Round 1 of the Smartphone Champions League is now complete and we now know what smartphones will be taking part in the Round of 16.

The last matchday of the first round turned out to be pretty uneventful with all handsets that managed to secure an early lead holding on to it until the end. Read more »

The last four Round 1 games in the Smartphone Champions League are starting today and we’ll get to learn the names of the final four participants in the Round of 16. You can check out the results from Matchday 3 to see the smartphones which already qualified.

We’ve got five manufacturers in action today – Motorola, Nokia, Sony, Samsung and Apple are all in the mix. You probably already know this at this stage, but in case anyone missed it we should note that the draws are only based on popularity in our database, so some strangely matched pairs are bound to clash. Now let’s see who’s facing who in the third day of the Champions League. Read more »

The third matchday in our Smartphone Champions League is now complete and the Round of 16 bracket is three quarters complete.

Games turned out to be pretty one-sided affairs this time around with no comeback stories worth writing about occurring. Read more »

The second batch of games in our Smartphone Champions League are now over and we now get to learn the names yet another 4 participants to the Round of 16.

We got even more surprises this time around, with 2 of the 4 unseeded handsets progressing at the expense of their initially more popular rivals. This comes to show that sheer numbers don’t count for much here, when they are not backed up by enough loyalty. Read more »

The first four games of our Smartphone Champions League are now over and we now get to learn the names of the first 4 Round 2 participants.

The first four games produced the first major upset with the unseeded Nokia Lumia 1020 knocking out the odds-on favorite Samsung Galaxy Note 3. This was by far the most interesting game of the day, scoring over 40,000 votes. Read more »

Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi on the team sheet. Sounds like every fan and manager’s dream, but it’s a luxury only the Samsung-assembled Galaxy 11 team can afford.

The Real Madrid star Cristiano Ronaldo was the final one signing the team who will be facing a squad of aliens in a football game where the Earth’s future is at stake. Good thing then that the coaching duties have been assigned to German legend Franz Beckenbauer, who has proven to know a thing or two about tactics. Read more »

The trend of constantly increasing online sales during the Thanksgiving Thursday and the Black Friday has continued for yet another year. A study found that the total revenue for the two days reached $2.99 billion, representing an increase of just over 25% compared to last year.

The boost in sales was driven in large part by the growing mobile sales, which this time accounted for almost a quarter of all online spending. The spending from smartphones and tablets rose a whopping 118% YoY and accounted for 24% of the dollars spend online. Read more »

The Android 4.3 update should be hitting the Samsung Galaxy Note II pretty shortly, but if you don’t feel like waiting any longer you’d be interested to know that a leaked ROM is available for flashing right now. It’s reportedly a build very close to the final ones, so it will have no trouble serving as a daily driver.

Along with incrementing the Android version number to 4.3 and bringing the core features of the last of the three Jelly Bean releases, the update also brings several changes to the Galaxy Note II UI. Read more »

The PlayStation 4 is a hot piece of tech and as such it simply couldn’t avoid being torn to bits and pieces by the ifixit team.

While you probably wouldn’t have guessed it given the relatively modest size, the latest Sony console is quite easy to repair at home. Read more »

The latest numbers from Google show that manufacturers are still having a hard time delivering Android 4.3 Jelly Bean to their smartphones. Good thing the guys from the CyanogenMod team are here to help those in need.

The developers have published the M1 release of CyanogenMod 10.2, which is based on Android 4.3 and supports over 70 different devices. M1 stands for Milestone version, which slots between the stable ROMs and the betas that the team releases. Read more »

After rumors made it abundantly clear that Apple will be delivering yet another S refresh to its flagship this year, rather than a proper upgrade, yesterday’s event become all about the iPhone 5c for me. I was quite excited to see Apple leave its comfort zone and do a smartphone that’s quite different from anything they have done so far.

As it turns out, though, the modest only upgrade that is the iPhone 5s, was only the second biggest disappointment of the night, with the iPhone 5c turning out to be the most notable consumer-stabbing, sales-serving excuse of a product. I know those are some strong words, which is why I waited with this article to see if the bitter taste in my mouth will go away, but sadly it didn’t.

Let’s get something out of the way first – the iPhone 5c is a pretty good smartphone. It’s fresh looking and adequately powered to be a decent mid-ranger, plus its camera has proved to be good enough for the last-year’s flagship. So how bad can it be? Read more »

If you have been around over the last few days, you probably know that we’ve been hard at work, putting the Sony Xperia Z Ultra monster of a phablet through its paces. And while the review is still some way off from being complete, we though you might enjoy some photos coming from the camera of the device.

It’s a bit early to pass any final verdict at this point, as we need to do some more shooting before we are ready for that, so we’ll just let you enjoy the shots. Read more »

The guys from Android Authority have developed a habit of sending various shiny gadgets crashing against the pavement and seeing how much damage they sustain. The latest piece of tech to be subjected to their frightening tests is the just launched second-generation Google Nexus 7 tablet.

If you are into that stuff (and let’s face it – we all are, unless it’s happening to us), you can check out the video with the drops below. Read more »

Google is about to launch its own service that lets you locate your misplaced Android device or protect your data and privacy in case it gets stolen. The service is dubbed Android Device Manager and will let you ring your phone at maximum volume so you can locate it, even if silent mode has been enabled.

In case the smartphone/tablet is not in your immediate vicinity, you will be able to locate it on a map in real time. Read more »

Motorola has just unleashed its Moto X flagship smartphone and, as tradition dictates, the announcement was accompanied by the release of a few promo videos.

The Moto X got a trio of clips – the first two focus on its unique software features, while the third one is dedicated to its Moto Maker customization software. Read more »