Sony Xperia Z Ultra gets caught in the wild, UI is unchanged

The soon-to-be-announced Sony Xperia ZU (standing for Z Ultra) has appeared in a photo taken in the wild. That's not the first time we take a glimpse of Sony's first phablet, but it's the first time we see its 6.44-inch display turned on.
Just like the Xperia Z, the Xperia Z Ultra will have a Nexus-like trio of on-screen buttons at the bottom of its full HD display. The purported photo of the smartphone above might very well be fabricated, but it looks pretty convincing to us.
We've already seen Sony's hint of the Xperia Z Ultra (codenamed Togari) in the official press invitation, confirming the device will feature a really thin profile, but we don't yet know how the sheer size of the smartphone will affect its weight.
Regardless, the photo voids a rumor from yesterday, which suggested Sony is going to make some changes to the way its custom UI looked with Android 4.2. Seeing from the photo above, that couldn't be further from the truth, as the Xperia Z Ultra seems to look in line with previous versions of the UI.
 Source:Gsmarena

Samsung Galaxy S4 Officiated with 10x zoom, Android 4.2

The Galaxy S4 Zoom is expected to hit US and UK shores by the end of Q3 this year or as early as summer. Pricing is still unknown, though. Be sure to check out our in-depth Samsung Galaxy S4 Zoom preview for photo and video samples

Google Starts Counting Android Activations Based On A User Visit To Its Play Store

Source

Galaxy S4 will come with wireless charging in some markets

As it turns out the Samsung Galaxy S4 flagship comes with support for the Qi wireless charging standard. Samsung said nothing about this at yesterday's event in New York, but some observant guys found wirelessly charging Galaxy S4 units at the stands after it.
The charging tables match the Galaxy S4 paintjobs - the base is made of the same glossy plastic as the device, while the top has a rubberized finish to hold the Galaxy S4 securely.
Unfortunately, the support for the feature will depend on your region and your carrier. So you'll have to look carefully if the Galaxy S4 you are about to purchase comes with wireless charging out of box or not.
The good news is the wireless charging will most probably depend on the battery cover, so even if you get a Galaxy S4 without the proper rear cover, you'll probably be able to purchase one separately.

Samsung Galaxy S IV Now Released

 The next big thing from Samsung is finally here as the Samsung Galaxy S IV has been announced in New York this morning. The phone is unarguably one of the very best in the smartphone industry ever with its ground-breaking specs.

Featuring a 4.99 Inch Full HD display, 13mp camera and an 8-core processor, this phone has enough power to thrash any phone in the market right now.
Here are the specs followed by details below:

• OS: Android OS, v4.2.2 (Jelly Bean)
• CPU: Quad-core 1.6 GHz Cortex-A15 & quad-core 1.2 GHz Cortex-A7
• Chipset: Exynos 5 Octa 5410
• GPU: PowerVR SGX 544MP3
• Design:
• Dimensions: 5.38 x 2.75 x 0.31 in
• Weight: 130 g
• Display:
• Type: Super AMOLED capacitive touchscreen, 16M colors
• Size: 1080 x 1920 pixels, 4.99 inches (~441 ppi pixel density)
• Protection: Corning Gorilla Glass 3
• Memory:
• Card slot: microSD, up to 64 GB
• Internal: 16/32/64 GB storage, 2 GB RAM
• Connectivity: GPRS, EDGE, HSDPA: 42.2 Mbps; HSUPA: 5.76 Mbps; LTE, Cat3, 50 Mbps UL, 100 Mbps DL, Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac, Wi-Fi Direct, Wi-Fi hotspot, Bluetooth, NFC, Infrared port, microUSB v2.0 (MHL), USB On-the-go, USB Host
• Primary Camera: 13 MP, 4128 x 3096 pixels, autofocus, LED flash
• Features: Dual Shot, Simultaneous HD video and image recording, geo-tagging, touch focus, face and smile detection, image stabilization, HDR
• Secondary Camera: 2 MP
• Battery: Li-Ion 2600 mAh battery

Design

The design of the phone is similar to take of the Note II and the Galaxy S III. Its again made of polycarbonate plastic which some people don’t like a lot but it has its own advantages. It keeps the weight low and adds durability to the phone which isn’t that bad. A thin layer of metal surrounds the phone. It still is hardly a premium material though.
The whole body of the phone weighs just 130g and is razor thin at an astonishing 7.9mm. Height and width dimensions are 136.6 and 69.8 mm respectively.

