the G4 even when you ignore the difference in resolution.

But even pure performance isn’t the end of it. Samsung’s TouchWiz does a poor job of memory management and it has to reload the two games, while the OnePlus 2 and LG G4 (with 1 gig less) kept them in…

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As the fourth successor of the product that defined what a phablet should be, Samsung Galaxy Note5 is arguably the most radical release in the product family to date. The newcomer marks a noteworthy departure (no pun intended) from all of its predecessors in terms of both design and available hardware features…

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Samsung is enjoying a comfortable performance lead with its Exynos 7420 that it didn’t even overclock it for the Galaxy Note5, usually we see the Note get a souped up version of what the Galaxy S got. But how fast is it? Faster than the LG G3? Faster than the much more affordable OnePlus 2? This video intends to find out.

Here’s an unscientific (but telling) test. Keep in mind that the Samsung Galaxy Note5 and OnePlus 2 have octa-core processors and 4GB of RAM, while the LG G3 has only six cores and 3GB of RAM (there are 2GB versions too).

In terms of screen resolution, both the Note5 and G3 are at QHD (1,440×2,560px), while the OnePlus is at 1080p (1,080×1,920px). The LG G3 should finish last, right? Well, here’s why you shouldn’t trust “on paper” specifications.

The power of the Exynos chipset is plainly visible in the video encoding part of the test. The downclocked Snapdragon 810 in the OnePlus 2 didn’t really seem faster than the Snapdragon 801 in the LG G3.

The video doesn’t show how high-end games perform though – S810’s better GPU smokes the G3 even when you ignore the difference in resolution.

But even pure performance isn’t the end of it. Samsung’s TouchWiz does a poor job of memory management and it has to reload the two games, while the OnePlus 2 and LG G3 (with 1 gig less) kept them in…

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Oppo might not be quite up to par with some of its more premium Chinese competitors, but the OEM has always had a distinct and unique approach to devices. There is nothing like a little twist to help sales along and the Oppo R7 and R7 Plus are no strangers to that strategy, boasting a futuristic edge-to-edge screen design inside a slick and clean body.

The pair of devices have already been around for three months or so, but Oppo has been having some understandable troubles with international availability. The R7 actually hit international pre-orders around the end of June and has been a whopping success, especially in certain markets, like Indonesia, Malaysia and Taiwan.

Now, its bigger sibling, the R7 Plus is following in its footsteps and is venturing into global sales with high hopes of sharing the same success. This ambition is pretty justifiable, given that the R7 Plus is a solid mid-range offer, just like its sibling and even better in many ways.

Computing power on the R7 Plus comes courtesy of a Qualcomm 615 chipset with a 64-bit octa-core processor and 3GB RAM. Memory is set at 32GB, twice that of the R7 and a microSD slot is also available.

Another key difference between the pair is the display size. The R7 plus swaps the 5.0-inch AMOLED display for a spacious 6.0-inch one, while preserving the impressive AMOLED technology and the FullHD resolution. Naturally, the device is also bigger and heavier, although not a lot. It measures 158 x 82 x 7.75mm and tips the scales at 203g.

Both the R7 and R7 Plus come with a 13MP main camera behind an f/2.2 lens. Phase detection autofocus and a single-LED flash complete the picture on the R7, while the R7 Plus adds laser autofocus and a dual-LED flash. Additionally, the sensor inside the R7 Plus is of the RGBW variety, and the company claims 78% less noise and 32% better light gathering capability compared to conventional designs.

Last, but not least, least, the Plus model also has a whopping 4,100 mAh battery, backed up by Oppo’s patented VOOC fast charging technology and a fingerprint reader on the back. Now that is an impressive package.

We already had a quick meeting with the R7 Plus at its unveiling event, but the final retail unit is already in the office, so we’ll be as quick as possible to come up with one of our full reviews in the following…

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