Audiophile-targeted vivo X6S and X6S Plus are now official

Chinese manufacturer vivo has added a pair of new devices to its lineup today. The new handsets come as direct descendants to vivo X6 and X6 Plus and are all but identical on the outside. This is just as well, since the metal shell still looks elegant in silver, gold or pink and reusing the chassis should save some R&D budget, which could be better spent elsewhere.

The devices both come with an even better audio hardware than their predecessors. The smaller X6S is equipped with an AKM4375 32-bit DAC, while the bigger X6S Plus has a ES9028 DAC within a YAMAHA YSS-205X audio processor at its disposal (the same that is used in the vivo X5Max).

But the upgrades goes beyond audio as well. The MediaTek MT6752 powering the 2015 models has been swapped with a Qualcomm Snapdragon 652. While not the top of the line, it still packs four powerful Cortex A72 cores and another four A53 ones plus the Adreno 520 GPU. Displays seem to be unchanged at 5.2" and 5.7" respectively, both of the FullHD Super AMOLED type. The same goes for memory - 4GB or RAM and 32GB, 64GB of storage.

LTE is naturally present and so is the fingerprint reader on the back. The only other hardware upgrade seems to be a new camera in the vivo X6S Plus. The 13MP shooter has been swapped with a 16MP one with fast phase detection autofocus, promising speeds as quick as 0.6 seconds.

Update: Prices have been announced in the official store and are confirmed to be CNY 2598 (around $400) for the X6S and CNY 2,998 (around $470) for the X6S Plus. Shipping is said to begin on April 5.

Samsung Galaxy J3 (2016) with S Bike mode launches in India

So, did you guess what #TapKickVroom is? If you didn't, here's the answer - the Samsung Galaxy J3 (2016) is launching in India with a new S Bike feature.

It's a sort of Do Not Disturb feature that prevents unwanted distractions while riding a bike. The feature is enabled using the included NFC tag and will handle incoming calls.

Normally, the Galaxy J3 won't show any notifications so as not to disturb the rider. It will play a message, explaining that the phone's owner is riding a bike and can't answer. If it's an emergency, the caller can press 1 and the call will go through.

You still can't answer the call - Motion Lock makes sure you're completely stationary before the phone lets you answer.

Anyway, the Samsung Galaxy J3 (2016) features a 5" Super AMOLED screen (720p), quad-core processor with 1.5GB of RAM, LTE and dual-SIM connectivity, plus a 2,600mAh battery. The phone has two cameras - 8MP/1080p on the back and 5MP on the front.

The J3 is available right now for INR 9,000 ($135/€120).

Deal: Buy Moto X Pure Edition or Droid Turbo 2 and get free Moto 360 (2014)

Are you a Motorola fan? Are you in the market for a smartphone and a smartwatch? If your answer to both these questions is yes, then here's a deal for you: Motorola is offering a free Moto 360 (1st gen) with every purchase of a Moto X Pure Edition or Droid Turbo 2.

What's worth keeping in mind here is that the promo is only available on purchase of the 64GB variants of the phones, meaning you'll have to shell out $499 for the Moto X Pure and $720 for the Droid Turbo 2. The Moto 360 (2014) currently costs $199.99.

After you've made up your mind on which phone to buy, just add it as well as the watch to your cart, and the $199.99 discount will appear. The promo is only available for a short time - it ends April 1 at 10:59 a.m. CT - so those interested in taking advantage of it should act fast.

Spigen cases for the Galaxy S7 edge – Video

We were recently able to get our hands on Spigen’s Galaxy S7 edge lineup of cases and decided to show you all some of our favorites and no-so-favorites. When the Galaxy Note edge first came out, I had many customers come into the Samsung shop within Best Buy only to become frustrated that Best Buy didn’t carry any cases for such a drastically different form factor.

