Nokia’s much awaited Windows Phone based successor – the rumoured ”EOS” Lumia is pretty much real. A reader of WMPowerUser has revealed the kind of specifications the device would sport. And by Nokia’s own admission during the Nokia Lumia 925 launch, the Finnish phonemaker is going to launch another device this summer which many think would indeed be the EOS. To add to the WMPowerUser report, we have a little birdie tipping us that the phone that they would launch next would indeed be the Lumia EOS and that the launch date would be the second week of July – most probably July the 9th. (Unless of course Nokia decides to change the date due to this leak!)

Will It Get a 41 Megapixel Sensor? It Indeed Will!

What the WMPowerUser report didn’t confirm was whether the phone would sport that all important 41 megapixel sensor since the mega pixel count mark on the prototype device was marked XX. Well, a little birdie seems to have actually played around with the handset and has tipped us with more details about the phone. Juicy details which sort of with authority confirm the fact that the Lumia EOS (or whatever Nokia chooses to call it at release) WILL sport a 41 megapixel sensor. Photographs however can only be taken at a maximum of 34 megapixels – just like the case was with the PureView 808. Of course you can have lower resolution shots as well. The phone would also do full HD videos (in fact, you will have three options just for 1080p videos with different frame rates from what we have been informed). There would be three separate 720p modes as well.

The camera interface would be completely redesigned with circular on screen dial controls. You can flick them around to adjust various camera settings. As consistent with the WMPowerUser report, this redesigned interface laden app would be known as the Nokia ProCamera. The phone would also supposedly have DSLR like “sounds” when you flick around the settings. And yes, there would be manual mode as well where you can manually adjust all camera settings.

The rest of the details have already been revealed by the report by WMPowerUser. These include the fact that the phone would sport a 1280*720 pixel 4.5 inch display. We can confirm the same. That said, we would have liked to see a full HD panel on a flagship camera model like this. At the moment however this seems to be more of a software limitation than hardware so you might as well direct all your anger at Microsoft  - and not Nokia.

What is truly remarkable about the Nokia Lumia EOS would be the size of the device. We are told that the polycarbonate shell clad phone is an absolute engineering miracle and Nokia has done an amazing job at cramming that huge sensor inside a phone that maybe even thinner than the Lumia 920! Sure, the camera housing does protrude a bit – but the clever design which makes the phone taper towards its extremities supposedly masks the entire girth of the sensor. At no point would you feel any kind of bulkiness with the device. Looks like Nokia lovers would have a hard time recommending the already awesome Lumia 920 once this would be released. Oh and lest we forget, the camera module at the rear would have a powerful Xenon flash for low light imaging. It is unclear if it would get the Lumia 920′s OIS capabilities but is is quite likely to find its way in.

So, yes the Nokia Lumia “EOS” is pretty much happening and if no one else comes up with something as remarkable as this till July, we assure you, the worlds best camera phone is almost here! And we are pretty sure, it’s worth the wait. We can only wish Nokia all the best here!

All said, let us all once again inform you that at this point, this can best be classified a rumor – but we have some positive vibes about this one being true! What say, folks?

When people saw the “new” Galaxy S4 for the first time, they were disappointed in the fact that Samsung never bothered to change the design much or cared about the kind of materials that went into the making of the phone. I mean, the plastic back panel and the chrome stripped edges didn’t at all give you any confidence inspiring feeling. That said, the positive thing for Samsung is that people STILL go ahead and buy it. In ridiculous numbers. Really, shameful when you consider the kind of effort HTC had put in making the HTC One – which is more of an art form than a phone and it sells in paltry numbers when compared to the plasticky S4. What an unfair world!  Anyway thats what we’re on about here.

For those of you who think your newly bought Galaxy S4 just isn’t distinctive enough, and you have loads of spare cash to splurge on, you might want to do something like this. Cover it up in gold. Thats right – adding glitter to your phone usually is the domain of rich iPhone wielding junta – but the tradition seems to have trickled on to Androidites as well nowadays looking at the number of expensive metal clad phones out there on the offing nowadays.

The company that will help you with adding some bling to your Galaxy S4 is UK based Goldgenie. Note that the gold version is actually the “base” version. Goldgenie will also happily suggest you get yourselves a more expensive platinum or a rose gold version of the phone for even more exclusivity.

These will set you back by $ 2600 each. All customized handsets would come in their own customized Luxury Cherry Oak Finished Box – so you don’t have to keep it atop your inexpensive table when you come back home after a hard days work. But then, if you have that kind of money to spend on your phone, you might not be working THAT hard anyway, I presume.

