Samsung Galaxy S III, the world famous 4.8 inch smartphone has just been announced for the US market on no less than 5 carriers. Each of them will soon have their customized version of the flagship smartphone. I’m obviously talking about Sprint, AT&T, T-Mobile, Verizon Wireless and US Cellular.

Beginning this month all of them will be selling the much talked about handset, with exact pricing and availability remaining a mystery so far. On contract prices are speculated to be around $199 and it appears that all 5 versions will keep the 4.8 inch Super AMOLED HD display. These American units will be based on Qualcomm’s Snapdragon S4 dual core 1.5 GHz processor, as opposed to the quad core Exynos available in some other parts of the world, like Europe.

S-Beam, S-Voice and Smart Stay, plus Android 4.0 with TouchWiz will remain on board obviously and customers in the States will also get 2 GB of RAM and Gorilla Glass 2.0 to protect the screen. The device will be available with a Pebble Blue case or with a Marble White one, depending on the preference of the customer. There’s also a removable 2,100 mAh battery on board and 16/32GB storage versions. Are you getting one of these handsets?

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After the HTC One X and One S, we’ve had the opportunity to reveal the last member of the One trio here at GSMDome.com. I’m talking about the HTC One V, that was here for a week and was tested by us in all the aspects that matter. The handset sports a big chin, a tribute to the likes of the HTC Legend and it’s available for about $350 nowadays.

You’ll find the One V in black or Jupiter Rock, with the latter being the colour that we had the phone in. This model is pretty sturdy, thanks to a metallic case and unibody design. It uses a microSD card slot and SIM card slot hidden under a plastic shell at the lower back of the phone. That plastic area breaks the flow of the metal piece at the back and has an annoying space between the plastic and metal. Also, the chin and display glass piece come together in a rather unfortunate way, as if they weren’t meant to be combined.

One V measures 9.2mm in thickness, weighs 115 grams, sports the Beats Audio logo at the back, next to the speaker on the inferior area. Also at the back we find the 5MP camera and moving on to the sides, this is where we find the microUSB port on one side and the volume buttons on the other. At the top there’s an On/OFF button and audio jack, while the front hosts the screen, 3 capacitive buttons and no secondary camera at all. On the hardware side, we have a 3.7 inch display with a 480 x 800 pixel resolution, 4GB of storage, 512MB of RAM and a microSD card slot.

The brain of this midrange phone is a Qualcomm MSM8255 processor (Snapdragon), a 1 GHz unit with Adreno 205 to make games look better. As far as connectivity goes, you have HSDPA, WiFi, Bluetooth 4.0 and microUSB 2.0. Finally, the last specs include AGPS, FM Radiom accelerometer, proximity sensor and the 5MP camera. The latter supports 720p video capture, HDR, simultaneous photo and video capture, plus face and smile detection and slow motion filming. HTC One V relies on a Li-Ion 1500 mAh battery, that gives the user about a day or a day and a half of functioning time.

When it comes to benchmarks, HTC One V got 2762 points in AntuTu, a bit more than the HTC Desire S, for example, that scored 2627 in this test and also more than the HTC Desire C, also launched this year and getting a mere 2107 points in AnTuTu. In Quadrant, the One V didn’t do very well, with 1967 points, compared to the 4605 of the One X, but at least it beat the Desire C and its score of 1331. Moving to multimedia, the audio playback is great, volume is excellent and if you own a pair of Beats Audio headphones, the bass will be excellent.

video playback looks decent and the screen was surprisingly bright and colours very vivid. The camera raised above my expectations, especially in the video capture area. It’s frankly the best 5 megapixel camera on a midrange phone you’ll ever see in shops at this time. You can also do photo capture when playing back video, in case you’re wondering. As far as software goes, you get Android 4.0 and HTC Sense 4.0, meaning that there’s the usual bunch of widgets you already saw on HTC One S and One X, plus that new camera UI, with new effects placement and more compact options.

The Play Store link is now in the applications area, the Settings are in the notification area, while the multitasking button triggers an app preview area where swiping makes the apps cease functioning. Dropbox is preinstalled on the phone, FriendStream takes care of social networking, while the browser offers a special option for reading text only on pages and an appealing system of tabs, with large previews. And finally, we give you a short tour of HTC Hub in the video below, in case you were curios to see it again.

