Latest Mobile Phone News

University of Michigan computer scientists say even when mobile devices are in power-saving modes and not actively sending or receiving messages, they’re still on alert for incoming information and searching for a clear communication channel, which uses up battery power. This energy-taxing “idle listening” is occurring during a large portion of the time phones spend in power-saving mode and uses roughly the same amount of power as when they’re fully awake, they say. UM computer science and engineering Professor Kang Shin and doctoral student Xinyu Zhang say their new power-management approach can make smartphones perform this idle listening more efficiently. Their Energy-Minimizing Idle Listening strategy slows the WiFi hardware’s clock by up to 1/16 of its normal frequency but jolts it back to full speed when the phone notices information coming in.

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Whether Motorola’s Droid Bionic, Samsung’s Galaxy S II and Series 7 slate, Lenovo’s IdeaPad and ThinkPad, Toshiba’s ultra-thin Portege Z830, a variety of transforming devices from Asus, or a set of 7- and 10-inch tablets from Acer, this fall is looking like a particularly fertile period for any consumer (or business buyer) on the lookout for some mobile devices to call their own. As demonstrated at a recent event in New York City, Android is very much a front-and-center part of these manufacturers’ newest offerings, whether smartphones running some variant of Android 2.3 or tablets with Android 3.0. As always, those manufacturers all give their devices some added tweaks or features, in hopes of making them more attractive than rival offerings. Many of these value-adds come in the hardware department. For example, Lenovo is betting with its ThinkPad tablet that users (particularly those in business) will want to use a stylus as input in addition to fingers. Toshiba’s Portege Z830 is ultra-slim, with roughly eight hours of battery power. Research In Motion is also offering a fresh line of BlackBerry devices with sleek-looking bodies and the new BlackBerry 7 OS. Tablets are becoming more powerful, and laptops over the next few months will offer Intel’s second-generation Core i3, i5 and i7 processors. For your average consumer, the goal will be deciding on one particular smartphone, tablet or laptop among very, very many.

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HTC Runnymede, the Android phone which has recently strike the web has just now the first press image of the HTC Runnymede has surfaced. Runnymede features a massive 4.7-inch display alike to the very much an Android-powered companion phone to the just-announced; HTC Titan that has been unveiled for the Windows Phone 7 OS. HTC Runnymede will hit the market with Android 2.3 Gingerbread and is covered in an all-white chassis with 4 standard Android touch buttons. Unfortunately, no official details have been unveiled yet about the HTC Runnymede by the Company; however it’s likely to sport a 4.7-inch qHD display with WVGA resolution, a 1.3-megapixel front-facing camera, and an 8-megapixel camera with dual LED flash. Further the phone is equipped with a 1.5GHz single-core processor, 768MB of RAM, 16GB or 32GB internal storage and quite interestingly, the report states that the Sound quality and image capture are said to be top-notch, with the Beats Audio-infused device allegedly presenting up a class-leading camera that might even best the highly-anticipated Apple’s iPhone 5.

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Motorola Mobility India Pvt Ltd, a subsidiary of Motorola Mobility, Inc has launched two budget smartphones called Motorola FIRE XT and Motorola FIRE. Google had recently acquired Motorola Mobility for $40.00 per share in cash, or a total of about $12.5 billion. The company had stated that the acquisition would enable Google to supercharge the Android ecosystem and the new launches indicate that the process has already begun. The mobile phones are powered by the Android 2.3 operating system and are available for a price of Rs 13,890 and Rs 9,990 for Motorola FIRE XT and Motorola FIRE respectively.  Motorola FIRE XT has a 3.5 inch touchscreen display and runs on the Android 2.3 (Gingerbread) OS. It has a 5 mega pixel auto focus camera with in-built flash and a front facing camera for video chat. Motorola FIRE has a 2.8 inch touchscreen display and a full QWERTY keyboard and runs on the same OS as FIRE XT. It also has a 3 mega pixel rear camera.

