Mobile Devices - Page 156

Today, a new user manual has surfaced for what appears to be a new flip style phone from Samsung. Engadget is reporting that the device will be part of the company's Galaxy line of smartphones. Dubbed the Galaxy Folder, this new phone will feature what appear to be 3.7-inch AMOLED displays on each side of the top half.

A dual-core QUALCOMM Snapdragon 400 processor, 2GB of RAM, and full LTE support will also be onboard. The phone resembles the now old-school Motorola Razr, which was in its day was the king of the flip phone form-factor. We can see a rear-facing camera with what appears to be an LED-based flash along with a front shooter of unknown spec. The design is similar to a phone the company released last year in China, and for all intents and purposes, it is safe to assume that this is where the Galaxy Folder will end up as well.

There is no mention (that I can find) of what operating system the device will run, but it could theoretically feature Tizen or Android, but my bet is on Tizen. The company has been working long and hard on developing the new OS and this would be the perfect platform to show it off. If you are interested in checking out the user manual, head over to Source #2 below.

Reports are coming in that a new over-the-air update to BlackBerry's BB10 OS includes a major bug that is randomly deleting SMS messages on some devices. The update is meant to improve operational functionality of BB10 devices such as the Z10 and Q10, but no one expected it to begin deleting text messages at random.

Some reports are coming in that says the update has even blocked SMS messaging entirely on their device. The issue appears to be widespread, but the bug appears to affect each device differently. Some users just experience the message deletion, while some only delete random messages from a message chain, while still other devices are seeing the messaging blocked entirely. BlackBerry has yet to confirm the issue, and we would recommend that you do not install the update until a fix has been released.

Late last night, reports started to surface that accused Samsung of rigging the code in its Exynos 5 variant of the Galaxy S4 to boost clock speeds when the device ran specific benchmarks. Our own Anthony Garreffa covered the story shortly after the news broke. This morning, not 12 hours later, Samsung has responded and as one would expect, the company denied everything.

Samsung says that the "BenchmarkBooster" used on the Exynos 5 is not intended to boost frequencies when running certain benchmarks. Normally, I would tend to give the company the benefit of the doubt, but with the code being named "BenchmarkBooster," I am finding it hard to drink this glass of Koolaid. However, regardless of benchmark performance, the Galaxy S4 is still one hell of a phone and with the code in question only boosting performance by 7 percent, does it really matter? Everyday average users could care less about a benchmark result that says this phone performs 1.3564 percent better than another phone.

Samsungs full statement is below.

If we were to just look at the amount of employees Amazon has, and the amount of extra jobs they're creating across the US, one would think they're preparing for the company to get bigger in the near future.

Well, according to a report on BGR, Amazon are looking to refresh its Kindle Fire HD, which would include a huge performance boost from the current device. Amazon are looking to bake in the speedy Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 SoC to reach that high-performance category. We are to expect three new devices from Amazon, ranging from 7 inches up to 8.9 inches.

The first, would be the entry-level 7-inch Kindle Fire, which would receive a refreshed 1280x800-pixel display. The other two models would replace the current Kindle Fire HD 7- and 8.9-inch models, and would include the super-fast, and very capable Snapdragon 800 SoC.

The Samsung Galaxy S4 is one of the company's best-selling smartphones of all time, and one of the hottest devices on the market right now. This all comes down to how it is perceived in the market, and how reviewers (like myself) and users, talk about the phone.

Well, it looks like AnandTech have donned their detective outfit, and found that Samsung have been tweaking the Galaxy S4 to perform better in benchmarks than it does anything else. AnandTech found that the Galaxy S4 has its GPU limited to 480MHz in most apps and games, but when it comes to benchmark tests such as AnTuTu, GLBenchmark 2.5.1 and Quadrant, it overclocks to 533MHz, giving it a huge advantage.

You'd think the funny business would stop there, but it doesn't. Samsung have also souped up the CPU clock speed in certain benchmarks, where in GLBenchmark 2.5.1, the CPU clock speed is at 1.2GHz, and never drops below that. But in GFXBench 2.7, the GPU clocks between 500Mhz and higher. AnandTech even found a string that shows the Galaxy S4 is hardcoded to specifically perform better in specific applications for benchmark testing with "Quadrant standard, advanced, and professional, linpack (free, not paid), Benchmark Pi, and AnTuTu" being mentioned.

