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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.

While many are awaiting the Samsung Galaxy S5, just as many are awaiting the next release of the Samsung TouchWiz interface, which usually refreshes with the release of each new flagship smartphone. However, it looks like we could see the new TouchWiz interface a lot sooner thanks to serial leaker evleaks. The new interface looks a lot like the Magazine UX which recently debuted at CES 2014 on some of the newly released Samsung tablets. The leaked TouchWiz interface has a lot of tiles or cards with bright vibrant images but there is no mention of specific tech specs or features like where the interface is getting it's data from. We're thinking that this leaked interface could make it's way onto the Samsung Galaxy S5 which should be unveiled soon.

A word of warning to those Samsung Galaxy S3 and Galaxy Note 2 users looking to update their devices to Android 4.3, don't! It seems that updating the device to Android 4.3 will result in battery drain issues (which has happened before). Other issues also include slower performance, bad memory management and general app compatibility problems. While Samsung Mobile UK has suspended the update temporarily, this hasn't been done elsewhere, so if you've updated already, we hope you don't have these problems. Some users have found that if you backup your data and then do a factory reset, this solves the problems somewhat, but it still isn't the same as a brand new update patch from Samsung. For those who haven't updated yet, please wait a while longer. Stay tuned and we'll keep you posted on this as soon as we know.

The Sony Xperia Sirius D6503 is a still unannounced smartphone which could be coming soon. Some screenshots of the smartphone's user interface have recently been leaked, confirming a number of tech specs and features not least of which being the codename of Xperia Sirius for the D6503 model number. Other tech specs which were confirmed include a 2.3GHz Snapdragon 800 MSM-8974-AB processor and chipset, 5.2-inch display with 1080 x 1920 pixel resolution, Adreno 330 GPU, 3GB of RAM, a 20.7MP rear camera and 2.1MP front camera. The Xperia Sirius has a high chance of being the Sony Xperia Z2 with a reveal date expected at the MWC expo in February 2014. Stay tuned and we'll keep you updated.