Gionee’s Marathon series of big-battery-packing smartphones was just expanded with the addition of the Marathon M5 Plus and the Marathon M5 Enjoy. Launched today in China, the two smartphones address one notable omission from the original Marathon M5’s specsheet – the fingerprint sensor.

Gionee Marathon M5 Plus

The Gionee M5 Plus sits on top of the series and leans towards a higher segment of the midrange. The smartphone comes with a significantly more powerful (though not record breaking) Mediatek MT6753 chipset with an octa-core CPU. There is 3GB of RAM on board, same as the M5, but built-in storage has been doubled to 64GB, and you can further expand it by up to 128GB via microSD.

Gionee Marathon M5 Plus in Gold

Trading-off cell capacity for screen size, the new Plus-size model comes with a 6-inch FullHD AMOLED display and “only” 5,020mAh worth of juice, where the M5’s specsheet reads 5.5 inches, 720p, and 6,020mAh. The smartphone measures 160.9 x 81.2 x 8.4mm, which is reasonably compact for the screen and battery size, and weighs in at 208g – 3g lighter than the 5.5-inch M5.

The 13MP primary camera on the back comes with phase detection autofocus and a single LED flash, while the front-facer is a 5MP unit. There’s a fingerprint sensor on the front in place of the capacitive home key of other Gionee models. Fast charging is supported and is done via a reversible Type-C connector, though it only adheres to the USB 2.0 standard.

Gionee Marathon M5 Plus in Silver

The smartphone supports multi-band 2G/3G and LTE, as well as Bluetooth 4.0 and runs on Android 5.1 Lollipop with the company’s Amigo OS overlay on top, in its 3.1 incarnation. Priced at CNY 2,499 ($385), the Gionee Marathon M5 Plus is available for purchase right now.

Gionee Marathon M5 Enjoy

Alongside the M5 Plus, Gionee announced the Marathon M5 Enjoy – a smartphone similarly specced to the original M5. However, you better be careful when choosing between the two, as different compromises have been made, potentially affecting user experience.

Gionee M5 Enjoy

For starters, the M5 Enjoy’s display is a TFT unit, whereas the M5 had an AMOLED panel, though both are 5.5-inch 720p units. Battery capacity is in favor of the M5, as the M5 Enjoy comes with a 5,000mAh power pack, and not 6,020mAh. And instead of the 13MP primary camera, the M5 Enjoy only comes with an 8MP snapper. Where the new model trumps the old one is the inclusion of a fingerprint scanner.

There rest is mostly the same – a Mediatek MT6735 chipset with a quad-core CPU, 3GB of RAM and Android 5.1 Lollipop. Internal storage has been sliced halved to 16GB, but is still expandable. The Marathon M5 Enjoy is more modestly priced, compared to the Plus, and goes for CNY 1,999 ($310).

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Motorola’s Nexus 6 is now on sale at Amazon USA and costs $100 below manufacturer’s official price. Now you get the 32GB Nexus 6 for $249.99 or the 64GB one for $299.99. Those are exactly $100 down Moto’s official (and already discounted) listings for $349.99 and $399.99.

This isn’t the first price cut the Nexus 6 is seeing, and it sure won’t be its last as the new generation of Nexus smartphones is already out there. But the new price is indeed very attractive and will do for a late Christmas present, if you live in the States.

Currently only Amazon USA is offering the Nexus 6 at this bargain price – other markets aren’t getting the same treatment. But the phone is unlocked and SIM-free, so you may want to check the offer out.

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China’s leading carrier China Mobile has seemingly confirmed that Samsung’s upcoming Galaxy S7 flagship smartphone, which has already been the subject of lots of rumors lately, will be launched in March next year. The confirmation came during a recent event in the country when the carrier was presenting its roadmap for the coming months.

Also revealed was the price range in which the handset will fall – north of RMB 3,000, which means more than $465 at current exchange rates. Similar information related to several other smartphones – including the Huawei P9 and Samsung Galaxy A5 and A7 – was also revealed.

The March launch time frame revealed by Chine Mobile is also inline with a recent WSJ report, which said the the announcement will happen at the MWC in February, while the US launch is expected in…

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Chinese smartphone manufacturer Meizu has revealed that it sold over 20 million smartphones this year. That’s a whopping 350% increase over last year, when the company managed to sell just 4.4 million units.

