Latest News

The Samsung Galaxy Note 3 Neo is rumoured to be on pre-order soon for Belgium. This has resulted in a number of better looking pictures along with pricing. Unfortunately, the Note 3 Neo isn't as affordable as we thought it would be at €599 (RM2731). The pics show that the overall design is more or less the same, right down to the artificial leather backside. Tech specs still haven't been confirmed but most estimates have them include an 8MP camera, 5.55-inch 720p Super AMOLED display, 2GB RAM, 16GB storage, LTE and microSD support, Android 4.3 and a 3100 mAh battery. It should get it's officialy launch in March 2014 with the official announcement expected in February at the MWC expo. If it is already on pre-order in Belgium, we should see it get to Malaysia soon.

Amidst rumours that Apple is testing 4.7-inch and larger screens for the Apple iPhone 6, one Wall Street analyst thinks Apple have finally made a decision. According to said analyst, Timothy Arcuri, Apple will make the Apple iPhone 6 with a 4.8-inch screen. He says he reached this conclusion based on Apple's supply chain. This matches with other rumours which said that the iPhone 6 would indeed go for a larger screen but not go as big as 5 inches. Arcuri goes on to say that the iPhone 6 will offer tech specs that include the latest WiFi which is 802.11ac. While the operating system will still likely be iOS 7, the software will be updated to include integration with iBeacon, Passbook and more TouchID. He also expects more 64-bit features asides from the TouchID fingerprint scanner. These analysts predict the Apple iPhone 6 coming in June with a possible 13-inch Apple iPad expected in late 2014.

Starting from 21 January 2014 the Motorola Moto G will be officially available in Malaysia thanks to Motorola and Brightstar. This Moto G will be the dual-SIM version and will be available with 8GB worth of storage from a retail price of RM698 and 16GB storage from RM798 (you can already see a number of other sellers going lower from RM666 for the 8GB version as well). The Moto G will come with an extra Motorola Shell (costing about RM78) along with 15GB + 50GB worth of Google Drive storage for 2 years. Tech specs for this midrange smartphone include a 1.2GHz quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 400 processor, 4.5-inch 720p display, 5MP camera with LED flash, Dual-SIM support and a 2070 mAh battery.

A couple of months back we saw a Nike Fuelband inspired Apple iWatch concept from Thomas Bogner and in the recent CES 2014, the trend for smartwatches is leaning more towards the smart band or bracelet look than your traditional watch. This time around we get another, very polished and very beautiful Apple iWatch concept render, this time courtesy of designer Todd Hamilton, who not only did a similar band design but also added in iOS 7 functionality. Overall, the design here is a lot more realistic, as the icons look more readable (as it is oriented differently) than the previous one. However, there are major hurdles for this design, one of which would be flexible enough batteries for such a slim bangle but with LG's recent string batteries, we don't see why it can't be fit into a band form as well. Check out the concept render for yourself below:

While some people seem to forget that Alcatel have been making phablets with their Scribe range of large-format smartphones for some time, we haven't as Alcatel are now bringing their OneTouch Hero phablet to Malaysia as well. Breaking somewhat new ground with a 6-inch display, the Hero offers a number of other fairly impressive tech specs which include a full HD 1080 x 1920 pixel resolution display, 1.5GHz quad-core processor, 2GB RAM, 8GB / 16GB storage, Single-SIM / Dual-SIM support, a 13MP rear camera, 2MP front camera and 3400 mAh battery. The Hero also comes with a stylus and a Bluetooth companion device to make phone calls or send and read text messages. So far, Alcatel have yet to reveal any Malaysian pricing or specific release dates but it should reach Malaysia soon.

While the Samsung Galaxy Gear smartwatch probably offers the most in terms of functionality for any smartwatch currently on the market one of it's main limitations was that it only works with certain Samsung smartphones. This short compatibility list included the Samsung Galaxy Note 3, Note 2, S4 and S3 with Android 4.3 firmware. However, this is no longer the case as Smart Watch Fans have come up with a guide showing how to make the Galaxy Gear smartwatch work with a Nexus 5 smartphone. It may require you to download some files, extract them and rename them, but there isn't any arduous programming or too-technical stuff to do to make it work. Do bear in mind that most of the apps work, except for S-Voice and Weather. Other smartwatch fans are saying that they have also made the Galaxy Gear work with the Sony Xperia Z Ultra, provided that it is the pure vanilla Google Edition version.

The upcoming Sony Xperia Sirius D6503 or Xperia Z2 as it is guessed at has been making the rounds in the rumour mill for a while now. We've already seen a number of leaked photos and screenshots which hint at some interesting tech specs. These tech specs include a 5.2-inch screen with 1080 x 1920 pixel resolution (we're hoping it at least is an IPS screen), dual-speaker audio, Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 MSM8974AB processor and chipset, 3GB of RAM, 16GB / 32GB storage and a 20MP rear camera. Other features include the ability to do 4K video recording which should be fairly easy to implement as long as it is using the Snapdragon 800 chipset. It will also have a glove mode (so you can use it with gloves) and it is expected to be revealed in February 2014 with a launch date to Happen in March. Malaysia release dates for this rumoured Sony Xperia Z2 would follow soon afterwards. The estimated pricing for the smartphone is currently $600 (RM1995).

New rumours about when the Samsung Galaxy S5 could be revealed have surfaced, this time around from Eldar Murtazin from Mobile Review. According to a recent tweet, he says we could see the smartphone come on 23 February at 6pm in Barcelona with a launch expected at end of April. According to the tweet, tech specs will be the same as previously rumoured which includes a 5.2-inch 2K display with 2560 x 1440 pixel resolution, a Qualcomm Snapdragon 805 chipset or the latest Samsung Exynos, 3GB of RAM, a 16MP rear camera, fingerprint sensor and 3000 mAh battery. He also says that a new TouchWiz interface will also come with the smartphone. While Eldar Murtazin has been wrong before (the death of Tizen, etc), he was fairly accurate about the Samsung Galaxy S4 launch date previously. As always do take this rumour with a pinch of salt, because they are still rumours or at least until Samsung start sending out the Unpacked event invites.

Jumping on the gold coloured smartphone bandwagon? Then Celcom's recent offer for the Samsung Galaxy Note 3 Rose Gold Edition should interest you as you can now get the phablet in Rose Gold White or Rose Gold Black at Celcom from RM1538. In addition to this, Celcom are even throwing in a free Moschino casing (worth RM189) along with a Samsung Galaxy Gear smartwatch at just RM288 (the standard retail price for the Gear is RM999). The initial Celcom Samsung Galaxy Note 3 deal is still the same with 12-month, 18-month and 24-month contracts for the Celcom First postpaid plans. Just for your information, the free Moschino case is only available from 28 January 2014 with the whole deal valid up until 28 February 2014. Check out the table and links in this article for more details.

We're not sure if it is in response to the botched Android 4.3 update we reported on earlier but it seems that the Samsung Galaxy S3 and Galaxy Note 2 will soon be getting the Android 4.4 KitKat upgrade from Samsung. Originally, the Samsung Android 4.4 KitKat upgrade was just limited to the Samsung Galaxy S4 and above but it's good to know that Samsung are still thinking about users who bought their previous flagship smartphones as well. These users can expect the upgrade to come out in Q1 of 2013, probably around March. While the Android 4.4 KitKat upgrade should help further increase performance (it was designed to work well with devices that only have 512MB of RAM) we do hope that it doesn't cause any battery drain botch-ups like the recent Android 4.3 update.