Samsung rolls out minor bug-fixing update to Galaxy S7/S7 edge units in India

Samsung has started pushing out a minor update to its latest flagship smartphones - the Galaxy S7 and S7 edge - in India. Weighing in at 1.06MB, the update includes some bug-fixes as well as stability and performance-related improvements.

This update to the latest Galaxy phones follows the one that the South Korean company started pushing out earlier last week, bringing touch and stability-related improvements as well as shape correction for skewed photos and latest Android security patch.

Given that this new bug-fixing update has just started rolling out, it may take sometime before it hits your handset. Meanwhile, if you're feeling impatient, you can head to the Settings menu on your device to check for it manually.

Sprint's Samsung Galaxy Note Edge and S5 Sport start getting Marshmallow

Sprint has started rolling out Marshmallow update to Samsung Galaxy Note Edge and Galaxy S5 Sport units on its network. The update brings Android version 6.0 to both devices.

The Note Edge update also includes latest Android security patches as well as some other bug fixes. The updates are being rolled out in phases, with the Note Edge process completing on May 2 and the S5 Sport process wrapping up on May 11.

In case you haven't received the update notification yet, you can also manually check for the update by heading to the Settings menu on your handset.

Huawei Honor V8 to cost $308, more details uncovered

Yesterday Huawei started teasing the launch of its next Honor-branded device. The Honor V8 will become official at an event on May 10, and it will emulate the dual-camera setup of the recently unveiled P9. This will consist of two 12 MP units. The Honor V8 has also been rumored to come with the Kirin 950 chipset, 4GB of RAM, and a fingerprint sensor. Today rumors out of China paint a clearer picture.

The handset will apparently have a 5.5-inch 1080p touchscreen, an 8 MP selfie camera, a 3,000 mAh battery, and a USB Type-C port. Its price in China should be around CNY 2,000, which at the current exchange rates means $308 or €273.

Finally, from the same Chinese sources comes news that an Honor 8i will be unveiled at the same event. This will be the successor to the Honor 7i from last year, and it will allegedly keep the unique flip camera design of its predecessor, while still being aimed at women.

Moto G4 and G4 Plus may get announced on June 9

The upcoming fourth generation of Motorola's Moto G smartphone has been leaking a lot lately, which could mean it's getting ever closer to being officially introduced.

It turns out that may actually be the case. At the launch of the ZUK Z2 Pro today, Lenovo CEO Yang Yuanqing said Motorola will be outing a new and exciting device on June 9.

Unfortunately he didn't go into more detail, but given the increasing number of leaks about the Moto G4, we assume it can only be this model that will be announced. That said, do keep in mind that we might see two G-branded models this year - a vanilla, smaller G4, as well as a bigger Moto G4 Plus with a fingerprint scanner embedded in a physical Home button located underneath the screen.

Spec-wise nothing has transpired yet, but if the new Moto G does get official in early June then we expect some prototypes to be spotted in certain benchmark databases pretty soon.

AT&T's LG V10 is now being updated to Android 6.0 Marshmallow

So far, the LG V10 has received its update to Android 6.0 Marshmallow internationally, but also for units sold by both Verizon and T-Mobile. And now it's finally time for those V10 handsets sold by AT&T to taste the latest version of Android too.

According to a report, the rollout of the Android 6.0 Marshmallow update for AT&T's V10 has already commenced. As this is a staged over-the-air outing, it may be a few days before every AT&T V10 out there receives that coveted update notification. If you're impatient, you can of course manually check for the update by going to the About phone area in Settings.

The new software comes as a 1GB download, so make sure you're on Wi-Fi before grabbing it (and have enough battery left). Marshmallow brings with it new features such as Now On Tap, Doze Mode for improved battery life, App Standby, as well as a revamped permissions system. All of these things should be found inside this release for the V10, along with bug fixes.

Acer Liquid Zest Plus is official with a 5.5-inch display and a 5,000mAh battery

Acer held a press event today in New York and announced a couple of laptops and a smartphone - the Acer Liquid Zest Plus.

