The Full Specs of iPhone 6, Revealed by Chinese Sources

If you believe what's on this list you will see that the next-generation iPhone is hard to kill or destroy. Apple has apparently made a phone that will not break easily, so the cell phone repair industry will slowly die because of lack of customers.

The information was published by CultofMac and it comes from a supposedly reliable source in China. Some of the below has been confirmed by the Chinese carrier, China Mobile, right on their website. They have not been confirmed, so take everything with a grain of salt.

What is new?

As expected, the Cupertino, California-based tech giant will release two different phones - a 4.7-inch diagonal display iPhone 6 and a larger 5.5-inch screen dubbed iPhone 6 Plus. Also, the devices will come out in 3 colors: space grey, silver/white and gold. Apple will use a sapphire coating technology for their devices, but not only on the high end ones, but all of them. The smaller iPhone 6 will get a 1810 mAh battery which is pretty small if you compare it to an Android device. Then again, Apple controls the hardware and the software and that may hold down the balance for them. All models will get 4G LTE connectivity and the release date is on September 9th, 10 days after the event.

What is interesting?

The sapphire glass may break if dropped. However, Apple's housing was designed in such a way that it is absorbing the shock waves so the iPhone 6 is shatter-proof. The 5.5-inch device will get 2GB of RAM - a huge bump from the current chip. Also, the 4.7-inch iPhone will get only 1GB of RAM. Does Apple want to make the bigger iPhone 6 Plus their flagship device for the next year, at least? The A8 CPU will be dual-core and the device will have a TV-out option. If this is not the AirPlay mode every new iPhone already has, then the phone may get some kind of cable powered by the lightning connector, which is pretty hard to believe.

All this info seems to be taken out of a specs published in a booklet or on the actual box of the device. The dimensions will be 137.5 x 67 x 7 mm (5.41 x 2.64 x 0.28 in). In the same time, the smaller iPhone 6 will get a resolution of 960 x 1704 pixels and a 416 PPI pixel diversity. The screen will be made of shatter proof sapphire crystal glass, oleophobic content and will make the device water resistant. The iPhone will come out in sizes of 16, 32, 64, and128 GB. If that was not enough, the device will have NFC and WiFi 802.11 ac dual band.

iPhone 6 concept
Image credits to MartinHajek

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Nexus 5 (2014) Leaks in Benchmarks, Runs Android 5.0 Lion

Google has been long rumored to be working with one of its hardware partners for the release of a new smartphone in the popular Nexus series, and it seems that some more info on the device is now available online.

Said info allegedly comes from the GFXBench application, and sheds some more light not only on the possible hardware specs of the device, but also on the possible name of the next Android version. The upcoming Nexus phone is expected to be designed by Motorola, which is still part of Google, but which has already been sold to Lenovo (the deal is expected to be closed before the end of this year). Previously called Nexus 6 or Nexus X, the upcoming mobile phone might actually end up with the name of Nexus 5 (2014) attached to it, new info on the matter, available courtesy of @emtleaks, suggests. Moreover, said leak suggests that the upcoming Android OS flavor, currently known as Android L, will go official as Android 5.0 Lion, inspired by the popular Nestle sweet treat.

As PhoneArena notes, it would make sense for Google to go for this name after calling the previous major Android iteration KitKat (also in partnership with Nestle). Up until now, Android L was said to be codenamed Lollipop or Lemon Meringue Pie, and this is the first time that Lion is mentioned in relation to it. For the time being, however, we’ll take the info with a grain of salt, since no official details on the matter have been provided. The phone will pack very high-end hardware specs. The same applies to the hardware specs that the upcoming Nexus 5 (2014) can be seen listed with in a screenshot allegedly taken from the GFXBench application. However, these are not new, and chances that they will pan out in the end.

