Posts by Stephen Schenck
Stephen has been writing about electronics since 2008, which only serves to frustrate him that he waited so long to combine his love of gadgets and his degree in writing. In his spare time, he collects console and arcade game hardware, is a motorcycle enthusiast, and enjoys trapping blue crabs. Stephen's first mobile device was a 624 MHz Dell Axim X30, which he's convinced is still a viable platform. Stephen longs for a market where phones are sold independently of service, and bandwidth is cheap and plentiful; he's not holding his breath. In the meantime, he devours smartphone news and tries to sort out the juicy bits
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by Stephen Schenck | May 20, 2013 12:47 PMIt's sure seemed like Samsung was planning a whole series of Galaxy S 4 models, from the original smartphone to variants like the GS4 Mini, Zoom, and the Active we just got a chance to look at. Over the weekend, some new evidence arrived that just might point to another GS4 family member, taking its name from the manufacturer's new Mega line. A screenshot purporting to show the update details for the latest version of the Samsung WatchON app, arriving yesterday, notes that it "added support for upcoming S4 Mega, S4 mini, and S4 Active." That same line is missing from the "what's new" text ...
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by Stephen Schenck | May 20, 2013 11:58 AMInstead of bringing us a new Android version, last week's Google I/O instead introduced a whole load of updates to Google services, giving the platform a refresh without requiring a full-on new Android build. A big chunk of those improvements centered on Google+, including a number of improvements to how the service handles photographs. Today an updated version of the Android Google+ app arrives to finally give you access to these new features, numbering 41 in total. Google+ will now let you automatically backup photos to the cloud, and introduces all those automatic tools we learned about ...
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by Stephen Schenck | May 20, 2013 11:10 AMThe idea of a Samsung Galaxy S 4 Active has been floating around for months now, and back in April it finally started to take shape as a waterproof version of the GS4 itself. Since then we've heard about a possible launch next month, and seen AT&T mentioned as a potential carrier in the US. What we haven't had has been a solid understanding of the phone's hardware, nor any kind of look at the facade itself. Today we get both, and it's all largely good news. That means a phone that keeps a lot of GS4 design cues, as well as hardware components. While what we can see here adds some bold ...
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by Stephen Schenck | May 17, 2013 7:57 PMXperia Z, Xperia ZL, Xperia UL: it's been starting to feel like Sony's transformed itself into an assembly line for 1080p Androids lately. Despite all this focus on high-end, high-res handsets, it's also managed to continue addressing other market segments, and back in March we learned about a couple more conservative models, the Xperia L and Xperia SP. Now, the Xperia L is finally going up for pre-order for interested US customers. Is it worth what Sony's asking, though? Sony is currently taking orders for the Xperia L, with the intention of shipping the phones on May 23. Its radios will ...
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by Stephen Schenck | May 17, 2013 6:42 PMYour current smartphone likely has no problem outputting CD-quality sound. Sure, maybe the speaker isn't so great, but plug in some headphones and you're going to be able to enjoy some crisp, clear digital audio. However, with everyone already sounding pretty good, companies can earn themselves some extra attention by going above-and-beyond our normal expectations; just look at HTC (and now HP) with Beats Audio technology. Now Wolfson Microelectronics, maker of audio chips already in use by companies like Samsung (there's a Wolfson WM5102 in some GS4s), has a new advanced audio processor ...
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by Stephen Schenck | May 17, 2013 5:01 PMLast month, Samsung announced the first Galaxy Tab 3 model, a seven-inch tablet. Obviously, more Tab 3 options would follow, and at the time we heard rumors about a few other hardware configurations. One of those included an eight-inch model with some nice specs like an AMOLED screen. As we wait for official word, some new specs have leaked for the Galaxy Tab 3 8.0, along with a possible render. Bad news first: this falls way short of those rumored specs. That means a regular old LCD screen (1280 x 800) and instead of a quad-core SoC, only a dual-core 1.5GHz component – no word on if ...
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by Stephen Schenck | May 17, 2013 4:20 PMWe've been talking about streaming music services from Google and Apple for what seems like forever. Google's All Access finally went official earlier this week, while Apple has yet to announce its own offering. Rumors have suggested that it, too, could be nearly ready to launch, and that news might just arrive at this year's WWDC. However, a new report suggests that Apple has yet to secure the licenses it needs, and such an announcement is still some time off. This is a tale we've heard before: Apple struggling to get license-holders on board with its design for a streaming music service. ...
