AT&T expands coverage to Mexico with $2.5B Iusacell purchase

AT&T has decided to expand its reach beyond the US territory by agreeing to buy Mexican carrier Iusacell in a deal worth $2.5 billion. The purchase will create what AT&T calls “the first-ever North American mobile service area” and will bring the carrier’s total subscriber count to 400 million.

The purchase will enable AT&T subscribers to travel to Mexico without losing service or incurring huge roaming chargers. Or a large part of Mexico, at least, as Iusacell only covers 70% of the Mexican population.

Neither carrier has specified a time frame for closing out the deal, but gaining regulators’ approval is their next step. It’s also unclear if Iusacell will be rebranded or if AT&T will continue running it as a separate company, should the deal complete.

Motorola Moto X (2014) 5.0 Lollipop update now seeding to testers

Over the past two years or so Motorola turned regular firmware updates into one its top priorities and has been making sure that all its current smartphones run the latest available version of Android. And by the looks of it, things won’t change with the release of 5.0 Lollipop.

Not only has Motorola committed to updating its lineup, but it appears that it will be the first company to do so. In fact the Moto X (2014) that have signed up to participate in the company’s soak testing are already receiving a beta 5.0 Lollipop build as an update. That’s not quite the finalized ROM that will be distributed, but barring any major bugs that might pop up during the testing, that one shouldn’t be too far away.

We don’t have an exact changelog for the update, just yet but Material Design UI has been confirmed as well as the battery life boost by Project Volta. We don’t know if Motorola will be adding any touches of its own to the release, but the company usually likes to stick close to the vanilla user experience.

Hopefully, the final release won’t take too long to come and put the last pieces of the puzzle.

good by nokia Microsoft to unveil new Lumia handset on November 11

Microsoft has just given us the date when we’ll see its first smartphone after the drop of the Nokia brand. Using the hashtag #MoreLumia, the company’s teaser confirms a new smartphone is on the way and it will break cover on November 11.

The teaser itself doesn’t give us too much information – we only see a corner of the smartphone which also holds the front-facing camera. Whether or not that is going to be one of the key selling points of the device remains to be seen – images like this one are often used in promo materials so it might just be a coincidence.

The bit that Microsoft gave us aligns nicely with the Lumia RM-1090, which visited the Chinese TENAA certificate authority four days ago. The entry-level offering comes with a 5” qHD screen and offers dual SIM slots. There’s no LTE support, but judging from Microsoft’s recent phones there could be a single SIM 4G version too.

Lumia RM-1090

We’ll know for sure come Tuesday as Microsoft unveils its first non-Nokia smartphone.

Nexus 6 now available on the Play Store in 12 additional countries

If you have been living outside the US and have been itching to buy the new Nexus 6, Google has some good news for you. The Nexus 6 has gone live on 12 additional countries around the world, although it's not yet available for purchase.

The list of additional countries includes Australia, Belgium, Canada, France, Germany, India, Italy, Japan, Netherlands, Spain, Sweden, and United Kingdom.

As mentioned before, it's only listed in these countries and you can see the price but can't purchase it yet. Although the phone should go on sale shortly some time later this month, in very limited stocks, as 

Meizu working on Android 5.0 Lollipop update for its phones

Meizu has already received the required files and is now working on updating its smartphone lineup to Android 5.0 Lollipop. The confirmation comes from Meizu's Flyme UI chief developer, who posted a screenshot of a command line interface showing Android 5.0.0 R2 being compiled.

Presumably, the Meizu's software development team is working on implementing the latest version of Android on the Meizu MX4. Sadly, however, details are scarce and there's no additional information if the company's upcoming smartphones running Alibaba's YunOS will be updated to use Android 5.0 Lollipop as a base.

While Flyme OS heavily modifies the Material Design user experience debuting on Android 5.0 Lollipop, it will take advantage of the underlying functionality such as Project Volta. Better facial recognition, improved camera API as well as more smooth experience are another benefits of Lollipop.

The newest smartphone from the company is expected to be the Meizu MX4 Pro. Its launch is scheduled for November 19 in Beijing, but it's unlikely that Meizu will be ready with the Lollipop development by then so it will likely launch on KitKat and then wait for an update.

Samsung Galaxy Note 5 likely to feature a 4K 6-inch AMOLED

Samsung has been teasing its development of a 4K AMOLED display for a long time now, but now a new piece of information suggests the first phone to brag with it is the Galaxy Note 5. According to a tip sent to PhoneArena, Samsung 4K AMOLED screen is 6" in diagonal and packs a pixel density of 743ppi.

Take this information with a pinch of salt, of course, but it's very likely for Samsung to be considering this. The Galaxy Note family of smartphones grow ever so larger in terms of display, so a 6" would be a logical evolutionary step for the Galaxy Note 5.

Moreover, a recent set of rumors suggest the Galaxy S6 will be powered by an Exynos 7420 chipset, which would have four Cortex-A57 cores and four Cortex-A53. We wouldn't be surprised to see this configuration in the Galaxy Note 5 as well.

Traditionally, Samsung launches a new Galaxy Note smartphone in the fall at IFA consumer show in Berlin, Germany. There's a lot of time until September 2015 and the Galaxy S6 is the first of Samsung's flagships to be anticipated.

New Moto smartphone with Snapdragon 410 now in testing

Motorola is testing a new mid-range device using the Geekbench testing suite. The phone, which we assume is either the new Moto E or Moto G, features the Snapdragon MSM8916, more popular as the Snapdragon 410. It features a 64-bit quad-core Cortex-A53 CPU capable of running at up to 1.4 GHz.

In the case of the unannounced Motorola phone, the Cortex-A53 runs at 1.19GHz and is backed by 1GB of RAM (reported as 884MB). The benchmark listing also confirms the phone is tested with Android 4.4.4 KitKat. Hopefully, when it launches, it will get the now latest Android 5.0 Lollipop.

Sadly, that's all the information there is at this point. Motorola hasn't even given a codename for the phone. We'll have to wait a bit longer to learn about the phone's display, camera and other features.

Since Motorola very recently unveiled the new Moto G, we guess the Moto E will be next to enjoy a refresh. And a Snapdragon 410 as its heart sounds very exciting.