Nokia Refocus app was initially exclusive to PureView devices, but now it’s rolling out for all Lumia phones. Yes, even the Lumia 520.

Refocus requires the Nokia Black update, so make sure you have that installed before downloading the app. Read more »

The MWC this year made it clear that wearables are the new hotness and Sundar Pichai, Android’s head, was talking about a new wearables API. So, of course, rumors of a Nexus smartwatch are running amok.

All fingers are pointing to LG as the manufacturer and popular rumor source @evleaks has dug up more details. Read more »

Amazon UK already raised the price of its Prime service, but that was done with a big Kindle Fire price cut to soften the blow. Users in the US will have to take it on the chin – Prime will cost $100, up from $80, in a week.

Amazon announced this with a banner on its home page that looks like Prime is being discounted $20 for the next seven days. Read more »

There are over 4,500 launchers in the Google Play Store and their usage is increasing quickly. According to data by Flurry, in the first quarter of this year users have spent more time using launchers than they did in the whole of 2013. And there’s still most of March to go before the end of the quarter!

Compared to the final quarter of 2013, Q1 2014 will see more than double the custom launcher usage. Read more »

Polish tech distributor Arta Tech will be selling a phone with an e-Ink screen in Europe soon called Midia InkPhone. The handset promises comfortable reading and two weeks of battery life thanks to the energy-efficient screen and 1,800mAh battery.

It features a 4.3″ Pearl e-Ink screen (like the Kinde reader screens) of 480 x 800 piexel resolution that is front illuminated. Read more »

The Samsung Gear 2 and Gear Fit got the official hands-on treatment from Samsung to highlight their best features. Both devices can help you exercise with built-in heart rate monitors and display notifications from the phone.

The more advanced Gear 2 can also function as a standalone device, by streaming music over Bluetooth to your headset as you run, for example. It also handles voice calls and can control your TV via the IR blaster. Read more »

We ran some polls over the weekend after CES, so we thought we should do the same after the Mobile World Congress. It has been a week since the congress ended and enough time has passed for the initial reactions to settle into well-informed opinions.

Some brilliant new products were announced, others seemed to disappoint. Have your say on which did what. Read more »

The Nokia X is already available in some places but the odd phone – an Android-powered Nokia – is still a bit of a novelty. The team at Zing.vn got their hands on one unit days before the phones launch in Vietnam and posted an extensive photo session.

Despite forgoing the Play Store for a Nokia-centric app store (plus third party stores), the Nokia X has a great app package out of the gate. Read more »

The new wave of Android flagships comes with a revamped version of Qualcomm’s top chipset, but surprisingly it’s the Nokia Lumia 1520 with the vanilla Snapdragon 800 that topped the charts of the Basemark X test.

The Xperia Z2 hasn’t been tested yet, but the Samsung Galaxy S5 comes in second with a 6% lower score. Read more »

We managed to do a few field tests while at the MWC, including several benchmarks. We collected them all into one post to make it easier to compare several of the more interesting new devices from the Cognress.

The set of phones spans the whole spectrum, from expensive flagships to affordable entry-level phones. Read more »

Amazon UK is stepping up its promotions – first a 20% cut on Kindle Fire tablets, now 8 Android games with a combined cost of £10 for free. You don’t even need a Kindle tablet, just the Amazon App Store installed.

This promotion is valid only today, February 28. Read more »

Yahoo is hosting an Android Tech Talk on March 20. The news comes from Jean-Baptiste Quéru, former AOSP lead at Google and current Yahoo employee. He’ll do a short presentation, focusing on architecture, but there will be other speakers as well.

The event will be held in the New York office and is invite-only. Read more »

We know Android apps can be sideloaded on Nokia X devices, but XDA-Developers member opseemnik flipped the tables on them and found a way to install the Nokia Store on regular Android devices.

While the Nokia Store isn’t nearly as rich as the Play Store, it does have some exclusive apps many people would love to get their hands on, HERE Maps especially. Read more »

While handling the Nokia X phones we installed a couple of benchmarks from Nokia’s app store and it dawned on us that it will be interesting to find out just how rich the app store is on what is basically Day 1.

We opened Google Play Store on one of our standard Android phones and checked the Editor’s Choice and Top Free sections, then we searched for those apps on the Nokia’s. Read more »

The new Nokia X line of phones slot between the Lumia and Asha families and tout affordability as one of their key features. Still, the Nokia XL has a 5MP camera with a 1/4″ sensor, the same setup as the Lumia 520 (no 720p recording though). The Nokia X has a 3.15MP camera with a smaller, 1/5″ sensor.

We snapped photos with both for an early glimpse of what those cameras can deliver. Read more »