Verizon's Note5 is now receiving Android Marshmallow, HTC One (M8) will get it on Monday

Verizon isn't always the fastest US carrier when it comes to releasing Android updates for the handsets it sells, in fact it's usually one of the slowest. But that's not the case for the Samsung Galaxy Note5 as it turns out.

Big Red is already rolling out the update to Android 6.0 Marshmallow for Samsung's premium phablet, just a couple of weeks after the new software was first released anywhere in the world. That's some fast turnaround indeed.

Aside from all the goodies that Google's packed into Marshmallow, the update also brings with it certain improvements to Live Broadcast and Wi-Fi Calling for HD Voice users. The Amazon Appstore will no longer be preinstalled (thus dropping the number of app stores on the device to 'just' two).

As always, this one is bound to be a staged rollout, so it might take a few days for it to reach your particular Note5 unit. If you're impatient, you can always force your handset to manually check for the new software by going to Settings > About phone.

If, on the other hand, you own an HTC One (M8) bought from Verizon, you are mere days away from seeing Marshmallow on your device too. HTC VP Mo Versi has announced that the rollout will begin on March 7, which is this coming Monday.

Amazon Echo compatibility with Nest thermostats coming in two weeks

If you own an Amazon Echo and have a Nest smart thermostat, you’ll be happy to know that they will begin to communicate with each other over the next couple of weeks.

This new integration will allow users to simply tell Alexa to change the thermostat temperature to a specific temperature. Alexa’s new Skills feature uses contextual information to learn about the user’s preferences such as telling Alexa that you are leaving your home and Alexa would know to turn the thermostat off. Or you could tell Alexa to “tell the thermostat that I’m too hot.”

Nest also states that if you use IFTTT, there are already more than 50 recipes that you can use in conjunction with your Nest thermostat and Amazon Echo.

This weekend you can grab an Honor 5X in the UK for just £149

Huawei has been selling the Honor 5X in the UK for quite a while now. You can opt to buy the phone from its maker's official online store for £189.99. Yet if you choose a third party online retailer and do the deed this weekend, you can save £40.

That's quite a lot given the already pretty small price of the Honor 5X. The deal is offered byClove, and you can take advantage of it by using the promo code MAR5X16 when you go through checkout. This will lower the price of the device all the way down to £149, making the Honor 5X even better value for money than it already was.

The one caveat is that you need to buy the handset before 11:59 pm on March 6 - that's this Sunday, so you basically need to act at some point during this weekend.

The unit you're buying is SIM-free. The Honor 5X has a 5.5-inch 1080p touchscreen, a 13 MP main camera with LED flash, a 5 MP selfie snapper, Qualcomm's Snapdragon 616 SoC (with a 1.5 GHz octa-core Cortex-A53 CPU), 2GB of RAM, 16GB of expandable storage, LTE, and a 3,000 mAh battery. It runs Android 5.1.1 Lollipop underneath Huawei's EMUI 3.1.

You can now claim your freebies for Galaxy S7 and S7 edge pre-orders in the USA

If you pre-order the Galaxy S7 and Galaxy S7 edge from certain retailers you have been promised free stuff, most often - the Gear VR headset ($99 value) with a bunch of compatible games. Samsung Promotions official website is now live and allows you to claim your freebies.

You must choose the retailer where you pre-ordered your Galaxy S7 or S7 edge and then you can learn what's your prize.

AT&T, Metro PCS, Sam's Club, T-Mobile, US Cellular, Walmart, Verizon's Retail, pre-orders will receive Gear VR bundled with some compatible games. First they need to claim their prize via the Samsung Promotions website, otherwise they will not get any free stuff.

By the way, T-Mobile is throwing a 12-months free Netflix subscription in addition to the Gear VR bundle.

Users who pre-ordered at BestBuy, Costco, Sprint, and Target will get their Gear VR bundle delivered directly to their home without any further verification.

Verizon Online is the only retailer to allow you to choose between the Gear VR with six games bundle of the dark gray model or the Samsung Gear S2 smartwatch (sold for $300 separately).

All who pre-order the Galaxy S7 or Galaxy S7 edge between February 23 and March 18 are eligible for some free hardware. The supplies are limited though, so if those matter to you, consider placing an order sooner rather than later. The same goes for claiming the free stuff.

HTC 10 leaks in brand new press renders and live images

A very short while ago we told you about the fact that HTC won't be selling its next flagship smartphone as the One M10 (like everyone anticipated), instead opting to go with the much simpler moniker of HTC 10. And now, to complement the new name, two well-known leaksters have unleashed a torrent of new images of the device. First off, Evan Blass gives us full press renders for the upcoming handset.

