BlackBerry Messenger was supposed to hit the Android and iOS app stores today, but there’s nothing just yet (but you can try the beta). More interesting is that Samsung has now kicked-off its promotion of BBM – earlier this month the two companies struck a deal to promote the messenger in Africa.

CrackBerry forum member PauloPlmenta spotted an ad of the Galaxy S4 running BlackBerry Messenger during a football game (Manchester United vs. Chelsea) broadcast in Mozambique. Read more »

The rumor mill has been pretty confident that he Unpacked 2 event on September 4 on IFA grounds will bring the new Galaxy Note III phablet and the Galaxy Gear smartwatch, but now there’s official confirmation straight from the EVP of Samsung Mobile.

The EVP, Lee Young-hee, calls it a “concept wearable device” and says it’s aimed at young trend-setters. Samsung is confident that the Galaxy Gear will shake things up in the mobile industry. Read more »

Oppo N1 cameraphone will be unveiled at a special event in Beijing, China on September 23. Until then Oppo is teasing us weekly with new details about the upcoming cameraphone.

The latest teaser is a counter that shows the time until something wonderful goes live. We guess this is the time until Oppo give us the next teaser. Read more »

While other companies are prepping to unveil flagships at IFA, teasing upcoming monster droids, or even keeping everything under wraps until September, LG has already announced its G2 top dog and is doing some great PR stuff.

The latest stunt LG has prepared includes the G2 taking a trip to the Earth’s stratosphere. The 1080p camcorder with OIS is put to the task to film Earth. Read more »

You may remember the HTC Mini accessory that was announced along with the HTC Butterfly. It was a tiny Bluetooth device that could be used as phone once paired with your main smartphone. It would let you make and receive calls and remotely control certain features of your HTC smartphone, such as the camera and the multimedia playback.

HTC has now quietly announced the successor to that accessory, called the HTC Mini+. The Mini+ looks pretty much identical to the Mini and the functionality is more or less the same. The Mini+, along with being able to receive calls and messages, also has a built-in laser pointer and a slideshow button. You can also use the built-in IR blaster to control your television. Read more »

We’ve had the Samsung Galaxy Core for enough time now that we got see how good the battery of the affordable smartphone is.

The Samsung Galaxy Core we have here on campus is of the dual-SIM variety which, in theory, should do worse than the single-SIM edition, having to power a second radio all the time. But is it really that bad? Find out after the break. Read more »

LG has just released a video teaser of its upcoming tablet called G Pad 8.3. The teaser is called “Just Right For You” and promises to bring you a slate that’ll be best suited to your needs.

The teaser’s description is even bolder saying we should “prepare to be amazed”. Read more »

Samsung seems to be preparing a Kids edition of its Galaxy Tab 3 7.0 slate. The tablet is called Galaxy Tab 3 Kids and will launch this September.

The specs of the customized Tab 3 Kids are identical to those of its vanilla sibling – it comes with a 7″ TFT display with a resolution of 1024×600 pixels, runs on a 1.2GHz dual-core processor and features a 3MP camera, 1GB of RAM and 8GB expandable storage. Read more »

The just-leaked Oppo N1 smartphone made waves last week with a risque ad campaign, revealing it as one of the first smartphones to feature a touch sensitive rear panel.

Now, more details have come to light regarding just what you can do with the rear touch panel, including scrolling through homescreen panes and selecting screen elements. Read more »

Nothing ever escapes the custom designed opening picks at iFixit and the new Moto X is no exception. The newly released smartphone from Motorola spent some quality time at iFixit, exposing its insides for all to see.

According to iFixit, the Moto X isn’t particularly difficult to take apart, once you get past the tenacious back cover that uses a copious amount of glue to stick to the phone. The cover itself, however, is made from a nice woven fabric material that is actually see through if you look carefully. Read more »

Google’s Chromecast is a nifty little device if you want to watch your YouTube, Netflix or Google Play videos on your TV but Google left out the ability to stream local data the way Apple allows on the Apple TV.

To fix this situation, developers have been making apps that let you send local media files over Wi-Fi from your Android device to your Chromecast. It seems, though, that Google isn’t quite fond of this and has been actively blocking apps that allow this functionality. Read more »

The 2,200mAh battery of the Moto X has to power a relatively modest by today’s top-end Android smartphone standards’ hardware setup. We were however, curious to measure the impact of Motorola’s Touchless Control and Active Notifications additions on the Moto X’s battery performance.

When we were first introduced to the Moto X, the device’s product management team told us that the goal was for the smartphone to make it through 24 hours of regular use. Read more »

Asphalt 8: Airborne is the latest in the long running series of mobile racing games from Gameloft. The previous game in the series — Asphalt 7: Heat — was a phenomenal game and one of the best racing games available on mobile today.

Airborne lets you take to the air, jumping off ramps and performing stunts mid-air with your car. Add to that a new range of cars and tracks, improved graphics and some new gameplay modes and you have all the ingredients for a great sequel. But does all that necessarily make it a great game? Let’s find out. Read more »

There have been some particularly cheeky iPhone knockoffs, but this one is pretty entertaining. It was slowly, teasingly revealed to a mostly sarcastic crowd at 4chan with a pretty big plot twist. At any rate, it’s a fun detraction from the deluge of iPhone 5S and 5C leaks.

Like all knockoffs, this one has an almost-but-not-quite the same name as the original product. So, here’s the iploxe. Read more »

Lately our smartphones have become one of our most precious possessions, partly because they store so much of our private data but also because they are usually quite expensive. That’s why theft is as great a worry as it ever was, while misplacement is quite the nuisance. Luckily we’ve got remote management and phone tracking apps to help us in these times of distress. Recently, Google has also recognized the importance of remote tracking our smartphones and has delivered its first attempt in the category.

PhoneLocator Pro is one of the most functional `third-party application for the Android platform, that helps you track and remotely manage your smartphones. Today, we will take a look at the features and the functionality of the app to see if it’s worth your cash. Read more »