Upcoming 7-inch Galaxy Tab A is on pre-order in Poland already

The yet-unofficial Samsung SM-T280 tablet has been in the news a lot over the past few weeks. Most of the time, it's been thought to be sold by the Korean company as the 7-inch version of the Galaxy Tab E. However, it now looks like it will be called Galaxy Tab A instead.

That's because a Polish online retailer has already listed the SM-T280 up for pre-order. And it's calling it Tab A indeed. The device is priced at PLN 599, which at the moment translates into approximately $150 or €138. The tablet will apparently become available on March 8, which is exactly one week from today.

This Galaxy Tab A comes with a 7-inch 1,280x800 touchscreen, a 1.3 GHz quad-core processor, 1.5GB of RAM, 8GB of expandable storage, a 5 MP rear camera, a 2 MP front-facing unit, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, GPS, and a 4,000 mAh battery. It runs Android 5.1 Lollipop. Its dimensions are 186.9 x 108.8 x 8.7 mm, and it weighs 283g.

Its specs line up perfectly with past leaks, if you ignore the fact that the rumors got the name wrong. Now that it's already up for pre-order in the EU, perhaps Samsung will finally announce it soon.

Meizu Pro 6 to have 3D Touch, screenshot reveals

A feature limited to less than a dozen phones in existence, 3D Touch/Force touch/whatever commercial name the company decides to use is coming to the Meizu Pro 6. The Chinese company's VP and Flyme chief architect Yang Yan has shared a screenshot on Weibo giving a glimpse of what the implementation is going to look like.

So far we've seen 3D touch in action on the iPhone 6s/6s Plus pair, and also the recently announced Gionee S8. The Huawei Mate S and the ZTE Axon mini also have the feature in their top-specced versions but those are about as common as unicorns.

Judging by the screenshot, Meizu's way of doing things is quite similar to the iPhone 6s. Applying pressure on the display brings up a context menu with options on top of a blurred background.

Meizu Pro 5

iPhone 6s users have been quick to adopt the new feature, but there appears to be a reluctance among major players like Samsung, LG, and Sony. Chinese manufacturers, on the other hand, have obviously been more inclined to slap the buzzword on a device or two. Even so, Force Touch doesn't seem to be quite the game changer Apple hyped it up to be.

Apple iPhone 5se unboxed in front of a camera

The Apple iPhone 5se has been in our rumors sections for quite some time. Recent reports suggest the iPhone 5se will be going official on March 22, so we'll have to wait just a few weeks before we know everything.

Most of the leaks confirm the iPhone 5se will be a 4" smartphone with TouchID and upgraded 8MP snapper. It should be powered by Apple's latest A9 chipset, the same as the one ticking inside the iPhone 6s generation, but with half the RAM at 1GB.

The iPhone 5se is said to be a special edition of the iPhone 5s, with more powerful hardware and refreshed design. The new looks are now confirmed by this new leaked picture of the retail box, which shows the compact fella with a 2.5D curved protective glass on the screen.

The box, if real, also confirms the phone's name - Apple iPhone 5se, which should stand for Special Edition, or iPhone 5s Enhanced, as some rumors are suggesting.

Anyway, Apple is still mum on its plans, but the event should eventually happen on March 22. A new iPad Pro is also expected to be announced on stage, as well as a new iPad Air 3 with Apple A9X chip (currently available on the original iPad Pro).

vivo Xplay 5 Elite goes official with 6GB RAM, Vivo Xplay 5 announced too

Today vivo held a special event in China to announce its next flagship lineup - the vivo Xplay 5. As it turned out the Xplay 5 will launch in two different models - vivo Xplay 5 and vivo Xplay 5 Elite.

vivo Xplay 5 Elite

vivo Xplay 5 Elite is a more powerful model, made entirely of metal and using Gorilla Glass 4 to cover the dual-curved 5.43" Super AMOLED Quad HD screen. It is powered by a Snapdragon 820 chipset with the insane 6GB RAM and integrated non-expandable 128GB storage right out the box.

The Xplay 5 Elite has a rear 16MP (Sony IMX298) snapper with phase-detection AF and dual-tone LED flash, plus an 8MP selfie snapper at the front. The Xplay 5 Elite is a dual-SIM device, supports LTE networks, Hi-Fi 3.0 (2*ES9028+OPA1612), and comes with a 3,600 mAh battery.

Finally, the Xplay 5 Elite has a rear fingerprint scanner on the back.

