Xiaomi finally unveiled the long-awaited and highly anticipated Mi 5 flagship. Company’s CEO Hugo Bara was the one to show off not only the Mi 5 but also the faster 64GB model and the exclusive ceramic version called Mi 5 Pro.

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Acer has been making top notch midrange smartphones in recent years. The Mobile World Congress is traditionally a place where the company unveils its latest offerings and this year we have the Acer Liquid Jade 2 and Liquid Zest.

The Liquid Jade 2 is more upper mid-range than a true flagship, but still it’s a nice device from Acer. It is basically a Jade Primo running Android instead of Windows 10, so its specifications are familiar.

The Liquid Zest on the other hand, is a more modest smartphone, available in two options – 3G and 4G. Both differ in the choice of a chipset, but the build, display and camera are the same.

Check out the full hands-on of the Acer Liquid Jade 2 and Liquid Zest…

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Acer has been making top notch midrange smartphones in recent years. The company always manages to offer a lot for the money you’re paying, and the latest additions to its line-up are no exception.

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Acer and Victorinox are partnering on the Cybertool watch accessory, which transforms the I.N.O.X series of wristwatches into smart ones.

Acer Cybertool official images

The Cybertool is a clip-on accessory, which allows you to see the original watch face, but has additional features. See the rest of the technical details below.

Acer Cybertool at a glance

Display: Round LED Display, Gorilla Glass 3
Body: TPU (Thermoplastic Polyurethane)
Features: Incoming Call Notification, Mail & Message Notification, Event Reminder, Time Zone, Pedometer, Active Minutes, Calories Burned, Goal Setting, Countdown, Stopwatch,
Find My Phone, Help, Assistant Light
Water resistance: IPX7
Sensor: Accelerometer
Battery: 60mAh Li-polymer, Non-Replaceable Battery, 5-7 days battery life, subject to usage
Weight: 24g
Dimensions: 53.1 x 52 x 21.9 mm, Screen – Gorilla Glass 3, Body – TPU (Thermoplastic Polyurethane)
App compatibility: Android 4.4.2+, iOS 8.0+

The Cybertool is comprised of front and rear segments, which wrap around the I.N.O.X watch case. At the front, the curved LED screen displays various information and on its right, there are indicators to show call, message and calendar notifications.

The smart case is quite bulky

There’s no getting away from the fact that the Cybertool adds a lot of bulk. However, it’s IPX7 water resistant and quite durable thanks to the Gorilla Glass 3 glass on top.

Wearing the Cybertool in conjunction with the I.N.O.X watch

At the bottom, there are two buttons, which add extra functionality. The most interesting of them is the Help function, which activates by pressing the two buttons together. It then sends your GPS coordinates to a predefined contact in case of emergency.

The battery is 60mAh and is rated to last a week on a single charge.

The Cybertool from different angles

Here’s our quick hands-on video of the Cybertool placed on top of a Victorinox Swiss Army watch.

The Cybertool is a bit pricey for our taste. It will cost $225 and you’ll ned an I.N.O.X watch, which starts at $600. The concept is neat, but it will need a wider compatibility and a lower price tag if Acer wants this to be anything more than a boutique…

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Besides the Galaxy S7 and S7 edge duo, which definitely stole the show, Samsung also brought a slew of additional accessories and gadgets to show off at MWC 2016. In our extensive hands-on coverage, we made sure to give them all their fair share of attention. There were a whole bunch of covers and cases, keyboards, fast chargers and gamepads available, even a somewhat odd new Lens case concept and just when we thought we had covered everything, we noticed a new wearable that almost slipped away.

It is called the Charm and is in Samsung’s words “A New Type of Wearable”, which might be true within the Samsung realm, but the resemblance to Xiaomi’s Mi Band is unshakable.

This is a pretty logical move, as Xiaomi’s simplistic approach to connected wrist tech did prove incredibly successful. Just like the Mi Band, the Charm is only equipped with LEDs to relay notifications from your phone. The connection to it is maintained over Bluetooth LE, and there is a dedicated Samsung Charm app.

The Charm is also a basic fitness tracker. It can count your steps, measure the distance you have walked and convert this to calories. The data, of course, can be fed to S Health. The charm is equipped with a 17 mAh battery pack, which is said to last for up to 18 days on a single charge.

Despite the eerie resemblance to the Xiaomi Mi Band, it is worth noting that Samsung’s take on the basic tracker is unquestionably a more stylish one. It comes in two form factors – a bar and a square, both adorned with exquisite bands and patterns and available in three color options – Rose Quartz, black and…

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Today at the Barcelona venue we made sure to make some time for a quick visit to ZOPO’s booth, We had a very good reason for doing so too, and it is called the Speed 8. Now, we won’t go into praising nor dismissing the not particularly famous Chinese manufacturer, but an ambitious slogan, such as “the first deca-core smartphone in the world” definitely deserves some attention.

As promised, the Speed 8 was unveiled today at the MWC venue by none other than MotoGP World Champion Jorge Lorenzo. Promises also look to be kept as the handset is indeed powered by Mediatek’s Helio X20 SoC. Seeing how this is the first deca-core mobile chip in production and the Speed 8 is the first product to utilize it, the aforementioned title looks to be deserved, although there is the small matter of actually launching to market, but we won’t get into semantics too much.

Other than that, the ZOPO Speed 8 comes with a 5.5-inch FullHD display, 4GB of RAM and 32GB of storage, all powered by a quite spacious 3600 mAh battery. Its camera setup consists of a 21MP main camera with a Sony IMX230 sensor, a dual-tone LED flash, and an 8MP selfie shooter. There is also a round fingerprint scanner on the back, and the USB port is of the new Type-C variety.

