Vodafone UK to Sell Copper Gold Version of the Galaxy S5 Exclusively

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Samsung’s latest and greatest Android smartphone, the Galaxy S5, is inching closer and closer to store shelves all over the world. With that of course, comes the carrier exclusive deals and incentives that networks all over the globe will use to get people to choose them to purchase what is essentially, the exact same phone offered by everyone else. A few years ago, each US carrier had their own version of a smartphone, with the original Galaxy S being a poignant example. Now though, the same phone is available to practically anyone, which is the way it’s been in the UK forever, pretty much. That doesn’t mean that networks across the pond won’t be able to get a little bit of exclusivity, though.

The Copper Gold version of the Galaxy S5 is going to be exclusive to Vodafone in the UK, and our UK readers might be surprised to hear that the network will have all other colors in stock as well, if gold isn’t their cup of tea. Colors have been used as exclusives for some time in the UK, with Phones 4 U bagging the very good looking Red version of the HTC One last year and the Xperia Z2 will only be available in certain colors from certain networks. Realistically though, it all comes down to how good their network is, and how good their coverage is. As a UK resident myself, I can say that Vodafone would work relatively well for me, with decent coverage in the places that matter to me, but I wouldn’t sign on the dotted line simple for a gold version of the device.

The Galaxy S5 goes up for pre-order in the UK from March 28th and while there’s no word on pricing or anything just yet, we wouldn’t expect the Galaxy S5 to be what you’d call “affordable”, but then again no smartphone is these days at launch. We love to hear from our readers all over the globe, so if you’re in the UK, let us know which network you’re thinking of getting the Galaxy S5 on – if at all!

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Xiaomi Officially Announce the Redmi Note; 5.5-inches of Android to take on the Desire 816

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In the East, it looks like Android devices are getting bigger (as well as better) in order to entice budget-minded buyers into picking up one of their lower-end devices. Less known manufacturers have been doing this in China and elsewhere for some time now, with designs that take a little more than “inspiration” from Samsung’s Galaxy Note. This year however, we saw HTC announce the Desire 816, a 5.5-inch device that ticks most of the right boxes while aiming for a much lower price point. Now, it’s the famous Xiaomi’s turn, with the Redmi Note, again coming in at 5.5-inches.

It was rumored that this device was to be a second generation of the Redmi device that Xiaomi offers for those on a tight budget, but instead it appears to be a new line of products. Starting later this month, with the sale of this, the 5.5-inch Redmi Note complete with a 720p display, a MediaTek MT6592 Octa-Core CPU and of course Xiaomi’s MIUI custom firmware that seems to be mighty popular in the East. Pre-orders for the device will be starting in China this Wednesday and the device will be available in earnest from March 26th this month. Instead of just giving us the pricing upfront, the Chinese manufacturer is holding a contest for 50 lucky winners to get their hands on one, by guessing the price instead. This isn’t too bad a strategy, and should drum up some coverage for the device over in China.

While the Redmi, which launched last year with its 4.7-inch display has been looked upon as simply a “cheap” handset here in the rest, it’s an important device for Xiaomi. After all, there’s more competition in China than we all realize, and with the Redmi Note they’ve fired a salvo directly at HTC and their Desire 816. With the budget handset market not only becoming more competitive, but more capable as devices in general, we expect even more of these devices to go on sale throughout Asia and beyond.

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Android Headliner: Would The Nexus 6 Benefit From A Curved Screen?

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We seem to be on the cusp of a craze with curved screens and flexible displays. Samsung’s Galaxy Round(which didn’t seem to take off much and really wasn’t that appealing) and LG’s G Flex are great examples of where the screens on smartphones could be headed. At the least what we could see as options going forward. Even Samsung’s new Gear Fit smartband uses a curved screen made from flexible glass. Are curved screens really a better option in terms of form factor though? Do they feel more comfortable in the hand? Or do they just serve their purpose for having a more elegant look? Whatever your feelings on curved screens they don’t seem to be going away. For now at least, some OEMs like the idea and at the curved screen design is becoming a trend. Will the trend hold though? There have been rumors that this years Nexus device will have a curved screen just like the LG G Flex, or similar to it at least, which makes sense if LG is actually the OEM to manufacture the phone like the rumors state. The question is, should Google decide to go with LG’s design of the curved screen or stick with a flat face like the Nexus 5 and the Nexus 4?

