We met the Sony Xperia Z1 Compact at CES, but now we’ve lured it into our office and right in front of the camera. This handset promises to revitalize the small, but premium phone market, going against the grain of the phablets and near-phablet handsets that have become the norm forAndroid flagships at the moment.

With a beautiful glass on aluminum frame design and compact dimensions, the Z1 Compact might be able to poach a few dedicated iPhone users. The waterproof rating and 20.7MP camera can’t hurt either. Read more »

Around this time last year, Sony enabled magnetic charging of its smart devices via pogo pins starting with its Xperia Z flagship.

Charging dock solutions have since been outed for several Sony smartphones since, with a newly leaked model, the DK36, being poised to serve an as-yet unannounced Xperia flagship. Read more »

The latest and greatest amongst the Asha lineup – the Asha 503 – has recently arrived at our office. As usual we unboxed it in front of a camera and then shot a short user interface walkthrough.

The Asha 503 introduces 3G connectivity to the series, while inheriting Asha 502′s 5MP camera with a LED flash. It also comes in a brand new glass-imitating shell, which is actually the familiar Asha design covered with an additional transparent layer of glossy plastic. Read more »

Morgan Stanley analyst, Katy Huberty predicts that 54-55 million iPhones have been sold in Q4 2013. If this is the case, then the iPhone could have very well had a record quarter.

The consensus on Wall Street is that Apple was able to move 53 million units of their popular smartphone; a slightly lower, but still overwhelmingly impressive number. Read more »

It looks like the US’ largest mobile carrier just got even larger: Verizon has reported that in the fourth quarter of 2013, they’ve added an impressive 1.7 million new customers to their service roster. This brings their total number of customers to a whopping 102.8 million.

Additionally, last year Verizon expanded its LTE network to cover pretty much all of its 3G network coverage area (over 99%, in fact) and bought back Vodafone’s 45 percent share of the company, so they’ve had a pretty busy year. Read more »

The Samsung Galaxy S5 is hot news these past couple of months – never mind that it’s not official. We’ve heard reports, whispers and even outright shouts about the upcoming flagship device and now, based on those, a Dutch website has created a render of the device, which we happen to find really hot.

The render is based on leaked information concerning the hardware but also the software of the device. It features an aluminum body, transparent TouchWiz on top of Android, the now familiar faux leather on the back and more. Read more »

The latest report from tech analyst firm Gartner for the Chinese market has predicted that some 443.5 million mobile phones will be sold in 2014, with 400 million of them being smartphones.

That equates to a 90% smartphone penetration rate, which could even go as high as 95%. With over 1 billion mobile phone users, China is quickly living up to its name as one of the premier developing mobile markets. It will continue to get more attention from smartphone manufacturers as penetration of smart devices continues to rise. Read more »

Are you obsessed with the performance of your smartphone and won’t be satisfied unless it beats out all others? If you’re looking for more detailed reports on your device’s performance, then you’ll be happy to hear that Rightware has released the latest iteration of their Benchmark OS software: Basemark OS II.

It’s designed to work with pretty much any Android, iOS, or Windows Phone device and it even offers online comparisons, so you can see how your handset stacks up against others.

Teemu Uotila, a Rightware employee had this to say about the latest update: Read more »

China-based mobile device manufacturer Huawei and Arsenal FC have announced a new global partnership through the 2015/2016 season.

This is the first partnership that the north London football club has had with a Chinese brand, with both Arsenal officials and players set to take part in communication and promotional activities in the UK and abroad. Read more »

Oppo has officially unveiled a new dark blue version of its flagship phablet, the Oppo N1. The device is now available in two color options – the original white and the newly introduced blue.

Apart from the new paintjob, the hardware specifications of the Oppo N1 are unchanged. Read more »

The Alcatel One Touch Hero phablet runs on power-efficient Cortex-A7 CPU cores, but that large 6″ screen with 1080p resolution puts a bigger demand on the battery than the 720p screens of its opposition.

Most competing phablets are single-SIM devices too, while the Alcatel One Touch Hero we’re testing is the dual-SIM version. Read more »

This is something new even for us. We have had cases of testing the same device with different Android version, but the Oppo N1 is the first smartphone that we’re going to test with two completely different Android ROMs. The phone sells with either Oppo’s own ColorOS or with CyanogenMod 10.2 out of the box and you are free to change between the two later on, too.

Originally, we tested the Oppo N1 with ColorUI based on Android 4.2.2 Jelly Bean. The 5.9″ smartphone did excellently, posting a 79 hours endurance rating. Now, it’s CyanogenMod’s turn with the perfect opportunity to demonstrate what its capable of when it comes to battery management. Read more »

Motorola gave a drastic price reduction to the natural wood finish back covers for the Moto X. The fashionable option for the smartphone now costs only $25 in Moto Maker, compared to $100 when initially announced last month.

In addition to the currently available bamboo finish for the Moto X, Motorola announced three new wood options on the way. Read more »

Acer announced today its last quarter financial results and they’ve turned up a lot worse than the company initially expected.

According to the financial report No.4 PC manufacturer based in Taiwan has accumulated $254 million (T$7.6 billion) net loss – twice the predicted $122.66 million (T$3.69 billion). Read more »

Motorola has launched five Grip Shell cases for the affordable Moto G. Available in royal blue, lemon lime, chalk, black and cherry, the cases are certainly going to get the phone noticed.

The accessory costs $19.99 and is sold directly from Motorola via their website. It’s ruggedized and snaps directly on the back of the Moto G as a replacement for the phone back cover. Read more »