infoworld.com - Intel's plans to discontinue its Atom chips for smartphones and some tablets may not have killed the dream of a Microsoft Surface phone -- just the piece of it that made it so enticing.
In the wake of a restructuring that relegated the PC to just another connected device, Intel confirmed today that it has cancelled its upcoming SoFIA and "Broxton" chips, following its decision to cancel its Atom X5 chips, also known as "Cherry Trail." That leaves Intel with just one Atom chip, "Apollo Lake," slated for convertible tablets.
Microsoft has never formally commented on its future smartphone plans, save for a leaked email that suggests that Microsoft is committed to the Windows 10 Mobile platform and phones running ARM processors. But fans of the platform have long hoped for a smartphone that could run native Win32 legacy apps as well as the new UWP platform that Microsoft has made a central platform of Windows 10. The assumption was that this would require a phone running on an Intel Atom processor. Intel's decision eliminates that option.
Unless Microsoft has some other trick up its sleeve, the most compelling justification for a Win32-based Surface phone appears to have died.
At Mobile World Congress, Intel CEO Brian Krzanich broke out a drone to show the kinds of devices that Intel would eventually base its company upon.
Intel gives up on the smartphone
Intel's decision was first reported by analyst Patrick Moorhead, and confirmed by IDG News Service and PCWorld. Intel told PCWorld that it plans to kill the "Broxton" Atom platform as well as all the flavors of its SoFIA chips, which combined Atom cores with 3G and LTE modems for smartphones. Some of its tablet processors are dead as well, including "Cherry Trail," its last-generation Atom chip for tablets. The company said it will continue to support tablets with a 3G derivative of the SoFIA chip, the older "Bay Trail" and "Cherry Trail," as well as some upcoming Core chips.
"I didn't get the sense that they're going to exit the tablet space -- I felt like there was [a message] of 'more coming soon,'" Moorhead said. "On the phone stuff, I just don't think they'll continue to do that, because, you know, it's a business."
Intel said recently that it plans to refocus on the data center, the Internet of Things, memory, 5G modems, and connectivity. To so, Intel will lay off 12,000 workers over the next year or so. But some Atoms apparently fell in the wake of a comprehensive program by Venkata Renduchintala, the new president of a newly created Client and Internet of Things (IoT) Businesses and Systems Architecture Group, to examine the viability of products across Intel's client businesses.
Intel once had plans to retake the smartphone market with an integrated 4G/microprocessor SoC called "SoFIA." Those plans are now dead.
Intel chief executive Brian Krzanich spoke optimistically about the phone business in 2014, and a year ago appeared prepared to do whatever it was necessary to make phones succeed. Now, Intel has acknowledged its defeat on the phones front and vowed to fight elsewhere.
"The reality is that if you're going to spend money, you have to take it from somewhere else," Moorhead said.
So does that mean that the dream of an Intel-based Windows phone is dead? "Yes, if they're not going to go after the smartphone, I don't see how that would be possible," Moorhead said.
If Microsoft does remain committed to an x86-compatible Surface phone, it does have some options, however unattractive. Intel recently announced its next-generation "Apollo Lake" Atom architecture, which Intel positioned as the foundation for, not a phone, but an "entry level PC." The "Apollo Lake" chips will be branded as Atom, Celeron, and Pentium, Intel said.
Intel hasn't said exactly how much power the "Apollo Lake" chip will consume, though it's made on the same 14-nm process as the existing "Cherry Trail" Atom chips. The Atom X7-Z8700 used in the Surface 3 is rated at just 2 watts of power. Does that mean that it (or "Apollo Lake") could be squeezed into a phone or phablet running Windows 10 Mobile?
Could the Surface 3 be turned into a phone?
Intel seems to have left the possibility open. "In terms of 'Cherry Trail,' form-factor boundaries are increasingly blurring in the mobile computing market, and we no longer look at tablets as a stand-alone segment," an Intel spokeswoman said. "Our product roadmap reflects that."
Analysts, though, say it looks doubtful. "I have a hard time visualizing the package that would be compelling: with a phone running a processor that has never been used as a phone before that's running as a fake desktop," said Wes Miller, an analyst at Directions on Microsoft. "And then what are you going to do for battery life? It's very perplexing."
