OnePlus has just announced that it will be offering free standard shipping on all orders $100 and up. The number (and consequently, value) varies by country and is €100 or £60, for example.

In effect, what this means is that every order containing a smartphone (One, 2 or X) will be eligible. If you’re only shopping for accessories, though, you’d need to purchase a whole bunch of cases and/or backs, or team up with a similarly inclined friend.

Priority shipping will also get a price cut. For a single OnePlus 2, shipped to the US, that means $9.63 instead of the $17.63 it was until now. To the EU, the savings are €8 flat, the service now costing €16.49, instead of …

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The last blind shootout got us in a competitive spirit, so let’s do another one. This time we bring in the Apple iPhone 6s Plus and the Microsoft Lumia 950 XL and carry over the LG V10 and Samsung Galaxy Note5 from last time.

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The Galaxy Note5 launch was followed by some peculiar complaints, about the iconic S-Pen. In case you’ve already forgotten the whole fiasco, we shall give you the quick tour.

The S-Pen of the Galaxy Note5 could be inserted backwards in its slot, which may not be something many people will do on purpose, but as it turned out eventually lots of people did. Either by accident, or caught up by the wide media coverage – thousands of people got their S-Pen stuck in the slot backwards. This led Samsung to send some special tools to the service center for safely removing the stuck pens.

Unfortunately, those who tried to get it out by themselves, often broke the S-Pen detection mechanism and thus rendered their S-Pen a pointless stick.

If you broke your Galaxy Note5, or already own it, we are sorry, but an official Samsung support center is your only solution.

But if you are about to buy a Note5 right now, we have some good news. Apparently Samsung has pre-installed a failsafe mechanism, which will allow you to extract the S-Pen safely if inserted backwards.

The company has upgraded the mechanism without an official announcement. Previously the company said that this wasn’t really an issue and urged customers to read the manual, while denying the device a fix.

We are glad to see Samsung has addressed the issue and the new adopters won’t be threatened with the possibility of breaking their Note5. As for the earlier buyers – well if your Note5 lasted until now, you are probably safe, but still watch how you insert that…

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Popular mobile messaging service WhatsApp has announced that it is doing away with the $0.99 annual subscription fee which was applicable to some of those using the service after their first year. The announcement was made by WhatsApp in an official blog post.

WhatsApp admitted that the approach of charging an annual subscription fee hasn’t worked well for the company primarily because many of the service’s users don’t have a debit or credit card, which is required to pay the fee.

So, what would be the company’s revenue model now? Third party ads? Well, WhatsApp says NO. The company is instead planning to earn money by offering services aimed at connecting businesses with individuals. “Starting this year, we will test tools that allow you to use WhatsApp to communicate with businesses and organizations that you want to hear from,” WhatsApp said.

“That could mean communicating with your bank about whether a recent transaction was fraudulent, or with an airline about a delayed flight. We all get these messages elsewhere today – through text messages and phone calls – so we want to test new tools to make this easier to do on WhatsApp, while still giving you an experience without third-party ads and…

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Sony will be holding its Mobile World Congress press event on Monday, February 22. Sadly, there’s little info about what the company might be announcing.

The invite is quite simple, compared to its previous ones, so we can’t really get anything from it.

Sony unveiled the Xperia Z5 models at IFA 2015 in September, meaning that it might be a tad early for a refresh. This leaves room for updates in the company’s mid-range and wearable line-ups. Whatever it is we’ll be on site, covering new announcements for…

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The US telecom governing body has certified a pair of accessory cases for what appear to be the Samsung Galaxy S7, and the S7 edge (though we’re yet to find out for certain just how many S7’s there will be and what kinds specifically).

Dubbed LED View Cover, the new cases are the flip cover variety, but what exactly the LED part stands for remains to be seen. What we can deduct from their visiting FCC in the first place (and a brief look at the test report) is that they will communicate via NFC with the smartphones.

How they will be different from the Clear View Covers of the current-gen Galaxy S6, and why they weren’t part of the earlier accessories leak are another couple of questions that remain unanswered.

Good thing then, that there’s only about a month before it all gets revealed, when the smartphones go official around February 21.

Source 1 Source 2 |…

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Xiaomi Redmi Note 3 has been shipping with a locked bootloader since launch and its recently unveiled international version will be following suit. As we discovered during our review of the Chinese-model of the Redmi Note 3 – its bootloader is indeed locked and Xiaomi claimed it was necessary in order to comply with Google’s guidelines.

