Xiaomi Redmi Note 2 Pro passes through TENAA

Nearly a couple of weeks after it had its metal backleaked, the Xiaomi Redmi Note 2 Pro smartphone has been spotted listed on the website of Chinese certification and regulatory authority TENAA.

The leaked image we saw last month indicated a fingerprint scanner at the back and a metal construction. The images included in the TENAA listing (shown above) confirm these features.

In terms of specs, the handset is similar to the Xiaomi Redmi Note 2. The listing reportedly reveals that the device is powered by a Mediatek MT6795 Helio X10 chipset, and sports a 5.5-inch FHD display. Memory configuration is 2GB/16GB, and the handset - which measures 149.98 × 75.96 × 8.75 mm and weighs in at 165 grams - packs in a 3060mAh battery.

In terms of camera, the Redmi Note 2 Pro features a 13MP/5MP camera combo, and runs Android 5.0.1 Lollipop out-of-the-box. As for the price, while some rumors say the smartphone will carry a tag of CNY 999($156), others say it will cost CNY 1099 ($172).

Some BlackBerry Priv pre-order shipments are getting delayed

A couple of days ago, it was revealed that newBlackBerry Priv orders (placed through the company's online store) won't be delivered until November 23, and now, it is being reported that some pre-order shipments, too, are experiencing delays. The company is saying that the pre-orders in question will arrive no later than November 24.

"This is a follow-up to the email we sent you on Friday to keep you updated on ShopBlackBerry PRIV pre-order deliveries. Due to demand, there has been a delay in shipping PRIV smartphones to some customers who pre-ordered," BlackBerry said in an email to customers.

"We continue to deliver PRIV devices and expect all remaining pre-orders to arrive no later than November 24th. Once your order has been shipped you will receive a confirmation by email so you can track your order."

For those who aren't already aware, BlackBerry officially started shipping its debut Android smartphone last week on November 6. The device isalso available for purchase from AT&T in the US.

Xiaomi Gemini (Mi 5) appears on Geekbench, will use Snapdragon 820

Xiaomi has chosen not to respect the de facto standard one-year update cycle for its Mi 4 flagship, instead pumping out differently-specced versions of it. The Mi 4i and Mi 4c were thus born, but successful as they may be, a proper high-end heir is called for.

Apparently, what is going to be the Mi 5 lives an underground life as Xiaomi Gemini, as indicated by a Geekbench listing.

The benchmark entry shows that the smartphone is powered by a msm8996 chipset, which is the internal designation of the mighty Snapdragon 820.

Mighty it is within the Mi 5, scoring a whopping 2,140 in the single-core test, where Qualcomm's unfortunate Snapdragon 810 scores around the 1,300 mark. Current Exynos heavyweights from the Samsung Galaxy line are good for about 1,500 points, but the top dog in single-core performance remains the Apple A9 chip with results in the 2,500 ballpark.

Multi-core numbers are perhaps not as impressive, as the Gemini is outclassed by the Galaxy S6 generation, which can all push upwards of 5,000.

Whatever the numbers, Xiaomi's future flagship will come with a Qualcomm Snapdragon 820 inside, and with that chip only - no parallel models will be made. Earlier reports indicated that there might be tension between the two companies, but a Weibo post by analyst Kevin King, director of Chinese IHS Technology Research dismisses the issue.

Xiaomi Mi Pad 2 gets benchmarked with Intel chipset

Xiaomi's Mi Pad 2 has been a very long time in the making, with rumors about it surfacing as early as last December. Yet here we are almost one year later and the tablet is still not official.

That might change soon, however. The Mi Pad 2 has been certified in China this September, and now someone in possession of a prototype has decided to put it through the paces of Geekbench. This thankfully reveals a few things about the device's hardware.

First off, it's using an Intel chipset, namely the Atom x5-Z8500, with a 2.24 GHz quad-core CPU. The tablet has 2GB of RAM, and it's currently running Android 5.1 Lollipop. Those are all the details for now, but hopefully the Mi Pad 2 will get official soon.

Past rumors spoke about it having a 7.9-inch 2,048x1,536 touchscreen, and 16GB of built-in storage (which should, however, be expandable). And since this is Xiaomi we're talking about, expect to see the latest iteration of MIUI on top of Android.

