Mobile Devices - Page 173

ZTE have come out in the last couple of hours with a huge tease, the company used Twitter to catapult the tease, where they've said to expect "one of the most advanced gaming smartphones", where they add it will be in customers hands in just six days time.

Without much information, it's hard to guess what ZTE are going to release. A totally new smartphone, a new gaming-dedicated smartphone? Something else entirely? During Mobile World Congress earlier this year, ZTE did talk about a Tegra 3-powered device.

Since then, this device hasn't been talked about. Maybe we're to expect a new Tegra 3-powered device from ZTE targeted toward gaming? What could ZTE do to really claim that 'advanced gaming smartphone' name?

KitGuru didn't have to go to a bar and find this one for the scoop, but they've got their seductive powers switched on and some world exclusive photos of the next-generation iPhone. KitGuru say that this iPhone is a pre-release test sample, so it should be a little different when it hits.

The new iPhone doesn't look too different to the previous iPhone 4 and 4S, but it does sport a larger screen. One will wonder if this is an influence of Samsung, as they are big fans of the larger screen, while Apple have been stuck on the 3.5-inch screen for every single variant of the iPhone.

There's a plethora of pictures, if you'd like to check them all out, and here's one of the new dock connector. It's much smaller than the current iPhone dock connector, which means you'll need to replace all of your cables over time, I've got a feeling Apple will use this on all future iOS-based devices.

Imagine your brand new, shiny, fast Samsung Galaxy S III experiencing screen burn-in. Yes, it has happened to others, and Samsung seem to be unwilling to take responsibility for warranty replacements for the Galaxy S III smartphone and its (sometimes) premature screen burn-in.

Samsung opted to use the popular AMOLED screen in the S III, and it is often susceptible to burn-in, or permanent discoloration of particular areas of the screen itself. What causes burn-in? It can be from the combination of inconsistency in the materials used to make the screen (in this case, AMOLED), and the same image being shown on the screen for a long period of time.

Considering icons, widgets, and more stay on the screen more-or-less permanently, unless you move them, this can be a problem. In the past week or so, Korean bloggers and community members have been debating Samsung's recent denial of problems with the new AMOLED screens. In the product manual for the S III, Samsung warns their users by stating "Do not operating your device with a paused screen for a long time".

While Google and ASUS' Nexus 7 tablet will retail in the U.S. for $199, and the companies saying they're selling it for a little over cost, a teardown by IHS iSuppli has shown that the Nexus 7's total build cost is $151.75 for the 8GB model.

The 16GB Nexus 7 costs $159.25 to make, and the BOM (bill of materials) is a little lower than previous estimates, pegging the Nexus 7 at around $184, seeing the companies make around $15 per tablet sold. Where the interesting part comes in, is that the 8GB is $199 retail, and the 16GB is $249 retail. Considering there's only $7.50 worth of difference in build prices, a $42.50 profit for the 16GB is not bad at all.

But, this is no different to other products and companies doing the same thing. It is known in the industry to make money from selling memory, storage and other options at disproportionate premiums. Considering the Nexus 7 is powered by NVIDIA's Tegra 3 SoC, it's a great alternative for $199 (or $249).

As we get closer and closer to the next-gen iPhone launch, we see more and more pictures and details of the device. This time Gotta Be Mobile have posted a few pictures of what they're calling an "engineering sample" of the next-gen iPhone.

It's not clear what the sample itself represents, it just looks like a solid chunk of metal machined into the form of what would be the upcoming iPhone. If the picture and device are real, this would support previous information showing a large central section on the back plate that differs from the top and bottom portions of the rear casing.

Measurements also seem to be in line with previous information, where the next-gen iPhone looks to be the same width as the iPhone 4S (5.86cm) and a little taller (just over 12cm, versus 11.52cm of the 4S), this is to accomodate the larger display on the next-gen iPhone.

Before the sure-fire-hit $199 tablet from Google and ASUS hits, the Nexus 7, the tablet has been overclocked, flashed with a custom ROM, rooted and replaced with a full tablet user interface (UI). 'FadedLite', a member of the XDA-developers forum posted some instructions on how to do the rooting.

But, it seems that rooting the Nexus 7 isn't as easy as previous smart devices, as the Nexus 7 features a locked bootloader. We all know that things like this can usually be overcome, with experienced developers trying their hand on the Nexus 7, provided they have sdk, can use adb as well as fastboot, and have debugging on the Nexus 7. They'd also need to download Su and CWM.

Overclocking on the Nexus 7 is impressive already, ramping up to 1.5GHz thanks to a kernel build from zaventh. The kernel does sport other features such as voltage tweaks, and support for init.d. The kernel is insecure, which is to be expected in its early days. User 'jcarrz1' offers an "enhanced" Android Jelly Bean experience with a custom ROM. This custom ROM sports init.d support, Zip alignment, a host file that blocks ads, the Aroma installer, Busybox, the Nexus 7 boot animation, an uncluttered appearance, the removal of some unnecessary apps, and enhanced speed.

