Latest News

While it did get unveiled by ads a little too early, Huawei officially announced their first Android Wear smartwatch with the Huawei Watch. Powered by Android Wear, the Watch is round and made into a 42mm diameter cold-forged stainless steel frame. Other tech specs and features include a Snapdragon 400 processor, 512MB RAM, Bluetooth 4.1 connectivity, 1.4-inch touch-sensitive AMOLED display, scratch proof sapphire crystal lens, heart-rate monitor and 6-axis motion sensors. The 1.4-inch round AMOLED display offers a 400 x 400 pixel resolution with 10000:1 contrast ratio while the body features a crown as well. It is coming in black, gold and silver, with various interchangeable metal, leather and other material straps. The Huawei Watch is compatible with both iOS and Android devices and comes with the usual health tracking features but the sensors should offer some other features as well. Unfortunately, no Malaysia release dates or pricing details yet. It is headed for Singapore with the first batch, so we expect third-party sellers to have the Huawei Watch available first for now.

Spotify for desktop recently offered a new update which brings several new features and improvements. These include a fully integrated lyrics engine powered by Musixmatch. To activate this feature click the Lyrics button while the song is playing. Other features include an improved Friend Feed to find out what your friends are listening to and daily viral charts for the latest and greatest tracks. Here's what they had to say about it:

“We’re excited to bring an update to one of our key platforms - one that makes the experience smoother and introduces some great features and integrations. Following in the footsteps of previous successful app integrations such as Songkick, we’re thrilled to bring desktop listeners such a sought-after feature as lyrics.” Dave Price, Director of Product at Spotify 

The new update also phases out the App Finder feature and third-party applications but for more information check out the Spotify developer blog.

LG has been slowly expanding its smartwatch lineup in the past few months. The latest watch from the company was the LG Watch Urbane targeted at a more luxurious crowd. Within just two weeks of its release, LG has announced a 4G LTE version of the device with some essential upgrades. The new LG Watch Urbane LTE brings high speed network connectivity along with a number of other features such as walkie-talkie style voice chats, foreign speech translation and even GPS location sharing. The watch can even make 4G LTE phone calls. In terms of Tech specs LG has also made some big upgrades. The battery inside the new device will be 700 mAh, up from 410 mAh on the earlier announced model. The company has also bumped up the RAM to 1GB. The Watch Urbane LTE comes with a payment tool which enables its users to make NFC based payments. This would make it the second watch with such a capability after the Apple Watch. Also, unlike the Watch Urbane, this particular model will run on LG's proprietary OS instead of Android Wear. LG will be showing off the new watch at MWC 2015. Expect more information such as a possible Malaysia pricing and release dates at the event which is set for in the next few hours.

We are just a few hours away from the launch of the Samsung Galaxy S6 flagship smartphone which is probably the most anticipated phone of the year. It is said that under its project zero initiative Samsung will rebuild the new flagship device from scratch. Recent leaks confirm this news as the S6 was spotted in a number of images online. The alleged pictures of the S6 reveal that Samsung has seriously stepped up its design in the new phone. According to the pictures, the device will have a metal frame and a glass panel both on the front and the back. Unlike predecessors, the back will be non-removable and there will be no memory card slot. Instead, it is rumored that the Galaxy S6 could come with a 128GB flash storage that was recently announced by Samsung. The new storage is said to be 2.7 times faster at random data reads as compared to regular flash storage and its sequential speeds are in line with that of SSDs. In the software area too, Samsung will streamline the user experience with reportedly less bloatware. The overall UI will be like the Nexus Vanilla Android experience. A recent report also revealed the full list of apps that will come pre-installed on the S6. They are as follows: S Voice, S Health, Facebook, WhatsApp (download link), Microsoft One Drive, Microsoft One Note, Skype, All Google apps, Galaxy Apps. The company will officially announce the Galaxy S6 today, but a Dutch carrier has already made the device available for pre-order on-contract for free at EUR 44 per month. We will be covering MWC 2015, so stay tuned for more updates. 

