Rumors had us expecting a P8 Lite, however Huawei went the polar opposite direction and unveiled the Huawei P8max. The device blurs the lines between phones and tablets with a whopping 6.8" screen. It covers a massive 83% of the front though resolution is less than you would expect for the size – 1080p.

Like its smaller sibling, the P8max has a metal unibody made of aerospace-grade aluminum. It measure 6.8mm and its internals feature a complicated 7 layer heat conducting structure, which helps keep the chipset running 5°C lower than competing devices.

To make use of its processing power – a Kirin 935 chipset with a 64-bit octa-core processor running at up to 2.2GHz – the custom software offers split-screen multitasking. Also, the homescreen has a landscape mode, just like a tablet.

The Huawei P8max brings a 13MP camera with OIS, though it's not clear if it uses the unique RGBW sensor of the smaller P8. The phone does have the DSLR-like image signal processor though. The selfie camera has a 5MP sensor.

The phablet is powered by a large 4,360mAh battery, which will last over 2 days of normal usage and about 1 day and a half of heavy usage, according to the company.

The Huawei P8max will work with a number of covers, including one made out of perforated leather, which sort of acts like HTC's DotView cases. Huawei's case has magnets that allow it to work as an adjustable kickstand for a better viewing experience.

The P8max can last 15 hours of playing back video and it will be loud doing it thanks to a 1W speaker on the bottom.

The Huawei P8max will launch in 30 countries about a month after the P8 and will cost €550 for the base version with 16GB of storage and €650 for the 64GB model. They also differ in color…

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The Huawei P8 was brought up on stage by the company's CEO who wants to ignite "infinite creativity" among users. The new flagship follows in the footsteps of its predecessors with a metal frame and a 6.4mm thick body.

The design focuses on a modern, premium build. It has a full-metal unibody (unlike the metal and glass build of previos models). It takes 810 minutes to craft the body out of aluminum.

The Huawei P8 has bigger 5.2" IPS display though thanks to narrow bezels keeps the phone compact. The screen takes up 78.3% of the front, wasting less space on bezels than the Galaxy S6 and the like.

The camera on the P8 is the first on a phone to use a sensor with four types of sub-pixels – Red, Green, Blue and White. This will help the camera in teh low-light, but the 13MP camera also features optical image stabilization. It can rotate up to 1.6°, double what the iPhone 6 Plus camera manages. Huawei has also included an independent image processor, which it claims is…

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Leaks gave away some of the surprises for today, but there's no better way of getting to know the new Huawei P8 better than to watch it unveiled on stage. If you don't have tickets for the London event, you can join in virtually with the livestream.

So the star of the show will be the P8, but will there be a Huawei P8 Lite? The chipset behind the P8 is also interesting – an all Cortex-A53 octa-core processor and a brand new GPU. Put the popcorn in the microwave, the event is just starting out, we'll get the answers soone…

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OnePlus just made its customers happy by releasing the Oxygen OS last week and the Cyanogen OS 12 yesterday for OnePlus One smartphone. The Chinese startup is now seeking funds to expand the company in order to scale further.

Peter Lau, CEO of OnePlus, noted that the One’s successor smartphone likely to be dubbed as OnePlus Two, is anticipated in the third quarter of this year. This OnePlus Two obviously will bear superior hardware than the One.

Besides that, the company is also planning to release another affordable OnePlus series model by the end of this year. Details are really scarce on both Two and affordable model but we expect them to be available in near…

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Lenovo is working on keeping its midrange up-to-date and has now announced in India the new A6000 Plus model. As the name suggests, it's not an entirely new device, but an improved version of the already existing A6000.

What the Plus moniker brings to the table is increased operating memory – 2GB over the standard model's single gig, and 16GB of built-in storage as opposed to the previous 8GB. The upgrade will be easily felt in both areas with more relaxed space for app installation and multimedia storage as well as improved multitasking experience.

Other than that the A6000 Plus is very much the same phone, built around a 5-inch display of 720p resolution. The mainstream Snapdragon 410 provides computing power, with its quad-core processor clocked at 1.2GHz.

The dual-SIM device supports Cat.4 LTE for up to 150Mbps download speeds. A 2,300mAh battery is fitted in the 141 x 70 x 8.2 mm body, weighing 128g. An 8MP/2MP camera combo is on board for capturing memories, and the phone runs Android 4.4 KitKat out of the box.

The Lenovo A6000 Plus will command a minor premium over the non-Plus model but no exact numbers have been quoted. With the A6000 costing INR7,000 ($112) and the larger 5.5-inch A7000 priced at INR9,000 ($144), the A6000 Plus will likely settle somewhere in the middle, when it hits the…

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From rumor to official press release in record time – Nokia is officially combining with Alcatel-Lucent. "Combine" is what the press release calls it, it's really an acquisition – Nokia will acquire Alcatel-Lucent in an all-share transaction valued at €15.6 billion.

