After teasing with a contest, Xiaomi has formally announced the new Redmi 2 smartphone in India. The Redmi 2 features two 4G SIMs supporting dual-SIM configuration. For India, it supports both 4G LTE network with Band 3 and Band 40 on both the SIM slots. The 8 GB Redmi 2 model is priced at INR 6,999 ($112) while the limited edition 16 GB model with 2 GB RAM is expected to be released later.

Registrations for the Redmi 2 will open today on Flipkart and sale will commence on March 24.

Featuring a 4.7-inch HD display protected by AGC Dragontrail Glass, Xiaomi has powered the Redmi 2 with a 64-bit quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 420 mobile chipset with Adreno 306 GPU. The smartphone will be offered in 8 GB storage option with 1 GB RAM and 16 GB storage option with 2 GB RAM. It ships with MIUI v6 based on Android 4.4.4 KitKat.

Red 2 offers a 8MP camera with LED flash at the rear with capability to record full HD video and a 2MP camera in the front with HD quality. Other features include Wi-Fi Direct, Bluetooth 4.0 LE, USB Host, USB OTG, FM Radio, a 2200 mAh battery. It also features MEMs microphones for better voice calling quality.

Read our in-depth review to learn more about how each of these features perform.

Xiaomi Redmi 2 will compete directly with the freshly announced Motorola Moto E (2015) 3G Dual-SIM at the same…

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Xiaomi has announced that the long awaited Mi Pad will be releasing in India. The company has priced the tablet at 12,999 INR ($208). The tablet will be available for purchase exclusively on Flipkart starting March 24 and won't require any registration on the customer's part.

The Xiaomi Mi Pad has a 7.9-inch, 2048×1536 resolution IPS panel, NVIDIA Tegra K1 chipset, 2GB RAM, 16GB internal memory with microSD card slot, 8 megapixel rear camera, 6700mAh battery, and running MIUI 6 on top of Android…

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Apple stopped offering a number of fitness bands from its retail stores. The move is interpreted as clearing the way for the soon to be available Apple Watch (the wearable will begin shipping on April 24).

Popular fitness bands such as the Nike FuelBand and Jawbone Up are no longer available to purchase in Apple’s major retail locations. The company has also notified other fitness tracker manufacturers that it will no longer offer their products going forward.

Of course, Apple has not commented officially on the matter. However, the company pointed that it regularly changes its merchandise lineup.

The Apple Watch marks an entry for the company into a brand new market segment. Therefore, it is hardly a surprise that Cupertino is trying to give its new device a sales edge, especially considering the huge focus on health and fitness Apple Watch carries. The company is initially expected to ship three million units of its new creation.

Source…

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LG Nexus 5 is no longer available to purchase from Google. Google’s 2013 flagship smartphone is not available in the brand new online store, which debuted alongside the second generation Chromebook Pixel.

This means that going forward, users who are interested in a Pure Google smartphone will have to opt for the more expensive Motorola Nexus 6. The phablet is available for purchase in the new store, though the 64GB model takes 2-3 weeks to ship as opposed to 1-2 business days for the 32GB version.

The disappearance of LG Nexus 5 should hardly catch anyone by surprise. In December last year, a word got out that LG has stopped production of the device. Google subsequently confirmed that the smartphone will be available through Q1 this year.

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The yet-unannounced Samsung Galaxy S6 Active has been in the news a lot over the past few days. First we discovered that its model number would be SM-G890 and that AT&T will sell it at some point. And yesterday we apparently stumbled upon its screen size – 5.5".

Now though a new rumor has surfaced claiming to give us the full spec list for the S6 Active. And to start with, it contradicts that previous finding about display size, saying it will sport a 5.1-inch QHD (2,560×1,440) panel as the 'vanilla' Galaxy S6.

Moving on, we should also expect the successor to the Galaxy S5 Active (pictured above) to feature all of the other hardware innards of its non-rugged siblings, the S6 and S6 edge. So the same Samsung Exynos 7420 SoC, 3GB of RAM, 32GB of storage, 16MP rear camera, and 5MP front snapper.

The one thing that will reportedly change is battery capacity, rumored to come in at a whopping 3,500 mAh. That's more than what's inside the Galaxy Note 4 phablet, so we're a little wary of this particular detail – but hoping it will turn out to be right in the end.

The added ruggedness of the Active handset, coupled with the bigger battery has led to an increase in size compared to the Galaxy S6. The S6 Active will measure 146.9 x 73.6 x 8.8 mm, as opposed to 143.4 x 70.5 x 6.8 mm for the S6.

What isn't clear yet is if the S6 Active will come with a microSD card slot and a removable battery, unlike the S6 and S6 edge. Though since it's identical in every other respect, you probably shouldn't hold your breath. No detail has been revealed about how rugged it will be, but these things should surface soon now that the leaks have started in earnest.

Today's rumor also confirms that AT&T will sell the Galaxy S6 Active, and that the model number of the device for that carrier will indeed be SM-G890A. The other versions should therefore be SM-G890x, with the final letter being different depending on region and/or…

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Motorola's latest iteration of its Moto G smartphone is now officially up for grabs in the UK. We're talking about the Moto G 4G (2015), the successor to the original Moto G 4G from last year.

Like the new 3G-only Moto G, the 2015 model with 4G support comes with a 5-inch 720p touchscreen, bigger than the 4.5-inch panel in the first models.

The Moto G 4G (2015) also has an 8 MP rear camera with LED flash, a 2 MP selfie shooter, 1GB of RAM, 16GB of storage, a microSD card slot, and a 2,390 mAh battery.

