Beauty Products

Friday, October 31, 2014

HTC ends Q3 on a $19 million profit, hopes for the best in Q4

Just like its unaudited report suggested earlier this month, HTC continues its winning streak in Q3. HTC's financial report for the Q3 2014 states the company made a profit of $19 million (NT$0.6 billion). Revenue for the period is $1.38 billion (NT$41.9 billion), which is down from $2.17 billion from the previous quarter.

The company is content with how the HTC One (M8) held its ground for the period and continued to sell well despite growing competition. The mid-range Desire line-up is also profitable for HTC, but it didn't specify exact shipment figures for any device.
In the last quarter, the HTC One (M8) was the main culprit for the company's $92 million profit turnout. HTC is looking up for a similar to Q3 last quarter of the year with a revenue of $1.38 billion – $1.55 billion.

Sony posts a quarterly loss, sells 9.9 million smartphones

Sony had a positive quarter three months ago but it's back in the red. The company actually posted increased sales of $17.45 billion (up 7.2% on a yearly basis) in large part thanks to strong PlayStation sales and strong performance of Sony's image sensor business. The company did take a hit in sales after parting with its computer business, though.
The end result for the quarter is a consolidated operating loss of $785 million compared to an operating profit of $124 million in the same quarter last year. Still, the loss is about half of what some analysts expected. The "significant deterioration" is to a hefty impairment charge to the tune of $1.6 billion due to the newly formed Mobile Communications segment, which was split off from the computer business.
This unit recorded a slight increase in sales but took a massive operating loss. Sony shipped 9.9 million smartphones this quarter, a minor decrease compared to the 10 million a year ago. The company lowered its full-year prediction from 43 million to 41 million sales, still above the 39 million it sold in 2013.

The outgoing CFO said Sony will pull out of China (where locals like Xiaomi rule the market), while the incoming head of the mobile division will focus on improving relationships with carriers.
The gaming division took in $2.8 billion in sales (up 83.2% year-on-year) but the operating profit worked out to just $200 million (last year the division posted a loss in the same quarter). Sony sold 3.3 million PlayStation 4 consoles during the quarter, increasing its lead over rival Microsoft.
The division producing image sensors earned $2.3 billion in revenue and posted an operating profit of $271 million thanks to a higher demand of mobile phone cameras. Imaging products (Sony cameras) brought in an additional $1.6 billion in revenue and $184 million in operating income. The division is reporting a shift away from low-end cameras towards value-added models and a "significant" decrease in unit sales of digital cameras.
The TV segment recorded $2.6 billion in sales and $73 million in operating profit (also recovering from a loss). A dropping average selling price was counted with a shift to higher-end models.

Financial services remain Sony's most profitable business with $437 million in operating income.

Andy Rubin, co-founder of Android, leaves Google

Andy Rubin has left Google. Rubin was heading Google's robotic division but has now left the company to start his own incubator for hardware startups. He will be replaced by James Kuffner.

Andy Rubin is the co-founder and ex-CEO or Danger Inc. and Android Inc. He oversaw the development of Android until March 2013, when Sundar Pichai took over and Rubin went on to manage Google's robotics division.

Samsung announces Galaxy A3 and Galaxy A5 duo of smartphones

Samsung took the wraps off the Galaxy A5 and Galaxy A3 duo of smartphones. The Android duet is targeting young buyers with entry-level and mid-range specs, variety of colors, and decidedly premium all-metal unibody.

Samsung Galaxy A5 packs 1.2GHz quad-core CPU and 2GB of RAM.There’s 16GB of built-in memory, which can be further expanded via microSD card slot.

The device's display is a 5" HD Super AMOLED unit (likely with 720p resolution). A 13MP main camera, 5MP front-facing unit, and full connectivity suite that includes LTE round up the highlights in its spec sheet. Samsung Galaxy A5 boots TouchWiz-ed Android 4.4 KitKat.
Physical measures of the Samsung Galaxy A5 are 139.3 x 69.7 x 6.7mm, while its weight tips the scale at 123 grams. The handset is powered by a 2,300mAh battery.
Samsung Galaxy A3 on the other hand packs 1.2GHz quad-core CPU and a gig of RAM. Onboard memory is 8GB, which can be further expanded via microSD card slot.

The display of the Galaxy A3 is a 4.5” qHD Super AMOLED unit. The device’s main camera is an 8MP unit, coupled with 5MP front-facing snapper. Full connectivity suite is also on board, headed by Cat4 LTE. Like its bigger brother, the A3 boots Android 4.4 KitKat with TouchWiz UI.

The measures of Samsung Galaxy A3 are 130.1 x 65.5 x 6.9mm, while its weight comes in at only 110.3 grams. A 1,900mAh battery powers the smartphone.
You can check out Samsung’s official promo video for the Galaxy A family below.

Kantar: Android grows as iOS and Windows Phone decline in Q3

According to the latest Kantar WorldPanel report on mobile operating system market share, Android continues to take the lead marking a slight growth. Its main rivals, iOS and Windows Phone, declined slightly in their respective market share numbers.

In both Europe (EU5) and the US, Android leads its competitors with a market share of 73.9% and 61.8%, respectively. In Europe, Apple takes 15.4% of the market, while Microsoft with Windows Phone manages 9.2%. Interestingly, iOS marks a decline in the US of 3.3 percent points to 32.6% compared to Q2. Windows Phone's presence is also shrinking and is now 4.3% from 4.6%
As far as manufacturers go, LG and Motorola have been doing great in the US and Kantar sees them in a better position to fight with Samsung and Apple than ever. LG is counting on the G3, while Motorola is betting on the Moto X.
In China, Samsung is also feeling pressure from uprising manufacturers such as Xiaomi. It now boasts 30.3% market share whereas Samsung's market share fell to 18.4%. Interestingly, 16% of all smartphones sold in China were with a screen size of 5.5" or larger.

