Mobile Devices - Page 161

Nokia seems to be one of the few brands taking the time to update older mobile hardware. Microsoft's updates are sporadic at best and non-existent at worst. However, Nokia is taking care of the issue by releasing updated firmware for its popular Lumia 920, 820, and 620 devices.

The updates, said to be rolling out over the coming weeks, is already available on some users' devices. It brings various improvements, which are listed on the Lumia 920 support page:

The 820 and 620 are also getting the improvements listed above. The 620 is also gaining the following improvements:

Back in January at CES there was an influx of new 7-inch class Android tablets that all promised to compete with the ASUS made Google Nexus 7. Most notably was an offering from ASUS called the MeMO Pad, which was designed as direct competition for the Nexus 7.

This morning in a statement to the media, ASUS announced that it has begun shipping the $149 7-inch tablet to retail channels. Featuring 16GB of on-board storage, the MeMO Pad can add more storage via an SD card capabilities, which is something the Nexus 7 cannot do.

The MeMO Pad runs on a VIA WM8950 dual-core chip, and its 7-inch display has a resolution of 1024x600 that supports 10-point multi-touch. A 4270mAh battery provides up to seven hours of use while WiFi, Bluetooth, and a Micro USB port provide connectivity. The Android Jelly Bean powered ASUS MeMO Pad is available now in stores like Amazon, GameStop and Fry's Electronics in grey, pink and white.

It looks like Acer is preparing a new form-factor tablet, something that will compete with the popular iPad mini among other smaller slates. Acer's Iconia A1-810 would feature a 7.9-inch IPS panel with a resolution of 1024x768.

This display slaps it right on iPad mini territory, but loses out to the Nexus 7 ever so slightly. We should expect Android 4.2 Jelly Bean, an 1.2GHz MediaTek MT8125 ARM Cortex-A9 quad-core processor. The usual suspects will also make an appearance, such as Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 4.0 and GPS. The A1-810 also features an micro HDMI port, 5-megapixel rear-facing camera, VGA front-facer, and a 3250mAh battery.

1GB of RAM will be included, as well as 16GB of on-board storage. The Acer Iconia A1-810 weighs 460 grams and measures in at 208.7 x 145.7 x 10.5 mm. We should expect a price of around $250 and it should ship sometime in June.

GSMAreana has received some pictures from a tipster that are allegedly of the upcoming iPhone 5S. The pictures depict a radical departure from the current iPhone 5. They actually line up with a patent application approved by the US Patent Office last week, which could indicate they are real. Or the "tipster" could have crafted some pictures to match the application. First, the application picture:

As you can see, the patent application features a curved screen and curved back. Noticeable absent is the typical Home button. Now, take a look at the pictures sent in:

We encourage you to not take these pictures as the iPhone 5S that will be launched this summer. This could be a prototype or it could be the real thing. It could also be a render that someone has made from the patent image.

At today's Facebook Home event Mark Zuckerberg and crew debuted Facebook Home, a new home-screen UI designed for Android devices that completely transforms your smartphone experience. Instead of focusing on apps, the new Facebook Home lets you focus on staying connected to people.

Chat head solves the age old problem of do you answer that text you just got or finish what you were doing. Chat head displays a little circular icon over your content that notifies you when a friend messages you. By tapping on your friends face, it will open the chat dialogue over your current "window."

Once you are finished with the message, simple tap again and it will return to the bubble-like icon. Chat head works with both Text Messaging as well as Facebook Messenger and which service you are using is denoted by the color of the chat's text bubbles. Green signifies a SMS conversation while blue represent a Facebook Messenger chat - just like how messaging works with Apple iMessage.

It looks like @evleaks was spot on once again. At the Facebook Home event, Mark Zuckerberg announced that Facebook has teamed up with AT&T and HTC to design a smartphone that was based around Facebook Home. HTC's Peter Chou stepped up on the stage and proudly presented the HTC First.

The HTC First is a very sleek and very minimalist looking Android phone that was solely designed with Facebook Home in mind and will come in four colors. "It's the only phone that has Home pre-loaded and optimized. That means you're going to have a unique experience", said Chou.

AT&T's Ralph de la Vega then took the stage to talk about AT&T's role in the Facebook Home experience. "This is going to be the best Facebook mobile experience ever, and it's going to be people-centered. We bought into that," he said. "What I like about the First is that it's an LTE device, as you would expect. This phone has the most immersive experience I've ever seen."

The Facebook Home press event is just about done. As we've already covered, there is no new Facebook phone. What is new is the "Home", which is a new UI to replace the home screen of your Android device. The big part of it is "Cover Feed" which automatically shows you a stream of your friend's content from Facebook, as soon as you turn on your phone.

Mark Zuckerberg announced that Home will be available for download on a few Android devices on April 12 in the Play Store.

The devices supported initially include the HTC One, HTC One X / One X+, Samsung Galaxy S III, Samsung Galaxy S4 and Samsung Galaxy Note II.