The Xplay 5 Elite runs on Android 5.1 Lollipop, skinned with the latest Funtouch launcher with split-screen multitasking support. It will launch on March 8 in China and will set you back CNY 4,288 ($655).

vivo Xplay 5

The vivo Xplay 5 is a more affordable version of the Elite model, which retains the same design, 5.43" Super AMOLED QHD display, camera setup, and 128GB storage, but downgrades the chipset to Snapdragon 652 with 4GB of RAM. The Hi-Fi chip configuration is also of a different kind - CS4395+AD45257.

vivo Xplay 5 will launch in China on March 8 for CNY 3,698 ($565).

In case you are not familiar with the Snapdragon models - the 652 flavor offers an octa-core processor with 4xCortex-A72 at 1.8GHz + 4xCortex-A53 at 1.4GHz, and Adreno 510 GPU. The 820 flagship chip packs a custom quad-core Kryo processor and Adreno 530 GPU.

 There are no details on international availability, but we guess both models will expand their market reach later on.

Vivo

BlackBerry Priv's Camera, Launcher and Keyboard get a round of improvements

BlackBerry has rolled updates to several key apps for the Priv, now available on the Google Play Store. Camera, Launcher and Keyboard have been improved, with new features and refinements making their way to BlackBerry's first Android-running smartphone.

Camera has been graced with a slow motion video recording mode, which shoots at 120fps, and plays back at 30fps, so you're getting 1/4x speed videos. BlackBerry doesn't state the resolution, but it's likely 720p.

Launcher now gets Recent, Personal and Work views, as well as other minor tweaks like shortcut removal with a flick and grayed out app icons when you remove the microSD card the app has been installed on. Keyboard has seen improvements in prediction where it can now learn words and numbers, as well as sift through emails and social messages to better understand its user.

You can view the complete list of updates in the links to the Play Store below, but only those with a Priv can actually reap the benefits.

Motorola Droid Turbo 2 Marshmallow update starts rolling out today

Verizon first started pushing out the Android 6.0 update to the Motorola Droid Turbo 2 earlier last month, but the roll-out was halted shortly thereafter (update details were pulled from their website) due to unknown reasons.

The good news is that the software update page is live again on Verizon's website, and the carrier now says the update will start hitting the Turbo 2 units on its network today - March 1.

The update will be rolled out in two parts, with the first one bumping the software version to 23.31.24, and the second part - which actually brings Marshmallow - arriving as 24.14.10. In case you don't already know, the update was already being soak tested for the past few days

Verizon BlackBerry Priv could be available to pre-order this week

Looks like Verizon will begin taking pre-orders for the BlackBerry Priv this week. Replying to a user query on Twitter, Jeffrey Nelson - who is the VP of Communications for Verizon's consumer and enterprise businesses - effectively confirmed that pre-orders will go live on March 3.

This comes less than a couple of months after Nelson revealed that Verizon will start carrying the Android-powered handset "by the end of March (if not sooner)." The Verizon variant was certified by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) in December.

Reports say the carrier will start selling the device on March 11, which is the same day when Samsung's newest flagships - the Galaxy S7 and S7 edge - will be released worldwide.

Lenovo is working on a 4.7-inch ZUK smartphone, rumor claims

A new rumor out of China today claims that Lenovo's sub-brand ZUK is busy working on a 'mini' smartphone of its own. This will apparently come with a 4.7-inch 720p touchscreen, thus appealing primarily to people who consider most of today's handsets too big to handle properly.

The small ZUK device will be offered in two hardware options, with either 2GB of RAM and 16GB of built-in storage, or 3GB of RAM and 32GB of space.

It's said to employ MediaTek's Helio P10 chipset, which comes with an octa-core Cortex-A53 CPU that can be clocked at up to 2 GHz, and the Mali-T860MP2 GPU.

The phone will have a fingerprint scanner, though its placement is unclear for now. Also not known at this point is whether Lenovo will choose to simply shrink the Z1's design (shown in the image above) for this 'mini' handset, or go with something new.

Other details haven't been leaked yet unfortunately, so it's impossible to tell if the international version will run Cyanogen OS (like is the case with the Z1). And pricing is still a mystery too. Hopefully this wasn't just a baseless rumor and more information about the 'mini' ZUK phone will emerge soon.

Acer won't bring the Liquid Jade 2 to the UK but will sell the Jade Primo

Last week at MWC in Barcelona Acer announced the Android-running version of its much-hyped Jade Primo smartphone (which runs Windows 10 Mobile). The Android device is calledLiquid Jade 2, and we have some bad news if you live in the UK and want one.

