Disney has allowed some of its magic to seep out and touch the smartphone industry; the very first Disney smartphone has been introduced in China called the Disney Magic 1 with a model number of M007. Done up in pink, the Magic 1 is counting on the Disney name to capture sales. The phone offer a 4.5 inch display with resolution of 720 x 1280 and is driven by a quad-core 1.2GHz MediaTek MT6589 processor...Source: http://www.phonearena.com/news/The-Disney-Magic-1-is-no-Mickey-Mouse-handset_id46261
The week's top story was the long-awaited announcement of the LG G2 - a new flagship Android device from the Korean manufacturer and a new contender for the top spot in the "Best Android handset ever" department. A smartphone it will have to compete against, however, is the upcoming Samsung Galaxy Note III, which will be announced in early September. If iOS is your cup of tea, then you might want to take a look at the newest Apple iPhone 5C leaked images...
HTC is beginning to feel a little more self confident these days, thanks to the reception accorded to the HTC One; soon we will have the HTC One Mini and then will come the humungous HTC One Max. How good does HTC feel? Well, it might have been written tongue-in-cheek, but while presenting an infographic entitled "Great Changes in History," the Taiwan based manufacturer says, "The HTC One has been called the best phone available today"...
The Apple iPhone is beginning to lose market share in China; according to Nicole Peng, research director of Canalys, Apple's iconic smartphone made up 5% of all smartphones shipped to the country during the second quarter. That was down from the 9% share of the market that the iPhone had in the first quarter. According to Canalys, the 5% share is the lowest owned by Apple in China since the fourth quarter of 2010...
The Apple iPhone is beginning to lose market share in China; according to Nicole Peng, research director of Canalys, Apple's iconic smartphone made up 5% of all smartphones shipped to the country during the second quarter. That was down from the 9% share of the market that the iPhone had in the first quarter. According to Canalys, the 5% share is the lowest owned by Apple in China since the fourth quarter of 2010...
About a week after President Barack Obama used his presidential veto to prevent the ITC from starting a sales ban of the Apple iPhone 4 and the Apple iPad 2, the shoe might soon be on the other foot; on Thursday, the ITC ruled that a number of Samsung devices infringed on a pair of Apple patents which could lead to a sales ban in the U.S. of the infringing Samsung devices...
Back in June, Verizon made a bid to buy Canada's WIND Mobile for $600 million to $800 million; the final price depends on what Big Red's accountants find out when they go through the books. With a little more than half a million subscribers, WIND is Canada's fifth largest carrier. If three executives from the country's top mobile carriers have their way, there will be no WIND blowing through Verizon's hair...
We probably should have expected this when we first saw the announcement for the new Google Chromecast dongle. Koush of CyanogenMod fame has announced that he is working to bring Chromecast support to CyanogenMod. And, as you would probably expect, Koush wants Chromecasting to work with all of the media on your Android device, and not just in the apps that have support...
There was a bit of a delay, and quite an uproar in the Android Open Source Project community, but the factory image and binaries for the new Nexus 7 have finally been released by Google. There was trouble around the release, and while we never got the whole story, it seemed to be something to do with Qualcomm not wanting its GPU to be too open...
A couple weeks ago T-Mobile began a "promotion" which removed the up-front payment from most of its smartphones, with the plan to run the offers throughout the summer. Now, it has been confirmed that T-Mobile is removing the Apple iPhone 4S and the iPhone 5 from the promotion. This had been rumored, but now it has been confirmed by AllThingsD...
BlackBerry can remove one more item on its "Things to Do" list prior to the launch of the BlackBerry Z30/A10; a tweet from the Global Certification Forum confirms that the upcoming high-end BlackBerry 10 model has received its Global Certification. And thanks to the magic of Twitter, we can tell you that the model number of the phone is STA100-3...
A tweet from Sam Mobile has some wonderful news for those waiting for the Samsung Galaxy Note III; according to the information on the tweet, Samsung is currently testing Android 4.3 internally and will pre-install the OS build on the next iteration of its phablet. Sam Mobile says that the information has been #Confirmed...
Leo Laporte said on This Week in Google that when the Moto X hits the Google Play Store it will not be a Google Edition device, and will contain all of the Motorola extras. Well, Leo wasn't done with the info, because he has also given some info on what the carriers are paying for the Motorola Moto X, and he gives some guesses about how the pricing will work through carriers...
It has been confirmed that the Motorola Moto X will eventually be sold through the Google Play Store, but the original report that we heard made it seem as though the Moto X would be sold as part of the Google Edition lineup. If this were true, it would mean that it would have the extra Motorola features stripped out, and it would be running pure stock...
Slides presented at an ASUS presentation Friday in France have leaked out, offering an insight into what the company has scheduled for the future; one of the charts shows off the Google Nexus 7 (2013) which has already launched in the U.S. and is expected to continue its global journey with an August 28th release in the U.K...
We're getting closer to the release of the new set of Amazon Kindle Fire tablets, and the picture of what to expect from each continues to get clearer. BGR has released another report that rounds out the hardware that we should expect for the new Kindle Fire. We saw the rumored specs for the Kindle Fire HD tablets a couple weeks ago, now we're getting the info on the entry-level Kindle Fire...
Samsung's foray into all matters mobile has been one of great consequences, and according to the company, its new Exynos 5420 Octa SoC will stay true to that legacy...
A reddit post from earlier today from redditor I_SH*T_KARMA has shed some light on some of the new features that are to come with GDR3 for Windows Phone 8 users...
