Author: Stuff writer

Apple has sent out its official (and colourful) invitations to its yearly Worldwide Developer Conference. There are very few solid details regarding what we’ll actually see take centre-stage at the event on 8 June, but we expect to see our first look at iOS 9, as well as some tasty new apps and features for the fresh-faced Apple Watch. We also expect Apple to finally lift the curtains off its long-rumoured Beats-powered music streaming streaming service, which will use Beats Music’s existing features like curated playlists, cloud-based libraries and recommendations to compete with the likes of Spotify, Rdio and Tidal.…

Every top smartphone needs to aim for a USP. The Galaxy S6 has all that fancy glass while the Huawei P8 has an even skinnier frame without a camera lens that sticks out like a skin tag. Huawei played the same trick with the Huawei Ascend P7. We didn’t swoon over it, but can the P8 turn things around? The Huawei P8 is just 6.4mm thick and made of metal, making it a whopping 0.1mm thinner than Huawei’s last slim flagship. Yes, we’re being sarcastic, but it sure is thin. You’ll be able to get the phone in four shades:…

Just lately the online rumour mill whispered that the Samsung Galaxy Note 5 would land with a 6in 4K display. And now Sharp has chucked a can of fuel on the 4K smartphone fire. The Japanese company has officially outed a 5.5in LCD 4K display with a pixel-packed 3840 x 2160 resolution. That’s an incredible 806 pixels per inch, which would best the Note 5’s reported 762ppi display, on paper at least. Unlike the Note 5’s screen, which is expected to use Samsung’s own AMOLED screen technology, Sharp’s screen uses it’s LCD IGZO panels, which the company says will initially…

Asus has revealed details of the new VivoWatch ahead of its full unveiling at Milan Design Week, due to start 14th April. The VivoWatch is a fitness-focused watch, and claims to have a mammoth 10-day battery life. Other specs include a stainless steel body with IP67 rating to fend off dust and water, and a heart-rate and sleep monitor. The future’s black and white But whereas its previous smartwatch offering the ZenWatch ran Android Wear, the VivoWatch will instead use Asus’s own platform. It also appears to have lost a colour screen, instead being fitted with a black and white…

The Apple Watch is still a week and a half from actually reaching consumers anywhere, but a third-party company already has a solution to extend its one-day battery life: a silicone and plastic cuff that attaches to the smartwatch. Indeed, the wiPowerBand is designed to snap to the back of the Apple Watch and along the inside of the band, essentially creating a rubberized shell for your brand new, expensive wearable device. Of course, it’s not a fashion accessory, but rather a battery pack that’s charged with a Lightning cable. When attached, the wiPowerBand adds another 200mAh battery charge to…

Let this sink in for a moment – Samsung’s next phablet, the Note 5, could have a 4K screen. That’s a ridiculous resolution of 2160 x 3840, and all of those pixels will reportedly be crammed into a 5.89in display, providing an absolutely insane count of 748 pixels per inch. The news comes courtesy of Phone Arena’s anonymous tipster, who also tells the site that a dual-edge curved screen variant with a 5.78in 4K display (that’s 762ppi), is also in the works. It sounds insane, but Samsung has already shown off the existence of its 4K mobile displays in a…

LG has taken an uncommon approach with the G4’s reveal, spotlighting individual features of the overall smartphone experience in the weeks running up to the full 28 April announcement. As such, we’re guessing the company didn’t mean to share this treasure trove of images and renders. Reliable leaker Evan Blass (@evleaks on Twitter) located what looks to be a staging microsite via the source code on LG’s own webpage, which revealed dozens of images of the LG G4 and its features, as well as descriptions of what to expect. However, the listed specifications appear to be placeholders leftover from the…

Dropping your smartphone isn’t exactly up there with the funnest experiences that life has to offer. From concrete to office floors, our handsets have faced the harsh reality of life far too many times over the years. Traditionally, plastic handsets offer the most durability, while those coated in metal manage to pick up lovely dents, scratches and chips. Glass-backed headsets like the Sony Xperia Z3 can also shatter when abruptly bumping against pavements, and screens are of course, the main weak point in all devices. Up until the Galaxy S6 and S6 Edge came along, Samsung’s flagships have been primarily…

So much for the slow, subtle trickle of teasers. After mysterious codes added to Call of Duty: Black Ops II maps pointed observant players towards an odd Snapchat video, Activision has come out and officially announced the next series entry. It’s Call of Duty: Black Ops III, of course, and developer Treyarch is heading up development again to turn the shooter subseries into a trilogy. Earlier, Activision released a “Back in Black” teaser video (below, since renamed) that made it very strongly clear that Black Ops III would be the next Call of Duty (see shadowy silhouette of the original…

The Sony mobile leaks keep coming, this time about the update for the last Xperia Z Ultra. Now more details have emerged about the upcoming Xperia Z4 Ultra phablet. Is it worthy of our curiosity? If you’re unfamiliar with the Xperia Ultra line, just think of it as being in a similar class to the Samsung Galaxy Note and Huawei Ascend ranges. If the rumours are true, the new Z4 Ultra will boast a huge 6.44in screen. YET ANOTHER PHABLET As for specs, the device may be powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 810 SoC, which would be an upgrade from…