Mobile Devices - Page 121

CES 2016 - Huawei has just unveiled its new premium flagship smartphone, the Mate 8, which sports a beefy 4,000mAh battery that taps the company's innovative new quick-charging technology.

Huawei's Mate 8 flagship takes a commanding role on the smartphone market thanks to its new unified hardware, which sees a beefy battery running in tandem with highly efficient quick-charging tech and a new high-performance CPU. The Chinese hardware giant boasts that the Mate 8's massive 4,000 mAh battery can last up two days of use thanks to its new advanced heteroatom-powered battery tech. Huawei also claims that 30 minutes of charging will supply the phone for a full day's use.

On the top, the Mate 8 has a sleek and sizable 6-inch 1080p HD display covered with Corning Gorilla Glass 4, and a fingerprint sensor that's 100 times faster than previous models. Under the hood, the flagship packs Huawei's new 2.3GHz octa-core Kirin 950 processor, which speeds up boot up times and adds up to 10 hours of battery life. Other specs include up to 4GB of RAM with the 64GB base model (3GB of RAM with the 32GB flavor), and a 16MP camera with OIS (optical image stabilization).

CES 2016 - ASUS is back at the Consumer Electronics Show, announcing its new ZenFone Zoom smartphone with an impressive 3x optical zoom, compared to the virtually no zoom on normal smartphone cameras.

The ZenFone Zoom features a 13-megapixel rear-facing camera with optical image stabilization, and a laser-assisted autofocus system that provides faster, more accurate focusing compared to contrast detection methods, and dual-tone flash.

Engadget reports that ASUS teamed with Hoya for the 10-element lens in the ZenFone Zoom, with Hoya known for its lens filters. For the image sensor, ASUS worked with Panasonic and used their SmartFSI image sensor.

OLED is one of those technologies that has real-world benefits and merit yet is still very much a marketing term used to help sell more units of a particular device. It's maturing though, and the iPhone has long been rumored to include one, since time immemorial. Now those rumors might actually, finally, turn into reality with the iPhone 7.

The Electronic Times is reporting that a partnership is developing between Samsung, LG and Apple supposedly for the production of flexible displays for the iPhone. Apparently there's already a signed agreement between the three parties for a 2-3 year contract with an influx of 15 trillion Won, or $12.8 billion USD, to ramp up production of the latest in OLED technology.

Perhaps OLED is being chosen so to create, or re-create as is often the case, a flexible product category in a way that's either different or just the same with a different and more zealous audience. Apple has indeed proved that you don't need to be first to have the most sought after product, you just have to bide your time and get it right.

Microsoft has been enjoying the huge success behind its Surface line of products, with the Windows 10-powered Surface Pro really battling it out with Apple and the iPad.

There hasn't been much competition against it, and while there are devices out there like it - there's nothing quite like the Surface Pro 4 right now. But according to the latest rumors, Samsung is working on a new 12-inch Windows 10-powered tablet that could compete against Microsoft's popular slate.

We are hearing about the 12-inch slate from Samsung thanks to it receiving Wi-Fi Certification, but all we know is that it will feature Wi-Fi connectivity, has Windows 10 installed, and goes by the product name of SM-W700. We might see it teased at CES next week in Las Vegas, too.

BlackBerry recently indicated it would be dropping the price of its Priv debut Android smartphone and now Canada is the first to see it in action. Carrier Sasktel is currently selling it for $249.99 CAD ($180 USD) with a two-year contract, a 38% cut over the previous $400 CAD (about $290 USD).

You don't have to live in Saskatchewan to buy it as the phone can be purchased online, although currently it's out of stock on the website. We've contacted Sasktel for comment on whether stock will be replenished soon and will update this story if we hear back.

The price cut is expected to hit other regions, although when we can't say.

The idea of a first party Surface Phone device in the same vein as the other Surface devices from Microsoft has long been hinted at, though nothing has ever materialized short of a few very interesting artistic renderings.

