The bezel-less Oppo R7 is back with another video, this one is a bit over a minute long so it gives us a better look at the upcoming flagship. The Oppo R7's claim to fame is that the 5.5" screen has near-invisible bezels on the side.

Curved glass above the screen refracts light just the right way to mask what little bezel there is on the left and right side. You can see a close up of that at the end of the video

Before that, the video features a short demo of the customized Android interface. The R7 will be powered by a MediaTek MT6795 with octa-core, 64-bit CPU and it will have a 20.7MP camera on its back.

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OnePlus is feeling the excitement of the first anniversary of its One smartphone. On that occasion, the Chinese startup has announced that it will offer the OnePlus One smartphone without invites in all supported regions.

So it took 12 months but the invite-only strategy has finally been canned. Interestingly, that decision comes immediately after the Xiaomi announced open sale for its smartphones in India.

The OnePlus One sales will be opened globally along with 75% discount on Flip Covers and Premium Screen Protectors only for today. Besides that, Bamboo StyleSwap covers will also be made available until the stocks last. Do note that the promotion on accessories are limited only to USA, Canada, European Union, Hong Kong, and…

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Global smartphone shipments in the first quarter of 2015 stood at 291.2 million units, down 9.2% compared to the last quarter of 2014, according to a latest report from market research firm TrendForce.

"The decline, which was larger than the initial estimation, was attributed to the weak smartphone market in China," the research firm said in a press release, predicting that the market will recover in the latter half of Q2.

As far as smartphone manufacturers are concerned, Samsung claimed the top spot with 27.8% market share, followed by Apple with 19.9%. Huawei, LG, and Lenovo rounded-up the top five with 7, 6.2 and 6% market shares, respectively.

TrendForce projects that Samsung will ship over 80 million smartphone units in Q2, while the shipments of the South Korean company's latest flagships, the Galaxy S6 and S6 Edge, will surpass 20M units. As for Apple, the report says the company will ship approximately 45 million smartphone units in the…

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Oppo has launched a new budget Android smartphone in India. The Oppo Joy Plus will retail for Rs. 6,990 ($111) and is Oppo's cheapest phone on the market.

The Joy Plus has a 4.0-inch, 800×480 display, MediaTek MT6572 SoC with dual-Core 1.3GHz CPU, 1GB RAM, 4GB internal memory, 3 megapixel rear camera, VGA front camera, 1700mAh battery, and Android 4.4 KitKat.

While this may have been fine a couple of years ago, Oppo seems woefully out of touch with the current market situation in India, where you can get the Xiaomi Redmi 2 for the same price as the Joy Plus and is in a different league altogether. If Oppo wants to get a bigger foothold in the market, it will need to be more aggressive with price and specifications in a value conscious market like…

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Recently Microsoft made available the Windows 10 Technical Preview for Lumia 520/521 and 525. These are the weakest phones among the Windows Phone 8 gang with just half a gig of RAM. The update process went well for the early adopters, though issues arose when trying to roll back to Windows Phone 8.1.

Apparently lots of users, who didn't want to stick with the Windows 10 Preview got their Lumia 52x bricked after trying to revert back to Windows Phone 8.1. Some devices got stuck on a red Nokia logo, while others just went dead with nothing on the screen.

Microsoft has a dedicated Windows Phone Recovery Tool, which usually saves bricked smartphones. Unfortunately it doesn't help with the bricked Lumia 5 series. Microsoft now has a new version of this tool, which should help recover the bricked Lumia 520/521/525.

According to Microsoft the major issue was with the data writing size and speed. Microsoft basically lowered the image files and the writing speed. The company doesn't promise this updated toll will fix all bricked Lumia 52x, but it should work in most cases for those with a red Nokia logo and with the black screen.

Microsoft is still investigating the problem and is working to bring back to live all bricked Lumia smartphones. Meanwhile the Windows 10 Preview update is on hold until all issues are resolved.

You can download the new Windows Phone Recovery Tool from this link. Its version should be 1.2.4.

