Lumia 950/950 XL could get 'double tap to wake' feature if there's enough demand for it

Microsoft has dropped hints that the 'double tap to wake' feature - which, gives you an alternative for using the unlock key to wake up your phone - could be added to the Lumia 950/950 XL smartphones.

Replying to a user query on Twitter about bringing the feature to the Windows-10 powered flagship device, Microsoft's Gabriel Aul said that it's a common request, and asked the user to upvote it in Feedback Hub.

While that's certainly not a confirmation per se that the request will be fulfilled even if there are enough upvotes, it enough to keep hopes alive.

Meizu MX6 now tipped for H2 launch

If you're eagerly waiting for the successor to Meizu's MX5 smartphone, looks like your wait isn't going to end anytime soon. The device, which was previously rumored to be made official in April-May time-frame, is now said to be launching in H2, 2016.

The latest rumor comes out of Meizu's home country of China, and if it's true, we'll have to wait at-least a couple of more months for the device.

Being the subject of only a handful of rumors so far, the MX6 (which is what the device is likely to be called) is said to be powered by a MediaTek Helio X20 SoC with 10-core CPU and Mali-T880 MP4 GPU, and sport a full HD display.

Other rumored specs include, 3GB/32GB memory configuration, 21MP/8MP camera combo, 4,000mAh battery, and Android 6.0 Marshmallow.

Lenovo starts rolling out Vibe P1 Marshmallow update

Lenovo has started rolling out the Marshmallow update to its Vibe P1 smartphone, which was launched late last year. The Chinese company announced the roll-out in a post on its official forums.

"We expect Marshmallow to be rolling out for the Vibe P1, P1A42, over the next few days," the post said. However, comments left by users following the aforementioned announcement post suggest that the update has already started hitting units in India.

Given that the OTA roll out has just begin, it may take some time for the update to hit your device. However, if you're feeling impatient, you can manually check for it by heading to your handset's Settings menu.

HTC 10 will be available at Sprint on May 13

It looks like Verizon may have some kind of short-term exclusivity on the HTC 10 for the US carrier market. Mere hours ago the company nicknamed Big Red started taking pre-orders for the device, with a "ship by" date of May 5.

And now Sprint has officially announced availability details for the HTC 10 too, and it turns out it will launch the smartphone later than Verizon. The HTC 10 will be out at Sprint starting on May 13.

Price-wise, the only information that the Now Network has put out so far is with regard to purchasing the device on an installment plan. The HTC 10 will be $0 down and $26 per month for 24 months. That adds up to a grand total of $624, which is probably also going to be the full retail price for the phone at Sprint. That makes it cheaper than what Verizon is asking for sans contract, but in terms of installment plans Big Red has the better offer right now - for a limited time the total of your payments for the 10 over two years will reach just $548.

Upcoming LG K series smartphones get benchmarked with Snapdragon 430

LG is working on adding new members to its K family of smartphones. This has been made obvious by a couple of listings in a benchmark's online database. Someone has tested both the LG K530 and the K535 in Geekbench, and this has resulted in us finding out a few of their most important specs, courtesy of the benchmark's info tab.

The K530 is powered by Qualcomm's Snapdragon 430 chipset (which has a 1.2 GHz octa-core Cortex-A53 CPU and the Adreno 505 GPU), aided by 2GB of RAM. The prototype tested ran Android 6.0.1 Marshmallow. The processor's clock speed actually shows up as 1.4 GHz in the benchmark, but Qualcomm's official documents say it doesn't go over 1.2 GHz, so that's probably an error of some type in Geekbench.

This is sort of confirmed by the fact that the K535's clock speed is listed as 0 MHz. The K535 has identical specs to the K530, save for it coming with 3GB of RAM. This makes us think the two models here could in fact be two different versions of the same upcoming smartphone, especially since LG likes to launch many different iterations of its mid-rangers, with various spec changes between markets.

The K530 and K535 are both a step up in specs compared to the existing K10, so expect them to feature higher in the K series than that - K11, perhaps. It's still unclear when either of these phones will get official.

HTC 10 goes on pre-order at Verizon, Bell is exclusively selling it in Canada

Right on its previously announced schedule, today Verizon has started taking pre-orders for the HTC 10. The phone is available for a limited time for $100 off its usual price, but only if you grab one using a device installment plan.

