Samsung was the top smartphone vendor worldwide last quarter, capturing 21.4% of the market, up from 20% it claimed last year, according to latest data revealed by market research firm IDC.

The South Korean company shipped a total of 85.6 million smartphones in Q4 2015, up from the 75.1 million figure it reported in the same quarter the year prior. On the other hand Apple, which retained its second spot, shipped 74.8 million iPhones last quarter, claiming 18.7% of the market. Huawei, Lenovo, and Xiaomi rounded up the top five with 8.1%, 5.1%, and 4.6% share, respectively.

Talking about 2015 as a whole, there wasn’t any change in the rankings – Samsung was still at the top with around 325 million smartphone units shipped, followed by Apple, Huawei, Lenovo, and Xiaomi, shipping 231.5, 106.6, 74.0, and 70.8 million units, respectively.

Chinese smartphone manufacturer Huawei reported the strongest year-on-year growth in the top five. “Usually the conversation in the smartphone market revolves around Samsung and Apple, but Huawei’s strong showing for both the quarter and the year speak to how much it has grown as an international brand,” said Melissa Chau, Senior Research Manager with IDC’s Worldwide Quarterly Mobile Phone Tracker.

“While there is a lot of uncertainty around the economic slowdown in China, Huawei is one of the few brands from China that has successfully diversified worldwide, with almost half of its shipments going outside of China. Huawei is poised to be in a good position to hold onto a strong number 3 over the next year.”

Total global smartphone shipments in 2015 stood at over 1.4 billion, up 10.1% compared to…

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Gionee has announced that its upcoming Elife S8 flagship will be launched at this year’s Mobile World Congress, which is scheduled for next month (Feb 22 – Feb 25). The handset has been the subject of little to no rumours or leaks lately.

As clear from the image above, the launch event is set for the first day of MWC 2016 – February 22. The Chinese manufacturer says the device will offer “hassle-free photo-shooting features” as well as “pressure-sensitive display.”

In the company’s words, “A new era of mobile photography has arrived and we welcome our consumers to explore this era together with joy in their hearts. We believe technology is part of our lives and we enjoy the convenience and creativity it brings. At MWC 2016, GIONEE will introduce a new member to its S series – the Elife S8, an innovative mobile device that comes with hassle-free photo-shooting features and a pressure-sensitive display.”

The handset’s predecessor – the Elife S7 – was unveiled in March at last year’s MWC. At 5.5mm, it’s among the thinnest dual-SIM…

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Google has announced that the real-time collaborative commenting feature in its Sheets, Slides, and Docs productivity apps is now also available on mobile. You can now instantly add a comment using the comment bubble present on the right side of a doc.

To add a new team-mate to an ongoing conversation, you just have to type their name in the comment. If the person in question doesn’t have the access to the document, you’ll be prompted to give them the access, following which they’ll be notified about their inclusion in the conversation.

The rich commenting feature is now available to users of both iOS and Android mobile operating…

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LG has announced that its newly-unveiled K10 and K4 smartphones will be launched globally this week. While the K10 is already available for purchase in the company’s home country of South Korea, the K4 was recently spotted listed on LG’s Russian website.

LG says both handsets will be available in Europe as well as the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) region starting this week, and will be launched in Latin America, the Middle East, and Asia in the weeks to come.

There was, however, no word on the K7, which was unveiled alongside the K10 at this year CES and is currently available for purchase in the US from Boost Mobile as the Tribute 5.

“Affordable mass-tier phones with advanced features are becoming more and more important,” said Juno Cho, President and CEO of LG Electronics Mobile Communications Company. “Our newest K Series is designed for our consumers to experience LG’s premium design philosophy and optimized mobile experience across disparate smartphone…

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Samsung’s kids mode has been found in the past few iterations of Samsung flagship tablets and smartphones designed to let kids play with notes, voice recordings, games, and a special camera app, all without letting kids wander around your smartphone’s sensitive information.

According to a source, there will be a new major Kids Mode update coming to Samsung Devices later this year. Along with this information, there was a rumor of a new Kids Tab E that will be quietly launched.

The Tab E Kids is rumored to come with a 1.3GHz processor, 1 and a half GB of RAM, 8GB of expandable storage, a 7 inch screen with 1280 x 800 pixel resolution.

The specs aren’t out of this world, really. But the selling point of these tablets will be the software with parental controls for kids.

Source |…

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T-Mobile has been the one to disrupt the mobile industry in the US these past few years. The prepaid market space in the US, while still a great value, T-Mobile strives to provide an even greater value with its newest data hikes.

