Day by day, the pieces of the Samsung Galaxy S6 are coming together. The latest evidence of the phone's alleged specs comes from Indian import tracking website Zauba, which lists that two units of the phone have entered the countries for testing and evaluation purposes. The units carry the model number SM-G920A and packs a 5-inch display.

That's 0.1mm smaller display than the outgoing Samsung Galaxy S5, which will be the first time in the flagship's history its display has shrunk. In any way, previous evidence from the Samsung UAProf webpage confirms the phone will pack a QHD resolution.

The Zauba page also reveals the phone's import price, which is $405 (INR 25,169). However, that won't bee the phone's price given that recent history. Additional specifications of the phone entail an Exynos 7420 chipset with octa-core CPU, 3GB of RAM, and 20MP camera.

A couple of days ago, we caught a glimpse of the phone in an allegedly official case images from Spigen. The case maker outed four cases for the phone showing its back with the camera and heart rate sensor location. Furthermore, back texture looks to stay the same as the Galaxy S5.

The Galaxy S6 is rumored to pack a metal frame, akin to the Galaxy Alpha. Yesterday, schematics of the phone's design popped up revealing the exact dimensions of the device – 143.5 x 70.7 x 7.2mm. If true, then the phone is a tad taller, but narrower and quite thinner than the Galaxy S5 (142 x 72.5 x 8.1mm).

We'll have all of the Galaxy S6 information once the phone goes official. Samsung is expected to make it so at MWC in Barcelona at the beginning of March.

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Two weeks after its announcement, the Microsoft Lumia 435 is now available for pre-order in the UK. The phone is offered by Amazon and costs £88.49 SIM-free and is offered in Black, Orange and Green. Actual shipping date has also been confirmed – a month from now, March 1.

Microsoft plans to make the phone available throughout February in more countries in Europe, Asia Pacific, Africa and the Middle East. The Lumia 435 is a budget-minded handset with a Snapdragon 200 chipset with a dual-core CPU, 1GB of RAM and a 4" LCD display (480 x 800 pixels).

It's also destined to receive Windows 10 once the OS reaches its final status alongside the Lumia 730, Lumia 930 and Lumia 1520.

Additional specifications of the Lumia 435 include a weight of 131.9g and a 1,560mAh battery, good for almost 12 hours of talk time or 21 hours if you're on 2G. The phone boasts 42.2Mbps downlink speeds over 3G, which is about as good as it gets pre-LTE.

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The week opened with the announcement of the low-end Asus ZenFone C. It's a minor update to last year's ZenFone 4, retaining the Intel chipset with a 1.2GHz dual-core CPU and 1GB of RAM. Screen size has seen a slight bump to 4.5 inches, requiring an increase in battery capacity to 2,100mAh.

Wednesday was rather eventful, with Meizu's highly-anticipated press conference. The Meizu m1 was unveiled, packing a 5-inch 720p screen and respectable hardware in a colorful body, all for $110. Camera department is where the m1 offers the most bang for its buck, offering a 13MP main sensor and a 5MP selfie snapper.

The ZTE Blade S6 is a more capable LTE-enabled 5-incher rocking a Snapdragon 615 SoC, 2GB of RAM and 16GB of expandable storage. A 13MP/5MP camera combo adds up to a respectable $250 midrange package.

The HTC Desire 526+G slides in between the last two, pricewise. For $170 the Taiwanese company will sell you a 4.7-inch qHD screen, a 1.7GHz octa-core processor, coupled with a single gig of RAM and 8GB of on-board storage. A 16GB version is available for a nominal price increase.

Samsung unveiled a new smartphone as well, pushing its range to even lower grounds. The entry-level Galaxy J1 packs a 1.2GHz dual-core processor, a modest 512MB of RAM and 4GB internal memory, thankfully expandable. The new base model runs KitKat on a 4.3-inch screen.

Motorola quietly launched an LTE-enabled version of the current Moto G, dubbed Moto G 4G (2015). Offering vanilla Android experience and timely updates, the new handset offers dual-sim functionality and retains the hardware of the non-4G version.

As always, we've set up a convenient list of links below for you examine all of the above in more detail.

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The weekend is a good time to relax or if you're like us, contemplate on the history of mobile devices. A year ago we started putting our musings to paper, to web pages anyway. While you may think the last week of January is just announcements of pink devices for Valentines Day, it has proven much more exciting than that – the launch of the iPad, the sale of the 1.5 billionth S40 phone and the death of Symbian.

iPad announced

Through the years Apple has had several i-announcements that changed the face of the market. The iPod was announced in 2001, the iPhone in 2007 and in the last week of January 2010, the iPad. Our headline from the announcement reads "Apple iPad announced, is iPod touch on steroids".

And in a way it was, just like the iPhone 6 Plus is a smaller iPad mini. But that's the magic of Apple – it knows just the right amount of tweaks that will make a product a top-seller.

