Yesterday, Opera marked its 10-year birthday by finally ushering Opera Mini 8 for Android out of beta. The app comes with a flashy new, material-inspired look and is still backwards compatible all the way back to Android 2.3 Gingerbread.

This move definitely didn’t go unnoticed, but, as it turns out, the team is already hard at work on the next major version on the mobile browser. The Play Store now features a brand new Opera Mini 9 Beta, already up for download by eager early adopters. It still doesn’t pop up in search results though, so here is a direct link. Read more »

It definitely looks like Nokia is in the midst of a major business restructure. After the acquisition of Alcatel-Lucent was made official today, new information hints at an uncertain future for the Finnish company’s maps division.

The fact of the matter is, that in recent years Nokia has centered its business around network equipment and the respective research and development. And while the new tech orientation leaves a lot of nostalgic mobile fans in sorrow, the venture has been mostly profitable for Nokia and it is doing fairly well in the network realm. Read more »

Meizu has enriched its product portfolio today with its first high-end stereo headset. It comes courtesy of German audio company Beyerdynamic and should deliver superb audio quality, worthy of the Meizu MX4 Pro.

The flagship smartphone in question boats impressive HIFI audio and a dedicated audio processor but the Chinese manufacturer didn’t really have the proper earphones to deliver the said quality in a complete package. Read more »

Apple has had a couple of turbulent months on the Russian market. Economic conditions, fluctuations in the ruble, as well as a shifting political climate forced the Cupertino giant out of the huge market back in December 2014. The decision was later overturned, but Apple products have been going for a premium in Russia ever since.

Now, it seems, the storm is finally settling and the local Apple store has introduced a significant price cut to both the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus, bringing the price tags a lot closer to the international average. And although some mark-up is still detectable, an iPhone 6 will now set you back RUB48,990 for the basic 16GB model and RUB55,990 and RUB62,990 rubles for the 64GB and 128GB, respectively. This represents a significant RUB5,000 decrease, but is still not quite the RUB39,990 the phone was originally going for. Read more »

Apple’s current pair of flagship devices – the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus are enjoying an ever-growing level of popularity, bringing more and more attention to one of the company’s most ambitious projects – widespread NFC-based payments. The Cupertino giant has bee investing heftily in the new service, pushing it all throughout the US, Canada and Europe, despite some major retailer distrust.

But this steady expansion has yet to reach China – an area where the service has hit a lot of problems and is still in limbo. As some of you might remember, Apple has been struggling to strike a deal with China’s UnionPay and bring Apple Pay to the enormous market. After a lot of hardships, the feature was supposed to finally see the light of day in iOS 8.3, but the OS update is already here and NFC payments are still nowhere to be found. Read more »

The vivo Xshot just made it through out rigorous review procedure and didn’t do too shabby in terms of battery endurance. But, there are still a few things to note on the matter and we intend to do so in the following paragraphs. And if you want to check out the full, in-depth review, you can do so right here.

The vivo Xshot boasts an impressive specs sheet, featuring a Qualcomm MSM8974AA Snapdragon 801 chipset with Adreno 330 GPU, 2GB or 3GB of RAM, depending on the version and a 5.2-inch IPS LCD display. Yet, the device punches well below its league in terms of performance, a problem, we attribute mostly to its outdated, custom Funtouch OS, based on Android 4.3. Read more »

Chinese manufacturer, Xiaomi, is celebrating its fifth birthday and the company is in an all-out festive mode. The manufacturer has always had a strong online community and has really managed to build brand value and awareness, an area where most other Asian businesses fail, and naturally the community forum has been booming with festivities and a fair deal of promotions.

To mark the veritable 5-year corner stone, Xiaomi is looking back and recapping all that it has achieved throughout the years. The company has been steadily gaining popularity, especially in its home market, where it currently presides at the very top of the mobile market food chain. International presence has also been extending, especially in India, where the manufacturer recently partnered up with both Snapdeal and Amazon, for an even broader market reach. Read more »

You all remember the Sony Xperia Z4 right? That one flagship phone that simply refuses to become reality for quite a few months now. We have stumbled upon another few images, allegedly taken with the device’s main shooter, to add to the one we shared with you yesterday.