In the end here’s the verdict: this is a phone that gets an 8 out of 10 and its pros include the design, low price, great camera, fluid OS, resilient case, bright screen, while the cons include the CPU and RAM, that could have been better, the battery that could have also been a bit more powerful and the lower back lid that feels out of place. Don’t forget to also check out the video review below:

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Everyone has been talking about the Nokia 808 PureView 41MP cameraphone ever since its unveiling at MWC 2012, where we were present to catch it . Now we have a video below, showing the very cool zooming in abilities of the device, even when filming in 1080p at 30 fps. I must inform you that we’re waiting for this model to arrive to us for testing purposes and we’re very excited about that.

The handset relies on oversampling technology to combine up to 7 pixels into a true and pure pixel, eliminating the visual noise found on cameraphone shots. Users can also zoom in up to 3X when taking photos, without losing any details in the photo. Nokia also promised that there will be no artificially created pixels in the picture, as well. On the video side, you can do 1080p 30 fps recording with 4X lossless zoom, thanks to that big and powerful sensor, that may make it to a Nokia Windows Phone 8 device by the year end.

When filming at 720p you can do 6X zoom and up to 12X lossless zoom when capturing nHD video. A bonus is the ability to record brilliant stereo audio content when filming, thanks to Nokia’s latest audio technologies. Apparently, those allow you to get CD-like audio quality even in a noisy area. Nokia 808 PureView also offers a powerful Xenon flash and LED video light, so the capture will be great even in low light. Now just enjoy the great zooming in abilities portrayed below:

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Although Apple pressured judges not to allow this, Motorola now has the official permission to use Steve Jobs’ Android hate quotes in court. Later this month, Apple and Motorola will meet in court, with a case based on the usual smartphone patent infringements.

Judge Richard Posner will be presiding and he already made some preliminary rulings against the Cupertino giant. The judge ruled against Apple’s requirement that Motorola won’t use quotes from Steve Jobs. Moto’s attorneys will go on record using phrases from Jobs such as “I will spend my last dying breath if I need to and I will spend every penny of Apple’s $40 billion in the bank, to right this wrong”. He was referring to Android here, which he also discussed in this phrase: “I’m going to destroy Android, because it’s a stolen product. I’m willing to go thermonuclear war on this”.

The Judge presiding the case said on Thursday that Apple won’t be allowed to argue to the jury that it should be “predisposed to favor Apple over Motorola”, even if the jury admires Steve Jobs or Apple products. Apple will also ask a California court to stop Samsung from using the same quotes in yet another case that will go on trial next month.

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Samsung Galaxy S III is certainly the most talked about phone of this year so far, with a powerful quad core CPU and brilliant 4.8 inch display. Now it appears that this model that already caused queues in the UK will be heading to T-Mobile USA, as confirmed by the press pictures below.

If you remember, the US versions of the Galaxy S and Galaxy S II had different designs and brandings compared to the international version. However, this time Samsung will keep its design and name in USA and adopt a single look all over the world. The best proof for that is the press shot here, of both the white and pebble blue model. The physical button is present here, unlike the previous Galaxy S iterations, that skipped the inclusion of this button in USA.

The only change is the engraving of the T-Mobile logo at the back. Samsung is expected to release the 4.8 inch HD smartphone this month during the Galaxy S III World Tour that will have a stop in New York. I certainly look forward to seeing some prices on T-Mobile, hoping they will be reasonable and maybe bundle some of the nifty accessories announced in London last month. Now let’s see if T-Mobile will sell the Snapdragon-based S III or the Exynos one…

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LG has been taking its time with the Android 4.0 ICS update, since it wants to make sure it will work properly on its devices. Now, the Korean LG Optimus LTE got its share of Ice Cream Sandwich, via OTA, that brings the software up to version Android 4.0.4.

Also on board is the simple and unobtrusive Optimus UI 3.0. I can’t really say when the rest of the LG lineup will get the update, but hopefully soon enough. Devices such as the LG Optimus Vu would certainly need this update and also the famous LG Nitro HD, that’s basically an LG Optimus LTE for AT&T. Obviously, it depends on the speed of the carrier AT&T when working with the new software. Let’s hope that the likes of Motorola and Samsung see this updating spree and follow up on their promise to update their devices as soon as possible.