Apple iPad official photos

The iPad was far from the first tablet, it's not even the first tablet from Apple. And yet it's largely responsible for the boom of the tablet market. Microsoft and Intel have been pushing the UMPC – ultra-mobile PC – for a year before the iPad launched, they even had some good ideas.

The form-factor never took off, while today many people use "iPad" as a synonym for "tablet," famously the NBA commentators sponsored (and supposed to promote) Microsoft's Surface tablet. Surface sold over $1 billion worth of tablets last quarter and Microsoft's Windows 10 is aimed at tablet/laptop hybrids but things could have been very different if the iPad hadn't come out.

The iPad provided the fledgling tablet market with the same jolt of energy that the iPhone delivered to smartphones. It has since spawned a more compact iPad mini version and rumor has it that a larger iPad Pro tablet is in the works. It's an old rumor, but the larger iPhones last year rekindled it.

Smartphone brain in a laptop host

The iPad is the only thing that propelled tablets higher – the words "post-PC world" were used again and again until people started believing it was true. The desktop was dying (with declining sales for proof) and smartphones and tablets were the way forward.

Phones with gigahertz multi-core processors were as powerful as computers from a few years ago, so why not use a smartphone to power a laptop shell, that merely provides a big screen and keyboard (for ergonomic reasons)? As an added bonus, all your data will in one place (no need for a phone-to-computer sync) and you only had to pay for one data plan.

That's what Motorola was thinking with the Atrix, which was announced in January 2011. It had a "roaring Tegra 2" chipset and was getting 1080p video recording. It can be attached to the Lapdock – an 11.6" laptop shell that provided an extra battery and a desktop Firefox app, in addition to the roomy screen and keyboard.

The project ultimately failed, though Asus is still keeping the "smartphone brain" dream alive. The Asus Padfone takes the concept even further – a smartphone docks into a tablet, which can then be docked to a keyboard. The Asus Transformers use two thirds of that, they are tablets with dedicated keyboard docks.

While the Moto Atrix is dead and the Asus devices are fairly niche, Microsoft and Intel see a future into so-called hybrid devices. As we mentioned above, Windows 10 has special support for it with the Continuum feature.

Missing the mark

Sony Ericsson (now Sony) had Bluetooth watches that display call and message information from your phone. In retrospect those were pretty cool, a regular analog watch with a small digital display. In late 2010 the company launched the LiveView – a smartwatch for the touchscreen era.

Soon after (in January 2011) it updated it to support a total of 30 plugins, improve compatibility and stability. Like Apple and the iPad, Sony Ericsson didn’t invent the smartwatch (those have been around since at least the 1980's), but unlike Apple the company failed to become the king of the domain.

Sony still makes wearables – smartwatches and smartbands, even smart glasses – but it's not a dominant force. By the way, Apple announced a smartwatch but we're still waiting for it to launch (in March apparently).

The lost billion

In January 2012 Nokia celebrated the sale of its 1.5 billionth Series 40 phone. S40 was…

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OnePlus one no longer ships with Cyanogen branding on its back cover. The Chinese manufacturer quietly dropped the logo of the ROM developer from its flagship killer.

When announced a year ago, the OnePlus One proudly sported a Cyanogen stamp on its back. However, due to the tiff between the ambitious startups in India, their relationship appears to have changed.

OnePlus will unveil its custom Android ROM dubbed Oxygen on February 12. The Android 5.0 build will be "open, customizable, and free of bloat and unnecessary features.”

Cyanogen Inc. on the other hand, has bold plans about taking Android away from Google. A recent report in The Wall Street Journal points suggests that Microsoft will become a minority investor in the company.

Source |…

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Over a month after the G3 started receiving the Android 5.0 update, LG has started rolling out the Lollipop update for the G Pro 2 in its homeland South Korea. The new firmware brings features like Material Design, rich notifications, better security, and improved performance

All three Korean variants of the device – LG-F350S, LG-F350K, and LG-F350L – are set to receive the update.

Launched early last year, the G Pro 2 is powered by a Snapdragon 800 chipset with a quad-core 2.26 GHz Krait 400 CPU and an Adreno 330 GPU. It sports a 5.9-inch full HD IPS display and 3GB of RAM, and comes in 16GB and 32GB variants. The device packs in a 3,200mAh battery, as well as a microSD card slot for up to 64GB of additional…

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The Samsung Galaxy A7 launched in Russia earlier this month and now it's headed to Malaysia. The slender phablet will cost MYR 1,500 ($410/€365). That's a noticeably better deal than Russia got where the phablet is $530/€450 (as usual tech gets a hefty markup there).

The Samsung Galaxy A7 will be available through Samsung Experience Stores and authorized dealers starting in February. It will come in three color versions – Midnight Black, Pearl White and Champagne Gold.