Thus, the upcoming mobile phone should arrive on shelves with a 5.2-inch touchscreen display capable of delivering a Quad HD (1440 x 2560 pixels) resolution, which brings it in line with what some of the latest flagship phones out there have to offer. The handset is also said to include a 2.7GHz quad-core Snapdragon 805 processor with Adreno 420 graphics, the same as the newly announced Samsung Galaxy Note 4 does. Moreover, it should sport 3GB of RAM and 32GB of internal memory, along with a 12-megapixel camera on the back, with UHD video recording capabilities, and a 2MP front camera (capable of full HD videos).

As mentioned above, the hardware specs of the upcoming Nexus phone could easily pan out, though it remains to be seen what name it will actually sport in the end, so keep an eye on this space for additional details on the matter.

Nexus 5 (2014) to run Android 5.0 Lion
Images credits to @emtleaks

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Samsung Preps 5-Inch SM-A500 Smartphone with Metal Body

South Korean mobile phone maker Samsung Electronics is reportedly getting ready for the release of a new smartphone featuring a metal body, following the launch of Galaxy Alpha earlier this year, and some info on this new device is now available online.

The handset is said to feature model number SM-A500, and should sport a 5-inch HD Super AMOLED touchscreen display when made official, a recent article on SamMobile claims. Moreover, the new mobile phone is expected to feature a quad-core Snapdragon 400 CPU, along with 16GB of internal memory, and a 2,330mAh battery. On the back, the new Samsung SM-A500 should sport an 8-megapixel camera, most probably capable of recording videos in full HD resolution, complemented by a 5MP front camera for making video calls while on the go. Apparently, the new smartphone will also arrive on shelves with a hybrid slot that will support both microSD memory cards for expansion purposes, and nano-SIM cards.

Unfortunately, it will not feature fingerprint and heart rate sensors, and will not be water and dust-resistant either. However, the Ultra Power Saving Mode that was launched with Galaxy S5 will be included in the package. The new Samsung SM-A500 is expected to be released as a mid-range device, though it seems that the handset vendor has finally decided to include more appealing hardware capabilities inside phones aimed at this market segment.

Samsung Galaxy Alpha
Image credits to GSMArena

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Here Are the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980, 970, and 980M Benchmarks Result

I would love to be able to say that I finally know the specifications of the upcoming Maxwell-based NVIDIA graphics cards, which will be known as the GeForce GTX 900 series instead of 800.

Unfortunately, I can't say that, because NVIDIA still hasn't released the things, and the others who know them have been ordered to silence. Not that the clocks are final yet, but still. Fortunately, other information can be disseminated on the Maxwell-based video cards, such as the preliminary benchmark tests. The folks at VideoCardz have put together a benchmark chart of sorts. You can see it in the picture up on the right.

As we expected, two GeForce GTX 980 in SLI are the best in the list, right after the R9 295 X2 from AMD, which is actually a single card but has two GPUs instead of one. Keeping with the trend, GeForce GTX 980 is better than all other single video cards too. On that note, the GTX 980M SLI, the mobile GPU, rules its category as well (see the attached image below). It's not clear how these synthetic benchmarks will translate into real world performance, since every game runs differently depending on producer and API used (especially if they support Mantle, which provides great boosts for AMD graphics only), but at least we have something to go on now. Image gallery below, click for larger view.

NVIDIA GeForce 980/M/970/M Benchmark
Images credits to VideoCardz

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Sony Claims QHD Displays Are Useless, but Xperia Z4 Might Sport a QHD Display

As soon as Samsung announced its Galaxy Note 4 featuring a large 5.7-inch Super AMOLED QHD (2560 x 1440 pixels) display, competition started to find flaws in the phablet’s hardware configuration.