If we think about the way the curved screen it actually seems like it would fit better in the hand. It definitely has the appearance of being more ergonomic. It would most likely feel very comfortable to hold,(although that is something that ultimately comes down to the opinion of the user) but short of the way it feels in your hand, does a curved screen really make that much sense? Think about where your phone sits when it’s not in use. Unless you start accommodating your home with curved surfaces to perfectly conform to the phones form factor, the phone is going to be resting on flat surfaces. I don’t know about you, but none of the tables in my home have a curved surface to support a phone with a curved design. My Nexus wireless charger also has a flat surface, and since the next Nexus should be able to utilize the wireless charging orb that I have, flat just seems more appropriate.

The design of a curved screen certainly looks nice, but when you get right down to it you have to think about how practical having a screen like that really is. When it comes to comfort, I personally feel no difference when placing the phone up to my ear to talk. Something like the G Flex feels no more comfortable than the Nexus 4 when actually using the device as a phone. My own opinions aside, what do you think about the Nexus 6 supporting a curved screen design? Should Google stick to flat display like with the last couple Nexus phones or should they adopt LG’s design of the G Flex?

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Android Game Of The Week: Mines Of Mars

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I never thought a mining game could be this fun. I hopped on the Minecraft bandwagon for a little while, but despite my friends pleading for me to come back to their digital world and help them with epic feats of building giant monstrosities, I just couldn’t stay engaged. Mines of Mars is a different type of mining game than Minecraft, and arguably a better one. (At least from my point of view) Mines of Mars delivers much more than just a mining experience of gathering materials and building things. The wonderful side scrolling view is met and married with beautifully ambient background soundtracks, quite seemingly endless exploration capabilities, procedurally and randomly generated worlds in the underground mines of the Mars planet, and a great little story to provide some depth while you’re making your way down INTO the depths.

The game starts off with a little intro to why and how you end up on the surface of the Mars planet,(don’t get too attached, because you don’t spend much time on the surface, although you do make frequent trips back) and then you’re hurled right into the underground mines to begin your adventure. You’ll meet a handful of hilarious little robot pals along the way. You start off with a certain set of gear which includes a handgun, your space suit, and your mining pick, all which can be upgraded by gathering materials which you acquire through mining below the surface. The deeper you go, the more sought after materials you’ll find, but you’ll also be met with more danger and encounter more monsters that only seek to end you. Among the deep, dark exploration adventure, a wealth of blooming plant life and friendly little critters randomly spawn throughout the underground mines.

Mines of Mars also has three mini games which you can play, so if you need a break from your mining duties they provide a nice escape. Mines of Mars boasts other great features like Huge Bosses,(although I have yet to encounter one, perhaps I haven’t gone deep enough) secrets and secret areas to discover and a night and day system which is just awesome to look at, and it adds another element to the game that just helps to immerse you. The game will set you back $4.99, but there are no IAP in sight and the game is worth every penny for the hours upon hours of game time you will get out of it. You can grab the game from the Play Store when you’re ready to start your mining adventure.

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Phones4u Displays The HTC OneM8 Outside Their Store In Sign Advertisement

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We still have around 10 days left before we hear anything officially from HTC about their big announcement that surrounds the upcoming HTC One M8, but more and more leaks seem to just keep springing up. The amount of leaks at this point has reached epic proportions and some have argued or speculated that this was all a plan from HTC to shove the thoughts about the new flagship device into our minds. At this rate it seems like the M8 has more leaks than any phone in history combined, with some of the latest being a leaked image showing the ChinaMobile branding on the back, and now this one today of the sign from a popular British retailer showing the phone coming on the 25th, with a message to register and be the first to get it.

The sign is actually fairly clever in the way that they tease the new phone. An image of what seems to be the HTC One M8 is pixelated out of focus, along with a message that says The best gets better, accompanied by the announcement date. Thus far we’ve haven’t seen any advertisements go up stateside about the new device yet, or perhaps we just haven’t noticed any. The very first ad for the One M8 was actually placed outside one of London’s high-end department stores, but without an actual picture of the device. While this sign posted outside of Phones4U isn’t really a leak, it does seem to play with consumers who may be excited with and intrigued over the new phone to come.

