Mobile Devices - Page 171

Hello Kitty fans probably had a fit of excitement at the title, but its true, South Korean company, Samsung, are releasing a Hello Kitty edition of their entry-level Android-based Galaxy Y phone. Samsung will be releasing the Hello Kitty edition of the Galaxy Y in Germany.

Sporting a special home button, a two-tone pastel pink and white case, as well as special wallpapers and ringtones, this is perfect for any Hello Kitty fan. Spec-wise, we're definitely looking at the same entry-level phone that the Galaxy Y is.

3-inch screen, 800MHz CPU, and Android 2.3 are to be shipped with the device. But, I'm sure that Hello Kitty fans, which will be mostly tweener girls, won't care about specs. IT. HAS. HELLO. KITTY. ON. IT.

During TechCrunch's Disrupt event in San Francisco, Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg talked of his disappointment in HTML5, announcing that the social networking is working on native code for an Android-based version of the Facebook app.

While there, Zuckerberg gave his first post-IPO interview, where he was pressed about the Facebook phone that has been rumored lately. Michael Arrington was the man to interview the social networking giant's CEO, where he teased "I've been bugging you about Facebook phone for months, you say there's nothing, but I don't believe you".

Zuckerberg didn't seem surprised about the question, replying with:

The FAA has cleared iPads for takeoff, at least for use in the cockpit. The iPad will be used by pilots as part of their "electronic flight kit" and will replace paper manuals which currently weigh in at 35 pounds. Apple's tablet is the only one approved for use as the electronic flight kit and has now been approved for use in "all phases of flight."

The reduction in weight, which ends up being pretty sizable due to no longer carrying 35-pound flight manuals, will save American Airlines an estimated $1.2 million in fuel costs annually. That figure is based upon current fuel costs, which are only set to go up.

This is a very exciting and important milestone for all of us at American Airlines as we work to modernize our processes and best meet the needs of our people," said Captain John Hale, American's Vice President of Flight. "With this approval from the FAA, we will be able to use iPad to fully realize the benefits of our Electronic Flight Bag program, including improving the work environment for our pilots, reducing our dependency on paper products and increasing fuel efficiency on our planes. We are equipping our people with the best resources and this will allow our pilots to fly more efficiently."

The original $25 Raspberry Pi was a success, even though it had its fair share of manufacturing hiccups, but the Raspberry Pi Foundation have just announced revision 2.0 of the micro device. We're not looking at it featuring a new processor, or any massive changes, instead we're looking at smaller concerns from the first Raspberry Pi that the team received from the original device.

Revision 2.0 will sport changes to the GPIO pin out, which will add ARM JTAG support and to present a different I2C peripheral. Revision 2.0 also features a reset circuit which can be used by adding an appropriate header to P6. The Raspberry Pi team says that shorting P6 pin 1 to P6 pin 2 will cause the BCM2835M to reset. Resetable fuses that were used to protect the USB outputs on early revision 1.0 boards have been removed, and replaced with links.

Two GPIO pins have been interchanged, while the primary and secondary I2C channels have been reversed. Revision 2.0 has also seen the removal of four GPIO signals that were used for verification identification in revision 1.0, as they were said to be redundant. In their place, will be a new connector site, P5, which the foundation says is perfect for adding a third-party clock and audio codec board.

Amazon didn't just keep their high-end fans happy today with the announcement of the Kindle Fire HD range of tablets, or the 4G LTE-powered version, but the retail giant also announced some new lower-end tablets, too.

First up we have the revamped budget fourth-generation Kindle, which is priced at just $69. The revamped Kindle is the company's best-seller, and is now $10 cheaper, while sporting new fonts, crisper text, and 15% faster page turns. This model should ship next Friday, September 14.

Next up we have the new backlit Kindle Paperwhite, which will be priced at $119 for the Wi-Fi-only model, and $179 for the 3G-capable model. Amazon is proud to announce the Paperwhite sports patented technology that distributes light evenly across the Paperwhite's entire surface, just like ambient light. The Kindle Paperwhite measures in at just 9.1mm thick, weighs 7.5 ounces and sports an insane 8-week battery life. Amazon's Kindle Paperwhite will ship on October 1.