Thursday, October 30, 2014

IDC: Xiaomi third largest manufacturer in Q3

IDC has shared its report for the global smartphone shipments in the third quarter of 2014. The numbers tell a familiar story with one big change - Xiaomi. Last year's Q3 saw Xiaomi somewhere in the Others tab under Huawei, Lenovo and LG but this year the Chinese maker sits proudly at third spot, all without leaving Asia.
Showing a 211.3% growth over last year's Q3 Xiaomi has shipped 17.3 million smartphones compared to the 5.6 million for the same period of last year.
Samsung remains at the first spot with a close to double lead over Apple but has actually seen a decline year over year. Samsung grabbed the first spot with 78.1 million smartphones shipped while Apple managed 39.3 million. However while Apple shipped 5.5 million iPhones more than last year during the same period, Samsung shipped 6.9 million less.

Lenovo also outdid its last year self with 4.6 million units shipped more. LG shipped 4.8 million units more and overall this year's Q3 saw 65.9 million smartphones more, shipped than last year.
Earlier today we learned that despite its huge lead, the drop in sales really impacted Samsung's profits.

Lenovo completes Motorola acquisition from Google

Today, Lenovo announced that its acquisition of Motorola from Google is complete. The deal cost the Chinese company $2.91 billion and was announced in late January. Motorola remains headquartered in Chicago and it's brand is intact, but it's now a "Lenovo company".

Lenovo will operate Motorola as a wholly-owned subsidiary. It owns the brand and the company's portfolio, including current products like the Moto X (2014), Moto G (2014) and the Moto 360.
"Today we achieved a historic milestone for Lenovo and for Motorola – and together we are ready to compete, grow and win in the global smartphone market. By building a strong number three and a credible challenger to the top two in smartphones, we will give the market something it has needed: choice, competition and a new spark of innovation," said Yang Yuanqing, chairman and CEO, Lenovo.
Motorola has nearly 3,500 employees around the world, 2,800 of them are based in the US. As for the company's patents, Google will maintain ownership of the majority of them with Motorola having a license to use them. Motorola does retain 2,000 patents, however.

Samsung sees lowest profits since Q3 2011

Samsung is one of the phone manufacturers that make a significant profit (the other being Apple), but this last quarter the South Korean giant experienced a downturn. The consolidated revenue came out to $44.7 billion, down from $56 billion in Q3 last year. The company marked its lowest profits since Q3 2011.
The mobile division, which has been the most profitable part of Samsung in recent years, saw the biggest drop of 15% in sales. However, the bigger problem is that operating profit slid to $1,653 million, down from $4,179 million in Q2 this year and $6,350 million a year ago.

Samsung points to a shift in the product mix – it was mostly cheap and mid-range handsets that sold in this quarter, which lead to a big drop in the Average Selling Price (ASP). The Galaxy S5 sales dropped off and the Galaxy Note 4 only came out too late in the quarter.
Tablet sales improved with the launch of the Super AMOLED-packing Galaxy Tab S tablets, but sales in that segment was not nearly enough to compensate for the disappointing phone sales. Samsung expects sales of bot phones and tablets to pick up in the holiday quarter but increased competition will drive prices down.

Samsung's TV business saw its profits hit almost zero due to lower ASP and higher prices of the display panels. UHD TVs and especially Curved TV shipments increased, but again not enough. Speaking of display panels, Samsung's OLED shipments were weak and strong LCD demand did not help, profits of this division also nearly zero.
It's only Samsung's semiconductor business that posted increased sales and profits (both on a yearly and a quarterly basis). There was strong demand for DRAM and NAND storage for both mobile devices and PCs with increasing shipments of 20nm DRAM chips and 10nm/3-bit NAND. All this made the semiconductor business the most profitable division of Samsung.

Wednesday, October 29, 2014

Motorola Nexus 6 has been delayed in Europe

The Nexus 6 was announced a couple of weeks ago, alongside the Nexus 9 and Nexus Player. The first Nexus phablet is due to become available for pre-order in the US today, but so far there's been no word on when we should expect it in Europe.
According to a report from the Netherlands, the Nexus 6 was initially supposed to go up for pre-order over there starting on November 3. However, that has now been postponed, with the new prospective date for the start of pre-orders being November 18.

That's quite a delay, and we're only talking about getting the chance to pre-order a Nexus 6. We still have no indication as to when the device will start shipping - and that could be some weeks after the pre-orders start.
It's unclear whether this information applies to the whole European continent. However, an online retailer from the UK has confirmed that it has received word from Motorola saying that pre-orders won't start before November 18. With two countries already affected by the delay, we assume the situation is the same in the other big EU markets.
So if you're in Europe, even if you do pre-order one, it's entirely possible that you'll only receive your Nexus 6 in December. That's perhaps later than many had hoped. Over in the Eurozone, the phone should start at €569, according to past leaks.

Samsung Galaxy A series lands in November to fight Xiaomi

Samsung's incredibly oft-leaked Galaxy A series is going to get official pretty soon, it seems. A new report from the company's home country of South Korea claims that the Galaxy A3, Galaxy A5, and Galaxy A7 smartphones will go on sale at some point in November.
The three handsets have so far been rumored to emulate the design of the Galaxy Alpha (pictured below), which uses a metal frame. On the other hand, the A series consists of low-end and mid-range offerings, so they will be more affordable.

Interestingly, Samsung is said to challenge Xiaomi with these models, releasing them on the Chinese market. By one account, Xiaomi has already become the world's third biggest smartphone maker, following Samsung and Apple, and that's mostly thanks to its sales in China.
Obviously Samsung can't just sit idly by and watch as its numbers in China start collapsing, so apparently the A series was created to compete head-on with Xiaomi's products, which are known for pairing decent specs with incredibly low prices.
While the A3, A5, and A7 may have the decent specs, we're not sure they will be cheap enough to make a name for themselves in the notoriously competitive Chinese market. Samsung reportedly thinks that these three devices are equal in terms of specs to Chinese smartphones which cost around $475, but that's quite exaggerated.

