Mobile Devices, Tablets & Phones News - Page 291

LG have begun their 2013 smartphone campaign by announcing that their Optimus G handset will launch in 50 new countries. The Optimus G is currently available to people in the US, Canada, Korea and Japan, and has been for many months now.

It will first land in Singapore, then start floating over to other countries in the weeks following. This model of the Optimus G will sport LTE connectivity in any country that includes LTE. LG is pushing the fact that their LTE technology and knowledge is great, and hopes that the impact of launching the same device with the fastest network capabilities will be huge. The Optimus G will include Jelly Bean out of the box, with LG stating it will be running "the latest Jelly Bean OS and improved software".

Now let's get onto the serious talk - why? Why now LG? The also LG-made Nexus 4 is a phenomenal device, sporting virtually identical specs to the Optimus G sans LTE capabilities. I don't see how LG are going to make any impact with the Optimus G, as most retailers and telcos are going to be selling this at the usual pricing. Considering you can get a Nexus 4 for under $300... LG will have to make the Optimus G seriously cheap if they want it to be popular.

Google's Nexus 7 has topped the sales charts in Japan over the recent holiday season, effectively knocking the iPad out of the number one spot.

Nikkei market research firm BCN in reporting from a survey of 2,400 stores in Japan that Google's 7-inch tablet accounted for 44.4% of all tablet sales in the country. Sales of Apple tablets, including the iPad Mini, only made up 40.1% of tablet sales over the same time period. It is however, unclear if Apple stores were included in the survey.

Google's plan of offering a smaller, yet still very capable tablet is working better than expected. In Japan the Nexus 7 costs around 19,000 yen ($212 USD, while the iPad and iPad mini cost 42,000 yen ($470) and 28,800 yen ($322 USD) respectively. Market research firm IDC estimates a total of 3.6 million tablets were sold in Japan during 2012.

The iPhone remains the number one desired device in the United States, with half of American's planning to buy a new device in the next 90 days planning on getting an iPhone. That's down from 71 percent in September 2012, while Samsung's numbers have jumped from 13 percent to 21 percent, respectively.

More interestingly, 71 percent of iOS customers say they are "Very Satisfied," while only 53 percent of Windows Phone customers say they are. However, both groups are ahead of Android, which only sees 48 percent very satisfied. RIM lags behind with only 26 percent of its base being very satisfied.

Because of this, Windows Phone could very well see some great growth in the coming year, as long as those satisfied customers are getting the word out. The data above comes from 451 Research. They surveyed 4,061 people, with 88 percent of those being US-based.

Jeffries analyst Peter Misek has released another research report, which continues to assert that the iPhone 5S will be coming June or July. New to the report is the assertion that mass production of the next iPhone will begin in March. If this is the case, I would expect to start seeing leaks soon, and definitely by March, as long as Apple continues to be as leaky as they have been in the past.

Our checks indicate that preliminary builds for the iPhone 5S will start in March for a launch in June/July. As word of the earlier production schedule starts to spread, we believe we could see a slight slowing of demand CQ1 in anticipation of the new product launch and Apple will likely start curtailing channel inventory.

Along with rumors and predictions for the iPhone 5S, Misek provides some insight into the possibility of a cheaper iPhone:

Mark down yet another rumor for the Galaxy S IV, though this one has a bit more weight behind it. Anandtech, while in the demo room of Samsung's booth at CES, saw the following, seen in the picture below, which has caused a bit of a stir regarding the upcoming Samsung Galaxy S IV:

The roadmap pictured above has several clues that point to this screen being the one present in the Samsung Galaxy S IV. For instance, the release timeframe is that which has been rumored by several other sites. The other screens line up nicely with releases of other devices, as well.

The likely screen to be in the next Galaxy S device should be a 4.99-inch, 440PPI full HD screen. Of course, like all rumors, take this with a grain of salt.

Two recent Research in Motion events has resulted in more than 15,000 apps being ported to the BlackBerry 10 mobile operating system according to RIM's vice president of developer relations Alec Saunders. The so called Port-A-Thons have been a huge success in helping jump starting RIM's app offerings.

Both the Android Port-A-Thon and Community Port-A-Thon were designed to entice developers to port their popular apps over to RIM's upcoming BlackBerry 10 OS for cash and prize incentives. In what has to be some sort of record, the events topped out at their goal within a mere 38 hours.

The events ran from January 11th to January 13th, and offered developers $100 for every app ported, with a maximum of 20 apps set per vendor. Vendors who submitted five or more apps were entered into a drawing for 1 of 100 BB10 Dev Alpha devices. Research in Motion CEO Thorsten Heins has promised that BlackBerry 10 will launch with at least 70,000 apps, which actually does not seem like such a far off goal now.

CES 2013 - Lenovo's new K900, just announced today, is the company's new flagship device and will be coming to China in April, and subsequently to other markets. It features a 5.5-inch IPS panel pumping out full HD resolution and is powered by an Intel Atom processor.

"With the K900, our team has broken down the key functions of the smartphone and redesigned them from the ground up," said Liu Jun, president, Mobile Internet Digital Home, and senior vice president, Lenovo. "Rather than focus on specifications that look good on a datasheet, we've zeroed in on what consumers want and proved that for smartphone users, top performance doesn't require a thick profile. The K900 is a game-changer that looks as good as it performs."

The thing weighs in at 162 grams, or 5.7 ounces, and stacks up at a mere 6.9mm. The camera is a 13MP Sony Exmor BSI sensor on the rear. Pricing for the device will be announced closer to the April launch. Alongside of this, Lenovo has announced its entire smartphone portfolio:

CES 2013 - Panasonic have used the Consumer Electronics Show over in Las Vegas to announce that they're expanding their Toughpad range of tablets. If you're not familiar with the Panasonic Toughpad range of tablets, they're the enterprise-grade tablets from Panasonic - the expansion includes the Toughpad FZ-G1 which is a 10-inch tablet rocking Windows 8 Pro, and the second in line is the Toughpad JT-B1, which is an Android-based 7-inch tablet. Both tablets are available now.

The Windows 8-based Toughpad FZ-G1 has some impressive specs:

Up next, we have the detailed specifications on the Android-based 7-inch slate, the Toughpad JT-B1:

CES 2013 - Gigabyte had a suite full of notebooks and tablets and the really cool one out of the group was the S1185. This tablet features a full 17 watt Core i5 processor, combined with a full HD IPS display. It comes with a smattering of ports and around five hours of battery life.

The really cool and unique feature that I haven't seen on any other tablets is the inclusion of a mouse-like touch sensor that works much the same way as the nubs in the middle of the keyboard. It also features two mouse buttons on the other side to allow for a nearly full mouse experience while not using the keyboard dock.

Speaking of the keyboard dock, the tablet has a dock that features both a keyboard and a touchpad, in case you need that precision that only comes from using a mouse. Really, the system is nearly a convertible notebook more than a tablet, though it will be just a tablet if that's what you want.

CES 2013 - Acer have confirmed the rumors that they were working on a 7-inch tablet that would be priced at around $99 - but it won't quite reach that sub-$100 price point unfortunately.

The tablet in question is the unreleased 7-inch Acer Iconia B1-A71, which will debut at "less than $150". We should expect a $149.99 price tag, which would make sense, as it's still "under $150". It will sport Android Jelly Bean as its mobile OS and the company describers the tablet as "the most premium experience at its price point".

Acer have confirmed some of the rumored specifications - and it does not look too bad at all - I'm loving the idea of microSD expansion for a sub-$150 tablet, nice work Acer!