Amazon have unveiled two new tablets in the last couple of hours, dubbed the Kindle Fire HD. There'll be two sizes available, 7- and 8.9-inch. The 8.9-inch Kindle Fire HD will sport a 1920x1200 display with 254ppi.

It measures in at 8.8mm thickness, and weighs 20 ounces, the screen is also said to feature a polarizing feature that should reduce glare on the screen for those heavy Fifty Shades of Grey reading sessions. Inside the Fire HD 8.9, we're looking at a TI OMAP 4470 processor, dual speakers, front-facing HD camera and HDMI out.

Amazon is happy to brag that the Fire HD 8.9 is the first tablet to sport dual-band MIMO Wi-Fi technology, which the company says makes the slate's Wi-Fi 41% faster than the new iPad from Apple. The 16GB model Fire HD 8.9 will set you back $299, and will begin shipping on November 20.

We've seen Motorola unveil their Droid RAZR Maxx HD, and their edge-to-edge-sporting RAZR M, now we have the veil lifted on the Droid RAZR HD. Motorola's Droid RAZR HD sports a 4.7-inch HD display, a dual-core Qualcomm 1.5GHz Snapdragon S4 processor, and a 2,500mAh battery, of course, it also receives Android 4.1 Jelly Bean as its OS.

Motorola have built quite a large phone, while trying to keep it as slim as possible, as well as throwing a decently-sized battery in for good measure. Measuring in at just 8.4mm thick, 68mm across and 132mm tall, you'd forget there's a 4.7-inch screen sitting in front of your face. Motorola's Droid RAZR HD also features Kevlar coating which should keep it safe from most things, maybe except a bullet.

We get a micro-HDMI port, as well as micro USB and the usual 3.5mm headphone jack. Motorola are claiming that we should expect 10 hours of movie or TV show playback, and 6 hours of surfing the web. Because of its HD screen and 4.7-inch size, Moto claim that it sports the "same sharp clarity as your HDTV". Moto also claim that the RAZR HD will come with 24 hours of battery performance.

For the past couple of weeks I've been trying to get my hands on ASUS' Jelly Bean-powered Nexus 7 tablet, but to no avail. ASUS could hook me up with one, but it would be a review unit meaning it was tested and used by someone else, but I wanted a fresh one.

So, I ended up buying one personally, and here we are today. It arrived fresh in its box, and we've done an unboxing video, shown above. I go over a few things in the video, but I've used it for an hour or so since the video, and boy, is it a great tablet.

The first thing I noticed is that it really is a pure Google experience. This is what sets any Android-powered tablet apart from Apple's iPad. When you turn an iPad on, it's an iPad, from Apple, that's it. A pure iOS/Apple experience. When you turn on the usual Android tablet, it's an Android tablet from someone like Samsung or ASUS, powered by Google's Android OS, with some of Samsung or ASUS' UI splashed on top.

Samsung's flagship Galaxy S III has kicked Apple's iPhone 4S off of the throne in the US, where it has reached the #1 position as the top-selling US smartphone in August, according to Canaccord Genuity analyst T. Michael Walkley.

The iPhone 4S, until now, had held the position since it launched in October, and if it had continued to have held onto its #1 position, it would've just cemented the iPhone's power in the smartphone market. Walkley says:

As previous reports have stated, the slump in iPhone 4S sales is being attributed to customers waiting on the announcement of the new iPhone which is expected to be unveiled at Apple's event next week. iPhone sales may have weakened, but Samsung Galaxy S III sales have been quite strong, and this will all most likely change once the new iPhone is announced.

Samsung's Galaxy S III is looking to get some 4G LTE action in Australia, with Australian telcos Telstra and Optus networks inking a deal which will see them sell the quad-core version of the S III with 4G LTE capabilities in Australia.

Another big, big bonus is that the new phone will sport the Android 4.1 Jelly Bean as its OS. The US has the 4G version of the S III, but its powered by Qualcomm's dual-core S4 processor and ships with Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich, so Australian's will have a very nice bonus in their hands.