OnePlus One pre-orders will return on November 17

A couple of days ago OnePlus took pre-orders for the One smartphone for the first time ever. Things went anything but smooth, though. The company extended the pre-order time frame from one hour to three, but apparently that still didn't allow everyone who wanted to pre-order the phone to do that.
So there's going to be a new round of pre-orders next month, on November 17 to be exact. They will start at 3 pm GMT, though it's unclear how many hours you'll have to get your pre-order through.

OnePlus' first attempt at doing the pre-order thing resulted in "tens of thousands" of handsets now being on the way to people. However, there were many problems too, since OnePlus' servers "had difficulty with the surge of traffic".
Obviously, the company is promising to take steps to make sure that something like this won't happen during the next round of pre-orders. In fact, OnePlus says that by waiting a few weeks, it will have more time to prepare the necessary phone stock as well as implement the infrastructure changes needed so that everything goes smoothly.

iOS 8.x now on half of iDevices, adoption still slow

Early this month Fiksu reported that iOS 8 adoption is slower than the gains demonstrated by iOS 6 and 7 in their first weeks after launch. Apple launched iOS 8.1 (which adds Apple Pay and Continuity) and the good news is that version 8.x is now on over half of the devices.
The bad news is that Apple's developer page points to 52% adoption of the latest iOS branch, that's 13% or so more than three weeks ago. That's starting from just under 40% adoption after the first three weeks of availability, then at the iPad event Tim Cook announced the number had grown to 48%.
However, that was two weeks ago meaning iOS 8.x adoption grew only 2% a week since then. Over the next month it will become clear if people were just waiting for the 8.1 goodies or prefer not to update at all.
The botched 8.0.1 update certainly put some people off (it interfered with the fingerprint sensor and even mobile connectivity). That has since been fixed but the jump to iOS 8 still requires plenty of free storage – as much as 5GB, which is painful for those on 16GB devices. Apple's 2014 devices still start at 16GB, which is sure to be an issue when iOS 9 comes around.

24k gold Samsung Galaxy Note 4 hits Vietnam, costs $2000

A 24k gold Samsung Galaxy Note 4 is now available for purchase in Vietnam. Every piece of metal (including the grills) is coated in gold by local aficionados of the noble metal.

The process takes 4-5 hours of continuous work per unit and, according to a rough translation, costs about $1100 (VND 24 million) to make. The price doesn't include the cost of the Galaxy Note 4 itself, though, you'll have to spend an extra $900 (VND 19 million) for the phablet.
While we would have liked to see the Vietnamese company bathe the white version of the Galaxy Note 4 in gold, the black one looks nice as well. You can see the process in video below.

A global version of Motorola Droid Turbo to be unveiled in Brazil

The new Motorola Droid Turbo garnered great interest but as a Verizon-exclusive it felt out of reach. Now Motorola is sending out invites for a November 5 event to announce a global rollout. The invite doesn't call out the device by name but the corner of the back shows Droid Turbo's characteristic Ballistic Nylon back.
Rumors are for a name change to Moto Maxx, resurrecting the Maxx brand, which is associated with some of the most long-lasting batteries in the smartphone history.

It's a fitting name too, the Droid Turbo packs a 3,900mAh battery, which can soak up 8 hours' worth of battery life in just 15 minutes thanks to the Turbo Charger. Other specs include one of the sharpest displays yet, a 5.2" QHD AMOLED, a Snapdragon 805 chipset and a 21MP/2160p camera. Check out our hands-on for more details.
Motorola has already filed for a "Moto Maxx" trademark in the US and is planning a Brazil announcement, so the phone should see a proper global rollout, including alternative US carriers.

Huawei Honor 6 hits Europe tomorrow at under €300

Huawei announced the Honor 6 back in the summer, but it's only now that the phone enters in the European market. Starting tomorrow, the phone will launch in the UK and select European markets.

Amazon UK will offer the phone for £229, while in continental Europe it will cost €269. That's a lot less than the phone's main competitors from Samsung, LG and Apple. The specs of the phone are also impressive.
The Honor 6 is just 7.5mm thin and sports a 5" 1080p display and a 3000mAh battery. The phone is powered by the company's home-brewed Kirin 920 chipset with four Cortex-A15 cores and four Cortex-A7 cores, plus Mali-T624. The Kirin 920 supports LTE Cat. 6 for up to 300Mbps downlink speeds. The new chipset runs Android 4.4.2 KitKat with Emotion UI 2.3.
The Huawei Honor 6 packs a 13MP camera with a Sony IMX214 sensor and f/2.0 aperture. The front-facing camera is a 5MP shooter with 1.4µm pixels, 88° FoV and f/2.4 aperture. The back camera has a dual-LED flash.

Oppo R5 officially becomes the world's thinnest smartphone

After the Oppo N3 cameraphone, the company unveiled its first 64-bit smartphone, which is coincidentally also its thinnest yet. The Oppo R5 measures just 4.85mm thick, the "slimmest phone in the world," Oppo claims. The company has shaved quite a bit of thickness compared to the 6.3mm Oppo R3.
The frame of the phone is made of 3D-welded aluminum alloy. The frame has been hand-polished and measures just 4mm thick. The other measurements are 148.9 x 74.5mm (that's rather tall for a 5.2" device) and the weight is 155g.

Anyway, the Oppo R5 has a 5.2" AMOLED screen of 1080p resolution (423ppi). The company is promising the best brightness, lowest reflectivity and highly accurate colors.
The R5 will launch with Android 4.4-based Color OS 2.0. It's powered by Snapdragon 615, Qualcomm's mid-range octa-core chipset. It features an octa-core Cortex-A53 processor at 1.5GHz, which is paired with an Adreno 405 GPU and 2GB RAM.
Oppo has created a special cooling element made from liquid-metal and phase-change materials to take heat away from the chipset.
   
