Mobile Devices - Page 167

This is the one thing I love about every manufacturer apart from Apple - they're not scared to mess with the general look of the phone. In Samsung's latest high-end hardware headed for China, they've unveiled the new SCH-S2013.

The SCH-S2013 is a flip phone, but sports high-end internals such as a 1.4GHz quad-core CPU, 2GB of RAM and 16GB of built-in flash storage, also expandable through microSD cards. Better yet, there are two screens - both 3.7-inch Super AMOLED, at WVGA resolution - 800x480.

Software wise, it comes with Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich as well as Samsung's TouchWiz UI - both of which are probably tweaked to handle the old school form factor. There's also dual SIM slots, one for GSM, and the other for CDMA.

Powerbook Medic have down a detailed teardown on the recently launched Nexus 10 from Samsung. After they've pulled that high-res 2560x1600-pixel screen, the insides get peeked at.

They've found that the battery, processor, and flash storage are all genuine Samsung-made parts. Considering that Samsung make components for most of the other big players in the mobile market, it would make sense for them to bake their own goods into their own product.

Powerbook Medic found that there's not much glue used, which is good news, meaning that the Nexus 10 can be pulled apart easily - requiring just a few tools.

The purple haze appears to be a phenomenon with most high-end smartphone cameras, not just something limited to the iPhone 5 and a few others. The latest device to join the purple haze party is Google's recently released Nexus 4 smartphone, which is selling quite well, if you hadn't heard the news.

As you can see in the picture above, the purple haze affects this brand new device just as much as the others. It only shows up in a few different lighting scenarios, so people should try to avoid these few conditions that will lead to the purple haze. Mainly, avoid shooting towards bright lights that are just out of frame.

The current thought regarding the issue is that the hard crystals that are used as lenses impart the purple hue because they are not perfectly clear. When the light comes roughly straight through, it doesn't present a problem, but as it reaches the outer parts of the lens, the purple color becomes apparent. Of course, this is only a theory.

Earlier today we had HP exec slamming Microsoft's first roll out into the tablet world with their Surface tablet, and now we have Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer taking a few swings at Android and iOS - why can't we all just get along?

Ballmer had a discussion with LinkedIn co-founder and venture capitalist Reid Hoffman at a Churchill Club event, where they talked about a variety of tech-related topics. One of the topics included during the talk were Ballmer's comments on the top players in the mobile industry. Ballmer said that Google's mobile OS, Android, was a little "wild", saying that compatibility issues and vulnerability to malware as two serious issues.

The talk turned to Apple, where Ballmer noted that the Cupertino-based iPhone maker have tight control over their system, with prices being quite high. Ballmer pointed out the fact that iPhones have a $1,000 MSRP in Russia. Because we all know that the Russian market is just oh-so-important. Ballmer then started talking about how to get a premium product in a more "relaxed ecosystem" without paying a high price for this luxury.

I was lucky enough to get in and get a Nexus 4 in Australia within 20 minutes, which felt like no effort at all - although my delivery was meant to arrive yesterday, I rang FedEx and they've said that there was a stuff up with Google, and it has been delayed in China - boo. Now I won't get my Nexus 4 until next week - #firstworldproblems.

Well, those not lucky enough to score a Nexus 4 will have to wait another few weeks, as the Mountain View-based search giant have been sending out emails to those who backordered a Nexus 4, telling them to expect a Nexus 4 to ship out "within three weeks". Google have decided to be a great company here, and in order to stem the pain of not scoring a Nexus 4 with the first batch, they're waiving shipping charges and will allow consumers to cancel their stock if they find a Nexus 4 at a local T-Mobile dealer.

The email from Google:

Throughout the years of going to movie theaters, I've experienced pretty much every kind of rude behavior a person can experience including witnessing a group of pre-teens urinating on the movie screen. But the not-so recent trend of moviegoers who absolutely need to be on their cell phones during a movie is especially annoying as their phone screens always distract me no matter how much they try to conceal their device. If a new program from Cinemark takes off, moviegoers may finally learn to keep their phones in their pockets or purses for the duration of the film.

Cinemark has announced a new program called CineMode which is an application that will keep track of a moviegoers cell phone usage during a film. When the application is launched, CineMode will dim the users' cell phone screen and ask them to set their phone to vibrate. If the user is able to keep their mitts off their phone for the duration of the film, they will be presented with a digital coupon that can be redeemed for a discount on a future movie at a Cinemark theater.

I'm already well aware texting in the movie theater will never go away as there are too many self-centered people in the world who absolutely need to be connected to their phones at all times, but I'm hoping the lure of a digital coupon for a future movie will be enough to keep their hands of their phones for at least an hour.

Ever since I got myself a smartphone and tablet, the majority of my messaging takes place on those devices than on my computer. I rarely use text seeing as alternatives like Google Talk and iMessage are around, and it now looks like other smartphone users are starting to take notice of alternatives to text messaging as it looks like its use is dropping in the U.S. for the first time.