With devices such as the HTC Desire C with 600 MHz CPU out there, it’s impossible to say that your new 2012 device isn’t good enough to run the OS, so no phone/tablet maker has any excuse anymore…

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The folks of are at it again, cracking open the Samsung Galaxy S III, in order to show us what’s inside. This quad core phone with 4.8 inch display has been all over the news lately, with huge sales, great preorders and queues in front of stores that sell it. And now let’s see what iFixit found out about it:

The phone was released internationally on May 29th, so it’s as fresh as they come. Galaxy S III runs Android 4.0, uses a 1.4 GHz quad core processor and comes in 16, 32 or 64 GB storage versions. Also it comes with blue or white cases. The sleep/power button is found on the side of the device and its battery is user accessible, just like on the Galaxy Nexus and unlike the HTC One X, for example. This battery is a 3.8V 2100 mAh unit with an NFC module incorporated, enabling the S Beam feature.

There’s a plastic frame under the case, protecting the motherboard against impact or spills I guess. Removal of the frame reveals easily replaceable speakers and a bulk of tiny components packed inside a small volume. After iFixit removed the motherboard, they had a good look at the inner support frame, most likely made of magnesium and built for endurance. On the display side we learn that the glass is fused to the display and the screen is fused to the Galaxy S III frame. This has a downside, since it increases the amount of money one has to spend to replace the glass. More details will be found on iFixit!

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Samsung isn’t like Apple or Microsoft, the kind of companies that buy other smaller companies each week… They keep a low profile and every once in a while come out with an acquisition, like today’s announcement of the Nanoradio purchase. This is a chipset manufacturer, that may spawn low power Wifi chips in the future Samsung phones.

The terms of the transaction remain a mystery for now and in case you’re wondering what’s special about , they specialize in making ultra low power WiFi chips used on phones and other mobile devices. For example, their website shows the picture of two people playing with PlayStation 3 controllers, so they deal with wireless gadgets of all sorts. Nanoradio designs semiconductors with wireless capability, or at least that’s how they like to describe themselves.

Sammy seems to be searching for ways to reduce power consumption, something that Apple is also supposedly working on, since they’ll be required to give its new iPhone more power to fuel that supposedly bigger display and LTE chipset. Anyway, Asian companies are always ahead when it comes to power/fuel/power management technologies and some of them even rely on solar energy already. What will the future look like, considering this rush for low power solutions?

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Digital music downloads and streaming revenues for the first time ever have surpassed those of physical CDs in the United Kingdom, according to the British Phonographic Industry. Digital music accounted for 55.5% of U.K. music revenue between January and April of this year , with industry revenues growing by 2.7% to £155.8 million. Digital music revenue, including subscription and ad-supported services, grew by 23.6% year-over-year to £86.5 million, while revenue from physical formats fell by 15.1% to £69.3 million. Sales of digital albums increased by 22.7% to £35.9 million. Paid-for subscription services revenue almost doubled over the same month a year ago, increasing 93% to nearly £9 million, while revenue from ad-supported services such as Spotify increased by 20% to £3.4 million. The continued increase of digital revenues highlights the switch millions of users continue to make from physical music formats to digital downloads and streaming services. The British Phonographic Industry’s press release follows below.

Digital Revenues Overtake Physical in UK Recorded Music Market, 31 May 2012

• Digital accounted for 55.5% of UK trade revenues in Q1 2012 – overtaking physical for first time
• Year-on-year record industry revenues grow by 2.7% to £155.8m in Q1 2012

A diversified revenue base and strong growth in a la carte albums sales and paid subscriptions meant digital music represented the majority of record industry revenues for the first time during Q1, 2012, new figures revealed today by the BPI confirmed.

Digital music revenues accounted for 55.5% of record industry revenues in the first quarter of the year. Impressive growth in digital music revenues boosted the record industry’s overall market value by 2.7% to £155.8m, offsetting a decline in revenues from physical products.