Oppo R5 lifestyle photos
The back camera features the 13MP Sony IMX214 sensor and an f/2.0 aperture, while the front camera is a 5MP shooter. As you can see though, the back camera sticks out quite a bit. Anyway, it can record 2160p video at 30fps and 1080p@60fps, plus a 120fps slow-motion mode (at 720p).
Despite being so thin, the Oppo R5 packs a 2,000mAh Li-Polymer battery, which will be quick to top up thanks to the VOOC mini rapid charge tech support. Connectivity starts off at 2G GPRS and goes up to TDD/FDD LTE. There's also Wi-Fi a/b/g/n, Bluetooth 4.0.
There's one thing missing - a 3.5mm audio jack. We suppose it's because the R5 is so thin, but you either have to use the wireless O-Music accessory for streaming or a microUSB to audio jack adapter (one is included in the retail package).
The Oppo R5 will go on sale for $499 though we don't have an exact launch date yet. But you are welcomed to check our first impressions of the Oppo R5 right here.

Xiaomi outpaces Huawei as 3rd largest manufacturer

The champagne is popping over at Xiaomi headquarters as according to IHS iSuppli, the company is now the third largest phone manufacturer. The analysts reports that Xiaomi outpaced Huawei with a total of 19 million smartphones shipped in Q3 2014. For the same period, Huawei managed to sell 16.8 million smartphones.

Xiaomi's pace has been growing continuously over the past couple of years. In 2012, it sold 5.7 million phones and 18.7 million in 2014 (note that these are full year numbers). This year it sold 11 million and 15.1 million in Q1 and Q2 respectively.
The latest markets to welcome Xiaomi are Singapore, India and Hong Kong. In India, the company has been quite active recently and with its aggressive pricing it managed to not only raise awareness but also sell quite a lot of Mi3 and Redmi Note smartphones.
Competition in China is getting more and more fierce with Huawei, Lenovo and Xiaomi fighting for a better position in the market. Meizu and OnePlus are also potent competitors, which are likely to offer even more competitive products as time goes on.

Sharp will have a 4K smartphone display ready in 2016

If you think QHD screen resolution (that's 2,560x1,440) on smartphones is rather ridiculous, you'll surely be even more flabbergasted in 2016. That's because at some point during that year, Sharp is set to have finalized its first 4K smartphone display.
It's still unclear which exact resolution the Japanese company will go with, as both 3,840x2,160 and 4,096x2,160 can be called 4K. But given the prevalence of the 16:9 aspect ratio in phone screens today, we assume it's going to be the former.

The sources that have launched this rumor say Sharp is already hard at work developing these screens, that will be between 5" and 6" in size - nothing more specific is known yet.
The reason why the display maker is going so high-res apparently has to do with great demand from Chinese smartphone makers. These companies reportedly want panels with bigger and bigger pixel densities.
Sharp is the world's second biggest LCD panel maker, the first being JDI, the partnership between Sony, Hitachi, and Toshiba. The company will also improve the quality of its LTPS (low temperature poly-silicon) screens in the near future.

Huawei Honor 4X goes official with Snapdragon 410 chipset

Huawei announced the mid-range Honer 4X smartphone. The previously leaked, dual-SIM handset is available for pre-order in China for CNY 1,299 ($212). Shipments are set to begin next week, on November 6.

Huawei Honor 4X features 64-bit Qualcomm Snapdragon 410 MSM8916 chipset and 2GB of RAM. There’s 8GB of built-in memory, which can be further expanded via microSD card slot.

The device’s display is a 5.5” unit with a resolution of 1280 x 720 pixels. A 13MP Sony-made main camera, 5MP front-facing unit, and 3,000 mAh battery are also among the highlights of the device’s spec sheet. The battery is advertised as being capable of providing up to 72 hours of use.
Huawei Honor 4X runs Android 4.4 KitKat, dressed in the company’s EMUI 3.0. Its body is 7.9mm thin.
We don’t know if the newly announced smartphone will make it outside of its home market just yet.

LG sells 16.8M smartphones in Q3, posts record profits

LG had a record-breaking quarter, mostly on the back of its smartphone division. It sold 16.8 million smartphones, a record for the company, and the phone division saw the best revenue and operating income since the third quarter of 2009.
In the third quarter of this year, the LG Mobile Communications Company recorded revenue of $4.14 billion and made an operating income of $163 million on that. LG credits the success of its G Series and L III Series for this third consecutive quarter of growth.
The numbers may not sound like much (it's matched by Huawei and beaten by Xiaomi), but LG is growing quick – smartphone sales for the quarter increased 39% compared to Q3 last year and 16% compared to Q2.

The other divisions of LG saw their revenue decrease a bit, but they have trimmed some fat. The LG Home Entertainment Company brought in $4.59 billion in revenue (down 3% year on year) and earned $127 million (up 5% year on year). The improved margin is thanks to a better product mix, LG expects 4K UHD TVs to continue to grow.
The LG Home Appliances Company saw revenue dropped slightly (to $2.84 billion) and a lower operating profit ($50.5 million). The Air Conditioning & Energy Solution company is LG's smallest division, bringing in $902 million in revenue and posting an operating loss of $2.44 million.
All told LG has revenues of $14.54 billion (up 7.4% year over year) and an operating profit of $449 million, more than double what LG managed in Q3 last year.

Oppo N3 is official with a 16MP motorized camera

At a special event in Singapore, Oppo announced the N3 cameraphone. The successor to the N1 sports a 16MP motorized camera allowing it to track objects as they move. The sensor is 1/2.3" in size and the pixel size is 1.34micrometer. The camera uses Schneider Kreuznach-certified lens to round up an impressively sounding package.