If you do go that route, you'll pay nothing upfront, then followed by 24 monthly installments of $22.83. That all adds up to around $548, compared to the $648 full retail price. Verizon promises that pre-ordered HTC 10 units will be delivered to you by May 5.

Up north in Canada, as you may know already, Bell is the exclusive carrier partner for the HTC 10, which means you have to buy it from that company if you want it with a contract (there's also the choice of purchasing unlocked, of course).

And now the HTC 10 is actually available to buy from Bell. It will set you back CAD 349.99 with a new two-year contract (starting at CAD 80 per month), or CAD 899.99 sans long-term service agreement.

UK: Silver Galaxy S7 and S7 edge exclusive to Carphone Warehouse, available now

While the white color version for the Samsung Galaxy S7 and S7 edge is exclusive to EE in the UK (and pre-orders have just started), it turns out that the silver hue for the Korean company's flagships is exclusive to Carphone Warehouse.

However, if you're a fan of the silver S7 or S7 edge you don't need to wait any more before you purchase either device. They're already available at Carphone Warehouse.

If you opt for a Pay Monthly arrangement, the recommended deal for the S7 has it costing £59 upfront with a £36 per month plan. This nets you 10GB of data and unlimited minutes and texts on the Vodafone network, but the deal ends next Wednesday.

For the Galaxy S7 edge, you pay £129 upfront, and get the exact same contract - once again only until Wednesday. Note though that these are merely the best value for money plans according to Carphone Warehouse, but you can choose from many more if you go through the whole list.

SIM-free, the S7 costs £549 and the S7 edge is priced at £639.

Two new Sony phones leak through benchmark, one has a 16MP selfie cam

Thanks to the entries in an online benchmark database, two upcoming Sony smartphones have been outed today. For now their exact names aren't known, they go only by their model numbers.

According to information from GFXBench, the Sony F3216 has a 4.6-inch 1080p touchscreen, a 21 MP rear camera with LED flash, a 16 MP selfie snapper, 2GB of RAM, and 16GB of internal storage. It's powered by the MediaTek MT6755 Helio P10 SoC, which comes with a 1.9 GHz octa-core Cortex-A53 CPU and the Mali-T860 GPU. The prototype tested ran Android 6.0 Marshmallow.

Aside from its tiny screen size, this device has specs that easily peg it to be the upcoming Xperia C6, a handset that was allegedly pictured a couple of weeks ago. It's going to be the successor to the Xperia C5 Ultra from last year (which is pictured above), and it's said to sport a 6-inch screen. This being said, keep in mind that benchmarks sometimes do get their display size estimates wrong when early prototypes are involved, and GFXBench in particular has done this before - showing 4.6" for devices with larger panels.

So the F3216 could turn out to be the C6, especially as the C5 Ultra had a big focus on its selfie camera too - a 13 MP unit with LED flash. The F3216 takes things further with a 16 MP sensor.

The other handset that's leaked because it's been benchmarked is the Sony F3311. This is a lower-end offering, apparently having a 4.6-inch 720p touchscreen, a 13 MP rear camera, a 5 MP selfie shooter, 1.5GB of RAM, 16GB of storage, as well as Android 6.0 on board. At the helm is MediaTek's MT6735 chipset, with a 1.3 GHz quad-core Cortex-A53 CPU and the Mali-T720 GPU.

ZUK Z1 to reportedly land in India as Lenovo Z1

We already know that the Z1 smartphone from Lenovo subsidiary ZUK will be launched in India soon - Lenovo has started teasing the device and also sent out media invites for the launch event (date isn't yet confirmed).

However, what's new is that the phone could shed the ZUK branding for its India launch. According a report out of China, the ZUK Z1 will be sold in India as the Lenovo Z1. There was, however, no word on why the Chinese company has decided to take this step.

Given that the brand Lenovo has pretty good visibility in India, it would be reasonable to assume that the company wants to cash in on it. Online-only brand ZUK, if you recall, was anyway aimed at countering the rise of other Chinese Internet brands like Xiaomi and OnePlus.

The dedicated website that the company has created for the smartphone's India launch also does not mention the ZUK branding anywhere, so it definitely seems that the ZUK Z1 will be Lenovo Z1 in India. However, Keep in mind that Lenovo is yet to confirm the move, so until then, take this information with a grain of salt.

Samsung brings Galaxy J5 (2016) and Galaxy J7 (2016) to South Korea

The Galaxy J5 (2016) and J7 (2016), which were first unveiled late last month in China, have been officially announced by Samsung in its home country of South Korea.