Now in case you're wondering how these renders would translate into real-life images of the HTC 10, wonder no more. Three live shots of the phone have been shared by @onleaks. Here they are for your viewing pleasure (make sure you click on the thumbnails to get the full-size pictures).

Along with these, @onleaks has also revealed some "prototype specs" for the HTC 10. It's supposedly coming with a 5.15-inch QHD touchscreen, Qualcomm's Snapdragon 820 chipset on board, 4GB of RAM, a 12 MP main camera, and a USB Type-C port.

None of these are surprising, of course, as we've heard about the 10 sporting these exact innards many times before. The 12 MP camera on the back should be of the UltraPixel variety, meaning it will be incredibly similar to the solution Samsung's chosen for its Galaxy S7and S7 edge. Camera comparisons between the HTC 10 and the S7 will thus be very interesting indeed, especially as HTC itself has already claimed that its phone's camera will be "very compelling".

HTC has already started teasing the handset, with an image and a video so far, but the company should probably just set an announcement date already, now that these leaked renders and pictures are out. At this rate, we assume a full spec list will be revealed pretty soon, so HTC might not want to drag things along any further.

Lava Iris Fuel F2 goes official, available exclusively on eBay India

Lava Iris Fuel F2 was announced and launched immediately in India. It's an entry level handset running on Android Lollipop and priced at INR 4,444 or $66. Although it's a successor of the Fuel F1, the F2 is a less capable device.

The Lava Iris Fuel F2 has a 5" FWVGA display and is powered by a quad-core 1.3GHz Cortex-A7 processor with 512MB RAM. The Fuel F2 packs a 5MP rear camera with an LED flash, a front 0.3MP snapper, and a 3,000 mAh battery.

The Lava Iris Fuel F2 is a dual-SIM device, and it can tap to 3G networks. There is 8GB storage expandable via a microSD slot (up to 32GB).

The phone is available exclusively through eBay India, and you can get it right now in black or white for INR 4,444 ($66).

Android N System app gets previewed

We have taken a look at the Android N notification system previously, courtesy of Android Police. Now, they have released images of what is a work in progress Settings app that we might see in the coming Android N.

One of the changes is that they have removed the lines between items that belong to the same category, and only put them between different categories. Also, items on the main list will now show additional info below them, such as the Battery item showing the battery status. Lastly, if you are in Do Not Disturb mode, the app shows a drop down at the top for some reason.

If you click on any of the items on the main screen and go a level deeper, you will see the new hamburger menu appear on the top. This will let you jump to any of the other sections in the app without going back first.

Again, these are essentially mock ups of a work in progress build of Android N, so a lot can change in the final version.

Check the source for more info.

Samsung Upgrade Programme launches in the UK, nets you the latest Galaxy every 12 months

Today Samsung has announced the Upgrade Programme for the UK. This is basically the company's own device leasing scheme, which should also make its way to South Korea as past rumors have told us.

The Upgrade Programme lets you get a Galaxy S7 or S7 edge by paying a 10% deposit upfront, and then making monthly payments for the phone. For the S7, the deposit is £56.90, and after that you'll pay £24.58 per month. After 12 months, you can upgrade to the next Samsung flagship (let's call it the Galaxy S8), by simply returning the S7 in "good working condition". And from that point on you pay 12 monthly installments for the S8.

The good thing is that you can upgrade your device every year. On the other hand, there are plenty of caveats. First off, if you don't upgrade the handset after a year, you'll still have another 12 monthly payments to make on that S7, as the agreement is for 24 months (but Samsung will "cover" the 12 remaining installments if you upgrade and return your S7). And once you've upgraded to the S8, you've entered another two-year agreement (so if you don't upgrade to the S9 in 2018, then you still have 12 more payments to cover the price of the S8... and so on).

The installments are not interest-free, as they are in the case of certain smartphone purchases from US carriers. With the Samsung Upgrade Programme, there's a 14.9% APR. And obviously the scheme does not include an actual contract with an operator, so you'll have to get that separately - or use a Pay as you go SIM.

Still, despite the caveats, it's always nice to have yet another option to purchase a much-craved item such as a Galaxy S7 or S7 edge. It remains to be seen how far this Upgrade Programme will spread, geographically speaking, in the coming months.

Sony Xperia Z5 series get Android Marshmallow in Japan

Sony has begun rolling out the Android 6.0 Marshmallow update for the entire Xperia Z5 lineup in Japan - Xperia Z5, Xperia Z5 Compact, and Xperia Z5 Premium. The Marshmallow update for Sony Xperia Z5 has been already available in Turkey.

The new Marshmallow-based firmware improves on the battery manager, app permissions manager, notification area customizations, and it brings a new Xperia Home launcher as well as an updated Camera app.