The internal memory of both the devices can be extended up to 32GB with the help of a microSD card (a 2GB microSD card is provided in the box). Both the mobile phones allow users to switch between friends and work-centric modes depending on their requirements with the new MOTO Switch user interface. Both are 3G/ Wi-Fi enabled and support 3G hotspot for connecting up to 5 devices. They devices have FM Radio with radio data system (RDS) support and provide access to Google Maps, Google Talk and Gmail. They also have an assisted global positioning system (aGPS). “With easy multitasking and contact management, faster and easier interactions, the Motorola FIRE XT and Motorola FIRE make for a great mobile experience at a great price,” said Rajan Chawla, Mobile Devices business country head-sales and operations, India and South West Asia, Motorola Mobility.

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Is Samsung planning to ditch Microsoft’s mobile operating system already? Over the weekend, a Samsung-focused tech blog triggered speculation around the blogosphere that Samsung will stop making Windows Phone devices by 2013. Samsung will end Windows Phone support by the end of 2012. Responding to an avalanche of responses, Windows Phone market is smaller than Samsung’s own OS bada. The Samsung Focus S and Flash are follow-ups to the best-selling Windows Phone in the U.S., 2010′s Samsung Focus. AT&T also plans to launch the HTC Titan, another Mango device, in the fall. The next version of Windows Phone, codenamed Mango, will feature a host of new features, including the ability to create groups in the People hub. Facebook will be deeply integrated into many aspects of the OS, and email and Office will all receive an upgrade. Additionally, Mango will feature support for multitasking, which can ultimately lead to home-screen tiles being updated with data from apps running in the background.

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The same week I bought myself a shiny new Galaxy S II, they launched a solar-powered netbook for use in the developing world. Unlike any American or European company, Samsung Electronics manufactures smartphones and their memory chips, TVs and their screens, computers and their hard drives. They’re the only entity that’s both arms dealer and aggressor in the midst of the biggest arms race the tech world has ever seen. (Meanwhile, their sister companies in theSamsung Group build both ships and skyscrapers, sell life insurance, and operate theme parks.) Their revenue exceeds that of Apple or Microsoft, and their global reach is unparalleled.

Sure, they’re fighting a massive patent war with Apple around the world – but at the same time,every iPhone is 26% Samsung; even if they lose every legal battle, every iPad/iPhone/iTouch sale will still cha-ching in part into Samsung’s coffers. Their flagship phones and devices are Android, but they also maintain their own entirely separate Bada smartphone platform, and have even kept one finger in the MeeGo pie, while declining to acquire it. Oh, yes, and they’re also apparently launching a Windows 8 tablet any day now.

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After some months of only supporting a few select Android devices, Netflix has rolled out a new update that should work on all Android smartphones running Froyo or Gingerbread. According to Google’s developer page, supporting both 2.2 and 2.3 should account for around 80 percent of all Android devices. It’s about time we saw Netflix offer blanket support based on the version of Android instead of only working on certain phones. If you’re going to keep your app from working on certain devices, using the Android version number is a much more logical delimiter that’s slightly less prone to cause people to complain about fragmentation on the platform. Unfortunately, that fragmentation issue hasn’t completely gone away. Official Android tablet support is still only turned on for specific devices instead of working across the board for everything running Honeycomb, a situation we hope to see resolved soon. Whether you try to pin that on Netflix for not fully testing its app on enough devices or on Google for failing to offer robust APIs which wouldn’t require Netflix to do just that is pretty much moot. The bottom line is that for a certain class of apps like Netflix and 3D games, we’re not completely out of the Android fragmentation woods yet.

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History typically repeats itself. The finest example of this saying came from Apple whose iPhone 5 prototype is said to be lost in a bar. Reports of the loss of an iPhone prototype, the second instance in a year and a half, has created suspicion that the entire event could be a publicity stunt by Apple to market the device. In April 2010, Apple lost an iPhone 4 prototype that went missing in a bar just before its release. But Apple was lucky to get it back after it had been sold by a finder to tech blog Gizmodo for $5000. But this time Apple is having a tough time getting back its iPhone 5, which was reportedly sold on Craiglist for $200.

