The front-facing flash are now official for the the Galaxy J7 and J5

The Galaxy J7 and J5 - which have been part of various leaks over the past few weeks - have been officially announced by Samsung in China, where they will go on sale this week.

Specs-wise, the J7 is powered by an octa-core Snapdragon 615 processor, and sports a 5.5-inch display with 720 x 1280 pixels. On the other hand, the J5 is powered by a 1.2 GHz quad-core Snapdragon 410 processor, and sports a 5-inch 720p display.

They measure 152.2 x 79.1 x 7.9mm and 142 x 73 x 8.5mm, and pack in a 3000 mAh and 2600 mAh battery, respectively.

The rest of the specs are identical: 1.5 GB RAM, 16 GB expandable storage space, and 13 MP rear and 5 MP front cameras. In addition, they offer LTE and dual SIM capabilities, run Android 5.1 Lollipop, and come in black, white, and gold colour options.

It's worth mentioning that these are the South Korean company's first smartphones that come with front-facing LED flash. As for the price, while the J7 carries a price tag of 1,798 CNY ($290), the J5 will set you back 1,398 CNY ($225). It isn't yet clear if and when the handsets will be available outside of China.

New rumors suggests BlackBerry first Android phone might surface in August

A few days ago, there were rumours that the Blackberry's first Android-powered smartphone - codenamed Venice - might arrive in November. However, a new report is suggesting that the Venice might not run Android at all.

As per the report, the Canadian company's debut Android phone will instead be called Prague. Aimed at emerging markets, it will be a low-end, all-touch device, with form factor similar to that of the BlackBerry Z3 (shown in the image above). The handset is expected to be released in August this year, the report notes.

Needless to say, none of this has been officially confirmed by the company, so take it with a pinch of salt.

The most anticipated Galaxy A8 passes TENAA certification

The Samsung Galaxy A8 has been a hot topic lately, with rumors popping out every now and then, and it went as far as appearing in a set of live images. Well, if that isn't enough of a testament to its imminent launch, then it's recent visit to TENAA should clear all doubt.

The Chinese telecommunications governing body has certified a device, bearing a model number SM-A8000, which we know by now is the upcoming Galaxy A8. The pictures show a phone, identical to the one in the previous hands-on photos.

   
Samsung Galaxy A8 at TENAA

The TENAA listing confirms that the Samsung Galaxy A8 will come with a 5.7-inch AMOLED display of FullHD resolution, which a benchmark entry once wrongfully claimed was going to be 5.5 inches in diagonal.

Though the regulator doesn't explicitly name the chipset, the octa-core processor clocked at 1.5GHz and the smartphone's position in the lineup point to a Snapdragon 615 with it's performance cores clocked slightly below Qualcomm's specified maximum of 1.7GHz. There's 2GB of RAM on board, as well as 16GB of internal storage, and the phone can take microSD cards up to 128GB in capacity.

The listing is somewhat ambiguous in stating an 8MP primary camera and putting 16MP in parentheses, but we'd put our money on the higher count, as even the Galaxy A7 has a 13MP main shooter, and a downgrade would be illogical. The new phone comes with a 5MP front camera too.

Number crunchers will be thrilled to know that the Galaxy A8 measures 158 × 76.77 × 5.94 mm, which makes it Samsung's thinnest smartphone. Though it may be a bit on the long end of the 5.7-inch spectrum (the Galaxy Note 4 is 4.5mm shorter), the new phablet is impressively light at only 142g. We don't yet have confirmation on the rumored 3,050mAh battery capacity, but kudos to the engineers if they pulled it off in such a thin and light body.

The LTE-capable smartphone boots Android 5.1 when it launches. It's yet to be revealed when that will happen, but sooner sounds more likely than later.