At its CES event today, Samsung has announced a couple of already leaked new versions of its Gear S2 Classic smartwatch, which was initially made official back in September of last year.

One of the new variations is plated with 18K rose gold, while the other is plated with platinum. These will thus be the most exclusive iterations of Samsung’s latest smartwatch, so don’t expect them to retail for the same price as the normal version.

Both models will become available at some point in February, and the insides will remain the same as for the original Gear S2 Classic. The Rose Gold version will be paired with an Ivory genuine leather band, while the Platinum one will come with a black genuine leather band.

Some new watch faces will be on these wearables, including one featuring Peanuts characters, as well as others with artworks from Keith Haring, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Jeremyville, and Burton Morris. And through Samsung’s new partnership with “exclusive designers” such as Colombo you’ll also see new premium watch straps for the Gear…

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Two new Xbox One bundles are joining the plethora of offers Microsoft has been building lately.

Throughout the 2015 we got some interesting bundles like the Xbox One 1TB Halo Limited Edition, Forza Motorsport 6 1TB Limited Edition, Xbox One Elite Bundle, 1TB Tomb Raider Bundle, Gears of War Ultimate Bundle, the Fallout 4 + Fallout 3 1TB Bundle, among others.

As of today Microsoft is adding two more bundles to its portfolio – the 1TB Xbox One Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Siege Bundle, and the Xbox One 500GB Name Your Game Bundle. Both bundles comes with regular black-painted Xbox One consoles and black One controllers with 3.5mm audio jack.

The 1TB Xbox One Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Siege Bundle, as the name suggests, comes with a 1TB Xbox One consoler, a retail copy of the Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Siege, and codes for full-game downloads of the Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Vegas and Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Vegas 2 – both courtesy of the Xbox One backward compatibility with Xbox 360 games.

The Rainbow Six Siege Bundle costs $399 and will be available in all official Xbox One regions except Belgium, China, France, Japan and Netherlands.

The Xbox One 500GB Name Your Game Bundle comes with a code, which will allow you to download one of the following games: Forza Motorsport 6, Rise of the Tomb Raider, Gears of War: Ultimate Edition or Rare Replay. Upon entering it to the store you will be able to choose the game you prefer.

This bundle costs $349 and will start shipping later on January 12 in Australia, Germany, Ireland, Mexico, New Zealand and the U.K. The US, Brazil, and Canada will get it in late January as well.

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The last thing Huawei announced during its CES press conference today had to do with the already launched Nexus 6P smartphone.

No, the newest Nexus phablet isn’t getting any new specs or a different design, but it is going to be offered in a new color version in the US. Yes, you guessed it, we’re talking about the gold Nexus 6P.

This rare beast has so far only been spotted in Japan and India, but it’s now mere hours away from being up for sale in the US Google Store. It will also be sold in the US through Best Buy.

Everything but the hue stays the same: the pricing, the specs, and the metal…

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After a well-deserved recap of international success and a detailed progress report, Huawei definitely didn’t disappoint eager fans and introduced a brand new tablet device, dubbed the MediaPad M2.

Disproving the rumors from earlier today of an Honor X3 moniker, the Chinese giant decided to stick to continuity after all and release the device within the MediaPad family, where it logically belongs, although still breaking away from the “X” branding.

The device is equipped with a 10.0-ich display with a resolution of 1920 x 1200 pixels, with automatic mode switching, an aspect ratio of 16:10 and a rather low pixel density of 226ppi. But while the screen might be a little lacking in terms of sharpness, Huawei endeavors to compensate with an impressive audio experience, courtesy of Harmon/Kardon and featuring four speakers, like Apple’s iPad Pro. The top pair of speakers handles treble, while the bottom two add a bit of bass to the mix, thanks to a resonance chamber design. Clari-Fi audio up-sampling technology is also thrown in the mix.

Another notable hardware touch on the MediaPad M2 is a physical home button that also integrates a fingerprint reader. Judging from Huawei’s recent advancements in this area, with excellent implementations, like on the Mate S and Mate 8 handset, we expect the same level of precision and speed on the tablet as well.

Going further down the specs sheet, we find a 13MP main camera, along with a 5MP front shooter. As for RAM and storage options, there is a 2GB version with 16GB of storage, as well as a 3GB one, that offers 64GB of onboard capacity, a micro SD card slot enables further expansion. Both are available in Wi-Fi, as well as Wi-Fi + LTE connectivity packages and the higher-tier models also support a stylus accessory.

Dubbed the M-Pen, it is sold separately and resembles recent offers by competitors like Apple and Microsoft in adding advanced drawing and writing capabilities to the tablet. It is still unclear whether the M-Pen is an active device with a separate power source or more of a passive accessory, like Samsung’s S-pen solution, but Huawei did share that it supports up to 2048 pressure points and offers a “Pen-like writing experience”.

As for pricing and availability, the four versions of the MediaPad M2 will retail for $349, $399, $419 and $469, for the 16GB Wi-Fi, 16GB LTE, 64GB Wi-Fi and 64GB LTE one respectively. There is still no info on a launch bracket, but the initial wave will apparently cover most major markets, including the US, China, India, UK and most other EU…

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The last thing Huawei announced during its CES press conference today had to do with the already launched Nexus 6P smartphone.

No, the newest Nexus phablet isn’t getting any new specs or a different design, but it is going to be offered in a new color version in the US. Yes, you guessed it, we’re talking about the gold Nexus 6P.

