Smartphone

A Galaxy S7 render that’s not real at all

Samsung brought the Galaxy Note5 (sic) and Galaxy S6 Edge+ to market faster than expected (maybe to beat the Apple hype train?), and it looks like they’re pushing the next flagship Galaxy S handset — assumably the Galaxy S7 — through production just as fast. A Samsung device simply labeled as “Lucky-LTE” made its way through Geekbench yesterday, and now a report from the usually-reliable SamMobile claims that the device is indeed an early prototype of the Samsung Galaxy S7…
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Update: Yep, it’s official.

Update 2: The update to Google Wallet is rolling out now, but you can grab the Android Pay APK over at APKMirror right now. Keep an eye out for our hands-on.

According to the well-connected Artem Russakovskii as well as a Re/code report, Android Pay is set to be launched today. This little tidbit comes despite previous rumors — thanks to leaked Verizon documentation — that the service would be launching on September 16th…
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Apple is very rarely the first to introduce new features for features’ sake. The Apple Watch launched an entire year after the first Android Wear devices were unveiled. Touch ID came to the iPhone years after fingerprint sensors were seen on Android phones, and the company was one of the last smartphone manufacturers to offer a larger-screened phone with the release of the iPhone 6 Plus.  The examples of Apple being late to the game — although some would argue, the first to do things right — are endless. But this isn’t one of those cases. While Samsung dabbles with edged screens, Apple has today introduced what I think is a game-changing new experience for developers to play with. And play they will.

I’m not an Apple fanboy at all. In fact, I own one Apple smartphone — the iPhone 6 — at the moment, alongside five or six different Android phones. The Nexus 6 is usually my daily driver, and I (kind of, sort of) use Android Wear as my smartwatch OS of choice. I’ve never owned an Apple Watch nor an Apple TV, I didn’t even own an iPhone until the iPhone 5, and I have only been in possession of an iPad for maybe 6 months — the first generation iPad mini — before I found myself never using it at all and decided to sell it on eBay. All of this said, at least one of the improvements Apple brought to the iPhone line today has very much impressed me.

And not only do I think it’s cool, but it sets the iPhone line apart from anything that Android makers offer in 2015…
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Leading up to Apple’s “Hey Siri”-themed press event today, Siri has been giving out a lot of unhelpful announcement hints to users who say “Hey Siri, give me a hint”. One of these was a binary code, which when decoded only revealed the word “Gotcha”. It goes without saying that if you want some real hints about what Apple’s going to announce, all you need to do is to read Mark’s roundup.

But Sony, the company that just last week unveiled the world’s first 4K smartphone, the Xperia Z5 Premium, has taken to Twitter to taunt the Cupertino-based company. Also using the familiar binary, Sony wrote “01000111 01100001 01101101 01100101 00100000 01101111 01101110 00101110”. Converted to text? That’s “Game on.”
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In one of the most ambiguous rebuttals of recent memory, Samsung has denied reports claiming it is looking to reduce its workforce by 10%. It’s not reducing its workforce, it says, but “relocating” them. One of Samsung’s high-ranking officials spoke to Yonhap News, claiming that it will “only be relocating workers”, denying rumors that it was looking to move on 10 percent of its management staff in sales and PR. What it didn’t say was what “relocating” actually means, leaving us speculating a number of possible translations for the phrase…

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According to a report Tuesday out of Korean newspaper Economic Daily, Samsung is laying off some 10 percent of its headquarters support workforce as well as planning to cut general expenses by 50 percent next year. This comes as the smartphone maker continues to lose ground to Apple’s iPhone line as well as Chinese Android manufacturers — like Huawei, Xiaomi, and OnePlus —  that are creating high-powered smartphones with slim margins…
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Battered mobile technology manufacturer HTC has a new press event scheduled for September 29, to be held in Hankone, Japan, where a “double flagship” device will be released. That’s according to an image spotted by popular Twitter user @upleaks, who says in his tweet that the image was posted to HTC’s account on Weibo, the Chinese social networking equivalent to Twitter…
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The Sony Xperia Z5, Z5 Premium and Z5 Compact have all had price cuts before they’ve even hit the market. Prices were revealed just a few days ago, and Sony has already seen fit to adjust the price points.  Perhaps in response to the sense of disbelief at how expensive they would be…

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Today we’re taking a look at Sony’s new and very ambitious Xperia Z5 Premium. This is the world’s first 4K smartphone, but do all of those pixels really make a difference? Every smartphone maker is constantly trying to one-up the next, but we may have gotten to a point where it doesn’t matter anymore…

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As we near the September 29 announcement of Google’s new Nexus handsets, the rumors, reports, and speculation just keep building. According to a new report out of Android Authority this morning, the upcoming LG Nexus 5 is going to sport the name “Nexus 5X,” although a “decision on the final name has not been taken yet at Google HQ.” Additionally, the phone is said to start at $400, which is $50 more than the previous Nexus 5 launched in 2013…
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T-Mobile, in a blog post this morning, announced a brand new communication service for its customers. Without needing to install a third party app, T-Mo subscribers will be able to place video calls from a compatible device, just by using the regular phone interface. Galaxy S6 Edge+ and Galaxy Note 5 users should have the feature available already through a software update rolling out today, while Galaxy S6 and S6 Edge customers can expect the download to arrive next week. By the end of this year, three more phones will have video calling enabled, giving T-Mo a total of 7 compatible devices.

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Another day, another Android smartphone leak. Today, we’re getting a look at an unknown LG handset sporting “V” branding on the back. Noticed first by notorious leakster Steve Hemmerstoffer whilst going through Chinese regulator TENAA, the phone also seems to have an odd front-facing camera that’s embedded in the screen…
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Sony has struggled in recent years to stand out in an ever-crowded smartphone market. During a keynote yesterday that saw Sony CEO Kazuo Hirai say that the “best is yet to come” for the Japanese technology company, we got to see a slew of much-anticipated Android-powered Xperia Z5 smartphones. We did not, however, learn what the prices would be. Now it seems we have, and they’re not cheap…
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After weeks of speculation and leaks, Huawei has finally announced the Ascend Mate S, what many see as a direct competitor to the likes of the iPhone 6 Plus and HTC One. It has a bunch of flagship staple features as well as a couple of unique selling points which will get you talking, if nothing else.

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Acer unveiled a range of ‘Predator’ branded products at its conference this morning, including a quick teaser of an incredibly powerful smartphone. While that was only teased, the company has officially announced the Predator 8, a small, but powerful 8-inch tablet running Android 5.1 Lollipop. It’ll be available in 2-3 weeks time. From first impressions, it sure seems like a lot of bang for your buck … 
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At this point, it seems like smartphones are coming to market just about as fast as apps. Today, Nextbit, a team made up of former engineers from Google, Apple, and other well-known names in the tech space, has announced their own smartphone entry. It’s called the Robin, and it packs a beautiful and simple design, great-but-sub-flagship specifications, and a cloud-first user experience…
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