This is one we hadn't heard of in a while, the Lenovo Vibe S1, which was leaked just before MWC, but didn't show up at the company's stand at the event. Well, its time has come apparently, and the smartphone has recently received certification from Chinese telecom regulator TENAA.

Lenovo Vibe S1 at TENAA

By the looks of it, the Lenovo Vibe S1 is a well rounded midranger. The smartphone comes with a 1.7GHz octa-core processor inside an unnamed chipset (perhaps Snapdragon 615), 2GB of RAM and 16GB built-in storage, which is expandable via microSD.

The Vibe S1 sports a 5-inch FullHD display, and has a 13MP primary camera, as well as a 5MP selfie shooter. It offers dual-SIM slots and 4G support and boots Android 5.0 Lollipop.

The new handset is averagely sized for its screen diagonal and measures 143 x 70.8 x 7.85 mm. On the other hand, it's pretty light at 130g, but there's still a 2,420mAh battery inside.

What's going to be a key selling point for the Vibe S1 is the multitude of colors it's going to be offered in. Aside from the ordinary black and white options, you'd also be able to choose among the more unorthodox violet, blue and pink colors, with the latter posing for the TENAA photoshoot.

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Samsung has confirmed that the Android 5.1.1 update for its Galaxy Alpha smartphone is coming to Europe, with the rollout happening very soon.

The information was revealed by the French arm of the South Korean company through a tweet. However, the company also made it clear that actual roll-out may vary from region to region depending on carrier testing.

Meanwhile, the Android 5.1.1 update is also being pushed out to Samsung's latest Galaxy S6 duo flagships – it is currently rolling out to T-Mobile and US Cellular units in the US. In addition, the S6 is getting it in France, while the S6 Edge is getting it in the UK.

Source (in French) | Via 1 | Via…

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Google has launched its Android One program in Myanmar, making it the seventh Asian country (and eighth overall) where the company's low cost smartphones will be sold.

In Myanmar, the Mountain View-based company has partnered with Cherry Mobile, which is also its partner in Philippines. The first Android One smartphone, dubbed Cherry Mobile One, will go on sale in Myanmar on Friday, carrying a MMK 1,09,000 ($99) price tag.

Specs-wise, the device is powered by a 1.3GHz quad-core processor, and sports a 4.5-inch FWVGA (480×854 pixels) display. It comes with 1GB RAM and 8GB expandable internal moemory, and packs in a 1700mAh battery.

In terms of camera, the Cherry Mobile One features a 5MP rear unit and a 2MP front shooter. It runs the latest version of Android (Lollipop 5.1.1), and also offers dual-SIM support.

"We hope the arrival of Android One helps put great smartphones into the hands of more people across Myanmar, and we look forward to working with our partners to launch more devices in more countries over the coming months," said Caesar Sengupta, VP, Product Management at Google.

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The Meizu MX5 has been drawing a lot of attention recently, with a constant flow of rumors lately. The official unveiling is now right around the corner and we keep hearing more and more interesting speculations about the upcoming flagship.

A new rumor talks of a special fast charging technology, dubbed mCharge. It can, supposedly, juice up the phone's battery up to 25% in about 10 minutes and get to 60% in another 30 minutes. And if previous rumors are to be believed, we are talking about an ample 3,150 mAh pack.

As far as current fast charging technologies go, this is quite a respectable achievement, although still far from Oppo's VOOC, which can charge the whopping 70% of the Oppo N3's 3,000 mAh battery in just 30 minutes. We managed to verify this score in our recent fast charging shootout and once mCharge comes along, it will definitely be interesting to see how it compares to the existing tech.

Other than that, we are already quite familiar with the upcoming Meizu MX5 and what we can expect to see, come June 30. The rumor mill has been overflowing with benchmark leaks, photos and some pretty wild camera hardware speculations.

As far as we currently know, the MX5 will pack a 5.5-inch FullHD display, which seems like a downgrade from the QHD unit in the MX4 Pro, but is more than justifiable if the phone costs just around $290, like reports have suggested. Besides, there is already talk of a MX5 Pro in the works to fill that void.

The rest of the specs sheet includes a Mediatek MT6795T SoC, also known as the Helio X10. It offers eight Cortex-A53 cores clocked at up to 2.1GHz and a PowerVR G6200 GPU. RAM is set at 3GB and onboard storage is 16GB. Previous 41MP camera rumors have sadly been debunked, but the phone will still feature a nicely sounding 20.7MP primary camera on the back of the handset, which is capable of 2160p video recording. On top of that the 5MP selfie snapper can also shoot 1080p…

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Less than a couple of weeks after there were reports that BlackBerry is planning to launch an Android smartphone this fall, CEO John Chen has confirmed that the company would make such a move only if they can make the phone secure enough.

"We only build secure phones, and BlackBerry is the most secure phone," Chen said during an interview with CNBC. "So, if I can find a way to secure the Android phone, I will also build that."

For those who aren't in the know, latest rumours are suggesting that the Canadian company's debut Android phone, dubbed Prague, will be a low-end, all-touch device with form factor similar to that of the BlackBerry…

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Over a week after the Android 5.1.1 update started rolling out to the Galaxy S6 and S6 Edge units on T-Mobile, the US Cellular variants of Samsung's latest flagship smartphones have also started receiving it.

The OTA update is currently rolling out, so you should get a notification soon. However, if you're feeling impatient, you can always manually check for it by going to Settings -> About Device -> Software Update. Alternatively, you can also get the update by using Kies, Samsung's desktop PC companion app.

It's worth mentioning that the international versions of the handsets have also started receiving the update – the S6 is getting it in France, while the S6 Edge is getting it in the UK.

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LG has just announced a new mid-range smartphone dubbed Band Play. The device was unveiled in the company's home country of South Korea, where it will go on sale later this week for KRW 394,800 ($356).

Specs-wise, the handset is powered by a Snapdragon 410 chipset with quad-core 1.2GHz processor, and sports a 5-inch display with 720 x 1280 pixels. It comes with 2 GB RAM and 16GB expandable internal memory, and packs in a 2,300 mAh removable battery.

In terms of camera, the Band Play sports a 13MP rear unit and a 5MP front shooter. It features a set of 1W speakers, and also comes with premium QuadBeat 3 headset. In terms of software, the handset runs Android 5.1 Lollipop, and comes with a new focus mode that lets you concentrate on your work by cutting off data and Wi-Fi as well as automatically rejecting phone calls.

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The camera-centric Vibe Shot smartphone, which was unveiled by Lenovo back in March at this year's Mobile World Congress (MWC) and released in China last month, is now available for purchase in the US.

Amazon is selling the black colour variant of the handset (unlocked) for $380. An important point worth mentioning here is that the online retailer is selling a version of the device that does not support US LTE bands.

Specs-wise, the Vibe Shot is powered by a Snapdragon 615 SoC and sports a 5-inch display with 1080 x 1920 pixels. It comes with 3GB RAM and 32GB expandable internal memory, and packs in a 2900 mAh battery.

In terms of camera, the device features a 16MP rear unit and an 8MP front shooter.

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