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Nokia X and XL benchmarks

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Nokia X is a brand new platform but its app store felt acceptably full, considering it launched just a couple of days ago. There we found a couple of the usual benchmarks we run (there’s also the browser-based SunSpider) so we decided to find out how the Nokia X and XL stack up against the competition.

The Nokia X prioritizes affordability over performance, Nokia made it clear that Lumia is its top performer. Read more »

Amazon slashes Kindle Fire tablets in the UK by 20%

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Amazon launched Instant Video and Prime Instant Video in the UK and to celebrate, it slashed 20% of all Kindle Fire prices.

The offer is valid until March 4, so you have about a week to decide. Read more »

Archos CEO demoes their latest rugged phone, what could go wrong?

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Did you hear about the Samsung Galaxy S5 and how it’s rugged? Archos has one of those too – the Quenchua 5″ Phone. Oblivious to its mere IP54 rating however, Archos CEO is quick to dunk it in a glass of water right in front of the camera… with some embarrassing consequences.

In case you’re not familiar with the IP ratings, the second digit indicates water resistance and the digit 4 means the device can resist splashes of water, not submersion. Read more »

Mediatek MT6595 is reportedly faster than Snapdragon 800

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MediaTek is a name we’ve been hearing quite often – a company that’s riding the smartphone expansion by providing capable chipsets for low to mid-range phones. We sat down with Jeffrey Ju, US General Manager of the Smartphone Busines, about the company’s plans of breaking into the high-end.

MediaTek has no intentions of developing a custom processor core like some of its competition is doing (notably Qualcomm, but also NVIDIA). Read more »

Allwinner unveils UltraOcta A80 big.LITTLE chipset

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Allwinner is a chipset maker you’ve perhaps ran into when looking for Android-powered media players or affordable tablets (even HP has one). While its chipsets were never associated with performance, the new Allwinner UltraOcta A80 is poised to change that.

The A80 uses ARM’s big.LITTLE setup with four Cortex-A15 and four Cortex-A7 cores. Read more »

HTC continues to poke fun at new Galaxy S5

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Nokia and HTC took a couple of swipes at Samsung’s new Galaxy S5, but the digs from HTC continue and more people are getting involved. Joanna Stern, currently a technology editor at ABC, tweeted the image below:

This was retweeted by Jason Mackenzie, President of HTC America. Meanwhile, the company’s official Twitter account threw down the glove. Read more »

Sony Xperia M2 hands-on

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So, the Xperia M2 is the leaked Xperia G that was supposed to challenge the Moto G.

Here’s a quick video demo of the Xperia M2 along with our initial impressions of the device. Read more »

Sony Xperia Z2 hands-on

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Sony unveiled its first flagship for 2014, the Xperia Z2 smartphone. It revamps last year’s Z1 with a bigger screen, 4K video recording, stereo speakers, a lighter body plus a number of changes under the hood.

We got a chance to handle the device at the MWC grounds. Read more »

Sony unveils stereo microphone accessory for its Xperia gadgets

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When talking about smartphone camera quality, the main focus is the video quality, but quality audio often draws big attention. Sony released an unusual accessory – a stereo microphone you plug into your phone or tablet.

The Stereo Microphone STM10 is the type of add-on we’re more used to seeing on prosumer cameras. Read more »

Acer Liquid E3 hands-on

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The Acer Liquid E3 is one of two phones the company showed at the MWC – this up and coming gadget certainly has a few interesting tricks up its sleeve.

Let’s just say this is a selfie-taking machine Read more »

Huawei TalkBand B1 hands-on

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Wearables are a hot topic here at the MWC and Huawei brought its own – a smartwatch with a twist. The TalkBand B1 gets its name from being a Bluetooth headset that can be set into a rubberized band to be worn as a smartwatch.

This double functionality could be what sets the TalkBand apart from the other smartwatches we’ve seen so far. Read more »

Nokia puts out Green Duck Part 2 short, special page on its site

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Part 2 of Nokia’s #GreenDuck teasers is out and the paddling of ducks hits an obstacle – a dam of discarded phones (there’s a traffic light there too, for some unknown reason).

Nokia also put up a Green Duck page on its web site. The page just lists the two teaser vines but its design is more interesting – it looks just like the custom interface on the Nokia X A110 in the spy shots from earlier today. Read more »

Samsung Galaxy S5 camera to have new features, including Aqua mode

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Info on the Samsung Galaxy S5 camera keeps trickling in and while rumors don’t always agree, the upcoming flagship is starting to sound more and more interesting. The latest bit of info confirms the 16MP / 2160p camera and adds a list of camera modes and additional features.

The Galaxy S5 will reportedly have a capacitive button where shutter keys usually go (on the bottom right) called Side Touch. Read more »

Nokia posts a #GreenDuck vine, continues to tease the Nokia X A110

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Nokia’s Vine account joined in on the teasing of Nokia’s upcoming Mobile World Congress event. After yesterday’s teaser images from Weibo, today’s vine isn’t all that revealing but it uses the characteristic green that has become associated with the Nokia X A110 (Normandy).

Yesterday it was monkeys, today ducks. Where’s Nokia going with all the cartoony animals? Read more »

Nokia launches Treasure Tags, Bluetooth tag key chains

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The Nokia Treasure Tag is a small Bluetooth Low Energy brick that will keep you from losing your keys or your phone. It’s about the size of a matchbox, 30 x 30 x 10mm to be precise and weighs 13g.

The Treasure Tag has a squarish look and comes in several colors – it’s reminiscent of a Windows Phone live tile for a reason. Read more »