That also means that that phone would have to have a discrete modem built in. Kevin Krewell, principal analyst at Tirias Research, noted that the SoFIA chip Intel cancelled was its first to have an integrated modem, and that omission would make the phone even larger.
Unless AMD can somehow cut the power of its embedded chips -- an aging AMD G-series LX still consumes about 5 watts -- the only way to enable Win32 compatibility may be through virtualization. That's the strategy HP's Elite X3 is reportedly using, though that virtualization is back up through the cloud and back down to the phone. It appears, based on this Windows Central FAQ, that a business will have to tailor this compatibility with HP itself on an app-by-app basis.
Even then, however, it's hard to imagine a scenario where a phone that needs to communicate with the cloud to perform virtualization in a faux-desktop environment wouldn't end up sitting next to a computer or thin client that does the same thing, Miller pointed out.
So, same old, same old?
The leaked memo from Microsoft's OS chief, Terry Myerson, certainly makes clear that Microsoft is committed to Windows 10 Mobile. "Let me be very clear: We are committed to deliver Windows 10 on mobile devices with small screen running ARM processors," Myerson wrote. "We are currently in development of our next-generation products and I wanted to reconfirm our commitment to Windows 10 Mobile."
Which, of course, is exactly what Microsoft is shipping today: Windows 10 Mobile on ARM processors. But sales are still plunging, and Microsoft is giving its phones away as a result.
Consumers just never fell in love with the Lumia 950, and Microsoft's Windows 10 Mobile OS is still hovering at less than 10 percent share of all Windows phones, according to AdDuplex.
Slapping a Surface brand on an existing Windows phone won't save Microsoft's phone business. Microsoft needs a compelling message that it can uniquely deliver: "the tablet that replaces your PC" was the tagline that sold the Surface lineup. It's possible that Microsoft has another moonshot in place for its mobile business -- who knows, maybe it'll make the Microsoft Band its "phone" of the future. Stability issues aside, the Surface Book demonstrated that Microsoft can craft innovative hardware using the same components its competitors use.
For right now, though, it appears another door has closed on Windows Phone. And that's just not good news for a platform struggling as hard as it is.

money.cnn.com - To say that Apple's iPhone 6S has failed to live up to expectations is an understatement.
The iPhone 6S has the dubious distinction of being the first iPhone ever to sell fewer models than its predecessor. And it's not underperforming the iPhone 6 by a little bit -- Apple sold 51.2 million iPhones last quarter, 10 million fewer than it sold during the first three months of 2015.
On a conference call with analysts on Tuesday, CEO Tim Cook said the percentage of customers who are upgrading from older iPhones to the iPhone 6S is way lower than the upgrade rate to the iPhone 6 from a year ago.
"I don't mean just a hair lower -- it's a lot lower," said Cook. "If we would have the same rate on iPhone 6S that we did iPhone 6, it would be time for a huge party. It would be a huge difference."
The iPhone 6S' poor performance dragged down Apple's overall sales last quarter, causing Apple's revenue to fall for the first time in 13 years.
Why the iPhone 6S has been a disappointment
In many ways, the iPhone 6S was destined to fail.
The iPhone 6S had a set of relatively unappealing upgrades compared to the iPhone 6. 3D Touch was its most innovative feature, but it's utility is still rather limited. It also has a better camera than the iPhone 6. Those features haven't provided a compelling case for customers to put down $650.
There's also a case of bad timing: The release of the iPhone 6S coincided with the death of two-year contracts in the United States. American wireless customers are now incentivized to keep their phones longer, allowing them to pay less every month on their bill.
And smartphone sales have been slumping overall, as the global economy worsens. That's particularly true in China, where Apple's sales fell the most last quarter.
Richard Windsor, analyst at Edison Investment Research, said he thinks comparing the iPhone 6S to its predecessor is unfair. The iPhone 6 addressed Apple customers' clamoring desire for a bigger phone. The bigger screen size helped drive upgrades at an unprecedented rate that the modestly improved iPhone 6S couldn't match.
"There was a lot of pent up demand for the device and many users also switched from Android to iOS," Windsor said. "This phenomenon is now over and iPhone demand has normalized, leaving Apple looking at declines."
Can the iPhone 7 restore Apple's mojo?
