On CE - For Dealers, Distributors and OEMs of Consumer Electronics throughout EMEA

German news site WinFuture and a leaked Dutch promotional video reveal a good number of details regarding the Charge 4, an upcoming Fitbit fitness wearable featuring GPS capability within a design all but identical to the 2018 Charge 3.

The GPS allows users to track exercise such as runs and cycling trips without need for tethering to a smartphone. WinFuture says the feature affects battery life, since the wearable runs for around 5 hours on a single charge with the GPS on. With the GPS switched off, battery life rockets to around 7 days with the heart rate monitor constantly on.

Dixons Carphone closes all 531 standalone Carphone Warehouse stores in the UK, making 8% of the retailer's total UK selling space, from 3 April 2020, a move bringing the loss of 2900 jobs.

Part of a move the retailer describes as "the next step in its transformation," all Dixons Carphone mobile retail will take place through shop-in-shops in 305 big Currys PCWorld outlets, as well as online. The retailer adds it managed to save the employment of 1800 people as it switches them to work in other, larger outlets, but as mentioned earlier the rest will be made redundant.

Planet Computer, the company behind the Cosmo Communicator, returns to crowdfunding with another PDA-- the Astro Slide 5G Transformer, a device the company claims is "the most powerful 5G smartphone and pocket computer hybrid."

The Astro Slide appears to satisfy both modern and old-school sensibilities, since a "revolutionary" RockUp slider hinge reveals a physical QWERTY keyboard beneath the 6.53-inch touchscreen. The hinge even allows one to flip the display up when they slide out the keyboard, turning the device into a mini-laptop. Planet Computer says the keyboard makes the Astro Slide ideal for emails, messaging and editing documents, and the device runs on Android 10 with a multi-boot option offering Linux support.

Many events all across the world are being postponed or outright cancelled due to the coronavirus (aka Covid-19), and Computex is no exception, as the 2020 edition of the Taipei show has been rescheduled for September 2020.

Originally set to take place on 2-6 June, Computex 2020 is now set to take place on 28-30 September. As for the choice of dates, organisers Taitra say that, according to a perhaps overly hopeful McKinsey epidemic report, the pandemic should be under control by Q2 2020 in East Asia, before the situation slows down in Europe and the US by June.