With MWC 2015 just a few hours or so away, HTC is all set to unveil its flagship smartphone of the year, the HTC One M9. The new HTC device is said to retain the design philosophy of its predecessors, which is actually a good thing considering all the praise that it received in the past few years. HTC UK recently released a teaser video for the One M9 on twitter. The video reveals little about the device but shows off a violet material ripple which could hint at the new HTC Boom Sound front facing speakers. Finally, there are the words "let them stare", which once again fails to reveal anything concrete about the device.  As for the tech specs, it is almost confirmed that the HTC flagship will run on Qualcomm Snapdragon 810 processor. The chipmaker recently released a Vine on twitter which showed off a device similar to the One M9 with the words '8:10'. Moreover, in the video, the clock style figures '10:08' changes to '10:09' hinting that the One M9 will succeed the M8. Other leaked tech specs include 3GB RAM, 32GB internal storage, 5-inch Full HD display, 20MP rear camera and 4MP ultrapixel front shooter and finally a 2900 mAh battery. The company has an event scheduled for 1st March 2015 at 10 AM EST. So, the event will start here in Malaysia at 11PM on Sunday (today). You can check out the live stream for yourself as well but we will be covering MWC 2015, so stay tuned for more updates. 

Joining the growing ranks of entry-level smartphones with 4G LTE is the Motorola Moto E (2015)smartphone with it's recent official announcement. Asides from that, the new Moto E has a larger 4.5-inch display with Gorilla Glass 3 and 540 x 960 pixel resolution. There is also a VGA front camera as well while the 5MP rear camera can now record 720p HD video. The main tech spec upgrade remains the 64-bit quad-core Snapdragon 410 processor which in turn enables 4G LTE. A lower-end Snapdragon 200 powered version with 3G connectivity will also be made available but no news when. While it doesn't have any IPx7 water proof certifications the new Moto E does feature a water resistant coating so it should be somewhat splash proof. No Malaysia release dates or pricing yet but the 4G LTE capable Moto E will be available for $150 (RM539). 

Asides from the usual pre-MWC leaks, the Sony Xperia Z4 Tablet has now leaked with both tech specs and a pic. These have revealed a rounded corner design and metal trim much like the Sony Xperia Z3 Tablet Compact. The leaked tech spec for the Xperia Z4 Tablet included a 2K or 2560 x 1440 pixel resolution display. Unconfirmed tech specs and features that are most likely true include a 10.1-inch sized display and IPx7 water and dust resistance just like it's previous versions. While we still recommend taking such rumours with a pinch of salt, we shouldn't have to wait that long for the full official reveal as MWC 2015 is set for just next week.

Rumours about the Samsung Galaxy Tab S2 have increased from just how thin it could be to full-on tech specs. Revealed via benchmark, the 9.7-inch display successor to the Samsung Galaxy Tab S 8.4 and Galaxy Tab S 10.5 will likely offer a 2048 x 1536 pixel resolution and a 4:3 aspect ratio, much like the Apple iPad tablets. Other notable tech specs include a 1.9GHz octa-core Samsung Exynos processor, 3GB of RAM, 32GB storage, 8MP rear camera, 2MP front camera and Android 5.0.2. Unconfirmed rumours indicate that the new Galaxy Tab S2 will have a 5.4mm thin metal body but just weigh in at 407g. No Malaysia release dates and pricing details yet but as usual of such rumours, do take it with a pinch of salt. We expect it to appear sometime during MWC 2015 which is just next week.

The Pebble Time smartwatch has been officially launched with a brand new Kickstarter campaign that has already reached it's funding goal of $500000 within minutes of being announced (as of the time of writing, the campaign has already reached $7.4 million). The most notable features of the Pebble Time smartwatch includes it's colour e-paper screen and a new user interface. Other differences include a thinner and lighter design at 9.5mm thin but it retains a 7-day battery life. The colour screen is protected by a layer of Corning Gorilla Glass while the underside is curved somewhat to fit the shape of your wrist. It is also water resistant enough for you to go swimming with it. While you can wait for it to appear at third-party sellers you can go to the Kickstarter campaign direct and pledge for a Pebble Time smartwatch from $179 (RM648) but bear in mind that there may be extra shipping fees. No Malaysia release dates but it should start shipping in May 2015. The regular retail price will be set at $199 (RM720) in the next 30 days so get a move on if you want one.

Sony has officially announced the Sony Xperia E4g for the entry level market. While it is notable that the Xperia  E4g shrinks the display down to a 4.7-inch screen with 540 x 960 pixel resolution it also packs in 4G LTE connectivity and a 1.5GHz quad-core MediaTek MT6732 processor. Other tech specs and features remain the same except for the measurements which is 133 x 71 x 10.8mm compared to the thinner but bigger Sony Xperia E4. No exact Malaysia release dates or pricing details were available but it is expected to arrive in April 2015 at $145 (RM525).