A couple of years later, and three edge devices later, Samsung’s Galaxy S7 edge is a new generation of unique form factored devices that require a specially designed case. One that would be able to protect your device while still leaving the whole landscape of the phone open to accept any input without obstructing the edge screen.

Check out our video where we show you these cases first-hand, and which of these cases you might want to avoid if you are the kind of user who is constantly fumbling and dropping their device.

Samsung+ customer support app gets live video chat and remote assistance

Samsung+ is Samsung's customer support app, that you can find preinstalled on a variety of the company's smartphones and tablets, including the recently released Galaxy S7 and S7 edge of course. And today Samsung+ has received a huge update, which should make its way to the Google Play Store in the next few hours.

The first new thing is that you can live video chat with a Samsung customer support representative, or you can text or use a plain old voice call if you so wish. Remote assistance is built in too, which means you can grant a support rep permission to remotely operate and troubleshoot your device. This is called Samsung Assist and is right now only available for the Galaxy S7 and S7 edge. Other devices will have access to this feature after software updates that will arrive in the next few weeks.

The app's Device Diagnostics tab tells you useful things about your battery's health as well as data and security. FAQs and troubleshooting tips and tricks are also included in Samsung+ in case you want to fix things on your own. Tips and tricks are available for Samsung home appliances and consumer electronics in addition to mobile devices, so you can find out interesting tidbits about your refrigerator and TV too.

Fitbit Blaze and Alta shipments cross 1 million mark in first month of availability

Fitbit has announced that it has shipped more than a million units of its Blaze smartwatch in the first month of the device's availability. The timepiece, which went on sale in the first week of March, has also become an Amazon best-seller both in the smart watch and heart monitor categories.

Fitbit Blaze

In addition, the company also announced that shipments of its Alta fitness tracker have also crossed the one million mark, something which happened in the first three weeks of the device's retail availability.

Fitbit Alta

"At Fitbit, we continue to focus on developing innovative and motivating fitness-first products that our customers love and that help them achieve their health and fitness goals," said the company's CBO Woody Scal. "The positive response we’ve received to Blaze and Alta demonstrates our continued ability to innovate and drive strong demand for Fitbit products, which is what has made and kept us the leader in the global wearables category."

AT&T will give you a free 48-inch Samsung smart TV when you buy a Galaxy S7 or S7 edge

Here's yet another deal you can take advantage of if you're interested in purchasing one of Samsung's latest flagships from a US carrier. AT&T is, under certain conditions, going to give you a free 48-inch Samsung smart TV if you buy either a Galaxy S7 or S7 edge, starting tomorrow.

You do need to get the phone using AT&T's Next installment plans, and in order to qualify you must have both AT&T wireless and DIRECTV service (of which at least one must be new). The following table explains in detail what you need in order to be eligible.

So you're not eligible only if you upgrade an existing AT&T line and already have DIRECTV. Otherwise, you're set. If you do qualify make sure you visit this website (from tomorrow) and claim your free TV, you won't automatically get it. The offer ends on April 30. You can claim the TV within 60 days of having bought the phone.

The TV in question is the 48-inch J5200 series LED-backlit LCD, which Samsung is currently selling for $479.99 through its own online store.

Microsoft Office now has 1.2 billion users, 340 million mobile app downloads

Microsoft's Build conference has entered its second day today, and the company is busy boasting about the reach of its Office applications. According to Microsoft, there are now 1.2 billion Office users in the world, who spend an average of 3-4 hours per day using the suite.

And before you think that those are all work computers, consider this: the Office mobile apps for Android and iOS have so far been downloaded no less than 340 million times. Things are going pretty well for Microsoft's Office 365 subscription service too, with more than 50,000 new small business customers opting for this solution every month.

What's more, 85% of Fortune 500 companies are using at least one Microsoft cloud offering, so clearly the enterprise sector is still very important for the software giant. While the company may now be giving away Windows upgrades for free, Office is a cash cow that it obviously plans on milking for a long time to come.

