Mobile Devices, Tablets & Phones News - Page 297

The Apple iPhone alone at the top of the customer satisfaction survey. It was the only smartphone to receive a five Power Circle rating from J.D. Power in its two recent reports. Both reports measured satisfaction with devices used for less than a year. In the smartphone category, Apple received a rating of 840 out of 1,000 points, whereas HTC, received four circles and a rating of 793. Samsung and Motorola took third and fourth places, each with three circles and ratings of 789 and 758, respectively.

Quite obviously, the biggest factor impacting customer satisfaction was, according to J.D. Power's reports, battery life. Customers found battery life to be the least satisfying aspect of smartphones. Kirk Parsons, senior director of wireless services at J.D. Power wrote a March 15 statement:

Both carriers and manufacturers recognize the fact that battery life needs to be improved. However, the study uncovers the need for a greater sense of urgency - short battery life can result in perceived phone problems, higher rates of merchandise returns and customer defections.

You read the title right! The FBI has been reduced to asking Google for help in cracking a confiscated Android phone's password. The phone was confiscated from accused pimp Dante Dears just a few months after his release from prison. He is accused of quote "telephone pimping" to get around his GPS/electronic monitor. Dante Dears went to prison in 2005 for being one of the founding members of the prostitution ring "Pimpin' Hoes Daily." This is one of the first times that former federal prosecutor Jon Kirby has heard of law enforcement not being able to crack any sort of password code.

Dears is accused of moving into an apartment and, shortly after, returning to pimping, using his cell phone to call the shots while avoiding strict supervision. For obvious reasons, Dears isn't cooperating with the feds and with them unable to crack the code, they've had to acquire a search warrant to compel Google to turn over his information.

A Google spokesperson stated they comply with valid, legal processes.

Apple's latest third-generation iPad is now here, folks, I have one on the desk next to me, but I have a tonne of news to deliver to you loving readers, who are more important than that little thing.

We all know it has hit, and Australia was first, because well, you know, we rock. Anyway, we had midnight launches in some states with some telcos like Telstra opening their doors (and arms and tills) at midnight. This is a full eight hours before Apple opened their retail doors, so some people were greeted with iPads very early today.

It has been reported that there were "snaked" queues, but I'm based in South Australia and had no problems. I called Big W, JB Hi-Fi and a few of their local retailers, and all of them had stock. My local JB's had all 6 flavors of the iPad in stock, and I drove down and picked two of the iPads up without any problems.

Apple's third-generation tablet, the new iPad, is getting some seriously glowing reviews. A few big tech sites have gotten their hands on the Retina Display-sporting iPad and have given it the once over, with some pretty powerful quotes below:

The Verge:

Yes, this display is outrageous. It's stunning. It's incredible. I'm not being hyperbolic or exaggerative when I say it is easily the most beautiful computer display I have ever looked at. Perhaps it has something to do with the fact that you hold this in your hands, or maybe it's the technology that Apple is utilizing, or maybe it's the responsiveness of iOS - but there's something almost bizarre about how good this screen is. After the launch event, I described the screen as "surreal," and I still think that's a pretty good fit.

Apple's new iPad is all that is really talked about these days, I personally think that an alien ship could land tomorrow in the middle of the White House lawn, or an earth-splitting 10-magnitude earthquake could happen on March 21/22 and it just wouldn't matter: because the new iPad is here.

After that's all said and done, one of the first video unboxings of the new iPad is here, where some folks over in Vietnam have claimed they have their hands on their retail version of the new iPad and have video evidence to prove so. The video above is your proof, and it looks great.

Not much can be understood, as I only speak English, but I have eyes and my eyes were greeted with the new iPad, and that's all I have to see. The video is just a tease of the flood of reviews, unboxings, and thoughts on the new iPad over the next week or so.

Apple announced the new iPad just last week, and people haven't been able to drag their jaws from the floor yet. Once they did, they began the feverish clicking of their mice or tapping of their fingers to pre-order the latest and greatest tablet from Apple.

The original release was slated for March 16th, but Apple have experienced (in the words of Obama, as he uses the word about 3 times every second) unprecedented demand for the iPad 3, and have been forced to now push back delivery times for online buyers. Originally, those who pre-ordered were to expect delivery of their brand new 2048x1536-sporting iPad on launch day, as Apple had set aside stock for pre-order customers.

But they have sold out of this pre-order stock, as demand is "off the charts" according to an Apple spokesperson. For those who ordered online and are based in the US, you'll have to wait until March 19th for delivery, with a two device limit on orders. The lucky people who pre-ordered before stock ran out will receive them on launch day.

The $25 wonderchild that is the Raspberry Pi has been delayed, reportedly due to a manufacturing problem. The company behind the Raspberry Pi have posted on their website saying that they're found a problem in their networking hardware.

The first batch of Raspberry Pi devices have been delayed, with the company citing a hardware parts substitution that was made in the factory by accident. What exactly happened was that the specific jacks with integrated magnetics in the BOM and schematics, the factory had actually soldered in non-magnetic jacks.

Without the magnetics, it means no network connection. They've known about this for a few days now, and haven't been able to say anything about it until they had done proper testing, which they have done now and should start shipping the fixed parts within the next week or two.

If the current estimated BOM (bill of materials) from UBM TechInsights is anything to go by, we're looking at Apple cutting their profit margins ever-so-slightly for the new iPad when compared to the previous two models.

UBM TechInsights estimate shows a BOM of $310 for the new iPad - the 4G LTE 16GB model. The retail pricing on this model is $629, which gives Apple a very nice margin of 51-percent. Compared to previous models, this is down 6-percent or so.

The firm does note that a proper teardown is required to get their numbers more refined, but preliminary estimates typically match more accurate teardowns to within just a few dollars. More precise number should be available by the end of the week when the new iPad ships.

Corsair have just released a new range of SSD series today, the Accelerator. The drive is aimed for caching purposes, and even comes bundled with NVELO's DataPlex caching software. Corsair had shown off the Accelerator series at CES 2012, but the drive has not been made available until today.

The Corsair Accelerator series is available in three sizes: 30, 45 and 60GB. The drive doesn't need to be super-large, as its only used as a cache drive, so it only stores the most frequently accessed data. Caching is aimed toward average users as utilizing two separate drives can be a bit hard for the novice user, whereas advanced users want total control over their data.

Keeping the price of the drive down is important, as it will attract more buyers, especially those who don't yet own an SSD drive. The new drive sports a SATA 3Gbps interface, which Corsair chose to keep the price down. The drives come in two different specs, with two different controllers between the 30GB (SandForce SF-2141 controller) and the 45/60GB drives with the SandForce SF-2181 controllers.

Apple aren't wasting any time with this event and not boring us with facts and figures. We already saw that the new iPad will get Retina Display, but it will also get 4G LTE high-speed internet access.

For comparison, the iPad 2 has 3.1Mbps on EV-DO and 7.2 Mbps on HSPA and the new iPad will get 21Mbps on HSPA+, 42Mbps on HSDPA and a massive 73Mbps on supported LTE networks. According to Engadget, Verizon, Rogers, Bell, Telus and AT&T will be the LTE partners.

In addition the new iPad can be a personal hotspot like the iPhone 4, but it will still depend on if your carrier supports it or not.