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China continues it's March towards smartphone domination with the recent announcement of the Beidu Little Pepper 6 smartphone. Retailing for just $193 (RM688) it's most notable features include a 20MP rear camera, 8MP front camera, 4G LTE, IR blaster and Corning Gorilla Glass 3 covering the 5-inch display with a 720p pixel resolution. Other tech specs are rather entry-level though with a 64-bit quad-core 1.5GHz MediaTek processor, 1GB RAM and 16GB storage. The overall design looks very similar with the Huawei Honor 6, complete with a metal frame and a 7.1mm thin chassis. No news yet about any Malaysia release dates and pricing details, but it could come up from third-party sellers here in Malaysia.

The Samsung Galaxy A5, one of the company's first metal body mid-range smartphone was announced last month. Now, a Vietnamese gold plating company called Karalux is offering a special gold plated Samsung Galaxy A5 variant for an additional $200. Karalux specializes in the customization of phones and supercars and has a number of gold plated models of famous flagships like the Apple iPad Air 2, Apple iPhone 6 and Samsung Galaxy Note 4 under its belt. As for the mid-range A5, Karalux has gold plated the entire aluminum body of the phone with 24K gold. The end result is a gold Galaxy A5 with some plastic patches left on the top, back and the bottom. The company claims that it takes around 4 hours to complete the process. Interested users can also ask for a custom design on the back plate of the device. Even with the $200 (RM711) additional charge, the total cost of the Galaxy A5 comes to around $610 (RM2169). That's a decent price for a gold plated device. As for the tech specs, the A5 comes with a Snapdragon 410 quad-core processor, 2GB RAM, 16GB of expandable storage, 5-inch 720p display and 13MP rear camera. The regular version of the Galaxy A5 is already available starting from today.    

The Consumer Electronics Show held at Las Vegas every year is a platform for major tech manufacturers to showcase their new technology. Kwikset, the residential lock manufacturer was also present at this event. The company unveiled a brand new extension service called as the Kwikset Kevo Plus which works with its existing Kevo platform to enable remote lock / unlock access to these Bluetooth enabled residential locks. The new Kevo Plus connects to your Kevo account and can remotely lock and unlock your doors from any part of the world. Unlike the traditional Kevo app, where users had to send e-keys to guests and friends via the app in order to unlock the door, this new service provides access to the door lock directly to you. The Kevo Plus service comes with a free Bluetooth LE receiver which connects to your router and the Kevo Bluetooth enabled door lock. As soon as you send the command to unlock the door, this receiver forwards that command to the door lock and it unlocks automatically. The home owner will also receive notifications when someone else with a key locks / unlocks the door. Read more about the Kevo remote access features on the official Kwikset website. Meanwhile check out this video to see how Kiwkset's Kevo locks work.

Canon has just made sharing captured images and videos from its cameras a lot easier. The Japanese multinational was present at CES 2015 and unveiled a new media sharing hub called the Canon Connect Station CS100. This is not a surprising announcement from the company as a similar device was rumored to hit the markets a few months back, which went by the name of Canon Cross Media Station. The CS100 looks like the refined version of this earlier leaked product. Canon markets the hub as a photo storage device, but it can do much more than just storing images and videos. The hub lets users transfer, view and share the content inside on a large screen TV or even a monitor with an HDMI connection. Transferring images and videos on this networked hub is easy, thanks to the NFC support and the inbuilt SD card, USB and Ethernet ports. The station offers a 1TB hard drive, Wi-Fi, NFC and a wireless remote. The provided software sorts the images and videos by the date, camera model and custom albums. With more NFC enabled cameras entering the market, the Canon Connect Station CS100 could prove a valuable addition to your gadget list. Canon will launch the storage station sometime in June 2015 for $299 (RM1070). No plans for a Malaysia release date have been announced so far.

Along with ASUS and Lenovo, Samsung also had a pretty busy start at CES 2015. The company unveiled a number of electronic appliances at the event including a new TV, Oven and a Washing machine.  Now, the South Korean giant has announced a new device in its first line of portable flash drives called thePortable SSD T1. The Portable SSD T1 flash drive will bring fast performance and high capacity to a product the size of a business card. It features a sleek black chrome finish and weighs just about 30 grams. Despite its tiny form factor, the highlight of the device is its transfer speeds, which Samsung claims can reach up to 450 MB per second. That's almost seven times faster than a traditional portable HDD. To put things into perspective, a 3GB movie will transfer in just eight seconds and a 10GB file in just 27 seconds with the above mentioned speed. Samsung offers three different storage variants for the T1 – 250GB, 500GB and 1TB. Prices range from $179 (RM637) to $599 (RM2130) depending upon the storage capacity. No Malaysia release dates yet but the device will be available for purchase in US, Europe and Asia by the end of January 2015.