Acer shared some of the key specs of the Liquid Zest Plus on stage - a 5.5" HD display, a 13MP camera with something they call tri-focus, and a massive 5,000 mAh battery capable of quick charging. Tri-focus means the snapper relies on all types of AF used today - laser, contrast and phase detection.

We managed to find some more specs of the device - it runs on MediaTek's MT6735 chip with a quad-core 1.3GHz Cortex-A53, Mali-T720 GPU and 2GB of RAM. There is 16GB storage, a wide-angle 5MP selfie snapper, and Android 6.0 Marshmallow OS.

The Liquid Zest Plus will be available in the USA soon for $250, which is a nice price for such a device.

Android N Developer Preview now available on Sony Xperia Z3

Android N is yet to be officially named later this year, but it was already detailed last month. It offers multi-window (split-screen) multitasking, improved Doze mode, better notification handling among others.

The Android N Developer Preview was seeded to Nexus 6, Nexus 5X, Nexus 6P, Nexus 9, Nexus Player, and Pixel C in early March. The Preview even saw its first firmware update in mid-March.

Surprisingly, Sony made the Android N Preview available to the Xperia Z3 model earlier today. If you own the D6603 or D6653 flavors of the Xperia Z3, then you can easily install and run Android N. Here is how:

• Connect your compatible Z3 device to a computer with a USB cable.
• Xperia Companion will open automatically.
• Make sure you have Xperia Companion version 1.1.24 or later. If not, download the latest version from here.
• Hold down the ALT key on your computer and click on Software repair on the home screen, then follow the guide.
• You’ll be asked to disconnect and turn off your device, then to reconnect whilst holding down the volume down key to start the software flashing.
• You can return to factory settings at any time by connecting back to Xperia Companion and following the Software repair.

The Android N Developer Preview lacks the Xperia launcher, so you should have that in mind before installing. Plus - it's recommended to install it only if you are a developer and know what you are doing. Bugs and issues may and will occur, so it's not recommended to use an Xperia Z3 running on Android N as your primary phone.

That being said, feel free to share your experience in our comments section.

Oppo F1 Plus now available for purchase in India

The Oppo F1 Plus - which is the international version of the company's recently-launched R9 smartphone - is now available for purchase in India. The device carries a price tag of INR 26,990, which translates to around $407 at current exchange rates.

As for availability, the handset can be purchased in stores across several regions in the country, including Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, and Chennai. The device is also available for purchase online (Amazon.in), but at INR 27,790, it's slightly pricey there.

The global roll-out of the F1 Plus started earlier this month. The Chinese variant of the 'selfie expert' phone also helped Oppo top offline sales in its home country last month.

Samsung plans to produce 2nd-generation 10nm chips this year

Samsung Semiconductor executives have held a special invite-only meet-up with potential new customers in Silicon Valley. The reason behind the event is the announcement of plans for a new and cheaper 14-nanometer manufacturing process.

Re/Code cited Kelvin Low, Samsung Semiconductor senior director, who also said that a second-gen 10-nanometer chipmaking technology will be operational later this year. The new 10nm process will offer 10% better performance than the one before it.

The battle for the top spot in the mobile semiconductor sector is heating up. TMSC is rumored to have the majority of orders from Apple to make the new A10 chip, but that might change if Samsung's plans for the second-generation 10-nanometer process become reality.

Samsung already managed to snatch the production of Qualcomm's Snapdragon 820 chip from TMSC.

ZUK Z2 Pro is official: Snapdragon 820 and 6GB of RAM for $420

Lenovo subsidiary ZUK just pulled the wraps off the Z2 Pro smartphone, oft-rumored over the past weeks. What sounds like a second model, rather than a successor to the existing Z1, was unveiled at a dedicated event in China.

For starters, the ZUK Z2 Pro comes with a smaller 5.2-inch display, as opposed to the 5.5-inch Z1. It also makes a switch from IPS LCD to AMOLED, but resolution remains FullHD.

On the inside we find the latest Snapdragon 820 chipset - while ZUK settled with the aging S801 for the Z1, the Z2 Pro gets the proper flagship treatment. And in line with this concept, you'll find 6GB of RAM and 128GB of storage on board, from day one. Later on, a downgraded version will be made available with still plentiful 4 gigs of RAM and 64GB internal storage.