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by Stephen Schenck | May 17, 2013 3:27 PMFrom a manufacturing standpoint, the HTC One has been off to a pretty bumpy start. First we heard of issues with the UltraPixel camera that were affecting the company's ability to produce enough units, and then there was that whole mess with Nokia and the HAAC microphones HTC wasn't supposed to have been putting in the One. HTC isn't letting a few issues like these drag the One down, and reports instead that production levels keep ramping on up, ready to meet consumer demand. Compared to April, HTC is equipped to manufacture twice as many One handsets this month. It intends to push itself ...
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by Stephen Schenck | May 17, 2013 2:45 PMA few days back, BlackBerry had a big announcement to share, revealing that it was finally opening up the membership ranks of BlackBerry Messenger, and would start making the app available to smartphone users running iOS and Android. If you were a BlackBerry die-hard for years and have only recently transitioned to another platform, this was great news, letting you easily keep in touch with all your old contacts. We already heard that the iOS and Android apps would become available sometime this summer, but now a new limitation about those releases comes to light, with news that the ...
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by Stephen Schenck | May 17, 2013 1:07 PMHeat is a problem that many electronics are forced to deal with, to one extent or another. Push enough power through chips, and they're going to get hot: the trick is what you then do with that excess heat. Many devices use a combination of fans and vents in order to deliver cooler ambient air to chips, but those solutions don't exactly translate well over to smartphones. Instead, we're largely forced to put up with phones that can get quite hot to the touch when running at full throttle. NEC might just have a workable solution to that problem, upon news arriving of its plans to release ...
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by Stephen Schenck | May 17, 2013 12:19 PMFans of stock Android have been enjoying a fair amount of good news lately. We just learned of that special Google Edition of the Samsung Galaxy S 4 the other day, and today we get to see Sony continue with its own support for Android development, releasing an AOSP project for its Xperia Tablet Z. You might remember that Sony did the same thing last month for the Xperia Z, following in the footsteps of last year's AOSP experiment with the Xperia S. Today the Xperia Tablet Z joins those two, and Sony claims that it intends to follow these all up with the Xperia ZL in the near future. As ...
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by Stephen Schenck | May 17, 2013 11:29 AMLate last month we brought you the bad news about Samsung, the Galaxy S 4, and its NFC TecTiles. Users who picked up some TecTiles to use with their GS3 last year could scan the NFC stickers in order to trigger certain actions on their phone. Problem was, the GS4 uses a new NFC controller that doesn't work with those old TecTiles, rendering them pretty useless. We were understandably miffed at Samsung for that bad decision, but at least it wasn't killing-off TecTiles altogether: we'd get new, modern TecTiles 2 stickers that would work with the GS4 and future Samsung phones. Today that ...
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by Stephen Schenck | May 17, 2013 10:51 AMSamsung's Galaxy S III was a runaway success. Last year's flagship has delivered sales numbers adding up to something like fifty million. With the Galaxy S 4 now here to take its place, we're sure a lot of you have been wondering if Samsung will be able to re-capture that lightning in a bottle, meeting, if not exceeding GS3 sales. We're only one month into the GS4's release, but at the moment, chances are looking pretty good. From the time the Galaxy S III was first released, it took Samsung fifty days to sell ten million units. The way GS4 sales are going this year, it's going to cross ...
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by Stephen Schenck | May 16, 2013 7:55 PMIt seems like any time we're talking about Intel and mobile chipsets, it begins with a story of huge missed opportunities. After all, Intel played a significant role in the Windows Mobile days, but sort of dropped off the radar when smartphones really started picking up steam, once the iPhone and Android arrived. Since then, Intel's tried to get its chips back into phones, but it's been a struggle. Intel CEO Paul Otellini just stepped down from his position, and in reflecting back on his career, expresses his regret that Intel missed out on getting one of its chips into the iPhone. ...
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by Stephen Schenck | May 16, 2013 7:21 PMAfter what seemed like an endless torrent of leaks, Nokia's Lumia 928 for Verizon finally went official earlier this month, getting its formal announcement a week ago. At the time, we learned that the phone would be available in Verizon retail stores beginning today, May 16. We also see online sales of the phone open up today, but the 928 isn't quite ready to ship just yet. According to Verizon, orders for the Lumia 928 will ship by next Monday, May 20. We know, that's just a few days, but the disparity between online and retail availability dates may just point to possible supply chain ...