In the recent weeks, there have been reports that Apple won't be selling the Apple Watch to walk-in customers until the first wave of customer demand has passed – those who want to purchase the smartwatch will have to pre-order it online. Now, the company has revealed that orders will be online-only for a few weeks only.

"We expect this to continue through the month of May," said Apple’s retail chief Angela Ahrendts in a leaked memo, which was obtained by The Telegraph. This effectively means that the device will be available for in-store purchase in June.

However, Ahrendts also made it clear that the way Apple is handling the sales this time is exclusive to Apple Watch only. "Are we going to launch every product this way from now on? No," she said. "We all love those blockbuster Apple product launch days – and there will be many more to come."

If you aren't in the know, the Cupertino-based company has already opened up the pre-orders for the Apple Watch, and the device will start shipping on April 24.
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Samsung has revealed that the battery replacement for the Galaxy S6 and S6 Edge will set you back $45 (shipping not included). This is, of course, after the one-year warranty period expires, during which the company replaces the battery for free (again, excluding shipping charges).

This compares to the $29.99 price which Samsung charges for a Galaxy S5 battery, and the $79 price which Apple charges for a new iPhone 6 battery. In addition, the South Korean company also revealed that screen replacement for the devices will cost $199.

As for the turnaround time, Samsung says both screen and battery replacements can be done in one business day in the…

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This may appear as a surprise to many that Xiaomi has announced a price cut in India on its flagship model – Mi 4. There’s no festive season or special occasion in India. Effective from today, the Mi 4 16GB is now priced at INR17,999 ($289) knocked from INR19,999 ($321) and Mi 4 64GB model is priced at INR21,999 ($353) slashed from INR23,999 ($385). The discounts will be available from today onwards.

#Mi4PriceDrop – Great news! Starting today 12 noon, we’re dropping the price of Mi 4: 16GB will now go for Rs 17,999, n 64GB for Rs 21,999— Manu Kumar Jain (@manukumarjain) April 16, 2015

Xiaomi India head, Manu Kumar Jain confirmed that the new prices will be permanent and shall be available via Snapdeal and Amazon websites for India too.

Xiaomi is set to announce a new global smartphone in India on April 23. While there is no clarity on the upcoming device, the price cut on Mi 4 does raise an eyebrow.

But it is quite simple really. The price cuts on Mi 4 puts in a competitive position against the smartphone by the Chinese startup OnePlus. In India the OnePlus One is also selling at INR18,999 ($305) for 16GB model and INR21,999 ($353) for 64GB model.
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LG released a short teaser video for the upcoming G4 flagship smartphone. The clip focuses on the device’s next generation 5.5″ QHD IPS Quantum display.

Developed by LG Display, the brand new component with 120% color gamut was introduced earlier this month. Its contrast ratio and brightness are higher than those of conventional QHD LCD panels by 50% and 30% respectively.

A number of LG G4 press images and official details leaked this past weekend. The successor of LG G3 will debut later this month, on April 28.

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A press image of mysterious LG smartphone with Windows Phone OS made the rounds online. The unannounced device sports Verizon Wireless branding, so it is certain to debut on the US carrier at some point in the near future.

There is absolutely no word on the specs of the LG smartphone. All we can confirm at this point is that the device features a front-facing camera and 4G LTE connectivity.

Considering its design, we reckon that the device will be a low-end or mid-range handset when it becomes available. We will keep an eye out for more details about the handset going forward.

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The Lollipop updates keep rolling out day after day this season. This time around one carrier has simultaneously pushed out the updates to Android 5.0 for no less three devices.

The carrier in question is AT&T and the handsets we're talking about are the Samsung Galaxy Alpha, Galaxy S5 Active, and LG G2. So if you've purchased any one of these from AT&T, know that a tasty Lollipop treat is on its way to you.

Of note is the fact that other variations of Samsung's Galaxy Alpha (for other carriers and for international markets) don't yet seem to have the Lollipop update available, which means this is now making its debut on AT&T's model.

The situation isn't the same for the other two phones – we've previously seen Lollipop rollouts for both the Galaxy S5 Active (internationally) as well as the LG G2 (for which both Verizon and T-Mobile have already commenced the procedure).

For the Galaxy Alpha, the update comes in at 1GB and makes it run Android 5.0.2, build LRX22G.G850AUCU1BOC6. Aside from everything that's new in that software version, the update also removes the SoftCard app.

In the case of the Galaxy S5 Active, the download size is 1.4GB, the version you'll run afterwards is Android 5.0, and the build number is LRX21T.G870AUCU1BOC5.

