ZTE has launched the Grand S II in India. The phone will be sold exclusively through Amazon India and is priced at just Rs. 13,999 ($225).
The Grand S II has a 5.5-inch 1080p display, Snapdragon 801 processor, 2GB RAM, 16GB memory with microSD support, 13 megapixel rear camera, 2 megapixel front camera, and 3100mAh battery.
The only drawback is that the Grand S II runs on Android 4.2 Jelly Bean and ZTE will not be updating to the phone to KitKat, leave alone Lollipop or any future versions.
Alleged specs of HTC’s next flagship smartphone made the rounds on Chinese social media. The high-end handset will likely debut in the first quarter of next year with the model number M9.
HTC One (M9) is tipped to pack Qualcomm Snapdragon 805 chipset and 3GB of RAM. The display of the device is a 5.5” QHD unit. A 16MP camera with optical image stabilization, 3,500mAh battery, and stereo speakers with Bose tech round up the leaked specs.
The specs you see above appear legitimate for a flagship smartphone, though we advise you to take a pinch of salt when you read through them. Quite frankly, we will be surprised if the Taiwanese manufacturer’s next flagship doesn’t ship with 64-bit Snapdragon 810 silicon.
A “Prime” version of the upcoming device is also mentioned in the rumor. However, there are no details about it beyond its name.
USA is always getting the cool Windows Phone deals and there is no denying that. Microsoft has always been promoting the Windows Phone OS throughout super affordable Lumia phones in its homeland for years, mostly using carrier or major retailer campaigns.
In these rare occasions, such as today, other countries also enjoy similar promotions. The affordable Nokia Lumia 530 is even more affordable in the UK today for the next 10 hours, if you opt to get it contract-free from Amazon UK. The retailer is selling it online for just £49.99, which is at least £30 less than competing retailers' listings.
Australians seems to be getting quite a treatment if they opt for the phone through Telstra. If you chose to get Telstra's Pre-Paid $2 Starter Kit, you can have the Nokia Lumia 530 on half the price at AU$39.50.
It seems Microsoft is pushing the Lumia 530 in various deals worldwide, so you might be getting it cheap in your market very soon.
Cyber Monday is upon us and that means huge discounts on older tech. To celebrate we offer you a discount on old tech news – welcome back to Counterclockwise, our weekly trip down memory lane. This week we see LTE met with both excitement and indifference, the smartphone successfully dispatching aftermarket SatNavs and failing to do the same to handheld consoles.
LG managed to wrestle the Nexus gig from Samsung and created the Nexus 4 – it had the same great specs as the LG Optimus G, but was considerably cheaper than similarly specced phones. There was no LTE on the official specs, but two years ago LTE coverage was so limited that few people cared.
Some did though and were disappointed at the omission. The ever-curious iFixit team took the Nexus 4 apart and did find an LTE chip. It wasn’t long after that when people figured out how to enable it – it was as simple as changing a setting. It worked both in Canada and in the US.
And just like that the Nexus 4 has LTE
LG had to come out with an official statement – it used the same internals for the Nexus 4 that go into the Optimus G, including an LTE-capable Qualcomm chip. However, the Nexus lacked essential supporting hardware for LTE to function properly.
In fact, LTE support was later removed after a software patch, though industrious hackers found a way to re-enable it once again. Most recently, the LTE functionality was disabled yet again with the Lollipop update, that was quickly dealt with too.
While all this was going on, there were no Nexus 4 units to be had in the US – it sold out! A few days later Google notified people that new units will be available, no more than two per customer. Such limitations were necessary as the previous batch sold out in less than an hour.
Part of the popularity can be attributed to the great specs for the low, low price of $350. That was in North America though, in Europe the phone was listed at £280 om the UK Play Store, while Carphone Warehouse was even asking £390 for it.
Did we mention that LTE rollout was slow? It was slooow – near the end of 2011 Japan got its first LTE device, the Samsung Galaxy S II LTE. Japan is often way ahead of the rest of the world in technological terms, but local carriers took a leisurely pace in adopting 4G.
