It was a big week for phones in this week’s gadget news as an iPhone 6s teardown reveals the innards of Apple’s new phone, Blackberry unveils its first Android phone and Pebble reveals the Time Round smartwatch.
Before diving into the big gadgets news last week, one of the biggest reveals this week came from Samsung, which announced that its Gear VR was to step out of its developers model’s shadow and become its own consumer version.
Shipping this November for US$99, the Gear VR promises some improvements on the beta Innovator Edition model and will function on all of Samsung’s flagship phones released this year.
Normal programming resumes with last week’s update to Apple iOS 9.0.1, which fixed a number of issues found with the new iOS that largely affected owners of older iPhones, including the lack of response when trying the ‘slide to upgrade’ function.
It also reportedly fixed a number of other minor issues found with the phone with regard to responsiveness in Safari and photos.
Finally, for last week’s round-up, Samsung’s Project Valley foldable smartphone appears to be a lot more than just a retro flipcase.
The project has been two years in the making but now the company feels compelled to share a corny video showing how the phone might look like once it’s developed.
iPhone 6s teardown
Like hungry vultures, tech journalists and engineers have been dying to get their hands on the iPhone 6s, only to tear it open and feast on its innards.
Based off iFixit’s teardown, the assumption that the iPhone 6s is identical to its slightly older brother isn’t quite true and it is, in fact, a fraction larger, coming in at138.3 x 67.1 x 7.1 mm vs. 138.1 x 67.0 x 6.9 mm.
It’s also apparently a bit tougher than the iPhone 6 with four adhesive strips lining the perimeter of the phone.
The new 3D sensors in the screen have added considerable weight to the phone, which now comes in at 60g, which is 15g heavier than the iPhone 6.
And many, many other minute changes that you’d never notice in a million years, which can be found at the website.
Vertu Signature Touch
You’re out of touch, I’m out of money. That should be the slogan for the upcoming Vertu Signature Touch phone based on Android, which will be launched at an eye-watering price of as much as £13,700 (€18,635).
Built from a titanium shell, the Android 5.1 phone is certainly not lacking in high specs given its elite price tag, which also includes a 5.2in 1080p LCD screen and a surprising inclusion of a microSD card slot, unlike many of the major manufacturers’ phones.
In terms of its processing power, it has an octo-core Snapdragon 810 chipset and 4GB of RAM and a 3,160mAh battery for relatively heavy use.
Of course, it’s all the bling and privileges that come with it that makes it a phone for the 1pc with a personalised assistant to answer your queries and expensive, hand-stitched leather.
Blackberry Priv
Scaling us back to what would be considered normal prices, Blackberry revealed details of its first Android-powered phone, the Priv.
Hidden among the company’s Q2 financial results was the news that the Priv is to make its debut by the end of this year.
For months now, Blackberry has revealed few details on its phone, which uses the Android operating system but contains Blackberry’s security features, but now we at least now know when it will be released.
Aside from the fact it will be a slider phone with hidden keyboard, there’s little else known about it so it’s very much a ‘watch this space’ for Blackberry fans.
Pebble Time Round
It might sound like a strange name, but the Pebble Time Round is Pebble’s latest, and pretty sleek, smartwatch.
While smartwatches seem to be now set to the standard of the Apple Watch even though many companies had already done it before them, Pebble still remains one of the most well-known brands in the wearables industry.
And now, with the Time Round, we get a round watch face and colour and, you have to admit, it looks a lot like a watch, which is a good thing, in this journalist’s view.
At 7.5mm thick and weighing 28 grams, Pebble claims this makes the Time Round the thinnest and lightest smartwatch in the world.
Also, battery life is apparently quite good and it will last the whole day on a 15-minute charge.
Those in the EU will have to wait until 2016 before they can get their hands on one, and it will cost US$249 (€223) from Pebble’s online store.
Dad builds a Star Wars Landspeeder for his kid
One father certainly knows how to win the father of the year award after giving his Star Wars obsessed kid their own Landspeeder bed with lights and all.
Revealing his incredible creation on Reddit, the user going under the name Ghostfaceace, who is an architect by trade, spent 10 hours over the course of two weeks building the bed from scratch.
With all the trimmings and lights, the amazing dad said it only cost him somewhere in the region of £100 in parts and supplies.
He even created it to have interchangeable LED lights underneath the bed that could be changed by remote control, including the distinctive purple that he shows in his photo. I think one Reddit commenter speaks for all of us when he said: “Did you ever consider adopting a 32-year-old Belgian boy?”
Image via ghostfaceace/Imgur
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iPhone 6s advert image via Shutterstock
