Samsung has set a new world record for the highest number of selfies taken in 24 hours. Following the launch of it’s Galaxy A5 and Galaxy A3 handsets in the South African cities of Johannesburg and Cape Town, the South Korean company invited people to use the two devices and take selfies.

A total of 12,803 selfies were taken with the company’s Galaxy A series devices, which was 3,000 more than the previous record. Read more »

On March 1 Samsung is set to unveil its next flagship smartphone, which it will probably call the Galaxy S6. This is obviously one of the most hotly anticipated devices of the year, and because of that we’ve heard a lot of rumors about it recently. Some of them have even brought us pictures of such things as the phone’s metal frame. And now someone has decided to use all the information in the most recent rumors and leaks to create a few renders of what the Galaxy S6 might end up looking like.

So do keep in mind that these aren’t leaked images actually depicting the handset. Instead, they are renders that were created to give us an idea about its design, assuming of course that the rumors would pan out. Read more »

Here’s something that bloatware haters are going to, well, hate. OnePlus has just announced that the next over-the-air update for its One smartphone will come with the SwiftKey keyboard preinstalled. This means that people who would like to try that app but for some reason haven’t yet downloaded it from the Play Store will now get to do just that.

On the other hand, if you don’t like SwiftKey, you’ll now have to live with it on your OnePlus One, since there probably won’t be an easy way to uninstall it. At least it won’t be selected as the default input method – those who want to try it will have to enable it from the dedicated Settings menu first. Read more »

US retailer BestBuy is now offering the HTC One (M7) off contract for $149.99. The store is obviously clearing its inventory as a preparation for the launch of the HTC One (M9) in a month’s time.

The device is available for both AT&T and Verizon and is more than a decent phone for the money considering there’s a no long-term contract to sign. Not to mention, that HTC is working on an Android 5.0 Lollipop update for the phone as well. Read more »

This is the Samsung Galaxy J1 – the latest entry-level offer by the company that’s set to headline Samsung’s low end on the market.

The phone is set to be priced very attractively and will come in three hardware versions – two will have a 64-bit Marvel Armada Mobile chipset with either single or dual-SIM options and the one we have with us here – a Spreadtrum chip with dual-core 1.2GHz processor and dual-SIM abilities. Read more »

OnePlus, the Chinese team behind the famous OnePlus One smartphone is definitely no stranger to promotions. After a more than interesting social-retail campaign for Black Friday and another one for the company’s one year anniversary the team is now happy to announce that their Twitter account officially reached 200,000 followers.

Naturally this is an opportunity to celebrate and what better way than giving out 20,000 free invites to purchase the OnePlus One handset. The small, start-up style company has been battling to handle the massive interest towards their device by implementing an invite purchase system. The smartphone is also available through outer retailers, but the price is usually a bit higher. On rare occasion like this you have a chance to snatch one straight from the source. Read more »

The Burj Al Arab silhouette has become iconic for Dubai and the self-titled “world’s only 7 star hotel” celebrated its 15th anniversary (it opened December 1999). Instead of 15 candles on a cake, the Burj went with 15 bespoke gold iPhones.

Crafted by Gold & Co London (which had previously supplied the hotel with golden iPads), the commemorative iPhone 6 units come in Yellow and Black Gold. Read more »

In the past, Samsung has hosted its Unpacked events at Mobile World Congress (MWC) as well as in the US, but this time around, that won’t be the case, as the South Korean company has confirmed that there will be no US-based Unpacked event this year.

In a statement to Sammobile, the tech giant said, “Samsung has no plans to host an Unpacked event in the US,” adding that those who are not traveling to MWC, can watch the event via livestream at youtube.com/SamsungMobile. Read more »

Xiaomi is going after the iPhone 6 Plus with its Mi Note and Mi Note Pro phablets, that’s clear. The Chinese company obviously thinks its offerings are superior to Apple’s, and it’s now put out a new video meant to drive that point home.

In it, we can see Xiaomi President and co-founder Bin Lin musing about how his company has a patented new solution which ensures there are no protruding cameras on its phones’ backs. Read more »

Chinese smartphone manufacturer Oppo has launched a new global mobile photography contest that gives participants a chance to share their stories with photographs. Dubbed It’s Your Turn, the three-week contest centers on three themes: “Selfie Showdown”, “Our World”, and “Inspiring Moments”, and will see winners getting the company’s N3 smartphone.

To take part in the contest, you can either directly visit the contest’s official page or share your photos on social media websites like Facebook. “The Facebook accounts of OPPO’s global and country sites will share photos uploaded by participants on a regular basis,” the company said. Read more »

The Samsung Galaxy A3 passed our review gauntlet with ease and now its time to take a closer look at the phone’s battery life performance. This is one of the thinnest Android smartphones the company has ever made, so the battery isn’t really huge – 1,900mAh.

However, the phone doesn’t sport battery hungry specifications either. We have a 4.5″ Super AMOLED qHD display and a Snapdragon 410 chipset with a quad-core Cortex-A53 CPU. It all sounds like a classic recipe for a solid battery life, so let’s dig right in and see if this is the case. Read more »

Xiaomi Redmi 2 stopped by recently and we did what as we always do – a thorough hardware and software inspection for our traditional in-depth review. The Redmi 2, unlike its Redmi 1S predecessor, is a dual-SIM device with LTE connectivity, courtesy of the Snapdragon 410 chip inside the newcomer.

The Redmi 2 battery has 10% higher capacity, while the display and overall performance have been kept the same. We are eager to check how the new hardware and MIUI v.6 are doing with the 2,200 mAh battery unit. Read more »

In the last week of January we saw the introduction of a wave of new phones from major players in the industry. Motorola, ZTE, HTC, Asus, Samsung and Meizu outed smartphones to compete in the mid-range and upper mid-range segments.

So now, it’s only logical to ask you which one got your interest most. Motorola outed the Moto G 4G (2015) on Friday, but throughout the week we welcomed the ZTE Blade 6, HTC Desire 526G+, Asus Zenfone C, Samsung Galaxy J1 and Meizu m1 to our database. Read more »

Windows 10, the embodiment of the One Windows concept Microsoft is keen to pursue, appears to be uniting users as well. Our weekly poll results are in, and paint a picture of future success for the Redmond giant.

The all-important new OS carries a lot of weight on its shoulders and needs to succeed if Microsoft is to stand a chance at more than marginal presence in the smartphone world. The dominant position in the desktop market seems stable but shouldn’t be taken for granted. Read more »

Most major manufacturers recently rolled out the Android 5.0 Lollipop update to their respective flagships and we were more then eager to test how their performance has changed now that Lollipop is here. The speed comparison will be done on our usual battery of synthetic benchmarks.

So, does Lollipop improve performance or make it worse? Read on to find out. Read more »