Information originating from China suggests that Apple hasn’t given up on a large, 12.9″ iPad and has even decided on its name. Called the iPad Plus, the upcoming 12.9″ slate is taking after the naming scheme of the iPhone 6 Plus and won’t be called Pro as previously suggested.

Furthermore, a schematic of the tablet gives us a basic idea of the bezels of the tablet. The 12.9″ is a large footprint by itself, but it will also have bezels similar to these of the iPad Air 2. Read more »

The Samsung Galaxy A3 passed our review gauntlet with ease and now its time to take a closer look at the phone’s battery life performance. This is one of the thinnest Android smartphones the company has ever made, so the battery isn’t really huge – 1,900mAh.

However, the phone doesn’t sport battery hungry specifications either. We have a 4.5″ Super AMOLED qHD display and a Snapdragon 410 chipset with a quad-core Cortex-A53 CPU. It all sounds like a classic recipe for a solid battery life, so let’s dig right in and see if this is the case. Read more »

In the last week of January we saw the introduction of a wave of new phones from major players in the industry. Motorola, ZTE, HTC, Asus, Samsung and Meizu outed smartphones to compete in the mid-range and upper mid-range segments.

So now, it’s only logical to ask you which one got your interest most. Motorola outed the Moto G 4G (2015) on Friday, but throughout the week we welcomed the ZTE Blade 6, HTC Desire 526G+, Asus Zenfone C, Samsung Galaxy J1 and Meizu m1 to our database. Read more »

More rumors regarding the HTC One (M9) “Hima” are inbound and the latest round of them is concerning the DotView case. According to @upleaks, HTC is going to out additional DotView colors for the phone’s launch.

The colors in question are turquoise and yellow and they’ll presumably join the already existing blue, black, dark red and orange options. Read more »

Samsung has updated its Milk Music app and the description of the app listing compatible devices reveals the company is preparing to unveil a Galaxy Tab S Pro tablet. The upcoming slate is likely to have its launch at the Mobile World Congress in March.

So far, nothing of the tablet has been leaked but its name. Still, this gives us a bit of an idea what it’s going to be about. The Galaxy Tab S line-up features Super AMOLED displays and the Pro moniker is most recently used by Samsung multiple times already for its Galaxy Note Pro 12.2 tablet. Read more »

LG Display released its financial report for the fiscal 2014 highlighting a record operating profit of $1.245 billion. That’s 16.7% more than the year before and the largest increase the LG subsidiary saw in the last six years.

The reason for the boost is a strong increase in demand of LCD panels and partly because of the deal between LG Display and Apple for the production of iPhone screens. Read more »

A technical preview of Windows 10 was made available for download and now benchmarks of MIcrosoft’s new Internet Explorer Project Spartan web browser are available.

Done by AnandTech, the benchmark results reveal that Project Spartan is noticeably faster than Internet Explorer 11 and in some tests even outruns Chrome and Firefox. Read more »

Today the ribbon was cut and the West Lake Apple Store in Hangzhou, China opened its doors for customers. The event attracted a huge crowd of fans eager to check out one of the company’s largest retail stores in Asia.

Image source: bruce_shia on Instagram

Tim Cook also promoted the store on Twitter saying “Starting Something New in Hangzhou, China!” The latest store is part of a total of five outlets in China. The rest will open before the Chinese New Year on February 19. Read more »

Alleged screenshots hinting of an upcoming WhatsApp web client have surfaced. Shared on Google+ and shortly removed, the post shows WhatsApp settings screen prompting to pair with a web browser and a trusted computer for a secure connection.

The web client itself hasn’t leaked yet. Sadly, there’s no further information when we can expect WhatsApp to expand beyond smartphones. Read more »

Microsoft’s latest smartphone carries the model name RM-1099 and has successfully passed certification in Indonesia. However, unlike other certification processes like TENAA in China and FCC in the US, the Indonesian authorities don’t reveal any details regarding the product.

This means that there are neither specifications, nor photos of the phone in question. Not too long ago, the RM-1110 and RM-1069 also passed Indonesian certification. Read more »

Samsung’s smartphone manager Kies suite for PC and Mac is about to get a major overhaul, as noted by a development cited by SamMobile. The suite is going to be redesigned to be more inline with the company’s TouchWiz look for the latest Android 5.0 Lollipop update.

As a result, we expect simpler user interface and if the chatter is true, Kies 4 will launch in Q1 2015. Coincidentally, that’s when the company also launches its flagship smartphones, so hopefully the Galaxy S6 will have a new computer buddy to play with. Read more »

Google is making buying tickets for live events a bit less convoluted by striking a deal with live event companies Ticketfly, Ticketmaster and AXS. Now, tickets for live shows will be offered to you via Google’s Search and Maps services on both mobile and desktop.

Upon searching for a specific venue, you will see upcoming events and whether or not tickets are currently available. Artist schedules will also appear when you search for a specific band or performer. Read more »

Urban Armor Gear is specializing in making tough, rugged cases for smartphones and has tried a little different to test its products out. The company attached an iPhone 6 secured with one of its cases to a weather balloon and it managed to reach 30,480 meters.

Then it popped and the iPhone 6 plummeted down with a speed so high that if a parachute doesn’t deploy, it becomes a lethal projectile. Up there, the iPhone 6 experienced a temperature of -61C, 112km/h wind speed and was spinning at 150rpm. Read more »

The Google Now Launcher just got updated with Material Design for devices running KitKat and Jelly Bean. This will enable users to enjoy a taste of the new Android 5.0 Lollipop looks on their devices while waiting for manufacturers to push out the latest Android update for their phone.

In addition to the new fresh coat of paint, there are new animations and quicker access to settings and Google Now accounts. There’s a noticeable improvement in the responsiveness, too. Read more »

At this point, it’s no secret that Samsung is working on a round smartwatch. Now, thanks to information obtained by SamMobile we can have a better idea how the smartwatch codenamed Orbis will function.

The first Samsung smartwatch will feature a rotating bezel ring, which will be used as a physical control of the main functions, which was earlier suggested by a patent. Naturally, you’ll be able to complete the action using the watch’s touchscreen, but the physical ring will give it a more classic watch feel. Read more »