Images and video show Intel's Obsidian UI for Tizen

Tizen gets mentioned mostly in association with Samsung – indeed the company has the only retail-ready devices – but Intel is the other big player. It turns out that the chipmaker has a reference device, codenamed Josephine, and its own UI, called Obsidian.

Samsung leans towards a TouchWiz interface and brought a prototype phone at the MWC. Intel's Obsidian UI is more distinct from Android and features a lot of diamond shapes – for widgets, for icons, even notifications.

   
Tizen screenshot of Intel's Obsidian UI

Interestingly, the app drawer screenshots reveal a lot of popular apps including Skype, Flickr, Twitter, Facebook, Netflix and even Google's Drive and Currents. Now, either those are just mockups or Tizen features Android app compatibility a la BlackBerry OS 10 and Jolla.

Anyway, check out this demo video that was uploaded on Tizen Indonesia in June last year. It's probably an old version of the OS and UI, but is still interesting to see.

It seems that shortcuts are square and rotate 45° to attract attention (giving them the diamond shape). Also, Obsidian uses a lot to panels that overlay part of the screen instead of popups or floating apps.

The video quality is too poor to tell if this is Josephine or an Android phone with a custom ROM. Considering the timerframe, it could well be a repurposed droid. Intel has so far refrained from making Intel-branded phones, but this might change with Josephine.

You can also watch this demo of Samsung's prototype device running TouchWizzified Tizen to compare the two different approaches.

ZTE teases Nubia X6 with OIS camera and stereo speakers

The ZTE Nubia line is home to the company's flagship phones – powerful, slender and made of metal. The upcoming Nubia X6 is being teased on Weibo and promises to be on par with flagships from big makers.

The latest image shows a side glimpse of the upcoming device. The bezels around the screen will reportedly be very thin – 1.3mm – and while there's no info on screen specs, we can expect it to be an upgrade over the 5" 1080p IGZO panel of the Nubia Z5S.

By the same reasoning, the ZTE Nubia X6 will have a better than Snapdragon 800 chipset (so, 801 probably).

From the teasers, it's clear the X6 will have optical image stabilization like the Z5S before it. The camera on the current model shoots 13MP stills and 2160p video, so a bump in still resolution is to be expected.

  
ZTE Nubia Z6 teasers posted on Sina Weibo

The Nubia X6 will also feature stereo speakers with Dolby DTS tech, plus a large battery with fast charging capability. It's not clear why ZTE is moving to X from Z - the only Nubias so far are the Z5, Z5S and Z5S mini.

New spy shots of the Oppo Find 7 surface

New spy photos of the upcoming Oppo Find 7 have surfaced. In them, the phone seems to be in its packaging, but nevertheless the slim bezels and 5.5" display are clearly seen.

We've already seen leaked official photos of the phone and we have to say it looks really nice. The company has confirmed there'll be two versions of the phone - one with FHD display and the other with a QHD one.

In the second photo below, you can also see the capacitive keys below the display.

Additionally, rumors are floating around that the FHD version of the Find 7 is going to sale for CNY3,000, which is below $500. We've also heard it's going to pack a removable battery. The lower-resolution version of the Find 7 will be powered by a Snapdragon 800 chipset (with a quad-core Krait CPU), 2GB of RAM and will pack 16GB of internal storage.

As you already probably know, the Oppo Find 7 announcement will happen in just a week on March 19 in Beijing. The company has already sent out the invites to the event, and judging by their cool look, it's going to be quite a show.

Rumor: Supplier issues may delay mass Xperia Z2 launch

The Sony Xperia Z2 might be delayed due to manufacturing issues. So says milukugiuniu from the Esato forum - a credible source of Sony-related info in the past. According to him the delay is caused by a supplier that isn't Qualcomm and that the issue is global and will likely force Sony to launch the Xperia Z2 in limited quantity at first with mass unit availability pushed back.

If the information turns out true, the Sony Xperia Z2 might come to the market a full month after the Galaxy S5 and perhaps even the All New One by HTC has gone on sale. In recent years Sony was enjoying a healthy lead with its flagships - the Xperia Z was on the shelves in February - two months before the Samsung Galaxy S4.

One Esato forum user believed Europe will be an exception to the delay. This was denied by the original source of the information, though.

So far official information states that the Sony Xperia Z2 will launch in bulk this month. And until we hear any sort of confirmation on these rumors, we'll be hoping that this is the truth.

HTC One 2014 leaked again, this time through a case listing

It has become usual for case manufacturer Spigen to release photos of high-end smartphones wearing its cases before their official reveal and the HTC One 2014 is no exception.

The photo of the HTC One 2014 that's currently available on the Spigen website shows both the front and back of the phone. Spigen's case has special design for the One's dual cameras as well as the dual LED flash. The front is bare of any casing to leave space for the stereo speakers.

There's no actual new information about the HTC One 2014 except the new photo. However, we already know just about everything there is to know about the phone. Its dual cameras will give you more control on where the focus of the photo is and will also shoot in 3D. You can check out our extended coverage of the phone's specs and leaked sales guide.

The screen will indeed be a 5" 1080p unit, while the processor is a quad-core 2.3 GHz Snapdragon 801. Under the aluminum unidoby resides a 2,600 mAh battery. The SIM is said to be of the nano variety (like on the iPhone 5, 5c and 5s, Moto X, etc.) and there will be a microSD card slot to compliment the preloaded 16 GB of storage (10GB of which will be user available). HTC plans to sell 32GB and 64GB versions, too.

In less than two weeks, we'll know all about the HTC One 2014 as the company will be making it official on March 25.