Given the increase this year, one would expect the company to aim big for the next year, too. However, surprisingly, Meizu says it’s planning to control the sales in 2016, expecting the number to only cross the 25 million mark.

For those who aren’t already aware, other Chinese smartphone vendors like Huawei and Xiaomi have also announced their 2015 smartphone sales numbers – the former shipped a whopping 100 million units, while the latter is expecting to the number to be around 73 million, slightly short of the 80 million target it set earlier in the…

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The year-long court battle between Ericsson and Apple over LTE patents has been settled, Ericsson announced today. The two companies have signed a global patent license agreement, though the specific terms remain confidential.

The contract covers patents relating to GSM, UMTS, and LTE standards as well as other unspecified patent rights. The deal stretches over a seven-year period, and includes an initial payment from Apple, followed by ongoing royalties, all for undisclosed amounts, of course.

Ericsson did reveal its estimate for this year’s revenues from intellectual property rights, quoting a number of SEK 13-14 billion ($1.52-$1.64 billion). Compare it to the SEK 9.9 billion from last year, to get a general idea of the magnitude of the Apple deal.

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Star Wars: The Force Awakens a.k.a. Episode VII, has been up on the big screen in most markets the past weekend. And as expected the movie managed to break the opening weekend record (both in USA and worldwide), making the beefy $517 million.

Of those $517 million about $279 million came from non-US cinemas, while $238 (including $57 million from Thursday previews) came from the States. With these numbers the new Star Wars surpassed the previous milestone set by Jurassic World – $208.8 million opening weekend in the USA.

Friday alone the Force Awakens cashed $120.5 million making the movie shoot past a couple of other records – for the largest opening day, single day, and Friday (all of those were previously held by Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2). It also claims the record for largest Thursday preview with those $57 million.

The seventh Star Wars movie isn’t available everywhere just yet though. China is yet to see it in January, while its premiere on some markets such as Brazil and South Korea turned out uninspiring due to competing with popular domestic titles.

The most important thing about the new Star Wars is [NO SPOILERS] the overwhelming positive reception from both critics and fans. Those mean that interest will probably remain high over the upcoming weeks and we should even more records fall…

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The budget-friendly Microsoft Lumia 550 smartphone will go on sale in India starting Wednesday (December 23) this week. The device, which is still listed as ‘coming soon’ on the Microsoft India website, will carry a price tag of INR 9,399 (around $140) in the country.

The Windows 10 handset recently launched in the US, where it carries a $139 price tag before taxes. It is also available for purchase in Europe – in Germany, Amazon is selling the smartphone for €138, while its price in the UK is around £88.

The Lumia 550 was made official along with the Lumia 950 and 950 XL flagships, both of which were also recently launched in…

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Motorola is bringing in the Christmas spirit with discounts on select handsets in India. This includes the Moto X Style, the Moto X Play, Moto G, and the Moto E 3G and 4G models.

Other than the discounts mentioned above, Motorola is also offering additional 10% cashback for transactions made using Citibank or Standard Chartered cards, and an exchange offer on the Moto X Style, Moto X Play, and Moto G.

Additionally, Moto G Turbo Edition customers will get a INR 1000 gift voucher and INR 6000 off on purchase through exchange offer.

The offers are only valid during December 21, 22, and 23 on purchases made through the Flipkart…

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Samsung has started rolling a new update to its mobile payments service – Samsung Pay – that brings a new Gift Card UI as well as improvements to notifications. Support for gift cards was recently added to the service.

The update, which also claims to better the service’s memory performance, is mandatory, and the South Korean company says users should install it before December 27 “to avoid any service interruptions.”

In addition, the update apparently also includes a new Marketing info option to receive special offers, membership benefits, and newsletters from Samsung Pay partners. The option is disabled by…

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Alternative Android OS developer Cyanogen has expanded the Cyanogenmod (CM) device family with the addition of some LG handsets, including the G3 S, G3 Beat, G2 Mini, and Optimus L70.

All the aforementioned LG devices have been enabled to receive the Android 6.0 Marshmallow-based Cyanogenmod 13 nightly builds. It’s worth mentioning that CM13 nightlies are already available for Android One handsets as well as some other devices.

Needless to say, as these are nightly builds, they may contain bugs. Also, keep in mind that their installation could not only result in a bricked device, but also void your device’s warranty.

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