We’re taking a little detour from our regular routine with poll making and will be pitting two slates against each other instead of smartphones. Well, maybe not such a big detour after all.

In this weekly poll installment we’re putting the two best-equipped portable slates around – the newly-arrived Samsung Galaxy Tab S 8.4 against the market-leading Apple iPad mini 2. Read more »

Ok Google, Siri, Cortana; these personal assistants have been helping us with our search queries, appointment scheduling, and navigation needs on a daily basis. But what if we wanted our smartphone’s personal assistants to be a little more personal?

Enter Ask Ooloo, a mobile assistant application that gets your questions answered by an actual person. Read more »

The Flappy Bird story is one that still leaves lots of mobile users scratching their heads: the insanely popular game was quickly removed from mobile App stores due to the developer’s personal issues.

If you didn’t get a chance to download the game before it was taken offline then have no fear, because you’ll be able to play a new version of the title on Amazon’s Fire TV. Read more »

Google has launched its Now Launcher for all devices running Android 4.1 Jelly Bean and higher. This makes it easier for anyone to get access to Google Now with just a swipe on the homescreen.

Google’s homescreen replacement features all the basics you’d need: you can add or remove widgets and app shortcuts, change wallpapers and reorder homescreen panes. Read more »

Smartwatches aren’t really known for being sexy, although this trend is starting to be corrected by the likes of the Moto 360 and the OnePlus One Watch.

Well it looks like HP is entering the smartwatch game, with a smartwatch that classes is up above all current offerings. Read more »

The Moto X has been getting a lot of love for it’s Moto Maker custom phone option, but what about customzing the main “strictly” Google phone- the Nexus 5?

Well Big G isn’t letting you change the body of the phone, but Google will be serving up customized cases for its latest Nexus phone with an upcoming service called Google Workshop. Read more »

Are you a Windows Phone user who’s been jealous of all the BBM love iPhone and Android and owners have been receiving lately?

Well you’re in luck as the Canadian tech manufacturer has just released the BBM beta for Windows Phone. Read more »

Motorola announced the Android Wear running Moto 360, but was mum about a lot of details, including a launch date. The company also showed a bunch of photos of the smartwatch, on which it appears to be made of metal. Well, not so fast with the conclusions.

The latest rumors have it that the phone will actually be made out of plastic. Additionally, because of the wireless charging feature, the Moto 360 is rumored to be 13.5mm thick. In comparison, it’s brethren the LG G Watch and Samsung Gear Live are 9.9mm and 8.9mm thick, respectively. Read more »

If for some reason you went with the Verizon version of the LG G Pad 8.3 instead of the Google Play edition, you will be glad to know that the device is now getting the KitKat update.

The G Pad gets the usual set of improvements that come with the KitKat update, both under the hood and in terms of UI. It also gets the useful Knock Code feature found on LG’s newer smartphones (and something you won’t find on the GPe). Read more »

The iFixit team has decided to do a teardown on the Galaxy S5′s little brother and see if the similarities on the outside continue with the internal design too.

And as you can probably guess, Samsung didn’t feel the need to rethink everything from scratch and the Galaxy S5 Mni shares the same negative and positive repair traits as its bigger sibling. Read more »

The round smartwatch field may heat up very quickly – Motorola is taking its sweet time to put the Moto 360 on sale, while Samsung has already patented three round smartwatch designs. OnePlus may also throw its hat in the ring as there are already 3D renderings for promo material of the OneWatch.

A photo of what appears to be the product page of the OneWatch along with some sketches reveal the smartwatch’s specifications and that it might be close to ready. Read more »

Samsung has patented three new smartwatch designs, all of which have a rounded display instead of that on their well-known rectangular Gear smartwatches.

The patent number is US D709,873 S and covers the design of three smartwatches with slightly different displays and straps. All of them feature a camera on the strap, which may indicate the use of Tizen OS over Android Wear. Read more »

The HTC Desire 616 dual sim is like a smaller version of the Desire 816 but it has an attention-grabbing octa-core processor. And the processor has eight Cortex-A7 cores instead of big.LITTLE architecture.

The Desire 616 has a large screen for a mid-ranger but with 720p resolution it won’t be fighting flagships any time soon. This fits the style of smartphone popular in East Asia – screen size takes precedence over resolution, dual-SIM is a must and the more cores the better. Read more »

You own a Galaxy Gear and need to get somewhere but don’t know the way. While Google Maps integrates with Android Wear, your Tizen-powered Samsung Gear smartwatch can’t use Android Wear apps. How to get out of this conundrum? The free D.M.A. Navi Watch app.

The app still uses Google Maps for navigation, but transfers the notifications put out by Maps onto your wrist. Read more »

We talked about the Bolt service a few days back. The app is now officially available on iOS and Android, but only in New Zealand, Singapore, and South Africa for now.

Bolt lets you have a group of close friends that you can instantly send photos or videos to. Just tap on their contact name and it takes a photo and sends it. You can press and hold on the contact name to send a video. Just like with Snapchat, the photos and videos are not sent and are removed from your device when you swipe them away. Read more »