Specs leak for Verizon-bound BlackBerry Laguna

RIM is completely renovating its BlackBerry OS in its BB10 release and its new gesture-based UI. The Canadians also developed hardware that should stands up to BB OS 10’s biggest competitor, Windows Phone 8.

A leaked specs sheet details the BlackBerry Laguna for Verizon, an L-series device (those are the touch-only ones) that seems to be the CDMA version of the oft-leaked BlackBerry London.

According to this sheet, the Laguna will pack a 4.2” screen with the non-standard 1280 x 768 resolution (only the dev units and the London are supposed to use this one instead of 720p). The pixel density works out to the impressive 355ppi.

The phone will be powered by a dual-core Krait CPU and feature 1GB RAM (Qualcomm MSM8960 chipset), the same that powers the upcoming crop of WP8 flagship devices. Other specs on the BlackBerry Laguna include LTE (with GSM 2G and 3G for roaming), dual-band Wi-Fi a/b/g/n with mobile hot-spot and Wi-Fi direct, NFC and microHDMI port.

Then there’s an 8MP camera capable of shooting 1080p video, 16GB of built-in storage and a hot-swappable microSD card. An 1800mAh battery is set to power the whole thing.

We’ve already had a look at what BlackBerry OS 10 is like from the Beta 3 demos, but these leaked tutorials give even more detail on the new touch gestures.

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Samsung and AT&T announce four new upcoming devices

Samsung and AT&T announced four Android devices which are bound to hit the carrier's shelves in the coming months. The bunch consists of three LTE smartphones and one tablet, which also packs the aforementioned network connectivity.

We begin with the Samsung Galaxy Express. The Android 4.0 ICS smartphone packs a dual-core CPU clocked at 1.5GHz and a 4.5" Super AMOLED Plus display (likely with WVGA) resolution. A 5MP snapper and 2000mAh battery complete the list of known specs.

  

The Samsung Galaxy Rugby Pro is next on the list. The successor of the Samsung Rugby Smart packs LTE and Android 4.0 ICS, tucked into a rugged body, which is built up to 810g military specifications. A 4" WVGA Super AMOLED display, a 5MP camera, as well as enhanced push-to-talk are also part of the spec sheet.

  

AT&T also announced its own version of the Samsung Galaxy Note II. The phoneblet's specs are no different than the ones found in the international version, save for the presence of LTE and AT&T's logo on the back.

  

Finally, AT&T announced the addition of the 4G LTE flavored Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 10.1 to its lineup of slates.

Pricing and exact availability for the devices is yet to be known. We'll update you as soon as we find out.

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Samsung ATIV S is up for pre-order, can be yours for €549

After the pricing of HTC's Windows Phone 8 smartphones, the 8X and 8S, and Nokia's Lumia 920 and Lumia 820 were revealed, now it's time to see how much Samsung is going to ask for its ATIV S.

A Belgian retailer has priced the ATIV S, SIM free at €549 ($710). This puts the smartphone right in the middle of the Windows Phone 8 spectrum, as the HTC's WP8 flagship, the 8X will cost €499 and the Nokia Lumia 920 is going to retail for € 599.

Mind you, the pricing hasn't been officially confirmed yet, nor by Samsung, so take this with a grain of salt. Still, it gives you a general idea how the current line-up of Windows Phone 8-running devices stands against the competition price-wise.

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Apple apologizes for Maps fiasco, suggest you try the competition

In an unprecedented move, Apple's CEO Tim Cook published a letter on the company's website, admitting that Apple's new maps service isn't up to par with the competition.

In the letter, Tim Cook goes on to say that the Apple Maps app has reached more than 100 million iOS devices and in just over a week users have accounted for nearly half a billion searches. The latter is essential as it helps Apple improve its service.

But here's the shocking part, Tim Cook actually admitted that the app wasn't up to scratch and apologized for the frustration that it caused Apple customers. He even went on to suggest "alternatives".

