Motorola will host an event in London next week, where it will announce an addition to its European line-up of devices, with all indications pointing to the arrival of the Moto X handset.

The Google-owned company has invited the tech press along on January 14 to show off what it refers to as 'the newest addition to the European family of Motorola products.'

The accompanying graphic shows someone holding up the company's flagship Moto X, which until now has been a US-only release. So much for intrigue.

It seems Europeans will get a variant on the device designed and built in the United States, but it will be interesting to see whether the company decides to offer customisation options through the Moto Maker.

New era

So far, in the new Google era at Motorola, only the exceptionally-priced Moto G has made it to European shores, so the launch of the Moto X would bring a certain amount of parity.

During the Moto G launch, Marcus Frost, Motorola's Senior Marketing Director for EMEA, exclusively told TechRadar to "watch this space" regarding an overseas Moto X roll out.

"The reception of Moto X has been fantastic and we're continuously perusing opportunities in the EMEA region, so really watch this space."

It appears that space will be filled on January 14. TechRadar will be there with bells on.

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Samsung is planning a visual overhaul for the TouchWiz user interface it slaps over the Android operating system in time for the Galaxy S5, judging by purported leaked screenshots.

In the latest @evleaks expose, the prolific leak artist wrote "Samsung exploring new smartphone UI," to accompany pics of a revamped lock and home screen and what may be a new content exploration screen.

What's immediately apparent is that the UI pictured within the screenshots appears to have adjusted the typeface and altered the icons in favour of a leaner, more stylish and more grown up approach.

The lock screen also appears to be displaying the progress of a bike ride, complete with distance and heart rate, perhaps prefacing a new built-in fitness tracker that could be built into the Galaxy S5.

The same lock screen also shows a revamped window showcasing the time, location, weather and alarm status and it appears that users will be able to place multiple live widgets to access from a locked state.

The final screenshot shows what appears to be a HTC Blinkfeed-like UI tool, showing a variety of live content, including social media check ins and news, in a scrolling format.

Time for a change

While there's no way of knowing whether Samsung plans to implement these changes when it launches the Galaxy S5, or whether the leaked shots are simply the product of an internal experiment.

The TouchWiz UI has split opinion for years and Samsung showed with the launch of the Magazine UX within the new Galaxy Note Pro 12.2 and the Galaxy Tab Pro range that it isn't afraid to shake things up a little.

TouchWiz is well overdue for a new lick of paint, so we'd imagine most users would welcome the changes, especially if they're accompanied by the rumoured premium metallic casing.

Total shipments of PCs, tablets and mobiles will rise by 7.6 per cent in 2014, hitting 25 billion units by the end of the year, according to research firm Gartner.

Of that 2.5 billion, almost 75 per cent will be mobile phones, an increase of five per cent compared to 2013.

Convenience rules

The analysts at Gartner, however, expect ultramobiles – tablets and hybrids – to be the main drivers in the devices market in the coming year, growing up to 54 per cent. It predicted that smaller seven-inch tablets will become more popular than larger versions and eventually overtake them.

Ranjit Atwai, research director at Gartner, said: "The trend is not so much a move away from PCs, but towards lighter, more convenient devices, particularly tablets. With more and more people becoming mobile workers as well, the more popular devices are those that in many ways mimic their lifestyles."

PC shipments, meanwhile, including those of laptops and notebooks, are falling. Atwai, though, doesn't believe that we will ever see the end of the desktop computer. Instead, he says, it will become part of an increasingly multi-device home and work environment, where it will be used as a shared device for entertainment.

BlackBerry looking squashed

On the operating system side of things, Android will continue to be the most popular, according to predictions, with an estimated growth of 26 per cent driven by uptake in emerging markets. Windows will be the second biggest due to its position as the de-facto PC operating system. Apple and iOs systems place third while BlackBerry is the only OS that has shrunk year-on-year.

Asked if the BlackBerry operating system could disappear altogether, Atwal said it is unlikely, unless the company folds.

"A lot of organisations have a lot of BlackBerries, so it would take time to replace them all. Furthermore, some prefer using it as they find it offers greater security benefits than other platforms," he said.

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Payments on mobiles and tablet devices are expected to account for 30 per cent of all electronic retail by 2018, double what is accounted for in 2013.

According to research team Juniper Research, mobile retail spend totally $182 billion (£110 billion AU$203 billion) in 2013, but is expected to hit $707 billion (£430 billion, $AU791 billion) by 2018.

In a report entitled 'The Mobile Payment for Digital and Physical Goods' the researchers also found retailers were increasingly looking towards developing strategies centred on mobile retail. Retailers are using mobiles to facilitate payment and product discovery, and also to retain customers.

The size and scale of purchases from mobile devices have been increasing steadily for some time. A trend is emerging among the devices used, however, with purchases on tablets overtaking those on mobile towards the end of 2013.

A change of strategy

The report also addressed the trend of "showrooming" where customers see products they like in-store and then browse their mobile devices to compare prices on the internet and other stores. A solution, the team suggests, would be to deploy mobile point of sale tablets in store to offer price matches.

The author of the report, Windsor Holden, said: "This means that not only is the retailer proactively offering the consumer the opportunity to price check in-store, but that the purchase can be made immediately, without having to queue elsewhere in the store."

2013 has already been dubbed as 'the year of the mobile Christmas' with sales in all fields from mobiles growing as much as 135 per cent since 2012.

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EE, Britain's largest mobile operator, has attracted more than 2 million customers to its 4G network among falling prices and mobile internet tech uptake.

It added its second million in only four months, less than half the time it took to reach the one million mark. The average 4G customer was using 70 per cent more data at the end of 2013 compared with the start, driven by social media and video streaming.

EE, which formed after the merger of mobile networks Orange and T-Mobile in 2012, said that its customer base has grown faster than any operator outside of South Korea, where the technology has already overtaken 3G. EE offers internet access typically around 5 to 7 times faster than 3G, according to Ofcom.

Overall, EE has added around 800.000 4G customers since its last quarterly results in October. 14 per cent of pay-monthly subscribers are now on 4G networks, up from 8 per cent in October.

Dwarfing the competition

Olaf Swantee, EE chief executive, said: "We're incredibly proud of being the first UK operator to bring 4G to the UK and, in just over a year, exceeding our target by reaching two million 4G customers across the country.

"We continue to have particular success converting our existing base to 4G, with approximately two out of three new 4G customers moving over from Orange and T-Mobile plans."

O2 and Vodafone introduced their 4G network at the end of August, 10 months after EE, and continue to lag behind in the market. EE has a significant coverage advantage, having 160 town and cities offering service to around 44 milllion people, while Vodafone and O2 cover only 18 million.

In a memo to staff this week, Mr Swantee said EE will "continue to dwarf the competition in 4G rollout" this year.

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