For the LG G2, the new release removes Browser Bar, Famigo, AT&T Code Scanner, and Beats Music. The update file is 725MB in size, and after performing the procedure you'll be on Android 5.0.2 and software version D80030f.

Regardless of which of these devices you have, you can obviously try and manually check for the update by using the appropriate option in Settings. This may or may not make the download start immediately. If it doesn't, then know that the rollouts should make their way to all phones out there in a few days.

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The Samsung Galaxy S6 was released in the US on April 10, but so far it's only been available at the big carriers. That's set to change soon, though.

AT&T's prepaid subsidiary Cricket has announced that it will start selling the Galaxy S6 on April 24. On that day, you'll be able to grab one both online as well as in the carrier's stores.

The price for the handset will be $649.99, obviously sans any long term commitment requirement. Cricket also has some payment plans of its own. Through one of those you can get the S6 with just a $19.99 down payment, with approved credit and a smartphone plan. Or if using the carrier's 90 days same-as-cash option, there will be a $49.99 initial payment, and no credit check.

If you use the latter strategy, you have three months to pay the remaining $600 balance on the phone's price, which you can do through installments. The first option described above is basically a 24-month loan with 0% interest.

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Last month ZTE made the Nubia Z9 Max official, alongside the smaller Z9 Mini. The latter has been quite the success for the company in the first flash sale organized for it – where no less than 68,700 units were grabbed in just 58 seconds.

The Z9 Max, on the other hand, still hasn't been released. It was supposed to go on sale for the first time tomorrow at 10 AM China time. However, ZTE has announced through its Weibo account that the launch is postponed.

The ZTE Nubia Z9 Max will thus go on sale at some point in May. No exact date has been unveiled yet. The delay has to do with the complex manufacturing process required to build this particular smartphone, which is made from glass and aluminum.

The company says it applies quality control measures that are above industry standards, and they have resulted in this situation – along with the very substantial amount of time needed to make each and every Z9 Max unit.

The handset is probably going to be quite successful in China, since it's priced at CNY 2,499 ($402 or €378) and comes with Qualcomm's Snapdragon 810 SoC, 3GB of RAM, and a 16 MP rear camera.

The front-facing unit is an 8 MP shooter, and the Nubia Z9 Max also sports a 5.5-inch 1080p touchscreen, 4G support, 16GB of expandable internal storage, and a 2,900 mAh battery. It runs Android 5.0.2 Lollipop.

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Today Verizon has started the rollout of the update to Android 5.0 Lollipop for Samsung Galaxy Note 3 units it's sold over the years. Previously, Lollipop was made available for the Note 3's successor, the Galaxy Note 4.

As always, the rollout will be staged, so you still may have a few days to wait before your particular phone notifies you about the update. If you're impatient, you can keep manually checking through Settings > About phone > Software updates and hope for the best.

After installing the new release, you'll be on software version LRX21V.N900VVRUEOB6. As you may know by now, Android 5.0 Lollipop brings with it the new Material Design, a new lock screen experience, floating action buttons everywhere, and a revamped recent apps menu. Additionally, Samsung has modified its TouchWiz UI overlay to fit in with Google's new design language, so the colors are bolder, the animations are fluid, and everything is brighter than before.

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Rumors suggested that Huawei would unveil the P8 and P8 Lite, instead we got the P8 and P8max. For some reason the Huawei P8 Lite was pulled at the last moment. There was a product page for it and everything, but there was no mention of it during Huawei's press event.

That didn't stop a bunch of press photos from leaking online around the same time Huawei announced the other P8 devices.

The P8 Lite would have completed the P8 trio with a 5" screen, smaller than the 5.2" on the P8. Despite sharing in their flagship name, the device is actually a mid-ranger.

The phone wouldn't have a metal unibody and it would have been thicker too – if you can call 7.7mm thick. More disappointing is the 720p screen resolution. The chipset was also set for a downgrade – still an octa-core, but the Kirin 620 chip clocks its cores at 1.2GHz. Those are 64-bit Cortex-A53 cores, served by 2GB RAM, by the way.

The phone will run Emotion UI 3.1 built on top of Android 5.0 Lollipop, if and when it goes official. Storage comes 16GB of storage and there's a microSD card to expand it. Like the other two P8s the microSD slot could also house a second SIM card. 4G LTE and a 2,200mAh battery were also in the cards for the Huawei P8 Lite.

The camera department would combine a 13MP shooter on the back and a 5MP selfie camera on the front, but there was no mention of optical stabilization or an RGBW image sensor.

Early chatter suggested that the Huawei P8 Lite would have cost €270, which sounds about right considering the specs.

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