This morning, Samsung has released an official hands-on video of its Galaxy S4 Zoom camera phone. In the video, we see the phone in both Black Mist and White Frost trim. The host also shows off the low light flash-less performance as well as how nice the Xenon flash is over traditional smartphone LED-based flashes. Also featured is the Galaxy S4 Zoom's "Zoom Ring" which lets you navigate the phone's features, as well as rotating it to zoom in on photos. The video is about 10 minutes long, but almost every new feature is covered by the host.

A quote from the Samsung page said:

I covered the S4 Zoom back on launch day and have been pretty excited to actually see it in action since that day. The Android 4.2.2 based smartphone / compact camera mashup features a 4.3-inch Super AMOLED qHD display with a resolution of 960 x 540 pixels and runs on a 1.5GHz dual-core processor. LTE support is included along with Bluetooth 4.0, Wi-Fi, and all the usual compliments of Samsung's apps. The camera features an aperture range of f/3.1 to f/6.3 and has a maximum ISO of 3200. A 16-megapixel CMOS sensor and true Xenon flash round out the shooter's impressive list of features.

Samsung have countless devices within their Galaxy umbrella of products, but it looks like that is set to expand by a couple of devices. @evleaks is back yet again with some information he claims points to Samsung preparing two new slates.

The first, is a 10-inch tablet that would feature the Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 SoC, and the second, is a 12.2-inch slate that features the Exynos 5 Octa chipset and S Pen support. So, in other words, a Galaxy Note 12, maybe. Both devices are set to arrive with the mouth watering 2560x1600 resolution, which should be quite stunning.

The rumor mill is fired up and already pushing out fresh rumors this Monday morning. Today, the Verge is reporting that Nokia is in the process of mass producing a new Bluetooth 4.0 device that will pair with its Lumia line of Windows Phones. Dubbed the Treasure Tag, the device uses a combination of Bluetooth and Near Field Communication (NFC) to help you find things when they are lost.

The "Treasure Tag" is basically a small little tile that would let you track items using a purpose-built application. When the item you have tagged is lost, you can use the app to locate the item via a map which makes use of Nokia's LiveSight augmented reality view. This means that if you have lost your keys and you had a Treasure Tag attached, you could open up the app and view the keys' exact location on a mini map.

The process works in reverse, too. If you lose your phone, you will be able to push a button on the Treasure Chest and the app on your phone will activate an audible alert that will help you pinpoint the exact location of your missing device. It appears that the Treasure Tag is designed to be "always on" and will last about 6 months on its internal battery, but no mention has been made about battery replacement or rechargeability. The Treasure Tag is said to launch in the coming weeks after Nokia rolls out its Amber Update that will give Lumia devices Bluetooth 4.0 support.

I'm only 30, but when I was in school we were still using pen and paper, and were barely enjoying Internet as we were one of the first high schools in my state to receive brand new Windows 95 PCs and we had dual 128k ISDN, which was amazing at the time.

Now news has broken out that the Los Angeles school board have signed a $30 million agreement with Apple that will see an iPad in the hands of each student in the Los Angeles Unified School District. CiteWorld have reported that the program will launch this fall, with 31,000 iPads being delivered to the district.

By 2014, this program will have expanded out to see 640,000 tablets delivered to all students in the district. The iPads that students will receive will have educational applications and other apps installed designed to help students with their studies. The program hopes to prepare students for the real-world by exposing them to technology that might not be available at home.

The refreshed Nexus 7 has barely even been released yet, but there's already updates being pushed out to the 7-inch slate.

The first update will start beaming to your device as soon as you connect to Wi-Fi for the first time, which is usually done during the setup process. The tablet will shut down, boot into recovery, apply the update which brings the slate up to build number JWR66N, and then brings the user back to the setup screen to resume signing into a Google account.

The second update is downloaded in the background, which then sends a notification for the update into the notification tray. Once the user accepts the update, it is applied and a new build number of JSS15J is applied. Both updates are minor, featuring some fine-tuning and last-minute bug fixes. All in all, the Nexus 7 is looking like the tablet to buy right now, it's even easy to repair, too.

The second-generation Nexus 7 was unveiled a few days ago, but iFixit have gotten their grubby mits on it and torn it apart as they always do. Their complete teardown can be viewed here.

The refreshed Nexus 7 scored 7/10 for repairability, which is great. Entry into the refreshed Nexus 7 seems easy enough, as it only requires a plastic opening tool, but it might take a while for you to feel the back off of the 7-inch slate. Inside the tablet is a large battery, and an inductive charging coil.

If you want to continue tumbling down the refreshed Nexus 7 rabbit hole, you'll find out that all fasteners are actually just Phillips screws. Nearly all tablet users wouldn't ever have to dive that deep into their tablet, as it would get quite complicated to fix and is easier to send it back in to Google to get fixed.