Carrying a price tag of KRW 290,000 (around $255) and KRW 363,000 (around $320), respectively, the handsets will be available for purchase from local carrier KT, which will be selling them in the black and gold color options.

An important thing worth mentioning here is that the South Korean Galaxy J7 comes with 720p display and 2GB RAM, compared to the full HD display and 3GB RAM that the Chinese version features.

In addition, Samsung also revealed that the Galaxy J3 (2016) will also be landing in South Korea soon.

If you're in Europe, it's worth knowing that the Galaxy J7 (2016) is already available for purchase there, although Samsung is yet to make a formal announcement about the European launch. The J5 (2016), however, is expected to arrive there soon.

Will.i.am's Dial smartwatch now available to pre-order

Remember musician will.i.am's Dial smartwatch which was unveiled back in February this year? Well, the timepiece is now available to pre-order - Three UK currently has the device listed on its website with an estimated delivery date of May 13.

As for the price, it's available on a 2-year contract where-in you'll be required to pay £49.00 up front, followed by a monthly payment of £24.00 for 24 months. The plan includes 500MB data and 100 minutes of talk time each month. Of course, there are other plans as well.

To refresh, Dial is the musician's second attempt at wearables after the failure of Puls that was launched back in 2014. Design-wise, Dial is more like a traditional smartwatch. It can work on its own without being paired to a smartwatch, allowing you to take calls, messages, play music, and keep track of your health. It also has a voice assistant called AneedA, and a front camera.

Second-gen Moto 360 and Moto 360 Sport get $50 price cut in US

If you are a Motorola fan and are in the market for a smartwatch, here is a deal for you: the company's second-gen Moto 360 and Moto 360 Sport watches will soon be available at discounted prices in the United States.

The discount - $50 on both devices - is being offered by Verizon, and will be available starting next month (May 1 to be precise), with the deal running for the whole of the month.

The carrier currently has the Sport version listed for $300, so it will be available for $250 post discount. As for standard Moto 360, the 46mm variant with metal band for example will be available for $350, down from its current price of $400.

Aside from the Moto 360 and its Sport variant, the LG TONE PRO Bluetooth headset will also get a $10 price cut - the carrier normally sells it for $70.

32GB Moto X (2nd Gen) is now down to $199.99 unlocked

The 2nd generation Moto X is undoubtedly very old at this point. In fact, in just a few months it turns two. That's a lot in the mobile world, as you may know. That said, this was a top of the line offering when it came out, so even today it can measure up to the best mid-rangers out there in terms of performance. Oh, and from this point on it can do the same in price, too.

Motorola is currently offering up the 2nd gen Moto X for $199.99 carrier-free, and we're talking about the version with 32GB of storage. This is quite the price drop even compared to its previous level of $349.99.

You can take advantage of the deal over at Motorola's own online store for the US, and you can even use the MotoMaker service to customize your device as you want it (the price may go up, though, depending on what exact options you pick).

HTC starts Mother's Day promo for the One M9 and One A9

HTC is getting ready for Mother's Day with a special sale that's already available at its US online store. The offer is clearly targeted toward people wanting to gift a new smartphone to their mothers.

You get a choice between the pink HTC One M9 and the "deep garnet" HTC One A9. The M9 can be had in unlocked form for $399, which is down $250 from its initial pricing of $649.

You can pick up an unlocked One A9 for $389, which is $110 less than before. The One A9 version for Sprint is also available as part of this Mother's Day deal, but the price is the same as for the unlocked unit, and you aren't tied to a particular long-term contract with the carrier. Basically, buying the Sprint version just ensures that the phone will work on that network, since the unlocked model only functions on AT&T and T-Mobile. There's no option whatsoever if your mother likes Verizon, unfortunately.

The deal is available until May 8, "while supplies last".

Google drops Moto 360 Sport from its store

After dropping the Nexus 9 tablet, Google has now removed the Moto 360 Sport smartwatch from its online store.

The Moto 360 Sport is a variant of the Moto 360 second generation that comes with a few changes, such as AnyLight display that uses ambient light outdoors to illuminate itself, built-in GPS, and silicone bands.

Unfortunately, it seems people didn't quite find that worth the $300 price tag. In fact, Motorola recently dropped the price to $200 but now Google has gone ahead and removed the device entirely from its store, which is odd as the watch only went on sale back in January.

