T-Mobile document leaks buy-one-get-one deal for Galaxy S7 and S7 edge

The Galaxy S7 and S7 edge are just days away from launch at this point. Those who pre-ordered their devices will be receiving them soon, well, if they haven’t already.

Lately, T-Mobile has been known for pulling crazy stunts or being really ‘out there’ but this one might take the cake for deals on new phones.

TmoNews was tipped, most likely by a T-Mobile employee, with a screen capture of a document regarding a deal for the Galaxy S 7 and S7 edge, two phones that aren’t even officially released yet.

The deal says that customers who purchase two Galaxy S7/S7edge devices can get their second device for free. Before you flip out, there are a couple of things you need to do in order to actually qualify for this deal:

Both devices must be purchased on Equipment Installment Plans (aka. NOT a leased device) and the deal requires you to add at least one new line of service. It is not certain if the entire cost of the device will be refunded to you on a pre-paid visa card, but we can assume that you get the value of the phone upfront on the card, but you are required to pay for the free device on a monthly basis.

Unfortunately, this promotion wouldn’t be available to T-Mobile employees, but to be quite honest, I’m sure they have better deals than BOGO on the latest smartphone.

The highly-anticipated Galaxy S7 and S7 edge are to be officially released this Friday, we’ll have to wait to see what how T-Mobile announces this deal to customers.

Apple to pay $450 million after failed ebook price-fixing appeal

Today, the US Supreme Court wrote the final page in the long legal fight against Apple on charges of participating in a major conspiracy to inflate e-book prices. The original suite dates back from 2012 when the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New York ruled that the Cupertino giant had conspired with publishers to inflate ebook prices as a means of undermining Amazon.

This original accusation states that back in early 2010, around the time the iPad was launching, Apple colluded with five book publishers and managed to raise some book prices by as much as 50% (from $9.99 all the way to $14.99) in an attempt to disturb Amazon's leading position as a cheap e-book retailer.

After the initial ruling found the US giant guilty, it decided to start a long process of court appeals that inevitably led all the way up to the US Supreme Court. The latter, however, has decided not to hear the case, which leaves in place a June 2015 ruling by the New York-based 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, that found Apple guilty of violating federal antitrust laws. Seeing how Cupertino has reached the end of the legal ladder on this case, it will be forced to pay $450 million as part of a settlement.

Bill Baer, head of the U.S. Justice Department's antitrust division commented on the development saying:

Apple’s liability for knowingly conspiring with book publishers to raise the prices of e-books is settled once and for all

Google Fi no longer requires an invitation to sign up

Project Fi is Google’s first venture into the mobile service space. It teamed up with Sprint and T-Mobile in the US to form an MVNO network exclusive to the Nexus 6, Nexus 6P, and Nexus 5X. The only way you could sign up for a Project Fi account was by either buying a Nexus device through Project Fi’s website, or signing up for an invitation with your Gmail account and waiting a couple of months for your invitation to roll in.

Today, Android’s blog announced its official goodbye to invites for the Fi Network. The post briefly outlines what the venture has taught Google about customers who use Project Fi such as traveling abroad, using SIM cards in other devices, and the success of relying on Public Wi-Fi.

Project Fi is a US cellular network that piggy-backs its service from both Sprint and T-Mobile networks depending on which provides a more reliable connection. The network also takes advantage of public Wi-Fi networks to fill any dead coverage with a Wi-Fi only connection.

Plans start at $20 per month as a base, then add $10 for every 1GB used in your cycle, if you use 2 GB in the month, you will be charged $20 for the base fee and $20 more for the data you used. If you only use 1GB and a quarter, you’ll only be charged $12.50 for your data for that month.

Xiaomi announces more powerful Mi Box 3 Enhanced Edition for China

Xiaomi has announced an updated version of its Mi Box 3 media player, called the Mi Box 3 Enhanced Edition.

The biggest change in this is the faster processor. The Enhanced Edition ships with a 64-bit MediaTek MT8693 with a hexa-core CPU (2 x 2GHz Cortex-A72 + 4 x 1.6GHz Cortex-A53) and PowerVR GX6250 GPU. The CPU performance is said to be 80% faster and the GPU performance 240% faster than the standard Mi Box 3. There is an improved cooling system with a fan to keep the temperatures low.

The memory and storage have also been doubled, and it now has 2GB RAM and 8GB storage space. The Wi-Fi is now 802.11ac 2x2 with transfer speeds up to 300Mbps and Bluetooth 4.1.

The Mi Box 3 Enhanced Edition is priced at 399 yuan, which is about $61.

Facebook Messenger for Android finally receives Material Design makeover

Later today, a new version of Facebook Messenger for Android will start rolling out through the Play Store. This will finally adhere to Google's Material Design guidelines, now almost two years old. Still, the Messenger app is ahead of the actual Facebook app in this regard, believe it or not.