The mechanized camera rotates up to 206 degrees and it moves automatically when shooting panoramas and making selfies for example. Panoramas are shot in up to 64MP resolution. The fingerprint sensor at the back also allows you to protect your images immediately after taking them with a single swipe.
Just like its successor, the camera on the Oppo N3 rotates 206 degrees. More features include slow shutter, ultra macro mode,after focus, manual control as well as shooting in RAW. All of these features come as a part of what Oppo calls Ultra image 2.0.
Under the hood of the Oppo N3, there's a rather dated Snapdragon 801 (MSM8974AA) with a quad-core 2.5GHz Krait 400. At we see a 5.5" display of 1080p resolution, resulting in a pixel density of 400ppi. RAM is 3GB and internal storage is 32GB. A dual-SIM version of the phone will also be available down the road.
The Oppo N3's 3,000mAh Li-Po battery supports the company's VOOC rapid charging tech and can recharge from 0 to 75% in just 30 minutes or get enough juice for 2 hours of talking in just 5 minutes. The VOOC charger has also been updated and is now half the height of the old one.
There’s also a notification light below the N3 screen, just like the Oppo Find 7. The company has updated the software behind it dubbing it Notification light 2.0. In addition, the cool O-Click accessory also got a new version. It is more stylish than before and also more comfortable to use.
Pricing and availability for the N3 are yet to be confirmed.

Motorola Droid Turbo is official with 5.2-inch QHD display

At a joint event today, Verizon and Motorola announced the Droid Turbo. The phone runs on the Verizon XLTE network and features a 5.2" Super AMOLED QHD display with a pixel density of 565ppi.
The Droid Turbo is powered by a Snapdragon 805 chipset with a 2.7GHz quad-core Krait 450 CPU, 3GB of RAM and an Adreno 420 GPU. The battery is 3,900mAh and Motorola promises it can last for 48 hours of mixed usage.

The phone also promises to be quite resistant to torturing. It's made either of ballistic nylon or metalized glass fiber reinforced with DuPont kevlar. The display is covered with a protective layer of Gorilla Glass 3 and the innards are covered with a water-repellent nanocoating.
The Droid Turbo with Ballistic nylon measures 73.3 x 143.5 x 8.3mm (at its thinnest), while the Metalized fiber one is a bit thinner at 7.8mm.
At the back of the phone, there's a 21MP snapper with a f/2.0 aperture and 4K video recording at 24fps.
The Motorola Droid Turbo will be available starting October 30 and the 32GB model will be available in Metallic Black, Metallic Red, and Black Ballistic Nylon for $199.99 with new two year contract or $25 per month on Verizon Edge. The 64GB Black Ballistic Nylon model will also be available for $249.99 with new two year activation or $27 per month on Verizon Edge.

Monday, October 27, 2014

LG Isai VL debuts in Japan with 3GB of RAM and VoLTE

Before the LG G3 got official, we caught a glimpse of what to expect from it through the Isai FL, a handset that has basically been Japan's version of the flagship. It was the first LG smartphone to come with QHD (2,560x1,440) resolution, for example.
And today it's received an ever so slight update. The new model is called LG Isai VL, it's still exclusive to Japanese carrier Au by KDDI, and it very much resembles the Isai FL from earlier this year, even having the exact same dimensions: 145 x 76 x 10.5mm. It is 6g lighter though, coming in at 154g.

Compared to its predecessor it does bump up the RAM to 3GB, and features support for Voice-over-LTE (VoLTE) too. Otherwise, though, we're looking at pretty much the same hardware package.

Just like the Isai FL, the new Isai VL comes with a 5.5-inch QHD display, a 13 MP rear camera, a 1.3 MP front camera, and a 3,000 mAh battery. It also sports 32GB of internal storage (expandable via microSD), Bluetooth 4.0, NFC, and it's water and dust resistant too. It runs Android 4.4 KitKat and will be available in the three colors you can see above: "aqua", black, and "pink gold".

Samsung Galaxy A7 benchmark reveals all specs

Of the three members in Samsung's soon to be unveiled A series of smartphones, we've so far known the least about the Galaxy A7. The A3 and A5 have seen many more leaks than the biggest of the bunch, and we basically already know everything there is to about them - save for a release date, that is.
Well, today we can finally say the same thing about the A7, because it's been put through the paces of GFXBench. And thanks to this development, we get to see all of the phone's most important specs.

Like a user agent profile hinted a few days ago, the Galaxy A7 will be sporting 1080p screen resolution and a 64-bit chipset. Interestingly, though, its display size won't be 5.5" like previously leaked, but a more sensible 5.2" instead.
The SoC in question has been revealed to be the Qualcomm Snapdragon 615, which sports an octa-core CPU (in this case clocked at up to 1.5 GHz) and an Adreno 405 GPU. Complementing it are 2GB of RAM, while the built-in storage space should be 16GB (of which around 12GB will be user-accessible).
The main camera is expected to be a 12 MP unit with Full HD video recording, while the selfie snapper will top out at 5 MP. The phone will also have an accelerometer, Bluetooth, a compass, GPS, NFC, and Wi-Fi.
That's all we have for now, hopefully Samsung will make the A series official pretty soon. Otherwise, we wouldn't be surprised to see more leaks about these handsets coming our way.

Asus Android 5.0 update roadmap leaks, all Zenfones on board

Asus has been known for updating its devices with newer Android versions even though it often takes quite a while before the updates are launched. It seems Asus will be keeping the same pace with its newer gadgets and the new Android OS - 5.0 Lollipop.
Sony and HTC, among other manufacturers, have already announced partial Android Lollipop schedules, but Asus is yet to release an official statement. Meanwhile a leaked roadmap has spilled the beans on its plans.

Apparently all Asus Zenfones - Zenfone 4, Zenfone 4 A450CG, Zenfone 5, Zenfone 5 LTE, and the Zenfone 6 will be getting Android 5.0 Lollipop in April next year. The versatile PadFone S will be also getting the sweet Lollipop treatment by April 2015, while the PadFone Infinity 2 update is scheduled for June, 2015.
We bet even more Asus devices will be getting the latest Android 5.0 Lollipop OS next year, but Asus is still mum on the matter.

