Sony Xperia Z3 Compact on pre-order in the UK and Germany

The Sony Xperia Z3 Compact has gone up on pre-order in the UK and Germany. The official Sony Mobile store in the UK offers it at a full retail price of £430 but there are much better deals out there already.

Clove UK and Handtec offer the phone at just £350 with VAT. Clove is expecting stock in late September. That’s a SIM-free price, you can find early on-contract prices from Phones4u – the phone will be available on October 1 and will start from £30.50.

In Germany the Sony Xperia Z3 Compact can be pre-ordered from the official Sony Mobile store,Amazon or NotebooksBilliger at €500 (at current rates that’s £400). There’s no exact shipping date yet.

T-Mobile details pricing on the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus

T-Mobile announced pricing details of the Apple iPhone 6 and the iPhone 6 Plus. The Big Magenta will have Cupertino’s smartphone duo available for pre-order tomorrow, on September 12.

The 4.7” iPhone 6 will be available with $0 down and 24 monthly payments of $27.08. The 64GB and 128GB versions of the same device will require the same monthly payments, but $99.99 and $199.99 down respectively.

The bigger iPhone 6 Plus will start at $0 down and 24 monthly payments of $31.24 for a 16GB model. Monthly payments of $31.25 are required for a 64GB and 128GB devices, though the down payment changes to $99.99 and $199.99.

The devices will be available with the carrier’s attractively priced Simple Choice plans. They include unlimited international data and texting, as well as free streaming of music.

iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus now on pre-order on Apple store

The iPhone 6 and the iPhone 6 Plus are just about to go up for pre-order on the Apple Online Store in the US. If you have been waiting to purchase the phone, now is the time.

The iPhone 6 is priced at $199, $299, and $399 for the 16, 64, and 128GB options and the iPhone 6 Plus at $299, $399, and $499 for the same three capacities. These prices are with a two-year contract on AT&T, Verizon, T-Mobile, or Sprint.

Apple will also sell off-contract version of these phones with T-Mobile connection. The off-contract prices are $649, $749, and $849 for the iPhone 6 and $749, $849, $949 for the iPhone 6 Plus for 16, 64 and 128GB options.

The store is still down at the time of writing this but will soon be up with the new phones in stock. If you want to buy the phone, you better hurry up before they go out of stock (which could happen in seconds). Otherwise you will have to wait for it to be back in stock later.

You can find the Apple Store link below. Good luck for getting it first time through. We hope you have made up your mind regarding which model to pick up.

Apple Store

Update: Looks like Apple is having some issues with the store, which is still down.

Update 2: Still down. This is like the live stream all over again

Samsung’s newest ads poke fun at Apple as always, but without the humor

We’re no strangers to Samsung ads that poke fun at Apple. For the last few years, Samsung has been making commercials making fun of both Apple and its die hard customers, but in a lighthearted way. They were funny and not really insulting, and they were good moves by Samsung. As time went on, Samsung created different ads about different aspects of “Apple culture” and all was fine.

However, the latest ads are aimed squarely at the latest Apple announcements, referencing the new larger displays, broken livestream, and more. However, Samsung forgot to add humor to these videos, making them blatantly unfunny and almost cringe-worthy. And there’s six of them, so there’s plenty of content to make you uncomfortable.

Samsung, your previous ads were actually quite funny and clever in their poking fun at Apple. Why resort to pointing out differences in devices in such a boring way? Hopefully Samsung’s next ads will be something new and creative, as this series of ads definitely didn’t work.

LG G2 update prepares device for VoLTE

Verizon is on the verge of launching VoLTE, which the company calls Advanced Calling 1.0. This will allow people to call over the LTE mobile network, providing high quality phone calls instead of the raspy and garbled calls you’re used to. Only a few devices will support VoLTE from the get go, and the LG G2 is one of them.