Analysts and Apple shareholders are holding out hope that the iPhone 7 can produce the same kind of boost that the iPhone 6 gave Apple.
There's reason for optimism. The upgrade cycle for people who purchased iPhone 6 phones is set to begin in September -- most iPhone owners skip a generation when they upgrade. And Cook hinted that there are many customers with older iPhones who were unimpressed with the iPhone 6S and are holding out for the iPhone 7, noting that there's "quite a bit of room" for upgrades down the road.
But there's plenty of room for skepticism too. What unaddressed markets can the iPhone 7 address? Apple already went smaller and cheaper with the iPhone SE, and it went bigger and more powerful with the iPhone 6S Plus.
Rumored iPhone 7 features, including wireless charging, a thinner profile (and no headphone jack), dual cameras and a curved all-glass body sounds intriguing. But it's unclear that any of those are what customers are clamoring for.
"Apple is not innovating enough on the product front to drive sales," said Neil Saunders, CEO of Conlumino. "In our view Apple's last product unveilings were rather lackluster and characterized a company that, while still on the cutting edge of technology, seems to have run out of radical new ideas."
Apple (AAPL, Tech30) hopes that the iPhone 6 isn't its bestselling iPhone ever. But if it can't come up with something truly revolutionary in the iPhone 7, the company's best days may be behind it.

techtimes.com - The Huawei P9 is rocking the smartphone world, sporting impressive specs and features, but how does it stand up in real-world tests? Here's what the early birds have to say about the handset.
Display
The display isn't really something to die for, as it boasts the same 1080p 5.2-inch IPS LCD as the P8, but on that note, it's in the forefront of the rest of the screens in the category.
"Colors are vivid, blacks are as deep as I've ever seen on an LCD display, and whites are the perfect temperature (you can tinker with this in the settings if your eyes don't agree). There's also plenty of power behind those pixels, making the display easy to read on the brightest of days," Jamie Rigg of Engadget says.
Performance
While the Kirin 955 under the P9's hood is pretty impressive, it doesn't really go that far from the previous Kirin 950. That doesn't necessarily mean that it's lacking in power, though, as tests have revealed that it's more or less on par with current-gen smartphones.
"The revised HiSilicon Kirin 955 processor is largely the same as in the Huawei Mate 8. The P8 achieves comparable performance, which coincides approximately with that of the Galaxy S7. However, gaming performance does not reach that of the S7," Eric Herrmann of AndroidPIT writes.
Meanwhile, battery life is excellent, lasting throughout the day and several hours under heavy usage. Aside from the 3,000 mAh pack it houses, that's partly because of its power-saving features, but it can work a little too well.
"Software optimizations for power saving are effective, however, they also inhibit background activity, such as with WhatsApp. This can lead to some messages arriving late," Herrmann continues.
Capacity-wise, the standard model houses 32 GB of internal storage, and other variants can go up to 64 GB, but the availability of those depend on the region. At any rate, it has microSD card support that can go up to 128 GB on the second SIM tray.
It should also be noted that despite running on Android Marshmallow, Huawei turned the adoptable storage feature off because of the possible damage it could cause when taking out the microSD card, the same reason why other phone makers such as Samsung and LG did.
Camera
The crème de la crème of the smartphone is arguably the Leica dual-camera optics it's fitted with. In other words, two 12 MP sensors do wonders.
"On the back of the phone at the top sits the dual-camera sensor, which I found made some onlookers perk up when they spot it, as right next to it is the Leica logo. I personally wasn't a fan of this at first, but I've come to terms with it, and it does highlight the fact that Huawei has tapped into Leica's 100 years of photography expertise to develop the camera setup on the P9," James Peckham of TechRadar says.
What's more, there are pro features on the smartphone. That's not really something that an average user will be looking for, but mobile photography enthusiasts are probably over the moon on account of that.
To make things even better, the rear cameras don't have bumps, sitting flush with the entire handset. The P9 scores a ton of points just for that.
Build Quality
In a word, the P9 is premium. To flesh out that idea, the handset is definitely eye-catching thanks to its metal unibody and smoothly brushed metal, and again, it doesn't have any camera bump at the back, even though it's only 0.27 inches thin.