Digital income from all sources including à la carte, subscription and ad-supported services grew year on year by almost a quarter (23.6%) in Q1 to £86.5m. By contrast, revenue from physical formats fell by 15.1% to £69.3m.

Sales of digital albums contributed substantially to rising digital revenues, with the format’s sales increasing by 22.7% to £35.9m, outstripping revenues from downloads of single tracks for a second successive quarter.

Paid-for subscription services also performed strongly with income almost doubling (93%) year-on-year to just under £9 million as users migrate to premium, paid-for tiers. The ad-supported tiers of digital services such as Spotify and We7 raked in revenues of £3.4m, an increase of 20% on Q1 2011.

Xperia Pureness is now a distant memory of a transparent phone, as now we have more evolved models, like the one shown in action below. This futuristic phone has a double sided display, as we informed you .

The transparent touchscreen is a color one and input is supported on both its sides. Japanese carrier NTT DoCoMo and Fujitsu showed off this device, in prototype phase. It was showcased at the 2012 Wireless Japan expo and relied on a dual sided 2.4 inch OLED display, with a resolution of 320 x 240 pixels. This handset seems to run an unspecified version of Android and it allows moving icons around the screen using both the screen’s sides.

You can also see a Rubik’s Cube having its faces rotated using the sides of the touchscreen. The problem here is using the prototype in bright light, since the screen won’t be able to display content as well as it does when it’s darker around it. The employee demoing the phone said that this would make a nice secondary display, an idea that I second and I’m looking forward to seeing a commercial release.

[youtube Xbyoool5ZwY 660 520]

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Samsung Galaxy S III is without a doubt a hit and that’s proven both by the over 8 million units preordered in just weeks after the phone was announced and also by the huge queues in front of the stores selling the device worldwide. And now another record, a local one, as British retailer Phones 4U announced huge sales of the Galaxy S III.

In just 24 hours, UK phone retailer Phones 4U managed to sell enough units of the new Samsung flagship to make it the best selling smartphone of 2012 in its offer. The record sales were also boosted by the big number of preorders, so considering the S III was Phones 4 U’s most preordered smartphone ever, everything makes sense now.

Officials of the retailer claim that not only the brilliant marketing behind the 4.8 inch quad core phone is responsible for the sales, but also its special program. They have a unique JUMP (Just Update My Phone) contract offer, that allows Orange and Vodafone customers to upgrade to the latest smartphones once every 6 months. This is one of the first records to be broken by the S III and expect many more to follow in the next months.

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As you may already know, this week Sony announced two new phones, the Xperia Acro S and Xperia Go, with the latter being rebranded to Xperia Advance in the USA. Both are waterproof models and the bad news here is actually that Sony Xperia Acros S, the one with the better specs might not make it to US soil.

This is a high end Android 4.0 smartphone with a 4.3 inch 720p HD scratch resistant mineral glass display and Mobile Bravia engine technology. At the back it has a 12 megapixel camera and inside there’s a dual core 1.5 GHz processor and 1 GB of RAM. This model will be available in black, white and pink in Europe and Asia for starters.

Xperia Acro S was announced for release in Q3 and the official sources list the phone as “not currently planned to come to the US”. Well, at least you can get your consolation from the Xperia Advance/Go and its 5 megapixel camera. Or maybe the Xperia Ion, with specs that are pretty close to the ones of the Xperia Acro S.

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We’ve had a bit of an unique experience with the HTC Desire C, since we were the first in the world to . Now, this model has arrived in the UK, where local carrier Three will be selling it for free with a 13 quid a month contract.

The contract involves 100 minutes, 5,000 texts and 250 MB of data per month. There’s also a 149.99 quid option on pay as you go. This is a cheaper option compared to the offers from Orange and T-Mobile, that have priced the HTC Desire C at 169.99 on pay as you go. In case you’re wondering what the phone is about, it’s a tinier device, with a 3.5 inch display and Android 4.0 running on a 600 MHz.

HTC Sense 4.0 is also here and the Desire C even provides Beats Audio integration, plus a 5 megapixel camera at the back and 4GB of storage. Finally, there’s a microSD card slot on board and HSDPA plus WiFi connectivity. Getting one?

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