During a recent webcast for Windows Weekly, the Chief Marketing Officer, Chris Capossela, joined Mary Jo Foley, Paul Thurrot and Leo Laporte to talk about the future of the world of Window Phone and discuss the direction that they Microsoft can, at the very least, publicly discuss.

The landscape has been rather sparse, and news even more sparse, so Mary Jo Foley very pointedly asked Capossela to "give me something to hope for in the new year as a Windows Phone fan, Chris, because I'm abandoning hope." A strong statement to be sure, but one that expresses a lack of innovation on the mobile front, even with the impending rollout of Windows 10 for mobile for more devices.

Samsung has been failing to gain more traction throughout 2015, with not-so-great sales of both the Galaxy S6/S6 edge and the Galaxy S6+/S6 edge+. But the entire smartphone industry is having huge issues right now, with a large slowdown period in effect.

In a new report from Reuters, these issues could be stemming from upper management at Samsung not exactly getting the software side of the business. Former and current Samsung employees talked with Reuters, with the outfit reporting that "confusion and overlap between competing divisions, where the short-term interests of promoting hardware trump long-term efforts to build platforms that would add value for customers and increase their loyalty to the brand".

One employee said: "Samsung's upper management just inherently doesn't understand software. They get hardware - in fact, they get hardware better than anyone else. But software is a completely different ballgame".

Statista has published a report recently that is quite interesting to some and nothing new to others. Showcasing global smartphone profits from January to September 2015, this chart tells the story that Apple dominated smartp[hone profits, owning 92% of this global figure.

While many users complain that Apple devices are overpriced and under performing, charts like this help drive home the fact it's all business, with companies existing with the main purpose to turn a profit of its own. Coming in second on this list is Samsung sitting at 14%, with 'everything else' thrown right down into the basement, including ( in order) the likes of LG, BlackBerry, HTC, Sony and Lenovo/Motorola, with Microsoft bringing up the very rear.

We reported that Android co-founder, Andy Rubin, is even looking into making handsets of his own, drawing us to curiosity as to why he would want to enter such a turbulent market. Rumors claim that he will be looking at premium handsets only, likely in an attempt to jack up profits on phones in order to operate a viable business.

NVIDIA's damn-powered Shield Tablet K1 has just received its shiny new Android 6.0 Marshmallow update, which includes a bunch of new stuff.

The update does warn about SD cards, with a note to "please make sure it is backed up first". One great thing about Android 6.0 is that it "adopts" your SD cards, detecting them as if they were part of your internal storage. NVIDIA says that there's a revamped camera UI with a more "material"-inspired theme and some new real-time image effects.

The company has also included some NVIDIA-inspired wallpapers, with Fallout Shelter also now preloaded onto the Shield Tablet K1.

With the successful adoption of Apple's 3D Touch display tech, an analyst firm predicts that 25% of all new handsets in 2016 will feature Force Touch screens.

With new advances like pressure-sensitive screens, beefier CPU's and RAM, and efficient batteries, the landscape of smartphones is set to evolve rather quickly throughout the next year. Apple's new innovative pressure-sensitive 3D Touch, for example, pushed the limits of display tech altogether by incorporating different functions for different types of presses. The "peek" and "pop" features redefine the way iPhone users view and interact with their devices, introducing a whole new UI scheme for smartphones. Analyst firm IHS says that manufacturers are keen on adapting their own form of Apple's Force Touch tech in new and inventive ways, meaning the smartphone market will see a surge in 3D Touch-enabled handsets in 2016.

To meet this demand, IHS projects that Force Touch sensor shipments will boost an impressive 317% to 461 million units in 2016. The pressure-sensitive screens will be major features of mid-range to flagship handsets, IHS says.

Samsung has used 112 of its Galayx Tab S2 tablets to make something quite unique - a gigantic touchscreen piano.