T-Mobile USA announced today that it is updating its popular Un-Carrier strategy tomorrow to now offer all devices for $0 down. This means that customers can now upgrade their smartphones for free without signing a contract and just pay a monthly payment on the phone for 24 months. For example, you could upgrade to a new Samsung Galaxy S4 tomorrow for $0 down and just pay $25 per month over the next 24 months. That works out to $600 for the phone with 0% APR.

"The number of reasons not to switch to T-Mobile this summer is ZERO," said John Legere, president and chief executive officer, T-Mobile US. "This is a fantastic offer and we're making it easier than ever for customers to get the latest amazing devices. Adding Zero Down in addition to JUMP!, and Simple Choice with no contract is all about making wireless work for consumers and shaking up this industry."

From the release by T-Mobile:

Today during its breakfast event, Google officially unveiled the next-generation Nexus 7. Unfortunately for Google the cat has been out of the bag for well over a week now as the next-gen Nexus 7 is one of the most leaked devices of the year.

Pretty much all of the specs that we reported on earlier today were confirmed during the event and it appears that nothing extra popped up. Additionally, ASUS appears to continue to be the manufacturing powerhouse behind the 7-inch slate.

The second-gen Nexus 7 features a 7-inch 1920 x 1200 display and is set to life by a 1.5GHz Snapdragon S4 Pro processor, while 2GB of RAM handle the memory duties. An Adreno 320 graphics processor crunches HD video and games, while Bluetooth 4.0, NFC, and Wi-Fi handle the network connectivity. The long-anticipated Android 4.3 is the Nexus 7's OS of choice, which brings forth a new camera app and several other exciting features.

If what we have previously seen about the upcoming new Nexus 7, then today's news equates to a virtual dam breakage. This morning, Best Buy opened up pre-orders for the new 7-inch pure Android tablet. This major leak comes just hours before Google is expected to unveil the new Nexus at a breakfast being held in Mountain View at 9AM Pacific today.

With the full product listing being made available, we finally learned what hardware the refreshed device will feature and it is pretty hefty. The 7-inch display will feature a 1920 x 1200 pixel resolution, while a QUALCOMM 1.5Ghz Snapdragon S4 Pro and an Adreno 320 graphics processor will handle the data crunching duties. A 5-megapixel rear-facing camera will handle all of the photon capturing duties, while 2GB of DDR3 RAM keeps things running nice and smooth.

The new Nexus 7 will be available in both 16GB and 32GB configurations, with both devices featuring Bluetooth 4.0, Wi-Fi, and NFC. Falling right in line with recent rumors, the tablet will run Android 4.3 Jelly Bean, which also lends credence to the rumor that we will see 4.3 detailed at today's event. The product listing shows that the 16GB model will run consumers $229.99 while its 32GB brother will cost just $269.99. As of this publishing, the pre-order button has been removed.

Today, trademark filings by LG were spotted by website PocketDroid that point to the company's future plans of developing a smartwatch, tablet, exercise band, and even something that might rival Google Glass. The filings were all placed under the company's use of the letter G, which denotes LG's high-end products. G Pad, G Watch, G Glass, G Link, G Band, and G Hub were among many of the names that were trademarked today and they all may very well be linked to current products in development.

Obviously, the G Pad would refer to an G-branded tablet that would most likely run Android, while the G Band would function similar to Nike's Fuel band. G Watch most certainly refers to the smartwatch LG is said to be currently developing, while the G Glass sound like the most interesting product of all. This means that LG could be working on its own version of Google Glass.

It is important to note that company's file for trademarks every day and more times than not, they are simply filing to protect their brand from squatters or other companies who might brand their product in a similar fashion to confuse consumers into thinking their product is associated with another company's brand. Simply put, LG may have filed for these trademarks just to protect the G brand or preserve them for products we may not see for many years.

Today, Verizon and Motorola teamed up in a press event to officially announce Verizon's newly refreshed lineup of Droid smartphones. Over the last month, we've seen many leaks surface about the phones and it appears that most of them were correct. The announcement included the new Droid Ultra and Droid Maxx, which are the follow-up devices to last year's Droid Razr HD and HD Maxx.

The two new phones bring forth some impressive new features and hardware specs. The Droid Maxx is said to have an insanely impressive battery life of up to 48 hours, yet it still only measures in at 8.5mm thick. The Ultra comes in thinner at 7.2mm. Both phones apparently feature a 10-megapixel rear shooter that sports an f/2.4 lens which allows for superior low-light performance.