The smaller Samsung Galaxy A5 is already available at MYR 1,200 ($330/€290). Both devices have metal frames and 64-bit Snapdragon chipsets, but the Galaxy A7 is bigger with its 5.5" 1080p Super AMOLED screen, has eight cores instead of four and is actually thinner than its sibling – 6.3mm vs….

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Following in the footsteps of the Galaxy Note 3, the Samsung Galaxy S4 (I9500) is making the jump to Android 5.0 Lollipop in Russia. The update weighs in at a hefty 1.05GB and has restrictions for the internal storage.

The Android 5.0 Lollipop update is over 1GB

First off, you'll need around 3GB to complete the update, so you may need to move some stuff off to the microSD card or to a computer. And you may not be able to get all of it back either.

After the install completes it will permanently eat 950MB of the storage. This is due to the new runtime, called ART. It compiles your apps the first time you boot your phone and stores the result, which where those 950MB go. Dalvik had an app cache too, but that was smaller.

So, if you're in Russia and have a Galaxy S4 – the Exynos one – you can check for updates from the settings menu.

Thanks to everyone who sent this…

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With MWC 2015 just over a month away everybody is already itching to know what the mobile world has in store and naturally the news has been overflowing with leaks. Unsurprisingly Samsung once again stole the spotlight with its highly anticipated Galaxy S6 flagship, which might indeed have an edged variant, called simply Galaxy S Edge. The handset allegedly appeared in a leaked photo along with a Spigen case. Other humors suggest that the Korean giant might be planning to release an array of advanced back replacements for the device, which should bring various exciting features, such as additional lenses and e-ink displays.

HTC also appears to be on everybody's minds with its upcoming One (M9) flagship and perhaps if rumors are to be believed One (M9) Plus as well. The Taiwanese manufacturer also released the interesting, mid-ranged Desire 526G+ to the sprawling India market last week. Speaking of device announcement they were plentiful. LG premiered the Ice Cream Smart Android smartphone with a classical flip-cover look, Xiaomi was quick to update its Redmi 2 with more RAM and storage and we say new offers by ZTE, Meizu, Asus and Gygabyte as well.

In other news Qualcomm recently confirmed that they have lost a big client for their Snapdragon 810 SoC and everything seems to point Samsung. Seeing how the manufacturer's latest in-house Exynos chips are based on a superior 14nm production process and now are equipped with built-in LTE modems, there is really no more incentive for the current leader in smartphone sales to continue using outside chips. Furthermore the Exynos 7420 simply breezes through Geekbench 3.0 test and it is not unfeasible to consider a broader future for the chip spanning outside Samsung devices and being employed by third-party manufacturers as well.

Everybody seems to be gearing up for the upcoming major event and working around the clock. B sure to keep a close eye on the news section as from the looks of things it's going to be a busy season.

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LG Ice Cream Smart flip smartphone goes official in Korea
LG took the wraps off the Ice Cream Smart flip smartphone in Korea. The casually characterful handset is the second flip phone from the Korean manufacturer after the LG Wine Smart that debuted in September last year. In terms of specs, LG Ice Cream Smart packs Qualcomm Snapdragon 400…

HTC One (M9) and (M9) Plus official photos leak
Weeks of leaks and rumors on the HTC One (M9) and One (M9) Plus have inevitably lead us to the first official images of the upcoming HTC flagship duo. The treat comes courtesy of notorious leakster Evan Blass on his twitter feed. The images confirm previous info of an all-glass front panel,…

iOS 9 running on iPhone 6 spotted in benchmark results
Apple typically announces new iOS versions at the WWDC, which is scheduled for June every year. While there's about four months to go, the first benchmark coming from an iOS 9 running on an iPhone 6 have hit the Basemark OS II database. Performance seems to be on par, except for the web score….

HTC One (M9) appears in Geekbench 3.0 database
The upcoming HTC One (M9) flagship made an appearance in the Geekbench 3.0 benchmark database. The smartphone achieved single and multi-core scores of 1232 and 3587 respectively. The device from the benchmark test unsurprisingly packs Qualcomm MSM8994 Snapdragon 810 chipset with 1.55GHz…

Samsung may be working on advanced case for Galaxy S6
There's a whole flock of rumors surrounding the Samsung Galaxy S6 and they don't always agree. Earlier we heard that Samsung is likely to seal the battery with a non-removable…

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Some carrier versions of HTC One (M8) and One (M7) will get updated to Android 5.0 Lollipop a bit later than expected. HTC initially promised to update all versions of its 2013 and 2014 flagship smartphone within 90 days of receiving the Android 5.0 code.

Mo Versi, HTC’s Vice President of product management delivered the news in a dedicated post. The delay is caused by issues Android 5.0 initially contained, which were subsequently fixed by Google with minor updates. HTC is working hard with Google and its carrier partners to incorporate the latter into its OS build.

HTC already updated several versions of the One (M8). They include the factory unlocked model, the Developer Edition, and the Google Play variant. Mo Versi promises “good news to share soon” on the rest of the One family.

Source…

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