Xiaomi’s Redmi 1S – known as the Hongmi 1S in China – comes with a competitive blend of ultra-low price and capable midrange specs sheet.

Placed under the company’s new Mi 4 flagship, it provides a 4.7-inch 720p LCD display alongside a quad-core 1.6GHz Snapdragon 400 chipset. Read more »

Huawei has thrown in everything and the kitchen sink into their latest Ascend Mate7 phablet, and we’ve got our hands on one fresh off its IFA 2014 announcement.

We’ll be giving you a full tour of its metal-clad unibody and instant fingerprint sensor tech on video, alongside some samples from its 13MP shooter. Read more »

Alongside its long anticipate Moto G2, Moto X+1 and Moto 360, the company also revealed its latest Bluetooth headphone accessory called the Moto Hint.

The Moto Hint, however, doesn’t look anything like the traditional in-ear Bluetooth headset we’ve got used to. It’s very small and subtle in-ear piece, which barely sticks out of your earlobe. Naturally, we were eager to see the compact earbud in action. Read more »

Smartwatches are all the rage here at IFA 2014 with Asus, Samsung and Sony getting in the mix and now LG has shown its first rounded smartwatch – the G Watch R.

It has a rounded watch face complete with a 1.3″ rounded POLED (plastic organic light-emitting diode) display, Snapdragon 400 chipset and a battery that will reportedly be able to endure for one day and a half to two days with the always on feature enabled. Read more »

Yesterday Samsung was set to unearth the latest Note smartphone but instead of one showed two – the Galaxy Note 4 and Galaxy Note Edge.

Both are pretty interesting and innovative and whichever one you might like more it doesn’t really matter as we’re showing you our hands-on videos with both, in case you’ve missed our in-depth coverage of Samsung’s UNPACKED event yesterday. Read more »

This is Sony’s latest mini – the Xperia Z3 Compact – and it has a good claim one the title for the best portable smartphone on the market. As such it will pose a serious threat to Samsung’s Galaxy Alpha and the coveted Apple iPhone 6, to name a few.

Last year’s Xperia Z1 Compact was a first in many ways and carved a name for itself as a device that doesn’t want to be considered a mini in anything but the size and a company that doesn’t shy away from a challenge. Read more »

The HTC Desire 510 is the company’s latest price conscious smartphone entry that sits somewhere between entry-level and midrange in HTCs lineup.

It features a 4.7-inch display of a paltry 580 x 854px resolution, but is one of the first smartphones to run on Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 410 processor, featuring integrated 64-bit processing alongside 4G LTE technology. Read more »

The Sony Xperia M2 Aqua was announced only recently and as the name suggests, it’s a water-resistant version of the Sony Xperia M2.

Mostly this is the same phone but there are some differences which we’ll discuss here. For starters the phone now offers IP68 certification for staying in up to 1.5m deep water for 30 minutes and it’s fully dust proofed. Read more »

Lenovo announced its Vibe Z2 Pro high-end smartphone at the end of July and the device is set to make an appearance at IFA 2014 in Berlin next week. Luckily, you won’t have to wait until then to find out our initial impressions of the 6” QHD monster, as we got to spend some quality time with the phablet a little early.

The Lenovo Vibe Z2 Pro also marks the company’s high-end entrance in Europe and is its first smartphone with a QHD display. Read more »

We managed to spend some quality time with the Sharp Aquos Crystal for Sprint Wireless. Announced earlier today, the budget-friendly smartphone marks the return of the Japanese manufacturer in the United States.

Despite its sleek looks, which suggest a high price tag, the Sharp Aquos Crystal for Sprint is quite affordable. Read more »

The Samsung Galaxy Alpha made quite a stir this week as the first Samsung device not to rely entirely on polycarbonate in its body. Not only that, but Samsung has also kept the dimensions well within limits, and its 4.7-inch display and ultra-slim 6.7mm waistline put it firmly in compact smartphone territory.

In our latest poll we’ll be pitting the Alpha against the usual suspects, including offerings from LG and HTC, its Galaxy S5 mini compatriot, and the original small-stature droid, the Sony Xperia Z1 Compact. Read more »

The Samsung Galaxy Alpha branches off the Galaxy S line. It brings the same flagship experience but in a more compact and, more importantly, a more premium body. The Galaxy phones (all of them) use practical plastic instead of expensive and heavy metal.

The Galaxy Alpha has a metal frame and still manages to be surprisingly light – just 115g. Read more »

The Samsung Galaxy Alpha uses a 4.7″ Super AMOLED display with 720p resolution and 312ppi pixel density. That’s a first for a Samsung phone – the Galaxy S III was a 4.8″ 720p screen while the Galaxy S5 mini has a 4.5″ 720p screen, both close but not the same. A rumored Galaxy S5 Neo is expected to use Alpha’s screen.

Anyway, the latest generation of Super AMOLED boasts improved sunlight legibility and color accuracy along with reduced power usage. As usual viewing angles are stunning. Read more »

Another Xperia smartphone landed in our office this week. We’ve already met the Xperia T2 Ultra, Xperia Z2 and Xperia M2, but we were also eager to check out what the Xperia T3 has to offer. And now we got the chance to give you a glimpse of what to expect in our in-depth review.

The Sony Xperia T3 packs a 5.3″ IPS display of 720p resolution and is powered by the popular mid-range Snapdragon 400 chipset. Sony has provided the Xperia T3 with an 8MP ExmorRS camera sensor and the phone comes with the Android 4.4.2 KitKat OS out of the box. Read more »

The day finally came when Samsung unleashed a powerful mini to go along with its flagship smartphone. The Galaxy S5 mini isn’t just an under-powered lookalike of the Galaxy S5 but retains most of what makes the S5 one of the most desirable smartphones on the market, only in a more pocketable form factor.

Samsung has gone with a bigger 4.5″ display (compared to the 5.1″ of the Galaxy S5 and the 4.3″ of the Galaxy S4 mini) but more importantly, it has still bundled the mini with a superb Super AMOLED panel. The fingerprint scanner and IR blaster are here as well and so is the water resistance – yay! Read more »