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Samsung Electronics has announced the launch of the flagship 4-inch smartphone Wave 3, the social-powerhouse Wave M and the smart-start Wave Y. Where in all the 3 smartphones are powered by Samsung’s own new Bada 2.0 platform and will come under the arc lights when curtains go up on the much awaited IFA Berlin. Samsung’s new Bada 2.0 platform provides a wide variety of latest capabilities including Wi-Fi Direct, voice recognition, multi-tasking, and NFC (optional). Further, the new feature allows users to experience advanced services like photo and file sharing without Internet networking. New Wave series gadgets Wave 3, Wave M and Wave Y are integrated with Samsung’s new ChatON service and also Samsung Apps with an improved UI and enhanced store features.

The Samsung Wave 3 is a beautiful, chic smartphone and the hottest of the trio, measures 125.9 x 64.2 x 9.9 mm and weighs 122 g. Wave 3 is equipped with a 4-inch WVGA Super AMOLED display, dual cameras a 5 megapixel shooter with LED flash at the back and a VGA snapper in the front, a 1.4GHz processor and HSPA connectivity into a 9.9mm brushed-metal case, with integrated Samsung’s Social Hub and Music Hub, push notification, Wi-Fi Direct and so on.

The Samsung Wave M is the first ChatON equipped smartphone, which features a 3.65-inch HVGA screen made from tempered glass, an 832 MHz chip and a metallic body, dual cameras- a 5 megapixel snapper with LED flash at the rear and a VGA in front. Wave M supports other features like streamlined messaging feeds, enhanced on-the-go web browsing and Wi-Fi Direct and NFC (optional) and much more.

The Samsung Wave Y is the perfect phone to introduce new users to the world of smartphone experiences. The new Samsung Wave is designed with a stylish metallic hairline body, with a 3.2-inch HVGA screen, 2 megapixel cameras with LED flash and further supports ChatON, Social Hub, Bluetooth 3.0, and Wi-Fi Direct and so on. Quite interestingly, personalization is enabled through the Live Panel, Lock Screen and Folder management, at the same time Music Hub, a portable music manager, gives users a jukebox in their pocket.

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Nokia announced today that it would soon roll out three new smartphones, the 600, 700, and 701, all powered by the Symbian Belle OS. Nokia on Wednesday took the wraps off three new smartphones, all of them running the Belle operating system, the latest upgrade to Nokia’s sturdy Symbian software. The Nokia 600, 700, and 701 will likely ship sometime in Q3 of this year, and serve as a stopgap of sorts, until Nokia, which recently partnered with Microsoft, can start rolling out handsets powered by Windows Phone 7. The Symbian Belle phones vary in processing power and size: The 600 gets a 3.2-inch display and a 5-megapixel camera, and sells for 180 euros, or about $260; the super-compact 700 gets an AMOLED display and a price tag of 270 euros, or $390; and the 701, priced at 290 euros, or $420, is kitted out with an 8-megapixel camera and a dual-LED flash, along with a 3.5 LCD display. All 3 smartphones are powered with a 1GHz processor.

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Theu say that Apple’s upcoming iPhone 5 will support access to both CDMA and GSM networks, allowing it to operate in most countries around the world. According to the official reports from the Sources, an unnamed app developer supposedly grabbed the information from registration logs; which illustrate 2 different mobile network codes (MNC) / mobile country codes (MCC). Further the source say that these (MNC) / (MCC) codes, which are supposed to have been entered by testers a single device using Apple’s upcoming mobile operating system iOS 5, are unique mobile network identifiers belonging to AT&T and Verizon carriers. At present Apple supply to both companies, however the devices are not designed to work on each other’s networks; Verizon’s works on the CDMA standard, at the same time AT&T’s iPhone 4 functions on a GSM network, the leading global wireless technology and the standard in Europe.

Despite the fact that the iPhone 5 has been long rumored to be a CDMA/GSM world phone, Verizon’s iPhone all the time had this capacity, though it’s not activated. Teardowns of the device unveiled that it features the Qualcomm MDM6600 chip; the similar chip that is used in the Droid Pro world phone. On the other hand, the Sources which grabbed the info concluded that a dual-mode phone would suggest that the iPhone 5 would not support LTE. Yet, according to other sources which are familiar with Apple notes that Apple’s most recent developer builds for iOS 5 include a snippet of code that refers to LTE, prompting conjecture that Apple may perhaps be testing 4G internally. The long-anticipated next edition of Apple’s smartphone is predictable to be released in October.