Optus' customers will get their hands on the 4G-capable Galaxy S III first, where it will launch in the middle of this month. Telstra customers will have to wait until mid-to-late October to get their hands on one. Optus' variant supports LTE FDD 800, 1800 and 2600MHz spectrum's providing a theoretical maximum download speed of 100Mbps, it can also default to a 3G network at HSPA+ speeds of up to 42Mbps.

One of the things that the Nexus 7 didn't have going for it, was that it didn't sport Internet capabilities when not near a wireless network. But, for $199, can you really complain that the Nexus 7 lacked 3G? No.

Rumor now has it that ASUS are set to launch a 3G-capable Nexus 7 tablet, and it could launch just 6 weeks from now. Adding 3G to the tablet might bump the price up, but by how much? $30? $50?

How much would you be willing to pay for a 3G-enabled Nexus 7? If it were 4G-enabled, I might have picked one up and thrown a pre-paid 4G SIM inside, now that would be sweet.

A complete list of specifications for Samsung's upcoming well-named Galaxy Victory have leaked out. The new phone looks to be a mid-range device, but doesn't lack too many of the higher-end features or specs.

Samsung's Galaxy Victory sports a 4-inch 800x480-pixel screen, dual-core 1.2GHz CPU from Qualcomm, 4G LTE support, 5-megapixel rear-facing camera, 1.3-megapixel front facer, and Google's Android 4.0.4 Ice Cream Sandwich OS, with Samsung's TouchWiz UI thrown on top.

A full list of specs:

We've been hearing rumors of the iPad mini, which is destined to be a 7.85-inch iPad, down from it's bigger brother which sports a 10.1-inch screen. News comes from Instapaper developer, Marco Arment, who has discovered two new iPad device codes in his logs, which he believes point to the fact of an iPad mini.

The new identifiers arrive as "iPad2,5" and "iPad2,6". Arment notes that the iPad2,1 through to the iPad2,3 identifiers are known to link up to the iPad 2's WiFi, GSM and CDMA variants. The iPad2,4 was the die-shrunk, slightly cheaper version of the iPad 2 that was released with the third-generation 'new iPad'. The Retina-powered iPad has the designation of iPad3,x.

iPad2,5 and iPad2,6 have not been seen before, and line up with rumors of the iPad mini being released shortly:

We've seen a bunch of Windows 8-based devices announced and shown off this week thanks to the IFA event being held in Berlin right now, and Dell have just joined the ranks with a very cool looking, but different Windows 8-based convertible notebook.

The new product from Dell brings back the Duo brand, which should excite some people. It sports a netbook design that allows the display to flip vertically 180 degrees inside the frame of the display itself. I'm not sure how many times you'd be able to do this without it breaking (or at least feeling like it's going to break) but it is a seriously cool looking convertible notebook. Dell is making this outing of the Duo brand a premium device, sporting a machined aluminum carbon fiber design, as well as featuring Corning's Gorilla Glass. Welcome to the Dell XPS Duo 12.

Let's talk specs, Dell's XPS Duo 12 sports a 12-inch, 1920x1080 10-point multitouch display with edge-to-edge glass, Intel's Ivy Bridge-based Core i5 or i7 processors, 256GB of SSD storage, USB 3.0 ports, and a miniDisplayPort connector. All of this weighs in at less than three pounds, and finally, we have the OS, Microsoft's Windows 8.

It seems as though no company can keep a secret anymore. Samsung has just suffered a leak, albeit only a few hours prior the official announcement. But, be that as it may, we are going to share with you the official specifications of the Samsung Galaxy Note II, thanks to PocketNow who obtained the press release.

As rumored, and previously thought, the new Samsung Galaxy Note II will feature a 5.5-inch 1280x720 screen, which means it will have a true 16:9 aspect ratio. The screen will be similar to the original, both in resolution and in type--the new one is the same HD Super AMOLED panel. Along with the bigger screen, the Galaxy Note II will receive a 1.6GHz quad-core CPU (type unknown at this time).

It will also feature 2GB of RAM, an 8 MP camera on the rear, and a 1.9 MP camera on the front. Better yet, the new Note II will feature a battery that has more capacity than the original--3,100mAh vs 2,500mAh--while the device will be slimmer. However, the device ends up weighing 2 grams more than the original, big deal.

