Just a day after Samsung announced its latest Exynos 5 Octa chipset with ARM’s big.LITTLE architecture, ARM has outed a series of videos that demonstrate how its Heterogeneous Multi-Processing (HMP) actually works.

ARM’s videos outline how the true octa-core implementation of the big.LITTLE architecture works when running apps like QuickOffice and Angry Birds. You can actually see when each of the cores is working and how much load it is currently under. Read more »

The Apple iPhone 5s and iPhone 5c are now official, which makes this the first occasion when we get two iPhones at ones. It was only logical then that we’ll pit them against each other and see who’s who in the new family. The HTC One is also here – firstly, because it couldn’t make it to our other specs shootout, and secondly, because we need a handset to put the two new Apple smartphones in perspective.

This HTC One and the iPhone 5s share a premium aluminum build, but that is where their similarities mostly end. Apple has refused to take the big screen approach with the iPhone 5s, but that’s not really the point of the ‘s’ in its name, is it? Read more »

Apple has just revealed its iPhone 5s flagship smartphone and it’s everything that rumors made us expect, really. The company hasn’t redesigned the smartphone, but has made plenty of changes on the inside.

But is it enough? That’s what we will be finding out in the following comparison table. The main rivals of the iPhone 5S come from Korea and they’re the LG G2 and Samsung Galaxy S4. Let’s see what Apple has done with the iPhone 5s in an attempt to stop its melting user base jump over to the Android camp. Read more »

A recently published report by software security company Symantec shows that August has seen a peak of fraudulent apps for Android being submitted to the Google Play Store.

In fact, close to 1,000 scam apps have been published in August alone, which in total have been downloaded “at least” 8,500 times as per Google Play’s own statistic. However, Symantec says that this number is actually close to 10,000 as the statistics aren’t always showing the latest data. Read more »

After Oppo teased its upcoming N1 smartphone’s camera in its first trailer and then its aluminum build in the second trailer, it’s now time for the third teaser in the series, which will eventually lead to the announcement on Sept 23.

The video focuses on the precision cut metal body and shows the SIM tray popping out of the production line. It also shows the edges of the phone being chamfered, reminiscing of the iPhone 5 and HTC One. Read more »

Motorola has released a new ad campaign for the Moto X. Called the ‘Lazy Phone’, the new ads concentrate on some of the key new features of the Moto X, such as the hands-free voice recognition functionality.

There are three ads so far, each of which features an actor who represents your current phone. In the first ad a guy is trying to play a song using just his voice but the ‘phone’ urges him to touch him instead whereas the Moto X can do the same with just a voice command. Read more »

Google quietly began offering the LTE capable 2013 ASUS Nexus 7 in the US Play Store. The 4G ready tablet is priced at $349 for a 32GB slate with a T-Mobile SIM and 2GB of data for one month.

Of course, the LTE capable Nexus 7 will not support only on T-Mobile’s network. Read more »

The Nokia Lumia 1020 and the recently announced at IFA 2013 Sony Xperia Z1 are the hottest cameraphones out there. Sadly, we are still in the process of obtaining both of them for an extensive camera shootout, but luckily our colleagues at TBreak.se have managed to do that already and had some quick shots to share with it.

The photos range from landscape through macro to night shots and give a very decent idea of what the Z1 is really capable of. If you’ve been following our extensive IFA 2013 coverage (and you really should), then you’d know that we took the Z1′s camera for a spin, but it’s interesting to see how it fares against the cameraphone-to-beat – the Nokia Lumia 1020. Read more »

Alcatel brought out a trio of thin and light Android smartphones in the Idol line. The Alcatel One Touch Idol Alpha is the aluminum-clad leader of three with unibody design and attractive transparent elements for design and notification purposes. Then the Idol S follows close behind with a 4.7″ 720p screen dual and 8MP / 1080p camera. The Idol Mini brings up the rear with a thin and light design – 7.4mm thick, 96g – and a dual-SIM option.

Our hands-on impressions of the three follow after the break. Read more »

LG marks a strong comeback to the tablet market with the G Pad 8.3 and showcased it in full at the IFA 2013 show, albeit being mum regarding availability and pricing.

Thankfully, today the Korean company shared its plans to distribute the G Pad 8.3 and the good news it’s going to be available in 30 countries by the end of the year. Read more »

Microsoft has announced that their music service, oddly named Xbox Music, will now be available on iOS and Android devices. The company has made dedicated apps for both platforms and they are now available for download for free on their respective stores.

Xbox Music is Microsoft’s subscription based ‘all you can eat’ music service, where you pay a subscription fee and then stream as much music as you want. You will need to purchase the Xbox Music Pass that enables you to use the service. Read more »

It’s just been three days since Samsung officially unveiled the Galaxy Note 3 at IFA in Berlin and the phone has already been put through a review process. Hi-Tech.Mail.Ru managed to get their hands on a review unit and promptly put up a quick review of the device.

The review is in Russian so we have to depend on Google Translate’s translation skills to glean any information off it. There is still a lot of other information that doesn’t require translation, such as product photos, screenshots, benchmark scores and camera samples. Read more »

LG had some trouble with the first public promotion of the G2 in Korea, but then most of its other promo efforts have been quite the success.

The latest LG G2 promo involved a flash mob which took over the main street of Kyiv, Ukraine. Read more »

Smartwatches are the talk of the street right now and for a very good reason. They are cool, capable and understated. At the IFA 2013 expo, both Samsung and Qualcomm announced their smartwatch representatives: the Galaxy Gear and Toq. Naturally, we had to compare them to the Sony Smartwatch 2, which was announced a couple of months ago.

You may be thinking that smartwatches aren’t really our scope, but remember that while we are professional phone reviewers, we are also geeks. This puts the smartwatch product category right in our alley. Read more »

LG made a lot of fuss with the “learning from you” campaign, saying how much the company listened to its customers when designing the LG G2. Well, one of the most common wishes among users is a decent battery life, let’s see if LG delivered.

The relatively thin (8.9mm) body of the G2 with a curved back must not have made it easy – the battery has a stepped design to make the most of the internal volume and it worked, the phone packs a beefy 3,000mAh battery. Read more »