Hutchison Whampoa began talks with Telefonica to buy carrier O2 UK in January. The companies have finally reached an agreement for a sum of £10.3, of course pending an approval from regulators.

Hutchison Whampoa already owns Three UK. If the deal goes through, the combined company will overtake the current biggest UK carrier, EE, and achieve around 40% market share and 33 million customers. Hutchison bought Telefonica's O2 Ireland in 2013 for €780 million.

The company says that regulatory approval may take up to a year so it will be a while before the deal goes through. £9.25 billion will be paid first, while the final £1 billion is subject to certain agreed-upon performance metrics from O2.

EE, which itself is a merger of Orange and T-Mobile, was recently acquired by BT for $19 billion.

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Xiaomi has wildly expanded its product range – starting with smartphones, the fast-growing company now offers TVs, Android TV boxes, headphones, battery packs and a fitness tracker. And there are more new product(s) incoming at the end of the month, March 31.

That's right product(s) – the company is teasing the readers of its teaming forum and even has them trying to guess how many new Mi products will be unveiled by Xiaomi CEO Lei Jun. As you can imagine, the overwhelming vote is for more than three devices.

So, will it be a new phone? Xiaomi already has the flagship Mi Note and Mi Note Pro, plus the mid-range darling, the Redmi 2. The Xiaomi Ferrari recently leaked, a 5" powerhouse, plus an ultra-cheap $65 phone is expected too. The company may even be toying with a Windows 10 handset.

There's some talk of a smartwatch too, but the Mi Band may be enough for now. There were even rumors flying around about a drone.

Xiaomi is light on tablets though, it only has the Mi Pad 7.9, which was unveiled in March last year. We may see an upgraded version or perhaps a 10.1" tablet. All of this is just speculation of course, we'll find out the real answer next…

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Before you think Samsung has forgotten about the lesser known cousin of the Note 3, the Galaxy Note 3 Neo, think again. The company's French Twitter account responded to a query about the Lollipop update for the device, confirming that the update is indeed arriving for the device some time later this year.

The Note 3 Neo is the cheaper alternative to the Note 3, with a 720p display, 8 megapixel camera and hexa-core Exynos 5260 processor. The problem with devices like these is that they are usually forgotten when it comes to updating them but it seems that it will be getting the Lollipop update, if a bit late.

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The HTC One M9+ refuses to leave the rumor mill but soon it may have to. A promo image briefly appeared on the net, an invitation for the unveiling on April 8. The event will allegedly take place in Beijing and go under the slogan "More than One." Note that this image disappeared quickly so its authenticity is dubious.

We've seen schematics of the phone, but here's a video of a dummy being handled. The HTC One M9+ is not a small device, it has grown bigger to accommodate the new 5.2" screen.

That was just a dummy, here are some hands-on photos of an actual working device. The last one shows AnTuTu 5.6, which confirms the rumored specs. The screen will have QHD resolution (1,440 x 2,560px), the chipset (on at least one version) will be a MediaTek MT6795T with an octa-core 64-bit processor and PowerVR 6200 GPU plus 3GB of RAM.

HTC One M9+ working prototype

The camera on the back will be a 20.7MP unit, however, there's a secondary camera there too. The One M9 will come with 32GB of built-in storage.

Thank you, Steve, for sending this in!

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BlackBerry has formally introduced the BlackBerry Classic in one of its key market – Indonesia. The new BlackBerry Classic has a full physical QWERTY keyboard along with the touchscreen display. BlackBerry Classic is priced at IDR 55,99,000. That translates to $431 and is cheaper than the Indian pricing which is about $517.

The BlackBerry Classic’s full QWERTY keyboard has fret-board like metal riffs to separate each row. Featuring a 3.5-inch 720×720 pixel display, the Classic is powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 Plus chipset with 1.2GHz CPU paired with 2 GB RAM.

With 16 GB expandable storage, it runs BlackBerry OS 10.3.1 out of the box and packs 2,515 mAh battery. Take a look at our review of the BlackBerry Classic smartphone to adjust your…

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HTC is working on a mid-range smartphone with model number A55 and likely to be released as the One E9. We reported about the expected specifications and the live images of the HTC One E9 (A55) already.

HTC E9p(A55) http://ift.tt/1bsxota @upleaks (@upleaks) March 25, 2015

Now promotional images of the One E9 have been posted online. There’s a consistency in all the images – live, certification, and promotional leaked so far. The large camera lens at the rear will overlay a 20MP sensor.

HTC has used a 5.5-inch Quad HD resolution display and powered it with a MediaTek MT6795 chipset with octa-core 2 GHz CPU paired with 3 GB RAM and 32 GB on-board storage. In the front it will feature the 4MP UltraPixel camera for selfies.

One E9 will run the Android 5.0 Lollipop based HTC Sense 7 UI out of the box….

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HTC has been working on the Butterfly series for the select Asian markets. As per recent rumors, the next generation Butterfly handset – Butterfly 3 is expected to debut in Japan. The dates are not confirmed but expectations are for the handset to show up in the second half of this year.

HTC Butterfly 3(codename BUTTERFLY3#UHL) heading to KDDI JPN in three colors(White, Blue, Red).— @upleaks (@upleaks) March 24, 2015

The Butterfly 3 is expected to be sold by KDDI in Japan in three color options – red, white and blue as shared by upleaks. It is not surprising since the Butterfly 2 was also released with the same color options and with water as well as dust resistance.

No details about the specifications of the Butterfly 3 has surfaced so far. Based on the release dates of the Butterfly and Butterfly 2, we expect the third generation Butterfly device to be announced sometime in…

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Alleged live photo of the unannounced Meizu MX Supreme made the rounds on the Chinese social network Weibo. The previously rumored smartphone is reportedly developed in collaboration with Nokia.

Meizu MX Supreme (click to enlarge)

The image gives us a peak at the area below the display of the smartphone. Meizu MX Supreme packs an oval home button that is likely to carry a fingerprint sensor, and ultra-thin screen bezels.

It is worth noting that the home button of the leaked smartphone is different that the on found in Meizu MX4 Pro. The latter has a squarish solution instead.

There is no word on the specs of the Meizu MX Supreme for the time being. We’ll keep an eye out for more details on the handset going forward….

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Samsung Galaxy Note 4 for AT&T isn’t alone in getting Android Lollipop today. The carrier version of the phablet’s predecessor, Samsung Galaxy Note 3 also began receiving Android 5.0.

With a size of 1.2GB, the Android 5.0 update for Galaxy Note 3 SM-N900A s available over-the-air and carries the build number LRX21V.N900AUCUEOC1.

Android 5.0 brings a host of changes and improvements to Samsung’s 2013 flagship phablet. They include refreshed TouchWiz user interface and brand new ART runtime among others.

If you are an owner of Samsung Galaxy Note 3 for AT&T, head over to its settings to check for the new firmware. Keep in mind that you can only download the update over Wi-Fi.

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U.S. Cellular announced that it will begin offering LG G Flex 2 later this week, on March 26. The Korean manufacturer’s self-healing phablet is already available to order from Sprint in the United States.

The carrier will ask $149.99 for the smartphone with a two-year contract, or $31.50 for 20 months with no money down. Users who don’t like commitment will have to option to grab the LG G Flex 2 for $630 outright.

U.S. Cellular will only offer the LG G Flex 2 in Platinum Silver. The handset is also expected to arrive on AT&T in the near future.

LG G Flex 2 made its official debut during CES in Las Vegas. You can find all about the smartphone in our full review.

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