MobileSyrup.com

Contest: Win a WIND Mobile HTC Amaze 4G with 2 months of service!

Ian Hardy — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 22:11:58 +0000

Another contest coming at you here… this time it has a bit of a bonus! Up for the taking is the WIND Mobile HTC Amaze 4G, plus TWO (2) months of service with their all-in talk, text, data $40/month Leap plan! Pretty sweet deal… All you have to do to enter this contest is: Follow us and re-tweet this contest on Twitter (@mobilesyrup), “Like Us” on Facebook (Facebook.com/MobileSyrup), or join us on Google +. All current Facebook, Twitter and Google + followers are automatically entered. This contest closes February 24th and we’ll announce the winner shortly after.

The WIND AMAZE 4G comes with Android OS 2.3 Gingerbread, 4.3 inch touchscreen qHD display that has a resolution of 960×540 resolution, 1.5Ghz dual core processor, 8MP camera that captures 1080p HD videos, 2MP front-facing camera, Wi-Fi and yes, it could be yours!

Good luck to all who enter!

Video: G-Form’s new iPhone 4S case vs. an 82mph slapshot

Ian Hardy — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 21:02:39 +0000

I dig these videos by G-Form. Most of them are so incredibly extreme and the latest one is no exception. The company has announced the pre-order status of their iPhone 4/4S case, the “X Protect” and “Extreme Grid”. The will be available to the masses at the end of February for about $40. So what did they do this time to prove that their cases can withstand any sort of impact. How does an 82 mph Slapshot sound? Check out the video below

Source: YouTube
Via: Engadget

Windows On ARM (WOA) detailed, won’t support x86 apps

Daniel Bader — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 20:28:13 +0000

Steven Sinofsky of the Windows 8 team has detailed, in an astounding 8600-word blog post, everything one needs to know about the upcoming Windows On ARM, or WOA, release. A developer preview is expected to be released with the x86 Consumer Preview on February 29th, and he shared some important details about the release.

Windows on ARM is going to be compatible with current ARM infrastructures (Cortex A9, A15, etc), such as chips used in iOS and Android tablets. As a result, much of the codebase is not reusable and existing Windows apps will not work, period.

The final release is to come pre-installed with a selected number of first-party applications such as Word, Excel, Powerpoint and OneNote, all developed specifically for touch interfaces. All other apps will be downloaded from the upcoming Windows Store, and must be compiled to work explicitly with ARM. Think of this as the end to the “If it worked on Windows XP, it will work on Windows 8″ era.

Developers can create and release apps both for branches of Windows 8 — x86 and ARM — but they must meet the compiling requirements for both independently. Windows on ARM will also not be distributed through retail channels, nor will images be available for purchase; they will be distributed as firmware images built for specific hardware, much like different versions of Android are incompatible with one another. Sinofsky writers, “With WOA you can look forward to integrated, end-to-end products—hardware, firmware and WOA software, all built from the ground up. Over the useful lifetime of the PC, the provided software will be serviced and improved.” This means that any upgrades will be a collaboration between Microsoft and the OEM, much like we see in Android today. This has both its advantages and disadvantages, since software tailored to specific hardware tends to work better, but upgrades also take longer to be released.

A curious change, and one that will likely be embraced by existing smartphone users, will be a lack of an explicit “sleep mode.” Instead, Sinofsky explains, when the screen is off the hardware will enable a “Connected Standby” state, which lasts for weeks.

Finally, how does he defend his decision to proscribe existing Windows apps from being ported to WOA?

“If we enabled the broad porting of existing code we would fail to deliver on our commitment to longer battery life, predictable performance, and especially a reliable experience over time. The conventions used by today’s Windows apps do not necessarily provide this, whether it is background processes, polling loops, timers, system hooks, startup programs, registry changes, kernel mode code, admin rights, unsigned drivers, add-ins, or a host of other common techniques.”

This will be a smart decision in the long run, but in the short term it will mean a dearth of apps available to download or purchase. Let’s hope Windows developers see the financial potential in porting their apps to ARM; Apple has found success with its Mac App Store, and that caters to a fraction of the same market. Whether WOA will catch on in the age of the iPad is a question everyone is waiting for an answer to.

Source: Building Windows 8 Blog
Via: AllThingsD

Here’s the complete Samsung Galaxy Note pricing for Rogers, Bell and TELUS

Ian Hardy — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 19:11:13 +0000

The 5.3-inch Samsung Galaxy Note will be arriving at Rogers, Bell and TELUS on February 14th – a lovely day for a new LTE-enabled device. We found out last week that Bell, via The Source, will be releasing this phone/tablet for $729.99. The only other known price was a fluctuating 3-year that Best Buy has on their pre-order site (ranged between $199 and $299). As you’ll see below all the carriers are coming to the table with the same $199 3yr pricing.

Of course things could change before launch, but according to the internal docs we received here’s what you can expect from the Big 3. TELUS’ no-contract price plan will be $779.99; 1-year will be $729.99; 2-year is $679.99 and the 3-year promo plan is $199.99. The Rogers doc (pictured above) shows them coming in with the lowest no-term price of $699.99, followed by the 1-year contract price of $649.99; 2-year of $599.99 and a 3-year term of $199.99. As for Bell, the no-term is $729.95 and the 3-year contract promo price is $199.99.

We’ll have a full hardware, software and S Pen review of the Android-powered Note up shortly.
(Thanks tipsters!)