Nokia is offering its shares in exchange for Alcatel-Lucent shares at 0.55 to 1 ratio. Current Alcatel-Lucent shareholders will end up with 33.5% of the combined company, Nokia shareholders will have the other 66.5%. The deal has been approved by the Board of Directors of each company and is expected to close in the first half of 2016, pending approval by Nokia's shareholders, regulatory bodies and other considerations.

It's important to note that Alcatel-Lucent is not connected to the Alcatel phones other than by name, AL manufactures networking equipment similar to Nokia Networks. With their forces combined, the two will tackle the development of 5G tech, the Internet of Things and the increased reliance on cloud services.

In 2014 there were 40,000 R&D employees (20,000 of which from AL) working on a budget of €4.7 billion combined. Both have strong presence in the US, Europe, China and the Asia pacific and work on anything from core networks to cell networks. For last year, the combined sales of the two companies comes out to €25.9 billion with a non-IFRS profit of €2.3 billion.

The company will be called Nokia Corporation and keep the headquarters in Finland (but with a strong presence in France). Current Nokia CEO Rajeev Suri will keep his postion in the new company, Chairman Risto Siilasmaa will keep his post too.

There have been some rumors that Nokia is looking to sell its HERE Maps business and the press release says the company is reviewing its strategic options, which "may or may not lead to a…

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Microsoft has announced yet another affordable smartphone for the IMEA, Italy, and APAC regions at sub $150 price point before subsidies. The new Lumia 540 Dual SIM will arrive next month and will offer lower midrange specs.

Worthy successor of the Lumia 530, the Lumia 540 Dual SIM features the Smart Dual SIM feature to let you create unique profiles for each SIM and also stay connected with call-forwarding. The handset is powered by Windows Phone 8.1 with Lumia Denim update out of the box and it will be upgradable to the Windows 10 when that comes.

Lumia 540 flaunts a 5″ 720p display and is powered by a quad-core 1.2GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon 200 mobile chipset armed with 1GB of RAM. Onboard storage is the modest 8GB, but there's a microSD card slot for expanding that. Of course you also get gets 15GB OneDrive cloud storage by default and additional 15GB storage if auto-upload to OneDrive is activated.

Measuring 9.35mm thick and tipping the scales at 152g, the Lumia 540 has 8MP rear snapper with LED flash and autofocus. In the front is a 5MP wide-angle selfie camera. The phone is powered by a 2200 mAh battery which can be removed.

Microsoft Lumia 540 Dual SIM will be available in glossy cyan, orange, white, and matte black color…

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Apple announced the official dates for its annual Worldwide Developers Conference. WWDC 2015 will take place between June 8 and June 12 in San Francisco’s Moscone Center.

Developers who are interested in the event can apply for tickets through the official WWDC website until this Friday, April 17 at 10 am Pacific time. Apple will issue tickets to applicants via a random selection process by Monday, April 20.

During WWDC, the Cupertino giant is expected to unveil the next major iterations of both iOS and OS X. A brand new music service based of Apple’s Beats acquisition is also expected to make a debut.

Source…

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According to a new report, Samsung is hard at work on the Z1 smartphone with Tizen OS on board. The Korean giant is also said to be developing a global Tizen smartphone, which will be available in key markets such as the United States, China, Korea, and EU among others.

Samsung Z2 will reportedly feature a 32-bit quad-core CPU, a gig of RAM, and 2,000mAh battery. In line with past rumors, the device is said to pack a qHD TFT-LCD display.The device is tipped to debut in the first half of this year with new Tizen 3.0 UI.

The company’s global Tizen smartphone will allegedly 4.8″ 720p display, 2GB of RAM, and 8MP main camera. A 2,600mAh battery will power the smartphone.

A successor of Samsung Z1 should hardly catch anyone by surprise – the affordable smartphone has done quite well since its launch in India and Bangladesh. We will keep an eye out for more info on both rumored devices going forward….

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Back in March we found out that Huawei was planning to launch the Honor 4X in the UK sometime during the second quarter of this year. And while that starts in April and ends in June, the Chinese company has thankfully not kept people waiting too much.

That's because the Honor 4X is already up for pre-order at Amazon, in SIM-free form of course. Furthermore, the smartphone is set to be released on April 17, which is this Friday as you may know. So Huawei really nailed the first part of its intended launch time frame.

If you want an Honor 4X, you have to pay £144.99 for the privilege, and you get free shipping. You can choose between black and white color versions.

This Honor 4X is essentially the same device that launched in China, aside from one difference: the model sold in the UK sports Huawei's own Kirin 620 chipset, which comes with a 1.2 GHz octa-core CPU and Mali 450 MP4 GPU. The Chinese iteration meanwhile is powered by Qualcomm's Snapdragon 410.

The Huawei Honor 4X has a 5.5-inch 720p touchscreen, a 13 MP rear camera with LED flash, a 5 MP front-facing snapper, 2GB of RAM, 8GB of expandable storage, dual-SIM technology, 4G LTE, and a 3,000 mAh battery. It runs Android 4.4 KitKat with Huawei's Emotion UI 3.0 on…

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