According to a report by Chetan Sharma, who is a mobile analyst and consultant for wireless carriers, in the third quarter of 2012, cellphone users in the U.S. only sent an average of 678 texts a month. Previously, the average rate of text messages being sent was 696, which isn't necessarily a huge dip in use, but a dip nonetheless.

Sharma credits the drop to Internet-based messaging services becoming more popular as more users are flocking to them in order to save themselves from texting.

Based in Australia, at the time of writing this, it is 4:11pm in my state (South Australia). The Nexus 4 was set to go on sale "Tuesday 13th of November", which was 16 hours ago for me.

This morning I woke up, and starting my round of work for TweakTown, keeping the Nexus 4 order page open. Every time I finished a piece of news, I'd check back and refresh the page, after a few times the "notify me" turned into "order now". I clicked it with anticipation and filled out the details for my credit card and scored a Nexus 4.

I sat back thinking, do I really need this - as I get some seriously bad buyers remorse sometimes, but I think this is definitely worthy of replacing my Galaxy S II flashed with a customized ROM (Cynanogen Mod 9). I then had fellow TweakTown-er Matthew Wu tag me on a post on Facebook telling me the Nexus 4 had sold out - oh really!

One of the biggest disappointments for me in iOS 6 hasn't been Apple's Maps application, although it comes to a very close second. It's definitely Apple's Passbook application as, for the life of me, I have yet to figure out what exactly I should be doing with it. I mean, do I have to download the Fandango application in order to have my ticket show up in my Passbook. Why don't I just use the Fandango app in order to show my ticket instead of Passbook?

Aside from my own personal frustrations with Passbook, Apple has announced today that it will be making their Apple gift cards compatible with its Passbook application.

The process isn't too difficult, but it does require more than fifteen steps to complete. OK - that was a bit of an exaggeration, but it's still way more steps than just buying an Apple Store gift card from your local pharmacy and handing it to the Apple fanboy in your life.

My iPhone 5 has yet to get the smell of "new" off of its body, and already Apple is starting to ramp up production of its iPhone 5S according to reports from Chinese newspaper, Commercial Times.

According to their report, Apple will begin manufacturing a trial batch of its "iPhone 5S" starting next month which will produce 50,000 to 100,000 units. Once the trial batch meets all of the requirements Apple has set for its products, full production will begin sometime in early 2013.

Apple's iPhone 5 has been a hot item ever since it was released in September, which is why the company has been having trouble keeping up with its supply. Commercial Times reports this is exactly why Apple wants to start production of its "iPhone 5S" in order to meet the upcoming demand for the device.

When a person decides they'd like to purchase an iPad, they have a number of options as to where they can acquire their new tablet. They can shop both online and offline directly with Apple, or choose to buy it at retailers like Radio Shack, Best Buy, Target or Walmart. The last thing someone wants to experience when they finally get their purchase home is a damaged product, which is exactly why you should think twice before shopping at Walmart.

A video from YouTube user "Anon Ymous" shows what exactly goes on behind the scenes when merchandise is being sorted. At a Walmart in Pikeville, KY, an employee decided to make a little video on why exactly customers should expect broken merchandise, like the iPad, to probably be damaged if someone decides to buy it from their store.

The Walmart employee behind the camera calls out to one of his co-workers, Cody, and films the back room shenanigans as iPads can be seen being tossed from one side of the room to another. The Walmart employee behind the camera says, "See, we like to throw s***" and goes on predict the next iPad will "hit the ground." His prediction comes true as Cody spikes the iPad to the ground, picks it up, and flings it at another co-worker who drops it as well.

When iOS 6 was first announced, one of the features most people were very excited about was finally being able to make FaceTime calls over cellular service as Wi-Fi connections aren't always available, especially to those on the go. Almost immediately after Apple had made its announcement, AT&T announced it will be supporting the over-cellular FaceTime calls, but it would most likely charge its users for the feature to be used over its 3G connection, which turned the Internet upside down.

With LTE iOS devices now available, AT&T is now in the spotlight again in regards to its restrictions of FaceTime calls as it will be making them available to iPhone 5, third and fourth generation iPads. As is expected, there's a catch. The only way LTE iOS users will be able to make FaceTime calls is if they have a tiered data plan which leaves those with grandfathered unlimited data plans unable to make FaceTime calls.

The feature won't be available to AT&T customers for another eight to ten weeks and the company expects FaceTime calls over cellular to be rolled out to customers with other data plans to roll out in the near future.

The closer we get to the holiday season, the more people are going to start looking at deals so they don't break their bank account buying presents for their loved ones. One item that will most likely be on most people's holiday list this year, and every year for that matter, is the iPad. But one place you should never buy an iPad is at a gas station in Arlington, Texas.

Jalonta Freeman was pumping her gas at an Arlington gas station, when a man approached her saying he has iPads and laptops for sale. Jalonta, being the savvy consumer, thought she would take advantage of the opportunity by purchasing an iPad from the gentleman, which normally retails for $800, for only $200.

Once the transaction was complete, the man was in a hurry and drove off before Freeman could inspect what she just purchased. As you could assume, the deal didn't go quite as planned as it turned out Freeman purchased a fake iPad.