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Fujitsu IS12T Windows Mango Phones are going to hit the market at August 25th 2011. Well, currently from couple of weeks Windows Phone 7.5 Mango has been juicing up the Microsoft-loving public, in particular after a slightly early build leaked this past week. Earlier, we had heard that this device would hit the market by this time, which in fact did not happen yet now. However, this latest release date of the Phone certainly come out to be legit. The Fujitsu Toshiba masterpiece carrying the name of IS12T lands in a couple of extremely good colors and it runs Windows Phone 7.5 Mango. This is the cellular partnerships’ initial Windows Phone ever and it seems very much to be the initial device to be released with Mango out of the pack. Fujitsu IS12T Windows Mango Phone is equipped with a massive 13.2-megapixel camera, 32GB of internal storage, and is both waterproof and dust-resistant; which is in fact very interesting.

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Research In Motion may possibly soon be presenting its own music streaming service for its BlackBerry platform. RIM is in late-stage negotiations with 4 major record label companies. The service might help RIM expand BlackBerry’s plea beyond enterprise to general clientele. The 4 major record label companies that Research In Motion has been in talks consist of Sony Music, Universal Music Group, Warner Music Group, and EMI. It is claimed that RIM has already signed at least one of the top 4 record label companies and is close to sealing the deal on 2 more. Interestingly, in the coming couple of weeks a test version of the service could roll out. Tthe music service will be included with BlackBerry Messenger; which is Research In Motion’s standout feature, which might soon get eclipsed by challenging messaging services from Google, Apple, and Facebook. RIM is at present in transition from its BlackBerry OS to a fresh QNX platform. Though, it freshly launched several BlackBerry 7 operating system smartphones including the BlackBerry Torch 9850, BlackBerry Bold 9930, and the BlackBerry Torch 9810.

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HTC Pico a newcomer to HTC’s healthy dictionary of codenames. Bearing a remarkable resemblance to the yet unannounced HTC Glamor; which we consider is intended to be smartphone targeted at fashion-conscious women, and interestingly the HTC Pico has appeared bearing a friendly blue casing which may possibly indicate that the phone will hit the market with a variety of color options. On the other hand, the features of the HTC Pico are almost alike to the Wildfire S in the US, which indicates that the device would be hitting the market with Android 2.3 Gingerbread underneath HTC Sense Zero, which we think that it might be a streamlined version of the Sense UI designed for lower-end phones. HTC Pico will run on a 600MHz single-core CPU and 384MB of RAM, powering a 3.2-inch HVGA display with 480×320 resolutions, equipped with 5MP camera on back, with a 1230mAh battery for power.

TC Pico Features & Specifications

• 600 MHz Processor
• 3.2-inch full touchscreen display
• 5 Megapixel Camera with auto-focus and LED flash
• 512MB ROM
• 384MB RAM Internal Memory
• Up to 32 GB Expandable Memory
• Multi Format Video/Audio Player
• 3.5mm audio jack
• Bluetooth
• Wi-Fi
• microUSB port
• GPS Navigation
• 3G HSDPA up to 7.2Mbps

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Motorola’s DROID HD has been caught on camera, presenting a sizable 4.5-inch touchscreen griped into an unexpectedly slender chassis. DROID Bionic, the DROID HD runs Android 2.3 Gingerbread and is equipped with an 8-megapixel camera with autofocus and an LED flash, capable of 1080p Full HD video recording. Furthermore, Motorola’s new DROID HD as well sports microUSB and microHDMI connectivity, together with a microSD card slot. The screen resolution is not confirmed, however given the HD name it looks like qHD is a lock-in; in the same way, there is no proposal of what processor Motorola has used, although the Bionic has a Texas Instruments OMAP 4430 1GHz dual-core.

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