Additionally, both devices feature a five-inch 720p OLED display which in a way makes up for the resolution letdown. Both phones make use of the new touchless control system that has been reported in so many Moto X leaks. This new feature lets users make phone calls, get directions, or activate other functions by voice rather than having to physically pick up and unlock their phone.

Amidst a massive security breach, Canonical today unveiled plans to build a ultra high-end smartphone that would run both its own Ubuntu Mobile OS as well as the latest version of Android. Unfortunately manufacturing a smartphone in any quantity is quite the financial undertaking and not one that Canonical appears to be fully ready to tackle itself. The company has turned to the crowdfunding website Indiegogo to offer its supporters an easy way to preorder their phone.

So how much does it cost to produce 40,000 units of a new smartphone? Apparently $32 million will just about do the job. The company launched its Indiegogo campaign today, and will run for the next 30 days. Supporters can land an Unbuntu Edge of their own for $600 today only and tomorrow the cost of entry will rise to $830. There are also 50 "One of a Kind" numbered edition Ubuntu Edge phones being offered but they will cost you $10,000 a pop.

Additionally, an enterprise bundle of 100 phones is being offered for the low price of $80,000. Those who funded this level will receive additional access to best-practice workshops as well as 30 days of online support to help IT managers integrate Ubuntu for Android into the workplace. Also for those who wish you just donate a little to the project there is a $20 funding option which will land you your name on the founders page.

Today, AT&T announced that it will be launching two new Mobile Share plans later this week on July 26. The new plans are designed to make data access more affordable for customers who might not need a high allotment of bandwidth. For just $20 a month, users with feature phones can have 300MB of data which will allow them to check their email and perform other less data-intensive actions on their handset.

A new 2GB plan was also introduced that is expected to fill the gap for users who use more than 1 GB of data per month. This plan will run smartphone users $50 plus the additional $45 for unlimited talk and text. AT&T says that their mobile share plans make it easy for customers to manage their data, voice minutes, and texting without needing to keep track of multiple plans.

"Our customers are living mobile lives, and our new Mobile Share plans give them even more options to design a plan that meets their unique needs," said Mark Collins, senior vice president voice and data products, AT&T Mobility. "Now, even more customers are able to enjoy the full benefits of their device, on the nation's fastest and most reliable 4G LTE network, at a great value."

At the moment, we're fairly positive that we will see Google's next-generation Nexus 7 tablet unveiled on Wednesday at a breakfast press event being held by the company. Fortunately for us, Google is not doing a very good job of keeping its refreshed Nexus under wraps. Today, a leaked image depicting the new Nexus 7 has appeared online as well as a full PR rendering of the 7-inch tablet.

The image says that Google's Nexus 7 II will be available on Tuesday but does not give a specific date, although it is pretty safe to say that they are talking about Tuesday, July 30. It does give us a little more insight into the device and confirms that it will have a 1920x1200 resolution and will run consumers $230 for the 16 GB version.

Making his second appearance this morning on TweakTown, mobile device leakster @evleaks has managed to get his hands on the official press rendering of the new Nexus 7 that shows us a number of changes that the made to the tablet. The device features speakers located at the bottom and top while the Nexus logo has been rotated into landscape orientation. The headphone jack has also been relocated, while the rear facing 5-megapixel camera remains in the top left-hand corner. Google is expected to reveal the full details of the new Nexus 7 along with other major announcements on Wednesday, July 24, so stay tuned to TweakTown for full coverage of the event.

Next Thursday, August 1, Motorola and Google will release their long anticipated next-generation smartphone dubbed the Moto X. This is a phone that we've been talking about since January, and if recently leaked benchmarks are any indication, the phone may just prove to be a huge disappointment. Fortunately, Motorola did take the time to focus in on designing an Android-based smartphone that can only be described as beautiful.

Over the weekend, our favorite leakster @evleaks posted two sets of official PR images that show off what appears to be a very refined and very Nexus-like Moto X. A black render was first posted with a follow up of a white version that is said to be the official PR image. The front of the phone appears quite sleek with a very thin side bezel while the microphone appears to be offset to the left by centimeter or so.

Moving on to the rear we can very prominently see that the rear case material appears to be kevlar just like Google's Nexus 4. The camera is perched above what appears to be a Cree-based LED flash. To the right of the camera we can see a series of holes and what we suspect to be the grill which covers up a speaker. Also notable is that the phone appears to feature a microphone hole on the back and the audio jack appears to be placed dead center of the top of the phone. This leads me to believe that the USB charging port is placed opposite directly in the center of the bottom of the phone. I could be wrong, but I guess we'll find out in just over a week.