The ivargo phone’s packaging is set to impress

It’s not so much packaging, really, as a big old Pelikan case.

We’re hanging out at CE China this week, a new event hosted by IFA, and since it’s Asia focused we’re seeing a bunch of stuff that we might not normally come across in Europe or North America. One of those things is the ivargo and its pretty epic box.

This likely isn’t the retail packaging, just as with the fancy Nextbit Robin box we received our review unit in, but it’s a Pelikan case, so it’s pretty fantastic either way.

Inside you get the foam padding you’d normally find in such a case, with cuttouts for the phone, a battery pack, and a bunch of boxes for the cables, adapter and such.

The phone itself is mostly standard fare for a decent mid-ranger. The body is all metal, it’s got a fingerprint scanner on the back (and also a home button on the front) and a 5-inch 1080p IPS display. Inside you find a Snapdragon 615 processor, 3GB of RAM, 32GB of internal storage and a 2500mAh battery. There’s also what appears to be a 13MP rear and 5MP front facing camera, though the translations are a little shaky on some of the specs.

The software is based on Android Lollipop and is heavily customized, as is usually the way in China. They call it Vargo OS and it’s got at least one neat trick. When you pull down the notification tray and hit the settings button it overlays down the left hand side of the screen. Then whichever menu you select opens up on the right hand half of the screen.

I can’t really say a lot else about the software except it’s the usual Chinese style blast of colors and that there’s a lack of anything Google related as is the norm. It’s not a phone we’ll see over in the west but it’s a decent little phone, if only for the crazy box.

LeEco’s latest phones ditch the headphone jack for USB Type-C audio

LeEco has unveiled three new handsets in China today, the Le 2, Le 2 Pro and Le Max 2. The phones are the first to eschew the traditional 3.5mm headphone jack in favor of USB Type-C audio, with LeEco rolling out two USB-C headphones to go with the handsets.

The Le Max 2 is the flagship offering with a 5.7-inch QHD display, 2.1Ghz Snapdragon 820 SoC, an astounding 6GB of RAM, 64GB internal memory, ultrasonic fingerprint scanner, Category 12 LTE, and a 3100mAh battery with Quick Charge 3.0.

The Le 2 and Le 2 Pro are aimed at the budget segment, but still manage to bring serious specs to the table. Both offer 5.5-inch Full HD displays, 32GB storage, 8MP front cameras and 3000mAh batteries. The standard Le 2 is powered by the 10-core MediaTek Helio X20 SoC, while the Le 2 Pro features the faster Helio X25, which also has a 10-core CPU consisting of two Cortex A72 cores and two variations of quad-core Cortex A53 CPUs.

The Le 2 has 3GB of RAM while the Le 2 Pro offers 4GB. On the camera front, the Le 2 features a 16MP shooter, with the Le 2 Pro offering a 21MP camera based on Sony’s IMX230 sensor.

No retail pricing or availability, but LeEco intends to bring at least one model to the U.S.

Samsung UBD-K8500 4K UHD Blu-ray player now available in the UK

It’s been a while since Samsung showed its first 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray player to the public, at IFA in Germany last autumn in fact, but now it’s finally available to buy in the UK.

It makes sense considering the discs themselves have only recently gone on sale too.

The Samsung UBD-K8500 is available from all good entertainment electronics retailers, including Currys, John Lewis, Richer Sounds and Samsung itself, including Samsung.com. It is priced at £429.99.

The deck has been designed with the company’s curved TVs in mind, offering a similar curved front. It is HDR compatible and has advanced picture upscaling technology built-in so conventional, 1080p Blu-rays and standard definition DVDs will be enhanced through Samsung’s picture tech.

This year is turning out to be massive for Ultra High Definition, with movie studios starting to roll out multiple 4K Blu-ray releases, which will ramp up over the next 12 months. 20th Century Fox, for example, is said to be releasing over 100 4K Blu-rays in 2016 alone, which includes recent hits, The Martian and The Peanuts Movie.

READ: These are the first 4K UHD Blu-rays with HDR and Dolby Atmos you can buy

Warner Bros is also betting strong on 4K UHD take-up. Mad Max: Fury Road is leading its roll out of UHD films, with others including The Lego Movie and Man of Steel.

Samsung’s Galaxy S7 phones get pink option that isn’t rose gold

Not one to hold back on spinning out new colors and editions months after a smartphone debuts, Samsung’s revealed metallic rose-hued Galaxy S7s and S7 Edges for Korean phone-shoppers. Wait, it’s not rose gold. That’s some other company. These phones are obviously pink gold. Completely different and “skin tone-inspired”.

Source: Samsung

IBM Watson can customize your canned granola

Don’t worry: IBM’s Watson didn’t whip up a bunch of needlessly complicated granola recipes for a cookbook that you must make (for science!). No, we’re talking about its partnership with Kellogg’s subsidiary Bear Naked, which is the first consumer brand to sell Chef Watson-inspired food. The partnership made it possible for Bear Naked to launch a website where granola enthusiasts can make custom blends. After you select a base — cacao + cashew butter, chocolate or honey — Watson looks through thousands of possible flavors to find ingredients it can suggest. It’s a very simple process, and we wish Watson can customize each can of granola even further. But this could just be the beginning of services powered by IBM’s AI that can personalize canned goods and other foodstuffs.

Source: Bear Naked

Amazon brings one-hour Prime Now deliveries to Leeds

Amazon has further extended its Prime Now delivery service to parts of Yorkshire, offering one-hour shipping in Leeds and two-hour in windows Bradford, Wakefield and Huddersfield. It comes just a week after the online retailer launched in Surrey and ensures it now covers many of the UK’s biggest cities.

