LG Nexus 5 quietly returned to the Google Play store in the United States. The smartphone was listed as out of inventory for quite a bit of time before its sudden reappearance.

Both the 16GB and 32GB version of the handset are available to order for $349 and $399 respectively. Black is the only color listed in Google Play at the moment.

A couple of months ago, a word got out that LG and Google have stopped the production of Nexus 5. The search giant subsequently confirmed that the device will be available through Q1 this year, thus meaning that now might be a perfect time to pick one up.

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Surprising everyone, Verizon has today unveiled that it's the first US carrier to push the update to Android 5.0 Lollipop to the Samsung Galaxy S5. This smartphone has so far been updated to Lollipop in other parts of the world, and now the new software finally makes it to the US. Furthermore, it makes its debut at a carrier that really isn't known for swiftly releasing such updates.

The update seems to already be rolling out over-the-air to all Galaxy S5 units sold by Verizon. If your phone hasn't notified you about it yet, then it should do so within the next few hours or days. If you're running low on patience, you can manually check for the update from the Settings menu.

It looks like you'll first get a smaller update which will prepare your handset for the bigger one, which should follow immediately after the first one is installed. The Lollipop build is LRX21T.G900VVRU1BNLC.

As you might have expected, this means you'll get Material Design on your Galaxy S5, as well as a slightly improved iteraton of TouchWiz, Samsung's UI overlay. The new Recents menu is in too, as is the Interruptions feature that replaces Silent mode. The colors are bolder all-round, and the whole experience should be smoother thanks to the use of the new Android RunTime (ART) instead of the old Dalvik virtual machine.

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The latest monthly State of Android report from Google is upon us today. The numbers that follow have been collected for a 7-day period ending today.

The big news is that, for the first time ever, Lollipop has appeared in the Android distribution chart you can see below. Although the newest version of Google's mobile operating system has been out for a few months, it's only now starting to be seen on more than 0.1% of devices. OS releases that are under that threshold aren't shown in the chart.

Compared to the January report, Android 4.4 KitKat has grown from 39.1% to 39.7%, and it's still in the most used version of the OS if you count the three different Jelly Bean releases separately. Otherwise, Jelly Bean leads the market with a 44.5% aggregate share.

Ice Cream Sandwich has dropped from 6.7% to 6.4%, Gingerbread from 7.8% to 7.4%, while Froyo has interestingly held still at a measly 0.4% of the market.

Now that more and more smartphone makers and carriers across the world are in the process of making Android 5.0 Lollipop updates available for their devices, the latest iteration of the OS should start growing in the charts we'll see in the following…

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Last week Motorola officially started taking pre-orders for the Moto X (2014) in China, following the company's reentry into that market, which was announced earlier.

The latest Moto X went up for pre-order in China on January 27, and it seems to have become quite a hit over there. That's because Motorola's Chinese arm has unveiled that as of February 1 it has already received more than one million pre-orders for the device.

So the new Moto X is clearly going to be quite a success in China when it will finally be released. Speaking of which, it's still unclear when exactly that will happen.

When reading about pre-orders in China, you need to be aware that generally speaking these work differently over there than they do in other places. Most of the time, to pre-order (or reserve) a handset in China you do not need to make any payment at all – that will happen when the product you're trying to buy arrives in stock. This of course means that some fraction of the people who pre-ordered those one million Moto X units may change their minds and not purchase it after all.

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The popular testing application GFXBench has long been a plentiful, albeit often confusing source of hardware leaks for new devices. This is precisely the case with a recently revealed tablet specs sheet. The information cited on the website seems to revel a rather powerful new piece of hardware with a 10.1-ich screen putting it squarely in tablet territory, and a QHD (2560 x 1440 pixels) resolution.

The rumor mill leads us to believe that this is a future successor to the Lumia 2520, but something in the specs sheet just doesn't add up. The GPU in the report is announced as Qualcomm Adreno 420, which is found in the Snapdragon 805 SoC. This is all fine, but the problem is the OS of the device is listed as Windows and this most probably refers to Windows 10.

Microsoft has really been pitching its new One Windows strategy lately and it comes as no surprise that a new line of powerful hardware is required to really allow the now OS version to take off once it hits consumer markets. One of the pressing questions that were recently answered about Windows 10 is how it will behave on smaller devices.

Joe Belfiore, Corporate Vice President, Operating Systems Group at Microsoft explained that Microsoft has set the minimum bar for a full desktop Windows experience at 8-inches, as presumably lower screen sizes render traditional win32 apps almost unusable. Keeping that in mind it is only logical to assume that the new supposed Lumia tablet will run a full version of Windows 10, but sadly that is impossible due to the ARM-based nature of its architecture.

While the new device definitely looks exciting, something is still wrong with the picture. It is worth noting that the GFXBench test was most likely run on a development unit and such anomalies in reported hardware and OS information are easily explainable. Another option is that the device will follow In the steps of Windows RT-powered devices and deviate a little from Microsoft's overall intentions by offering a limited Windows 10 experience on a big screen. This however seems less likely, seeing how the capable Snapdragon 805 is a definite overkill in a potential candidate for the RT niche.

Whatever the case we will be sure to keep a close eye on Microsoft and keep you informed on what they have planned for Windows 10 in the tablet realm.