While we’re improving Maps, you can try alternatives by downloading map apps from the App Store like Bing, MapQuest and Waze, or use Google or Nokia maps by going to their websites and creating an icon on your home screen to their web app.

The company seems to be hard at work on revising the bugs and problems of its Maps service, but until then, iOS users have the official permission of Tim Cook go elsewhere if they feel unsatisfied with what Apple has done with Maps.

Follow the source link to read the whole letter of apology.

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Texas Instruments withdraws from smartphones, goodbye OMAP

Texas Instruments is dropping from the system-on-chip for smartphones and tablets manufacturing and will give up on its OMAP lineup.

The company’s OMAP boards are less and less popular among mobile manufacturers – most of them bet on Qualcomm, while Samsung and Apple are developing their own solutions (Exynos, A6). The major disadvantage of the OMAP chipset is the lack of on-board 3G/4G modem.

That forces manufacturers who rely on OMAP chipsets to use additional radio chips, which increases battery consumption and production costs. Now you understand why smartphone manufacturers prefer Qualcomm’s complete solutions, rather than this expensive process.

TI says its focus will shift on “to a broader market including industrial clients like carmakers”, though it did not announce specifics and the investors were left wondering.

Anyway, TI will continue to support its current clients, but will significantly reduce efforts on developing new OMAP chipsets.

The news might come shocking for some, as the TI OMAP 5 was expected to be the first chipset with dual Cortex-A15 CPU, and now it's fate is uncertain. Nonetheless, TI OMAP's presence was barely felt on the market, so the company's exit won't create too much of a disturbance.

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BlackBerry 10 beta 3 released, shows revamped UI

At a special event yesterday RIM unveiled the BlackBerry 10 beta 3 running on the company's new test device, the Dev Alpha B.

The UI look and feel of this latest BlackBerry 10 build is what RIM will be putting on its final BB10 devices in early 2013. And according to those, who've tried it, it really has the potential to grab people's attention.

Let's start with the new UI features. Starting with the new beta, to wake the device, you simply swipe from the bottom of the screen. Then, you are welcomed with the traditional batch of homescreen panels.

However, there's a twist. The first homescreen isn't really a homescreen in the sense that it holds widgets and app shortcuts. Rather, it houses the so called "Active Frames". You can have up to 8 of them and they represent currently running applications. Mind you, only four fit on one screen, so to view the other four, you'd have to scroll down.

RIM has done good job of backing in gestures in its OS.For example, you can jump straight to the homescreen from any app by swiping from the bottom up. Making the opposite swipe (top down) brings up the settings menu or another contextual menu, depending on the app you're in.

   
BlackBerry 10 SDK Beta 3 in action • Photos by TheVerge

What's really interesting is the new BlackBerry Hub. This is RIM's unified messaging service. It integrates all your email accounts, messages from social networks (Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn) and puts them in one place.

It's accessible by a sort of weird gesture - swipe up and to the right (think of it as a reversed L). Once you access it, you can see your notifications alongside the aforementioned emails and messages.

Back to the homescreens, swiping right of the Acitve Frames, reveals the classic list of App icons. They can be manually moved around and sorted to your liking. RIM has integrated an interesting feature allowing you to switch the device into personal or work mode when you swipe down from top of the screen when viewing the App icons screens.

Choosing Work mode allows you to launch an app in a secure mode. For example, a company might restrict copy and pasting in certain secured apps.

TheVerge was at the developer event, and made a user interface video of the latest BlackBerry 10 SDK Beta 3 build. Check it out below.

Judging from the footage, the latest build of BlackBerry 10 looks very promising. It's very fast and fluid, and packs a lot of interesting UI features that its competitors just currently lack.

As for the new device, it features a 4.2-inch display with RIM's standardized resolution of 1280 x 768 pixels. As TheVerge points out, its speaker grill, cameras, microphone and buttons really resemble the recently leaked BlackBerry 10 L Series phone.

What your take on RIM's progress with BlackBerry 10 so far?