As we reported previously, it appeared that Samsung was preparing a Samsung S III in black. We found this out thanks to leaked pictures, and now we know that we had just scratched the surface. Samsung has said the color availability will vary by carrier and region, though they haven't said which colors are going where.

The Samsung PR machine had a bit of fun writing this press release, I'm sure. Take a look:

Now, if we cut though the marketing speak, we see that the Samsung Galaxy S III is now available in brown, black, grey, and red. This adds to the already available choices, white and blue.

We've reported on LG's mysterious 'superphone' twice now, but it looks like the phone has been officially outed by LG. We'd like to introduce LG's Optimus G, and with it, LG are looking Samsung right in the eye and going for their jugular.

LG's Optimus G lands in Korea next month, and will be the first LTE-powered, quad-core CPU phone on the market. The exact chip is Qualcomm's Snapdragon S4 Pro APQ8064, which is a 1.5GHz quad-core beast of a chip, but that's not the best bit. Optimus G sports LG's fully integrated touch technology, "in-cell", providing a thinner screen, and bezel.

It's a True HD, 1280x768, IPS LCD and LG are claiming that when the smartphone is turned off, the 3mm bezel and body of the phone match the screen - very, very nice. Optimus G also bakes in 2GB of RAM, a 13-megapixel rear snapper, 1.3-megapixel front facer, and a 2,100mAh battery, all housed in a phone that is just 8mm thick. One of the downfalls, is that the Optimus G will only launch with Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich, and not the freshly-baked Android 4.1 Jelly Bean. Sob.

I'm not all that excited for Windows 8 on desktop, but mobile devices like tablets and hybrid beasts are going to be amazing with Microsoft's upcoming operating system. Sony has made the news today with PocketNow reporting of their upcoming VAIO Duo 11.

Sony's VAIO Duo 11 looks to be an 11-inch device, thanks to the '11' in its name, and the 'Duo' parts seems to point toward the fact that its a convertible tablet. More details on the device aren't available right now, but it looks like the convertible tablet also sports the ability to use a stylus pen.

This means we should be able to use the Sony tablet as a normal tablet with our fingers, and when we want to do some handwriting, we can whip out the stylus pen and go all Picasso on the VAIO Duo 11. The keyboard looks to be backlit, which is another bonus. The keyboard is not detachable, and I think this is a great idea. These hybrid devices should sport a thin, but attached, keyboard. Typing on a tablet feels ridiculous, and if you can type relatively fast, you'll respect Sony's decision to include an attached keyboard.

We already know that the new LG phone "really flies", but what else will the new superphone contain? Well, it will be the first to bake in Qualcomm's new APQ8064 processor, and it will also be the first to sport LG Display's new True HD IPS+.

LG have said that the 'G' (no Optimus, unlike how we reported yesterday) will sport a 4.7-inch 1280x768 LCD that will be capable of pushing an all-white screen at 470 nits of brightness, all while using 70% less power than AMOLED. LG's new display, unlike most AMOLED-based displays on the market, will have an ordinary RGB stripe instead of the RGBG PenTile pixel arrangement.

LG have also said that the new screen technology will get baked into the company's Optimus Vu 2, too. LG's new superphone will also be the first to sport a new laminated touchscreen, the G2 Touch Hybrid Display. LG have said that the "unibody" design has allowed them to cut 30% off of the screen's thickness.

In order to get the Raspberry Pi's pricing down to a low point, there had to be some cuts made to its abilities. First of which, was the cull of MPEG-2 decoding. MPEG-2 licensing fees would've increased the Raspberry Pi's pricing by at least 10%.

But, it looks like the foundation has found a way around this, and for just $3.16, users can purchase an individual MPEG-2 license for each of their boards through the organizations' online store. The same goes for Microsoft's VC-1 standard, which can be purchased for $1.58.

H.264 encoding isn't left out, with OpenMax components needed to develop applications with H.264 functionality, and are now enabled from the latest firmware. With CEC tagging along for the ride, we're also looking at XBian and OpenELEC operating systems that can use a single IR remote to control a Raspberry Pi, a TV and other connected goods.