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LG has announced that those who purchase the company's upcoming flagship smartphone, the G4, before May 31 will get free one-time screen replacement (valid up to one year after purchase) as well as a free 64GB microSD card.

As of now, the offer is only for those who purchase the handset – which is set to be officially unveiled on April 28 – in South Korea, and it isn't yet known if and when the extras will be offered outside of the company's home market.

In addition, the company also revealed that the G4 will sport a 16MP rear camera with an f/1.8 aperture, and an 8MP front shooter. The announcement comes just a couple of days after a Korean analyst said that the G4 might not sell better than its predecessor, the G3.
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Samsung has dropped its company logo on the Japanese version of the Galaxy S6 and S6 edge. The Docomo version of both phones feature no Samsung logo on the front at all.

Instead, the S6 gets a Docomo logo where the Samsung logo would be and on the back is just the Galaxy logo. The S6 edge doesn't even have the Docomo logo on the front, making it possibly the only Samsung phone to not have any logos there. It does have both the Docomo and Galaxy logos on the back.

Looking at the clean appearance of the S6 edge front, we'd argue that Samsung should avoid having any logos on the front of its devices, even in other market. It's not like it's hard to tell Samsung phones from the rest…

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After many weeks of rumors and leaks, Sony has formally unveiled its next flagship – Xperia Z4. The new Xperia Z4 is the successor of the Xperia Z3 but has only been announced in Japan market for now.

The Sony Xperia Z4 has a slightly tweaked OmniBalance design with 6.9mm profile with a metal frame running around the sides. Just like the predecessor, the Xperia Z4 brings IP68 certification for dust and water resistance.

The corners are built with resin to provide strength and entire phone has two-layer coating to retain the overall shine.

Sony sticks with 5.2-inch 1080p display and still hasn't succumbed to the QHD wave. Under the hood, it houses a 64-bit octa-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 810 chipset armed with 3GB of RAM and 32GB of on-board storage. A microSD card slot will let you expand the storage by up to 128GB. By default, the smartphone runs Android 5.0 Lollipop.

At the back is a 20.7MP camera with Exmor RS image sensor coupled with the BIONZ image processing engine. Clad with G Lens, the 1/2.3-inch image sensor can offer sensitivity all the way up to ISO12800 to capture well exposed images in poorly lit environments. Along with the usual set of HDR and the imaging modes, Sony has added new 'Cooking Mode' for clicking the best images of your food.

Front side 5MP wide-angle camera with Exmor R sensor has been optimized to take selfies along with new shake feature to record videos with reduced shake.

The Xperia Z4 now supports high quality audio performance for wireless playback. Weighing 144 grams, the Xperia Z4 packs a 2,930 mAh non-removable battery. As of now, there is no word on the price and the launch of this flagship in other…

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Recently, OnePlus CEO revealed that the company is planning to launch two new smartphones this year – a OnePlus One successor and a cheaper model. However, it wasn't clear whether any, or which of the two would be unveiled at its event today. Now, multiple reports are claiming that the Chinese smartphone manufacturer could unveil the cheaper model today.

While a report from Gizmochina, which cites a leaked image of the device from the Ubuntu Leakster team (shown above), says that the handset has a single LED flash and similar texture as the One, a DriodPile report is claiming that the handset is called OnePlus One Lite and has better specs than the One.

Needless to say, none of this has been officially confirmed by the company, so take it with a pinch of salt.
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UK e-retailer Expansys has dropped the price of Samsung's Gear S smartwatch, which was unveiled back in September last year at IFA and went on sale a couple of months later, from the usual £330 ($494) to £275 ($412).

The price drop, however, applies only to the Pure White model of the smartwatch, with the Blue Black model available on demand for £285 ($427). Meanwhile, another UK e-retailer Handtec is selling the wearable for an even lower price of £258 ($386), but they currently do not have it in stock.

Powered by Tizen, the Gear S features a 2″ curved Super AMOLED display and doesn’t require a smartphone connection to operate on full capacity thanks to its SIM card slot and Wi-Fi connectivity.
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