HTC Sense 7 screenshots leak with Material Design in tow

Now that Android 5.0 Lollipop is on the verge of being released by Google, device makers are understandably working on tweaking their own UI overlays to better fit the latest iteration of the mobile OS. We've already seen what the Lollipop update for the Samsung Galaxy S5 might end up looking like, and now it's HTC's turn.
Specifically, what you see below are claimed to be the first ever leaked screenshots showing the Taiwanese company's upcoming Sense 7.

These have allegedly been captured on an HTC One (M8) running the new software, which may come alongside its upgrade to Lollipop - or at a later point. Since HTC has promised that the One (M8) would get Android 5.0 within three months of when Google finalizes the bits, the company could opt for issuing an OS update still working with the current Sense 6, then followed by a Sense update later on.
Anyway, the new version of Sense seems very much inspired by Google's Material Design paradigm, which is definitely good news. Hopefully more manufacturers will adopt traces of the new design philosophy, bringing some fresh-looking new UIs to the table.
As a final word of caution, do keep in mind that these images might have been faked - that's not hard to do, so they could simply represent what someone out there would like Sense 7 to look like. Or they may of course be the real thing, in which case we expect some more Sense 7 related leaks to pour in soon.

MediaTek outs MT6753 chipset with a 64-bit octa-core processor

Back in August, MediaTek announced its flagship chip - the MT6795. It has an octa-core Cortex-A53 processor clocked at 2.2GHz and PowerVR G6200 GPU. The latest lineup of chipsets also has the MT6735 (octa-core 1.7GHz Cortex-A53, Mali-T760MP2), MT6732 (quad-core 1.5GHz Cortex-A53, Mali-T760MP2) and MT6735 (quad-core 1.5GHz Cortex-A53, Mali-T720).
Indeed MediaTek prepared very well with a variety of platforms, all of them targeting specific devices and all of them featuring rich connectivity options including LTE.
Today MediaTek is adding a new member to this rich lineup - the MT6753. The new SoC offers octa-core Cortex-A53 processor ticking at up to 1.7GHz and Mali-T760 GPU. The new chipsets supports LTE Cat.4 and covers more LTE bands than ever. It also features CDMA 2000 1x and EVDO Rev.A.

MediaTek is capable of supporting 1080p displays and up to 16MP cameras with 1080p@30fps video recording. The mass production of the MT6753 chips will kick off in the second quarter of 2015.

Apple and Android fans on reddit join forces to boycott CurrentC

n a shocking turn of events, Apple and Android fans on reddit have joined forces to collectively boycott the unethical blocking of NFC payment system by certain retailers, which affects both Apple Pay and Google Wallet users.

If you're not aware, some of the retailers in the US have started disabling their NFC systems in their stores to prevent people from using Apple Pay or any other NFC based payment system. The reason for this is that these retailers are part of an organization called Merchant Customer Exchange, or MCX, which has its own payment system Called CurrentC.
Instead of a secure, wireless system, CurrentC requires users to download an app and fill in their debit card information in that. Then every time you have to purchase something you have to scan a QR code with the app, and then pay for it. The app is also used to shove promotional content and coupons to users, which they may or may not want.
Other than being inconvenient and annoying, CurrentC is nowhere as secure as either Apple Pay or Google Wallet. But having an alternate payment system is one thing. Blocking out competitive services entirely so that users have to either pay cash, card, or use CurrentC is another, entirely unethical and anti-competitive business strategy.
While the law would eventually come into the picture, people are now starting to boycott this practice. /r/Apple and /r/Android are fairly popular subreddits and if the two can actually come together and manage to get this done it will for the good of everyone.

Sunday, October 26, 2014

Nokia to re-enter the smartphone business?

During Nokia's conference call on Thursday, following the reporting of its strong third quarter report, the company admitted that its name is a very important asset to own. While it is most important in the area of mobile devices, the company cannot yet use the Nokia name to re-enter the smartphone business because of its deal with Microsoft. With its comment  that the "Nokia brand is the most valuable from recognition perspective in the area of mobile phones and mobile devices. And there we cannot go yet at the moment." Nokia might even be giving out clues as to what it has in mind.

With the recent launch of HERE Maps for Android, and the Z Launcher for Google's open source OS, a piano doesn't have to drop on our heads for us to realize that the next wave of Nokia phones to be actually made by Nokia, will feature Android. This is the direction that many wanted Nokia to take all along.

Whatever Nokia decides to do in returning to the business of intelligent handsets, it appears that it wants to wait until it has the ability to use the Nokia name, which it considers a valuable asset to have in the business of producing and selling smartphones.

"And finally on brand, we have not really spoken about anything else that we have looked at different business models, what other people have been using on brand and we will of course carefully assess what would be the best way for us to maximize the value of the Nokia brand, also taking into account that we’re in the lock-up period still in the Microsoft transaction regarding our possibility to use the brand and we have recognized that Nokia brand is the most valuable from recognition perspective in the area of mobile phones and mobile devices. And there we cannot go yet at the moment."-Nokia

Saturday, October 25, 2014

Samsung launches the Galaxy Mega 2 in India

The Samsung Galaxy Mega 2 has reached India today. Samsung has officially launched the mid-range phablet in the subcontinent. This comes after the Mega 2 has previously gone on sale in Malaysia, and got listed on the official Samsung website in Thailand. In the US, AT&T is due to start offering it today too.
Over in India, the Galaxy Mega 2 is already available to buy from Samsung's own online store. It's priced at INR 20,900, which means about $341 or €269.

It's being offered in both white and black, and the store says it does currently have sufficient stock.
The Samsung Galaxy Mega 2 comes with a 6-inch 720p touchscreen, an 8 MP rear camera with LED flash, a 5 MP front snapper, 1.5GB of RAM, 8GB of internal storage, as well as microSD card support.
A 1.2 GHz quad-core processor runs things, and dual-SIM support is built in, although in terms of mobile data connectivity the Mega 2 tops out at 21Mbps HSDPA. It also has Wi-Fi, GPS, Bluetooth 4.0, and a 2,800 mAh battery. It runs Android 4.4 KitKat.

