Speculation surrounding the Galaxy S IV, Samsung’s next flagship smartphone, traditionally ramps up around this time of the year. Everyone’s itching to know what the device will offer when it comes to features and specifications, and what it’ll look like. We’ve seen the rumors that offer questionable information from sources, but this picture, which was uploaded to Picasa almost a month ago, could be the Galaxy S IV’s first press shot.

Despite announcing a number of new smartphones at CES just two weeks ago, Huawei has more handsets up its sleeve. In Germany today, the company announced the Ascend G615, another high-end smartphone with a 4.5-inch 720p display, a quad-core processor, and an 8-megapixel rear-facing camera.

Japanese carrier NTT DoCoMo has today unveiled the LG Optimus G Pro, a successor to the flagship Optimus G, which offers a much-improved display, a faster processor, and a bigger battery. The device comes just four months after the Optimus G was announced, and it aims to compete with the latest crop of smartphones that pack a full high-definition 1080p display, such as the HTC Droid DNA, and the Sony Xperia Z.

Rumors surrounding the Sony Xperia Tablet Z first surfaced last week, and we expected Sony to confirm them at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona next month. But in Japan on Monday morning, the new flagship tablet was unveiled. And boy, does it look good.

Sony unveiled the Xperia Z, its latest flagship smartphone, at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas last week, and the device has been very well received. It looks good, and it has some great specifications. But there was one thing we didn’t like. The device is set to launch with Android 4.1 Jelly Bean — not Android 4.2, the latest release, which offers features like Daydream and lock screen widgets.

Thankfully, Sony has now confirmed that the Xperia Z will get the Android 4.2 update “shortly after launch.”