LG is launching the Watch Urbane LTE in South Korea on LG U+ tomorrow. The watch will cost KRW 650,000 ($590/€540) and will come with a contract for KRW 10,000 a month ($9/€8.3).

With it you’ll get 50 minutes of voice calls – the Urbane LTE can do regular and VoLTE calls – 250 messages and 250MB of data. Read more »

When Apple unveiled its smartwatch, it promised it for “early 2015.” The current launch target is set for late April, but Chinese publication UDN reports that there are still issues that will cut the production rate in half.

Production issues for the Apple Watch started early in its life, the early ones surrounded the difficult to source sapphire lens. Now, the display below is reportedly causing headaches. Read more »

There are two types of smartwatches these days – ones with plenty of features and little battery life and ones that have it the other way around. A new company called Vector is aiming for the middle ground by launching two models that promise 30 days battery life without sacrificing too many features.

The Vector Luna and Meridian will work with Android, iOS and Windows Phone, beating even the Pebble in compatibility. Read more »

In late 2013 Nokia pulled the plug on its Here Maps for iOS because, well, it just wasn’t very good. After a successful launch on Android, Nokia has brought its app back to iOS and this time it’s built from the ground up for a great, native experience (the old one was a packaged HTML5 app).

The new app comes with all the bells and whistles, including offline navigation and public transport. Read more »

The battery charge in your phone is diminishing and so are the animals of an endangered species. Samsung is trying to tackle both with its new Animal Edition Battery Packs.

They will come in two sizes – 8,400mAh and 11,300mAh – and only one level of cute: very. Read more »

Apple doesn’t offer gold iPhones, but there are specialized companies that will gold plate you one and sprinkle diamonds. The Apple Watch does come in gold, however that one is hugely expensive. Can those companies gild a relatively affordable version of the Watch?

Of course they can! Read more »

Samsung is going through some rougher times than it’s used to with sales last year falling 9.8%. According to an audit report, Samsung Electronics will be increasing its research and development (R&D) budget around 7.4% to KRW 15.3 trillion, that is $13.8 billion.

The company will be spending over a billion dollars a month for R&D this year. Another way to look at it, 7.4% of sales go to R&D. That’s the most Samsung had ever spent on developing new products. Read more »

While there were two high-profile flagship smartphones at the MWC, there’s no denying that wearables stole the show. A leak shows that Oppo wants in on the action and is developing an LG Watch Urbane like wearable with a round display.

The company reportedly has a solution to the battery life issues that plague most smartwatches – super fast charging. Read more »

Google’s social network may not be doing so well, but the company hasn’t given up on connecting people. The latest venture is Google Contacts – an online address book. It’s still in the preview stages but you can try it out today (unless you are a Google Apps user).

Contacts pools together info from your phone’s contact list and your contacts’ Google profiles. Read more »

iOS 8 adoption got off to a slow start – it took three weeks to achieve 40% share. iOS 6 and 7 before took only a week to hit 50%. Now, close to half a year after iOS 8 was unleashed to the public, it has clawed its way up to 75%, Apple says.

Version 8 has already had one minor update (v8.1) with the next one (v8.2) expected in about a week and the one after that (v8.3) already seeding to developers. Read more »

Sources claim that Google is working on iOS support for its Android Wear smartwatch platform, which couldn’t come sooner with the Apple Watch launch.

In the meantime several developers have created their own solutions. Read more »

Samsung had a dimly lit setup to test the low-light performance of the Galaxy S6‘s new camera. With a Galaxy Note Edge and a Apple iPhone 6 on hand we snapped a couple of shots.

The idea is simple – a dark box with two holes just big enough to poke the camera of a phone. Read more »

The Pebble team is playing Kickstarter like a fiddle – just as the campaign was losing steam after the explosive growth of the first 24 hours, the Pebble Time Steel was announced. This should inject the campaign with a fresh dose of enthusiasm, but will also draw in people who were holding out for the inevitable all-metal version.

Current backers needn’t be jealous though, they have the option to upgrade to the Time Steel if they are okay with the price premium. Read more »

The Google Play Store turned three today and is celebrating by slashing prices on select items in its catalog up to 90%.

Technically, the Play Store was born on March 6 2012 when Google combined the Android Market with Google Music, Google Videos and Google Books into the unified Play Store. Read more »

Samsung is best known for its phones these days, but behind the successful Galaxy line are huge component factories and R&D laboratories. The latest in their creations include a new 8MP ISOCELL selfie camera and a new NFC chip.

Both components tie into two of the biggest fashions in the mobile market – selfies and mobile payments. Read more »