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by Stephen Schenck | May 17, 2013 7:57 PMRead OnXperia 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 PMRead OnYour 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 PMRead OnLast 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 PMRead OnWe'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 PMRead OnFrom 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 PMRead OnA 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 Anton D. Nagy | May 17, 2013 1:49 PMRead OnLast Friday we were excited about the week ahead, this week, as it contained two days circled with very promising events: Nokia's Lumia 925 event in London and Google's I/O. Both came and passed, leaving us with a phone (or two), and ecosystem improvements. Depending on your expectations and standards your excitement probably either turned into delight or disappointment. Of course we'll talk about Nokia and Google I/O reactions, since they're the most recent (and probably among the last until the next big event of the year bringing us the next iPhone), and you can tell us why you're happy ...
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by Stephen Schenck | May 17, 2013 1:07 PMRead OnHeat 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 PMRead OnFans 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 AMRead OnLate 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 AMRead OnSamsung'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 Anton D. Nagy | May 17, 2013 5:54 AMRead OnLast year we've seen the Grand X 2 In, with its LTE version, from ZTE, and today, the Chinese phone maker announces the Grand X 2. Being unveiled at MePI conference in Monaco, the Grand X 2 In is powered by Intel's Atom Z2580 processor, clocking at speeds of up to 2GHz. Other specs include a 4.5-inch HD display with 1280 × 720 resolution, an eight-megapixel main shooter, 1GB of RAM, 8GB of Internal Storage (expandable via microSD card to up to 32GB), all powered by a 2,000 mAh battery and Android Jelly Bean (version number not included in the press release). The phone will be ...
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by Anton D. Nagy | May 17, 2013 5:45 AMRead OnIt's time to be skeptical! The "real PureView" Windows Phone was not unveiled at the London event on the 14th of May despite many were hoping for the rumored Nokia EOS to appear. Instead, we got the Lumia 925 and some more time to dream about the 41-megapixel Windows Phone. The rumors and reports continue though, with the latest talking about the EOS. Someone has allegedly seen the phone and said that it's a polycarbonate phone as thick as the Lumia 920 but heavily tapered towards the edges. To quote the rest: "The lens housing is round in shape and does not protrude much. The flash is ...
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by Anton D. Nagy | May 17, 2013 5:36 AMRead OnThe Sprint version of the HTC One is actually the one that we have reviewed. Ever since, some carrier versions as well as the global variant have received a refresh improving several aspects of the device, including its performance and camera. HTC One users on Sprint should be getting a small over-the-air update, bumping the version number all the way to 1.29.651.10. According to the changelog, the refresh should bring "Improved Back and Home key sensitivity", alongside "BlinkFeed improvements" as well as a new version of the Sprint Zone app. You can check for the update's availability ...
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by Stephen Schenck | May 16, 2013 7:55 PMRead OnIt 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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