Mobile Devices - Page 131

After a not-so-great year with the Galaxy S5 smartphone and its sales, Samsung is wanting to offset those loses by investing a huge $3.6 billion into OLED panel production, where it hopes other manufacturers will buy more of its components, and new OLED screens.

A spokesperson for Samsung Display spoke with Reuters, where they said that a new production line will be manufacturing small and medium-sized OLED panels that would make their way into smartphones, tablets and other small devices - VR headsets, for example. The large investment will take place over the next three years or so.

But it's not just Samsung that is investing into the future of OLED panel production, with its South Korean rival LG spending around $915 million on its TV-sized OLED panel production this year, after it cited increased demand. LG has already spent $726 million on OLED production, too.

Chinese smartphone manufacturer Xiaomi plans to begin offering products to consumers in the United States, but that won't include smartphones any time soon. The company will offer smart wristbands, headphones, earbuds and a few other select items in a custom Xiaomi store - but still doesn't want to rush to compete with Apple, Samsung, and other manufacturers in the competitive US market.

"We felt that coming right after launching (the Mi Note) in China was actually ideal, because this is the best product we've ever made," said Hugo Barra, international VP of Xiaomi, in a statement to The Verge. "Our devices are really nice, but this is ultimately nice."

Launching Mi.com is a big deal for the five-year-old Chinese company, and could help create a roadmap towards future smartphone and tablet product launches. Investors and analysts are curious to see if Xiaomi can eventually crack the US mobile market, which remains the most financially lucrative market in the world.

One of the biggest downsides to any of Samsung's mobile devices is that there are so many pre-installed apps and bloatware on the phone, but according to the latest rumors, the Galaxy S6 could arrive without any of its pre-installed apps.

SamMobile is reporting that the Galaxy S6, while it won't have any of the Samsung pre-installed apps installed, would have some of Microsoft's applications such as OneNote, OneDrive, Office Mobile and Skype, which is due to an agreement between Microsoft and Samsung. The Galaxy S6 would arrive not only without the pre-installed applications, but it would also be faster, too. Faster than that of the Galaxy Note 4, which is already a quick handset. There are some nice UI changes to expect too, which you can check out below:

We only just reported about the Galaxy S6 Edge and its soon-to-be awesome benchmarking abilities, but the boss of Samsung's Camera R&D, DongHoon Jang, has teased that its upcoming 2015 flagship smartphone will have "the future of cameras".

Jang also said that the new flagship handset "will be intelligent and do all the thinking for users, allowing them to take amazing pictures under any conditions, without having to worry about anything more than just pressing the shutter button". Rear-facing cameras don't need to have the most megapixels, as we've seen with Apple's iPhones over the years. Let's hope that Samsung doesn't just throw in a 20-megapixel camera and hope to win, and that the software, speed, and the entire package is ready to be "the future of cameras".

We are expecting a few new handsets to be unveiled at Samsung Unpacked 2015 on March 1, but there's a lot of time between then and now so we can enjoy some leaks regarding performance numbers in the meantime.

PhoneArena has noticed a new multi-core Geekbench result that sees the Galaxy S6 Edge, something Samsung hasn't even announced yet, beating the Apple iPad Air 2, which is the current champion of that benchmark - even though it's a tablet, the new Samsung smartphone beats it. PhoneArena reported: "[The Galaxy S6 Edge's] octa-core Exynos 7420 chipset managed to crush it with 1,492 points in the single-core, and 5,077 points in the multi-core test. To put things in perspective, this multi-core result is way higher than any other mobile at the moment, including the iPad Air 2, the reigning champ, which scores 4,532".

Switching the conversation over to the Galaxy S6, it was spotted on an AnTuTu benchmark where it blew the pants off of anything else on AnTuTu's database. We should expect the Galaxy S6 to rock Samsung's own Exynos 7240 processor clocked at 2.1GHz, 3GB of RAM, 32GB of flash storage, a 20-megapixel rear-facing camera, 5-megapixel front-facing snapper, Android 5.0.2 Lollipop and a 5.1-inch display with a resolution of 2560x1440.

With 37 days to go on their Kickstarter and £9,658 ($14,700 US) pledged out of a £200,000 ($304,880) goal - The OwnFone has an uphill battle to face. This device isn't exactly a new thing, seeing success in the English market - however they're now wanting to expand globally and are using this campaign as a launching platform. But what exactly is it?

Described as "the world's first 2D/3D printed mobile phone that calls the numbers you need," the OwnFone is a small, light and portable device that allows you to customize the face to suit exactly who you wish to dial. You can throw in pictures of your friends, simple catchwords like "Mum" and "Uncle" or even a short list of names.

With no screen, internet connectivity or text messaging services, the OwnFone sets out to be a great child phone or emergency alternative. It's perfectly safe for your children, meaning if they're stuck or lost they can take out the phone, press the "Dad" button and chat away.

