HTC Windows Phone 8 roadmap leaks out

HTC is now probably the second-most important Windows Phone 8 manufacturer as Samsung is now mostly focused on Android, and Nokia is Microsoft’s sidekick, and good news is that HTC Windows Phone 8 roadmap has just leaked out.

Starting from the most affordable of the bunch, the HTC Rio will feature a 4-inch WVGA screen and come with a 5-megapixel camera shooting 720p video. The Qualcomm MSM8227, part of the Snapdragon S4 family, is what powers the devices and it works along with 512MB of RAM. Connectivity-wise, the upcoming HTC Rio is expected to come with 14.4Mbps HSPA.

Next up, right in the mid-range is the HTC Accord. The Accord comes with a 4.3-inch 720p Super LCD2 display and an 8-megapixel rear snapper capturing 1080p video. The exact silicon is not yet known, but it will be a more capable dual-core processor of the Snapdragon S4 breed with 1GB of RAM. Additionally, you get NFC and 42Mbps HSPA+.

The most exciting device that HTC is bringing to Windows Phone 8 world is the HTC Zenith. The Zenith is said to feature a massive 4.7-inch 720p Super LCD 2 display, also with an 8-megapixel camera and 42Mbps HSPA+.

Source : PhoneArena

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Europeans giving up their mobile phones

Smart phones have become extremely popular to the point that talk around the water cooler is not about Lebron but is about the specs on the Samsung Galaxy S III. But over in Europe, there has been a change as mobile subscribers have started to drop their lines in droves. For example, in April alone 380,000 mobile lines were dropped in Spain. And in France, the number of handsets expected to be purchased this year will be lower than the total from 2011.

Some Spanish carriers like Telefonica and Vodafone are testing out a new business plan and are removing subsidies from new phone prices which has to hurt in this economy. In France, analysts believe part of the decline in handset sales has to do with the upstart carrier Free which sends voice traffic over Wi-Fi when possible, similar to Republic Wireless in the States. Free is signing up customers coming to the carrier with unlocked smartphones, purchasing SIM cards but not new phones.

Many European countries had more phones in use than people living in the country to use them. This better than 100% penetration has finally come home to hurt the carriers as users seem to be able to squeeze more life out of older phones. Now that is something that U.S.smartphone users would laugh at as many upgrade their handset as soon as the Next Big Thing comes along. The penetration numbers might have come back to earth a bit, they are still high and once the economy turns around, Europeans might just decide that they cannot live without their mobile handset.


Source : PhoneArena

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HTC working on a Siri-esque app?

A tweet sent out by Taiwan based manufacturer HTC included what appeared to be a dog having a conversation with a Siri-type app. Of course, most canine's are limited in speech to answering who wore number 3 on the New York Yankees, and what part of the house you see when you look up. HTC jokingly reminded dog fans that the back and forth between Rover, Lassie or whatever the dog's name is and the virtual personal assistant is not real.

So what is the point here? Is HTC working on a Dr. Doolittle app? Seriously, though, is there an underlying reason for this tweet or is HTC really working on a virtual personal assistant of its own? It might just be that HTC has thrown us a bone here, so to speak, but we would rather not have to guess at what the manufacturer's intentions are.


Source : PhoneArena

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LG Optimus 4X HD Review

LG Optimus 4X HD phone announced with a quad-core chipset, although the HTC One X beat it as first to market. LG has loaded the full monty with it - a quad-core processor, large “True HD” display fit in a fairly compact for it body, and the latest Android version out of the box. 

As if top of the line specs were not enough, it also addresses some complaints we have with some new flagships, namely their closed nature. LG's finest has a removable battery, microSD card slot and a plain regular SIM card slot - that combination you can’t find in any of this season’s flagships.

Design:

The LG Optimus 4X HD lies pretty well in the hand for a slab with a 4.7” screen, thanks to the very narrow side bezel, and the compact chassis. In fact, it is as thin and light as the polycarbonate HTC One X with the same size screen, but is shorter and less wide, making it more suited for one-hand operation. The same goes if we size the Optimus 4X HD with the Galaxy S III, which is only marginally thinner, but much taller and wider.

Such a compact design is a commendable achievement on LG’s part, especially considering that the 4X HD has a slot that will take your existing regular SIM card, and you can easily expand its memory viamicroSD, or swap the battery with a recharged one if needed.

Display:

LG makes some of the best mobile screens around, and the 4.7-incher on the Optimus 4X HD is no exception. It is an IPS-LCD HD display with 1280x720 pixels of resolution, good viewing angles and eye-pleasing colors. Outside visibility is above average, too, if you rev up brightness to the max when battling direct sunlight. 