For what it's worth, the watch can still be purchased from Motorola and Amazon.

Leica announces M-D (Typ 262) with no LCD

Leica has announced another model in its M-series of digital rangefinder cameras. This one is a bit different though. The Leica M-D (Typ 262) does not feature an LCD on the back like most digital cameras, instead wanting the photographer to focus on the art of composition and framing without being distracted. This is not the first Leica camera to lack an LCD; we saw theM Edition 60 before this forego the display, but the M-D (Typ 262) is the first serial production camera while the M Edition 60 was a limited edition. 

The M-D only comes with dials to adjust shutter speed, aperture, and ISO. This leaves you with just the bare minimum to adjust your camera. The M-D also saves all images in DNG RAW format and there is obviously no video recording option. In order to make the camera more discreet, Leica has painted the entire body in black and also left out the traditional red Leica dot. The shutter is also quieter and tops off at 3fps in burst mode.

The Leica M-D (Typ 262) is priced at $5995/£4650 and will go on sale in May.

Samsung Gear 360 launched, priced at $350

As scheduled, Samsung has launched the Gear 360 camera. The device is now available for purchase in the company's home country of South Korea - it's currently listed online, but will be available in around 450 stores starting next month.

Priced at KRW 399,300 (around $350), the camera - which was announced at this year's Mobile World Congress (MWC) - is currently compatible with the Galaxy S7, S7 edge, S6, S6 edge, S6 edge+, and Note5.

Aside from South Korea, the device is also expected to made available in select other countries. However, those in the United States are currently out of luck as the tech giant has already confirmed that the US is not in the list of launch countries.

Samsung Galaxy Note 4 getting May security patch already

April hasn't even ended, and Samsung has already started rolling out the Android security patch for the month of May to its Galaxy Note 4 smartphone. Weighing in at around 380MB, the update is currently rolling out to units in India.

There's no clarity on exactly what else the update brings along - the change-log contains generic language like performance and stability improvements, and bug fixes. Rolling out OTA, the update carries a build date of April 22.

This comes less than week after the device started receiving April security update in India. That update weighs in at around 360MB.

Lenovo has sold half a million K4 Notes since launch

enovo has announced that half a million units of the K4 Note have been sold since the device was launched in India back in January this year. Aside from this, the Chinese company has also sold 100,000 units of the ANT VR headset.

The VR headset was initially bundled with the smartphone, but was sold separately shortly thereafter. However, the company is bringing back the smartphone+headset bundle to celebrate the milestone.

"To celebrate the milestone of 5 lakh happy customers, Lenovo is bringing back the VR bundle offer," a company spokesperson said. "Customers will be able to purchase the K4 Note and VR Headset together for a bundle price of Rs 12,499 on Amazon.in on April 29th, 2016."

Interested in purchasing the bundle? Head to the Amazon link below.

Rumor says Huawei Mate 9 will feature 20MP dual camera setup, Kirin 960 SoC

It's been just a few months since Huawei launched its Mate 8 smartphone, and rumors about the device's successor have already started pouring in. According to a latest one out of China,Huawei Mate 9 will be powered by the homegrown, and yet-to-be-announced Kirin 960 chipset with octa-core CPU.

Huawei Mate 8

In addition to the SoC, it was also revealed that the Mate 9 will sport a 20MP dual rear camera setup. This compares to the dual 12MP cameras that the Chinese company's newly-announced P9 and P9 Plus feature.

There was, however, no word on whether - like the P9 duo - Leica will have any role to play in the Mate 9 as well. The device is expected to made official sometime later this year.

Marshmallow is now out for the LG G3 on AT&T and T-Mobile

Although Google has already started testing Android N with developers, Android handset makers are still busy updating their wares to Marshmallow. Case in point: LG, and its G3. The flagship smartphone from 2014 is now receiving the update to Android 6.0 Marshmallow both on AT&T and T-Mobile, according to multiple reports from owners.

T-Mobile's model isn't currently enjoying an over-the-air rollout of the update, so to download and install it you'll need to use LG's desktop software. Even so, the new release may not yet show as being available for everyone.

If you bought your G3 from AT&T, then you can check for the update by going to the phone's settings and hopefully grab it over-the-air. If you do succeed in updating, you'll then be on software version D85030k, as you can see from the screenshots above.

