We've known for a while now that Huawei was planning on bringing its Honor 6 Plus smartphone to the UK. Last month we even got word that Three would be the Chinese company's exclusive operator partner for the device.

And today Huawei has finally outed the actual release date for the Honor 6 Plus in the UK: May 1. That's when it will become available at Three stores across the country.

This marks the first time that Huawei's Honor-branded devices are offered through a carrier, at least in the UK.

The handset will be priced at £299.99 sans contract, which is actually £50 more expensive than previously announced. If you're impatient and want to be sure you'll have the Honor 6 Plus first, you'll be able to pre-order one at Amazon starting on April 6. The price should be the same.

The Honor 6 Plus was unveiled last December, and it features a 5.5-inch 1080p touchscreen, and a pretty unique rear camera setup with two 8 MP units, combining to capture 13 MP images. The front snapper is a single 8 MP one, and the device is powered by a HiSilicon Kirin 925 SoC, boasting an octa-core CPU in big.LITTLE configuration.

Also in are 3GB of RAM, 32GB of internal storage, dual-SIM support, Cat.6 LTE connectivity, and a 3,600 mAh battery. It runs Android 4.4…

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A few days ago we wrote about an upcoming Huawei smartphone and now a tipster has clued us in on some new details and provided us with exclusive photos and camera sample.

The handset will be part of the Honor line, but our tipster called it "Cherry," which is likely its codename. It will reportedly launch in Russia first at a rumored price between RUB 13,000 and RUB 15,000, that's $225-$260. It will expand to other countries later on.

Huawei Honor "Cherry"

The phone will be powered by a Kirin 620 chipset – built on a 28nm process, it features an octa-core Cortex-A53 and Mali-450MP4 GPU, 150Mbps LTE connectivity too.

Huawei Honor "Cherry"

The camera sample is with 7MP resolution, though it looks like it came from a 4,160 x 2,336px image. That was most likely a crop too (or at least 16:9 mode), the width is typical of 13MP sensor. The EXIF info reports an f/2.0 aperture and 1/3.2" sensor.

Huawei Honor "Cherry" camera sample

The battery capacity will be 2,550mAh (matching the Galaxy S6) and according to our source it will last 51 hours of moderate usage, 28 hours if you press it harder and 80 hours for light usage.

Thanks goes to our anonymous tipster for the info and the…

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Two new images of a selfie-centric Sony Xperia smartphone, dubbed Sony Cosmos leaked recently and now we got some extra info on the device.

Confirmed：Sony Cosmos will be going to the market as Xperia C4.— @upleaks (@upleaks) April 1, 2015

As per the upleaks Twitter account, the Sony Cosmos will be introduced as the Xperia C4. It does make sense since the Xperia C3 smartphone was introduced last year in July. This Xperia C series smartphone is expected to arrive with 4G LTE network support. Based on the Xperia C3 hardware, the new Xperia C4 will bring incremental updates.

The Xperia C4 will arrive with Android 5.0 Lollipop with Sony’s lightweight custom UI on top of it. Unfortunately this is where the available info at this stage ends – nothing on the other specs, pricing or availability has been confirmed yet….

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New information has surfaced about an upcoming Samsung device – the Galaxy J7. It belongs to the budget-oriented family of the Galaxy J1, which was released in February and it will probably be the Korean giant's next budget phablet offer.

The bulk of the information comes from a leaked user agent profile from Samsung's database. According to it, the phone, bearing the model SM-J700F, will feature power-efficient Cortex A53 cores, clocked at 1.5 GHz. It also reveals that the screen will have a resolution of 1280 x 720 pixels and judging by Samsung's recent naming convention the 7 probably signifies a screen size of 5.5-inches, just like the Galaxy A7 and E7.

There is still no information about the handset's RAM, storage and camera setup, but tracking information from zauba.com, reveals that sample units are already on their way to India for testing, so it shouldn't be too long before we hear some more information about the upcoming Galaxy J7.

Thanks for the tip Michel

Source 1 | Source 2 |…

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Samsung has been slowly but steadily ticking the boxes for Lollipop updates to the devices in its portfolio, and apparently the LTE version of the Galaxy Tab S 10.5 is next in line. After last week's Android 5.0.2 OTA for the Wi-Fi only variant, the company has now started seeding the update to the 4G model.

So far it's limited to a few countries in Europe, with Slovenia, Czech Republic, Croatia and Switzerland confirmed. Now that the build is already finished though, more widespread availability is to be expected soon.