Prime Now offers up to 15,000 products, enabling customers in selected Leeds postcodes to have their order delivered within an hour for £6.99. If they choose to wait an additional hour, it’ll be delivered for free between 8am and midnight, seven days a week — useful for people who need a last-minute birthday present or absolutely need to get their hands on the latest video game release.

Source: Amazon UK

LeEco’s three new smartphones ditch the headphone jack

We’ve been hearing rumors about Apple killing the 3.5mm headphone jack on its next major iPhone release, but looks like one Chinese company was keen to beat its American rival in this “race.” LeEco, famed for bringing the world’s first USB Type-C phones and recently investing in Aston Martin’s electric car development, has just announced three new smartphones — the Le 2, Le 2 Pro and Le Max 2 — that have ditched the conventional headphone jack in favor of the upcoming USB Type-C digital headphones. Unit now, HTC and JBL’s Reflect Aware C was the only one in this new headphone category, so it’s fitting that LeEco is also adding two of its own USB-C earpieces — a pair of in-ears and a pari of over-ears. These are also the first to be certified by LeEco’s very own Continual Digital Lossless Audio standard.

LeEco’s three new metallic smartphones share almost identical looks, especially with their squircle fingerprint reader and their HTC-like injection moulded antenna bands on the back, as well as their edge-to-edge glass panel on the front to mimic a borderless screen when switched off. There aren’t exactly the most exciting designs we’ve seen of late, but they aren’t bad, either.

As you can tell by the name, the Le 2 and Le 2 Pro are the two more affordable choices out of the three, both sporting a 5.5-inch 1080p display, a generous 3,000mAh fixed battery and a 10-core tri-cluster MediaTek chipset on the inside — the X20 on the Le 2 and the faster X25 on the Le 2 Pro. Both have an 8-megapixel front-facing camera, but on the back, the Le 2 has a 16-megapixel main camera whereas the Le 2 Pro has a 21-megapixel counterpart powered by a Sony IMX230 sensor — the same chip inside the Moto X Pure Edition. As for memory, both models come with 32GB of internal storage, 3GB of RAM on the Le 2 and 4GB of RAM on the Le 2 Pro.

The more premium Le Max 2 has a larger and sharper 5.7-inch QHD screen, a Qualcomm Snapdragon 820 chipset, a more advanced ultrasonic fingerprint scanner, a slightly larger 3,100mAh battery and Quick Charge 3.0 support. It has the same pair of cameras as the Le 2 Pro, except its main camera has the added benefit of optical image stabilization. Memory-wise it maxes out at 64GB of onboard storage with a whopping 6GB of RAM. Thanks to the Qualcomm chipset, this model supports tri-band carrier aggregation, thus allowing download speeds of up to 375 Mbps on supported networks.

LeEco has yet to reveal any price or date for these three new phones, but it does have plans to bring at least one of these to the US later this year, so stay tuned for an update.

Moto G4 Plus shown off once again in leaked render

Alleged images of the Moto G4 Plus leaked last week, giving us a hint of what to expect from Motorola’s budget series this year. The images highlighted a fingerprint sensor at the front and an oblong camera housing at the back. An official-looking render of the Moto G4 Plus in white is making the rounds today, serving up a look at the entire device.

From Evan Blass:

The render shows off the square fingerprint sensor and the rear camera setup, which looks like it has a laser autofocus system. The device itself looks more premium than earlier generations, and while there’s no confirmation of specs, it looks like we’ll see a 5.5-inch display.

What do you guys think of the device based on the render above?

Samsung Pay will launch in Singapore this quarter

Samsung Pay will be available in Singapore by the end of Q2 2016. Samsing is tying up with MasterCard and Visa, as well as major banks in the region such as DBS/POSB, OCBC Bank, and Standard Chartered. American Express integration is listed as “coming soon” after the second quarter.

Samsung Pay is currently live in South Korea, the U.S., and China, with the city-state becoming the first market in Southeast Asia to get the payments service. From Injong Rhee, EVP and Head of R&D, Software and Services of Mobile Communications Business at Samsung:

We are extremely excited that Singapore is the first market in Southeast Asia to roll out Samsung Pay. Singapore’s connectivity and openness are ideal conditions for our new mobile service to thrive, together with the interest and readiness of consumers here in adopting this new method of payment.

Samsung Pay is an example of how Samsung is always striving to introduce new technologies that help to enhance and improve the quality of lives of consumers, especially as Singapore moves towards becoming a Smart Nation. Our goal has always been to drive and lead innovation that matters, and we are happy to extend this into the mobile commerce space.

Samsung states that Singaporeans will be able to use Samsung Pay in supermarkets, convenience and departmental stores, healthcare and beauty outlets, as well as food, lifestyle, electronics, and furnishing stores. In addition to NFC, the service works with MST, allowing customers to use traditional POS machines during checkout.

At launch, the service will be available on the Galaxy Note 5, Galaxy S6 edge+, Galaxy S7, and S7 edge. Samsung will conduct a beta trail ahead of the official launch.

The Galaxy S7 and S7 edge are now available in ‘Pink Gold’

Samsung’s Galaxy S7 and S7 edge are now available in a “Pink Gold” color variant in South Korea.

Samsung says it went with the color scheme as it incorporates a touch of gentleness:

Pink Gold was chosen as it, like the other colors available for the Galaxy S7 and S7 edge, is a natural color that provides a sense of comfort. These hues glitter and shimmer as if illuminated from inside their glass surfaces.

In particular, the refined, skin tone-inspired Pink Gold color scheme is intended to soothe and incorporate a touch of gentleness, radiance and sophistication to the smartphones’ design.

The pink color option is now available to customers in South Korea, and Samsung mentions that it will bring the variant to select markets.