The device is currently being updated, and though most of the contents of the update aren’t important, the update does prepare the phone for Advanced Calling. Here’s the full changelog:

• Autocorrect functions properly when ‘?is selected
• Cancelled meetings can now be removed from calendar
• Mobile Hotspot UI prompt to connect corrected
• Fixed assisted dialing for international numbers
• Prepare your device for the new Advanced Calling 1.0 feature coming soon from Verizon.
• Chrome : v31.0.1650.59 > v34.0.1847.114
• Gmail : v4.7.1 > v4.7.2
• Google Search : v3.1.24.941712 > v3.3.12.1106182
• Google Settings : v4.0.34 > v4.3.25
• Google+ (Google Plus) : v4.2.4.58179886 > v4.3.1.63038142
• Google Maps : v7.5.0 > v7.7.0
• Google Play Books : v3.1.23 > v3.1.33
• Google Play Games : v1.1.04 > v1.5.08
• Google Play Movies & TV : v3.0.25 > v3.1.22
• Google Play Music : v5.3.1317M.940995 > v5.4.1413N.1048534
• Google Play Store : v4.5.10 > v4.6.17
• Google Voice Search : v3.1.24.941712 > v3.3.12.1106182
• Google Play Newsstand : v3.0.1 v3.2.0
• YouTube : v5.3.28 > v5.5.27
• Google Drive : v1.2.484.18 > v1.2.563.31
• Google Photos : v4.2.4.58179886 > v4.3.1.63038142
• Google TTS Engine : v2.4.3.864779 > v3.0.11.1070024
• Upgrade to SSO v3.1.19
• Upgrade to Cloud v13.5.30.18.2
• Upgrade to CaNID v2.5.11_2859
• Upgrade to ISIS Wallet v2.01.00-build.15.30
• Upgraded VVM : v3.0.3 > v3.1.13.1
• Alarm Clock : v4.2.13 > v4.2.20
• Contacts : v4.11.19.2 > v4.11.51
• Help : v4.4.204 > v4.4.234
• LG IME : v4.4.22 > v4.4.34
• LG Email : v6.30.28 > v6.30.53
• LG Home : v4.3.7 > v4.3.35
• Music : v4.5.15 > v4.5.24
• Weather : v4.1.8.1 > v4.2.28
• Vu Talk was removed

We’re actually pretty excited for Advanced Calling. Too long we have had to suffer from poor quality phone calls. All these years without major advancements. It’s kinda depressing. But with VoLTE, we’ll finally have the HD voice calls we deserve. If you’re the owner of an LG G2 or Samsung Galaxy S5, you’ll be able to give it a shot when the service launches. Are you guys excited?

Google Hangouts now offers free voice calls and MMS

The inexorable death of Google Voice is almost complete with the announcement today that Google is bringing voice calls to the Hangouts app.The functionality is rolling out today to Android, iOS and on the web. It’s a staggered rollout on Android, so if you don’t have the Hangouts 2.3 update available yet, it should show up in the next couple days (or if you are feeling impatient you can track down the .apk pretty easily). On Android you’ll need to download the Hangouts Dialer as well.Calls to other Hangouts users regardless of their location are naturally free and calls to phone lines in the US and Canada are free as well. If you insist on calling internationally and not just having the person on the other side install Hangouts, those rates can befound here.MMS support is also available to all for the first time, although it’s not exactly seamless yet, with the images coming through as URLs that you have to click to view. Hopefully they clean this implementation up in the coming months, but it’s good to see it finally arrive regardless.

If you have downloaded the update and given it a shot already, we’d love to hear your experiences

Google Hangouts

Google Hangouts used to be a Google+ version of Google Talk, with the former eventually replacing the latter to be more social and more integrated into Google’s social network. However, with Google+ not achieving the popularity Google has hoped for, it looks like the company wants to make Hangouts a more separate entity. With its use for SMS these days, the popularity of the service must far exceed Google+.

As of the latest update, you no longer need a Google+ profile to use many of the features. More specifically, the changelog mentions what you can now do without Google+.

• Start Hangout video calls with up to 15 participants
• Include any external guests who have a Google account
• Add, change or join a video call in a Google Calendar entry (coming soon)
• Join or start a Hangout by URL or at g.co/hangout/ (and g.co/present/ to just present)

This doesn’t mean that Hangouts will now be entirely separated from Google+. Having a Google+ account will add features to Hangouts, like in-call apps and adding entire circles to chats. It’s definitely beneficial to have a Google+ account, but no longer necessary. This should make using Hangouts easier for friends and family, especially those who aren’t tech literate.