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Apple iPhone 6 prototype goes on sale on eBay, exceeds $60,000

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Apple iPhone 6 and its iPhone 6 Plus sibling are already official and available on the market. You can get them both on contract or SIM-free if you like. Yet an internal mistake of some sort by Verizon saw an early adopter receive an iPhone 6 prototype unit instead of a finalized market-ready device.

As it usually goes with the prototypes these days – the device is now on sale on eBay and its current price is $61,300. Read more »

Xiaomi Redmi Note battery life test

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Our review of Xiaomi Redmi Note is live at our homepage and it’s time we share the full breakdown of its battery test. The Redmi Note is a dual-SIM smartphone with a massive 5.5″ IPS display and a huge 3,200 mAh battery.

The Redmi Note is running on the MediaTek’s MT6592 chipset with octa-core Cortex-A7 processor, Mali-450MP4 GPU and 2GB of RAM. The Cortex-A7 are energy-efficient cores, but we’ve seen the same chipset performing rather poorly on the Alcatel Idol X+ and the Gionee Elife S5.5. Read more »

Snapchat now valued at $10 billion, Yahoo is close to investing $20 million

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Snapchat is one of the most popular messaging servicess among the teens. It’s been around for over three years now and even though it’s yet to monetize its user base, things are going very well for it. There were even rumors Snapchat refused acquisition bids from Facebook and Google worth $3 to $4 billion.

It seems the Snapchat CEO was right to turn those offers, if real. The company is estimating its value at $10 billion as it prepares for another round of financing. Read more »

Sony Xperia Z3 battery life test

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We gave you our in-depth review of the Sony Xperia Z3 and now we are ready to share the full breakdown of its battery life test.

Sony Xperia Z3 flagship uses a 3,100 mAh, which is 100 mAh less than its Sony Xperia Z2 predecessor. The chipset is the same basic type – Snapdragon 801 although it has its CPU clocked higher this time. The 5.2″ screen estate is the same too, but the display panel is entirely new – this was bound to be an interesting ride. Read more »

Microsoft’s most powerful charger says farewell to Nokia branding

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Microsoft has just announced the Microsoft Portable Power DC-21 – a 6,000 mAh charger available in three different bright colors. It is the most powerful charger by the company to date, but it is also the first one using the new branding – Microsoft.

Since Microsoft is dropping the Nokia branding already, I guess the rumors were true and upcoming phones and accessories will be Microsoft branded as well. Read more »

LTE flavor of Nexus 7 (2013) now getting Android 4.4.4 KitKat

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Most of the Google devices out there has been treated to the Android 4.4.4 KitKat bug-fix firmware a while ago. The owners of the LTE-enabled flavor of the Nexus 7 (2013) haven’t been quite so lucky until now.

Well, the wait is over – Android 4.4.4 is now available as an over-the-air update. You should find it waiting for you in your device’s settings. Read more »

Apple no longer allows iOS 7 firmware installations

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Apple iOS 8 was released to all compatible devices on September 17, but it wasn’t a smooth launch at all. The iOS 8 was plagued by lots of bugs, Apple even removed all Health-related apps due to a bug in its HealthKit. This is where the iOS 8.0.1 update came to help, but while it may fixed the Health app issues, it broke the cell reception and Touch ID on quite a few phones.

So, the iOS 8.0.1 update was quickly taken down and iOS 8.0.2 appeared two days later to fix the Heath app and what the 8.0.1 update broke. Many users disappointed by the iOS 8 behavior decided to revert back to iOS 7.1.2, but this option now no longer available. Read more »

Xiaomi Redmi 1S battery life test

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The in-depth review of Xiaomi Redmi 1S is live on our homepage and as usual we are ready to share the complete battery life breakdown with you. The Xiaomi Redmi 1S features a 4.7″ IPS display of 720p resolution and runs on the Snapdragon 400 chipset with a quad-core processor and 1GB of RAM. The OS in charge of operations is Android 4.3 Jelly Bean with MIUI v.5 launcher.

