Oppo R9 and R9 Plus pass through TENAA, no Snapdragon 820 on board

Over the past few weeks we've seen a lot of rumors popping up regarding the upcoming Oppo R9. Despite the fact that the previous two members of the R-series have been nothing more than mid-range in terms of specs, the R9 was supposedly going to be a true flagship, with the Qualcomm Snapdragon 820 chip powering it.

Well, that theory has now been debunked courtesy of TENAA. The Chinese equivalent to the US FCC has certified both the R9 and the R9 Plus for sale. As usual, this process has revealed both images of the two handsets, as well as a list of some of their specs.

Let's start with the R9, pictured above. It has a metal build as you can see, and it comes with a 5.5-inch 1080p AMOLED touchscreen, a 1.95 GHz octa-core processor, 4GB of RAM, 32GB of expandable storage, 4G support, dual-SIM functionality, a 2,850 mAh battery, and two 16 MP cameras - one on the front, one on the back (which also has a LED flash). It runs Android 5.1 Lollipop. Its dimensions are 151.8 x 74.3 x 6.5 mm, and it weighs 145g.

While the SoC employed isn't mentioned by name, it's clearly not the Snapdragon 820, since that features a quad-core CPU, not octa-core. Based on the clock speed alone, we could see MediaTek's Helio P10 inside the Oppo R9, but that's just speculation.

Moving on to the R9 Plus (pictured above), once again the fully metallic construction is obvious. This handset sports a 6-inch 1080p AMOLED touchscreen, the same 16 MP cameras as its smaller sibling, a 1.8 GHz octa-core processor, 4GB of RAM, 64GB of expandable storage, a 4,120 mAh battery, dual-SIM support, and 4G LTE. Oddly, it seems to be running Android 5.0 Lollipop, which is a rather ancient version of the OS at this point. Its dimensions are 163 x 80.8 x 7.4 mm, and it weighs 185g.

Once again the Snapdragon 820 can't be at the helm, yet in this case we get a different SoC than in the R9. If we were to speculate, we'd assume the R9 Plus has the Snapdragon 652 inside (only based on the CPU clock speed and number of cores).

So the R9 and R9 Plus certainly look like solid mid-rangers, but not the flagships they've been rumored to be. Perhaps Oppo will finally unveil the Find 9 this year then. And speaking of unveilings, the R9 duo will go official on March 17.

LeEco Le 1s shatters records in India

Chinese company LeEco's (formerly LeTV) Le 1s smartphone landed in India back in January this year, and went on sale (through flash sale model) the next month. Looks like the phone has received tremendous response in the country as latest reports say it has become India’s top selling smartphone online.

LeEco managed to sell more than 200,000 units of the Le 1s in the India within a month, which is said to be a new record. Till now there have been three flash sales of the device in the country, with the company receiving a total of 20,28,000 registrations for the handset - another record. And finally, the company also received a record-breaking total of 2,20,000 orders for the handset within the shortest time span of 31 seconds.

"We are deeply humbled by the response we have received from our Indian consumers which has helped us achieve this leading industry position in such a short span of time," said Atul Jain, COO, Smart Electronics Devices, LeEco India. "LeEco is in the true sense a game changer purely because of its disruptive business model and a user-centric ecosystem providing consumers a chance to experience disruptive technology at its best."

If you aren't already aware, LeEco first entered the smartphone market less than a year ago in China. There too, the company impressed by selling nearly 3 million Le 1s units in over a couple of months.

T-Mobile LG G4 now available for just $350

If you're a T-Mobile customer and in the market for an LG smartphone, here is a deal for you: the magenta carrier has given LG's last year flagship - the G4 - a price cut. The device (Metallic Gray model) is now available for $350, down from its previous price of $600.

This doesn't seem to be an online-only deal (there's no mention of it at-least), meaning you can purchase a T-Mobile LG G4 at that price from the carrier's physical retail stores as well. For those on AT&T or Verizon, as we've already reported, you can grab an LG G4 unit for just $300.

As you might already know, LG announced its newest flagship - the G5 - last month at this year's Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. The device will be available to pre-order in the US in a couple of weeks from now.

Xiaomi launches Redmi Note 3 in India

Xiaomi today announced the Redmi Note 3 for the Indian market. The phone is priced at INR 9,999 ($148) for the 16GB model, and INR 11,999 ($178) for the 32GB model.

The Redmi Note 3 for India runs on the brand new Snapdragon 650 SoC and 2GB of RAM on the 16GB model and 3GB RAM on the 32GB model. It also has a new 16 megapixel camera with f2.0 aperture and phase detect autofocus. Then there's the 5.5-inch 1080p display, 5 megapixel front camera, and a massive 4,050mAh battery. The Redmi Note 3 is also the first Xiaomi phone to have a fingerprint sensor and the first Redmi phone to have a metal body. The phone runs on MIUI 7 on Android 5.1 Lollipop.

The Redmi Note 3 will be manufactured in India as part of the country's Make in India initiative.

The Redmi Note 3 will be available through Mi.com and Amazon, starting March 9 at 2 PM, and on Flipkart and Snapdeal at a later date. The phone will be available in silver, gold, and gray.

Xiaomi reportedly sells over 200K Mi 4S units first day

The Xiaomi Mi 4S was announced late last month, and the device went on sale in China earlier this week. Now, according to reports from Chinese media, over 200K units of the handset were sold on the first day itself.

The Chinese company hasn't yet officially revealed the device's first day sales figures. However, a local retailer Suning revealed that it sold over 110,000 units on the launch day, of which 50,935 units were sold online, while 64,853 were sold through offline channels.