A growing number of retailers are adopting various forms of mobile payments, and while consumers still prefer cash and debit/credit card payments, mobile payment could be on the upswing. US mobile payment volume will reach close to 15 percent, growing at 172 percent compound annual growth rate (CAGR) by 2019, according to a new Business Insider Intelligence report.

Apple Pay is the early leader among mobile payment services, though CurrentC and other platforms will be able to attract non-iPhone users. Google Android solutions, such as Softcard and Google Wallet, have seen increased interest following the launch of Apple Pay.

Mobile payments may still be in its infancy, and consumers are worried about security and ease-of-use, but providers will have time to work out the kinks. Meanwhile, additional retailers are expected to explore options available to give consumers more payment options at checkout.

Chinese smartphone maker Xiaomi has taken the Chinese smartphone market by storm, quickly punting Samsung out the door - and putting global pressure on Apple, Samsung, and others. The company sold 61 million devices worldwide in 2014, tripling its overall sales figure year-over-year - and provides a high quality phone at an affordable price.

"The trend over the last couple of years has been for local vendors, plus Samsung, to dominate the market and make it hard for others," said Chris Jones, principal mobile analyst of the Canalys research firm, in a statement to the Los Angeles Times. "They've been driving down the prices of smartphones and driving up the screen sizes and quality."

Xiaomi remains focused on its home market of China, in addition to India and several other select markets, and isn't focused on trying to expand into the United States just yet. The Chinese company wants to build a stronghold in China, India, Brazil, and select other regions before trying to migrate into the United States and select western markets.

NVIDIA announced its powerhouse mobile SoC, Tegra X1, at CES 2015 last month, but now it looks like we might see a new Shield Tablet emerge powered by this new processor.

The new Shield Tablet would reportedly be powered by the Tegra X1 chip, and announced during GTC 2015 next month. The current Shield Tablet is powered by the Tegra K1 processor, released back in July 2014 at $299 and $399 (Wi-Fi only, and LTE, respectively). The new Tegra X1 processor should arrive on a 20nm process, arrive as an 8-core processor with some serious power behind it.

We should expect it to feature around 500 GFlops of performance for 32-bit workloads, and 1 TFlops of compute power in 16-bit workloads. 2MB of L2 cache is found, while one of the quad-core CPU stacks (the Cortex-A57) includes 48KB of L1 instruction cache, and 32KB of L1 data cache. The GPU side of things should also be incredibly fast, as we have a Maxwell GPU inside of the Tegra X1 processor. It'll arrive with 256 Maxwell cores, thanks to the 2 SMMs from the Maxwell architecture.

Chip manufacturer ARM wants to keep powering smartphones, and expects its Cortex A-72 processor to power devices available in 2016. At least 10 companies have licensed the processor, which is reportedly at least 3.5 times faster than ARM technology sold in 2014. ARM product designs are present in more than 95 percent of smartphones available worldwide, and Cortex A-72 should help keep the company's dominant lead.

"The ARM Cortex-A72 processor sets a new standard for delivering a premium mobile experience and is expected to be the highest performing CPU technology for mobile SoCs [system-on-chips]," said Noel Hurley, GM of the CPU group at ARM.

In addition to the Cortex-A72 processor, ARM is promoting its Mali-T880 graphics chip which should also find its way into consumer devices in 2016.

This is the first time that the tablet market has seen a year-over-year shipment decline, with -3.2 percent growth - shipping 76.1 million units during Q4 2014, according to the IDC Worldwide Quarterly Tablet tracker. Despite the shipment drop during Q4, there was still 4.4 percent overall shipment growth throughout the entire year.

Apple continued its domination of the tablet market, shipping 21.4 million units and controlling 28.1 percent of the tablet market. Samsung was No. 2, (14.5 percent), Lenovo (4.8 percent), ASUS (4.0 percent), and Amazon (2.3 percent) rounded out the top five tablet hardware manufacturers.

Meanwhile, iOS controls 27 percent of the mobile tablet OS market, with Android now making up 66 percent control.

The world has been waiting to see what Microsoft would do with the Devices and Services division of Nokia, but it looks like we'll be waiting a little bit longer to see the fruits of that expensive labor.

According to the latest reports, the first Microsoft-branded Lumia smartphone will be unveiled at Mobile World Congress, which isn't too far away. We're being told that the Lumia 1330 will be unveiled, while the more affordable and mainstream Lumia 830 will also be shown off. These will be the first Microsoft Lumia smartphones, with Windows 10-powered handsets rolling out their own devices later in the year.

We don't know much about the new Lumia smartphones except for the fact that they'll be rumored to sport a "3D-Touch" feature that will let you use your smartphone with your hands, without touching the display itself.

Google Android may dominate the smartphone software market with 81 percent control, but it looks like the Apple iPhone clearly has strong grip on the smartphone hardware market.

The company sold a massive 74.5 million iPhones during Q4 of 2014 - and has 42 percent of the US smartphone market share, according to comScore. Trailing behind Apple is Samsung (29.7 percent) and LG Electronics (7.6 percent), as both companies struggle to close the gap.