T-Mobile is raising its data allotments for $40, $50, and $60 prepaid plans from 1GB, 3GB and 5GB to 3GB, 5GB and 10GB respectively.

These plans also include T-Mobile’s Music freedom and its new video optimizer which lowers video content’s resolution to 480p in order to save data and watch up to 3 times more video with the same amount of data.

Binge on is NOT included in T-Mobile’s prepaid plans, so you can’t stream Netflix on big Magenta’s towers without it deducting from your prepaid data plan.

If you stream a lot of music, you’ll want to look into getting a prepaid plan from T-Mobile. Raising data without raising prices is another reason T-Mobile wants to give more to its customers and wants customers to love their carrier. Keep it up T-Mobile!

Source |…

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The Huawei Mate 8 has dropped the Ascend badge, but it offers all the key pros of the Ascend Mate7 and then some. Coming a year after the Mate7, it was only expected that the Mate 8 will show maturity and address its predecessor’s shortcomings, most notably the poor graphics performance and the less than stellar camera output.

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T-Mobile is currently running a promotion that lets you purchase a qualified Apple, Samsung, or LG smartphone and get 50% off the second device. Appropriately dubbed Buy One Smartphone, Get One Half-Off, the promo can only be availed by making a call or heading to a local T-Mobile store.

Eligible devices include the Apple iPhone 6 and above, the Samsung Galaxy S6, S6 edge, Note5, S6 edge+, as well as the LG G4 and V10. An important thing worth mentioning here is that the second device being purchased should be of equal or lesser value and from the same manufacturer as the first one.

The Magenta carrier notes that it’s a limited time offer, although it doesn’t exactly specify when the promotion ends. Also, the deal is subject to the availability of…

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You’ve probably heard by now (how could you not) that the Samsung Galaxy S7 chipset strategy will be split again – some get the Exynos 8890, some the Snapdragon 820.

Last week we saw the 8890 take a swing at the Kirin 950 (Huawei’s latest and greatest), but now the AT&T version of the Galaxy S7 has passed through Geekbench 3 too, giving us an opportunity to compare both versions of the phone.

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GeekBench 3
Higher is better

Huawei Mate 8 (Kirin 950)
6088

Samsung Galaxy S7 (Exynos 8890)
5946

Samsung Galaxy S6 (Exynos 7420)
5215

Galaxy S7 (Snapdragon 820)
4979

Huawei Nexus 6P (Snapdragon 810)
4539

Huawei Mate S (Kirin 935)
3475

The S820 chipset loses on multi-core performance (it’s a quad-core), but it does win the single-core fight – 2,282 for the S820 and 1,873 for the 8890 chipsets.

Keep in mind that the software is not final yet and the scores might change. The current Snapdragon 820 result is behind the old Exynos 7420 chipset and earlier benchmarks (Geekbench 3 again) showed the S820 had a small lead.

The Galaxy S7 is expected to launch in the US on March 11.

Source |…

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September is still a long way off, but rumors regarding Cupertino’s next iPhone are already coming in hard. Apple analysts from KGI, like Ming-Chi Kuo have definitely proven a trustworthy source of information in the past and although they mostly deal with analytical results and speculations, predictions have often turned out true in the past. In a new memo to investors, Kuo talks of a dual rear camera setup for the iPhone 7 Plus, or at least a certain version of it.

Considering Apple’s track record for the past couple of years, we have every reason to believe that the company will release two variants of its handset, most-likely a 4.7-inch iPhone 7 and a 5.5-inch 7 Plus one.

The rumor for a dual rear iSight camera setup concerns the bigger iPhone 7 Plus model. According to Kuo, the handset will be available with an two CIS setup, most-likely powered by LinX – a company specializing in creating ultra-compact camera sensors for slim smartphones, acquired by Apple back in 2015. The alleged setup will include two 12 MP sensors, one with optical image stabilization and a wider field of view and the other, a 2-3x telephoto lens. OIS is definitely not a novelty, but optical zoom is a whole new uncharted territory for the iPhone.

The dual camera setup will surely allow for some pretty neat new features like variable focus and bokeh effects.

Ming-Chi Kuo also speculates that not all the iPhone 7 Plus models will have the dual-camera setup. The option will allegedly be offered at a premium which should help reduce the production strain for the new technology – a rather common occurrence with new Apple tech. He expects that about 25% to 35% of shipped iPhone 7 Plus units will have the extra feature. To be honest that seems very hard to believe as manufacturing two different Plus versions doesn’t sound like Apple at all and it will mostly likely be a case of all or none of the units get the feature….

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