As for imaging, we're looking at a 13MP ISOCELL rear camera with 1.34μm pixels, F/1.8 aperture and phase detection autofocus. 4K video recording, is supported, of course. Selfies aren't just an afterthought either - an 8MP front-facer with 1.4μm pixels and a reasonably bright f/2.0 lens sounds promising on paper.

The list goes on though. The Z2 Pro has a fingerprint sensor in the home button, but then so did the Z1. This one, however, offers better resolution and will also improve the more you use it. The Z2 Pro is big on all kinds of sensors too, and packs in a heart rate sensor, UV sensor and an altimeter, for all you outdoor types.

All-round excellent connectivity is to be expected, and the Z2 Pro does indeed deliver. ZUK says the smartphone supports 23 cellular network types, and comes with 4G LTE and VoLTE support too. Wi-Fi ac, Bluetooth 4.1 and a GPS receiver are also part of the package. Wired connectivity takes place over USB Type-C, proper USB 3.1 too.

The smartphone measures 145.4 x 70.5 x 7.5mm and weighs in at 145g. That's enough room to fit in a 3,100mAh battery, which you can top up fast thanks to Quick Charge 3.0. The ZUK Z2 Pro ships with Android Marshmallow too.

The top-specced 6GB/128GB version of the Z2 Pro is available in China starting tomorrow for CNY 2,699, or just under $420. The 4GB/64 variant will make it to stores on May 10, and while price will logically be lower, the precise number hasn't been announced.

Samsung ships twice as many smartphones as Apple in Q1

Smartphone adoption is reaching a saturation point and global shipments fell 1.3% year on year and 18.6% down quarter on quarter, for a total of 292 million units. The info comes from global market research firm TrendForce.

Leader Samsung moved up the ladder, going up 5.7 percentage points in market share compared to Q1 last year. It shipped 81 million units, which is actually up quarter on quarter (usually, the holiday quarter, Q4, is the strongest).

Launching the Galaxy S7 and Galaxy S7 edge earlier than competing flagships helped sales. The affordable J-series has found success in China as well as globally. TrendForce expects Samsung sales to continue going up

Main rival Apple experienced a marked decline, going down 6.5 percentage points compared to the same period last year. Note that this is the quarter before the iPhone SE.

This means that Apple shipped only half as many smartphones as Samsung this quarter. The iPhone SE is expected to prop up Q2 sales until the iPhone 7 arrives.

LG's innovative work hasn't paid off. The company shipped a bit more than a year ago but declined compared to the previous quarter. It stays 6th globally.

Chinese companies weathered the storm quite well and their combined shipments went up, despite the global downturn. They shipped more in China than Samsung and Apple combined for the first time.

Demand was driven up by 4G adoption in China and growing smartphone sales in India. Even so, Q1 shipments dropped by 27 million units (20%) compared to Q4 last year.

Huawei maintains its home country lead and 3rd spot globally. However, TrendForce does not believe the company will be able to overtake Apple globally.

Lenovo pulled ahead of Xiaomi (they were on par Q1 last year) and shipped 17 million to Xiaomi's 16 million. Lenovo is committing a sizeable portion of its phones, 80%, to exports.

TCL (which you probably know as "Alcatel") is 4th, hot on the heels of Lenovo. Oppo and Vivo combined make up 20% of Chinese smartphone shipments. Vivo is less export-oriented than Lenovo with only 10% of production heading abroad.

Crossy Road gets four player local multiplayer

Crossy Road on Android has got a fun little update that a lot of you should appreciate. The game now supports local multiplayer.

Now, up to four people can join in the same game over a local Wi-Fi network and play against each other. The one who goes the farthest wins. The gameplay is similar to that on the Apple TV version, where you can push other players into traffic or water, and even block them from moving, which makes this a bit more fun than just moving forward.

The multiplayer is only available on Android for now. Unfortunately, it does not work over Bluetooth, so you have to be connected to a common Wi-Fi network. Other than that, this is a fun new addition and a great way to inject some life into a familiar game.