Display

The display is one of the strongest points of the Galaxy S IV. It sports a 4.99 Inch screen and has a mind-blowing Full HD resolution of 1920 x 1080 pixels. That sums up to 441ppi which is a huge achievement indeed. Its also an AMOLED unit so the colors are extremely vibrant and viewing angles are great. It is protected by Corning Gorilla Glass 3.
Its actually a Pentile Matrix display but that won’t hurt the display much especially of this resolution. But you simply can’t deny that this is the new benchmark of the entire phone industry and all of the phone companies should develop their next flagships by keeping this display in mind.

Operating System

Just like other recent Samsung flagship phones, the Galaxy S IV also runs on the latest piece of software. It runs on Android 4.2.2 Jelly Bean which is the latest Android software to have come out of Google.
Its covered on top with Samsung’s Touchwiz UI which some people don’t like when compared to Vanilla Android but still it several unique and new features to the mix so that’s not necessarily a disadvantage.
Just like the previous year, the Galaxy S IV this year comes with really cool software tricks too. There’s S-Voice which in short is the Siri of Android. Smart Pause stops the video playback when you look away from the screen. Smart Scroll scrolls webpages downwards when you tilt the device and look at it at the same time. There’s S-Health and S-Translator too. Air gestures is another amazing trick which let you do stuff simply by waving in front of the screen. Finally there’s hover-touch which lets you do stuff just by hovering your finger above the display. Video/Audio codec support is pretty rich too.

Hardware

There lives a beast inside every Galaxy S IV. It has got two 4-core processors. The first one is a 1.6Ghz quad-core Cortex A15 processor. The second is a less capable 4-core 1.2Ghz quad-core Cortex A7. No need to get worried though as you won’t be frying eggs on it anyway. The chipset used is Exynos 5 Octa and the GPU is PowerVR SGX 544MP3.
The amount of RAM is set at 2GB. It will be available in 3 storage options: 16, 32 and 64 GB. You can expand that even further by 64 more GBs via a microSD card slot.
In short, the Galaxy S IV has got more power than a lot of PCs on earth. Enough said.

Cameras

Samsung’s obsession with 8mp camera units in flagships has finally come to an end. The Galaxy S IV features a 13mp camera with Full HD video recording, along with a 2.1mp front Full HD camera.
That’s not all though. The camera is full of additional features. There’s HDR mode. There’s a mode which takes video from the front and back camera simultaneously. A Drama Shot mode takes 9 photos and merges them into a single image. One mode even lets you throw an object out of the image you’ve taken.
There’s also a CInema Photo which lets you create GIF images by shooting a video and deciding which part should look moving and which stopped.

Connectivity

The phone shines in the connectivity department too. It features Bluetooth 4.0, NFC, card slot, microUSB 2.0, USB-on-the-go, GPS, dual-band Wifi and Wifi-Hotspot. There’s also IR Blaster which can turn this phone into you most expensive remote control. GPRS and EDGE are there too (for Pakistani telecom companies, just kidding).
It supports micro-sim card slots and connections up to 4G LTE are supported.

Others

A lot of other great features are part of the pack too. First of all, there’s a huge 2600mAh battery which will guarantee long battery life. It will be available in White Frost and Black Mist colors. A lot of social networking services are available. The usual list of sensors including Accelerometer, Gyroscope, Barometer and others are built right into the phone.

Pricing and Availability

The phone will be available in April this year. Pricing details are unknown but considering the fact that the Galaxy S III was the first phone which was more expensive than the iPhone when it first came out, you shouldn’t be placing too many bets on the Galaxy S IV’s lower price tag either.
But whether you like it or hate it, you simply can’t ignore this phone. Featuring great features, a lot of cool tricks, top-of-the-class display and a similarly capable camera, the Galaxy S IV is one of the best smartphones ever.
If you don’t care about the cons, i.e. the big size and the build materials much, I don’t think anything other than the Galaxy S IV can suit you better. All hail the new king of the Android kingdom.