The full-sized piano is part of a Christmas display in London's Spitalfields Market, and is fully functional. Using the host of the British reality show Pop Star to Opera Star Myleene Klass, Samsung unveiled "the world's first upright piano made entirely out of Samsung tablets".

But the Galaxy Tab S2-powered piano also features an equalizer, an amplifier, two speakers, and a USB interface to get it all working. Out of the entire 112 tablets used, 106 of them aren't used to make music - the 106 x Galaxy Tab S2s are used to create Christmas-themed animations.

According to new research reports published by trusted industry analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, Apple's new iPhone 7 will release in September 2016 and won't make any dramatic improvements in Apple's new pressure-sensitive 3D Touchscreen technology.

Although the iPhone 7 is expected to sport beefier specs like 3GB of onboard RAM and a new, upgraded A10 chipset, Kuo states that Apple's upcoming flagship phone won't make any dramatic improvements on the new 3D Touch technology. The iPhone 7's 3D Touch will reportedly use "similar technology and structure" as the existing iPhone 6S and 6S Plus phones, so users shouldn't expect any dramatic changes in that department.

Interestingly enough, a new reports that claims Apple has opened up a secret lab focused on developing new display tech. Although the lab is focused on creating "thinner, lighter, brighter, and more energy-efficient" LCD screens, this could mean that Apple is indeed working on a next-generation 3D touch display. The iPhone 7, however, is rumored to feature an OLED display.

While we reported that Samsung is preparing four different Galaxy S7 models for 2016, The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) and Gizmodo have let us in on a little more information about this new champion product release.

Set to include an pressure-sensitive screen like Apple's 3D Touch and fast charging capabilities, it's also claimed that the new Galaxy S7 will don the all-new USB Type-C port. This new port inclusion is set to be the vehicle for fast charging capabilities, with WSJ claiming that a quick 30-minute charging time of a brand-new S7 will see a full day's charge enjoyed. If Samsung's new Galaxy S7 does indeed ship with a pressure-sensitive screen, it'll likely utilize Synaptics' new ClearPad 3700 Display Controller which is designed to bring 3D Touch to the Android market.

Set to be released with Edge and 'normal' Samsung screens, the latter design is said to contain an expandable memory port, an improved camera for lowlight operations and a thinner lens design. This information has not been confirmed yet by Samsung themselves, but the inclusion of an external memory port, likely to be some form of an SD card, will be a welcome feature for many Android users.dly-preparing-four-different-galaxy-s7-models-2016/index.html

Although today's smartphones are so powerful they're achieving laptop-like performance, there's one great equalizer for all handsets: battery life. Some phones last longer than others, but the more powerful a phone is, the more voracious its appetite for battery power. Wouldn't it be nice not to have to recharge your phone for two weeks, but not be limited to the awful performance of a pay-as-you-go flip phone?

Chinese handset-maker Oukitel has just created a smartphone that meets both of those needs. The Oukitel K10000 handset sports a massive 10,000 mAh battery that can (according to the company) "last up to 15 days per charge", and also features decent specs including a 1GHz MediaTek processor, 2GB RAM and 16GB onboard storage that's expandable with an SD slot.

The battery isn't the only thing that's massive about Oukitel's phone. The device is described as a "brick" of a phone, weighing in at no less than 500 grams (~1.2LBS) or almost three Nexus 6's. The insane 10,000 mAh battery accounts for the bulk of the phone's weight, of course, making it into a rather lethal weapon.

Released as version 3.1.5, Microsoft has released an update for its Windows Device Recovery Tool, including "bug fixes and improvements" to help Lumia 550, 950 and 950 XL users.

Some, not all, users have been sent a push notification to install this update, with others having to manually find the install path themselves. The Windows Device Recovery Tool is designed for users to roll back their OS to a previous version, often used in order to provide greater OS stability should an update take an unexpected negative turn.

If you haven't been given the update already, you can do so at the following auto-download link.

