We reviewed Samsung's first deep dive into the smartwatch sector, a dive that probably went too far, in our review of the Gear S. We called it clunky, exorbitant, but amazingly powerful — to go so far as to even say that it was a smartphone in smartwatch form. It was something that stood completely outside of other Gear offerings. As some of us thought about what a sequel could bring, we would soon find out at IFA 2015. A more conventional, if dashing, circular design took place of what could be converted into a bangle. Real estate shrunk down. But there was that rotating bezel. And it ...

We're coming up on the end of the flood of new devices for the year, but of course, late September can only ever mean one thing: iPhone time. Apple unveiled its latest additions to the iPhone family, the 6s and 6s Plus, earlier this month, and now we have them both in hand. We already unboxed the larger 6s Plus yesterday, and now we're freeing the smaller model from its shrink wrap holding. Aesthetically, not much seems to have changed from last year, but the internal components are a whole different story, and we're excited to start seeing the effects of improvements like more RAM, a ...

Unlike its rival Huawei, Motorola didn’t necessarily strive to redefine product presentation with its new smartwatch – but that doesn’t mean it skimped. The Moto 360 2nd Generation unboxing experience is a rich one, its cylindrical retail container featuring the Moto 360 front and center under a glossy plastic dome, braced with packing material that also snugly accommodates a wall plug and an included wireless charging pedestal. It's a very sharp, very smart box that should also catch some eyes as it sits on store shelves. But you didn't click all this way to talk about ...

Our recent trip to Beijing gave us some quality time with the Oppo R7 that was closer to a launch at the time, but for most of us, the biggest news were really about its larger sibling, the Oppo R7 Plus that just arrived for review. This is not the average "Plus" version of a smaller phone where all you're really getting is a larger phone. Oppo has given the R7 Plus a couple of extra features that make this device truly superior to the smaller phone we already reviewed. To provide some context, keep in mind that even though the Oppo R lineup is considered a premium mid-ranger by many, ...

Since this past Thursday, Samsung has been the discussion centerpiece of the mobile tech world. At its Unpacked event in New York, we saw some elegant hardware within the Galaxy S6 edge+ and the Galaxy Note 5. Some say they might be too elegant to serve power users and too reliant on the Galaxy S6's and Galaxy S6 Edge's design languages. As you consider your buying options from the place you're buying from this upcoming fall, should this phablet deserve a place on your list? Well, consider this our official kickoff of the Pocketnow review period for the Note 5 as we see whether or not it ...

Lenovo isn't exactly the biggest contender in the Android tablet space — in fact, looking through the company's website, the Tab 2 A8 is the only tablet listed that runs an Android version newer than 4.4 KitKat. It isn't the highest end device we've seen, and it's certainly not aimed at beating out the iPad Air 2 or Nexus 9 any time soon. But at just $129.99 for a quad-core processor, an 8" display, a near-stock build of Android 5.0 Lollipop, and front-firing speakers powered by Dolby audio, it's hard to ignore. The Tab 2 A8 looks promising for the price, but how well will it perform? ...

The Sony Xperia Z4 was announced for the Japanese market six months after the introduction of the Xperia Z3 in September of 2014, making Sony stay true to its “flagship every six months” policy. It took the company about a month to announce the Xperia Z4 globally, but with a different name. We’re here to unbox the Xperia Z3 Plus, aka the Xperia Z4. The Xperia Z4 unboxing experience is pretty much the same as it was on the Xperia Z3, Z2, and the rest of the Sony phones we reviewed, just like the phone looks 99% identical to all of its predecessors. Is this a bad thing? Definitely not, ...

For the third year in a row, Samsung has augmented its top-shelf Galaxy S smartphone with a ruggedized version for outdoorsy types … and for the third year in a row, it’s an AT&T exclusive in the US. That's right, rough-and-tumble phone abusers: it's time to unbox Samsung's Galaxy S6 Active. The first thing I thought when popping the cover here is that there must’ve been a mistake. At first glance, the S6 Active is so similar to the S5 Active that I thought Samsung had sent us the latter by accident. But once I took it out of the box I realized it’s a little thinner, a little ...

LG unveiled the Watch Urbane before MWC, showing it off on the Barcelona tradeshow floor, making us all drool over it, but it wasn't until recently that the smartwatch became available officially through the Google Store, and other retailer and e-tailer channels. Despite being identical on the inside to its predecessor, the LG G Watch R, the Watch Urbane, LG's third wearable device, is nothing like the one before it. As far as the specs are concerned, they're shared among the two models (G Watch R and Watch Urbane), including the 1.3-inch plastic OLED screen with 320x320 resolution, ...

We learned last fall that Huawei knows a thing or two about fancy packaging … but this is taking things to a whole new level. As we described in our hands-on post last week, the Huawei P8 is the company's 2015 flagship offering, a 6.4mm-thin, 144g slab of steel that's currently the thinnest smartphone in our Boston review labs. Our Mystic Champagne review device packs a 13MP optically-stabilized camera and a 5.2" 1080p display, with processing handled by Huawei's own HiSilicon Kirin 930 chipset backed up by 3GB of RAM. The software is Android 5.0 embellished with Huawei's custom EMUI 3.1 ...

A few months ago, I wrote an editorial questioning why so many people wanted a Nokia N1 tablet. Importantly, though,  I also said that I found the potential of the N1 alluring, and wanted badly to experience it for myself. While we did briefly catch up with the N1 at MWC 2015 in Barcelona, I wasn't on that side of the show floor that morning ... so I had to wait for today to see what all the fuss was about. From what I can see so far, some of said fuss is totally justified. The Nokia N1 is notable in part for its specs, which include a 6.9mm-thick aluminum chassis, a 7.9" 2048x1536 IPS ...

If the BlackBerry Passport is "not your grandfather's BlackBerry," then the BlackBerry Passport AT&T edition is ... not ... your cousin's, either. That analogy didn't really work out for us, but this unboxing and first-impressions video sure did! That's right: after literally months of fielding comments, tweets, emails and voicemails wondering why we weren't paying BlackBerry its proper due with a Passport review, we finally caved and picked up a BlackBerry Passport sample device. (It wouldn't have been possible without the assistance of the good folks at AT&T, either – so ...

Last MWC, we had our first look at the YotaPhone, a unique smartphone with two displays – one was a regular smartphone display, while the other was an e-ink display, perfect for both outdoor visibility and power management. Now we're here at CES 2015, having just acquired the sequel to review in our offices. But first, to begin our coverage, here's a YotaPhone 2 unboxing. Spoiler alert: the YotaPhone 2 box is beyond cool. There's a whole lot of attention to detail that's obvious, and we're hoping that translates to the phone itself when we give it a test run later on as we approach our ...