It seems as though LG wants to claw their way back up that smartphone winning mountain, with their first quad-core smartphone arriving in the form of the Optimus 4X LTE this month, but there is a follow-up coming soon that should also impress. This device is said to have a camera that beats the Optimus' 8-megapixel rear-snapper.

A report from The Chosunilbo says that LG Electronics chairman Koo Bon-moo has direct input into the planning and development of the as-yet-unnamed device, which is due to his dissatisfaction that the mobile-making division of LG has not taken full advantage of technology produced by fellow LG subsidiaries.

What makes Bon-moo's blood boil is that parts from LG Display, LG Chem and LG Innotek are featured by numerous LG competitors, including Apple, but last year, the LG Electronics chief said to have pointed out that LG is not "making enough" of the technology. Recent smartphone industry data from Strategy Analytics revealed that LG hold just 3.7-percent of the industry-wide shipments, with Samsung taking 30.6-percent, and Apple with 24.1-percent.

With Microsoft making the decision to make their own hardware may have upset other OEMs, Samsung are still going full steam ahead on releasing a smart device based on Windows RT and it will be released in October.

The Windows RT-based tablet from Samsung will sport an ARM-based processor, and has now opened up a new avenue of business for the company, since they're now supporting Windows 8 and Windows RT-based devices. The move is sure to help Samsung have more devices on offer, with multiple OSs to choose from, to combat their main competitor, Apple.

Windows RT is set to become the first mainstream OS from Microsoft built for touch-screen devices that works on energy-efficient chips that are usually bound for smartphones. Most traditional desktop and notebook PCs run x86-based processors.

Amazon's first-generation Kindle Fire started off with a bang, but sales of the tablet are dropping off, which means we're headed toward next-generation territory. Sources close to AllThingsD have said that Amazon are looking to unleash the next-gen Kindle Fire in Q3, and are talking to developers about hardware already.

The next-gen Fire is meant to be both thinner and lighter than the original Fire, sporting a built-in camera and much-improved display. Developers have also been told to build their apps for a display with a 1280x800 pixel display, different to the 1024x600 display of the current Fire.

This makes the next Kindle Fire's screen to look better, as well as featuring a new aspect ratio, meaning the display has an entirely new width-to-height ratio. DisplayMate President Raymond Soneira told AllThingsD:

Motorola have just outed their next Atrix phone, known as the Atrix HD. The listed specs show the Atrix HD will sport a 4.5-inch HD Colorboost display with a resolution of 1,280x720, a 1.5GHz dual-core CPU, Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich, and the swish look of the Droid RAZR.

Filling out the sepc we find a 1,780 mAh battery, 8-megapixel rear-facing camera, 1GB of RAM, 8GB of internal storage, and measures in at just 8.4mm thick. Motorola make it "business ready" as the Atrix HD features Gorilla Glass and Kevlar fused together, so it should be tough as nails.

There's no news on when the Atrix HD will hit stores, but if you want to find out more about it and sign up for updates, check out this link.

The rumor of an iPad mini from Apple have been around for quite a while now, even as far back as October last year. We've reported on them many times, and it is the perfect path for Apple to take to combat the impending Google Nexus 7 tablet, as well as the Amazon Kindle Fire, and upcoming next-gen Fire.

The latest reports are coming in from the Wall Street Journal, and Bloomberg, both claiming anonymous sources with "knowledge of the plans" confirming a screen between 7- and 8-inch in diameter, and the component suppliers in Asia are preparing for a mass production of this new product in September.

The WSJ reports that screen suppliers will be LG Display and AU Optronics, with a rumor yesterday stating that Sharp would be supplying IGZO (indium gallium zinc oxide) displays, measuring at 7.85-inches, which would give a better image on a thinner screen, with a potential pixel density of 330 ppi. One of the most interesting bits of this new information is the speculation that Apple may choose not to use the iPad name, in order for the company to avoid flack for contravening to late co-founder Steve Jobs' assertions that 7-inch devices are "tweeners - too big to compete with a smartphone, and too small to compete with the iPad".

Research in Motion may have hurt BlackBerry lovers last week, announcing the delay of the BlackBerry 10 OS until 2013, but between now and then, there's sure to be tonnes of news to keep us happy. A leaked hardware roadmap has been leaked, and gives us a good idea of what to expect from BlackBerry 10-based devices in 2013.

But, before 2013, we should see a release of the BlackBerry PlayBook 4G which should be launched in Q4 of this year, perfect timing for the holiday season. This device does pre-date the BB 10 launch, so there shouldn't be much to do hardware-wise with the PlayBook 4G.

Q1 2013 is where the fun begins for RIM, with the launch of BB10 and the first full-touchscreen BlackBerry device, which is the BlackBerry London/L-series device. After the London/L-series device launches, we should see the BlackBerry Nevada/N-series, sporting a full QWERTY pad.

Google's $199 Nexus 7 tablet is barely even available and the team at iFixit have torn one apart and looked around inside the tablet. Nexus 7 is just a millimeter thicker than Apple's iPad, but that 1mm can make a huge difference when it comes to repairability according to iFixit, who gave the Nexus 7 a score of 7 out of 10.