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Pantech Vega R3 phablet packs a Snapdragon S4 Pro chipset

Samsung Galaxy Note II and LG Optimus Vu beware, the newly announced Pantech Vega R3 is gunning for your head. The phoneblet features a 5.3" Natural IPS Pro LCD screen of 720p resolution and Qualcomm's monster Snapdragon S4 Pro chipset.

Pantech is the latest company to develop a dislike for bezels and the Vega R3 features "Zero Bezel Tech". It keeps the phone compact and "provides optimum grip for a typical Korean hand." The phoneblet is 9.95mm thick and weighs 169g.

   
Pantech Vega R3

The Snapdragon S4 Pro chipset is one of the headline-grabbing features of the Pantech Vega R3. It packs four Krait CPU cores clocked at 1.5GHz, 2GB of RAM and Adreno 320 GPU. It should readily tackle Samsung Galaxy Note II and LG Optimus Vu.

There are only two other mobile devices that use the S4 Pro chipset - the LG Optimus G and the Xiaomi Mi-Two.

The battery that powers the chipset and the big screen is a 2,600mAh "super battery pack", which promises 14 hours and 30 minutes of talk time. Charging the battery back up will be pretty quick too, with the 2A charger - it takes about 100 minutes according to Pantech. It's a 2 port charger too, so you can plug in the phone along with a spare battery.

The camera on the back of the Vega R3 does 13MP stills and features "Best Face" functionality - the now familiar Scalado-like approach of taking multiple shots and combining the best facial expression for each person into a single photo.

The phoneblet also packs extensive connectivity features - LTE, NFC, Wi-Fi a/b/g/n and Bluetooth 4.0. There's a microSD card to expand the built-in memory.

The Pantech Vega R3 is available through the three South Korean carriers starting today. It's launching with Android 4.0.4 Ice Cream Sandwich but a Jelly Bean update is in the cards too.

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DisplayMate tests the displays of the iPhone 5 and Galaxy S III

Popular display analyzing company DisplayMate has decided to put the iPhone 5 through its various highly scientific tests and pit it against the Galaxy S III. The 4.8-inch Super AMOLED HD display of the Samsung flagship faces the 4-inch IPS LCD screen of the iPhone 5, as well as the 3.5-inch display of the iPhone 4 for good measure.

DisplayMate tested many characteristics of the displays, such as screen reflections, brightness and contrast, colors and intensities, viewing Angles and display power Consumption, running time on battery. So what's the verdict?

According to DisplayMate's lab measurements, the iPhone 5 has a "state-of-the-art-accurate" display, and is the best one they've ever seen, even if there's room for improvement in some areas. Compared to the iPhone 4, the IPS LCD display of the iPhone has lower screen reflections and much higher image contrast. The color gamut is also significantly improved and more accurate than before. But what about the Galaxy S III?

In a word - the OLED technology isn't able to produce the same kind of accuracy that the iPhone 5 IPS LCD does. That's because OLED is a relatively new technology that isn't yet as refined as LCDs are. As a result, it doesn't perform as well as the iPhone 5. However, DisplayMate promises a very bright future for OLEDs as they've been evolving and improving at a very rapid pace.

The display brightness of the Galaxy S III is about half of the iPhone 5 due to OLED's low power efficiency resulting in power constraints. The image contrast and screen readability of the Galaxy S III in high ambient lighting is also poorer than that of the iPhone 5.

As far as the color gamut is concerned, Apple has made a noticeable effort in making the colors as accurate as possible, while Samsung hasn't really done this in their OLED displays. As a result AMOLED displays have inaccurate color representation and over saturated colors.

There's one thing that you should keep in mind however - the DisplayMate tests only judge the screens based on its accuracy. In reality, many people prefer the extra punch offered by the over saturated colors on AMOLED screens, even if they are not as accurate.

Check the source link below to see the the full comparison table with included measurements and assessments.