Sony rumored to release a 12-inch tablet in early 2015

Sony is working on a 12-inch tablet, a rumor originating with "Taiwan-based supply chain makers" claims. This tablet is reportedly going to become available in the first quarter of next year, so before the end of March.
It will be a high-end slate, and will also feature a stylus, apparently targeting markets with demand for graphics-related applications.

Unfortunately, no other details are known at this point. So far, the Xperia Z2 Tablet (pictured above) is Sony's biggest offering in this space, coming with a 10.1-inch touchscreen.
Since the source of this rumor has a rather shaky record, you should definitely take this with a hefty dose of salt, at least until we get another report on the matter. Many mobile device makers have been rumored to step into the huge tablet business, but so far few have actually done that.
If this information does pan out, then it looks like Sony will position its big tablet as a direct competitor to Samsung's 12.2-inch Galaxy Note Pro, which also has a stylus.

Leak details where the Galaxy S5 Active will land in Europe

The Samsung Galaxy S5 Active is coming soon to Europe, that much has been made abundantly clear by some recent leaks. When exactly that will happen is still quite a mystery, but today we get to find out more about the 'where'.
That is, which places in Europe will be lucky enough to get the rugged version of the Galaxy S5 on sale. This list is based on firmware versions for the phone, spotted on Samsung's servers. There's a chance that more firmware packages will be added later, so this list may not be exhaustive.

So, the Galaxy S5 Active should make it to Austria, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, Bulgaria, France, Switzerland, Poland, Slovenia, Germany, Italy, the UK, the Nordic countries, and the Baltics. Note though that in Norway it may be exclusive to Telenor.
When it finally becomes available in Europe, the S5 Active has been rumored to set you back €629. It will be identical, in terms of specs, to the device that AT&T has been selling in the States for a few months now. It complements the 'vanilla' S5's IP67 rating with a MIL-STD-810G certification that ensures it will withstand salt, dust, humidity, rain, vibration, solar radiation, and thermal shock.

Samsung Galaxy Note 4 reaches 4.5 million sales in a month

According to South Korean outlet News1 the Samsung Galaxy Note 4 has hit 4.5 million sales globally about a month after its launch (it launched September 26). That's a little lower than the 5 million units its predecessor sold in its first month, but the Galaxy Note 3 got a wider release initially.
The Galaxy Note 4 started off in South Korea and China and has been expanding its availability ever since. It started selling in the US only recently. The flagship phablet also experienced some delays in markets like the UK and India where sales started a week ago. As for China, Samsung rolled out the dual-SIM versions only a couple of days ago.
The 4.5 million number doesn't seem to include the Galaxy Note Edge, Note 4's sibling with a two-sided screen, which is only now going on sale and in just a few markets.
The Galaxy Note 4 may have hit a few bumps on the way out but Samsung needed a best seller as its Q3 earnings declined.

Samsung Galaxy S5 now said to get Lollipop in December

The Samsung Galaxy S5 may join the LG G3 in getting updated to Android 5.0 Lollipop before the end of this year. Earlier today, an LG rep apparently said as much regarding his company's current flagship smartphone.
Now though it looks like LG's arch-rival from its home country of South Korea doesn't want to be left behind. According to a new rumor, Samsung will start rolling out the Android 5.0 update for the Galaxy S5 sometime in December.

That's when the deployment will commence, though as usual it will take a few weeks for all regional versions of the S5 to get the new bits. Still, given that Google has yet to release a final variant of Lollipop, this would be a very fast update timeline for both the G3 and the S5, and the new software would come much sooner than for past flagships getting Android version bumps.
A test build of Lollipop for the Galaxy S5 got previewed a few weeks back, and since Samsung was clearly already working on the update at that time, the rumored release time frame may just pan out. We'll have to wait and see.

Friday, October 24, 2014

Amazon loses $437M in Q3, $170M due to Fire Phone failure

Amazon posted its Q3 earnings for this year - the company achieved $20.58 billion revenue which is a 20% increase compared to last year's Q3 when it pulled in $17.09 billion.
The company's operating loss tips the scales at $544 million, though, a whopping increase compared to last year's Q3 loss of just $25 million. Net loss is $437 million.

Amazon's results are a direct reflection of the company's Fire Phone not having the best market performance. The company was forced to make a writedown of $170 million to cover costs related to inventory and suppliers.
Perhaps part of the reason the Fire Phone hasn't taken off is the crowded market or perhaps the fact that Amazon agreed to make its first smartphone an AT&T exclusive (aside from Amazon's own retail chain), which has hurt other companies in the past (here's looking at you, Nokia).
The Fire Phone also launched at an ambitious $199.99 price with a contract but then quickly went down to $1.
On a more positive note Amazon is rolling out a redesign of its US website with a huge carousel gallery and dark grey top bar, which will hopefully help it make it back up in the black.

The departments dropdown is no longer dropped by default and menus have been rearranged slightly.
Amazon will give users the option to get back to the "old" design too.

Samsung Galaxy A7 1080p screen, 64-bit processor confirmed

Last month there was some confusion about the screen resolution of the upcoming Samsung Galaxy A7, some sources said 720p others 1080p. A leaked User Agent Profile confirms the 1080p number for the SM-A700FD, which is a dual-SIM version of the device. The screen will have a 5.5" diagonal, giving it 400ppi pixel density, up from Galaxy Alpha's 312ppi.
The profile also reveals that the Galaxy A7 will have a 64-bit processor (ARMv8-A instruction set) and will be clocked at 1.5GHz.