It's powered by Qualcomm's Snapdragon 400 chipset, coming with a 1.2 GHz quad-core Cortex-A7 CPU and Adreno 305 GPU. The phone runs Android 5.0 Lollipop.

It can be yours right now for £159.99 if you buy it from Motorola's UK arm. That's just a £10 markup from the 3G-only model, which goes for £149.99. Prices include VAT as well as standard shipping.

Source |…

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In November 2014 HTC unveiled the Desire 820s, a variation of the original Desire 820. So far the 820s has been on offer in China, but starting tomorrow you'll see it in phone shops across India too.

The Desire 820s has a MediaTek chipset, compared to the Qualcomm Snapdragon in the 'vanilla' 820. Because of this, it has a different CPU and GPU, of course. On the processor side, we're looking at an octa-core part with Cortex-A53 cores, clocked at 1.7 GHz. That should make the Desire 820s faster than the Desire 820, which had four Cortex-A53 cores clocked at 1.5 GHz, and another four clocked at 1 GHz.

The GPU in the new phone is the Mali-T760, and (obviously) not Qualcomm's Adreno anymore. That's about it in terms of differences between the two. The Desire 820s has dual-SIM support, and it will work in India on 4G networks.

It has a 5.5-inch 720p touchscreen, a 13 MP rear camera with LED flash, an 8 MP front snapper for selfies, 2GB of RAM, 16GB of built-in storage (which is expandable via microSD), and a 2,600 mAh battery. It runs Android 4.4 KitKat with HTC's Sense 6 UI on top.

It will be available in India tomorrow for INR 24,490, which is about $390 or €370 at the current exchange rates.

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After many rumors and leaks on the matter, today Verizon has finally decided to confirm that it will in fact sell the Motorola Nexus 6. What's more, the handset will become available tomorrow, so there's not a lot of waiting you need to do from this point on, if you crave a Nexus 6 but want to buy it from Verizon for some reason.

The exact release date was in fact leaked just a few days ago, but it's good to (finally) have official confirmation too.

The Nexus 6 will arrive at Verizon running Android 5.1 Lollipop, which was announced by Google yesterday. It will be out online tomorrow, while in stores it will be in stock starting on March 19.

To get a Nexus 6 from Verizon with a two-year contract, you'll have to pay $249.99. Of course you can also use Big Red's Edge installment plan, in which case you pay nothing for the device upfront, then followed by 24 monthly payments of $27.08.

The carrier is throwing in six months of free Google Play Music All Access, which normally costs $9.99 per month, if you buy a Nexus 6 until the end of…

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The original Samsung Galaxy Win is almost two years old at this point, so the Korean company thought it would be a great idea to unveil a successor for it. So it did just that.

The Galaxy Win 2 was officially announced in Brazil, where it was also the star of some hands-on pictures.

The new device updates the Android version on board to 4.4.4 KitKat, but it makes the screen size smaller – now just 4.5", compared to 4.7" in the original. The resolution has stayed the same 800×480 though.

The Samsung Galaxy Win 2 also boasts a 1.2 GHz quad-core processor, a 5 MP rear camera with LED flash, a 2 MP front snapper, 1GB of RAM, 8GB of built-in storage (expandable via microSD), and a 2,000 mAh battery. It comes with 4G LTE support, dual-SIM functionality, as well as the usual connectivity options. Its dimensions are 131 x 68.1 x 8.8 mm, and it weighs 130g.

Samsung Galaxy Win 2

So it looks like the main upgrades here (aside from the software) are the 4G capability and the front-facing camera, now featuring 2 MP resolution, up from VGA on the Galaxy Win from 2013. In fact, Samsung has actually emphasized this during the launch event, saying that selfies are becoming extremely popular in Brazil, and the new camera should allow people to shoot them better.

The Galaxy Win 2 is already up for grabs in Brazil in black and grey. Recommended prices are BRL 729 ($233) for the version without digital TV, and BRL 779 ($249) for the one that does have that feature.

Thanks for the tip, Matheus!

Source (in…

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Samsung, like most major mobile players, has been keeping busy with the whole Lollipop update frenzy. Naturally, various delays and hiccups are expected, especially across devices in different regions. Samsung Norway, might have gotten into more trouble than usual with its update packages for Galaxy S5 and S4.

Android 5.0 Lollipop was being seeded to both devices, as planned, until some major issues forced the local Samsung branch to put the OTA "on-hold". This was absolutely necessary after a number of owners of the aforementioned handsets flooded the local branch with complains about the Android 5.0 update they were receiving.

There have been reports of various bugs, including random freezes of various apps, including the default Phone and Contact applications, often rendering the phone unusable. Crashes are also affecting the alarm application, which, as you can imagine, could be equally irritating.

The OTA seems to be causing sluggish behavior in general, so definitely something went wrong in Norway. This is what the local branch had to comment on the matter:

We are aware of the issues some users are experiencing after installing the update Android 5.0 Lollipop and now has stopped the current version. We work full time with a new update that contains solutions to the problems that have been reported to us, including a new solution for silent mode. We hope to send out the update shortly, and will keep you updated on Facebook.

The reasons behind the troublesome update could be numerous, ranging from a mix-up in the shipped package, all the way to some latent bug that has been hidden away in the ROMs and is now causing unexpected problems.

It is at least encouraging to know that Samsung Norway is aware of the issue and trying to address it. And we are not exactly sure that throwing in a silent mode feature will compensate for lack of a normally functioning device, but hey, as they say, you gain some, you lose…

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