Source | Via

Nokia may file a lawsuit seeking a ban on HTC WP 8X

According to the latest online gossip, Nokia considers seeking ban for the upcoming HTC flagship –Windows Phone 8X. The Finns accuse HTC of copying the Lumia 820 front panel design for its Windows Phone 8X.

Nokia unveiled the Lumia 820 and 920 in the beginning of September. HTC announced its two WP-powered headsets two weeks later. Shortly after Nokia’s EVP of Sales and Marketing tweeted "It takes more than matching color to match the innovation of the Lumia 920." – aimed directly at HTC’s new phones.

The source says that Nokia is going to take serious actions against HTC and seek a ban on the Windows Phone 8 sales.

No matter what Nokia’s intentions are, both Nokia and HTC have huge support from Microsoft (and Qualcomm), and we bet the issue will be resolved without entering the court room. And even if it did, we doubt Nokia will end up victorious – it takes way more than two weeks to develop a smartphone and there's no way HTC managed to redesign the 8X in the short time between the Lumia 820 announcement and its own event.

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Samsung announces list of devices that will get Jelly Bean

The Android 4.1, Jelly Bean update for the Samsung Galaxy S III has started rolling out but Samsung isn't going to stop at its flagship device. It has announced a list of devices that will be getting the Jelly Bean update in the upcoming months.

The list includes the following devices:

• Galaxy Tab 2 7.0
• Galaxy Tab 2 10.1
• Galaxy Note 10.1
• Galaxy S II
• Galaxy Note
• Galaxy Tab 7.0 Plus
• Galaxy S Advance
• Galaxy S II LTE
• Galaxy Music
• Galaxy Chat
• Galaxy Ace 2
• I8530 Galaxy Beam
• Galaxy Ace Plus
• Galaxy Mini II
• Galaxy S Duos

There are no concrete dates for any of the devices but we'll let you know when the devices mentioned abvove start receiving the update.

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iOS 6 update hits 100 million installs

Today Apple announced the iPhone 5 broke a new record – 5 million units sold in the first three days of its market availability. The press release contained some statistics about the iOS 6 updates as well. According to the issued statement the iOS 6 landed on more than 100 million devices already, excluding the iPhone 5 units. 

The iOS 6 update is available for the iPhones 3GS, 4 and 4S; iPads 2 and 3 (a.k.a. the new iPad); and iPods Touch 4 and 5. It started seeding on September 19 and 100 million iDevices are already running it. Surely there are a few million more to come, since not every iOS users is eager to update (they either don’t know there is an update or they just don’t want to get lost with the Apple Maps).

So while this is an impressive number, it’s not a surprising one considering the huge iOS user base and the global availability of the update.

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Apple sells 5 million iPhone 5's in the first three days alone

Flagship smartphones sell by the millions and that's a given. Some 2 million people pre-ordered the new iPhone 5 and the total number of sold devices in the three days since the launch on September 21 has reached and surpassed 5 million units.

Sales predictions were a bit higher (standing at around 8 million units), but as you know, market predictions are not what you would call an exact science.

Last year the iPhone 4S sold in over 4 million units over its first weekend of market availability, while the iPhone 4 sold just 1.7 million units in its debut weekend back in 2010.

Yet again however, the demand has exceeded the initially available supply and some of the people who made pre-orders will have to wait for their deliveries until October.

The iPhone 5 launched on September 21 in 9 countries - the US, Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Japan, Singapore and the UK.

Another 22 countries will get it come September 28. The list includes Austria, Belgium, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden and Switzerland.

The total number of markets where the iPhone 5 is available should reach 100 by the end of the year.

As usual, tempting carrier deals aside, the iPhone 5 remains one of the most expensive smartphones on the market with official SIM-free prices in Europe running around the €670 mark.

If you are interested whether you would be able to make use of the iPhone 5 high-speed LTE connectivity in your country, check out our list. If you are not among the lucky ones, you can still count on HSPA, of course.