To compare this against other popular tablets, Apple's iPad scores a repairability score of two out of 10, Amazon's Kindle Fire scores an eight, and Barnes & Noble's Nook Tablet takes home a six out of ten. iFixit said in their report:

We saw that Google's Nexus 7 tablet was unveiled yesterday, where we found out ASUS was the hardware partner in the deal. But ASUS' chairman, Jonney Shih, along with Google's head of Android, Andy Rubin, have revealed at the $199 Nexus 7 tablet is sold at cost.

They also revealed that the Nexus 7 was designed and manufactured in just four months, Shih says to AllThingsD "our engineers told me it is like torture". ASUS was told that they needed to get the Nexus tablet ready in just four months, it had to be high-end, and should not cost over $200.

Shih also said that his team learnt a lot from working so closely with Google's engineers, and in order to get it ready in four months, Shih sent people to work at various locations, including Silicon Valley. This put his workers closer to Google, and also allowed his engineering team to have a 24-hour development cycle.

Google unveiled Android 4.1 "Jelly Bean" at their Google I/O conference yesterday, and now news that Samsung had prepared ahead for their flagship GALAXY S III smartphone is floating onto the surface of the Internet.

The Verge has heard that Samsung baked extra RAM into the S III specifically to make sure that it would be capable of handling Google's latest mobile OS. By making this move, Samsung hoped to "future-proof" the smartphone, and to ensure that it would remain comparably fast and powerful no matter what shifts occurred in the OS landscape.

At the time of design and manufacturing, the final specifications for Android 4.1 weren't set in stone. So, in order to be "100-percent sure" that the GALAXY S III would be capable of handling Google's next-gen OS, Samsung's engineers bumped the S III's internal RAM to 2GB.

Google I/O 2012: Google didn't just talk software, or Google Glass, the company also revealed a new media streaming device dubbed Nexus Q. Google describes this product as the first social streaming media player, and is uniquely shaped like an orb and is able to stream music.

Nexus Q is controlled by your Android-powered device be it smartphone or tablet, but content is yanked directly from the cloud. Google thinks music is best enjoyed with friends, so in order to differentiate themselves from similar products on the market, Google infused Nexus Q with social capabilities. Google describes it as a cloud-connected jukebox, where everyone brings their own music to the party.

The social side of Nexus Q allows friends to create a single playlist that everyone has access to. Anyone in that group can move songs up or down on the queue, or even play a new track instantly before the previous tune has finished. Hardware-wise, we're looking at Nexus Q sporting a dual-core OMAP4460 processor, Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich and 16GB of onboard storage.

9to5Mac have done some digging through the previously-obtained hardware code dump for Apple's next-gen iPhone prototypes and have discovered a very juicy detail in the code that references hardware components supporting near field communication (NFC) capabilities:

Apple haven't talked about NFC much, even at their Worldwide Developers Conference earlier in the month, but they did announce Passbook, a new digital wallet app that suggests the company is moving toward NFC services. Passbook is a time- and location-aware app that stores digital tickets, coupons, loyalty cards, and more:

It only takes one incident, but that one incident is bad enough, so Samsung are investigating the case of the GALAXY S III that exploded in a user's car, with fears over a potential overheating problem. The user was baed in Dublin, Ireland, where he was driving and noticed a white flame and sparks coming from the S III before it exploded on the dashboard of his car.

The user posted on popular Irish forum Boards.ie, where he said:

Looking through the specifications sheet for the upcoming Microsoft Surface tablet that runs the ARM processor reveals some interesting information. One, Microsoft has no quoted battery life specification and also never gave one during the presentation. And two, the specs say how many watt-hours the battery holds.

"They didn't talk about battery life, which is very important to decisions about [which] tablet to buy," said Michael Cherry of Directions on Microsoft. Gregg Keizer at ComputerWorld points out that Surface RT battery is rated at 31.4Wh which is not tiny, but is about 25% smaller than that of Apple's 42.5Wh rated battery.

At the same time however, if one looks at the iPad 2, they will find a 25Wh battery which provides 12.5 hours of battery life. The longer battery life is due to a lower resolution screen. Currently there are too many variables to produce an accurate prediction, but an early guess places the battery life at the same or worse.

DISCLAIMER: Even though the source of this story is claiming they independently verified it with three different manufacturers, it still has to do with Apple and therefore will be presented as a rumor until an official announcement by Apple is made. With that out of the way, let's move onto the details.

TechCrunch is reporting that the iPhone 5 will ditch the old 30-pin connector that has been the standard since its introduction on the third-gen iPod. Instead, the iPhone 5 is reportedly going to feature a smaller, 19-pin connector that looks similar to a Thunderbolt port. It will, however, have a different pin-out.

It's pretty obvious that Apple is more concerned now with saving space inside their mobile devices. Take a look at MagSafe 2 and this new rumored dock connector and you can see that. This new dock connector could force redesigns of accessories as it will no longer provide as much structural stability as the previous one.