The update also includes the March security patches, but unfortunately not this month's. Another interesting tidbit is that this is Android 6.0, and not Android 6.0.1 - even though that iteration has been out since last November. Hopefully LG will issue another Marshmallow update for the G3 in the future, bringing it up to date.

New Nexus 6P version gets benchmarked with Snapdragon 820, 4GB of RAM

Earlier today we once again heard that HTC is the company in charge of building this year's two Nexus-branded smartphones for Google. And now it looks like one of them may have just been spotted in a benchmark's database.

An intriguing entry for "google Nexus 6P" is available in Geekbench's online score browser. The name is pretty much identical to the Huawei-made device that's been announced last year, but this Nexus 6P has different hardware.

Namely, it's powered by Qualcomm's Snapdragon 820 chipset (not the 810 like the 2015 model), and it comes with 4GB of RAM (up from 3 on the existing Nexus 6P). The prototype that's been benchmarked was running Android N at the time, which makes perfect sense considering that Google has already released the first two developer previews for that version of its mobile OS.

It seems entirely plausible that Google will stick with the Nexus 6P moniker for this year's Nexus phablet, just changing the hardware and the company manufacturing it. So this might be an HTC-made product, as rumors have been saying for a while. On the other hand, perhaps Huawei and Google are simply working on a minor spec refresh for the existing Nexus 6P, changing the SoC used and the RAM amount. If this is the case, then the upgraded phone could be made official at Google I/O next month.

Schematic details the iPhone Pro with dual-camera, Smart Connector

With the 4" iPhone SE out of the gate, the rumor mill turns its attention back to the 5.8" iPhone Pro. A schematic (probably unofficial) shows the dimensions of the rumored Apple flagship.

The schematic clearly shows the wider camera assembly - info so far points to a dual-camera setup. Will it be like the LG G5 (wide + narrow) or the Huawei P9 (color + monochrome)? That's unknown at the moment.

Another interesting feature on the back is the Smart Connector. Apple debuted the three-pin connector with the iPad Pro and while it allows advanced functionality like connecting a keyboard, it can be used just for charging (like Logitech does). This could enable slightly more compact battery cases for the iPhone Pro.

One key detail that the schematic doesn't show is the release date - if we had to guess, we'd see the iPhone Pro at Apple's September event. Until then, you can enjoy these 3D renders(based on rumors).

Motorola sets event for May 17, likely to present the Moto G4 and Moto G4 Plus

Motorola has sent out press invites for its May 17 event in New Delhi. There, the company is expected to unveil the highly anticipated Moto G4 and Moto G4 Plus. The Moto G (3rd gen) was announced in July 2015 making us even more certain the G4 duo will come to light.

According to rumors, the Moto G4 will feature a 5.5" display of 1080p resolution. The Snapdragon 410 chipset of the old Moto G will be replaced by an octa-core CPU according to hearsay. RAM is reportedly 2GB

The design of the phone is evolved from the previous generation and now has a metal-looking frame, although it's not yet confirmed. What we do know is that there's a fingerprint reader on the Moto G4 Plus.

Huawei Honor 5C is official with a Kirin 650 SoC and 5.2" FullHD display

The Honor 5C has just been made official in China. The latest from Huawei's sub-brand has a lot in common with the yet unannounced P9 lite, for a price it's unlikely to match.

The specsheet starts with a 5.2-inch IPS LCD with FullHD resolution. An in-house Kirin 650 chipset does the number-crunching with an octa-core CPU (4xCortex-A53@2.0GHz + 4xCortex-A53@1.7GHz), paired with 2GB of RAM. Onboard storage is 16GB, expandable by up to 128GB.

Imaging is taken care by a 13MP primary shooter with an f/2.0 lens, aided in the dark by a single LED flash. On the front you get an 8MP cam with an f/2.0 aperture lens. There's also the now-mandatory fingerprint sensor on the device's back.

The Honor 5C has dual-SIM support and good all-round connectivity suite with multi-band 2G/3G and Cat.6 LTE (4G version only) for speeds up to 300Mbps down, and 50Mbps up. Bluetooth is v4.1, there's Wi-Fi b/g/n (no Wi-Fi ac), GPS, GLONASS and Beidou for satellite positioning and there's also an FM radio receiver.

The handset measures 147.1 x 73.8 x 8.3mm and weighs 156g, while packing a 3,000mAh battery - 9g more than the sleeker P9 lite for the same capacity. It also lacks the mini-flagship's Type-C connection and sticks to microUSB 2.0. The smartphone comes with Android 6.0 Marshmallow on board, with a proprietary EMUI overlay on top, version 4.1 this time.

