BGR Daily Breaking Stories

Daily Headlines TUESDAY, MARCH 3, 2015

Benchmark tests show Galaxy S6 performance crushes everything else on the market After the Galaxy S5 was a huge letdown to smartphone fans around the world — and to Samsung, in terms of sales numbers — the South Korean giant had a tough road ahead when it began developing the Galaxy S6 and Galaxy S6 edge. It’s still early, but it’s already pretty safe to say that Samsung came through this time around. The company unveiled fresh new smartphones that are not only the most gorgeous handsets Samsung has ever made, but also phones that are packed full of exciting next-generation mobile technology. Did Samsung succeed in building new phones with brawn that matches their beauty? As they say, benchmark performance test results speak louder than words.  MORE → The Galaxy S6 edge might be even more expensive than you thought One of the things Samsung did not reveal during its surprisingly simple Galaxy S6 event — compared to previous theatrics performed on stage during Galaxy S announcements — was pricing details for its handsets. Reports, however, revealed unconfirmed price points for the 32GB, 64GB and 128GB Galaxy S6 and Galaxy S6 edge models, at least the Europeans ones, suggesting the curved model everyone seems to favor might be significantly more expensive than you think. As it turns out, even Samsung U.K. now seems to indicate that buying a Galaxy S6 edge might be a bit harder on your wallet than you were hoping.  MORE → Stratos is yet another smart card that wants to kill credit cards – but this one is real While we patiently wait for services like Apple Pay to proliferate and eventually eliminate the need for plastic credit and debit cards, a new type of solution has emerged. Dubbed “smart cards,” these devices are capable of storing multiple credit, debit and membership cards in a single swipeable device, theoretically allowing users to empty out their wallets and just carry a single payment card. Right now, sadly, these cards do not exist as far as consumers are concerned. The most promising among them is called Plastc, and it doesn’t yet have a firm ship date. Also interesting is a device called Coin, but its creators have run into a slew of problems and the current beta device isn’t always reliable. Now there’s a new player on the scene called Stratos, and it touts one key difference compared to earlier smart cards: This one is actually real, and it’s shipping next month.  MORE → BlackBerry’s new phone is nothing special… but something much cooler is in the works BlackBerry has mostly been concentrating on releasing phones with physical keyboards over the last year but now the company is trying to get back into the market for touch-only devices with its new BlackBerry Leap.  MORE → Apple’s Retina MacBook Air doesn’t exist, but there’s already an accessory for it Apple’s rumored ultra-slim and light 12-inch Retina MacBook Air is far from being official, but there’s already one accessory ready for it, as announced at MWC 2015 in Barcelona, Spain. Though to be fair, it’s not just future 12-inch MacBook Air buyers who will be happy to see it in stores.  MORE → Why you should absolutely consider Microsoft’s new Lumias over any cheap Android phone Microsoft on Monday unveiled two more mid-range Lumia devices, which will be available for incredibly low prices. Even though they’re not the Windows Phone flagships we’re still waiting for, doesn’t make them any less interesting. In fact, they might be better smartphone choices than similarly priced Android handsets.  MORE → The best accessory you can’t use with your Galaxy S6 or Galaxy S6 edge Samsung on Sunday announced two gorgeous Galaxy S models. Our early impressions of the Galaxy S6 and Galaxy S6 edge is that they look and feel better than anything Samsung has ever done when it comes to smartphones— probably because they had good inspiration, some would say. But like any gadget, they’re not perfect, and some people will quickly find things to criticize, with one particular missing feature coming to mind that hardcore Android users will find hard to adjust to.  MORE → Xiaomi’s GoPro killer shoots 1080p at 60 fps… and costs just $64 Xiaomi has made a name for itself by putting out hardware with incredible specs at insanely low prices — witness its $640 49-inch 4K TV if you want just one example. Sister site BGR India points us to Xiaomi’s latest exercise in low-margin madness: A GoPro rival that shoots 1080p video at 60 frames per second and costs just $64.  MORE → World’s most secure Android phone vows to ‘replace’ and ‘dominate’ BlackBerry How hard is is to “dominate” a company whose mobile platform has an estimated 0.4% of the market? Probably more difficult than Silent Circle, the company behind the security-centric Blackphone, thinks. As Gizmodo reports, Silent Circle security specialist Mike Janke was positively beating his chest at Mobile World Congress this week talking about the new Blackphone 2, which he implied spells the end of BlackBerry once and for all.  MORE → You’ll be able to test Microsoft’s wild new Project Spartan browser soon There are plenty of improvements to be excited about when it comes to Windows 10, from the return of the Start menu to inclusion of a fully-functional Xbox app, but the most intriguing development is the Project Spartan browser that will replace Internet Explorer once and for all.  MORE →