mwc 2015
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We dig this slim smartphone from China, but it won't be cheap
This wouldn't be the first time that Gionee's released a slim, 5.5mm-thick phone. Following the aptly named Elife S5.5, the Chinese company is back with an LTE refresh model that's confusingly dubbed the Elife S7, which manages to retain the same slimness (read: not 7mm thick), the standard headphone jack and a lighter weight of just 126.5g, while packing some nice upgrades. First of all, you get a slightly bigger 5.2-inch 1080p AMOLED screen, along with a similar 1.7GHz octa-core MediaTek chipset with 2GB of RAM, but enhanced with 64-bit computing, multi-mode LTE radio and dual micro-SIM slots. And yes, the phone runs on Android Lollipop with Gionee's customized UI. There's also a more generous 2,750mAh battery -- a notable jump from the S5.5's 2,300mAh cell that had us frustrated.
Alcatel OneTouch Idol 3 can take phone calls even when upside down
Yes, that's me holding a phone upside down while pretending to make a phone call. It may look silly, but that's exactly what the folks over at Alcatel OneTouch want to see going viral on the streets soon. What we have here is the new "orientation-free" Idol 3 smartphone series, which lets users quickly pick up phone calls without having to check whether they are holding the device -- either the 4.7-inch version or the larger 5.5-inch model -- the right way up. The trick? It's all down to the symmetrical design consisting of a speaker and a mic at each end of the phone; and yes, you do get to use the two front-facing speakers in stereo mode for entertainment purposes.