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LG Optimus Vu II specs leak, S4 chipset confirmed

Having just released its 5-inch Optimus Vu phablet globally, LG is hard working on its successor, as a specs leak reveals. The LG Optimus Vu II is a direct answer to Samsung's Galaxy Note II, though its specs sheet is hardly as impressive.

The LG Optimus Vu II will reportedly be powered by a 1.5GHz dual-core Snapdragon S4 MSM8960 processor and have 2GB of RAM. According to the leak, it'll be running Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich on the same 5-inch, 1024 x 768 pixel screen with a 4:3 aspect ratio.

The battery of the second generation Optimus Vu is slightly bumped and will be 2150mAh instead of 2080mAh. Other than that, the rest of the specifications seem to be left untouched. There's no information on the availability and pricing.

However, we've already seen the new universal remote app LG is readying, so the Optimus Vu II will surely have more surprises up its sleeve.

Source | Via

Camera samples shot with Galaxy Nexus 2 I9260 leak on Picasa

It's been nearly a full year since the last Google Nexus phone was announced (though we witnessed the launch of the Nexus 7 tablet in the meantime). We've already seen some leaked specs of an update for the Galaxy Nexus but now we have photos uploaded to Picasa to back those up as well.

The EXIF info in the photos labels the device "GT-I9260" - the expected model number of the successor of the current Galaxy Nexus (I9250). Unfortunately, the photos were not shot at full resolution, so they can't confirm the upgrade to 8MP that the camera of the next Galaxy Nexus is rumored to receive.

What the photos do reveal however, is a F/2.65 aperture and a 4mm focal length. The Galaxy S III has an aperture of F/2.6 and a focal length of 3.6mm, while the Galaxy S II has an aperture F/2.65 and a focal length of 3.97mm, so it might be theoretically possible that the new Nexus phone may have the same camera as the Galaxy SII.

The firmware versions listed in the EXIF info in the two photos is I9260XXALI5 and I9260XXALI6.

In one of the photos, there's a portion of an Excel window with a table listing Bluetooth specs for something, but there's nothing interesting that can be made out.

Besides the camera, the Samsung I9260 Galaxy Nexus "Premiere" is supposed to have a better CPU (Cortex-A9 dual-core at 1.5GHz instead of 1.2GHz), a microSD card slot and the same 4.65" Super AMOLED HD screen.

Would it be okay if the next Galaxy Nexus really isn't based on the Galaxy S III? The OS it will run is still not clear - typically, a Nexus device would come with the latest available iteration of Android, but Jelly Bean is still very fresh (barely powering a percent of all Androids), so it might be too early for Key Lime Pie.

Source | Via (in Japanese)

Galaxy S III Android 4.1 Jelly Bean update now seeding

The moment Samsung Galaxy S III owners have been waiting is upon us, as the rollout of the the Android 4.1 Jelly Bean update has begun. After many leaks, the software update has started its official march to your Galaxy S IIIs.

The first country to start receiving the update is Poland, but the rest of Europe should join the fun soon. The firmware can be obtained OTA or via KIES. Samsung recommends you are on a Wi-Fi connection with at least 50% battery when you apply the update.

Jelly Bean does a lot to improve the Galaxy S III user experience. While you are waiting for your smartphone to finish updating itself, make sure to check out our extensive preview of the Jelly Bean update and the new features it brings to the S III.

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Huawei's first WP8 smartphone to be called W1

Huawei is yet to join the Windows Phone 8 game, after Samsung, Nokia and HTC showcased their WP8 smartphone offerings.

According to the latest rumors coming from China Huawei's first WP8 smartphone will be called the W1. Given that the information comes from no other than Richard Yu (Huawei's Chairman of devices), we have every reason to believe that it's accurate.

The Huawei W1 is rumored to start shipping in November or December in three color versions - black, pink and white. It should cost around $317. The device is rumored to be announced on September 25, but take that with a pinch of salt as Huawei has previously hinted that it will be announcing its WP8 smartphones right before their market release, so it might take another two or three months before the W1 goes official.