This rare beast has so far only been spotted in Japan and India, but it’s now mere hours away from being up for sale in the US Google Store. It will also be sold in the US through Best Buy.

Everything but the hue stays the same: the pricing, the specs, and the metal…

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Universally regarded as the best looking Android Wear smartwatch, the Huawei Watch was so far somewhat lacking in options for the ladies, even if Huawei press material suggested otherwise. Well, that’s no longer the case with two brand new versions just announced at the company’s CES 2016 keynote.

The Huawei Watch Jewel is all about Swarovski crystals (68 of them, 1.5mm each) lined around the watch’ bezel. The case itself is the rose gold plated stainless steel affair, already familiar from one of the men’s models, same 42mm size too.

If the Zirconia sparkle is not your thing, you can opt for the Watch Elegant model, which substitutes the stones for a fine dotted pattern. Both models get thinner leather straps to go better with gentler wrists and have customized feminine watch faces, and that’s about it.

The first wave of availability includes 27 countries with most of Europe covered, as well as the US, Canada, and Taiwan to name a few.

The Huawei Watch Elegant gets a list price of $499 in the States, and licensing Swarovski crystals means the Jewel commands a $100 premium. Expect those numbers to be higher and in Euro this side of the…

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Welcome to the US, Huawei Mate 8, but sorry you can’t stay here. Huawei opened up its product presentations with its new flagship (which was already official, by the way) and unveiled the first-wave launch markets, along with the price. The phone that is coming to the US is the Huawei GX8, a version of the G8 / G7 Plus that’s already available in other markets.

The Huawei Mate 8, a 6″ metal behemoth, will launch across Europe, the Middle East, Southeast China, South Africa and Mexico. Here’s the full list:

The price was unveiled in Euro only. For the 3GB RAM / 32GB storage model prepare to shell out €600, while the 4GB RAM / 64GB storage model will set you back €700 (that’s with VAT included).

Oh, and did you hear about the Mocha Brown color? Huawei is quite proud of this Mate 8 paintjob and underlined that it’s a unique color among smartphones.

The Huawei GX8 will be available in Q1 from Amazon US and GetHuawei.com for $350.

Source 1 • Source…

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Over at CES, Fitbit has announced a proper smartwatch for fitness buffs, the Blaze. More than just an activity tracker, though, the Blaze wouldn’t be out of place in a less sweaty environments, or at least, that’s the idea.

The Fitbit Blaze features a color LCD touchscreen display (no diagonal specified) built into a quite larger case and a bold, sharp-edged one at that. The case, or more like the frame, is made of stainless steel while the straps are made of an elastomer material like that found on other sports watches. The Blaze will be available with a choice of Black, Blue or Plum wristbands, but you can also pick up leather straps in three different colors ($99.95) and a stainless steel bracelet ($129.95).

Fitbit Blaze with different colored bands

In terms of functionality, you’re getting heart rate monitoring, all-day activity and sleep tracking, on top of call and text notifications and other alerts, and music control. Connected GPS requires your phone to supply the positioning data for your workout stats.

MultiSport lets you select an activity like running or biking and give you the relevant data while SmartTrack will recognize exercises even if you’ve gone all old school and not told your wearable what you’re going to be doing.

Fitbit promises a 5-day battery life out of the Blaze (no capacity), with a charge time between an hour and two hours. Connectivity takes place over Bluetooth 4.0. The smartwatch is “sweat, rain and splash proof” (no rating), but not swim proof and the company advises against showering with it, stating skin care reasons. Hmm.

The Fitbit Blade is available for pre-order right now at a price of $199.95, a good $50 less than the Surge’s MSRP. It won’t ship until March, though.

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Huawei has started its press event at CES today by boasting about its smartphone market share, among other things. The Chinese company has told us that its brand recognition has improved dramatically over the past few years, and the trend is for it to become even better in the future.

But that’s not all. Not only do more people know about Huawei now, but more and more people are buying its smartphones. According to the company, it’s been the world’s No.3 smartphone maker in the third quarter of 2015, with 9.7% market share.

That’s almost twice as much as the next contender has managed (which, surprisingly, is Oppo). Huawei’s aim is to one day be No.2, and it thinks it may actually achieve that in a few years. One thing is clear, though – the company is very much focused on…

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HTC Vive Pre is the next step in the HTC’s VR headset development and it was revealed at CES with refined design and strap, a newly integrated camera, and better controller.

The Steam VR headset developed with HTC and Valve was officially revealed back at MWC in Barcelona last year. Its target is to become the best VR headset on the market, sparing no resources and making no compromises. This, of course, means the price won’t be kept low and it won’t target the mainstream users just yet.

So, the HTC Vive Pre, the ‘Pre’ moniker marking the penultimate iteration, is now smaller than the initially introduced Vive, yet it features a more comfortable strap that allows people with glasses to use it as well.

The Vive Pre also comes with better displays, brighter and sharper, and featuring the so-called mura correction, which should fix “unevenness, irregularity, lack of uniformity, nonuniformity, inequality”.

The Vive Pre has been upgraded with a camera, which will allow the VR headset users to peek in the real world, while staying in the virtual one hassle-free.

The controller has been tweaked, too – HTC worked to improve on the handling, the balance and the battery life (now up to 4 hours). There is a dual-stage trigger support, too.

The one thing HTC is not ready to talk about is the HTC Vive price. The company says it cares more about making it the best, rather than mainstream.

HTC Vive should hit the shelves in April, so we’ll know about the pricing and availability very…

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