At this morning's Facebook Home event, Mark Zuckerberg debunked recent rumors that Facebook is building a phone. He cited that a great Facebook smartphone would only sell 10 million to 20 million devices, which would equate to reaching just one to two percent of its users.

Instead, Facebook "Home" is an entire user interface in the form of a suite of apps for your Android phone that focuses on people rather than apps. When you start your phone, you get a new home screen called "Cover Feed", which is an automatic scrolling feed that is generated from your friend's activities.

Cover Feed is the foundation of Facebook Home, and is very clean and refined. "There's no Chrome here, no nav, it's all content based." said Adam Mosseri, Director of Product at Facebook. He went on to say, "Typically, all you see is a clock and a snippet of an email or calendar. With Home, we offer more value with that screen."

A new Nexus 7 from Google could arrive as soon as this coming July, if rumors we are hearing are true. Reuters is citing two separate sources that claim that Google is preparing to ship roughly eight million new tablets by the end of the year.

The sources say that the new Nexus 7 will feature a Qualcomm Snapdragon instead of an NVIDIA Tegra 4. One source says that we could see a the new Nexus 7 drop down to the $150 price point, while the other stated that $200 was the magic number.

If these rumors are true, then we will most likely see the device surface at next month's Google I/O event, which has been sold out for months. Last year's event saw the original Nexus 7 unveiled as well as a demo of Google Glass.

BlackBerry is hoping to convince Android and iOS users to switch over to the dark side by offering up a demo of key BlackBerry 10 features through a new HTML5 web app. Dubbed BlackBerry Glimpse, the app walks users through 10 demonstrations that include the BlackBerry Hub, Screen Share, Time Shift and the unique BB10 predictive keyboard.

I tried out Glimpse on my very dated Sprint Motorola Photon 4G and the "demo" felt more like a slideshow that used gestures to control rather than a true interactive demonstration. The keyboard demo was so fast that I barely caught what it was trying to illustrate.

Not all was bad though, I actually do like the UI that BlackBerry has created. It does have a very Android feel to it which is something that I prefer. Will this "demo" cause a mass migration to BlackBerry 10? I doubt it, but it is a pretty cool marketing idea. If you would like to try it out for yourself head over to the Source #2 link below.

Forty years ago today, then Motorola exec Marty Cooper walked out of his office, met with a reporter on the sidewalk in front of his office building and proceeded to make a world-changing phone call to the CEO of Bell Labs (a division of AT&T).

This event was most likely one of the top 3 most significant phone calls in the history of the world, as it was the very first cellular phone call ever made. Sure there were car phones at the time, but this was a completely mobile, hand held all-in-one device. The Motorola DynaTAC 8000X that Cooper used went on to be known in pop culture as "The Brick" because it resembled one in both size and weight. The 2.5lb device would set you back a cool $3,995 and featured a single line LED text display.

Fast forward 40 years and Google now owns Motorola's mobile division and modern smartphones are tens of thousands of times more powerful. Instead of being limited to the uber rich, now even the poorest people communicate via cellular phones. If you were wondering, in the first cellular call Cooper said to the Bell Labs CEO "I'm ringing you just to see if my call sounds good at your end."

I've got a spot of bad news for Nokia Lumia 810 users on T-Mobile. Even though the Lumia 810 hardware has support for LTE, it looks like users won't be getting access to T-Mobile's LTE network, despite earlier remarks that the device would be upgraded to LTE in the future through a software update.

T-Mobile said in a statement:

I'm pretty sure that LTE counts as a better experience. Who wouldn't want faster mobile Internet speeds? Another issue is some users may have purchased the Lumia 810 because T-Mobile had promised it would receive an update to enable LTE in the future. It's not clear what T-Mobile might do to compensate customers who purchased the device because of future LTE support.

We've already heard the rumors that South Korean electronics giant Samsung would release their Galaxy S4 mini shortly after its bigger brother, the Galaxy S4. Now there's fresh rumors that Samsung will announce this smaller smartphone, as soon as this week.

The Galaxy S4 mini would be made available in black and white, as well as a dual-SIM model being put up on the table. The dual-SIM Galaxy S4 mini would sport a 4.3-inch qHD display, a 1.6GHz dual-core Exynos 5210 processor, an 8-megapixel rear-facing camera and come to the party dressed in Android 4.2.2 Jelly Bean.

The single-SIM variant would bump the processor up to a quad-core variant, giving users with the single SIM card some boosted CPU performance.

This is probably going to be one of the more 'out there' rumors of the year, but Apple have apparently been playing around with a striking new design for the iPhone.

The Telegraph noticed a recently published patent that Apple have been playing around with an iPhone that features a curved display, with no size bezels or physical buttons to be seen. Apple sees the curved display made with a flexible material that can present "an illusion of depth perception" capable of "mimicking a 3D experience."

Apple explains that users could control the volume on the phone "by holding a finger over the volume indicator" and "expanding the volume control over the entire left side of the device," which takes away any reasoning for a physical volume button.