"Based on its looks alone, the Huawei P9 is clearly targeted at the upper end of the market and it's hard to deny that it's quite a good looking handset. The P9 comes in six colors: white, grey, silver plus three variations of gold: rose, haze and 'prestige.' In the hand, the Huawei P9 is definitely one of the nicest on the market and Huawei has done well to pack a flagship specs list in a profile so ergonomic and svelte," Gary Sims of Android Authority writes.
Software
Regarding software, the operating system may be a little too sluggish for users. As everyone knows, it runs on Android 6.0 Marshmallow with the semi-hefty Emotion UI 4.1. If there's anything good to takeaway on this front, it's that the latest EMUI is a lot better than previous versions, even though it sort of looks like an iOS.
"The one thing that lets it down is the software. Version 4.1 is the most polished and nicest version of EMUI yet, but it's just not as good as the standard Android experience. There are lots of nice tweaks and utilities, but being a clone of Apple's iOS is not one of them," Samuel Gibbs of The Guardian points out.
Fingerprint Scanner
According to Huawei, the P9 has a Level 4 fingerprint scanner that's considerably better than the Level 3 scanners crammed inside most phones in the competition, but the different apparently isn't that obvious.
"I didn't notice much of a difference between it and competing fingerprint scanners like the ones seen on the Galaxy S7 or Nexus 5X. But this isn't an issue and the scanner is still more than good enough. It's super-fast and the only times it failed to recognize my fingerprint was when I was using the phone in rain, or had dirty hands," Alastair Stevenson of Trusted Reviews says.
The Bottom Line
The P9 is a remarkable smartphone that could shoot Huawei up in the market mainly because of what it brought to the mobile photography scene.
Going over the price, it's expected to set customers back by $680 for the variant with 32 GB of storage and 3 GB of RAM. That's just a little too much for what it has in store, and it looks like cost-effectiveness just went out the window on this one. However, there's still no official U.S. pricing, so nothing's set in stone just yet.
To boil things down, it barely manages to be on the same level as other flagships in terms of hardware specifications, but it has a camera on steroids to make up for it. To top it off, it also feels great in the hand and features a top-of-the-line fingerprint scanner - one step above the others, Huawei claims - not to mention that it could just be the handset that photographers have been looking for all this time.

money.cnn.com - Apple just announced its worst quarter in over a decade.
On Tuesday afternoon, Apple reported that its sales and profit both fell last quarter -- a rarity for a company that has been growing at a rapid pace, even as it has become the largest technology company on the planet.
The last time Apple's sales fell year over year was the first quarter of 2003. At that time, the PowerMac was still the company's bestseller. Apple had sold a grand total of 611,000 iPods. And Apple hadn't yet launched the iTunes Music Store.
Now, more than two-thirds of Apple's revenue is made up of iPhone sales. So where the iPhone goes, so goes Apple -- and last quarter was a miserable one for Apple's signature gadget. IPhone sales fell for the first time in history.
But ever-sinking iPad sales and flat-lining Mac demand didn't help Apple's case either. Neither did a strong dollar and a very weak Chinese market.
"We had a very busy and challenging quarter," CEO Tim Cook said on a conference call with investors. "Despite the pause in our growth, the results represent excellent execution by our team in the face of strong macroeconomic headwinds."
Wall Street analysts had predicted that Apple would have a somewhat lousy quarter. But they didn't think it would be quite this bad.
Apple's (AAPL, Tech30) stock plummeted 8% in after-hours trading, to below $100 a share.
iPhone
First quarter of 2015: 61.2 million
First quarter of 2016: 51.2 million, down 16%
It was going to be hard for Apple to beat iPhone sales from the same quarter a year ago, when the iPhone 6 debuted in China. Apple released the iPhone 6S to China in September along with the United States, so it didn't get the first-quarter iPhone boost that it had from Chinese customers a year earlier.
Apple actually sold slightly more iPhones last quarter than Wall Street analysts had expected. Cook said the upgrade rate for the iPhone 6S has been higher than for the iPhone 5S but slower than for the iPhone 6.
The iPhone had a few strong points, however: India iPhone sales were up 56%, and Cook said the rate of customers switching from Android was the highest ever.
iPad
First quarter of 2015: 12.6 million
First quarter of 2016: 10.2 million, down 19%
IPad sales fell for the ninth straight quarter, though they inched past analysts' forecasts.