Various Material Design elements have been in testing by the Messenger team over the past few months, and have been spotted in a number of beta versions of the app. The company has also enabled them for some users, but not for others, in what's known as A/B testing. But now the new design is going out to everyone.

The roll out itself might take a few days to complete, as is always the case with such things. You can get an idea of what Facebook Messenger will look like after the update by glancing at the screenshots above.

Facebook says the redesign has been a painstakingly hard process, especially since the app is such an essential part of the lives of hundreds of millions of people across the world.

Upcoming Samsung SM-T585 tablet gets benchmarked, has specs revealed

A new Samsung tablet is in the works, folks. This has been revealed because the Samsung SM-T585 has been benchmarked using GFXBench by someone in possession of a prototype. This has thankfully revealed the device's most important specs.

Thus, the SM-T585 comes with a 10-inch 1,920x1,200 touchscreen, Samsung's Exynos 7870 chipset (boasting a 1.7 GHz octa-core Cortex-A53 CPU and Mali-T830 GPU), 2GB of RAM, 16GB of built-in storage, an 8 MP rear camera with LED flash, a 2 MP selfie snapper, and pretty much all the usual connectivity options (sans NFC though).

The Exynos 7870 SoC was made official recently, and so far we've only seen it powering one variation of the upcoming Galaxy J7 (2016). Because its model number ends in "5", and given Samsung's past naming conventions, the SM-T585 should be the LTE-capable iteration of the Wi-Fi-only SM-T580. If so, then expect to see support for LTE Cat.6, since that's built into the chipset.

It's still very much unclear what branding Samsung will choose for this tablet. We might be looking at the 10-inch Galaxy Tab 5, or a new Galaxy Tab E or Galaxy Tab A model. Either way, it will run Android 6.0.1 Marshmallow from day one.

AnTuTu benchmark releases latest chipset rankings, Snapdragon 820 tops competition

As it does from time to time, the AnTuTu benchmark has released the latest chipset rankings based on results that have been obtained running it. In this case we have two Top 10 lists to speak of.

First off, there's the chart relating "smartphone chip performance" as of early March 2016, which you can see below.

Qualcomm's Snapdragon 820 manages to beat Apple's A9 here, with 136,383 points to 132,657. So the A9 isn't the runaway leader in this category anymore (as it used to be not that long ago). The third place goes to Samsung's Exynos 8890, while Huawei's Kirin 950 drops to fourth (from second place just a couple of months ago). Then we have a couple of 2015 flagship chipsets, the Exynos 7420 and Snapdragon 810, followed by the new upper-midrange Snapdragon 652. This one is understandably close to the 810 in performance since it is in some ways the real successor to that, at least on the CPU side, still using only ARM-designed cores, but replacing the Cortex-A57s with the newer Cortex-A72s.

The Apple A8 is in eighth place, followed by the Snapdragon 650 and the Snapdragon 808. Now if the 652 is the moral successor to the 810, then the 650 is the same thing for the 808, only in this case the newer model has already managed to outperform its predecessor, and by quite a margin no less.

Next up we have the GPU listings, where once again the Snapdragon 820 is king, with its Adreno 530. Again the Apple A9 is second, but this time the difference between them is much bigger. The Mali-T880MP12 in the Exynos 8890 comes very close to the PowerVR GT7600 in Apple's chip, but it's all downhill from there onwards. The Adreno 430 inside the Snapdragon 810 can't keep up with the top three GPUs, nor can the Mali-T760MP8 inside the Exynos 7420. The Adreno 420 from the Snapdragon 805 oddly makes a showing here even though the chipset itself is no longer in AnTuTu's Top 10.

Huawei's Kirin 950 comes with a Mali-T880MP4 GPU, and the difference in the number of cores compared to the T880MP12 in the Exynos 8890 is obvious from its measly performance. Its results are actually comparable to those of the Adreno 418 in the Snapdragon 808 and the Adreno 510 in the Snapdragon 652 - both of which are mid-range chipsets and not aiming for the high-end like the Kirin 950.

All of the results in these charts are averages, and not the highest ones ever achieved by each chip.

Samsung Pay posts a net loss of $16.8 million in its first year of operation

Samsung Pay is still touring the world map - it launched in South Korea, then arrived in the US where it now covers over 70% of US credit and debit card market. Pay is launching in China this month, then the UK and Spain, Australia, Singapore and Brazil too. In Russia, Pay will launch alongside the Galaxy S7.

The service reportedly lost $16.8 million its first year under Samsung (the Korean giant acquired LoopPay for $229 in February 2015). This is on $4.12 million in net sales generated by the service. It has $23.6 million in debt and its net worth stands at $10.5.

Samsung says the service is worth a lot more, though, for the value it adds to its Galaxy smartphones - currently Samsung Pay is supported by the S6, S6 edge, Note5 and several Galaxy A phones, soon the new Galaxy S7 and S7 edge star duo too.

