We have seen some leaked panels of what is allegedly the low-cost version of the iPhone that Apple is expected to announce later this year, along with the successor to the iPhone 5. The panels give a fair idea of what the device might look like but leave you wanting for a better look.

Mac Rumors probably felt the same way so they decided to go ahead and get high resolution renderings made from the images that have been leaked so far. What you see above is not real but if the leaks were authentic, this is pretty much what you can expect to see from Apple later this year. Read more »

The Samsung Galaxy S4 Active has been around for almost two weeks now, so it was about time someone came up with a root solution for it. Fortunately, the hacker was kind enough to share his work with the rest of us, so now everyone can get superuser privileges on their IP-certified flagship.

The root tool is made by the popular hacker Geohot and is as simple as visiting a website. Read more »

The Samsung Galaxy S4 LTE-A edition with the Snapdragon 800 chip inside is understandable getting the attention of all benchmark-loving geeks. The smartphone was already put through its paces in a couple of benchmarks last week, but today, another batch of benchmarks has surfaced showing what the Adreno 320 GPU is capable of.

The benchmarks that were used are GFX Bench 2.7, Epic Citadel, AnTuTu 3D, and 3DMark benchmark, The Wi-Fi adapter in the phone was put through some testing as well to see if supports higher speeds than its Snapdragon 600 and Octa variations. Read more »

The International Design Excellence Awards (IDEA) recognized a number of gadgets from the mobile world for pushing design forward. Nokia nabbed two Gold awards, HTC got one and so did the emergency SpareOne phone (that works on a single AA battery).

Nokia scored two gold awards, one for its Lumia range – specifically the Lumia 920, 820 and 620, the first batch of Nokia’s second-gen Lumias – and one for its overall colors and materials strategy. Read more »

The Samsung Galaxy S4 Active is a the water resistant version of the regular S4 and just like it has a Snapdragon 600 chipset with the four Krait 300 cores clocked at 1.9GHz and a 2,600mAh battery.

But the two differ on one key factor for the battery test – the screen. AMOLED and LCDs both have their strengths and weaknesses, so let’s see which one does better when you draw the line. Read more »

Nokia put out a new ad for the Lumia 925 in the UK and it looks very, very similar to the Lumia 928 ad we saw some time ago. Seriously, it includes most of the same shots, even though the phones aren’t exactly identical.

Both phones boast great low-light photography thanks to their Optical Image Stabilization and optimized sensors. Still, the 928 has xenon flash, which the Lumia 925 does not. Read more »

As one of the premier designers and manufacturers of rugged smartphone cases, Urban Armor Gear (UAG) has released a quartet of cases for the Samsung Galaxy S4. Available in four different colors, the covers feature a patented design with a hard outer shell and soft, impact-resistant core.

I spent some quality time with the UAG Aero and Navigator cases for the Samsung Galaxy S4. Finished in dark blue and white respectively, the duo features the same design, construction and functionality. Hit the break to learn more about the Urban Armor Gear offerings! Read more »

The Samsung Galaxy S4 has won two award from UK consumer research company Which?. It found that Samsung’s Android flagship is not only the fastest smartphone currently on sale, but also the one with the best battery life.

Which? determined this by running the Geekbench 2 benchmark on selected smartphones. The Galaxy S4 got on top with 3188 points with the HTC One sitting in the second place with 2798. Read more »

When Google’s Hugo Barra announced at the Google I/O 2013 that the Samsung Galaxy S4 will be offered directly from the Play Store as a “Google Play Edition” device running stock Android, many people got really excited. Later on, HTC also jumped on the bandwagon with the HTC One, giving you a choice between two excellently spec’d smartphones that offer the Nexus experience.

As planned, the devices went on sale on June 26 and almost immediately, an alleged Galaxy S4 I9505G unit was discovered that runs on the yet unannounced Android 4.3 Jelly Bean instead of the official Android 4.2.2 Jelly Bean. Shortly after, a ROM that any regular Galaxy S4 owner with a Snapdragon 600 (yes, including the regular TouchWiz version) can flash popped up. Read more »

Nokia may have just snatched a Guinness record away from Sony – for the video wall made up of most smartphones. Using 200 Nokia Lumia 820 phones, Nokia Developer Champion Rudy Huyn created the installation and showcased it at the Microsoft BUILD conference. Sony’s wall was made up of 196 Xperia ZL phones.

The phones were arranged in 8 rows of 25 phones and were all controlled from a single Lumia phone. Together, they showed an animated display of live tiles for a selection of Windows Phone apps and also an interactive map with Bing Maps. Read more »

The newly announced Samsung Galaxy S4 LTE-A packs a fast Snapdragon 800 chipset (early benchmarks look great) and an LTE-Advanced modem, allowing downloads of up to 150Mbps. That’s faster than the regular S4, but by how much? Samsung posted a video putting the two head to head to demonstrate the difference.

The tests were run in different locations and times of day. The two smartphones had to download different files – install an app from the Play Store or download a large video file. Read more »

Along with its launch on the Google Play store, the kernel source code for the HTC One “Google Edition” has been released on HTCDev.

Also revealed is that the device won’t be receiving its Android updates directly from Google, since it is not technically a Nexus device. Read more »

Today at its Build developer conference, Microsoft released the preview of the Windows 8.1 update and it is now available for users to download and try out.

The update brings a lot of changes to Windows 8 in an effort to improve the experience and fix the stuff that people have been complaining about. The major one of them is the removal of the Start button in Windows 8. Happily, it’s back in Windows 8.1 Read more »

To capitalize on its global rollout on June 24, Nokia has launched a new TV ad for its latest featurephone, the Nokia Asha 501.

Perhaps the most eye-catching aspect of the Asha 501 is its numerous garish color schemes, which Nokia shows off in their latest ad. We can’t help but get reminded of those old iPod commercials – except in color. Read more »

The Xperia Z Ultra was announced yesterday and we were quick on our feet on giving you an extensive hands-on of Sony’s phablet. However, we simply didn’t have the time to film the smartphone on camera as extensively as we’d liked. Luckily, Lutz Herkner of Mobilewatch managed to get a prototype of the device and give it a thorough hands-on treatment.

Covering all the basics, Herkner goes through all the major features and gives valuable insight on each of them. There’s even a detailed screen comparison between the Xperia Z Ultra’s 6.4″ 1080p TFT Triluminos display and Xperia Z’s 5″ 1080p TFT display. Read more »