NTT DoCoMo, the country's biggest carrier, launched its LTE network in 2010 but it took until the end of November 2011 to get a compatible phone.
NTT needed a headliner since it was the only one of Japan's three major carriers to not have an iPhone (over a dispute with Apple about preloaded apps). And with the allure of LTE – ten times faster than the prevailing 3G tech in Japan at the time – the Galaxy S II LTE was that headliner.
Smartphones have long aspired to push car SatNav units out of the market – even back in the days when you had to hook up an external GPS receiver. At one point it seemed that Nokia's Symbian phones will be the ones to kill SatNavs – after buying map-maker Navteq and with slumping sales, the Finns enabled free, worldwide offline navigation on all of their smartphones.
That never happened though, Ovi/Nokia Maps were a great perk for Symbians but iPhones and Androids were demolishing the old platform. And Google Maps Navigation was one of the final nails in the coffin.
Originally launched for Android 2.0 and only in the US, but as an early Christmas present Google released Navigation for Android 1.6 Donut in late November 2009. The US-only restriction was not lifted, but the move gave a huge boost to the young OS.
Google Maps have expanded greatly since then, coming to many countries, often bringing Street View along with it. It even gained the ability to guide you indoors with v6.0, which launched in November 2011.
Nokia's switch to Windows Phone saw its navigation software move to the Lumia lineup, but Nokia launched an Android version as soon as the ink dried on the deal with Microsoft.
Perched on top of the world, Nokia was planning for the future – one idea was to revolutionize the SatNav market, another was to take over handheld gaming. The Nokia N-Gage is infamous, but even other handsets got a taste of real gaming.
Right on time for Thanksgiving in 2008, a developer released Quake III Arena for Symbian phones like the Nokia N95 8GB, the N82 and the E90. The game even supported multiplayer and controls with a Bluetooth keyboard and mouse for a PC-like experience.
While Nokia was a contender to the throne, some of Sony's most successful products ever were game consoles. It went portable with the PSP, which sold in record numbers.
The fledging smartphone gaming industry was relying on casual games, so when rumors started of a PSP smartphone everyone held their breath. Back in November 2010 it was just that, a rumor, but it already met the first round of disappointing news – the phone won't actually play PSP games.
Sony Ericsson "PlayStation phone" (aka Xperia Play)
This was, of course, the Sony Ericsson Xperia Play and while PSP Go games eventually did make it to the phone, the whole Xperia Play business went barely better than the N-Gage.
According to the Japanese publication Mac Fan, Apple will released a 12.2” iPad Air Plus in the spring of next year. The report is featured in the magazine’s January 2015 issue and includes alleged details about the upcoming slate, including a blueprint with physical measures.
Apple iPad Air Plus will unsurprisingly sit above the iPad Air 2 when it launches. Purported measures of the previously rumored device are 305.31 x 220.8 x 7 mm (12 x 8.7 x .28 inches). The slate is said to feature Apple’s next generation A9 processor.
The potential launch of a 12.2” iPad would make sense considering Apple’s latest product launches. The company delivered a significant upgrade over last year’s model with the iPad Air 2, but barely touched anything with the iPad mini 3.
Apple’s Lack of attention towards the compact slate makes sense with iPhone 6 Plus in the marketplace. As we found out earlier this week, people fancy their large-screen iPhones a lot more than their iPads.
One thing we wonder about is what will happen with the MacBook Air family if a 12.2” iPad launches. Our guess is that Apple might simply merge its MacBook Air and Pro families into a single product range in order to make space for the massive iPad Air Plus.
The Dual SIM Xolo Opus 3 has been announced in its home country India. The smartphone is a midranger with a focus on selfies as it's got a wide-angle 5MP front snapper.