Xiaomi Redmi 1S is a dual-SIM smartphone that supports dual stand-by but not dual-call. We occupied both SIM slots for our battery tests and the SIM 1 was connected to a 3G network the whole time. Read more »

4K video recording app for iPhone 5s now available, costs $999.99

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This isn’t a joke! Apple has approved the Vizzywig 4K app for iPhone 5s, which enables 4K video recording with 24 fps on the 2013 smartphone. It costs $999.99 (€899.99) and works only on iPhone 5s with 32GB or 64GB storage.

The app captures 24 burst images per second in 4K resolution and then stitches them together in just 1s footage. This means you’ll lose about 72MB for each second of your video. This explains the requirement for the 32GB+ iPhone model! Read more »

Oppo to offer Color OS on LG G2, recruits beta testers now

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Did you like the so called Color OS running on the Oppo Find 7 and Find 7a? Oppo’s take on the default Android looks and behavior was quite good, with lots of new eye-candies, features and services.

As of today Oppo is recruiting beta testers with LG G2 willing to test the Color OS ROM on their smartphone. Once completed, Oppo will launch the Color OS ROM to all compatibles LG G2. Read more »

Official Samsung Galaxy Note Edge and Note 4 camera samples

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We’ve managed to extract the official camera samples from the Samsung Galaxy Note Edge. If we are to trust the embedded camera information, those were actually taken with a Galaxy Note 4. But since both devices feature identical camera departments, it really doesn’t matter.

Both Note devices feature front 3.7MP snappers with f/1.9 aperture for selfies, while the rear sensors are of 16MP resolution, probably ISOCELL – the same as on the Galaxy Alpha. Read more »

Motorola Moto G 4G battery life test

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Motorola Moto G 4G turned out a great smartphone on its own and an excellent upgrade over the original Moto G. It adds 4G LTE connectivity, a microSD card slot, a brighter screen backlight and a gyro sensor to the already well proven hardware mix of the 4.5″ HD display, Snapdragon 400 chipset, 5MP camera and 2,070 mAh battery.

The new smartphone is running on the latest available Android 4.4.4 KitKat revision, but so is the Moto G already. We didn’t expect much of a difference in the battery performance, but we were wrong. Read more »

Xiaomi Mi 3 battery life test

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China’s most popular smartphone to date – Xiaomi Mi 3 – received our traditional review treatment already and it did great indeed. We’ve even met its successor – the Xiaomi Mi 4 and in addition to the snappy performance, the Mi 4 presented very good battery endurance.

Now, just a few days before we publish our Xiaomi Mi 3 versus Xiaomi Mi 4 in-depth comparison, we are going to share with you the Xiaomi Mi 3 full battery breakdown. Read more »

Moto 360 launch gets closer as Google asks I/O participants for shipping addresses

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Google I/O conference in June shed some light on the upcoming Android L and Android Wear operating systems. Google’s presents this year for the developers and press attending the event was an Android Wear smartwatch – people got to choose between Samsung Gear Live, LG G Watch and Motorola Moto 360.

The Gear Live and G Watch were already in production and people who chose them got their presents immediately on site. But what about Moto 360 then? It was promised to ship as soon as the first batch enters mass production. Read more »

Video shows what happens when you throw your Xiaomi Mi 3 under a bus

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You can do so many things with your Xiaomi Mi 3 smartphone – enjoy Full HD videos on the 5″ IPS display, take a wonderful 13MP pictures with its camera, play the latest 3D games hassle-free courtesy of the Snapdragon 800 chipset, or listen unlimited music via the Baidu Online Music Service.

But it is surely not such a good idea to throw your beautiful Xiaomi Mi 3 covered in polycarbonate shell and Gorilla Glass 3 under a bus. Someone did this and the result isn’t peachy. Read more »