Sony UK announced the Marshmallow rollout for the Xperia Z5 series, the Xperia Z4 Tablet, and Xperia Z3+ units will begin on March 7. Now that Sony is seeding Marshmallow updates in Turkey and Japan, we believe March 7 should be the date for the global release for those updates.

Thank you, Chary, for the tip!

Fitbit's Blaze smartwatch is now available for purchase

Unveiled at this year's Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in January, the Fitbit Blaze smartwatch is now available for purchase. The wearable device, which carries a $200 price tag, was up for pre-order until now.

The watch is now listed on major US online retailers including Amazon and Best Buy. It comes with a choice of Black, Blue or Plum wristbands, although you can also purchase leather straps in three different colors for $100 each and a stainless steel bracelet for $130.

In terms of functionality, the wearable offers heart rate monitoring, all-day activity and sleep tracking, music control, as well as call, text, other alerts. The company claims a 5-day battery life for the smartwatch.

Samsung Galaxy J7 (2016) and J5 (2016) will have laser autofocus according to Chinese certification

Chinese regulatory authority TENAA has sure had a busy day today. Having already released its certifications for the Oppo R9 and R9 Plus as well as the Samsung Galaxy A9 Pro, TENAA is now gracing us with the full details of the upcoming Galaxy J5 (2016) and Galaxy J7 (2016).

The successors to the original J5 and J7 from last year are due for a release soon. In the meantime they've kept on leaking, and now they've been put through the paces of TENAA, which has revealed that they could be sporting metal frames.

The Galaxy J5 (2016) can be seen above. It's got a 5.2-inch 720p Super AMOLED touchscreen, a 13 MP rear camera with LED flash and laser autofocus, a 5 MP selfie snapper, a 1.2 GHz quad-core processor, 2GB of RAM, 16GB of expandable storage, and 4G on board. It runs Android 5.1.1 Lollipop. Its dimensions are 145.7 x 72.3 x 7.9 mm, and it weighs 155.4g. It will be offered in white, gold, and pink gold. This particular model, the SM-J5108, is headed to China Mobile.

TENAA has certified not one but two iterations of the Galaxy J7 (2016), the SM-J7108 for China Mobile and the SM-J7109 for China Telecom. You can see the former above this paragraph and the latter underneath.

They share most of the specs as you'd expect, with one difference being in the processor's clock speed. Whereas the J7108 has a 1.6 GHz octa-core CPU, the J7109 has to make do with a 1.5 GHz octa-core chip. This may mean they're actually employing different SoCs, but there's no way of knowing for sure right now.

Otherwise they're the same, each featuring a 5.5-inch 1080p Super AMOLED display, a 13 MP rear camera with LED flash and laser autofocus, a 5 MP selfie shooter, 3GB of RAM, 16GB of expandable storage, and running Android 5.1.1 Lollipop. The J7108 will be available in gold and white, while the J7109 will be offered in black and gold. Their measurements are almost identical, but not quite so. The J7108's dimensions are 151.7 x 75.9 x 7.6 mm, and it weighs 165g. On the other hand, the J7109 measures 151.7 x 76 x 7.6 mm, and it weighs 166g.

Samsung Galaxy A9 Pro is fully revealed by TENAA as well

Ever since January the upcoming Samsung Galaxy A9 Pro has been in the rumors, supposedly arriving soon in China. We've already seen it in the databases of both GFXBenchand AnTuTu, on which occasions we've found out most of its specs.

And now the A9 Pro has been certified for sale in China by TENAA. The regulatory authority has thus outed the first images of the device, along with a pretty comprehensive list of its specs - like it always does.

The Galaxy A9 Pro will have a 6-inch 1080p Super AMOLED touchscreen, a 16 MP rear camera with LED flash, an 8 MP selfie cam, a 1.8 GHz octa-core processor, 4GB of RAM, 32GB of expandable storage, dual-SIM functionality and LTE. It runs Android 6.0 Marshmallow. Its dimensions are 161.7 x 80.9 x 7.9 mm, and it weighs 210g.

The exact chipset employed isn't named by TENAA, but from the benchmark runs that were leaked in the past we know it's the Qualcomm Snapdragon 652. Compared to the non-Pro A9, you're getting a higher-res main camera, 1 extra GB of RAM, as well as a newer version of Android from day one. And since it's 10g heavier and 0.5 mm thicker than the A9, we assume the A9 Pro will also sport an even bigger battery than the 4,000 mAh cell inside the non-Pro version.

The Galaxy A9 Pro will be available in China in black, white, and gold, and it's rumored to have NFC on board complete with support for Samsung Pay. Its estimated price is between CNY 3,300 and CNY 3,600 (that's $504 to $550 or €462 to €504 at the current exchange rates).