LeEco Le 2 clears TENAA - 5.5" FullHD display, 10-core CPU, Android 6.0

The LeEco Le 2 has been certified by Chinese telecom regulator TENAA, and we're being treated to a detailed list of specs as well as the usual mug shots.

Photos first, the smartphone looks nothing like the one in a leak we had a month ago. Okay, the front may be similar, but the back is entirely different, and a lot more consistent with the Le Max Pro we saw a couple of months ago.

Setting design aside, the LeEco Le 2 (which carries the parent company LeTV branding) comes with a 5.5-inch FullHD display. The chipset inside appears to be the Helio X20 - core count field says 10, and the 2.3GHz frequency rules the X25 out (clocked higher at 2.5GHz), so the latter could be exclusive to Meizu after all. RAM is 3GB, storage is 32GB and the card slot field is left blank.

The upcoming device has a 16MP primary camera, which doesn't shoot 2160p video - another discrepancy with that GFXBench listing, that put a Helio X25 in the Le 2. The front shooter is an 8MP unit.

The smartphone measures 151.1 x 74.1 x 7.7mm and weighs 153g. There's a 3,000mAh battery inside, and that by the way is a welcome recent addition to TENAA's listings.

We're yet to hear about official announcement, but with the regulatory hurdle cleared, that shouldn't take long.

Sony Xperia Z2, Z3 and Z3 Compact are getting official Marshmallow

Sony is delivering on its promise dating back to October last year to bring Android Marshmallow to the Xperia Z2, Xperia Z3 and Xperia Z3 Compact. After a Beta build wasreleased a month ago, users of the smartphones are starting to receive the official update.

The firmware, carrying a build number 23.5.A.0.570, brings the OS version to the latest 6.0.1, and includes the February Android security patch as well as the latest camera app interface.

Now, there are the usual caveats, though. For one, only three models are getting the update for now, specifically the D6503 Z2, the D6603 Z3 and the D5803 Z3 Compact. Additionally, it's not yet happening in all parts of the world - so far it's the US, Russia, Ukraine, Middle East and North Africa, and perhaps Latin America.

So if you're holding on to your trusty Xperias of the above generations and live somewhere in these regions, you may be in luck. If not, muster some patience, it could be just a few days.

Meizu Pro 6 rumored to come with a 10-LED flash

Dual-LED smartphone flashes are ubiquitous, and triple-LED ones are also fairly popular. That is, to the extent the Lumia 950 and 950 XL, and also the Lenovo Vibe Shot, are popular.

How about 10 LEDs, though. That's how many of those the upcoming Meizu Pro 6 will have, if the latest rumor turns out to be true. A photo of the future flagship that was officially released the other day (the one below) does indeed show a ring around the laser autofocusing window - a ring, which was obviously going to house the flash, as there isn't one to be found anywhere else.

But 10 LEDs? The Pro 6 is going to be a large device, that's for sure (rumors have settled on a 5.7-inch display), which could mean that the ring is large enough to fit all those diodes. "But why?" you may ask, and we'd be inclined to agree. Then again, a little (well, potentially a lot) extra light could very well take our club photography up a notch, so we're starting to warm up to the idea.

We won't get much time to dwell on it, though - the Meizu Pro 6 gets announced in 4 days.

Silk White OnePlus One now back in stock, why would you want a 16GB phone though?

OnePlus is proud to announce the return of the Silk White color option for the Onesmartphone. The alternative to the Sandstone Black is now back in stock, in time for theMarshmallow update.

The thing is, the white model comes with only 16GB of built-in storage, and built-in storage is all the storage you get with the OnePlus One, as it doesn't have a microSD slot for expansion.

If you can live with that limitation though, you'd enjoy the lower price - the 16GB Silk White is $249 (or €249), while the 64GB Sandstone Black goes for fifty more of either currency.

OnePlus One Marshmallow update now seeding

We reported on the Marshmallow update for the OnePlus One being in final testing the other day, in the words of company co-founder Carl Pei, and he gave a rather vague promise that the rollout will start "very soon". Well, those who read that as "maybe another month left to go" will be pleasantly surprised today.

Android 6.0.1 Marshmallow is beginning to roll out for the OnePlus One, the company has shared in a post on its own forum. Cyanogen is ready to push the CM 13.0 release with internal designation ZNH0EAS26M to OnePlus' first ever smartphone.

As is customary with all such firmware update matters though, not everyone will get it on day one, so patience is appreciated, Helen from OnePlus says.

