Motorola DROID Turbo Will Be Launched Outside US as Moto Maxx

This may not surprise you, but Motorola plans to bring its new flagship smartphone that’s now exclusively available in the US through Verizon carrier, to other regions. Dubbed DROID Turbo, Motorola’s smartphone is likely to arrive at other carriers in the United States, but also in other countries where the handset maker still operates. Although previous rumors claimed the DROID Turbo would be launched at AT&T as soon as Verizon’s exclusivity period expired, it looks like the smartphone will be first released elsewhere. GSMArena reports that Motorola DROID Turbo has been confirmed to arrive in Brazil on November 5. However, the handset will be released as Motorola Moto Maxx, as the DROID name is exclusive to Verizon. The...

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ASUS Z97-Pro, Odd Budget Motherboard Gets Gaming Features from ASUS ROG

ASUS usually reserves the Republic of Gamers brand for the absolute best hardware in its portfolio, but its policy seems to have become a lot more flexible now. The Z97-Pro motherboard shows that much. You may have noticed the lack of ROG in the product name. That's because ASUS didn't include it, despite launching the newcomer through the ROG website. We can understand why other people are calling the Z97-Pro a semi-ROG product. The platform is no flagship, that's for sure, but it might just steamroll over every other would-be mini gaming PC motherboard on the market. The specs of the ASUS Z97-Pro motherboard We may as well get the obvious ones out of the way. There are four memory slots, for one thing, meaning that you can...

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Samsung Introduces Its Slimmest Smartphones to Date: Galaxy A3 and Galaxy A5

We reported yesterday that Samsung is expected to launch its Galaxy A Series in China in early November. Among the smartphones to be launched next week should have been the Galaxy A3, A5 and A7. Well, it looks like the South Korean company decided to go official with the Galaxy A Series a bit earlier than it was expected. Samsung has just announced the upcoming availability of the Galaxy A3 and Galaxy A5, which will be available in select markets including China starting November. According to Samsung, Galaxy A3 and A5 are the company’s slimmest smartphones to date at 6.9mm and 6.7mm, respectively. Both are advertised as being optimized for social networking, but at the same time they’re both premium smartphones just like the Galaxy...

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MSI X99S Mpower Custom Overclocking Motherboard Debuts

Intel may not officially name its Core i7-5000 Series central processing units “Super CPUs,” but it does refer to them as the Extreme Edition. The Haswell-E line as it were. These chips only go well with the absolute best motherboards on the market. Those powered by the X99 chipset that includes the LGA 2011-3 socket. MSI has just released a mainboard of this type, called X99S MPOWER and featuring four PCI Express 3.0 slots (not counting the mini ones), eight DDR4 DIMM memory slots, and Military Class 4 components for endurance. According to the company, the X99S MPOWER has broken 26 records during the MOA 2014 overclocking contest. That's a pretty strong case for people to buy it over other high-end mainboards. Of course, the quad-GPU...

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Oppo N3 Officially Unveiled with 16MP Rotating Camera and 5.5-Inch FHD Display

Oppo’s new flagship smartphone has been teased many times in the last couple of months, but only a few details on its specs sheet leaked online. Along with the previously rumored N3, Oppo also launched the R5, supposedly the world’s thinnest smartphone at only 4.85mm. We have already reported on the Oppo R5, so let’s see what the company’s new flagship handset brings on the market. Well, first of all, although it may look like a flagship smartphone, on paper the N3 doesn’t stand a chance against Samsung, LG or HTC top-tier devices. One would think that Oppo N3 will be popular among Android users because of the lower price tag in comparison with more established brands like those mentioned earlier. Alas, Oppo announced that the N3...