It looks like the Facebook rumors won't die, and are stronger than ever with the social network inviting the press to an event at the Facebook HQ on April 4th, to "Come See Our New Home On Android."

It looks like the Facebook phone would run a modified version of Android, and may be built by HTC. If the April 4 event does see a Facebook phone unveiled, it'll be an interesting future for Google. Google allow manufacturers to modify the stock look and feel of Android, but the rumors with the Facebook phone are looking to have the Facebook phone see a huge change in the look and feel of Android - which we should expect.

Facebook have a slew of features and apps that they could bake directly into their phone, which would essentially just be a basic Android handset, powered by Facebook. Then we have to wonder about Facebook's App Center, which links to both the Google Play Store and Apple App Store. Then we have to think deeper again, with carriers' opinions on a Facebook phone. I'm guessing we'd see Facebook heavily, heavily subsidize this bad boy, and sell it online and unlocked, ala Google's Nexus 4.

Samsung's 5-inch Galaxy S4 goes on sale next month and I for one cannot wait to get my hands on it, but a 5-inch screen phone is just too large for some people. It is rumored that Samsung aims to fix that problem by releasing a Mini version of the S4 shortly after sales begin in the US.

Featuring a 4.3-inch screen, the Galaxy S4 Mini will feature a less powerful dual-core processor that will be set at 1.6GHz. However, it is rumored to feature the same 8MP rear camera and 64GB micro SD support as its big brother.

No further specifications were mentioned and we doubt the smaller device will pack the super high capacity battery of the 5-inch S4, but we hope that it will retain the 2GB of RAM. What do you think about a smaller Galaxy S4? Would you buy it over the 5-inch Super AMOLED version?

Motorola's upcoming X Phone is no stranger to the rumor mill, but today we may be seeing the first image of the soon to be Googlerola flagship. A rendering of the X Phone has surfaced on the popular mobile phone site GSMArena, along with more specifications.

The X Phone rendering shows off an almost concept-like rendering of what could be one of the best looking phones I have seen to date. The screen appears to be slightly convex and surrounded by an aluminum body or bezel. The superimposed Android UI is of course Android 4.2 Jelly Bean, but it is highly believed that the device will run Android 5.0 when it goes on sale.

The X Phone is said to run a Snapdragon 800 chipset and will feature a 4.7" 1280x768 display. A 4000mAh battery will provide a super long life, which is in line with current Motorola policies. The phone is said to be IP57 compliant, which means that it will be water resistant up to 30 minutes at a depth of up to one meter. Unfortunately the tipster said that the phone will not feature an SD slot, which would be a major mistake on Motorola's part in my opinion.

The US Department of Defense (DoD) has just placed an order with Apple for over 600,000 iDevices to help supplement its arsenal. This huge purchase comes at a time of major budgetary cuts, a sequester which equates to $85 billion in lost spending.

Electronista first broke the news earlier today which detailed over 650,000 Apple devices being ordered. Included in the order were 120k iPads, 100k iPad minis, 200k iPod touches and 2010k iPhones. By my reasoning, that could amount to more than a $250 million payday for Apple.

Before everyone grabs their pitchforks and torches, the US Government has been looking to move from its antiquated BlackBerry devices to something new for some time now. This is most likely the first wave of a transition to iOS based devices and likely not the last major order we will see.

What do you do when you have more cash reserves than any other company in the world? You develop a system that magically flips your company's flagship phone into the proper position during a fall to lessen damage. Yes, Apple has patented a method that turns your phone into a cat.

US Patent #20130073095 describes a "Protective Mechanism for an Electronic Device" that appears to use centrifugal force to reorient an iPhone in the event of a drop or fall. From the patent drawings, it looks like a small motor with a weight on one end would spin up and make the phone flip into an orientation that would lessen damage to sensitive parts like the screen.

The patent also mentions alternative methods that would deploy airfoils to levy aerodynamics to reorient the phone. There is also mention of cables that could be jettisoned to catch the phone mid fall, and other far out there concepts like gas canisters used in conjunction with thrust nozzles to reorient the phone. Below you can see more of the artwork courtesy of Apple Insider.

Amazon hit a home-run when they launched the original Kindle Fire HD, and now if rumors are true, they are looking to knock another one out of the ball park. A $99 Kindle Fire of the 7-inch class is said to already be in production and could ship later this year.

The new 7-inch Kindle Fire would be a direct competitor to Apple's iPad mini, as well as other small tablets such as Google's Nexus 7, as well as offerings from ASUS, Samsung and Sony. It would also offer competition to the flood of off brand Chinese Android tablets that have been popping up in the sub $100 range.

We are not finding any reports on hardware specifications yet, but we know that the device is said to feature a 1280x800 LCD and it could contain similar hardware to Amazon's current $99 7-inch Kindle Fire HD. Would you buy a new 7-inch Kindle Fire HD at $99 if you owned a larger Kindle Fire or even another tablet? Let us know in the comments.