Recently though Xiaomi has begun locking the bootloaders of the Mi 4c and the Mi Note Pro. The official version for all of these locks is “to protect user data safety”. Of course this will improve the security, but there is a price.

Xiaomi tries to play the good guy here and will allow you to unlock your bootloader. And this is the only good news we can deliver, as there are numerous issues coming from the forced locked and eventually from the process of unlocking.

First – locking a bootloader with an update isn’t a risk-free process. Long story short – there are quite a few users with bricked devices, but since the locked bootloader disables fastboot, there is no solution for the owners. The bricks occurred after updating over the air.

Second – if you survive the locking process, you will be losing the root capabilities and the option to install other ROMs.

Third – you may apply for a bootloader unlock code, and may even get one. Here you can follow the guide for the process. But it turns out in order to apply, you have to be a forum member with a certain status/rank, then provide a reason for unlocking on a page that is completely in Chinese, and then it may take two or more weeks for you to get the SMS unlock code.

Xiaomi is a company well known for its policy of unlocked bootloaders and its fans love it for that. And even though it promises to unlock the bootloader of anyone who wants, there are plenty of obstacles on the way, some of them may even brick your Xiaomi smartphone.

XDA | MIUI |…

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Rumor has it that Huawei is actively working on a laptop, akin to the Microsoft Surface Book. Huawei’s hybrid laptop, however, will be able to boot Windows and Android.

Details on hardware specifications are scarce at the moment, but it’s believed the laptop will rely on an Intel chipset. According to the source of the information, who also provided the picture you see above, the Huawei laptop hybrid will also feature a stylus.

It’s too early to talk about pricing and availability. Xiaomi is ahead of Huawei with its Mi Pad 2 dual OS laptop, so it’ll be interesting to see how Huawei will manage to differentiate from its domestic competitor.

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ZTE has just announced the Nubia Prague S smartphone. Quite similar to the existing My Prague model, the new device does bring a few changes, though it can hardly be called a successor.

Starting off with the display, it’s the same 5.2-inch FullHD affair, complete with 2.5D glass. Running the show is again the Snapdragon 615, with an octa-core CPU inside. Prague S, however, packs 3GB of RAM and 64GB of built-in storage (expandable, too) in all its versions, whereas My Prague comes with either 2GB/16GB or 3GB/32GB.

ZTE Nubia Prague S

The 13MP camera on the back, coupled with a single-LED flash is familiar too, as is the 8MP front shooter. An improvement over the older model, Prague S now comes with an iris scanner. There’s also nubia’s FiT tech on board, which let’s you operate the smartphone using its touch-sensitive edges.

Measuring 148.2 x 72.5 x 6.8mm, the smartphone has more or less the same footprint as My Prague, but is noticeably thicker than the 5.5 millimeters of the older model. You’d think that it might pack a larger battery then, but no, it’s the same 2,200mAh. It’s a few grams lighter though, at 135g.

Available now for pre-order in China, Nubia Prague S is offered in Silver and Rose Gold. Depending on supported cellular connectivity it’s priced at either CNY 2,399 ($365) or CNY 3,499 ($380) and will go on sale on January 23.

Source |…

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Acer’s Windows 10-powered Jade Primo smartphone, which was showcased at last year’s IFA and was again announced at this year’s CES, is now up for pre-order in Europe. The device is listed on Orange as well as Expansys Portugal’s website.

As for the cost, the listings show a pre-order price of €615 for the 32GB black-colored model. This is about €50 higher than what Microsoft’s Lumia 950 (which has similar hardware) costs in Europe currently so it puts the Primo in a rather tough position.

Specs-wise, the handset is powered by a Snapdragon 808 SoC and sports a 5.5-inch (1080 x 1920 pixel resolution) AMOLED display. It has 3GB RAM and 32GB expandable internal memory, and packs in a 2,800 mAh battery.

In terms of camera, the Jade Primo features a 21MP rear unit and an 8MP front shooter. Weighing in at 150g and measuring 156.52 x 75.9 x 8.4 mm, the handset also offers dual SIM support.

While there’s no official word on when the smartphone will start shipping, rumors say it will hit the European shelves in February, and a US release will follow.

Source 1 2 (both in Portuguese) |…

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