Microsoft's SmartGlass has made its way to Windows Phone and Android, and now it's finally been made available for iOS users as an update to its Xbox iOS application.

Just like the Windows Phone and Android version of SmartGlass, the application allows iOS users to connect to their Xbox 360 and interact with it in a number of ways such as launching games or applications and becoming a second screen for software that supports that feature. An example of this feature is being able to launch a DJ mode in Dance Central 3 that will allow for the SmartGlass user to interact with the game or when listening to music or watching a video on Zune Marketplace, information regarding the content can be accessed from SmartGlass.

SmartGlass users can also use their iOS device to further interact with their Xbox 360 in the following ways:

I've said this a few times now, but I really think the next advancement in mobile technology needs to be battery life. I can use an iPhone 5, a Galaxy S III, Nexus 7 or any other top-end smart device, but I can't get more than 8-12 hours of intense use out of it.

Well, it looks like we could be there with researchers at Rice University announcing that they have worked out how to triple lithium-ion battery life using crushed silicon anode. Rice University engineer, Sibani Lisa Biswal and research scientist Madhuri Thakur managed to use crushed silicon to create battery anode that is capable of holding 10 times more litium ions than graphite anodes used in today's batteries.

The results of this are a new battery design capable of holding a charge of 1,000 milliamp hours per gram through 600 tested charge cycles of two hours charging, two hours discharging. Current graphite anodes are only capable of around 350 mAh/g.

Regardless if the majority of people were less than impressed with the new iPad mini and 4th generation iPad, the rule of thumb has always been if there's an Apple logo on it, it'll sell millions. That's exactly what happened this weekend as Apple has announced it has sold 3 million iPads this past weekend.

Friday was the official release date of both the iPad mini and 4th generation iPad around the world and marks the first time Apple has launched two new products on the same day, not counting new releases made available through the Apple Store.

As of now, Apple has yet to release sales data for individual sales of the iPad mini and 4th Generation iPad which we're sure to hear about in an upcoming Apple Event with nothing but praise coming from the company.

We already have a super cheap $199 slate from Google, the amazing Nexus 7 tablet, but it looks like they're about to set that price bar a fair bit lower, again.

DigiTimes is reporting that the Mountain View-based company is working on an "entry-level Nexus tablet that has not yet been announced". Nothing more from this is known, but that is quite the tease.

What could we see? A $99 tablet? $149 maybe? What could Google do to reduce the pricing? We're already getting a quad-core tablet with a 7-inch 1280x800-pixel display running Android 4.1 Jelly Bean for just $199. They could knock it down to 5-inch, a dual-core processor and keep Jelly Bean, while knocking $50-$100 off the price. That would surely shake the market up, a lot.

Android 4.2 has, until now, only been talked about for the Nexus 4 and Nexus 10 devices that were announced last week - but in the UK, it seems that the 32GB Nexus 7 variant will come "with Android 4.2 Jelly Bean".

UK retailer HMV, has been advertising in newspaper ads of the tablet sporting the latest Android OS, but with Android 4.2 not yet finalized or open-sourced, it shouldn't be baked into any tablets sitting on store shelves just yet.

With the Nexus 7 being a Nexus device, Google should get Android 4.2 out to it as quick as possible, but I'm guessing we'll see the release of the latest iteration of Android closer to the release of the new Nexus 4 and Nexus 10 tablets next week on November 13.

Word on the street is that Microsoft is working with component suppliers in Asia to test their very own smartphone design, at least if the Wall Street Journal's sources are to be believed. There has been a rumor circulating that this was the case ever since Microsoft unveiled their new Surface tablets.

Of course, Microsoft has refused to comment on the rumor, neither confirming nor denying the smartphone's existence. Microsoft's parts suppliers say that there is a current device being tested, though its not clear that the device will go into mass production or not. The screen is reportedly between 4 and 5 inches, slotting in between the iPhone 5 and the Galaxy S III.

"We're quite happy this holiday [season] going to market hard with Nokia, Samsung and HTC," said Mr. Ballmer. "Whether we had a plan to do something different or we didn't have a plan I wouldn't comment in any dimension."

With every new mobile device launch, somebody inevitably decides its a good idea to drop it from various heights onto hard surfaces. The launch of the iPad mini today is no different as drop test videos have already appeared online. SquareTrade, a company that deals in extended warranties is the perpetrator of the following video that compares the iPad 3, iPad mini, and Nexus 7:

In the video, the iPad mini performs well when dropped from 4 feet on its corner. The Nexus 7 cracks in the corner ever so slightly, and the iPad 3's screen is destroyed. The folks at SquareTrade then dropped the tablets on their faces. The iPad mini's screen cracked everywhere and would need to be replaced. The iPad 3's screen also cracked quite a bit and the Nexus 7's screen did the best.

The tablets were then placed in water for 10 seconds to see how they would survive an accidental dunking. The iPad mini performed the best out of the three and seemed to be fully functional. The iPad 3 seemed to have a couple of bugs from the water, and the Nexus 7 was unresponsive, likely due to resetting from going into the water.