There's still no word on the specs of the Huawei W1 but we'll keep an ear on the ground and keep you posted when those become available.

Source (In Chinese) | Via

HTC Windows Phone 8X photo and video samples surface

The HTC Windows Phone 8X is still hot off the announcement stage and we weren't hoping for camera samples to appear so early.

The new smartphone is touted for its 8 megapixel camera with a backside illuminated sensor, wide f/2.0 aperture and 28mm wide viewing angle, so we were quite excited to see some real-life shots.

From the looks of it, the HTC Windows Phone 8X delivers some sharp photos, though the noise suppression clearly leaves its marks on the really fine detail. The macro shot reveals some really close focusing and a nicely shallow depth of field.

As you'll notice, the shots are not full 8MP because they've been shot in 16:9 mode but nevertheless, they most certainly convey the full capabilities of the camera.

  
HTC Windows Phone 8X camera samples

And here's a 1080p video sample shot by the HTC Windows Phone 8X. When watching the video, make sure you select the 1080p option and open it fullscreen to appreciate the quality as much as the YouTube conversion has preserved it. The video footage is impressively sharp, though it looks as if it could have used some extra color saturation.

If you are curious in more HTC Windows Phone 8X coverage, don't miss our hands-on report from the unveiling event.

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CyanogenMod developer slams Exynos phones for lack of proper support

Users may find the performance of Samsung’s Exynos processors exhilarating, but it seems the developers who work on custom ROMs for these devices don’t share the same enthusiasm.

Responding to a query on xda-developers forum, CyanogenMod developer who goes by the forum ID ‘codeworkx’ explained why he and other developers think that Exynos processors are bad for developers. It essentially boils down to lack of proper support from Samsung in terms of providing sources or documentation for their processors and when they do it’s either outdated or incompatible.

In comparison, he found Qualcomm and TI to be far better. He even gave an example where he compared two of Samsung’s phones, the I9100 Galaxy S II and the I9100G Galaxy S II, essentially the same phones but running on different SoCs, the former on Samsung’s Exynos and the latter on TI OMAP. The I9100 is still struggling with an unstable and poorly performing Jelly Bean ROM whereas the I9100G has a fully functional Jelly Bean ROM.

In the end, his advice is to avoid buying Exynos phones, that is, if you care about installing custom ROMs on your device.

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Apple iPhone 5 aluminum shell plagued by chipping issues

It seems to have become a routine now. Every year Apple releases a new iPhone and while most of the customers are delighted a subset of buyers pull the short end of the stick. With the iPhone 4, it was the antennagate issue, with the iPhone 4S it was the battery life problem and now some iPhone 5 buyers are noticing dents on their prized possession.

Yes, many owners, particularly of the Black & Slate colored model, are reporting dents and scratches along the chamfered edges of their new iPhone right out of the box. We haven't seen many reports from owners of the White & Silver model, but that just might be because the color isn't particularly popular.

Now, anodized aluminum is known to pick up scuff marks easily. Because the color is painted on top, even a minor scuff can make it come off, revealing a shiny silver spot below. Also, aluminum is a soft metal, so it dents very easily, especially along thin edges. You'll find scuffs and dents on practically every anodized aluminum object that has been used for a while.

Which is why it wasn't a shock to us when we saw the iPhone picking up dents along the edges in this drop test. However, it is surprising when the device comes with scuff marks out of the box and points to poor quality checks at Apple's end.

Of course, Apple will readily replace any such device for you. But if you're importing this device to a different country (and we know many do), you will need to be careful and hold on till the issue gets sorted.

Update: Apparently, white units have the same issues as the black ones. We are really hoping Apple makes an official statement soon enough and explain the cause.

Source • Image Source

Apple iPhone 5's A6 chipset performance examined in detail

Ever since the Apple iPhone 5 was announced, the A6 chipset which powers it has been something of a riddle. With Apple mentioning nothing on the exact specifications, we had to wait another week to find the core count and architecture, as well as the RAM amount and GPU model.

