Free from Microsoft influence, Nokia quickly reoriented and made its HERE maps available on Samsung devices. And it would have you know it’s so much better than Google Maps where the offline mode is “a glorified screenshot.”

Google is an Internet company so offline mode was never much of a priority, while Nokia has been offering navigation software on its phones since less than 10 people had mobile Internet. Read more »

Samsung has released a second video of the Galaxy Note 4 testing facilities and it shows the phone in a series of comprehensive drop tests. While in the previous video, Samsung focused on bending the Note 4, here the company goes medieval on it with hundreds of drop and tumble tests.

Surprisingly, the Galaxy Note 4 walks out of all of them with the screen intact and working perfectly. The video doesn’t focus on any visual damage that the tests might’ve caused, but having the Note 4 work at the end is impressive. Read more »

At today’s announcement event, HTC is expected to unveil an action camera in addition to a new smartphone. The latest teaser of the upcoming camera (to be called Re judging by the name of the channel) is now out and it’s called “Catching air”.

The teaser is short and sweet and indicates a wide angle lens on the Re camera. The camera in the video isn’t shown, but as we’ve seen before, it looks like a toy periscope. Read more »

Google released a standalone News & Weather application for iOS. Available for download in the App Store, the app joins the rest of Google’s already extensive range of apps for Apple’s mobile platform.

Google News & Weather for iOS delivers coverage from 65,000 publications. Read more »

CyanogenMod 11 is now unofficially available for Android One devices. The ultra-popular custom ROM for Android made its way to the lineup of entry-level devices thanks to a crafty member of XDA Developers.

As is the case with most early unofficial ports, some hardware features of the MediaTek device are not ready for prime time just yet. Read more »

The Nvidia GeForce GTX 980M and GTX 970M went official today offering superior performance over the Kepler series of GPU they replace. The GTX 980M and and GTX 970M use the company’s latest Maxwell graphics architecture, which also powers the company’s latest desktop GPU line-up.

Thanks to the Maxwell architecture, the two mobile GPUs are more power efficient and offer greater performance. The GTX 980M and GTX 970M feature 1536 and 1280 CUDA cores, respectively. Naturally, the GTX 980 is the more powerful one with a GPU base clock of 1038MHz, while the 970M is clocked at 924MHz. Read more »

Asus announced the ZenWatch in September and promised it will hit store shelves in Taiwan in November. Sadly, however, according to information obtained by VR-Zone sources, Asus will offer the smartwatch in extremely limited quantities at launch.

If the information turns out to be true, then we wouldn’t keep our breath for Asus to release the ZenWatch outside Taiwan any time soon. There’s no additional information as to what is holding the company back to launch the wearable at this time. Read more »

The Tizen-based Samsung Gear S now has its very own full web browser thanks to Opera.

The Opera Mini will allow you to browse the internet on your wrists and has the familiar features – mobile compression that shrinks pages to as little as 10% of their original size and speed dial with your recent pages. Read more »

Logitech has unveiled a rugged, MIL-STD rated battery case with versions for both the Samsung Galaxy S5 and the old Apple iPhone 5 and 5s. The case is appropriately named “protection [+] power” and comes in Gray/Black and White/Blue.

A MIL-STD-810G rating does not include water resistance but it means the device can survive drops on hard concrete from 1.2 meters. Read more »

The Samsung Galaxy Note 4 is currently available for purchase in some parts of Asia, but a more broader launch is yet to happen. Nevertheless, long-time Android developer Chainfire has released a way to root the phablet.

The root method currently works on the following Galaxy Note 4 variants – SM-N910C and SM-N910U with Exynos 5433 and the SM-N9106W launched in China with the Snapdragon 805 chipset. Read more »

Last week we wanted your take on another device released last month at IFA – the Sony Xperia Z3, and how it stacks up against the current crop of Android flagship competition.

The stylish aluminum frame, dual-glass panel design and IP68 waterproof certification was enough to put it ahead of devices like the HTC One (M8) and Samsung Galaxy S5. Let’s take a look at the scores. Read more »

With the launch of the Samsung Galaxy Note 4 already under way, the Korean giant released a new promo video starring the phablet. The two-minute long clip focuses on one of the device’s key selling points –its S Pen.

Samsung Galaxy Note 4 features enhanced S Pen. Read more »

The Samsung Gear VR virtual reality headset could finally be released on December 1, at least in South Korea. That’s what a leaked document, purported to have originated at Samsung’s customer service department, claims.

Furthermore, we even get a price to speak of. In Samsung’s home country, the Gear VR will apparently go for KRW 200,000 (which is approximately $187 or €148 at the current exchange rates). Read more »

Adobe has launched a new video editing app for iOS today. It’s called Premiere Clip and it’s basically a mobile-friendly interpretation of Premiere Pro, the company’s desktop video editor.

Adobe Premiere Clip is created with the mainstream user in mind, and not just video professionals. It’s a bit similar to iMovie, allowing you to trim and arrange bits, filter your video, as well as add transitions and effects – though these are rather basic compared to what you can do on a computer. Read more »

This sure took a while, but Facebook is now officially the owner of WhatsApp. The social network agreed to buy the mobile messaging service on February 20, shocking the tech world by offering $19 billion for that privilege.

All the regulatory hurdles have now been cleared, so WhatsApp is finally part of Facebook. Read more »