Despite iOS holding a significantly smaller share of the software market, it looks like current iPhone owners are willing to upgrade their devices sooner than Android smartphone owners.

According to rumors, the newest Samsung flagship mobile product will be running an almost-completely stock Android operating system, free of the plethora of bloatware that's currently included with their smartphone models.

Gizmodo has compiled some rumors, stating that the Galaxy S6 is looking to run a minimalistic version of TouchWiz, currently described as Samsung specific software that is an add-on to Android offerings.

Sammobile has also let loose that not only will TouchWiz be put on a diet, but Samsung are set to make their specialty programs like "S Voice" and "S Translator" a complete optional-install process - meaning that if you don't want your phone being clogged up like things that you're likely to never to use, you don't have to!

Apple has taken the top spot in the Chinese smartphone market. China has the largest population in the world, and dwarfs most of the nearest countries, with the exception of India. India isn't nearly as developed, or experiencing the massive growth rate China is, so the China market holds tremendous strategic potential for Apple.

Xiaomi and Huawei are entrenched competitors that are slowly eating away market share, particularly from Samsung. Apple seems to have deflected their rising market share with popular new smartphones. Apple also has the notable accomplishment of unseating their bitter rival Samsung from the top spot. The new iPhone 6 and 6 Plus have been big contributors to Apple's rise in the market with a 70% sales increase in Q4'14.

Apple's rise in China comes in spite of the fact their phones cost nearly double that of the competition. Apple devices are coveted in China, even resulting in large smuggling rings that bring them in to avoid taxes.

It looks like LG is about to jump ahead of the competition with an impressive successor to its flexible OLED displays, which will have double the bending radius. Right now we have 2.95-inch (or 30mm), but the new displays will flex much more, right up to an insane 1.18-inch (or 75mm).

Not only will the new screens be much more flexible, but they'll be shatter-proof, too. This is thanks to LG adopting a "true flexible" plastic OLED display instead of using glass. Tech spec wise, this is what we can expect: 60lm/W efficiency, 75lm (807 nits) peak brightness output, 3000K in color temperature, and CRI over 85.

What devices will these new all-plastic flexible OLEDs be going into? We don't know just yet, but we could expect the G Flex 3, G4 and many other devices. Maybe a new wearable, too.

According to Qualcomm's Q4 earnings release, we have learned a few things. We've seen that the chip giant has revised its profits estimations to between $26 billion and $28 billion, compared to $26.8 billion and $28.8 billion.

But, it was something else stated in this release, that should have people opening their eyes. The company said "Expectations that our Snapdragon 810 processor will not be in the upcoming design cycle of a large customer's flagship device". We would dare say that this would be the Samsung Galaxy S6 not using its Snapdragon 810 processor, with the South Korean giant being a "large customer", something most could agree on.

According to Nikkei business daily, Sony is planning to cut another 1,000 workers from their mobile division in order to bring it back to profitability.

These layoffs are said to affect the European and Chinese branches, with the cuts expected to be made public knowledge soon as part of an announced restructuring plan. Rumors state that this information will be brought to light on February the 4th, during their quarterly result report.

After acquiring Sony Ericsson fully in 2012, Sony has been on the warpath to increase their smartphone operations with limited success. Q3 2013 results for Sony reported sales of $2.8 billion, showing a small 1 percent rise. This was coupled with reports that then mentioned Sony was thrown $27.56 billion into the red thanks to a "large write-off in the perceived value of the company's brand" as explained by PC World.

Researchers have now apparently solved the small issue of lithium-ion batteries having the possibility of catching fire or exploding. This has been achieved by using a material derived from Kevlar to insulate specific parts of the device that are responsible for storage and discharge of energy.

Leaks within these walls can cause short circuits followed by fire or explosions, however Kevlar is a tough customer. With the ability to stop some bullets from penetrating human skin, the researchers have used it to bar leaks in batteries with great success. These batteries will be first used in robots and military services, seeing them later come over to laptops, tablets, smartphones, electric cars and various other household goods as according to Dan VanderLey, the CIO and co-founder of Elegus Technologies - a startup that's attempting to commercialize this finding.

Wondering how lithium-ion batteries actually work? PC World stated in their recent article that "lithium-ion batteries have two electrodes and an electrolyte fluid that allows the lithium ions to flow between them. They're separated currently by a film of polyethylene or polypropylene, but it's porous and if material passes through it a short circuit can result."

Surface tablet revenue has increased up to $1.1 billion in Q2 2015, according to Microsoft's latest quarterly earnings announcement. The increased figure was largely due to the Surface Pro 3 and sales of accessories for the device - an impressive year-over-year growth from $893 million.

Even though this is the first time Surface revenue eclipsed $1 billion, some people are beginning to wonder if Microsoft is going to pull the plug on Surface.

"It is currently out of stock [and] unfortunately we do not have specific dates on when products are back in stock, [so] you would have to check back on the site regularly," a Microsoft Store sales representative told Computerworld.