Motorola has done it again. The Moto G made quite the stir in the midrange and the story continues. The next one's up - and this time it's even cheaper. With a 4.3" display of qHD resolution, a dual-core processor, 5MP camera, and a solid 1,980mAh battery, the Motorola Moto E may as well be the ultimate budget phone. One that will probably sell by itself with a €100 price tag.
Back with the Moto G, Motorola managed to disrupt the market for quite a while, making otherwise solid competitors look overpriced and underequipped. Built to a budget but delivering above, the Moto G was one of the unlikely heroes of last season - and continues to exploit the winning formula with new versions adding extra stuff like memory expansion and LTE.

Motorola Moto E official pictures
The Moto E launches straight on Android 4.4 KitKat, which is optimized to run on even modest hardware. A phone of the Moto E's caliber is probably what Google had in mind when designing the KitKat update and little wonder, the Moto E is one of the first entry level phones to take advantage. Even though Motorola is soon to be ex-Google's.

Motorola Moto E official pictures
Motorola is also offering the Moto E in dual-SIM flavor plus you can buy whatever colorful rear cover you like and freshen up your phone anytime. Before we continue with our detailed review, let's take a look at the Moto E key features.

Key features

• 4.3" LCD, 540 x 960px, 256ppi; Gorilla Glass 3 with ambient light sensor
• Android OS v4.4.3 KitKat with a promise for timely updates
• Qualcomm Snapdragon 200 chipset with dual-core 1.2GHz Cortex-A7 CPU; Adreno 302 GPU and 1GB RAM
• 5 MP fixed-focus camera, FWVGA video recording @ 30fps
• 4GB of built-in storage, expandable via the microSD card slot
• Active noise cancellation with a secondary mic
• 50GB of free Google Drive storage
• 1,980 mAh battery

Main disadvantages

• Non user-removable battery
• Camera doesn't have auto focus and produces low-quality photos and videos
• No camera LED flash
• No front-facing camera
• Comes without a wall charger or a headset

You didn't expect top technology in a £89 smartphone, did you? Of course, the Moto E is bound to lack a feature or two, but that was expected. Motorola never intended to give you a top of the line handset, but the basics are all covered - making calls, texting, emails, social integration, media playback, taking pictures and access to most of the Play Store apps. Android KitKat will make sure it's a smooth ride (most of the time, at least).

Motorola Moto E at ours
So, the Moto E is a snappy budget phone of attractive design and the latest OS version. What could go wrong, right? Our traditional hardware inspection follows right after the break.

Battery life

The Moto E features a 1,980mAh battery, but Motorola didn't specify how long it is expected to last. The capacity isn't too big, but given the efficient chipset and relatively small screen, we were quite optimistic about its prospects.

The Motorola Moto E had below average power draw on stand-by, but did well on the rest of our tests. This helped it to a final endurance rating of 60 hours, which means the Moto E will last exactly two and a half days if you do an hour of calls, an hour of video watching and an hour of web browsing each day.

Connectivity

The Moto E is available in single and dual SIM versions. The dual SIM variety has two distinct versions for different markets. Here's the list of supported bands by model:

• Quad-band GSM (across all models)
• Dual-SIM (Moto E XT1022, XT1025 only)
• 3G: 850 / 900 / 1900 / 2100, 21 Mbps HSDPA (Moto E XT1021 only)
• 3G: 2100, 21 Mbps HSDPA (Moto E XT1022 only)
• 3G: 850 / 1700 / 1900 / 2100, 21 Mbps HSDPA (Moto E XT1025 only)

Source
Motorola Moto E Review GSM Arena

A couple of days ago we showed you the first purported images depicting an upcoming mid-range Nokia smartphone. As this is supposedly going to serve as the successor to the Lumia 820 from 2012, we assume it will be called Lumia 830.
Now it's been spotted in a brand new leaked render, this one courtesy of Chinese search engine Baidu.


The most intriguing thing about it is obviously the new branding: Nokia by Microsoft, as you can see.
As recently as last week it's been rumored that something like this would happen, and in the leaked image above we get our first confirmation of sorts.
So the consequences of Microsoft purchasing Nokia are going to slowly start showing up. One wonders if there isn't a plan to gradually phase out the Nokia brand entirely - maybe in a year or two we'll see Microsoft's name on smartphones by itself.
Until that happens, though, let's focus on the Lumia 830. The new picture tells us that it will have a 13 MP rear camera with Zeiss optics. Previously we heard that it would also sport a 4.5-inch touchscreen, but everything else about it is still a mystery.

Source1, Source2, and GSM Arena

Xolo announced two new smartphones - the budget Q500s IPS with a quad-core processor and the powerful Play 6X-1000 running on a hexa-core chip.
Xolo Q500s IPS features a 4" IPS display of WVGA resolution and comes with two SIM slots. It is powered by MediaTek's MT6582M chipset with a 1.3GHz quad-core Cortex-A7 processor, Mali-400 GPU and 512MB of RAM. The rest of the specs include 4GB of microSD-expandable storage, a 5MP FF camera with 1080p video recording, and a 1,500 mAh battery.