The company also thinks highly of MST - the magnetic stripe emulation, which is both unique and valuable in the US, since the country is behind on new chip-protected credit and debit cards. Bloomberg reports Samsung Pay is growing faster than Apple's service, which had a head start.

Samsung sees Pay and things like Gear VR as avenues to generate revenue after the initial hardware sale. It's not just about making a cut on sales through Pay either, industry insiders think Samsung can mine purchase data to use it for marketing, R&D and more.

Oppo R9 and R9 Plus pricing information leaks

The official unveiling date for the upcoming Oppo R9 and R9 Plus is March 17, something that has been confirmed earlier today after initially being reported on last week. Most of the hardware details of the two devices are already known thanks to the fact that they've passed through TENAA, the Chinese regulatory authority that approves mobile phones for sale in that country (and outs most of their specs in the process).

One thing that's so far remained a mystery, however, is how much they will cost. Not anymore, though, for a newly discovered leak out of China is here to clear that up too.

The image you can see above is said to depict a promotional poster for the R9 and R9 Plus, and if it is the real deal it reveals the pricing for the two models, at least for the Chinese market. The smaller Oppo R9 will go for CNY 2,498, which at the current exchange rates means about $383 or €347. On the other hand, the R9 Plus will start at CNY 2,998 ($460 or €417) if you buy it with 64GB of storage, and will go up to CNY 3,298 ($505, €459) if you need 128GB.

Both phones will come with 4GB of RAM, and it looks like the R9 will only be sold with 64GB of storage space. They will have VOOC fast charging, and the much-rumored 4,120 mAh battery capacity for the R9 Plus is confirmed yet again.

ZTE Blade D2 is a new 4000 mAh budget offer for Thailand and Vietnam

ZTE enriched its device lineup today with a new budget-friendly offer - the ZTE Blade D2. The handset's definitive feature is the spacious 4,000 mAh battery pack, which should provide ample autonomy for the otherwise not so power-hungry hardware. It is housed withing a relatively compact plastic body, measuring 144 x 69.5 x 8mm and weighing in at 155 grams.

The Blade-T620, as it is officially called, has a 5-inch HD IPS LCD display and is powered by a quad-core Mediatek MT6735P SoC, clocked at 1.0 GHz. Memory is set at 1GB and built-in storage is 8GB. There is also a microSD card slot for up to 64GB expansion.

The Blade D2's camera setup is also nothing special, but perfectly adequate for an entry-level device. It consists of an 8MP shooter on the back with a single LED flash and a 2MP front-facing camera. There is no shortage of connectivity options - 4G LTE support, Bluetooth 4.0, Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n, GPS with A-GPS and a micro USB port.

ZTE Blade D2 was launched today in Thailand and is already listed on the ZTE Vietnam website with a price tag of 26,90,000 VND (around $121). This seems to cover the current market availability, but the budget-friendly handset might hit more locations in the future as well.

Xiaomi announces 10,000mAh Mi Power Bank Pro with USB Type-C

Xiaomi has a new 10,000mAh power bank in China, called the Mi Power Bank Pro. The cool new feature here is the presence of USB Type-C and two way fast charging.

The Mi Power Bank Pro can output power from both the Type-A connectors and can be charged from the Type-C connector. It can output and draw 12V 1.5A, 9V 2A, or 5V 2A. It can also charge accessories like Bluetooth headsets and fitness bands that usually draw very low current and can cause some power banks to switch off.

The Mi Power Bank Pro comes with a USB cable with a Type-A connector on one and end microUSB on the other, and also a microUSB to Type-C adaptor. This allows you to charge devices with a microUSB port, with a Type-C port and also to charge the power bank itself.

Like the other Mi Power Banks, the Mi Power Bank Pro has an aluminum body and temperature, input overload, short circuit, output overcurrent, and reset protection.

The Mi Power Bank Pro is priced at 149 yuan, which is about $23.

Android Marshmallow for the Sony Xperia Z5 is rolling out globally

Sony might consider abandoning its signature "Z" series in favor of a more dialed-back new "X" family, but it hasn't turned its back on Xperia Z5 fans quite yet. Marshmallow has now begun seeding globally for the device. Currently, the confirmed regions where the update has been spotted include - Thailand, Russia, Algeria, MENA Arabic, Saudi Arabia, United States, India, and Malaysia.

The covered models include the single SIM E6653, as well as the Dual-SIM varieties, with model numbers E6683 and E6633. The 6.0 32.1.A.1.163 firmware is currently available through the Sony PC Companion app and an OTA is expected shortly.

As for the official changelog, it the new run time permissions model and app dozing. Other additions are a long-overdue update to the camera interface, Xperia Messaging with sticker support and Direct Share for relaying your activities to friends.