Another leak of the HTC 10 shows the handset in white

There is no doubt that HTC is really excited about the HTC 10 that it has been teasing the device left and right since the beginning of this year. This time, however, a photo was leaked through Chinese micro-blogging network Weibo.

Apparently someone who had their hands on a final unit in white, took a picture of it laying atop a greasy laptop keyboard. The unit shown had Chinese software on it but looks just like another Chinese unit that was also leaked earlier last month.

What is different about this unit was that it was white. We’d only seen units with black faces so at least we now know that HTC plans to release a version of the phone with a white bezel, perhaps with a silver finish on the rear?

HTC has already teased the HTC 10 in the past with its large beveled edge, another teaser featured the HTC 10’s speaker system and promised that it would feature the best Boom Sound experience than ever before. HTC also teased the phone’s performance, and camera(calling it “the best ever smartphone for shooting photos and videos) and finally, just today, HTC also teased the phone’s battery life.

HTC has big shoes to fill. Especially now that it’s been teasing the crap out of its new unreleased flagship. The unveiling is expected to happen on April 12 at 8AM EST time. Until then, we hope that HTC is able to deliver on all its promises.

Samsung Galaxy Note 6 will be water and dust resistant, report says

So far, we've heard that the upcoming Samsung Galaxy Note 6 will come with 6GB of RAM, a 5.8-inch touchscreen (presumably keeping the QHD resolution), a 12 MP rear camera, and 64 or 128GB of storage (maybe even 256GB).

And now a new piece of the puzzle is reportedly revealed. According to a new report, the Note 6 will be IP68 certified. That means it will be dust tight and just as water resistant as theGalaxy S7 - being able to withstand submerging into up to 1.5m of water for up to 30 minutes.

The phone could also sport an iris scanner, as revealed earlier today by an intriguing import into India. Unlike its predecessor, the Note5, the new Note-series member will thankfully besold in Europe from day one. The handset could be unveiled as early as June, according to speculation from certain analysts. Then again, Samsung might also stick with its traditional schedule for Note launches and announce it in late August or early September. It's too early to be sure at this point.

Blackberry is reportedly switching focus to mid-range handsets

During an interview with The National, CEO of BlackBerry, John Chen admitted that the first Android-powered BlackBerry may have been set too high for customers. Indeed, theBlackBerry Priv must have turned customers off when they found out about its near-$700 price tag. BlackBerry intended to aim the BlackBerry Priv at enterprise customers, or for a more business oriented lifestyle.

Chen also told The National that BlackBerry plans to release two mid-range devices this year. One will feature a physical keyboard like the Priv, while the other one will be an all-touchscreen phone. My guess is the all-touchscreen phone will be the lower-end handset of the bunch.

            BlackBerry CEO: John Chen 

BlackBerry also announced that the Priv sold 600,000 units in Q1 of 2016. Well below the 850,000 forecasted by analysts. If BlackBerry wants to up its game, it needs to look at how successful it was in the late 2000s and try to apply the same ideas and strategies and modernize them to be able to compete with the other big players in the field.

BlackBerry forgot that just a few short years ago around 2007-2009 the success of the blackberry was thanks to the mid-range BlackBerry Curve. The Curve was a BlackBerry that all kinds of people could use and it became widely popular in the US and still remains popular even today in some areas of the world where smartphones are still a novelty.

          From left to right: Pearl, Curve, Bold 

Even in 2007-2009, BlackBerry had different models that corresponded to different people. For example, the BlackBerry Pearl was a multimedia oriented device capable of playing videos, music, and the compact keyboard (which I hope to never have to use) had two letters on a single key but offered predictive text.

Next up is the Blackberry Curve (I owned the 8530 for Sprint). It was a step up from the BlackBerry Pearl because it had a full QWERTY keyboard and offered more traditional BlackBerry Experience while marketing directly to consumers and not to enterprise customers. This phone was so popular (particularly the 8300) that it launched Research In Motion (RIM, before renaming the company to ‘BlackBerry’) into huge success at that time.

The BlackBerry Bold was the highest end of BlackBerry devices. It offered a much more comfortable keyboard, the same one found on the BlackBerry Priv which was somehow better to type on than the BlackBerry Curve’s. The later Bold models even had a touchscreen on the phone.