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Sony Xperia Z3 Tablet Compact Weighs as Much as a Hamster and Other Cool Facts

The Sony Xperia Z3 Tablet Compact just started shipping in some markets around the world and the producing company is celebrating this event by unveiling a cool infographic related to the tablet. Considering the majority of attention is going towards the Nexus 9 and iPad Air 2 these days, Sony seems to have chosen the right time to remind customers that it too, is offering a worthy slate to be taken into consideration. However, the tablet takes advantage of a smaller form factor than the Nexus 9 and iPad Air 2. Unlike its older siblings, the Xperia Z3 Tablet Compact is an 8-incher working with the same HD Triluminous display technology with full HD resolution. Sony highlights the tablet's sleek frame One of the first things...

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Xiaomi Working on 9.2-Inch Budget Tablet with Snapdragon 410 SoC

Low-cost device manufacturer Xiaomi took the world of tablets by storm when it unleashed its first product from the category, the MiPad. The tablet was the first ever to take advantage of NIVIDA’s new Tegra K1 architecture and was of 32-bit variety. The MiPad brings a 7.9-inch screen with 2048 x 1536 pixel resolution and comes equipped with 2GB of RAM, 16GB of internal storage (expandable up to 128GB via microSD). The tablet sells for $240 / €176 which can be considered super affordable given the specifications packed on the inside. But compared to other Xiaomi products, the MiPad is a little above the norm. Xiaomi budget tablet on the way But not to worry, Xiaomi will soon offer a new tablet that will probably sell for a more...

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Samsung Launching Galaxy A Series in Early November

Samsung Galaxy A Series is no secret as the South Korean company has already launched the Galaxy Alpha, the first device in this family of premium smartphones. However, there have been lots of rumors running around which claim Samsung plans to launch at least three more Galaxy A smartphones by the end of the year: A3, A5 and A7. They may be released on the market under different names, but they will be priced differently considering they look pretty much different when it comes to specs. The cheapest of the three, Samsung Galaxy A3 was initially rumored to arrive first, soon followed by the A5 and A7. However, Korea IT Times reports Samsung plans to launch the entire series of handsets in early November. Surprisingly, the cited source...

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LG 31MU97, Monitor with 4096 x 2160 4K Resolution

LG Electronics has rather fortuitously announced a monitor that could make the day of anyone in a position where a graphics card with 8 GB of GDDR5 VRAM is warranted. The display is called LG 31MU97. Not that LG was thinking of gamers when it invented the product. Indeed, it was aiming for a different part of the potential customer base, that of graphics, video and game designers. Still, with both NVIDIA and Advanced Micro Devices preparing to launch some new graphics cards with 8 GB of VRAM, the new monitor could be a great fit for them. Sure, the adapters are intended more for multi-card installations and multi-monitor configurations, but why bother when you can stuff the 4K quality inside a single screen? Nevertheless, while the...

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Samsung Galaxy S5 Google Play Edition with Android 5.0 Lollipop Coming in November

A Google Play Edition of Samsung Galaxy S5 has been rumored for quite some time now, but the South Korean company is still mum on the matter. As soon as it became clear that Galaxy S5 won’t have the same popularity of the Galaxy S III or Galaxy S4, Samsung may have decided to delay the launch of a Google Play Edition version which wouldn’t have boosted the smartphone’s sales too much. However, a smartphone that looks like the unannounced Galaxy S5 GPE was spotted the same day Google announced the Nexus 6 and Android 5.0 Lollipop, right on the company’s Android.com website. A photo of the Samsung Galaxy S5 GPE was included in a collage showing various Android smartphones powered by a stock version of the operating system. Although...

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Huawei Honor 4X (Dual-SIM) with 64-Bit Chipset and 5.5-Inch Display Goes Official

Good news for customers looking for an affordable Android smartphone that would also come with new technology inside, as Huawei has just announced the upcoming availability of the Honor 4X. Aside from the fact that it’s been priced pretty low even for a mid-range smartphone, Huawei Honor 4X is equipped with one of the newest chipsets from Qualcomm. Qualcomm recently launched two 64-bit chipsets, the Snapdragon 410 and 615, which are meant to arm mid-range Android smartphones. Some have already been launched on the market, while a few others have been announced and should hit shelves by the end of the month. Huawei Honor 4X is equipped with Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 410 chipset, which accommodates a 1.2GHz quad-core processor inside,...