Mac
First quarter of 2015: 4.6 million
First quarter of 2016: 4 million, down 12%
PC sales fell by 10% worldwide last quarter, according to Gartner. Apple had been outpacing the overall industry, but this is the second straight quarter in which Mac sales performed worse than the overall PC market.
Mac sales were relatively abysmal, badly missing Wall Street analysts' expectations. They expected 600,000 more Macs to be sold during the quarter.
Profit
First quarter of 2015: $13.6 billion
First quarter of 2016: $10.5 billion, down 22%
Apple's profit hadn't fallen since the last quarter of 2013.
Last time Apple reported earnings, it posted the most profitable quarter in corporate history.
Sales
First quarter of 2015: $58 billion
First quarter of 2016: $50.6 billion, down 13%
The double-digit sales loss was Apple's first since the fall of 2001. At that point, Windows 98 was the dominant computer operating system, and no one knew what an iPod was, because it hadn't been introduced yet.
But for some perspective, Apple is expected to have produced more revenue in an off-quarter than the company posted in all of 2009.
The strong dollar hurt Apple, just as it has hurt many other American companies this past quarter. Had the dollar not strengthened from a year earlier, Apple said sales would have been down just 9%.
Current quarter's sales
Second quarter of 2016 forecast: $41 billion to $43 billion in sales
Apple's forecast was well below Wall Street analysts' initial expectations. They had been expecting sales of $47.4 billion for the current quarter before Apple issued its outlook.
It's even farther below the $49.6 billion in sales Apple posted during the second quarter of 2015. Apple Chief Financial Officer Luca Maestri said the divergence between Apple and Wall Street's forecasts is due to Apple reducing its inventories to meet slumping demand. The new, cheaper iPhone SE will also drag down sales, Maestri said.
Apple analysts have their collective fingers crossed that the iPhone 7 can reboot the Apple sales growth machine. In the meantime, the next few quarters are going to be stinkers.
China sales
First quarter of 2015: $16.8 billion
First quarter of 2016: $12.5 billion, down 26%
Sales in all regions fell, but none more than in China.
Services
First quarter of 2015: $5 billion
First quarter of 2016: $6 billion, up 20%
One bright spot in Apple's quarter was its services business, which includes iCloud, the iTunes App Store and Apple Music. Services is now Apple's second-largest business unit, trailing only the iPhone in sales.
Cook said Apple Music now has 13 million subscribers.
Cash
Fourth quarter of 2015: $216 billion
First quarter of 2016: $232.9 billion
Apple posted another record cash hoard. Some critics would like to see Apple use that cash to buy up assets that will help the company grow stronger.
As a result, Apple increased its share buyback program by $35 billion and upped its quarterly dividend to 57 cents per share.

9to5google.com - It's very hard for OEMs these days to keep devices secret up until their announcement, and flagships in particular tend to be under severe scrutiny. After the supposed implementation of an iris scanner in pre-production models, the Galaxy Note 6 is once again under the spotlight, with Dutch website GSM HelpDesk reporting that Samsung may be toying with two different versions...
Both models, said to be test devices for the European market, would supposedly be sporting a massive 5.8" display, with the only dissimilarity being a flat screen on one phone and a curved one on the other.
Apparently, in fact, last year's decision of pushing two handsets like the Note 5 and the S6 edge+ simultaneously will be ditched, as an S7 edge+ wouldn't make much sense, given the already generous dimensions of its "standard sibling".
The Note 6, which will indeed still make it to the market come the last quarter of the year, is reportedly still being developed with both panels, as Samsung is still uncertain about the one it wants to push forward - the only certainty being that one model alone will eventually make the cut.
Regardless of which 5.8" panel makes it to market, the phone display will feature QHD resolution, alongside the same 12MP camera found on the S7 and again two chipsets; this time a Snapdragon 823 - likely headed for the US market - and a slightly higher-clocked Exynos 8890 (the same one found on the S7s) for the rest of the world.
Other bits from the report once again mention the previously rumored 6GB of RAM, 32GB of internal storage and the presence of a microSD slot, but also claim that Samsung is trying to fit a huge 4000mAh battery inside the device's case - which would seem feasible considering the 3600mAh unit inside the smaller S7 edge.