The smartphone's midrange status is most noticeable in the choice of chipset - it's got a quad-core 1.3GHz Mediatek MTK6582M chipset with 1GB RAM at its heart.
Other than that, the rest of the specs are pretty well stacked up. The Xolo Opus 3 has a 5-inch 720p IPS screen and a Sony-made 8MP auto-focus camera with 1080p video recording.
In terms of connectivity, the Xolo Opus 3 enjoys HSPA+ support, Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n, FM radio and Bluetooth 4.0 support.
The 8GB worth of on-board storage is expandable via the microSD slot and the battery capacity is 2,500mAh.
The handset runs Android 4.4 KitKat out of the box.
The Xolo Opus 3 will become available in a few days for 8499 Indian Rupee, which is about US$135.
The Google Play edition of the LG G Pad 8.3 is now receiving the Android 5.0 update. It may not have been as quick as one would have expected, with Google definitely not being as quick as before for rolling out the updates for its own devices but better late than never.
Being the stock version of Android, the 5.0 update should bring all the Lollipop goodness, including the new Material Design, updated lockscreen, new notifications, improved performance, and (supposedly) improved battery life.
If you have one of these devices then check to see the update is available.
HTC took the wraps off the Desire 620 mid-ranger in Taiwan. The dual-SIM Android 4.4 KitKat smartphone will be available in two different versions - Desire 620 with 64-bit Qualcomm Snapdragon 410 SoC and Desire 620G with MediaTek MTK MT6592 SoC.
Both versions of the smartphone feature 5” 720p display, 1GB of RAM, and 8GB of expandable memory. The Snapdragon model can take microSD cards up to 128GB in size, while the MediaTek has to make do with 32GB cards. The handset is powered by 2,100mAh battery.
HTC Desire 620 has an 8MP main camera with 1080p video and Eye Experience, coupled with 5MP front-facing unit. The Snapdragon-equipped model has LTE connectivity, while the MTK version tops out at WCDMA.
The latest mid-range handset from HTC will be available in Taiwan on December 1. The Snapdragon 410 model will cost TWD $6,990 (about $225), while the MediaTek version will be priced at TWD $4,990 (around $161). There’s no word on international availability yet.
The Huawei Honor 6X which got certified for sale in China earlier this month might actually end up being sold as the Honor 6 Plus.
Regardless of which name Huawei will use, the handset is due to be unveiled on December 16. And according to Chinese media, it will be priced at CNY 3,299. That's around $536 or €431 at the current exchange rates, and represents a slight departure from the Honor brand's traditional affordability.
Especially in China cheap smartphones come with good specs, so this price level isn't necessarily what you'd expect from an Honor phone. Thus, it looks like Huawei is trying to play the premium game here. That is, of course, if the pricing rumor pans out.
Moving on, the handset should apparently be powered by Huawei's own Kirin 925 chipset, coming with a 1.8 GHz octa-core CPU, a Mali-T628 GPU and support for LTE Cat.6 networks. The processor has four Cortex-A15 cores for performance, and four Cortex-A7 cores for battery life.
A benchmark shows the screen resolution of the Honor 6 Plus as 1,800x1,080, which means Huawei will employ software-rendered Android buttons for this model - and the full display resolution will be 1080p.
However, the main selling point of the Honor 6 Plus will undoubtedly be its dual rear camera setup, which has already been revealed (as has been the fact that it will have 3GB of RAM, for example).
Just a few days ago a Samsung SM-E500F was spotted entering India for testing purposes by an import tracking website.
And now it's been joined by the Samsung SM-E700F, and in this case we're even graced with a couple of specs for the device. The E700 will apparently come with a 5.5-inch touchscreen, as well as dual-SIM support, though no other details about it are known at this time.
Still, this is more than we know about the previously mentioned SM-E500F. These handsets could very well be two members of a new Galaxy E series of devices from Samsung. The Korean company has been rumored to adopt more and more letter-based lineups, following the first one which was the A series. That was recently made official with the announcement of the Galaxy A3 and Galaxy A5, and a Galaxy A7 should join those two pretty soon, as it's just been given the go-ahead at the FCC.
