Mobile Devices, Tablets & Phones News - Page 303

Another iFixit teardown is here, this time for Apple's seventh-generation iPod Nano. The teardown notes just how much work Apple's engineers put into the new iPod Nano to make it as thin as it is, with the teardown also noting that the battery has a rating of 0.8Wh, double the rating of the previous-gen Nano.

The teardown notes that the battery, Lightning connector and volume controls are all soldered directly to the logic board itself with the button cable and headphone jack attached, too. The LCD and digitizer glass aren't fused together, which will allow those two components to be replaced individually, if they were to fail.

iFixit found components from Apple, Broadcom (Bluetooth + FM Radio), NXP Semiconductors, Toshiba (NAND flash) and Texas Instruments (touchscreen controller). The teardown team found the seventh-generation iPod Nano very difficult to repair because of the amount of components soldered directly to the board. They've noted that the battery is particularly difficult to replace. Apple's devices are not really repair-friendly, but in order to get these devices increasingly thinner, we're only going to see more of this type of design.

I've got to admit, I wasn't that excited about Microsoft's Surface tablet when we first started hearing about it, but now that it's nearly here and we have found out more on Microsoft's iPad competitor, I'm beginning to get genuinely excited.

But, how does it fare in terms of specifications against the competition? Namely Apple's third-gen iPad and Samsung's pen-toting Galaxy Note 10.1 tablet? AllThingsD have made a great little chart comparing the tablets against each other, which you can see below.

So the new Surface tablet sports a 10.6-inch 1366x760-pixel screen, compared to the iPad's 9.7-inch 2048x1536 "Retina" display, the Surface loses out in resolution, but enjoys its slightly bigger and wider display. Surface only sports 720p front- and rear-facing cameras which is disappointing in this 5-megapixel-plus rear-facing camera world we now live in. Processor-wise, the Surface comes with NVIDIA's T30 SoC which is a quad-core design, compared to the third-gen iPad's dual-core A5X processor and Samsung's 1.4GHz quad-core Exynos chip.

The new iPod touch has one feature curiously absent. If you've ever seen your old iPod touch screen brightness change when you walked out of a dark room into the sunlight, you'll know the feature I'm talking about. The new iPod touch will not have this capability and will instead force users to do it themselves.

According to Phil Schiller, this is due to the new iPod touch being just too thin to fit the required ambient light sensor. Without the sensor, the device has no way of knowing the relative brightnesses between locations and lacks the ability to adjust the screen brightness to compensate for the difference.

It's not that big of a deal, but the automatic brightness adjustment is a feature that I have come to take for granted on my iPhone. It's great for when I am using it at night and had the brightness all the way down and then wake up in a bright room. Instead of trying to see on a dark screen, it automatically brings the brightness up to a comfortable level.

When Apple introduced the new Lightning connector for the iPhone 5, many people were amazed at the cost they were charging for adapters and cables. Most people, myself included, figured that there would be knock-off cables available pretty quickly after launch, but this was before a tear-down was conducted on the cable.

As most now know, Apple included an authenticator chip inside the end of the Lightning cable which is making it harder for third-party cables to be made. Chipworks wasn't going to just let it sit there, so they instead have conducted a tear-down of the new cable's chip and found out some information in regards to its security.

The tear-down revealed that the chip included does seem to feature security in some form or another, though nothing like that found in modern printer cartridges. Chipworks found circuitry that is "consistent with a serial communication chip including some simple security features."

Pricing on the new Microsoft Surface RT tablets is now known as Microsoft has put the tablets up for pre-order and the general consensus is that the pricing is just a wee bit, OK, quite a bit, too high. However, there are arguments for the other side saying that it is just right. My fear is that if this is what a Windows RT device costs, imagine what a regular Windows tablet will cost.

As you can see in the picture above, the basic 32GB Windows RT Surface tablet will set you back a costly $499. Note that that does not include the keyboard cover. For that, you'll have to shell out an additional $100, bringing the total price up to $599. For $699, you can get a 64GB system with the keyboard cover.

Most people have taken to Twitter to express concern over the pricing. "Sadly it looks like I'm out for the new Microsoft Surface, the price is too high for the low end model" and "They've priced it too high if they're just trying to get into the market." What are your thoughts on the pricing? Too high, too low, or just right?