news.softpedia.com - Back in January, when Microsoft announced the financial results for the most recent quarter, the company revealed a 57 percent drop in terms of sold Lumia devices, so many rushed to predict the death of Windows Phone.
Fast forward to April 21, and we have new statistics, this time for the third quarter of fiscal year 2016, but also revealing a huge drop for Windows Phone.
Specifically, Microsoft said that its phone business declined 46 percent in constant currency during the quarter, and it sold only 2.3 million Lumia units during the same period. This is down from 8.6 million sold units the same quarter the year before.
Microsoft also revealed that it sold a total of 15.7 million other phones in Q3 FY16, but these are most likely feature phones still wearing Nokia's badge.
The company itself admitted the drop recorded by the phone business and said that it expects the decline to continue in the next quarters.
"In devices, we anticipate continued momentum and growth for Surface Pro 4 and Surface Book, particularly with business customers. For phone we expect year over year revenue declines to deepen in Q4 as we work through our Lumia channel position. In search we will continue to show healthy revenue growth with full year profitability," Amy Hood, executive vice president and chief financial officer at Microsoft, explained in a conference call with analysts.
What's next for Windows phones
The decline doesn't come as a big surprise, though, as Microsoft has put only little effort into the marketing strategy for new Lumia devices and Windows 10 Mobile. While the company started with an aggressive marketing campaign for new Lumia models such as 950 and 950 XL, it's now more focused on other devices and says that Windows phones would only see "cooler things" next year.
People with knowledge of the matter claim that Microsoft no longer wants to produce any Lumia phones, and the company is aiming to focus exclusively on one model, and this could be the Surface Phone.
Coming next year, the Surface Phone is expected to be developed by the same division that makes the Surface tablets and laptops and supervised by Panos Panay. It could be available in three different models, each targeting different categories of customers.
This is one of the main reasons the company expects Windows phones to drop even more in the next quarters, but there's no doubt that it has big hopes that a recovery could be reached in 2017, when the Surface Phone hits the market.

theweek.co.uk - Samsung's Note series of devices has "successfully carved out a niche of power users", according to Trusted Reviews, and has a large fan base all eagerly expecting the next phablet.
The firm's current offering, the Galaxy Note 5, still hasn't made it to the UK, despite months of speculation that it would arrive in January. According to Know Your Mobile, the firm opted instead to offer British customers the Galaxy S6 Edge+, a larger version of its Galaxy S6 Edge smartphone.
Now it seems Samsung are planning a complete turnaround for the Galaxy Note 6. While it should be available in the UK, any Edge+ version of the Galaxy S6-replacing S7 will get the cold shoulder.
What do we know so far?
Design
With no leaked images, there's very little on the ground to suggest what the Note 6 will look like. Nevertheless, the IB Times expects the phablet will merely refine the Note 5's design rather than be a comprehensive overhaul.
It wouldn't be surprising if the leap from the "faux-leather" of the Note 4 to the metallic, Galaxy S6-inspired touch on the Note 5 sticks around and the International Business Times site also expects an upscaled version of the Galaxy S7, with the inclusion of a stylus.
The Note 6 should be a pretty tough thing, too - according to Ubergizmo, rumours suggest it will be IP68 water and dustproof.
Display
While the Note 5 arrived with a 5.7ins display, the Note 6 could grow in size, according to rumours.
A blog post on SamMobile highlights rumours that Samsung will bump the screen size up to 5.8ins, while reverting to the Super AMOLED Plus display last used in the Samsung Galaxy S2.
These screens are technically more advanced than the Super AMOLED displays Samsung has been using these past years, but the firm dropped them after 2011 as they weren't as rugged and tough as normal AMOLED panels.
However, they are thinner and Samsung may us them to open up space for a larger battery.
If the same 2560 x 1440 Quad HD resolution is used, pixel density would drop to 506 pixels per inch, although this would be unnoticeable to the naked eye. Samsung may even go gunning for the Sony Xperia Z5 Premium, with its 3840 x 2160 4K display.
Camera
The Note 6 could follow its Galaxy S7 siblings by downgrading to a camera with a smaller megapixel count, says Pocket Lint.