Thanks to poor sales of its Windows RT flavored tablets, ASUS has announced on Friday morning that it is pulling support for the platform; ASUS CEO Jerry Shen clearly made it known that others feel the same way about the OS. "It's not only our opinion, the industry sentiment is also that Windows RT has not been successful," said the executive...
The last report we heard about the new Nexus 10 refresh due this year, it was just after Google had announced the new Nexus 7 and Android 4.3. A reporter had tweeted that Google's head of Android and Chrome, Sundar Pichai himself had said that a new Nexus 10 was on the way; and, it would again be made by Samsung, just like the original Nexus 10. That's why we're a bit skeptical about this new report claiming that Asus will make the new Nexus 10...
Alcatel is small peanuts in the big picture of smartphone manufacturers, but its relative obscurity hasn't stopped the French company from attacking the highly competitive market, with mixed results at best...
Most of you probably still think of NVIDIA in terms of graphics, but the California-based company is hard at work to change that notion, or so it would appear...
The new Google Nexus 7 (2013) tablet has already been available in the U.S.; in fact, some owners of the slate have already been complaining about problems with the GPS feature on the device. As we already told you on Friday morning, Google is said to be working on a fix. And actually, as it turns out, the tablet's GPS has nothing to do with this story...
Sriperumbudur, a quiet town outside of Chennai, is now increasingly known for its sprawling automobile factories, electronic SEZs(Special Economic Zones), and of course, hot job opportunities. Several automobile and mobile phone giants are part of this story. It all started 10 years back, when automobile companies like Hyundai saw the proximity to a harbour huge enough to handle exports, set up bases here, quickly gaining this city the name "Detroit of India". In the same "Detroit of India" lies one of Nokia's biggest production facilities. The opportunistic Nokia of the past saw the booming mobile market in India in the 2000s, and started setting up their assembling facility here, right in the heart of Sriperumbudur's SEZs. The logistics for exports had already become robust, thanks to the omnipresent automobile industry in that area. On a surprisingly overcast day, I was on my second visit to Nokia's Chennai facility with several other bloggers. Having already witnessed the marvel of a huge production facility the first time, I couldn't wait to see what new tricks Nokia had up their sleeves. Spoiler: It's the Nokia Asha 501. Yes, the Nokia Asha 501 is one of the many devices that are in production in the Chennai ...
Nokia has been able to cover for Microsoft in some situations where the guys at Redmond were taking a bit too long fixing a bug, or giving Windows Phone users certain capabilities that other smartphone platforms already give their users; Nokia has just started sending out an update for the Extras & Info part of those Nokia Lumia handsets that already have the GDR2 update loaded on their device...
With smartphone diagonals continuing to soar to ever greater heights, we may soon have to calibrate our understanding of what exactly classifies as a phablet, and what sets it apart from a smaller tablet...
Samsung is known for flooding the entire market with a plethora of phones and the Galaxy series is good example. You have a phone for almost any price range right from entry level to the flagship level. Samsung's consistency has been one of its main reasons for success and it recently launched two "huge" phones - Galaxy Mega 5.8 and Galaxy Mega 6.3. Today we the have smaller of the Mega brothers and one of the Samsung's most successful Galaxy phones in India this year - Galaxy Grand. The Samsung Galaxy Mega 5.8 was launched at the end of May while the Galaxy Grand was launched earlier this year in January. Both the devices are at a slightly different price point, but have almost the same internals. Lets dive right into the comparison. httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=84Q2eEz9yq4 Design and Build Quality The Galaxy Mega 5.8 and Galaxy Grand look very similar in terms of design, but the Galaxy Mega 5.8 is considerably larger than the Grand Duos. The Galaxy Mega is taller and wider, but thinner than the Galaxy Duos. Both the devices have the trademark Samsung look and feel and an all plastic build. On the front of these phones, we have the display and above it ...
With low-priced handsets like the Nokia Lumia 520 and its T-Mobile branded twin (the Nokia Lumia 521) selling out in the U.S. and attracting huge demand globally, even Apple has seen the light and is expected to introduce the low-cost Apple iPhone 5C possibly as soon as September; but there is a big difference between a phone like the Lumia 520 and the rumored iPhone 5C...
When it comes to personalizing an Android smartphone, sky's the limit as to what can be altered. The platform allows for deep customization of pretty much everything, both under the hood and on the visual side. And if you've also grown tired of the stock look and feel of your Android handset, then you've come to the right place. Here we've put together a selection of Android personalization apps – apps that can modify the way one interacts with their phone or change the way Android's UI looks...
Samsung has started rolling out the Android 4.2.2 update for the Galaxy Grand Duos (GT-I9082) starting from Russia. The phone was announced in December last year running Android 4.1.2 (Jelly Bean). It was launched in India back in January. The Android 4.2.2 update for the Grand Duos was leaked recently. The Android 4.2.2 update for the Galaxy Grand Duos brings Quick Setting toggles in the drop-down notification bar, faster performance, lockscreen widgets, improved task switching, Daydream mode and lots more new features. Recently the Galaxy Note 8.0 LTE, Galaxy S2 Plus and the Galaxy Tab 2 7.0 got the Android 4.2 update in select countries. Samsung did a great job by providing Android 4.1 update even for devices with 512MB RAM like the Galaxy Music. Samsung confirmed Android 4.1 update for range of Galaxy devices last year, but they are yet to confirm the list of device that would get the Android 4.2.2 or the 4.3 update. Some high-end devices are rumored to get the Android 4.3 (Jelly Bean) update directly skipping the Android 4.2.2. The Android 4.2.2 update for the Grand Duos is available OTA and via Samsung Kies software for the Russian users, but no details about the size of the ...