Since the A3 and A5 have the model numbers SM-A300 and SM-A500 respectively, you can see why we'd assume the SM-E500 and SM-E700 will be sold as the Galaxy E5 and Galaxy E7. If that happens (which is by no means a given), then expect the E5 to be smaller and perhaps a bit lesser-specced than the E7.
An upcoming Gionee W900 smartphone with two 4” 1080p displays passed through TENAA in China. The Android 4.4 KitKat flip phone will almost certainly not launch outside of its home market.
Thanks to their modest size and high resolution, the duo of displays found in the handset sport a rather impressive pixel density of 550ppi. The downside of the device’s dual display setup is thickness of 14.8mm - a sharp departure from the 5.1mm waistline of Gionee Elife S5.1.
The device’s TENAA page reveals details about its specs. They include 1.5GHz quad-core CPU, 2GB of RAM, 16GB of expandable storage, 13MP main camera, LTE, and 5MP front-facing snapper. Gionee W900 is powered by a 2,050mAh battery.
Google's Android One series of smartphone recently launched in India but has been limited to one country for now. However, the phones will now be available in Europe, with Amazon beginning the sales of the Karbonn Sparkle V on its UK website.
The Sparkle V is available for £129.99 on Amazon UK SIM free, which about the same as other low-end Android phones in the market such as the Moto G. As an added bonus, the phone will be available on Black Friday for £99.99, making it really good value.
So far only one of the three Android One phones is being launched in Europe but with all of them being mostly identical it shouldn't matter much.
LG electronics has just appointed a new head of its mobile division. Juno Cho will be taking over the position of president and CEO of the division from Park Jong-Seok, who has been dealing with health problems, but will retain a supporting role in the management.
The new CEO will be in charge of leading a formidable expansion in global markets, which builds upon the company's recent success in the mobile sector. This year the second largest Korean handset manufacturer regained profitability, with a formidable 16.3% market share in North America during Q3.
This is in large part thanks to the huge success of their flagship device, the LG G3. This sets a veritable record for LG, with almost double the market shares from last year. Furthermore the company announced its highest operation profits, since 2010 at $152 million.
Juno Chou can already boast formidable success at LG. He is largely credited for the North America branch success around the mid-2000s and the very well-received Chocolate Phone in 2006, which he was in charge of. This track record has made him a perfect candidate to lead LG mobile sales into foreign markets and especially China.
The announcement also commented on several other management rearrangements. Kwon Bong-suk, who is currently heading LG Corp's Synergy Division, was promoted to president and CEO of the entire consumer electronics segment at LG. It seems that this is part of the expansion of OLED TVs, planned for next year.
This drive towards the technology is also supported by the decision to keep Han Sang-beom as CEO of LG display. Several other rearrangement are also set to occur in LG affiliates - LG Display, LG InnoTek and LG Chem, but they concern mostly mid-level management.
OnePlus One will launch in India next week, on December 2. As we know already, the powerful yet affordable smartphone and its accessories will be exclusively sold through Amazon in the vast market.
Official pricing in India for the smartphone is yet to be revealed. OnePlus One will be offered via India-specific invites. Users will be able to register their interest in obtaining one on the device’s Indian product page.
We noticed that customers in India will have 48 hours to utilize their invite. OnePlus One invites in for other markets typically last for 24 hours.
In order to mark the launch of the smartphone, OnePlus and the retail giant released a promo video starring the Amazon India’s country manager and the CEO of the Chinese company. See it below.
The manufacturer of rugged smartphones Sonim took the wraps of the XP7 Android 4.4 KitKat smartphone. The newcomer is said to be the most rugged smartphone with 4G LTE connectivity on board.
Sonim XP7 features shock and impact resistance above military specs. The handset has IP68 rating (up to 6.5 feet of water for 30 minutes) in addition to being dirt, mud, sand, and dust-proof.