It turns out that Acer will not officially be selling the Liquid Jade 2 in the UK. While an actual reason for this hasn't been given, we assume the company knows this handset wouldn't gather a lot of interest, in a sea of pretty similar Android-running offerings.

The flip side of all this is that Acer is apparently anxious to be bringing the Jade Primo to the UK. It will be sold both directly to enterprise customers, but also to consumers who want it. The Primo supports Microsoft's Continuum feature in Windows 10. An exact release date for the phone isn't available yet, but we assume it's going to be in stores pretty soon.

Upcoming 7-inch Galaxy Tab A and Galaxy Tab E portrayed in leaked press renders

Samsung is apparently going to unveil a couple of new 7-inch tablets soon. One will be sold as the Galaxy Tab A, while the other will bear Galaxy Tab E branding. The latter device has been leaking a lot lately, with full specs having been outed as well as a round of renders allegedly showing it.

Earlier today prolific leaker Evan Blass, also known as @evleaks, has decided to make things interesting and out a new set of press renders for the 7-inch Tab E. However, accompanying it in the image you can see below is the upcoming 7-inch Galaxy Tab A.

The Tab A is to the left in these shots, while the right side belongs to the Tab E. What's immediately obvious is that the E models have larger side bezels. The backs of the upcoming Tab A and Tab E devices are pretty much interchangeable.

Their specs could be similar too, but that's not certain yet. The Tab E is supposedly coming with a 7-inch 1,280x800 touchscreen, a 1.3 GHz processor, 1.5GB of RAM, and 8GB of built-in storage. It will also get a 4G-capable iteration. It will be headed to the US alongside other markets.

LG G5 supports QuickCharge 3.0, Galaxy S7 is only 2.0, what's that about?

One would assume that when you're fitting Qualcomm's latest and greatest chipset in a smartphone, you'd want to be making good use of all of its advantages over the competition. One would be wrong, apparently.

Samsung's top-end offerings this year, the Galaxy S7 and S7 edge, only support QuickCharge 2.0, and not the third iteration of Qualcom's fast charging tech, optional on the Snapdragon 820. The LG G5, on the other hand, is QuickCharge 3.0-capable. 3.0 should be up to 45% more efficient than 2.0, Qualcomm's product info states, and while it can work with USB Type-C ports, implementation with the older microUSB connectors is still possible.

Why doesn't the S7 support it then, we're asking ourselves, and one potential reason is that the coexistence of Snapdragon and Exynos powered S7's calls for a unification of charging standards and the Exynos 8890 is not fully compliant with Qualcomm's specifications.

On the other hand, the lack of a QuickCharge 3.0 badge on Samsung's phones doesn't necessarily mean that the S7 and S7 edge won't charge equally fast - after all, the Koreans have had a similar (and compatible) solution to Qualcomm's for past generations of Exynos-powered devices, and chargers have been interchangeable between the differently specced versions.

Still, this makes for a nice argument for the LG side in the G5 vs. S7 battery debate, alongside the fact that the G5's power pack is removable, while the Galaxies have their cells sealed in. Samsung camp can counter with higher capacities and wireless charging (fast wireless too) and we can picture the ongoing forum quarrels lasting for a while. A word from Samsung on the matter would also help in understanding what exactly is the case.

Vivo Xplay 5 with 6GB RAM leaks in more live pictures, specs in tow

Vivo Xplay 5 has been in rumorlnad since September 2014. First it was rumored to be the first Snapdragon 810 smartphone, but then the leaks stopped suddenly.

The new 2016 year brought us lots of new information on the Vivo Xplay 5 though - dual-edged screen, Snapdragon 820 chip, 6GB RAM. Apparently the Xplay 5 have been upgraded with the latest technologies on the market.

The latest rumor spills the beans on the Vivo Xplay 5 major specs - a 5.43" Super AMOLED Quad HD display, Snapdragon 820 chipset with 4GB of RAM, a 16MP camera with a dual-LED flash, LTE connectivity, 128GB storage, fingerprint sensor, and a 3,600 mAh battery.

Vivo Xplay 5 runs on Android, probably Marshmallow, and will be skinned with Funtouch OS with split-screen support for running two apps side by side.

The most recent RAM specs, leaked on those slides and the AnTuTu test, contradict with the previous rumors and even with Vivo's confirmation on the 6GB, but there is a good chance the missing 2GB are actually given exclusively to the GPU. Or maybe a throttled version is on the way, too.

The new live pictures just confirm the design with dual-edged screen and premium build.

The Vivo Xplay 5 is expected to go official tomorrow in China, so stay tuned.