Xolo Q500s IPS
The Xolo Q500s IPS, in addition to the dual-SIM option, supports 3G, Wi-Fi N, Bluetooth 3.0 and GPS.
It will launch soon for INR 5,999 (€74) and will be available in black, white, red, blue and green flavors.
Xolo Play 6X-1000 comes with a bigger 5" IPS display of 720p resolution and is powered by the MediaTek's MT6591 chipset. The MT6591 offers a hexa-core 1.5GHz Cortex-A7 processor, Mali-450GPU and 2GB of RAM. The phone also comes with 8 gigs of expandable storage, an 8MP auto-focus camera with 1080p recording, and a 2,100 mAh battery.

Xolo Play 6X-1000
The Play 6X-1000 features dual-SIM capabilities, 3G connectivity, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 4.0, GPS.
Xolo Play 6X-1000 will hit the shelves soon for INR 14,499 (€178) in black and white paintjobs.

Source1, Source2, Source3, and GSM Arena

A few days after boasting that it's sold more smartphones in the first half of 2014 than during all of last year, Xiaomi has a new sales number to be proud of.
The Chinese company has passed 10 million units sold for the MI-3, the flagship device it announced last September (and which became available three months after that).
The announcement comes straight from Xiaomi CEO Lei Jun. To celebrate this achievement, the company has released a special edition 'Champagne Gold' variation of the MI-3.
This is only available in China for the moment, but expect it to at some point also make it to the handful of other territories where Xiaomi is currently doing business. And who knows, with a more serious international expansion planned for this year, we may see it in a few other countries too.
In Xiaomi's homeland the gold MI-3 is priced at CNY 1,499 for the 16GB version. That currently equates to $241 or €177, and it's definitely a great price considering the specs you're getting.

Source and GSM Arena

Samsung Galaxy F, the more premium version of the Galaxy S5 flagship, has been in the rumorlands since forever. All the rumors have a few things in common - a metal chassis, a QHD display and Snapdragon 805 chipset with 3GB of RAM.
The Galaxy F has leaked already in official-like renders, alleged live pictures showing super-thin bezels, and confirming some interesting details, including the possible release date.
Today we can show you a Galaxy F live picture shedding some light on the metal frame.

As you can see the frame is quite similar to the iPhone 5/5s one, while the front looks the same as the Galaxy S5. According to our insider source, the Galaxy F is very similar with the Galaxy S5, with a removable plastic back but with aluminum frame identical with the latest iPhones.
As usual you should take this photo with a healthy pinch of salt. There's no way to guarantee the authenticity of the image before Samsung actually goes ahead and announces the device. The good news is that with all those leaks lately, that moment can't be too far away now.
We also want to remind you Samsung did announce an upgraded version of the Galaxy S5 with QHD display and Snapdragon 805 chip - the Galaxy S5 LTE-A. The smartphone is intended only the South Korean market though and won't premiere outside of Samsung's homeland.
Thank you, anonymous tipster, for sending this in!

Source

As a July 4 special the Home Shopping Network has the Nokia Lumia 635 for the price of $119.95 with a portable battery and car charger as bonus. The offer is good for a device locked to T-Mobile, but doesn't require a long-term contract.
Incidentally this is the first place where you can currently get the Lumia 635 - Home Shopping Network estimates the delivery of the Lumia 635 to users on July 21.


The portable battery comes in three color options and has a 2,200 mAh capacity.
The Lumia 635 is one the first devices to offer Windows Phone 8.1 out of the box and comes with on-screen navigation buttons, a Snapdragon 400 chipset, 5 MP snapper and a 4.5" IPS display.
We have the review if you want to learn more about the Lumia 635.

Source1,  Source2, and GSM Arena

Oppo is apparently working on a new thing. Said thing will come with "the best audio quality excellence", as well as overall "high quality" (according to Google Translate).
So what could this be? The only detail we have about it right now is the teaser image you can see below - which shows us the box it will come packaged in, undoubtedly.

The teaser originates at Oppo's Indonesian Twitter account, and alongside it the Chinese company posted that more information should become available tomorrow.
Whether or not this means we'll actually see a new handset announced is up for debate, though. First of all, there's no indication in the tweet that we're talking about a phone here. The word used is "product", which could mean anything.
Obviously though we're intrigued by the possibility that it is indeed a smartphone that Oppo has fitted with some top of the line audio innards. Audio quality isn't something many big device makers are especially focused on these days, so that could turn out to be a rather important differentiating factor for such a handset.
Still, it could just be an accessory. Anyway, we'll hopefully find out for sure in less than 24 hours.

Source and GSM Arena