Unfortunately automatic brightness only works from the percentage you’ve put it on in Settings up/down a preset range, so if you start from 0% it won’t go all the way up under direct sunlight, or if you set it at 50%, the screen will still be too bright when it’s dark around - hopefully LG will fix that with an update.

It is also a “True HD” display, as LG categorizes its high-def screens with a regular RGB pixel matrix arrangement, to set them apart from the PenTile AMOLED displays Samsung uses. With 313ppi pixel density, text appears crisp and HD media is a joy to watch.

Source : PhoneArena

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Pantech Swift Review

Pantech Swif is a QWERTY sliding messaging phone that aims to appease those who can live without the complexities of a smartphone.


Design:

Hardly flaunting anything spectacular, the design of the Pantech Swift is all too predictable amongst the trove of QWERTY messaging phones on the market. Compact and light enough to comfortably hold in the hand, its build quality is decent enough to warrant peace of mind when it comes to normal wear and tear. Still, as much as we like the subtle soft touch feel of its rear cover, there's nothing particularly exciting about this conventional looking phone.


Exposing the physical landscape keyboard is accomplished by pushing the display up when held in landscape, which snaps firmly into place without much force. With its 4-row keyboard layout, buttons are nearly flush to the surface – thus, making it difficult to feel them out. Although we’re accepting of its reasonable response, we would’ve preferred seeing numbers incorporated into the top row of buttons.

Display:

We know there isn’t going to be much love found with the Swift’s keyboard, and rightfully so, our suspicions are confirmed after checking out its 2.8” QVGA (240 x 320) capacitive display. Obviously, it’s lacking detail, but even worse, it washes out very easily under the gaze of the sun. It’s difficult to say if it’s the touchscreen, software, processor, or a combination of the three, but it feels very lax and unresponsive when it comes to tracking our finger.


Source : Phone Arena

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Toshiba Excite 10 Review

Toshiba Thrive doesn’t surprise us in any way that it was left in the dust by the competition, especially when it sported one of the ugliest designs amongst the first-generation Honeycomb tablets. Lucky for all of us, theToshiba Excite 10 is undoubtedly pushing forward as being a more compelling and exciting device thanks to an updated design and its top-notch specs. No doubt it’s brushing up against some other competitive offerings with its starting price point of $449.99, let’s cross our fingers and hope that Toshiba has learned from its old ways.


Design:

First and foremost, we have to give some kudos to Toshiba for giving the Excite 10 a very contemporary design – whereas before, the Toshiba Thrive was simply too monolithic with it chunky laptop-like appearance. Specifically, it employs some the favorable design qualities we expect out of tablets nowadays, like a streamlined profile, sturdy construction, and premium choice materials. Thanks to its aluminum casing, it does add a hint of solidness to its overall build quality, and at the same time, its patterned design allows us to grip it with ease. Frankly, it sticks to the safe approach of utilizing a conventional design, which means that it’s not as attractive as something like an Asus Transformer Prime or new iPad.

Display:

For the very first time, we’re enchanted by its 10.1” WXGA (1280 x 800) IPS LCD display – though, it’s the rich and deep color production that attracts us the most. Naturally, its resolution is standard amongst its size, but nevertheless, it’s sufficient enough for us to make out fine text with relative ease. However, take it outdoors with the sun’s presence, it washes out and becomes nearly unusable unless it’s shaded. Strangely, we notice some bleeding going on around the edges of the display that’s only recognizable when it’s displaying the color black. For the most part, it’s still an alluring display from afar, but doesn’t quite have breathtaking aura of something like the new iPad.


Source : Phone Arena

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4% of people use their iPhone during sexy time

The folks at Gazelle – the same ones who exchange used electronics for cash, have conducted an interesting research studying how smartphone owners use their handsets. In particular, they were curious to know how attached iPhone owners were to their handsets. And so they polled a 1000 people, and the results are out for the world to see.

Surprisingly, 15% of respondents admit that they would rather give up sex for a weekend than not use their iPhone for the same period of time. This lines up well with the results from a similar survey about the habits of tablet users. According to the latter, a quarter of women who own tablets prefer their slates to the intimacy with their partners. Another interesting thing that the Gazelle study reveals is that about 4% of iPhone owners have used their devices while having sexy time.


Source : Phone Arena

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Samsung Metro 2600 Slider Phone

Samsung Metro 2600 is a GSM slider phone from Samsung. It operates on Samsung Propiertary OS. It sports 2.4 inch display with a slider keypad. It has pre-installed social networking widgets and it features Samsung’s latest Chat on service. People who like to devote much time on social networking sites will love it. It comes with 2 MP camera and has solid anti-scratch back cover. It comes with standard 800 mAh battery. It supports Bluetooth with A2DP, USB 2.0 & GPRS connectivity features. Multimedia features available with the mobile are Music player, Video Player and FM Radio.

