Samsung tipped to be partnering with a premium watchmaker for its new smartwatch

Samsung is said to be developing a round smartwatch referred to as Orbis and they are reportedly asking for help from a premium watchmaker for it. Perhaps to take on Apple and its new Apple Watch, Samsung is supposedly testing its Orbis smartwatch in France, South Korea, and the United Kingdom. It’s seen as a peculiar move because they usually test new devices in Germany and Poland.

According to Sammobile, this might be because they are working with a popular premium watchmaker from France like Dior, Cartier, or Chanel to unveil a premium variant of this upcoming smartwatch. No one has be confirmed to be working with Samsung yet. These are still rumours at the moment. But if it rings true, then Apple Watch will have new competition.

Source: Sammobile

Use your Android Wear smartwatch to locate your wayward Android phone

If you’ve been using Google’s Android Device Manager to locate missing smartphones and tablets, you can now get some help with your Android smartwatch. Google has added support for Android Wear to help you find your wayward Android device. All you need to do is say, “Ok, Google. Start. Find my phone.” Or you can look for the “Find my phone” feature in the Start menu. This will have your Android device ringing at full volume and will hopefully have you reunited with it in no time. The update will be rolling out to Android Wear devices in the coming weeks.

Source: Official Android Blog

Samsung may soon give budget phones a 128GB storage upgrade

Just because you don’t have a flagship smartphone, doesn’t mean you can’t have more storage. At least, that’s the hope of Samsung. They’re introducing a new 3-bits-per-cell flash memory chip that can give 128GB storage to mid- and even entry-level devices.  It makes use of the existing eMMC tech found in most phones. It’ll offer a respectable 260MB per second read speed. There isn’t any word yet though when this will come out but it makes us look forward to future budget devices that can handle that much storage.

Source: Samsung | Via: Engadget

Lenovo to debut Windows-powered phone mid-year 2015

Lenovo has been previously listed as a partner for Microsoft’s Windows Phone 8.1 but they haven’t released any device yet. Now, with Windows 10 coming out, it seems Lenovo is finally entering Microsoft’s mobile space. According to a blog post from Microsoft, they will be debuting in 190 countries and that Lenovo will be creating a Windows-powered phone. It is said to be available in the middle of 2015 through Chinese carrier China Mobile.

According to CNET, China Mobile is the nation's largest carrier. They have around 808 million subscribers, which certainly can help boost both Lenovo’s and Microsoft’s efforts in the mobile space. It isn’t known yet though what type of device it’ll be or if it’ll make its way out of China. But getting into that market will be important for Microsoft especially as they look to roll out Windows 10 to all devices (from phones, tablets, to PCs) and make its presence known in the mobile device space. China would be a good place to start as it has the largest smartphone market.

Source: Microsoft + CNET