It seems Samsung’s custom software enhancements have finally gotten Google’s attention. Enough for the Mountain View company to talk to Samsung and ask it to calm down a bit.

According to the sources at Re/code, the two companies are now in talks to bring Samsung’s vision of Android in line with Google’s. Google seems to be particularly taking offense at the presence of duplicate Samsung service that mimic ones by Google, such as the presence of a separate application store, music store, movie store and ebooks store. Since Samsung has to have Google’s services on board as well, it results in two of each on every device, which will likely confuse customers. Read more »

Apparently following the more is more philosophy, Samsung USA has revealed that they will be releasing a Galaxy Tab designed for education.

The tab has been created in coordination with the Google Play for Education program. Read more »

The Sony Xperia Z1 Compact promises to be everything the big Z1 is except in a smaller package. The reduction in size, however, meant less room for the battery and the Z1 Compact has a 2,300mAh battery compared to a 3,000mAh battery for the big one.

That’s still great for the class – the HTC One mini has a 1,800mAh battery and the two are roughly the same size. Read more »

Microsoft seems to have really bad luck with its SkyDrive cloud service. First a UK court ruled out Microsoft is infringing British Sky Broadcasting Group trademark last summer and Microsoft has agreed to change the name.

Just two days ago Microsoft announced the new name of the service – SkyDrive was re-branded to OneDrive. And as of today Microsoft is in trouble once again for the same reason. Read more »

Samsung put out a sweet AMOLED-packing tablet in 2011 but, disappointingly for AMOLED fans, hasn’t produced a sequel yet. The wait may be coming to an end – according to Korean publication ETNews Samsung Display will start mass production of tablet AMOLED screens next month.

According to the report, the display will be 10.5″ big and pack QHD resolution (2,560 x 1,440). Read more »

NVIDIA TegraZone got treated to a major update which expanded its availability to non-Tegra devices. Version 2.9.0 of the app is currently available to download in the Google Play Store for all devices running Android 2.2 and up.

It must be pointed that the updated app does not make Tegra-enhanced game playable to non-NVIDIA devices. Read more »

Nintendo is certainly not in the most favorable of positions right now. Following the price cut of its unsuccessful Wii U gaming console, a report by Japanese news outlet Nikkei suggests the company may be looking to expand its business to Android games.

Currently, Nintendo’s strategy is to release self-made games only for its consoles, but not for anyone else’s. The report cites a source that’s previously been accurate about Nintendo’s plans, who claims that in 2014 the Japanese company will release “minigames” for Android phones. Read more »

Samsung has confirmed the Android 4.4 KitKat update for the Galaxy Note 3 has issues with third-party accessories. The most common non-Samsung accessory used on the Note 3 is the S-View knock-off cases, which stopped working after the firmware upgrade.

Don’t you worry though, Samsung promises to fix this soon via an update. Read more »

Karbonn is one of the popular names in the budget conscious Indian smartphone market. The company is trying to establish its authority in the sub-continent with its wide range of smartphones at an affordable price tag.

The Karbonn Titanium X is the latest offering from the company, which comes with a four 1.5 GHz Cortex A7 cores along with PowerVR SGX544 GPU on a MediaTek 6589T chipset. Read more »

Microsoft has renamed its cloud storage service from SkyDrive to OneDrive. This was expected after a UK court found Microsoft infringing British Sky Broadcasting Group trademark last summer.

Microsoft says it chose the OneDrive name because the cloud storage should be the one place where you store all of your pictures, videos, documents and files. Read more »

We received excited tips about how much the Nexus 5 camera had improved after the phone was updated to 4.4.2 (having launched with 4.4, which it introduced). We found the improvements worthwhile, but fairly minor.

Perhaps, our dear readers, your view on things will be different, so we’ve prepared some crops for you to vote on. Read more »

The Samsung Galaxy Gear 2 smartwatch has been rumored to come out in tandem with the Galaxy S5. Now a new publication in a Korean media, which claims to be in touch with Samsung insiders, the new generation smartwatch will be announced in March or April.

The announcement is likely to happen in London, probably at an Unpacked event. The insider also claims that Samsung has felt the need to radically change the design of the upcoming Gear. The overhaul will include a new, flexible OLED display. Read more »

A new Lenovo smartphone with the codename Kingdom has appeared on AnTuTu benchmark test results in China. The upcoming smartphone is said to be the successor of the popular K900 smartphone and is expected to take up the flagship responsibility for the rapidly growing Chinese manufacturer.

Image of Lenovo K900

The alleged benchmark results also reveal that the smartphone will be called K7t and will feature a display with 1440 x 2560 pixel resolution. Read more »

If you’re a fan of HTC’s One flagship but can’t afford the hefty price tag, then we’ve got something special for you. The HTC Desire 700 dual-SIM takes after its flagship counterpart’s, and as the name suggests, even has dual-SIM capabilities thrown in.

The Desire 700 dual-SIM sports a design that was clearly inspired by the HTC One, only instead of a premium aluminum body the Desire 700 opts for plastic. The latter is unfortunately quite smudge-prone due to its glossiness, and the specs also fall short of HTC’s flagship, but the device is more than just a follower in the footsteps of greatness. Read more »

This past Thursday, an LG tablet with the model name VK810 was cleared with the FCC. It’s designed to work with Verizon’s 4G network and judging by the dimensions of the device, it’s a pretty safe bet that it’s going to be LG’s G Pad 8.3.

The exact specs of the device haven’t been outed, but there are some confirmed features on the FCC report. Read more »