Bell Let’s Talk Day numbers: 78,520,284 calls, texts and retweets raised $3,926,014.20

Ian Hardy — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 18:22:15 +0000

Bell “Let’s Talk Day” was yesterday and Bell donated 5c for every text message sent, long distance call made and every retweet on Twitter. The goal was to raise as much money as possible to support Mental Health issues. Last year Bell raised $3,303,961.80 and this year they wanted to surpass this number. A press release was just sent out that stated Bell customers raised $3,926,014.20. In total 78,520,284 calls, texts and retweets were made across Canada.

George Cope, President and CEO of Bell said “Canadians talked about mental health like never before on Bell Let’s Talk Day – your more than 78 million calls, texts and tweets mean Bell Let’s Talk will donate $3,926,014.20 more to mental health in Canada. On behalf of Clara and the national Bell team, our sincere thanks to all of you and to all our partners for your unprecedented support in the fight against the stigma of mental illness.”

It’s good to see that Bell included Twitter in the mix… this was most likely the reason for the $622,052.40 increase over last year.

Source: Bell

HTC to start rolling out upgrade to Ice Cream Sandwich “by the end of March”

Ian Hardy — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 17:50:29 +0000

HTC has announced on Facebook that the HTC Sensation family of devices will be the first to get upgraded to Android OS 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich. This will start to happen “by the end of March”. No details on countries, so hopefully us Canadians get the update when it’s rolled out. In addition, eight other HTC devices is on the ICS upgrade path, currently scheduled for “later this year”.

HTC has been working hard to get its Ice Cream Sandwich upgrades ready, and we’re excited to announce that our first round of ICS upgrades will roll out by the end of March for the HTC Sensation, HTC Sensation 4G and HTC Sensation XE, followed soon there after by the HTC Sensation XL.

In addition, we can confirm Ice Cream Sandwich upgrades will be coming later this year to the HTC Rezound, HTC Vivid, HTC Amaze 4G, HTC EVO 3D, HTC EVO Design 4G, HTC Incredible S, HTC Desire S and HTC Desire HD. Stay tuned for more updates on Ice Cream Sandwich releases in the coming weeks.

Source: Facebook
Via: Android Central

Nvidia press invite promises quad-core phones at MWC

Daniel Bader — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 17:21:40 +0000

Nvidia has sent out a press release for an “exclusive event” during Mobile World Congress this month, promising “quad-core firsts” and “great battery life.”

This pretty much confirms what we already suspected: that companies like LG and HTC will be offering Tegra 3-powered smartphones are the convention, though it’s unlikely Samsung will be taking part in the quad-core festivities.

It will definitely be interesting to see how the Tegra 3 chipset, which is only available in the Asus Transformer Prime tablet in Canada, translates to smartphone use. The chip is built with a 40nm process, so it doesn’t have the power-efficiency advantage over the upcoming Qualcomm S4 series, which is built on a 28nm process. Tegra 3 does, however, contain a fifth “companion” core which allows core features to be maintained while the screen is off, such as music listening and voice calls while the rest of the four high-energy cores are sitting idle. The idea is sound, and we found it to do good work in our Transformer Prime review, but it remains to be seen how such architecture translates to the smartphone.

We’ll have more soon.

Source: Android Central
Via: The Verge

RIM updates BlackBerry Mobile Conferencing app, simplifies joining and scheduling

Daniel Bader — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 16:44:43 +0000

RIM has updated its popular BlackBerry Mobile Conferencing app to version 3.0 with a focus on simplification of scheduling and joining conference calls.

To that end, the app adds a Join Now button into calendar entries that chooses the most appropriate phone number based on location. You can also easily schedule conferences using existing profiles (like templates) and send out invitations to prospective callers-in in two steps. Finally, you can turn an email into a meeting invite, using the subject and body of the email as meeting notes.

Check out a video demo of the new Mobile Conferencing app after the break, or download it from BlackBerry App World.

TELUS LG Optimus LTE complete pricing, $629.99 outright

Ian Hardy — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 16:30:55 +0000

TELUS’ first LTE-enabled smartphone will be the LG Optimus LTE. The screen on this is gorgeous. A 4.5-inch “true HD” display that has a resolution of 1280 x 720. This will run OS 2.3 Gingerbread, but will eventually be upgraded to OS 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich. Pricing is the following: No-contract is $629.99; 1-year is $579.99; 2-year is $529.99 and the 3-year term is on a promo price of $99.99 ($50/month plan is required). TELUS will officially be releasing this tomorrow when their LTE network goes live – they’ll also be including an 8GB microSD card in the box. Read our full review here.

(Thanks tipster!)

TELUS Samsung Galaxy Tab 8.9 LTE will be $649.99 outright

Ian Hardy — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 15:48:55 +0000

TELUS’ LTE network is almost ready to rock – it’ll be turned on tomorrow. One of the devices that will be available is the Samsung Galaxy Tab 8.9 LTE. This has been “coming soon” for about a month, but the pricing was MIA. This Android tablet runs OS 3.2 Honeycomb and will retail for $649.99 outright (same as Bell). We’ve previously did a full review of the 8.9 LTE when Bell released it and you can check it out here. Highlighted specs include a 1.5GHz dual-core processor, 8.9 inch display with a resolution of 1280×800, 3MP camera and a 2MP front-facing, 6100mAh battery, Wi-Fi and weighs 453 grams. In addition, when you’re outside the TELUS LTE coverage you’ll fall back to their 4G HSPA+ 21 Mbps network (average speeds are between 4 – 6 Mbps).

Via: TELUS