The two additional shots seems to be part of the same album, if you will, as the one from yesterday and are taken with identical settings at pretty much the same location. The phone is once again listed as E6553, the model number of the upcoming Xperia Z4, and the shots are made at 20.7 megapixels with a resolution of 5248 x 3936 pixels and an ISO of 50. Read more »

Most Chinese tech manufacturers can’t really boast broad market availability, let alone brand recognition and value. Xiaomi seems to have gotten the marketing formula right, as it has become quite popular on various markets.

This has been achieved through a clever mix of aggressive pricing, gorilla marketing through a strong online presence and community, as well as a quite diverse and often odd product portfolio to cater to various demands. One of the company’s biggest market expanses was its exclusive partnership with Flipkart in India. This caused a veritable avalanche of interest and MI gadgets and smartphones seem to have a lot of appeal in the emerging market. Read more »

We have grown pretty accustomed to hearing about the never-ending ping-pong of court cases between Samsung and Apple. It almost seems like their legal departments are in an all-out feud over every single patent and device that sees the light of day. But in an odd twist of fate, the two antagonistic tech giants might stand united in defending against patents they are both accused of infringing.

The common enemy in this odd case is a company by the name of Smartflash and the patents in question have to do with mechanism for controlling access to digital data through payment systems. Apple was targeted by the company for overstepping a subset of these very patents in iTunes and was ordered by court in February to pay $533 million in dues to the small US company. Read more »

The good folks over at www.ifixit.com have finally managed to get to HTC’s latest flagship device. And, as tradition goes, the unit has to suffer, so a lot of others like it can be saved from the electronics graveyard.

Judging by continuity in the design of the One series, it is only natural to assume that the One M9 shares much of the same assembly and mounting techniques as its predecessor, which is notoriously difficult to mend, mostly due to an abundance on tricky adhesive holding things in place. Read more »

Apple’s debut on the smart wearable market – the Apple Watch is finally inching closer to its release. Initial preorders begin on April 10 and the first units will start shipping on April 24. With the release date so close, a lot of eager Apple fans can’t wait to get their hands on the new wearable.

But while tech savvy people will surely have no trouble getting around the Apple Watch and are already pretty familiar with its array of interesting features, the Cupertino giant has kept with traditions and has gone the extra mile to familiarize as wide an audience as possible with the upcoming gadget. Much like with the original iPhone, Apple has prepared a series of how-to videos, which show and explain the Apple Watch in all of its aspects in a clear and, naturally, stylish manner. Read more »

If you have been following Dropbox during the past year or so, you already know that the cloud file sharing service has been growing exponentially in both popularity and features. The San Francisco company has been putting a lot of effort to escape from its simple roots and grow into a sprawling ecosystem, based around collaboration and creative work.

This has led to the acquisition of a lot of other services and startups by the cloud system, as well as the introduction of clever new features, options and the vital integration with other major platforms and suites, like Microsoft Office, for example. Read more »

Succeeding in the very dynamic and demanding tech market of today often requires a lot more than technological advances, beautiful design and competitive prices. People are starting to pay more attention on how their products are made, what they are made from and, most-importantly, how eco-friendly they are.

This increased consumer concern is definitely a step in the right direction and will hopefully fuel the advancement or sustainable and renewable tech. And while projects like Google’s modular ARA are taking a more radical approach to the problem, there are a lot of things any technology manufacturer can address to help and when we are talking about a giant, like Samsung, efforts usually show quick results. Read more »

LG has been teasing the said promotion for quite some time now. It was supposed to launch in February, but, obviously, there have been some setbacks.

It appears the gift is now available, but only in the US and only in “particular stores” and, of course, while supplies last. The promotional webpage does not mention stores in particular and a footnote, leading nowhere states that the list is available online at lg.com, but we didn’t manage to find it, so if you have some info on that, be sure to leave it in the comment section. Read more »