The firmware comes at a whopping 1.7GB, carries a T805XXU1BOCC internal designation and is dated March 17. For those of you not in the listed countries, but eager to get your hands on Lollipop, you can head over to the source link where the update is available for download and manual install.

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Samsung’s latest devices, the Galaxy S6 and Galaxy S6 Edge, as well as the HTC One M9, are now up for pre-order from US carrier Verizon Wireless. All the three devices will be available starting April 10.

Both the 32GB S6 and the One M9, which is only offered with 32GB internal memory, are priced at $200 on a regular two-year agreement and $600 sans contract. You can also get them for $25 per month for 24 months with Verizon Edge.

On the other hand, the 32GB S6 Edge will set you back $300 with contract and $700 without it. Alternatively, if you want to buy it with Verizon Edge, you'll have to pay $29.16 per month for 24 months. Aside from 32 GB, the 64 and 128 GB versions of the Samsung devices are also available for pre-order.
Source 1 | Source 2 | Source…

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A survey conducted by Phoenix Marketing International shows that two thirds of Apple Pay users encounter difficulties using the system at checkout. Out of the 3,000 surveyed with an iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus, 66% are using Apple Pay. Half of them reported that many locations, despite being listed as an Apple Pay partner, weren't ready to accept the payments made with the platform.

Furthermore, 48% were dissatisfied with the time it took to process a transaction and described it as too long. In some cases, transactions were run twice or were just outright incorrect. Finally, 42% of the surveyed shared that more often than not cashiers weren't familiar with the Apple Pay system altogether.

Bloomberg points out that a separate survey done by Citi Research confirms the complaints, too. Part of the reason for the problems is the shop's lack of iPhone 6 supported NFC point-of-sale terminals.

In the US, retailers will have to upgrade their non-NFC terminals to new ones, which support the wireless standard by October as per a new regulation.

In spite of the problems, Apple Pay usage increases thanks to the growth of iOS 8 adoption. Bank of America alone boasts some 1.1 million cards that are used by Apple Pay.

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The Lollipop update for the LG G2 is expanding- starting from South Korea, it already hit US carrier Verizon and it has now arrived at Vodafone in Italy and Spain.

The update seems to be limited to Vodafone devices. It will bump the software version to V30D and can be downloaded over the air or installed from a computer. You can also manually grab the file and flash it, if you know how.

Note that only the 16GB model is getting updated in Italy and that ROM is not compatible with the 32GB model. You can flash the Vodafone Spain update for 32GB LG G2 phones instead. Or wait for the official OTA update to become available.

Follow the source link for download links to the ROM files.

Source (in…

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In another episode of Apple's marketing strategy for its Watch, we've now learned that Carphone Warehouse will be left out of the initial launch and won't be offering the wearable on April 24. The info has been revealed by no other than Graham Stapleton, CEO of UK's biggest cellphone retailer. Or as he cautiously put it:

"We would love to be able to stock the Apple Watch. I've got to be careful what I say but I think they are just going another way with it. We have not been given the opportunity."

Apple was previously negotiating with fashion retailer Nordstrom to carry the Watch and rumor has it that in the US Best Buy was denied the wearable as well. Apparently, Apple wants the Watch to be perceived more as a fashion statement, than a piece of tech and is marketing it accordingly.

Aiming to create a more upmarket image for the Watch, Apple is reportedly planning to build dedicated Watch shops at high-end department stores in London, Paris and Japan. The company is also managing the stores directly, presumably to keep markups within the company.

So far we've also learned that Apple has been clearing its own stores from any products remotely competitive to the Watch, namely various smartbands. Rumor also has it that you won't be able to just drop by a store and pick up an Apple Watch, instead you can just try it on and then order it…

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In the United States, LG started rolling out Android 5.0 Lollipop for G3 owners on the Sprint and AT&T network since early February. And now, LG G3 owners on T-Mobile also received the firmware update.

LG G3 owners on the T-Mobile network don't have to wait for an OTA update to Android Lollipop. The firmware is available via the LG Mobile Support Tool for a PC.

With the LG Mobile Support Tool, all users need to do is connect the T-Mobile LG G3 to a PC or Mac to install the new update. The latter carries software version D85120b and build version LRX21Y.

Android Lollipop brings Material Design with fluid animations, 3D views, and multi-colored themes to LG G3. A brand new ART runtime is also implemented.

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