In the past few months, one thing was established in the wearable industry – round watches are much more popular than square ones. Now, Alcatel wants to take advantage of this popularity with its newAlcatel OneTouch Watch. Apart from being round, the OneTouch watch is said to retail for less than $150 (RM533) which will make it cheaper than other round offerings such as the LG G Watch R and theMotorola Moto 360. The watch features a 1.22-inch near circular touchscreen display. There is a small black bar at the bottom like the Moto 360 which acts as the back button. The power button is located on the right side. Inside this 10.5mm thick stainless steel body, there is a STMicroelectronics STM429 chipset which powers the watch. The 210 mAh battery onboard can provide two to five days of run time on a single charge. Other features include an altimeter, accelerometer, gyroscope, e-compass, IP67 certification, heart rate monitor, activity tracker, sleep monitor, phone locator, phone camera remote and music control. The Alcatel OneTouch Watch runs on its own proprietary software instead of Google's Android Wear and is compatible with iOS and Android devices. Apart from the original black and red watch, there are other variants too like the all-white version and the premium all-metallic version. The original model will be available for less than $150 (RM533) and the other two versions for sub-$180 (RM640) price tag. Alcatel plans to launch all the three models in Q1 2015.

ZTE was also present at CES 2015 and announced an upgraded version of the existing ZTE Grand X Max phablet. The new ZTE Grand X Max+ offers modest upgrades in the processor, camera and storage departments, all for $200 (RM715). The new model features a quad-core Snapdragon 400 processor clocked at 1.2GHz (instead of the old Snapdragon 200) with Adreno 305 GPU. There is twice the amount of RAM and storage inside. So, the Max+ comes with 2GB onboard RAM and 16GB of internal storage which can be further expanded up to 32GB. It retains the 6-inch display from the original Max with the same 720p resolution. This translates into a pixel density of 245 ppi which is quite low as compared to today's smartphone display standards. ZTE has upgraded the rear camera from 8MP to 13MP and there is a 5MP front shooter as well. The device will support high speed LTE networks and will run on Android 4.4 KitKat OS with ZTE's own UI on top. The company has not announced any details for a Malaysia release date of the device, but it will be available for sale in the US starting from 9 January 2015 for $200 (RM715).

On the first day of CES 2015, Samsung made only a handful of announcements, out of which none were smartphones. The next day, however, the South Korean giant announced two new mid-range devices – the Samsung Galaxy E7 and the Samsung Galaxy E5. Both the models take design inspiration from the existing Galaxy A lineup and come with an aluminum body. The tech specs are also similar to the A series models like the Galaxy A7 and Galaxy A5. The first model, the Galaxy E7 features a quad-core processor clocked at 1.2GHz, 2GB RAM and 16GB onboard expandable storage. On the front lies a 5.5-inch Super AMOLED display with 1280 x 720p resolution. There is a 13MP camera at the back and a 5MP shooter on the front. The E7 comes with dual SIM card slots. A 2950 mAh battery powers the device. The second model, namely the Galaxy E5 will sport lower tech specs. The phone will come with a quad-core SoC clocked at 1.2GHz with 1.5GB RAM and 16GB of expandable storage. The 5-inch display will come with 720p resolution. The rear camera is of 8MP and the front camera measures 5MP. Like the E7, this particular device will also have dual SIM card slots. As for battery, a 2400 mAh capacity one will power these tech specs. Both the models run on Android 4.4 KitKat OS but Samsung has hinted at a Lollipop upgrade sometime later this year. The company has yet to announce details like Malaysia release dates and pricing, but the Galaxy E7 and Galaxy E5 are priced at $363 (RM1298) and $305 (RM1091) in India. 

A few weeks back, some reports cropped up online hinting at a new Android powered smartphone from Kodak at CES 2015. The news was true indeed as the company unveiled its first ever smartphone called the Kodak IM5 recently. The phone will bear the Kodak name, but will be built by a third-party manufacturer called as Bullit. Unlike earlier predictions, which said that the new Kodak device will feature some unique camera tech, the IM5 turns out to be another mid-range smartphone. It comes with an octa-core Mediatek MT6592 processor with 1GB RAM and 8GB of expandable storage. This is the same configuration used by most cheap Android smartphones these days. There is a 5-inch display up front with 720p resolution. At the back, there is a 13MP rear camera and at the front, you have a 5MP shooter. Unfortunately, these cameras are pretty ordinary and there are very little customization options available to the user. The Kodak IM5 runs on Android 4.4 KitKat OS with a special UI developed in partnership with Bullit. This interface is reportedly simpler to use than stock Android and is aimed at first time smartphone users. The device is also quite cheap and will be available to retail for $249 (RM888) in US in Q1 2015. A Malaysia release date of the device is not expected anytime soon.

A few days before CES 2015, HTC had said that it would focus on the Desire lineup at the event held in Las Vegas. The company already announced the first Desire smartphone of the year, the Desire 320 and now, it has unveiled another Desire smartphone called as the HTC Desire 826. Unlike the entry level 320, this particular device will have top end tech specs. It also boasts of being the first HTC smartphone to run on Android 5.0 Lollipop OS out of the box. The HTC Desire 826 will be powered by a 64-bit octa-core Snapdragon 615 processor with 2GB RAM and 16GB of expandable storage. It sports a large 5.5-inch display with 1920 x 1080p resolution and features 13MP rear and 4MP Ultrapixel front cameras. These cameras are equipped with the special tools that were available on HTC Desire Eye selfie centric smartphone. Like most top end phones, the HTC Desire 826 comes with 4G LTE connectivity. As for the battery, the phone comes with a decent 2600 mAh battery onboard. HTC is yet to announce availability and pricing, but it is said that the phone will launch in China soon.