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AMD Cogent Kabini Micro Board PC Is Barely Larger than a Credit Card

Miniature computer systems have been gaining a lot more attention than usual in recent years, mostly because the technology to give them near-desktop performance levels finally exists. Or what passed for desktop performance half a decade ago. The ARM CPU architecture has been the prime basis for tiny computers for years, along with the Arduino platform. More recently, the Raspberry Pi has been making waves, thanks to its size no larger than a credit card (thickness notwithstanding). Intel has been trying to carve a sector of this tiny PC market for itself, using the NUC (next unit of computing), but has had limited success. It was enough to finally prompt AMD to join the race though. So without further ado, behold the CSB1790 tiny...

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MSI GT80 Titan: 18.4-Inch Screen Notebook with NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980M in SLI

Gaming notebooks are getting more and more impressive by the minute, but if the current batch of products available on the market hasn’t managed to impress you all that much, maybe the next one we will talk about will. MSI is a company mostly known for its highly powerful mobile gaming stations and the GT72 Dominator Pro is a good example in that direction. But the good people at Swe Clockers managed to find out the device maker is prepping another disruptive gaming solution. MSI GT80 Titan will arrive in 2015 The machine is known as the GT80 Titan, and as the name suggests, it’s pretty massive. First of all, it comes with a pretty huge screen of 18.4 inches, when most gaming notebooks out there draw the line at 17.3 inches....

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Motorola Posts Android 5.0 Lollipop Update Roadmap

Lenovo’s latest acquisition in the smartphone business, Motorola has just published its Android 5.0 Lollipop update roadmap. The US-based handset maker announced a few weeks ago that it would definitely offer the Lollipop upgrade to several smartphones, some of them extremely popular in various emerging markets. Although Motorola did not share any details regarding the exact release date of the update for any of the smartphones, the company recently put in place a dedicated “software upgrade” website where customers can check out which products are eligible for Lollipop. Before listing the Motorola smartphones that have been confirmed for an Android 5.0 Lollipop update, we would like to mention the fact that it’s hard to make any...

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Nokia Is Ready for a Comeback in the Smartphone Business, but It May Take a While

For many, the Nokia brand is the most important in the world and the main reason they keep purchasing Lumia smartphones even after the Finnish company’s mobile division has been acquired by Microsoft. Licensing the Nokia and Lumia brands was a smart move by Microsoft, but the Redmond-based company will eventually lose the right to put the Nokia brand on its products. When that happens, the Finnish company is likely to come back to what it’s been doing for about 20 years, making phones. Since Microsoft purchased Nokia’s devices and services division, the ex-handset maker focused on its other business like HERE, Nokia Mobile Solutions and Nokia Technologies. However, Nokia did not turn its face from the smartphone business even if the...

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Hisense Vidaa Pad Tablet Is as Thin as the iPad Air 2 at 6.1 mm

The race to produce thinner and thinner tablets is on. It might not be in the open where everybody can see, but device makers are avidly trying to appease customers’ taste for slim, light devices that can be carried around effortlessly. As we have told you, Dell recently unveiled the Venue 8 7000 Series which currently holds the title as the thinnest tablet out there, being just 6 mm / 0.24 inches thick, thus beating Apple’s iPad Air 2 that comes in at 6.1 mm / 0.24 inches. It comes very close nevertheless. There are other skinny tablets on the market. For example, the Sony Xperia Z2 Tablet is 6.4 mm / 0.25 inches while the Samsung Galaxy Tab S (10.5 and 8.4-inch) is 6.6 mm / 0.26 inches. China replicates the iPad Air 2 in thickness But...

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