Available today in China, the Honor 5C costs CNY 899 ($139) for the 3G-only model, while 4G-enabled versions command a CNY 100 premium. Global availability remains to be detailed.

Samsung says Gear VR users have already consumed over 2 million hours of VR content

Samsung has revealed that users of its Gear VR headset have already consumed more than 2 million hours of virtual reality content thus far. The revelation was made by John Pleasants, the company's executive VP of Media Solutions, at SDC 2016.

If you calculate, that translates into over 228 years of continuous watching. And given that Samsung is one of the many players in the market, it does give an idea about the kind of interest consumers are having in the VR space.

This comes just a day after the South Korean company confirmed that it's working on a standalone virtual reality headset - one that doesn't rely on a smartphone, PC, or a gaming console to function.

Update to Apple Music for Android brings music video support

Apple has updated its Apple Music app on Android, bumping it to version 0.9.8. The update brings support for music videos as well as family subscription option.

"You can now enjoy thousands of music videos on Apple Music—view popular ones featured in New or search for the music videos from your favorite artists," the Cupertino-based company says in the change-log.

As for the Family Membership, it costs around $15 a month and allows up to six members of a family to enjoy the streaming music service together.

BBM for Android gains beta video chat support, coming soon to iOS

The latest update of BBM for Android, which should already be out in the Play Store, brings with it a much-requested feature: video chats. BBM has had support for video calls on BlackBerry OS 10, but this is now finally making its way to the two big mobile platforms - a release for iOS is apparently coming soon.

Over in the Android app, the video chat functionality is still in beta, and marked as such. Hence, some hiccups may occur. Also, to make sure nothing will break with its backend infrastructure, BlackBerry is currently limiting the rollout of the new feature to the US and Canada. All the kinks should be ironed out before the global rollout commences. That, by the way, is going to happen in July.

Until then, you can test video calling inside BBM (even cross-platform), but only in North America. It all works in a very simple manner - when you tap the icon to initiate a call with one of your contacts, the app will ask you if you want to make a voice call or a video call. You choose, and then you're connected. That's it. Obviously, for this to work the contact you want to video chat with also has to have the latest version of BBM.

Google Photos for Android receives new search bar, other useful additions

The Google Photos app for Android is in the process of receiving a new update today. Version 1.19 should already be available in the Google Play Store, and it comes with a few new features.

First off, there's now a dedicated search bar at the top of the app. This replaces the search floating action button that used to be found in the bottom right side of the app. The search bar lets you find things more easily, and if you tap on it and then scroll down you'll get a list of faces, places, and picture types from your library.

From this point on, you can customize the movies that Google Photos automatically creates for you. You can add your own music, images, and videos, in order to fine tune the movies that the app pops up after your holidays or trips.

Lastly, device folders you've created can be deleted or renamed. Managing photos on SD cards is also better, with support for adding folders, as well as copying and moving images. All of these features are coming soon to Google Photos for iOS.

HP's new Chromebook 13 is thin and made out of brushed aluminum

HP has unveiled a new Chromebook today. It's called HP Chromebook 13 and was apparently designed in partnership with Google. That kind of shows when you look at it, as its brushed aluminum construction and 12.9mm thinness pretty much scream "high-end".

That said, the Chromebook 13 is more of a Chromebook Pixel for the masses, as it starts at just $499. At that price you do get the looks, but only a measly Pentium processor.

If you can pay more, then you'll get a choice of Core m3, m5, or m7 CPU, up to 16GB of RAM, and up to 3,200x1,800 resolution for the 13.3-inch non-touch display. HP quotes 11.5 hours of battery life, which is similar to what Apple's new MacBook achieves (and it too uses Intel's Core m).

The HP Chromebook 13 sports two USB Type-C ports, one plain old USB 3.0, a headphone jack, and a microSD card reader. It weighs 1.29kg. It will become available at some point in May, with pre-orders opening today.

Xiaomi smartwatch coming in H2 2016

Back in March last year, there were reports out of China that Xiaomi is working on its own smartwatch, although no availability details were revealed at that time. Then, there we rerumors that it will be unveiled at an event in November - that, we all know, didn't happen.

Now, for the first time, Xiaomi has confirmed the existence of the wearable device. The confirmation came from the company's co-founder and VP Liu De, who also revealed that the smartwatch will be made official in the second half of this year.