I'm surprised it took this long to see the iPhone 5 blended. Blendtec, which started blending iPhones and other weird objects on video back with the first iPhone, has traditionally been very prompt about attempting total destruction on the latest and greatest Apple product, so having to wait nearly a month has been devastating.

But that's OK because the founder and PR manager have returned from Down Under (yes, they were in Australia) and tossed in not just an iPhone 5, but the Samsung Galaxy S III in an attempt to make an epic face-off between the two flagship devices. Of course, by now, I figure you've already watched the video. If not, go watch it then return here. I'll wait.

Back? Good. As you saw in the video, the Galaxy S III held out a little bit longer than the iPhone 5 did. In fact, the iPhone 5 was destroyed almost from the very beginning whereas the Samsung Galaxy S III survived for a good little while there. So, what can we take away from this? If you happen to be working over a giant, over-powered blender, the Galaxy S III might just survive long enough for you to pull it out.

ASUS teased us last week on their Facebook page about their PadFone 2, but now the day is finally here - introducing, the ASUS PadFone 2. Is it a smartphone? Yes. Can it be a tablet? Yes. It's the best of both worlds, and something revolutionary in an other wise same ol', same ol' smartphone world.

Not to say the rest of the phones on the market are boring, but ASUS are going out on a limb once again with the successor to the PadFone with PadFone 2. Spec wise, we're looking at ASUS' PadFone sporting a 4.7-inch 1280x720 Super IPS+ display, a 1.5GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 quad-core processor, 2GB of RAM, a 13-megapixel rear-facing camera, up to 64GB of internal storage, backed up by 50GB of ASUS WebStorage.

All of this finds its way into a sleek-looking, 9mm thick device that weighs just 135g. Battery life should be quite good with its 2140mAh battery that ASUS reckon is good for 16 hours of 3G talk-time, and 13 hours of Wi-Fi web browsing.

Japanese telco NTT DoCoMo has unveiled a great-looking smartphone from Sharp, the Aquos Phone Zeta SH-02E, the first smartphone to bake the IGZO display. IGZO's display uses indium gallium zinc oxide technology that promises higher translucency compared to normal LCDs.

This technology reduces the demand for backlighting on the screen which should result in reduced battery use. The phone sports a 4.9-inch, 1280x720-pixel display, a 16-megapixel rear-facing camera, 1.5GHz quad-core Snapdragon S4 Pro chip, Adreno 320 graphics, NFC and 4G LTE compatibility through NTT DoCoMo's network.

The IGZO display-powered Sharp Aquos Phone Zeta SH-02E comes with Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich out of the box, which is probably the only downer on an otherwise well-specced smartphone. There's no word on whether this will land anywhere outside of Japan, yet.

Verizon will begin selling the DROID RAZR HD and DROID RAZR MAXX HD on October 18. The new devices continue the design of the popular DROID Android devices that Verizon has been selling for several years now. Of course, they feature updated specifications to keep up with the competitors offerings.

The devices sport a 4.7-inch 1280x720 resolution screen powered by a 1.5GHz dual-core Snapdragon S4 processor. Wireless is complete with 4G LTE and NFC connectivity, still features saved for higher-end models. The RAZR HD sports 16GB of internal storage and will set you back $199.99 with a new two-year contract.

The RAZR MAXX HD is very similar, but will set you back $299.99 with a new two-year contract. Why the cost difference? Well, the MAXX comeds with a 30 percent larger battery and 32GB of internal storage. Verizon's full press statement is below:

The rumors proved correct in this instance. Today, Samsung has officially outed the Samsung Galaxy S3 Mini, the little brother of their flagship Galaxy S3 device. I just want to take a moment to complain: why did they have to continue to extend the name of the device? The name was already long enough before they attached "Mini" to it.

Now that that is out of the way, let's move on to what you really want to hear about, the specifications. The device sports the rumored 4-inch screen, which should give it broader appeal among customers. It's powered by Android 4.1 Jelly Bean, which is in turn interpreted by a dual core 1GHz SoC.

The device's design is extremely similar to its larger older brother. It features the same NFC, S Bean feature, and curvy design elements. The rear-facing camera is a 5 megapixel sensor if auto-focus and flash. It sports 8GB of internal storage and up to a 32GB microSD card. Customers should be able to purchase the device in early November.