Samsung is expected to unveil its next-generation flagship smartphones next year, where we should expect to see four different models.

These four models will include the normal Galaxy S7, Galaxy S7 edge, Galaxy S7 edge+, and Galaxy S7+. Out of these models, half of them should be using Samsung's own Exynos 8890 processor, while the other models will be using Qualcomm's Snapdragon 820 chip. The 'plus' models will reportedly feature a phablet-sized display of 6 inches or so, according to the dimensions of third-party case manufacturers.

The better part of the rumors on the new Galaxy S7 smartphone is that the microSD card slot will return, which is something that Samsung caught considerable flak over with the Galaxy S6.

A recent press release from PQI announced its upcoming iConnect Mini Apple storage device, but there was something hidden within that gathered my interest more than the rest.

This release claimed that PQI CEO, Spencer Chiu, has had access to "independent research" which found that "the average iPhone owner uses their camera app at least 3 times a day," showing severe dedication to smartphone usage. Whether this average is brought up due to things such as concerts, family outings or it's more of a constant 3-times a day thing is unclear, but users opening their app camera three times a day is an interesting statistic to learn either way.

Regular phone use coupled with the small non-expandable storage that Apple offers on its iPhone is why PQI had made this storage extender in the first place. It's especially prominent in countries like Australia where you're often rather limited on monthly downloads, meaning cloud storage can become a costly operation.

Mozilla revealed that it will be pulling out of the smartphone race as titans like Apple, Samsung and Android push the beleaguered open-source company out of the mobile market.

Due to flagging support from consumers and developers alike, Mozilla is surrendering its plans to get a foothold in today's global handset market. In a recent press release, the company announced that its Firefox OS-powered phones will no longer by sold by carriers. The company hoped to tap a niche market with its Firefox phones, which offered cheap and lightweight hardware solutions and new, alternative experience.

"Firefox OS proved the flexibility of the Web, scaling from low-end smartphones all the way up to HD TVs. However, we weren't able to offer the best user experience possible and so we will stop offering Firefox OS smartphones through carrier channels," said Mozilla's senior vice president of Connected Devices Ari Jaaksi.

Google has just pushed out more details on its Pixel C tablet, which will launch with a base price of $499 and 32GB of internal storage. The only other model Google will be making will be a 64GB model, priced at $100 more for $599 total.

Pixel C features NVIDIA's more-than-capable Tegra X1 processor, which rocks 256 GPU cores and is DX12 capable. On the CPU side of the Tegra X1 processor, we have an 8-core CPU that sees two quad-core processors combined on a 20nm process. Google's new Pixel C tablet features a 10.2-inch 2560x1800 display, with Google opting for an LTPS LCD, which is the same type of panel found in the OnePlus One smartphone.

We also have 3GB of LPDDR4, and instead of a microUSB 3.0 port, Google has planted a USB Type-C port - the same port found on their new Nexus smartphones. This provides the Pixel C tablet with a huge transfer rate of 10Gbps, which you won't hit on this device - but it's nice to see Google thinking of the future. Rounding out the specs, we have the aforementioned 32/64GB offerings, Bluetooth 4.1, 802.11ac Wi-Fi, an 8-megapixel rear-facing camera, and a 2-megapixel one for selfies and video calls.

Described as a crucial part of Android before the Google takeover, Andry Rubin was the co-founder of this brilliant technology and is now interested in working on the hardware side of things.

He's currently recruiting fellow staff for this endeavor, says The Information, but overall the information is quire vague. Reports, or Rubin himself, have not yet confirmed any substantial information, with people left to speculate if this man will be destined to fund, fun, own or operate this new company.

After leaving Google last year, Rubin has raised $300 million for 'Playground', further becoming a partner at Redpoint Ventures earlier in 2015. Some are speculating that the only gap in the market for this new brand would be high-end devices, but we will have to wait for confirmation from the man himself.