Both the Note 5 and the Galaxy S6 handsets came with a 16-megapixel main camera, but the S7 has only 12 megapixels. They are much larger, though, something Samsung calls "Dual Pixels", and they lock on quickly and accurately for one of the fastest autofocuses on a smartphone.
It would be no surprise if Samsung equips the Note 6 with the same sensor, using an aperture of f/1.7 for vastly improved performance in low lighting conditions and equipped with "Super OIS Plus" stability.
Trusted Reviews thinks differently, saying that the Note 6 will come with a 20-megapixel camera.
Hardware
According to Trusted Reviews, Samsung will make the Note 6 in two hardware configurations - one for the Asian market and another for the west.
In the east, the handset should get a custom-built Exynos 9980 chipset, with western buyers snapping up a version fitted with a Qualcomm Snapdragon 820. It's rumoured that the Note 6 could come with as much as 6GB RAM, "sure to appeal to the power-user niche".
The site expects three storage options: 32GB, 64GB and 128GB - although 256GB isn't completely off the cards if Samsung ops to include its
A bigger batter could be on the cards, too. According to rumours, a whopping 4,000mAh cell might find its way into the Note 6, says Trusted Reviews, replacing the 3,000mAh unit found in the Note 5.
Release date and price
According to Expert Reviews, Samsung could release the handset in July, possibly in a bid to build up a head of steam before Apple launches the iPhone 7 in September.
There's no information regarding prices yet and it's tricky to settle on a price tag, given that the Note 5 hasn't gone on sale in the UK. Regardless, Trusted Reviews expects it to be in the region of £625. Samsung dropped the launch price of its Galaxy S7 in comparison to the S6, so there could be a slight cut on the Note 5.

techtimes.com - Blackberry's financial numbers are in, and its revenues fall below the expectations of business analysts by a wide margin. The release of its Android phone Priv didn't help either.
There was a time when Blackberry was the leader in mobile telecommunications, particularly in smartphones designed for enterprises or business executives. Over the last years, though, it suffered a major setback with the massive success of its competitors like Google and Apple.
The financial figures might reflect that. In its new financial report for the three months that ended on Feb. 29, Blackberry posted [PDF] non-GAAP and GAAP revenues of $487 million and $464 million, respectively. However, this is significantly lower than the projection of analysts at $566 million.
At 45.3 percent, its gross profit margin, though higher than the third quarter, is still lower than the 48.1 percent it declared around the same time last year.
The company also didn't do so well with hardware sale as they sold 600,000 or 100,000 phones less than the previous quarter. This is even after the company launched its high-end smart phone called Priv released on Nov. 15.
Unlike the other smartphones released by the company, Priv is the first to run on an Android instead of its proprietary operating system as a way of gaining leverage and access of the extensive market and app suite of Google, although the device is still equipped with the security features the company is highly known for.
Priv generated some positive reviews but performed poorly in sales. It also remains unknown as to how many of the phones were sold in the fourth quarter.
Company CEO and executive chairman John Chen has blamed the general slow sales of expensive phones - Priv retails at $699 in its U.S. website - and the long and delayed negotiations with mobile carriers.
In the meantime, Chen hints of a mid-range device to beat the "saturated" market of high-end smartphones, as well as increasing its distribution and selling at least 3 million of their phones with an average price of $300 to declare a break even. In a worst-case scenario, he might stop making these phones altogether.
There's also a silver lining. With a loss of only 3 cents per share, it beat the analyst's estimate of a 10-cent loss per share. Its software and services revenue is significantly better at $153 million, which is a 106 percent increase from the same quarter of the previous year. Further, 70 percent of its software revenue is recurring, and the company has generated more than 3,600 customer wins.
"Overall, BlackBerry's Q4 performance was solid as we made progress on the key elements of our strategy, which are to grow software faster than the mobility software market, achieve device profitability and generate positive free cash flow," said Chen.
Software has also helped the company exceed its target for the full year at $500 million. Now, the company aims to grow this department by 30 percent for the next fiscal year, along with a more positive cash flow and adjusted Earnings Before Interest, Taxes, Depreciation and Amortization (EBITDA).
"Looking to FY 2017, our strategy is on track and our growth engines are in place to continue to generate above market growth in software and achieve our profitability objectives," he added.