Given that Suning wasn't the only retailer selling the Mi 4S in the country, the 200,000 figure reported by Chinese media seems realistic. The phone carries a price tag of RMB 1,699 (around $260), and comes in black, white, gold, and pink color options.

Blackberry Priv now available from Verizon

If you’ve been waiting for the Android-powered Blackberry to arrive at big Red, your wait is now over. Verizon is offering the Blackberry Priv for the full retail price of $720 or $30 per month for a period of 24 monthly payments.

The Blackberry Priv is Blackberry’s first comeback out of a ditch it dug itself in. It features a 5.4 inch 1440p display, Snapdragon 808 Hexa-core processor, 18MP camera, 3GB of RAM, and a 3410mAh battery. The phone also features a display that slides up to reveal a physical QWERTY keyboard, the same kind that Blackberry has pioneered into its own hardware for years.

Google Photos for Android update revamps navigation, renames Collections

The team behind Google Photos has announced a new update for the service's Android app today. This has started rolling out through the Play Store, but since Google loves staging these things it might take a few days before it reaches you.

The new version of Photos brings with it a bottom navigation bar, which lets you quickly jump to the Assistant, Photos, or Albums views. The bottom bar is reminiscent of the one introduced with the latest redesign of the Google+ app for Android, and as such it might not go down well for some, especially since it's always present.

The other new thing in the latest Photos release is that aforementioned Albums section. This is in fact the old Collections view, only renamed - based on user feedback, it turns out. The Albums area now comes with a scrolling carousel on top, giving you "easy access to your shared albums, people, places, things, animations, collages, movies, and device folders", according to Google.

All of these changes are on their way to the iOS version of the Google Photos app too, but for now they can only be found on Android.

Sony Xperia X and XA UK pre-orders kick off

At MWC last month, Sony retired the aging Xperia Z family and unveiled the new Xperia X series, comprising of three members so far - the Xperia X itself, the Xperia X Performance, and the Xperia XA.

And now two of those are already up for pre-order in the UK. We're talking about the Xperia X and XA (pictured below), since the X Performance may never be sold in the UK as it turns out.

At the moment MobileFun is the only online retailer offering the X and XA on pre-order. The Xperia X is priced at £529, while the XA is a much more affordable £249.

Unfortunately there's no information yet about when the two devices will start shipping, so if you desperately want either one all you can do right now is pre-order and then be patient. To learn more about the new Sony phones, make sure you read our detailed hands-on report.

AT&T adds Microsoft Lumia 950 to its GoPhone lineup

AT&T's branded prepaid service GoPhone has now added the Microsoft Lumia 950 to its line-up, and is selling the Windows 10-powered flagship smartphone for $598.99. Both black and white color variants are up for grabs, and shipping is free.

The phone is also being officially sold by Microsoft in the US, with the unlocked variant costing around $550. If, however, you're interested in the XL version of the Lumia 950, you'll be glad to know that B&H photo still has it listed for around $530 - Microsoft is selling the device for $649.

In case you missed, the device - along with the Lumia 950 XL and Lumia 550 - also received a new Windows 10 Mobile build last month.

Android and TouchWiz take 8GB of your Samsung Galaxy S7 storage

We all know when we buy a new smartphone, be it 16, 32, 64, or even 128GB, it actually offers less memory because of the formatting. The 16GB storage suddenly becomes 14GB; those 32GB turn out 29GB, 64GB equal 58GB, and so on.

There is also the fact that a considerable amount of storage will be occupied by the operating system itself. And by the end of the day, we usually lose a significant portion of the storage even before we open the box.

That's the reason we try to fill our phone specs with the actual available storage to the user. And now we can shed some light on the Galaxy S7 series and its internal storage.

As it turns out, the Android OS and TouchWiz launcher occupy 8GB of storage Galaxy S7 andGalaxy S7 edge. This is upon the first run, even before you begin to setup your phone with accounts, apps, etc.

The typical smartphone user also fills a few GBs the moment he starts updating apps and restoring purchases. And those precious 32GB will be halved in no time.

Luckily, the Galaxy S7 and S7 edge offer microSD expansion and the option to move apps to the SD card.

Hopefully, this information helps you make the right decision - maybe you should consider waiting for the 64GB models, or purchasing a fast microSD card.

Sprint and AT&T also start shipping Galaxy S7/S7 edge pre-orders

T-Mobile became the first carrier in the US to start shipping Galaxy S7/S7 edge pre-orders ahead of the devices' official launch. In fact, some of the magenta carrier's customers who pre-ordered the flagships have already received their units.

Now, it is being reported that a couple of other major US carriers - AT&T and Sprint - have also begun shipping the pre-orders. In all, three of the 'Big Four' cell phone carriers in the country have now started shipping the latest Samsung flagships.

There's currently no word on whether or not Verizon has commenced its Galaxy S7/S7 edge pre-order shipments. In case you aren't already aware, the devices are officially set to go on sale starting March 11, and will be available in 60 countries in the first wave of their global launch.

Samsung Galaxy S7 and S7 edge pre-orders break records

According to an unofficial report, Samsung is having a blast with the pre-orders of the Galaxy S7 and Galaxy S7 edge. The phone is up for pre-order in 60 markets and according to Eldar Murtazin in Russia the two phones are enjoying record pre-sales.

The Russian tech journalist also reveals an unofficial statistic that 64% of those who've pre-ordered the phone went for the Galaxy S7 edge, meaning that the majority of fans would gladly play the premium for the dual-curved screen.

We're yet to receive official news from Samsung regarding pre-order numbers. The two phones launch on March 11, so there's plenty of time for them to reach even higher numbers. The company will, reportedly, be making a total of 17.2 million Galaxy S7 and Galaxy S7 edge units by April of this year.