Nexus 6, YotaPhone

Nexus 6, YotaPhone 2 get big price cuts in the UK

July 2nd, 2015, 17:24 by Ansh 8 comments

Following Motorola’s UK summer sale, which saw the Nexus 6 smartphone being offered on discounted rates, Google has also slashed the price of the handset in the country.

The 32GB and 64GB models of the device – which usually sell for £479 and £549 – are now listed at £304 and £379 on the Google Play Store. It is, however, not yet known whether or not it’s a temporary price cut as Google hasn’t yet officially announced it.
Meanwhile, the YotaPhone 2 is also available at a discounted rate in the UK, where online retailer Clove is selling the SIM-free version for a total of £399, which translates into a saving of £57 on its regular price – the deal is valid till stock lasts. The handset is available for £440 from the company’s official online store, while Amazon UK has it listed for £535.

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HTC has people ‘blind test

           HTC has people ‘blind test’ the One M9 compared to its competitors in new ads

July 3rd, 2015, 20:30 by Vlad 67 comments

Blind tests have now reached mobile device related marketing. HTC has taken exactly this approach in three new ads for its One M9. The handset maker’s representative has regular people test three aspects of smartphone use by using three devices which are fully covered by big, bulky cases – so as not to give away what they are.

If you’ve guessed that the HTC One M9 wins every single one of these tests, you were right, amazingly. App opening speed? Check. Sound quality? Check. Low-light selfies? Check.

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Oppo R7 battery life test

July 5th, 2015, 14:29 by Kyle 30 comments

Oppo R7 is quite an interesting smartphone, which upgrades on the super thin Oppo R5. The new R7 brings back the 3.5mm jack and adds extra battery capacity at the price of 1.4mm of extra thickness. We also get dual-SIM connectivity, a microSD expansion slot, a higher-res selfie camera and enhanced rear snapper this time around.

The Oppo R7 keeps the same key hardware specs – a 5″ AMOLED 1080p display, the same Snapdragon 615 chip, this time around with 3GB of RAM, and runs on the aging Android KitKat. The older Oppo R5 returned a disappointing endurance rating and we hope Oppo managed to fix this issue for the successor.
Our first test gauges the 3G talk time performance. The Oppo R7 did splendid with an excellent endurance of 23 hours. That’s double the R5 rating and then some.

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Get your hands on a factory unlocked

           Get your hands on a factory unlocked Samsung Galaxy S6 for $499.99 on eBay

July 7th, 2015, 05:21 by Stefan 27 comments

If you are looking for to buy a Samsung Galaxy S6, now might be a good time. A an eBay power seller in the United States is offering a factory unlocked G920F variant of the handset for $499.99.

Of course, the above mentioned price tag will land you a 32GB version of the Korean giant’s flagship smartphone. There are three colors available at the moment – white, black, and blue. International shipping is also available.
While 32GB of non-expandable memory might not sound like much, it is still a whole lot better than the 16GB that an entry-level Apple iPhone will offer you. You can find out all about the Samsung Galaxy S6 in our detailed review of the device. 

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Samsung is shaving $200 off the Galaxy Note 4′s full price until July 26

July 7th, 2015, 21:15 by Vlad 36 comments

If you’re in the US and are after Samsung’s top of the line phablet at the moment, here’s a deal that might interest you. The Korean smartphone maker has started a new promotion in the States today, one that will last until July 26.

It goes something like this. You purchase a Galaxy Note 4 at full retail price, and then Samsung will give you back $200 out of what you paid.
There’s a limit of 3 claimed offers per household. And as mentioned you do need to first buy the device, paying the full price for it. You then go to the special website Samsung has set up for the occasion, enter your details (with the phone in hand), submit your receipt, and then wait for the money to come in the form of a rebate check that will be mailed to you approximately 8 weeks after your claim is verified.
But if you have nothing against jumping through these hoops, you can get what is essentially a pretty big discount for what’s still a rather expensive device. You can apparently “purchase at a participating carrier or national retailer of your choice”. Do note that for whatever reason handsets bought from US Cellular and Sprint aren’t eligible for the offer.

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Oppo Find 7 and Find 7a get big price cuts in the US until July 14

July 8th, 2015, 19:48 by Vlad 1 comments

Oppo’s Find 7 and Find 7a aren’t new devices anymore, as they were last year’s flagships for the Chinese company. That said, Oppo is still selling them, but at a steep discount – at least if you choose to buy one before July 14.

This applies if you’re in the US and order from Oppo’s official online store. If so, you can purchase a Find 7a for only $289, and the higher-end Find 7 for just $329.
To put these numbers in perspective, consider that the initial selling price for the Find 7 was $620, while the Find 7a went for no less than $549. Of course, time has passed and the two handsets aren’t top of the line anymore. However, they’re still plenty capable given that last year they were Oppo’s premier offerings. Both smartphones come with free shipping from Oppo’s US warehouse, so waiting times shouldn’t be excessive after you’ve placed an order.
The duo share a lot of specs, such as the Qualcomm Snapdragon 801 chipset, 13 MP rear camera with LED flash, 5 MP front-facing unit, and the screen size: 5.5″. That said, the Find 7 has QHD resolution, 3GB of RAM, 32 GB of built-in storage, and a 3,000 mAh battery, whereas the Find 7a has to make do with 1080p, 2GB of RAM, 16GB of space, and a 2,800 mAh cell.

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Posted in: Android, Desktop software, Mobile phones, Mobile software, Windows

Asus ZenFone 2 can run Windows 7 in case you really need it to

July 10th, 2015, 02:00 by Stefan 24 comments

The latest smartphone that can boot an OS it will likely never need is Asus ZenFone 2. A crafty XDA Developers member ported Microsoft Windows 7 to the Intel Atom-based smartphone.

The desktop OS was ported on the ZE551ML variant of the ZenFone 2. Windows 7 runs on the smartphone as an aSPICE KVM virtual machine.
The desktop OS runs a tad slow on the mobile device, but is still surprisingly usable. See it in action below.
As you have probably guessed by now, getting Windows 7 to run on your ZenFone 2 is not a casual exercise. You will need to root your device, keep its bootloader unlocked, as well as install a number of additional tools on it before you can even get started.
A large capacity microSD card is also recommended alongside a partitioner for it. The whole exercise is explained in detail at the source link below. 

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