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Whether or not Qualcomm is having troubles with the Snapdragon 810 chip, there is no denying it is one of the powerhouses of the season and people are looking forward to devices utilizing it. LG kicked off first with the S810-running LG Flex, but we expect many more flagships with the same hardware to premiere on the MWC in a few weeks.

Meanwhile Microsoft and Qualcomm will continuing their partnership and they confirmed we can expect Windows Phone devices to run on Snapdragon 810 later this year. The Snapdragon 810 chip offers an octa-core 64-bit processor (4x Cortex-A57 and 4x Cortex-A53), console-like graphics and full 4K support thanks to Adreno 430 GPU, plus LTE Cat.9 support for up to 450 Mbps downlink.

Here is the official quote from Qualcomm's press release:

"Microsoft and Qualcomm’s long standing collaboration has allowed the two companies to offer compelling business, imaging, and entertainment experiences with Lumia smartphones running on Windows Phone," said Juha Kokkonen, general manager for portfolio and product management at Microsoft. "We look forward to continuing this relationship to deliver best in class Lumia smartphones, powered by Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 810 processors, and offer an unprecedented combination of processing power, rich multimedia, high-performance graphics and wireless connectivity for our customers."

Microsoft has announced a unified Windows 10 platform across all of its devices and deep Xbox One integration, including game streaming to other devices (such as Sony's Remote Play). The latter would definitely require powerful hardware and stable internet connection, so the Snapdragon 810 look like a logical choice choice.

Anyway, the MWC 2015 is upon us and we should be seeing a plethora of top-notch gadgets premiering there. Hopefully Microsoft shows us something interesting as…

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The HTC One (M8) is receiving its Android 5.0 Lollipop update in India. We received a screenshot of the system update changelog and it's based around the 4.18.720.8 firmware which amounts to 574.17 MB. That's less than the 780MB update users received in Europe although the changelog doesn't state a difference.

Users will get the Lollipop HTC Sense experience with a redesigned notification area will pull-down quick settings toggles, the carousel recent apps with bigger cards, the new Lollipop lockscreen, a search button in the settings menu and many other little and big improvements.

HTC is steadily upgrading its One (M8) – it has been receiving the firmware update to the latest Android version since last month but some devices will get a delayed update due to some issues HTC and Google are working on.

And if you want to check out how Android 5.0 Lollipop improved the performance of our HTC One (M8) you can check out our dedicated post.

Thanks for the tips,…

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Huawei updated its C199 metal-clad phablet with a new 64-bit processor and a gold color option. The Huawei C199S has a 5.5" IPS screen with 720p resolution and a Snapdragon 615 chipset. The phone has dual-SIM and LTE connectivity.

The updated phablet has eight Cortex-A53 cores, 2GB of RAM and Adreno 405. It runs Android 4.4 KitKat with EMUI 3 on top. The storage is 16GB out of the box (12GB user-available) and there's a microSD card slot.

Huawei C199S in Gold

The Huawei C199S has a 13MP main camera that shoots 1080p video, while the 5MP selfie camera can record 720p. Besides the LTE, there's 3G and 2G (with CDMA and EVDO), Wi-Fi b/g/n, Bluetooth 4.0 and posisitoning from A-GPS/GLONASS/Beidou.

The aluminum unibody of the 5.5" phablet measures 7.6mm thick and weighs 167g. Inside is a 3,000mAh battery.

The phablet is available for CNY 2,300, which is the equivalent of $370/€325. The C199S is available on China's Vmall right now, but it's not clear if it will get a worldwide launch or not.

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It's official – Samsung is holding its Galaxy Unpacked 2015 event on March 1. The company's press event is going to focus primarily on its upcoming flagship smartphone, the Galaxy S6. In the teaser image below, however, you can see the company will also introduce a product with a distinctive curve in its design. Could we be looking at a Galaxy S Edge?

The latest pieces of evidence point that the Galaxy S6 will feature a 5" QHD Super AMOLED display and draw power from the Exynos 7420 chipset with octa-core CPU and 3GB of RAM. At the back, the flagship will feature a heart rate monitor and a 20MP snapper. You can check out the design of the phone's back in a set of case photos from Spigen.

Additionally, the phone will likely pack a metal frame, just as the teaser image hints. Akin to the Galaxy Alpha, this will benefit the phone's profile making it measure 143.5 x 70.7 x 7.2mm as per leaked schematics of the device.

The curved variant of the Galaxy S6 might be called simply Galaxy S Edge. It remains unclear at this point if two of the screen's sides will be curved or just one. A patent showcases that Samsung has figured the technology out on making double edge…

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Meizu is reportedly working on a new Flyme OS version based on the newest Android 5 Lollipop. It should bring all the Lollipop optimizations and will incorporate Google's Material design for a flat and more beautiful UI.

Both Meizu MX4 and Meizu MX4 Pro will be getting the update, though they are a long way from completed.

Meizu plans to start an open beta for the new ROMs this March and everyone will be able to test the new software package.

Currently both MX4 and MX4 Pro are running on Android KitKat and are getting regular software improvements via firmware upgrades, especially the MX4 Pro. It's nice to see Meizu working hard to bring the latest available Android OS available.

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