Sadly, he didn't reveal a specific launch date/month as well as any specs and pricing-related information. If you recall, previous rumors suggested a round dial and a brushed metal design. In addition, the watch is said to offer pulse wave velocity identification feature.

Samsung confirms it's working on standalone VR headset

At its ongoing developer conference, Samsung confirmed that it's working on a standalone virtual reality headset - one that doesn't rely on a smartphone, PC, or a gaming console to function.

Image credit: Shara Tibken/CNET

The confirmation came from the South Korean company's head of R&D, Injong Rhee, who said that the device will feature positional tracking. He also noted that features like hand and gesture tracking for the headset are currently being explored, and could be supported in the future.

The company's aim is to create a Star Trek-type holodeck. "You enter a holodeck, you're actually in a virtual world, interacting with all the virtual objects as if you're living there," Rhee said. "That's the kind of reality we're trying to create on these virtual-reality headsets."

It's worth mentioning that there have already been reports that Google is also developing a standalone VR headset.

IDC Q1 2016: Oppo and vivo replace Lenovo and Xiaomi in top-5 smartphone vendors list

Well known Chinese smartphone manufacturers Lenovo and Xiaomi are out of the top five vendors list, and have been replaced by two other - and comparatively lesser known - Chinese firms Oppo and vivo. This was revealed by market research firm IDC in its recently released Q1 2016 numbers.

"Along China's maturing smartphone adoption curve, the companies most aligned with growth are those with products serving increasingly sophisticated consumers," said IDC's said Melissa Chau. "Lenovo benefited with ASPs below US$150 in 2013, and Xiaomi picked up the mantle with ASPs below US$200 in 2014 and 2015. Now Huawei, OPPO, and vivo, which play mainly in the sub-US$250 range, are positioned for a strong 2016."

There was, however, no change in the first three spots, which were still claimed by Samsung, Apple, and Huawei, respectively. While the Chinese company continued with its impressive performance, Apple saw saw its first-ever y-o-y decline in the first quarter as volumes slipped to 51.2 million units. Samsung also witnessed a slight decline in its shipments.

Overall, a total of 334.9 million smartphones were shipped in the quarter, a slight increase from the 334.3 million figure reported in the year-ago quarter.

Google announces MODE bands for Android Wear

By far the best feature of the Apple Watch is the range of bands available for it, and the beautifully simple mechanism for attaching and removing them. Most Android Wear watches have nothing of the sort, with some not even offering the option to change bands.

Google wanted to do something about this, so the company has announced something called MODE bands. These are snap-and-swap watch bands that come in a variety of colors in leather and silicone. The main feature here is the attachment mechanism, which, like the Apple Watch, comes off with just the flick of a switch.

Considering the range of Android Wear watches available, Google knows you can't just make one design and expect them to work with all. So it has created a vendor playbook with instructions, requirements and brand guidelines. Other companies will have to use this to make their own MODE bands. It honestly doesn't sound particularly viable, and brings thisxkcd comic to mind. We will have to wait and see how well brands adopt this.

Samsung records better-than-expected Q1 growth thanks to Galaxy S7/S7 edge

Samsung has announced its Q1 2016 financial results, revealing a 5.7% increase in overall revenue and 12% increase in operating profit.

The figures stood at KRW 49.78 trillion ($43.46 billion) and KRW 6.68 trillion ($5.83 billion), respectively, ahead of the KRW 49 trillion ($43.3 billion) revenue and KRW 6.6 trillion ($5.7 billion) operating profit the company's earnings guidance had suggested.

"The first quarter saw overall earnings growth led by the early launch and successful sales of the flagship Galaxy S7 and S7 edge," the South Korean company said, while also attributing the growth to "improved memory product mix, expanded 14nm supply of System LSI products and increased sales of OLED panels."

Samsung's mobile division posted KRW 27.60 trillion ($24.12 billion) in consolidated revenue, up 6.6% year-on-year, and KRW 3.89 trillion ($3.4 billion) in operating profit, an year-on-year increase of 42%. This was the division's strongest performance in nearly a couple of years.

"As for the year ahead, Samsung anticipates softening demand in the smartphone market and negative growth in the tablet market," the company said, adding that it "will reinforce its leadership in the premium smartphone segment on the back of the Galaxy S7 and S7 edge, while continuing to increase volume and improve profitability in the mid-to-low-end segment."