It is also worth noting that the ZOPO Speed 8 is a Dual-SIM handset with 4G LTE connectivity on board and boots Android 6.0…

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Microsoft has made yet another app for Android, this time a keyboard. The Microsoft Hub Keyboard looks like a simple keyboard at first but it has a few tricks up its sleeve.

The keyboard has four main features. The clipboard feature shows you text you had previously copied so you can paste it with a couple of taps. The documents feature lets you login to your Office 365 account and paste the URL of the files by typing their names. The contacts feature lets you type the name of the contact and paste their details by tapping on the suggestions above. Lastly, there is a built-in translator, which can translate the text you’re typing to any other language.

That aside, the keyboard is extremely basic and does not even have autocorrect, which makes typing extremely difficult. There also doesn’t seem to be any way to access emoji if you’re using this keyboard. Some of these drawbacks makes the keyboard hard to use for basic typing and the addition of the features above doesn’t really make up for that. Would have been better if Microsoft had worked on the fundamentals first before adding more features.

Download •…

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Samsung has had the best mobile displays in recent years and it should come as no surprise that DisplayMate has crowned the Galaxy S7 and Galaxy S7 edge “Best Performing Display.”

The Galaxy S6 wore the crown last year (until the Note5, anyway), but the S7 generation brings some strong improvements. The 5.1″ screen on the S7 is built on a hard glass substrate while the curved 5.5″ S7 edge screen uses a flexible plastic substrate.

The new screens are significantly brighter – 24% better than the S6. This improves sunlight legibility. By the way, AMOLED displays (not just the S7 display) can be used with polarized glasses, so you won’t be blinded by the sun.

The display can go in the polar opposite direction too – the Super Dimming Mode can limit the brightness to a mere 2 nits.This will prevent eye strain even in the darkest environments.

Automatic brightness is now intelligent – it learns what brightness levels you like in the different lighting conditions and matches your preferences automatically.

The Always On display is a new addition to the S-series too. It senses when the phone is face down (or in a pocket/bag) and switches off, so it doesn’t waste power. When it’s on, it uses between 50mW and 90mW with a brightness of 60 nits (less if the phone is in a dark room).

In terms of image quality, Basic screen mode matches the S6 and Note5 as the “most color accurate displays.” Photo mode switches from sRGB to Adobe RGB (which is 17% larger) and the Galaxy S7 offers accuracy rarely possible in consumer…

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Xiaomi just revealed its flagship Mi 5 smartphone and amazed everyone at the Mobile World Congress with its affordability. There are three versions of the phone, which is geared towards the Chinese market, and will start at just $306 (CNY 2000).

For that price, you get Snapdragon 820 chipset, 3GB of RAM and 32GB of internal storage. If you want 64GB of internal storage, the price goes up to $352 (CNY 2300). Finally, the Xiaomi Mi 5 Pro with ceramic back will have 4GB of RAM and 128GB of storage for the price of $413 (CNY 2700).

Pre-orders for the Xiaomi Mi 5 are currently open in China and the release date for the device is March 1. Currently, there’s no official information whether the company will sell the device outside…

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Xiaomi just dived straight into the international convention scene with its first ever global stage handset announcement. This, of course, is the eagerly-anticipated Xiaomi Mi 5.

The device is a flagship offer through and through, definitely worthy of rubbing shoulders with the likes of the LG G5 or the Samsung Galaxy S7, so also taking into account the growing international interest towards the brand, we can expect global announcements like this one to become a trend.

The Xiaomi Mi 5 comes with a trendy curved design on the back much like the Xiaomi Mi Note. In fact, the exterior of the Mi5 is heavily inspired by the Mi Note, which is very popular among fans. The phone is also equipped with a 5.15-inch IPS display with a QHD resolution, ultra-bright 16-LED backlighting, and almost no side bezels for an exquisite look. Sunlight Display technology is another novelty that promises contrast adjustment on a per-pixel level. Right underneath it, is a very Samsung-like physical home button, which is also a fingerprint reader. This is actually a first for Xiaomi. The elegant body of the Mi 5 measures exactly 69.20 x 144.55 x 7.25mm, so just a tad thicker than the Mi Note. It is also surprisingly light, tipping the scale at 129g with a 3D glass back and including the fairly big 3000 mAh battery. We mention the latter, as there will also be a higher end ceramic back option.

But, according to VP Hugo Barra, who led the presentation himself, the main treat is hidden in the innards of the Mi 5.

A recurring theme during the presentation was speed. The phone is allegedly fast on a whole different level. In part, this is thanks to Qualcomm’s top of the line Snapdragon 820 SoC. This is backed up by 4GB of fast LPDDR4 RAM for a snappy Android experience. Storage has also received a major upgrade with a focus on speed. Instead of using eMMC, the Xiaomi Mi 5 can be picked up with up to 128GB of UFS 2.0memory, which promises significant increases of 80% and more over eMMC 5.0. There is also a significant increase in network connectivity. Thanks to technologies like 3x Carrier aggregation, the onboard 4G+ or 4G Advanced is capable of theoretical Cat.12 LTE speeds of up to 600 Mbps. VoLTE is also included. NFC is now also smarter with card virtualization and write mode. The Snapdragon 820 chip also supports Quick Charge 3.0.

The camera setup on the Xiaomi Mi5 is also very impressive at 16MP with an aperture of f/2.0 and 4-axis optical image stabilization, which is a brand new technology as well. The sensor itself is the Sony IMX 298, which comes with phase detection auto focus and deep trench isolation technology. It is a worthy shooter for a 2016 flagship, and interestingly enough Xiaomi has managed to fully tuck it inside the body, so there is no camera bump. Naturally, in combination with the powerful Snapdragon 820 chip, it can record 4K video as well. On the front, we have a 4MP camera – lifted from the Mi…

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