Guess the smartphone that may trump the Samsung Galaxy S7 in 4K video quality

We're working on a smartphone review for you, one you're not really expecting, and it's due to be out tomorrow. While examining its camera performance, video quality in particular, we realized we had stumbled upon a true gem, and it couldn't wait - not for another minute, let alone tomorrow.

So we figured we'd do an improvised comparison between this phone and the SamsungGalaxy S7. We ran out and shot a video on each. The two videos were captured within 60 seconds of each other, so the test was kept as fair as possible.

Below we're showing you a few 1:1 crops from both camcorders and there's no "guess which is which" type of question - Galaxy S7 on the left, mystery phone on the right.

There's no arguing which are the more detailed crops. The Galaxy S7 loses rather miserably in terms of resolved detail - mystery phone's frame grabs are as sharp as still images, and the Galaxy S7 just isn't quite there. Samsung's flagship does have wider dynamic range going for it, just barely, but we're voting this one in mystery phone's favor.

Stay tuned for the reveal, coming your way in a day. In the meantime, hit us in the comments and try to guess the phone or at least the manufacturer. We'll give you two hints - it's not a Chinese brand and it's not the LG G5 (we have yet to compare these two).

Diamond-clad Samsung Gear S2 by de Grisogono will cost $15,000

A couple of weeks ago Samsung announced a heavily blinged up special edition of its latest smartwatch, the Gear S2 by de Grisogono. The Korean wearable maker teamed up with the renowned jewelry company in order to produce a smartwatch that looks more like a piece of jewelry than an electronic device.

During the official announcement pricing wasn't revealed, but we did expect it to be through the roof. Well, according to a new report that is just the case. It turns out that the Gear S2 by de Grisogono is set to cost a whopping $15,000 when it becomes available this summer. You'll find it in Samsung's and de Grisogono's retail outlets.

The watch has no less than 127 white and black diamonds on it, a rose gold rotating bezel, and a black galuchat bracelet. On the inside however it's identical to a vanilla Gear S2, sporting the same specs.

We're talking about a 1.2-inch 360x360 Super AMOLED touchscreen, the Exynos 3250 Dual chipset with a 1 GHz dual-core Cortex-A7 CPU, 512 MB of RAM, 4GB of storage, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, NFC, a heart rate monitor, and a 250 mAh battery. It runs the Tizen wearable platform. The de Grisogono edition gets a special watch face though.

Oculus Rift's teardown exposes an easy to fix VR headset

The Oculus Rift orders are shipping now, and the long awaited VR headset is already in use by the most eager fans around the world. As it happens these days, the guys over iFixit were in a hurry to tear down the thing and check out its internals.

So, the first and most important conclusion iFixit has drawn is that the Rift is quite easy to repair of something happens to it.

Unlike the developer's version, which used a 1080p Galaxy Note 3 display, the retail one uses two separate OLED 90mm pieces behind the two lenses, each with a display of 456ppi.

Thanks to those big lenses you are seeing, the display looks further away when compared to the Oculus-powered Gear VR headset (with any compatible Galaxy smartphone).

You can also learn about its chip, boards, among other things over the iFixit post.

Or you can check the teardown video below.

iPhone SE teardown shows hardware ranging from iPhone 5 to 6s

The Apple iPhone SE is a 6s in a 5s body, but Chipworks dug into the internals and it turns out the story is more complicated than that. It straddles multiple generations - from the iPhone 5 selfie camera to the iPhone 6s chipset, a whopping four generations.

The Apple A9 chipset is brand new and the SK Hynix-made LPDDR4 2GB memory matches the 6s as well. The NFC, audio chips and motion sensor are from that generation as well. The storage appears to be from the 6s as well, but an earlier 19nm chip instead of the 15nm being shipped now.

The Qualcomm modem from the earlier iPhone 6 model while the touchscreen controller goes back to the iPhone 5s.

Using the images and info from Chipworks, I labeled the parts on the motherboard with the iPhone generation they come from.