One of Sony Mobile's execs has stated in an interview that, despite their superiority when it comes to resolution and image quality, QHD displays are not worth the trouble due to their high battery consumption. Basically, Sony’s official claims that the trade-off for having a QHD display with high battery consumption doesn’t add enough to the user experience to be taken into consideration. Well, that comment is understandable coming from a company whose latest flagship smartphone, the Xperia Z3, doesn’t come with a QHD display or any other latest technology. We have no doubt that Sony Xperia Z3 is a good product, and given the fact that it doesn’t come with a QHD display, it might even offer a better life autonomy, but that won’t be the case for the next Xperia Z smartphone. According to famous Sony leaker Ricciolo, the company’s next flagship smartphone, which is supposed to arrive on the market in about six months, is likely to pack a QHD display.

The same source also claims that Xperia Z4, or whatever the name, will be equipped with the newest Qualcomm chipset and other top of the line technologies that haven’t been included in the Xperia Z3. Sony Xperia Z4 will be announced in February at MWC 2015. Even though it’s too early to assume what specs the Xperia Z4 will be packed with, it’s a bit ironic that Sony says that QHD displays aren’t something that should be included in smartphones due to energy consumption, just to come out with a device that features exactly what the company “despises.” Obviously, the statement offered by Sony’s exec could be just a PR stuff meant to lower the hype around Samsung Galaxy Note 4’s QHD display, even though there is a lot of truth in it.

Perhaps Sony will manage to solve the issue of high battery consumption generated by QHD displays by including a high-capacity battery. Maybe investments in new battery technologies will turn out to be successful and Sony Xperia Z4 will pack a much more efficient battery inside. Although these might be just simple speculations, we can’t help but wonder whether Sony is adding a QHD display on its Xperia Z4 just to be on par with the competition or the Japanese company really plans to offer an improved user experience, which includes both low power consumption and state-of-the-art image quality.

Sony Xperia Z3
Image credits to PhoneArena

Forget the words of Sony exec,about 1080p only XPERIA screen.. ;) Z4 or whatever is CALLED(!!!) ;) ,will have TOP specs..SCREENRES included!
— Ricciolo (@Ricciolo1) 5 September 2014

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BlackBerry Classic (Q20) Emerges in New Photos

One of the smartphones that Canadian mobile phone maker BlackBerry is expected to make official before the end of this year is the BlackBerry Classic, which can be admired in a new set of photos today.

The upcoming device is also known as the BlackBerry Q20, and is expected to be introduced sometime in November, as BlackBerry CEO John Chen officially announced back in June. The phone was already shown to the public a few months ago, yet we still haven’t had the chance to have a closer look at it, but the newly published images appear meant to change that. As CrackBerry notes, the fact that more photos with this handset leak online suggests that the phone is indeed on track to make an official appearance sooner rather than later, although BlackBerry hasn’t said anything new on it recently. For those out of the loop, we should note that the company is set to launch another new device before the end of September, none other than the BlackBerry Passport, which will be a high-end device.

At the moment, the vendor appears focused on the release of Passport, yet it should switch its attention to BlackBerry Classic as soon as the new high-end phone goes official. A mid-range phone with classic BlackBerry looks. Just as its name suggests, the BlackBerry Classic is set to bring back a design that enthusiasts have been long accustomed with, though it will also feature some hardware enhancements to bring it in line with what other smartphones have to offer these days. Those looking to grab this phone should know that it will arrive on shelves with a 3.5-inch display paired with a QWERTY keyboard. Moreover, the upcoming device will be powered by a 1.5GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 processor, which should be complemented by 2GB of RAM.

Basically, the new device will put together “classic” looks with appealing performance capabilities, which should make a lot of BlackBerry fans happy. When compared to what other smartphones out there have to offer in terms of hardware specifications, however, the new device falls into the mid-range segment, if not lower. BlackBerry has yet to provide full details on the new device, so it remains to be seen whether there will be any outstanding features inside this phone, so as to make it stand out from the crowd. You’ll still have to wait a couple of months for that to happen, but more leaked info on the device could arrive soon, along with some additional photos with it, so stay tuned for more on the matter.

BlackBerry Classic (Q20)
Images credits to Weibo via CrackBerry

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