Confirming rumours that had been circulating late last year, the British telecommunications giant BT has announced that it has agreed to acquire the UK’s leading mobile carrier EE, effectively putting itself back into mobile services. The deal is worth $19 billion (£12.5 billion), with BT paying EE owners Deutsche Telekom and Orange in cash and shares.

The deal means that BT will have access to EE’s 31 million customers of which around 24.5 million are direct mobile customers, while nearly 834,000 are fixed broadband customers. The latter also has the largest 4G customer base of any operator in Europe.

Following the purchase, Deutsche Telekom will hold a 12% stake in BT and will be entitled to appoint one non-executive member of the BT Board of Directors. Orange will hold a 4% stake in BT.

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Just a day after HTC confirmed that the Sprint HTC One (M7) will start receiving the Android 5.0 update today, it looks like the carrier's Galaxy S5 will get the update too.

According to Samsung's official support page, the S5 Lollipop update will roll out today, bumping the device to software version G900PVPU1AOA6, and will also include an enhanced Voice over Wi-Fi user interface, as well as the removal of the Lumen tool bar.

The news also comes just days after the Verizon Samsung Galaxy S5 started receiving the Android 5.0 update.

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In an interesting turn of events, Samsung has dismissed the Canalys report that said Micromax has overtaken the South Korean company as the leading smartphone manufacturer in India. The tech giant has said that it’s still the number one player in the market, citing a GfK India report, which it said is based on the company’s actual sales.

"In the entire year 2014, we continued to lead the market with innovative and exciting offerings. Our volume market share in the smartphone market in the year was 35.7%, which is more than double than that of the next player, while our value share was 40.2%, which is more than four times the next player," said Asim Warsi, Vice President of Marketing for Samsung’s Mobile business in India. "The GfK data is based on actual retail sales in 50,000-plus population cities."

This isn’t the first time Samsung has disputed a research report; last year, the company disagreed with a Counterpoint report that placed Micromax ahead of it in the overall mobile market. "Leave aside downtrend; we saw growth in the second quarter value-wise and volume-wise. Based on actual off-takes done through syndicated research, we continue to lead the market by a significant margin. The No. 2 brand is a fourth of our size," the company had said at that…

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A lineup of Otterbox cases for the upcoming HTC One (M9) made the rounds online. The Taiwan-based manufacturer will reveal a duo of flagship smartphones in less than a month, on March 1 in Barcelona.

Showcased in gray and black, the Otterbox cases appear to be from the company’s Defender series. The accessories once again reveal the large, squarish camera which the HTC One (M9) packs.

The covers are scheduled to become available on April 1. Their price tag will be € 29.95.

HTC One (M9) is all but certain to arrive in two different variants. Rumored specs of the smartphone include Qualcomm Snapdragon 810 SoC, 3GB of RAM, and 20.7MP camera coupled with 4MP UltraPixel front-facing snapper.

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Live photos of the upcoming HTC One (M9) made the rounds online yet again. This time around, the upcoming flagship from the Taiwanese manufacturer posed for the camera in gold color scheme.

Right in line with past leaks, the live photos once again allow us to catch a glimpse of the large squarish cutout for the handset’s camera. The latter is said to be a 20.7MP unit, coupled with a 4MP UltraPixel front-facing snapper.

Furthermore, the latest batch of leaked photos reveal the inside of the device’s machined metal body. The grey bits we see are reserved for the smartphone’s wireless antennas.

HTC One (M9) will make its official debut in less than a month, on March 1 in Barcelona. Two variants of the flagship are expected – One (M9) and One (M9) Plus. Both variants will pack Qualcomm Snapdragon 810 SoC, 3GB of RAM, and Android 5.0 Lollipop.

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The update to Lollipop for the three Android One devices available in India will finally be out "in the next few weeks". This is according to Google's Indian arm, so it's official as can be.

Unfortunately though, this vague timeline is all we have for now, as the company behind those updates hasn't yet decided to share anything more on the matter.

Last we heard anything about Android Lollipop updates for the Micromax Canvas A1, Karbonn Sparkle V, and Spice Dream Uno, they were supposedly going to arrive by the end of January.

That obviously hasn't happened. And today Google took its Android One initiative to Indonesia, where the three handsets that have launched all ship with Android 5.1 Lollipop preinstalled. Given this fact, it will be interesting to see if the Indian Android One phones will jump straight to this version of the OS, or first receive updates to 5.0.