Let’s get back to the issue at hand (I got carried away): Can BlackBerry make better success by aiming to release mid-range devices rather than focus on a single high-end device? In a market so saturated with different kinds of smartphones, there is still a great opportunity to sell devices in the mid-range market. People who will definitely NOT buy an iPhone or Galaxy flagship might be easier to convince between device options.

HTC 10 will have great battery life, new teaser promises

Believe it or not, we are now just four days away from the official unveiling of the oft-leaked, oft-rumored, and much-teased HTC 10 smartphone. Now that we're getting closer and closer to the big day, HTC is ramping up its teaser campaign posting new videos every other day.

All of HTC's teasers so far have done a great job at overpromising things (be they related to the camera, audio capabilities, and now battery life), so we're left hoping the actual device won't underdeliver in any of those respects.

The same "obsessed" theme that's been used in all of HTC's video teasers for the 10 is featured here too, as you can see. Only this time around the company's engineers are apparently working "crazy long hours" so that "your phone will too". Not only that, but they're so obsessed with extending your battery life, that "they've turned it into a science".

According to one past leak, all of this talk equates to a 3,000 mAh battery - in fact the exact same capacity as the Galaxy S7's. So, if this is true, battery life comparisons between HTC's and Samsung's flagships will be very easy to make.

As for other specs, the HTC 10 is expected to sport a 5.1" or 5.2" QHD touchscreen, Qualcomm's Snapdragon 820 chipset, 4GB of RAM, 32GB of expandable storage, a 12 MP UltraPixel rear camera, a 5 MP selfie cam (which could have OIS), and a fingerprint scanner. It will run Android 6.0 Marshmallow.

Huawei MediaPad T2 10.0 Pro gets the leaked press render treatment

Back in February right before Huawei's MWC event an upcoming tablet by the Chinese manufacturer got leaked. However, the MediaPad T2 10.0 Pro, for that's its name, wasn't actually made official that time around. Huawei has yet to acknowledge it, but the slate has been leaked again today - so maybe its announcement is close by.

The new MediaPad has received the leaked press render treatment, with official-looking shots depicting it from a few angles.

Alongside the new images we also get a confirmation of its specs, which were first outed in February. The MediaPad T2 10.0 Pro will basically be a slightly watered down version of theMediaPad M2. It will come with a 10.1-inch 1,920x1,200 IPS touchscreen, Qualcomm's Snapdragon 615 SoC at the helm (with a 1.5 GHz octa-core Cortex-A53 CPU), 2 or 3GB of RAM, 16 or 32GB of expandable storage, an 8 MP rear camera with LED flash, a 2 MP selfie shooter, and a 6,660 mAh battery. Disappointingly it runs Android 5.1.1 Lollipop.

LTE connectivity will be available on some models, which will obviously be more expensive than the Wi-Fi-only iterations. Speaking of which, the starting price in Europe is apparently going to be around €280, while for an LTE-capable tablet you'll need to pay €350. The MediaPad T2 10.0 Pro is 8.5mm thin and it weighs 495g. It will be offered in two color versions - white and black. The slate will be the successor to the T1 from last year.

HTC 10 may have an OIS-enabled selfie camera

HTC promises amazing camera on its upcoming HTC 10 flagship and a tweet sent out too early may have revealed part of this generation's innovation - OIS on the selfie camera.

The company was one of the first to add Optical Image Stabilization on the main camera with the HTC One, but Nokia had it earlier. This will be a first, though.

The tweet was sent out by Kisha Bari, an internationally recognized photographer. The Twitter account has since been restricted.

62% of current Apple Watch owners plan to upgrade to the next one

Market research specialists at Fluent have conducted a survey among Americans asking them about their thoughts on the Apple Watch a year after release. Some of the numbers have turned out quite intriguing.

For starters, 197 of the 2,578 people that took part in the online survey actually own an Apple Watch, that rounds up to 8%. An equal percentage had a different smartwatch, meaning half of smartwatches in the US are indeed Apple Watches. More importantly though, 62% of current owners plan to upgrade to the next model, which no one has seen or heard of yet. Talk about brand loyalty.

Apple Watch owners also tend to see a brighter future for smartwatches than the rest of the survey participants, naturally - 75% consider that the majority of Americans will have a smartwatch in 10 years, whereas the overall opinion is fifty-fifty.

Apple will be pleased to learn that shopping (read Apple Pay) is the second most often mentioned primary use of the Apple Watch behind fitness tracking (telling the time doesn't count). We wonder, what do you use your Apple Watches for?