Now however, we got to learn the rest of the A6 secrets, thanks to a detailed review of its performance, courtesy of Anandtech. The suspicion that Apple went for a custom CPU architecture was confirmed and we learned that its maximum clock speed is 1.2GHz. The rest of the A6 specs highlights include 1GB of RAM and a PowerVR SGX 543MP3 three-core GPU.

More importantly, however, we found out how those perform in real life and how the iPhone 5 compares to the other iOS products and the Android top dogs.

The guys from Anandtech went for the browser tests first, and saw the Apple iPhone 5 to have a huge advantage over its competitors. The A6 chipset helped the new iOS flagship make easy work of the competition at the BrowserMark, SunSpider and even Google’s own V8 tests.

  
Apple iPhone 5 browser benchmarks

Whether or not the iPhone 5 is the ultimate browsing device greatly depends on your screen size, resolution and browser preferences, but it’s sure shaping to be the fastest one around.

The GPU benchmarks came next and the Apple iPhone 5 was able to pass the test with flying colors, too. Despite being a core short of the A5X GPU inside the new iPad, the A6 PowerVR SGX 543MP3 came very close to it in terms of raw performance. And since the iPhone 5 has far lower resolution than the third-generation iPad, it should offer even higher framerates on those games.

 
Apple iPhone 5 GPU benchmarks

The beastly graphics chip swept away current Android top dogs, and only came slightly short of the Adreno 320 inside the LG Optimus G. Once again, though, the lower resolution helped the iPhone 5 get better real-life framerates.

 
Apple iPhone 5 GPU benchmarks

Finally, we got a couple of charts, comparing the iPhone 5 performance to that of the iPhone 4S. It turns out that the A6 easily delivers on the 2x performance increase promise.

 
Apple iPhone 5 vs Apple iPhone 4S

An interesting detail came up during that review. Apparently the iPhone 5 is able to improve its performance by a further 10% when not connected to a carrier’s network. It’s yet unclear why the difference is so dramatic, but the reviewer promises to look into it and report back if he finds anything.

For even more tests follow the source link.

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Apple iPhone 5 sales prediction for the weekend set at 8 million

The Apple iPhone 5 is already here and just about every analyst out there is busy trying to predict how it will do in its first weekend of availability. One of them, however, really impressed us with its non-traditional research methods.

Gene Munster and his team at Piper Jaffray based their prognosis on, among other things, the lengths of the lines in front of the Apple stores today. The survey of lines at Apple stores in New York, Boston and Minneapolis showed that crowds are 83% larger than those for the iPhone 4S used to be.

That has lead the analyst company to predict that Apple will sell 8 million iPhone 5 units in the opening weekend, which is just in the middle of its previous 6-10 million forecast. The expected sales for the first full quarter of iPhone 5 availability - the upcoming holiday quarter - should reach 49 million, which should help Apple close the gap to Samsung in the smartphone race.

If Apple sticks to its habits, we'll all know the exact number on Monday, when a press release will be issued. One things is certain though - the iPhone 5 will set a new record for fastest selling smartphone.

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Nokia Lumia 510 spotted in China running Windows Phone 7.8

Nokia is looking to release a new low-end Lumia smartphone for the Chinese market. Called Nokia Lumia 510, the new device should slot beneath the Lumia 610 in the company's smartphone portfolio.

The Nokia Lumia 510 is set to feature a 4-inch display of WVGA resolution, an 800 MHz Scorpion processor and 256MB of RAM. As you'll recall, Microsoft has enabled Windows Phone 7.5 and 7.8 to run on devices with just 256 MB of RAM.

Not much else is known about the Lumia 510, besides that there will also be a 5 MP camera on board as well.

The Nokia Lumia 510 could hit the Chinese market in time for the holidays, and other markets in early 2013.

Source (Chinese) | Via