Samsung Galaxy S4 unveils with new screen and CPU

Galaxy S IV Reportedly Leaks, Remains Visually Similar To Galaxy S III

 

The Samsung Galaxy S IV is being announced later this week at a special event, but we’ve already seen plenty of leaks regarding the flagship phone’s hardware, but now there’s a new one (via SammyHub) that claims to depict the phone in the flesh, giving us an idea of what it could look like. If these leaks are accurate, the GSIV changes little from the previous generation and Galaxy Note II designs.
Posted to a Chinese forum, it’s still very possible that these are images of another yet-to-be released Samsung device, or simply elaborate fakes, but if that’s what they are, then they’re very well done. The images show a Samsung-branded phone with a 5-inch display, a metal-look band surrounding the phone, and what looks like slightly textured front and back surfaces. The rear is a glossy white, the slab has rounded rectangular edges, and the screen looks to extend closer to the bezel than in any previous Samsung handset, meaning it could manage not to have grown that much in terms of physical size despite the larger display.

The leak fits with reports that the Galaxy S IV will retain its plastic outer case, and agrees with other recent rumors about software and internal specs, since it’s shown to be running Android 4.2.1, has a 1080p displays, runs 2GB of RAM and offers a 13-megapixel camera. The CPU numbering also suggests that it has a Samsung Exynos Octa chip on board as previously reported.
Samsung has been known to epically troll its fans, as it did last year with a disguised version of the Galaxy S III which was covered in an outer case that hid its true design. We could be seeing that sort of thing again, but this leak looks much more convincingly like a shipping device, not encased in any disguise. Regardless of whether it’s the real thing or not, we’ll find out for sure what Samsung’s latest flagship looks like on Thursday.

HTC One might get delayed due to component Shortage

HTC One was announced just prior to the Mobile World Conference 2013. The Smartphone was being anticipated as the greatest hit of HTC but looks like that might not happen. HTC One is set to be delayed in several Parts of the World due to Component shortage.

The News has reached the market after HTC Delayed the release of the Smartphone in Singapore by almost a month.



HTC might ship only 800,000 to 1,200,000 One smartphones in the coming month. This is mainly  because of the shortage of two components - the voice coil motor and the camera module.

If the HTC One gets delayed, this will be another unfortunate event in the history of HTC who has made some quality devices but they havent been able to capture the market. HTC One will surely suffer like the LG Nexus 4 of Google which has been sold out within days of its availability.

The good news is that US will not be suffering due to this shortfall as HTC has already made it clear that US is its main market. Rest of the countries might get the device as late as June.

ZTE Shows off its Flagship: Grand S

^{Hp Unveils Hp Slate 7}

Experience amazing.

Although previously committed to making tablets for only Windows and the unpopular WebOS, HP has finally decided to fall into the mainstream by announcing its first Android tablet, the Slate 7. Its a 7 inch tablet which costs just $170 and offers a dual-core CPU and Beats Audio. Here are the specifications of the tablet:

• Android 4.1 Jelly Bean
• 7 inch display with resolution of 600 x 1024 pixels
• 10.7mmm thick
• weight: 372g
• 1.6Ghz dual-core Cortex A9 processor
• 1GB RAM with 8GB expandable storage
• 3mp HD rear-camera
• VGA secondary camera
• Bluetooth 2.1, microUSB 2.0, Wifi
• Available in Black, Silver and Red

To keep the prices down, the struggling manufacturer has skimped out on some features but has still offered a decent design.
Although I think that overall its a fine tablet, we’ve already seen a wealth of tablets running on dual-core processors costing roughly the same as that of the Slate 7, including the recently announced Iconia B1 by Acer. It remains to be seen how well this device will perform in the market though.

LG makes Optimus F5 and F7 official to Full up the LTE lineup