Galaxy A9 receives Bluetooth certification, could launch soon

Samsung is planning on adding a new member to its metal-clad Galaxy A line very soon, it seems. This will be called Galaxy A9 and will probably be the highest-end offering to ever be part of the A series.

So far the Galaxy A9 has been spotted in not one, buttwo benchmarks, having had some of its specs revealed in the process. It's also been seen in an Indian import listing recently. And now the phone has received its first certification.

The Bluetooth SIG has done the deed and put its stamp of approval on the upcoming Galaxy A9 (model number SM-A9000). Since this has happened, we expect the handset to get more certifications in the near future. And as this process has started already, we may see the A9 becoming official soon, perhaps before the end of the year.

Previously leaked specs for the Galaxy A9 include a 5.5-inch or 6-inch 1080p HD touchscreen, 3GB of RAM, 32GB of storage, and the Qualcomm Snapdragon 620 chipset running things. This one comes with an octa-core CPU sporting four Cortex-A72 cores clocked at up to 1.8 GHz and four 1.4 GHz Cortex-A53 cores. The GPU is the Adreno 510, and the SoC has support for Cat.7 LTE, with peak downloads of 300Mbps and uploads of up to 100Mbps. The phone should land with Android 5.1.1 Lollipop on board, with a Marshmallow update on the way.

Samsung Exynos 8 Octa 8890 is official

Samsung has just pulled the wraps off its next-gen high-end chipset. The Exynos 8 Octa 8890 (quite a mouthful, we reckon it’ll go by Exynos 8890 once it hits the streets) was unveiled in Seoul, and has a few firsts to show off.

Manufactured on a 14nm FinFET process like the Exynos 7420 before it, the new chip marks Samsung’s entry into custom-built cores. The big.LITTLE arrangement in the 8890 features a quad-core array of those in-house Mongoose 64-bit ARMv8 cores as the performance cluster, while more mundane tasks will be handled by another four Cortex-A53 cores.

Promising a 30% performance increase, the new chip benefits from what’s dubbed Samsung Coherent Interconnect (SCI) technology, for better interaction between the two separate clusters. That won’t adversely affect battery life, on the contrary – the chip is said to be 10% more power efficient. And before you jump to conclusions, that doesn’t straight up mean 10% increase in battery life of a phone as whole.

Another first for Samsung is the integrated modem, which supports Cat. 12/13 LTE with carrier aggregation for download speeds up to 600Mbps.

Much like Huawei’s recently announced Kirin 950 chipset, the Exynos 8890 features a Mali-T880 GPU, but as with all of ARM’s graphics processors, the secret is in the number of cores (the x in MPx, which follows the GPU model number). Samsung uses the Mali-T880MP12 with a total of a whopping twelve cores, as opposed to Huawei’s MP4.

The new chip supports display resolutions up to 4K UHD (4,096 x 2,160px) or WQUXGA (3,840x2,400px), and that may be a hint of what to expect in future flagships. Or not, as the existing Exynos 7420 has support for such displays, but we haven’t seen a device with one just yet.

So far these are the sketchy outlines, provided by Samsung - details such as clock frequencies remain to be revealed. The big question is when we’ll see the chip in an actual device and a safe bet would be the Galaxy S7 some time in the beginning of next year

BlackBerry Vienna renders surface - bar form-factor, QWERTY keyboard

The BlackBerry Priv, the company's first Android-running smartphone, is yet to reach wide availability, but rumors have surfaced of a second smartphone by the Canadian company, running Google's OS. At this point codenamed Vienna, this new device is pictured in some early renders suggesting a more orthodox BlackBerry design, compared to the sliding Priv.

A traditional bar phone with an always-available physical QWERTY keyboard, Vienna can be described as a stretched-up Classic. Or a narrowed-downPassport. Hence, no longer a square display as on these two - the device adopts a (still-irregular by smartphone standards) 3:2 screen, aiming to strike a reasonable compromise between display proportions and overall dimensions, while fitting the revered keyboard.

On the back, aside from the BlackBerry logo, a fine textured pattern can be spotted, resembling the one on the Leap. Similar to it, the back cover is unlikely to be removable, as indicated by what appears to be a card slot on the left side.

So far, that's all that's been revealed on the alleged Vienna, and it's not much. It may very well be an artist's vision of a possible BlackBerry handset, instead of an actual early design. And with the company's device future largely hanging on the Priv's market success, it's not entirely impossible that even if it is the real thing, the Vienna may not get to see the light of day.