Features and specification:
 

GSM mobile handset
 

Slider form factor
 

Quad band GSM network

Internal antenna

 

Alpha-numeric keypad
 

2.4 inch TFT display screen

2.0 megapixel camera

1600 x 1200 pixels camera resolution

Music & video player

FM radio

Bluetooth v3.0
 

USB interface

 Samsung ChatOn Instant Messenger

Web browser with GPRS
 

Facebook & Twitter integration

40MB internal memory

Micro SD memory card slot
 

800mAh rechargeable battery

Up to 710 minutes of talk time

Up to 720 hours of stand-by time
 

Dimension : 97 x 50 x 15 mm
 

Weight : 90.5 grams

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Huawei Honor U8860 Review

Design and Build 

The Honor U8860 is a perfectly presentable phone, something you won’t be ashamed of flaunting among your friends. From the front, it’s reminiscent of the iPhone 4 with an all black bezel and rounded edges. Up top, we have the earpiece and the front-facing VGA camera. Down at the bottom are the usual set of capacitive buttons. There’s no mention of any anti-scratch glass or coating on the screen, but it does manage to hold up well with everyday use. Fingerprints are a big problem and since the brightness levels of the LCD aren’t great, using it in direct sunlight is a real challenge. The Honor measures 11mm in depth and weighs around 140g, so it’s not the slimmest, but it’s far from bulky. The reason for this extra heft is the chunky battery in the phone.

For connectivity, we have a microUSB port at the bottom, besides the microphone, while the volume rocker and power/sleep buttons take up their usual spots. Around the back, we have a textured rear panel with the Huawei logo and speaker grill. The memory card slot does not support hot-swap, though. The camera is an 8MP sensor and you also get an LED flash. In the box, you get a charger, data cable and a headset. Overall, the Honor doesn’t really come across as a phone that costs 20K, as it feels more like a 15K and below phone. Having said that, the build quality is pretty good and we didn’t find any creaking parts or weak spots - it feels rugged and durable. 




Features

Interface 
The Huawei Honor U8860 comes with Gingerbread, along with their own skin. They say that it is possible to upgrade it to ICS, although nothing has happened yet, so don’t hold your breath. The phone is quite popular on XDA forums, however, so I’m sure you’ll find a nice custom ROM for it. The skin is a mash up between a bunch of other skins and has the look and feel of LG’s UI, along with similar icons from Samsung’s TouchWiz and topped off with a sprinkle of iOS. I like what they’ve done with the lock screen, which gives you quick access to phone features or to unlock the phone. The interface is pretty quick overall, thanks to the 1.4GHz Qualcomm MSM8255T SoC, along with the Adreno 205 GPU. This is the same chipset used in the Lumia 800 as well

The pixel density of the screen is quite good and at 854 x 480 on a 4-inch LCD screen, images and text appear decently sharp and crisp. The black levels and colours are also rich and vibrant. The screen does not have the best sensitivity though, and many times it would not register light touches. Huawei have also included toggle switches in the drop down notification bar, which is handy. The icons have a very TouchWiz feel to them and are big and colourful. In the main menu, there’s a little cog like button, which when pressed, causes all the icons to wiggle (like iOS) and you can delete an app directly from there. Also, holding the home button on the homescreen brings up the task manager.

Source I Tech2.in

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Sony Xperia U review

The Xperia S has all the spotlight to itself in the NXT series, but history has taught us that Sony (and previously Sony Ericsson) can do wonders in the compact class. In two generations of minis and the Xperia ray, the Japanese have delivered packages that no one in the same price range can beat.

• Quad-band GSM /GPRS/EDGE support
• 3.5" 16M-color capacitive touchscreen of Full WVGA resolution (854 x 480 pixels) with Sony Mobile BRAVIA engine
• Android OS v2.3.7 Gingerbread, planned Android 4.0 ICS update
• Dual-core 1 GHz Cortex-A9 CPU, 512 MB RAM, NovaThor U8500 chipset
• 5 MP autofocus camera with LED flash and geotagging, Multi Angle shot
• 720p video recording @ 30fps with continuous autofocus and stereo sound
• Wi-Fi b/g/n and DLNA
• GPS with A-GPS
• 8 GB built-in storage (6 GB user-accessible)
• microUSB port (charging) and stereo Bluetooth v2.1
• Standard 3.5 mm audio jack
• Stereo FM radio with RDS
• Voice dialing
• Adobe Flash 11 support
• Deep Facebook integration
• Accelerometer and proximity sensor
• Transparent stripe changes color depending on screen content
• Replaceable cap at the bottom allows easy customization

Main disadvantages

• Limited storage with no expansion options
• No Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich out of box
• Some competitors are slimmer

Source I GSMArena

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