Even the entry level A series phone, the Galaxy A3, will have a 64-bit processor – a Snapdragon 410 probably, with a quad-core Cortex-A53 processor at 1.2GHz (or 1.4GHz according to another User Agent profile). It seems that the Galaxy A5 will use the same chipset, but it's not clear yet if the Galaxy A7 will go up to Snapdragon 61x or simply go for an overclocked 410.
The Samsung Galaxy A7 will launch with Android 4.4.4 KitKat (according to the profile) and is rumored to cost around $450-$500.

Oppo confirms two device launches for October 29

As the date for Oppo's grand event for the N3 comes closers, the company intensifies its teasers giving us more hints about what we can expect. The latest one shows a second device standing next to the teased Oppo N3 behind a red curtain.
This teasers gives some credential to previous leaks, which revealed an Oppo N3 with a different design than what we've already seen. Oppo made a big deal about its lithium-aluminum alloy and confirmed that one of the N3 versions is going to be made of it, while the other will be using stainless steel.
The lithium-aluminum Oppo N3 certainly sounds more premium, but we are hoping both get the smart camera rotation and 16MP 1/2.3-inch sensor.
The rest of the Oppo N3 main specifications should include a 5.9" 1080p display and the latest Snapdragon 805 chipset with 3GB of RAM. A fingerprint scanner is also likely.
As for the pricing, all we have so far is a board sign saying the pricing of the Oppo N3 (which one isn't specified) will be $700 (€550). We'll know more when the company reveals the two phones on October 29, so stay tuned!

LG G3 to get Android 5.0 Lollipop update by the end of 2014

The LG G3 is going to sport Android 5.0 Lollipop by the end of the year, according to an LG representative for the Netherlands and Belgium cited by TechTastic. He didn't give a more specific time frame, as we suspect the company is going to make an official announcement regarding its update plans.

The LG G3 is probably going to be joined by the LG G Pro 2 since both are the company's flagships as of now. However, we suspect more devices will be blessed with Android 5.0 Lollipop goodness such as the LG G3 S, G3 Stylus, G2 and the mid-range L90 and L70.
We don't know yet how LG plans to alter its most recent Optimus UI to better suit the new spirit of Android. The company likes to add a lot of additional features, so it'll be interesting to see how it manages to incorporate them in a hopefully clean and useful fashion.
Motorola, Sony and HTC have already compiled a list of devices that are planned to receive the latest Android version.

GT Advanced and Apple terminate their partnership

GT Advanced Technologies, the company supplying Apple with sapphire for the Apple Watch, has announced the partnership between the two companies is over. Less than a year old, the deal drove GT Advanced to bankruptcy after the company didn't stick to the agreed timelines for sapphire production and Apple had to abandon its plans for sapphire-protected iPhones and hold back a payment of $139 million.

The latest deal between the two company makes GT Advanced shut down its factories in Mesa, Arizona and Salem, Massachusetts. The company will sell its sapphire furnaces and try to repay the $439 million that Apple gave it in advance. As a result of the shutdown, approximately 650 Mesa employees have been laid off.
An Apple spokeswoman had this comment to add: "Apple put a lot of effort into an ambitious new sapphire manufacturing process with GTAT which is not ready for production. We’re going to continue evaluating GTAT’s progress on larger sapphire boule development, as well as consider other options for the facility. We remain committed to the city and we’re going to work with Mesa and Maricopa County to help the GT Advanced employees who will be impacted by this find new jobs."
This may or may not have an impact on the Apple Watch launch scheduled to happen "early next year", but it certainly makes sapphire screen iPhones (or any non-Vertu phones really) unlikely for at least a couple of more years.

Samsung galaxy note 4 now available in Nigeria

The recently announced Samsung galaxy note 4 is now available in Nigeria at a price of 125000 naira via konga.com, The phablet was announced since early September and has since been hitting various countries in turns and has finally gotten to Nigeria
Customers can place their order via this link- konga.com

Samsung galaxy note 4 specs

5.7" 16M-color QHD Super AMOLED capacitive touchscreen with curved Gorilla Glass 3
Android OS v4.4 KitKat with TouchWiz UI
LTE Cat 6 support
Quad-core 2.7GHz Krait 450 CPU, Adreno 420 GPU; Qualcomm Snapdragon 805 chipset
3GB of RAM
16MP OIS camera with 2160p video recording @ 30fps, 1080p @ 60fps, 720p @ 120fps
3.7MP front-facing camera, 1440p video recording
Wi-Fi a/b/g/n/ac, Wi-Fi Direct and DLNA, Download booster
GPS with A-GPS, GLONASS
32GB of built-in storage; microSD card slot
S Pen stylus
Enhanced Multi-window multitasking support
Fingerprint scanner with PayPal support and private mode access
microUSB 2.0 port with USB host and MHL 2.0
Bluetooth v4.0
NFC
IR port for remote control functionality
Standard 3.5mm audio jack
Accelerometer and proximity sensor
Heart-rate monitor
Active noise cancellation with a dedicated mic
3,220mAh battery

Microsoft sold a record 9.3 million Lumia smartphones last quarter

Microsoft released its earnings report for the first quarter of the fiscal 2015. The Redmond-based tech giant took home net income $4.5 billion from $23.2 billion of revenue.

The company’s quarterly revenue is a drastic improvement over the $18.53 billion it achieved for the same period last year. Net income has dropped from last year’s $5.24 billion due to $1.14 billion worth of restructuring expenses that stemmed from the Nokia acquisition.
Microsoft sold a record 9.3 million Lumia smartphones. The number is a drastic increase over the 5.8 million units sold in the previous quarter, and more than the 8.8 million devices from the same period last year. The Lumia hardware business is responsible for $2.6 billion in revenue for the quarter.
The warm reception enjoyed by the Microsoft Surface 3 Pro resulted in $908 million in revenue. The number is up a whopping 127% from the same quarter in the fiscal 2014. The gross margin from the tablet business is positive, so Redmond is making money from it.
The Xbox division isn’t doing too shabby either. It moved 2.4 million Xbox One and Xbox 360 consoles.