Week 28 in review: LG G3 S and Lumia Cyan update

The Week In Review is our series meant to recap all the major
announcements of the week, which you might have missed. Week 28 of 2014
wasn't as busy as the past few weeks, but it still brought us some cool
hardware and brought news of several major software updates.

The long rumored affordable flavor of the LG G3 flagship was made official this week. It is called LG G3 Beat
in the Asian markets and LG G3 S for the EU and CIS regions. The LG G3
Beat packs a 5" IPS HD display, runs on Snapdragon 400 chipset and
features an 8MP camera with laser-assisted auto-focus.



The design and software package remain identical with the LG G3,
while dual-SIM version will become available too. The LG G3 Beat is
already selling in South Korea, while it will hit the shelves soon in Europe at €349.





The owners of Windows Phone 8-based Nokia Lumia smartphones around
the world got a nice present to kick off their summer. The entire WP8
Lumia range, including the carrier-exclusive models, are now getting the
Lumia Cyan update with the latest Windows Phone 8.1 OS.
It brings a plethora of new features and services, and everyone will be
happy to upgrade. The rollout is gradual, but hopefully everyone will
be running on Windows Phone 8.1 soon enough.

The Nokia X lineup wasn't as lucky though. Microsoft has decided to pull the plug on the project
and will lay off 18,000 workers throughout the next six months. It will
continue to support and sell the Nokia X and X2 and they will receive
more updates in the future, although we are doubtful many will be keen
on getting them now.

Three Android 4.4.2 KitKat updates began seeding this week. The lucky devices are Samsung Galaxy Grand 2, Samsung Galaxy S4 Zoom and Sony Xperia T2 Ultra.



The Sony's firmware also includes an option to move apps to the SD card, which is really nice. Meanwhile HTC has begun rolling out HTC Sense 6.0 update for the original HTC One mini.

We also learned BlackBerry is readying its own virtual assistant and it will be installed on the BB10 devices with the next BB 10.3 update. Better late than never, we guess.




BlackBerry Assistant (click to enlarge)

This week gave us a glimpse over the upcoming Huawei's Emotion 3.0 UI. It looks a lot like the iOS 7, but there is no word on its device availability yet.

Huawei Emotion UI 3.0

MediaTek has finally unveiled its anticipated MT6795 chipset
with octa-core 64-bit processor and LTE support. It supports 2K
displays, 120Hz screens, 1080p @480fps video recording and playback,
among others.

Apple iPhone 6 was in the news pretty much every day, as expected. First Amazon Japan confirmed its dimensions and availability. Then we heard news Apple is experiencing issues with the bigger 5.5" model and might not release it this year. The iPhone 6 is also tipped to come with an improved TouchID sensor, and while we knew already about the sapphire display, it may not be spread over all iPhone models. Finally, the case maker Spigen spilled the beans on the iPhone 6 design via a case listing.

Meanwhile Apple announced a partnership with IBM, which will target the enterprise market. You can learn more about the subject in our news.