The device can handle extreme heat and cold as well. Sonim backs its creation with a three-year comprehensive warranty, which covers accidental damage as well.
Specifications of Sonim XP7 include Qualcomm Snapdragon 400 SoC with 1.2GHz quad-core CPU, a gig of RAM, and 16GB of built-in memory. The device offers full connectivity suite headed by 4G LTE support.
The display of the handset is a 4” WVGA unit, which can be operated with gloves. Users will be able to easily view the content on the screen even in extremely bright environment.
An 8MP main camera is in charge of capturing memories, while a 1MP front-facing unit will handle video conversations. The handset features a 19mm audio speaker with 103dB of output.
Physical measures of Sonim XP7 are 137mm x 72.1mm x 20.8mm, while its weight tips the scale at 290 grams. The massive 4,800mAh battery of the handset is rated at offering 1,000 hours of standby and 40 hours of talk time.
Sonim is offering the XP7 through an Indiegogo campaign. The handset’s $578 price tag includes a water-proof Bluetooth headset and a $49 prepaid SIM for the first 500 people who order it. The XP7 will reach customers in March 2015.
Android 5.0 Lollipop is now seeding to Moto X (2014) for Verizon Wireless. The update arrives only a couple of days after soak test invites got out to Motorola Feedback Network participants.
The latest Android build for the Moto X is in stock guise, so it offers the same user interface experience as the Nexus 6. The biggest highlights of Android 5.0 include sleek Material Design and brand new ART runtime. The latter makes devices feel a lot more responsive regardless of the task they perform.
Verizon deserves a hat tip for bringing the new OS so quickly to the Moto X (2014). It was only a couple of weeks ago when Motorola began seeding Android 5.0 to the Pure Edition of the smartphone and Moto G (2014).
The budget-friendly Honor 3C by Huawei is now available to pre-order in Europe. The dual-SIM smartphone is priced at £109.99 (about $170).The handset will begin shipping to customers this coming Monday, on November 24.
Specifications of Honor 3C by Huawei include 5” 720p display, HiSilicon Kirin 910 chipset, and heavily customized Android 4.2. An 8MP main camera, 5MP front-facing snapper, and 2,300mAh battery complete the highlights.
The price tag of Honor 3C makes it a competitor to the Moto G and all its iterations. In short, the newcomer surely has its work cut out.
More than two months later than T-Mobile's version, Sprint's Samsung Galaxy S5 is now finally in the process of getting updated to Android 4.4.4 KitKat. This is the last version of the OS bearing that name, so we assume the next new software Sprint's S5 will get will be Android 5.0 Lollipop.
The Android 4.4.4 update is currently rolling out in batches, which means it might take a few days before your particular device notifies you that it's available to download and install.
Aside from the OS version bump, it brings with it an HD Voice icon, international Wi-Fi calling support, and a few unnamed (but undoubtedly important) "Google security patches". After applying the update, you'll be on software version G900PVPU1ANK4.
Xiaomi has had an amazing run so far. The company, founded in April 2010, launched its first smartphone in August 2011. And around three years later, it became the world's No.3 smartphone maker by sales volumes. And it achieved this despite only selling its wares in a handful of Asian countries.
That context is necessary to understand why Xiaomi CEO Lei Jun feels confident that his company will be able to reach even further, climbing to the No.1 spot for worldwide smartphone sales within five to ten years.
Of course, at the rate the mobile world has been moving over the past few years, during that time frame anything can happen. But given Xiaomi's performance so far, we should probably take its CEO's words seriously and at least consider the possibility that this might happen.
After all, if the company were to simply expand its distribution across the world, it would see a big jump in sales almost instantly.
Lei Jun announced his ambitions for Xiaomi at a conference in China, where he also boasted that the company already has 70 million active users. This number should apparently rise to 200 million in the next year, which means it expects to sell around 100 million smartphones in 2015.