If the former possibility becomes reality, then the long delay in releasing Lollipop for Android One devices may have had something to do with bugs or lack of optimizations for the low-end hardware they sport. Google has promised swift OS upgrades for Android One, but in this case it may have simply decided to wait for its engineers to finalize Android 5.1, which is hopefully going to be less riddled with issues than the initial Lollipop release.

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If you needed more proof about how successful Apple's iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus have been, especially in the US market, then this is going to be it.

According to the analysts at Kantar Worldpanel ComTech, iOS has managed to take the lead from Android in the US smartphone market in the fourth quarter of 2014 (so between October and December).

Granted, Apple's managed to sell only slightly more iOS devices than all Android makers combined – the difference is just 0.1%. Still, it's interesting because the last time something like this happened was in Q4 of 2012.

For the last three months of last year, Kantar says 47.7% of smartphones sold in the US were iPhones, while 47.6% ran Android. Windows Phone accounted for 3.8% of the market, while BlackBerry had to make do with just 0.3%.

Throughout the holiday quarter, the iPhone 6 was the best selling smartphone in the US, as well as the most popular handset to be given as a gift. Samsung's Galaxy S5 was the second best. When it comes to brand loyalty, Apple is leading again, with 87% in the US and Europe. Samsung fares the best out of the Android device makers with 62%.

Obviously though, Android remains the biggest mobile OS worldwide, with a 66.1% share in Europe and 77% in China. That said, smartphone penetration is still just 59% in the US and 67% in the top five European markets, which means there's still growth to come.

While reading the numbers above keep in mind that ComTech is a consumer panel, getting its data from interviews with ordinary people. This is different from other approaches, which prefer to track actual shipments of devices from manufacturers to retailers and carriers.

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Oppo's brief world record holder for thinnest smartphone has shown up on Amazon's UK site and is now available for pre-order. The precious units are set to start shipping as early as February 20.

The Oppo R5 is a stylish midrange offering, packing a 5.2-inch FullHD display in a slender 4.85mm body. That wasn't thin enough, the competition deemed, and the R5 is now in third place behind the Ivvi K1 Mini and the Vivo X5Max. That shouldn't make it any less desireable, though, as the two-tone aluminum body is a true stunner.

The rest of the Oppo R5 specs are not too shabby either. A Snapdragon 615 chipset is on board, featuring an octa-core processor, Adreno 405 GPU and 2GB of RAM. Where the R5 falls short is battery capacity, which at 2000mAh proves barely adequate for the screen size, but that's the trade-off for the super-thin profile.

The SIM-free Oppo R5 is listed at £296.99 but you can also claim a free Oppo powerbank with it to address the battery capacity…

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Android 5.1 Lollipop name has been creating quite a buzz over the social networks through the last few hours. The new version has appeared on various screenshots and its name and build numbers popped up through various logs.

Google has already confirmed the next Android iteration – 5.1 Lollipop – via its official Android One page. There you can clearly see the mention of the new Android OS though there are no details on the improvements.

The new Android version is already shipping with the Android One devices listed on the official web page, including the Nexian Journey many people posted screenshots of.

We guess lots of bug fixes and performance boosts will be in tow with the update, but Google is yet to release the official changelog, builds and source code.

Once we get the complete lists of changes, you bet we'll post it immediately. Stay…

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The Sony Xperia Z4 is one of the less likely announcements expected to be seen at the MWC a few weeks from now, judging by the lack of tangible info on the device. A recent leak on Chinese social network Weibo, however, might force us to rethink that position.

A couple of front panels have appeared in live images revealing interesting facts about the upcoming flagship, and suggesting its nearing launch. Revolutionary changes are out of the question obviously, but a few design tweaks are observed.

Most noticeably, the front camera and ambient light/proximity sensors have swapped positions. The bezels appear marginally slimmer than the ones on the previous generation, but if Sony's design language is to be followed, the outer frame will add a few more millimeters to the footprint.

In a move away from the Xperia Z3 and back to the Xperia Z2 the speakers have been repositioned behind thin slits at the edges of the panel. HTC One (M9) was recently revealed to sport a similar design.

No additional info has surfaced on the hardware, but the prevailing top-end specsheet of the year includes a Snapdragon 810 SoC, and 4GB of RAM. Screen size will be anywhere between 5.2 and 5.5 inches and perhaps both FullHD and QHD resolutions will be available.

Either way, the wait for the Mobile World Congress just got even more exciting.

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