When added to the rather ridiculous amount of leaks that out there which includes the infamous 12 minute demo video that we saw just a week or two ago, this stunt from the phone retailer seems only an attempt to get customers even more excited and get people to register and purchase the phones at their establishment. The days keep counting down until March 25th, where we’ll see big announcements at a special event in both New York and London for the HTC One M8, and even though it seem we know all there is to know about the device we can’t wait to see if HTC has held anything back.

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Leaked Images Show The Follow Up To 2012′s Samsung Galaxy Beam

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Samsung’s Galaxy Beam device may not be one that was sought after by many consumers, mainly because the key selling point wouldn’t have much use with the average person in their daily lives. The projector. Still, it seems to have been somewhat popular with a niche group of consumers. Popular enough for Samsung to be developing a follow up to the Galaxy Beam, and according to these leaked images it has an all brand new and improved design. It looks similar to the designs of the Galaxy S3 and Galaxy S4, and it’s a wonder why Samsung chose not to give this phone a faux leather back or a design similar to the Galaxy S5 with the perforated battery cover.

The new Galaxy Beam looks to have 3G and the screenshots show a Chinamobile branding on it, similar to the one we saw on the recent leaked images for the HTC One M8. No LTE support is a little strange, and hopefully if this device is not Chinese market specific Samsung will make an LTE model available. It would seem that some of the specs have been listed along with the images, which show that this new version of the Galaxy Beam will be running Android 4.2.2 Jelly Bean. Again, this is a little strange that Samsung chose not to go with the newest version of the Android software in a yet unreleased device, especially when you factor in the RAM which looks to be sitting at 1GB which according to Google is more than enough to handle Kit Kat with its low memory optimizations. The processor will reportedly be a quad-core chipset(no mention of the manufacturer) and come with a 4.66-inch display with an underwhelming WVGA resolution. We also see the returning appearance of the Home Button we have come to be familiar with on Samsung devices.

The images also show the appearance of a microSD card slot which is listed to have support for up to 32GB mo storage space. Oddly there is no mention of the actual internal storage amount, but we would guess that it sits at 8GB or 16GB. Although this is a device that won’t appeal to most, it has its advantages if you’re someone who might actually have a use for the projector feature for use with slides, or other forms of presentations like powerpoint etc.

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HTC Sense 6 Demo Shows Off Motion Gestures and Themes

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The All New HTC One has been one heavily leaked device. At this point, the All New HTC One leaks are worse than those for the Moto X. We’ve seen a long, 12 minute video that demoed the device and showed us that the All New HTC One would be coming with a MicroSD card slot, Kit Kat, and updated BoomSound speakers. We have also seen various color options and size comparisons between the new HTC One and the One Max. Not to mention HTC has also been posting teasers for the new device, comparing it to the HTC One (2013). On top of all this, we have also seen that the All New HTC One will be launching with a new version of Sense.

The new version of Sense is known as Sense 6. It’s a refreshing update to the previous models of Sense that we’ve seen. Someone on the internet has found a way to show some new features from Sense 6 on their HTC One. What we’re seeing are the wallpapers that have already been leaked and a way to wake your phone’s screen by double tapping it, much like on the LG G2. It also looks like you can choose different themes based on wallpapers. The video also shows us an app called “HTC Apps”. The person who took the video didn’t show us exactly what the application had included in it, so I guess we’ll have to wait.

We also saw some other motion gestures in Sense 6. It looks like if you pick the phone up while the screen is off and swipe left, it will take you directly to the widgets panel. If you do the same but swipe right, you’ll go straight to BlinkFeed. Swiping up while the screen is off will unlock the phone, and picking up your phone in landscape mode and pressing the volume button immediately launches the camera.

The announcement for the All New HTC One is slated for March 25th. With that date growing closer and closer, I wonder how many more leaks we have coming. We basically know all about the phone at this point, so it will be interesting to see what HTC can surprise us with. We’ll keep an eye out for more leaks on this device. Take a look at the Sense 6 walkthrough video below.

Click here to view the embedded video.

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