Smartphone

Samsung is planning to unveil the Galaxy Note 5 and Galaxy S6 edge Plus on the same day, August 13, but only one of the devices will reach the international market.

Instead of focusing efforts on the Galaxy Note 5, as Samsung has done in previous years, the Galaxy S6 edge Plus will be the primary device. The Galaxy Note 5 will only be in select markets, where the Galaxy Note series has performed strongly before.

Even though it makes some very interesting products, HTC is not doing quite so well financially. The Taiwanese maker is struggling to attract consumers, who now have more options than ever in the smartphone market, especially in the value segment which is dominated by Chinese brands like Xiaomi.

To pique US consumers' interest, HTC has decided to offer some pretty impressive discounts on some of its most-popular products, the One M9 flagship, Google-branded Nexus 9 tablet and RE camera, as well as all of the accessories it sells.

One of the year's most anticipated smartphones, the One Plus 2, is finally here. Chinese smartphone manufacturer OnePlus announces today that it is releasing its new flagship. Successor to the "2014 flagship killer", the new phone has fans perking up their ears.

Much like its predecessor, the OnePlus 2 isn't a slouch when it comes to specifications. It sports a 5.5-inch display of FHD (1,920 x 1,080) screen resolution. The company says that anything beyond FHD display on a phone "adds nothing to the user experience". The device is powered by a second generation Snapdragon 810 processor, coupled with 4GB of LPDDR4 RAM and 64GB internal storage.

If you thought Google has been slacking lately with its Android One initiative, the company has a new smartphone that it hopes will have its fans perking up their ears. The company today launches Lava Pixel V1, a new Android One smartphone it made in collaboration with the Indian smartphone manufacturer. The pricing of the phone; however, disappoints.

Make no mistake, the Lava Pixel V1 is the most powerful Android One handset to-date. It sports a 5.5-inch HD (1,280x720 pixels) IPS display (up from FWVGA display in the first generation of Android One handsets). Underneath the handset sits a 1.3GHz quad-core MediaTek (MT6582) chipset coupled with 2GB of DDR3 RAM, and 32GB internal storage which can be expanded by another 32GB using a microSD card.

If you’ve been following the Samsung Galaxy Note 5 leaks for a while, you might already be able to get a clear idea of what you should expect. We still think that there might be some changes to the exact details of the upcoming flagship, but reports suggest that the next Note device might be released as soon as next month.

So, to set our expectations and also be able to get some surprises from the smartphone giant, here are the five things that you (and we too) should expect from Samsung’s new Note device.

Huawei is not, perhaps, a name that springs immediately to mind when you think about smartphones. But with this latest model the Chinese manufacturer is making a bid for a slice of the top end market dominated by the likes of the iPhone and Samsung Galaxy.

You get the impression of quality from the moment you receive it. It comes in a smart, black plastic box with a cardboard slip case; the phone sits in this with a shiny edge uppermost so it’s like opening a piece of jewelry.

OnePlus has been dropping hints on the OnePlus Two for a few months now, but one part we haven’t seen is the design. Chinese wireless regulator TENAA fixed that, by showing all four sides of the OnePlus Two.

We are not sure if TENAA meant to upload the images or if there was an issue internally. Usually, phone manufacturers make sure regulators don’t publicize images of the phone before release, a request usually granted.

Microsoft has revealed the minimum hardware requirements for all of its different Windows 10 platforms, including Windows 10 Mobile.

For the most part, none of the requirements are shocking. Microsoft is making sure all of the low-end options are compatible with Windows 10 Mobile, while pushing to the limit with 2K display, 4GB of RAM and octa-core processor support.

After the closing bell today, Apple announced results for fiscal third quarter, which largely is congruent with calendar Q2 (End date, April 27). Broadly: $49.6 billion in sales, $10.7 billion net income, and $1.85 earnings per share. Year over year, revenue rose 33 percent and EPS by 45 percent. Apple guidance before the big reveal: Between $46 billion and $48 billion revenue. Wall Street consensus was $49.31 billion sales and $1.81 EPS. The Street's estimates ranged from $46.9 billion to $53.64 billion.

Gross margin reached 39.7 percent compared to 39.4 percent annually and 40.8 percent sequentially. Company guidance: 38.5 percent to 39.5 percent. Once again, international sales accounted for most of the quarter's sales: 64 percent, which is up from 59 percent the previous year but down from 69 percent three months earlier.

When Apple announced the new storage sizes for the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus, a lot of customers were bummed that the 32GB option did not replace the 16GB option. It essentially forced anyone who used a fair share of apps to buy the 64GB model.

Thankfully, Apple might be planning to change this with the iPhone 6s and 6s Plus. According to MIC Gadget, Apple will make the 32GB model the standard, with 64GB and 128GB for those that want to use all of the storage of music, movie and photo files.

If you’re a government employee in the UK, looking for a device secure enough for you to use, you can go for the Samsung Galaxy S6 and the Galaxy S6 Edge.

The Communications and Electronics Security Group (CESG) has said that the duo of handsets meet the compliance standards for its Commercial Product Assurance requirements.

Microsoft is rumored to be working on two Windows 10 Mobile flagships, that would serve as replacements for the aging, Nokia-made, Lumia 930 and Lumia 1520. On paper, both look great, with specs that match those of high-end Android smartphones. And Windows 10 Mobile is not too shabby either, featuring lots of improvements over its predecessor. As someone who is frequently shopping in this segment, I should consider at least one of them as my next smartphone. However, going down this road again feels like a huge mistake.

After taking everything into account, the cons clearly outweigh the pros. It does not help that I currently use an iPhone 6 Plus, which constantly reminds me why I am not longer rocking a Windows Phone flagship as my daily driver. There is a whole host of reasons why I do not plan to buy a Lumia flagship in the foreseeable future, and here are the most important.

For those unaware of what Marshall is – it’s one of the world’s best guitar amplifier maker. That is a fact at least for the author of this article who has, in his lifetime, tried at least 30 different amplifiers.

The lovable guitar amp maker has surprised the entire world when it unveiled its first Android smartphone and, you guessed it right, this one is all about music.

Italian security and surveillance company Hacking Team was most famed for supplying monitoring tools to governments around the world, but a recent security breach revealed the inner workings of the outfit. Sifting through the leaked data revealed not only spying tools and Flash vulnerabilities, but also Android apps with backdoors.

Security experts from Trend Micro found that spyware from Hacking Team was released to Google Play, bypassing checks that are usually performed. BeNews was a fake news apps -- now removed from the store -- that could be used to download remote access software to Android devices running anything from Froyo to KitKat.

Running out of space and having to shift files and apps to a memory card is a familiar scenario for smartphone users. It's also something that affects tablets, and with the imminent release of Windows 10 talk has turned to how Microsoft's latest operating system with handle things.

The company had previously said that, just like Windows Phone, it will be possible to install apps to an SD card on tablets which have limited space. That said, this is a feature that will be missing from Windows 10 when it launches in eleven days. Microsoft has taken a last minute decision to delay the feature as it's not quite finished.