Sigh!

Famous for its Intel powered line-up of “Xolo” branded phones, Lava Mobiles has announced the launch of its new quad-core processor smartphone, the Iris 458q in India. The Android 4.2 laden device boasts of a 4.5 inch capacitive display and has a display resolution of 854*480 pixels. Let’s now delve slightly more in to the features of this device.

Like we said, this handset is Lava’s first attempt at a Quad Core processor laden device. Supporting the processor is 512MB worth of RAM and 4GB of internal memory. The latter can be expanded up to 32GB using microSD cards. App freaks can be happy upon learning that Lava has preloaded a bunch of useful on to the device right from the factory. These Apps include WeChat, Push Mail, Ebook reader etc. There are quite a few HD movies and HD games on the phone as well.

The imaging bit is handled by a 8 MP rear auto-focus camera with built-in flash. There is a front VGA camera as well that can help you make video calls. The largish 2000 mAH battery will let you use the phone for an entire day without having to recharge the device .

Commenting on the launch of their quad core smartphone, Mr. SN Rai, Co – Founder & Director, Lava International Ltd. said, “ Innovation and understanding of consumer needs are a couple of key strengths for LAVA and that helps us introduce powerful smartphones across various price segments for all users. The Iris 458q is our latest offering for users who love to carry a stylish smartphone with the latest technology without burning a hole in the pocket.”

The Iris 458q is priced at Rs 8999/- ($163) and claims to be one of the most affordable quad core smartphones available in India today

We have fresh images from Croatia which reveals the existence of a brand new handset from Samsung. Known as the Samsung Galaxy S4 Active, this is one of the variants of the Galaxy S4. The “Active” tag points towards the fact that it is rugged phone – designed to be used outdoors in tough environments. The handset is internally known as the GT-I9295 and it is expected that Samsung would be making an official announcement pertaining to this in the not too distant future.

The Galaxy S Active has a metal case, looks and feels rugged as well and will most likely be a waterproof and dust proof device

Internally, the hardware configuration would look something like this. Powering the phone would be the Snapdragon 600 quad-core processor running at 1.9 GHz. It would be mated to the all powerful Adreno 320 GPU. The display size remains the same at 4.99-inches. It would of course be a Super AMOLED display capable of a resolution of 1920*1080 pixels. In short, this is just a rehashed Galaxy S4 with a tougher and more durable outer shell.

As far as price and availability details go, we have no clue about this as of now. But like we said, this could be made official in the next few weeks.

So, do you think a rough and tough, durable version of the Samsung Galaxy S4 makes sense?

Via GSMArena

Nokia’s persistence with Windows Phone seems to be showing some visible results – a good 2 and a half years after the platform was first showcased and then subsequently launched. According to the latest figures from IDC, the Windows Phone platform has become the world’s third largest smartphone operating system in terms of market share! As I type this, there are only more iOS and Android users out there than there are Windows Phone users! (As if you didn’t know that one!)

According to IDC, more than 7 million Windows Phone devices were sold in the previous quarter giving it a not very impressive sounding 3.2 percent of the market. However, considering where Windows Phone was during the same quarter from an year ago, this one was a 1.2 percent increase. Not bad at all.

Android and iOS by far lead this race by quite some margin. BlackBerry seems to have been the worst hit and it would take some time to see how the sales of its new BlackBerry 10 devices could affect this current equation. The numbers for BlackBerry don’t look too good. In 2012, during the first quarter, the company had managed to ship 9.7 million units which gave it 6.4 percent of the smartphones market. That has been reduced to 6.3 million shipments this time with a reduced market share of just 2.9 percent.

All in all, this is good news for both Microsoft and Nokia – more specifically for the latter as the Finnish brand seems to be the only player seriously interested in making Windows Phone devices. The rest of the pack seems busy with Android.

As for the top guns, like I mentioned earlier, Android leads the OS pack with a fat 75 percent market share. iOS  is a distant second with 17.3 percent of the market. It would be interesting to see how the smartphones playing field opens up later this year with the likes of Firefox OS, Ubuntu Mobile and Samsung’s Tizen – all set to debut in the next few months!

Interesting times lie ahead!

What smartphone can probably 82 Euros buy you these days? Not something substantial if you are in Europe or the US. However if you happened to be anywhere in the Far East and more specifically, in China, you could be bogged down with options for what for many in the developed part of the globe is a paltry amount.

That reminds me why I am writing this blog post here. Say hello to the rather weirdly named Goophone X1. I am already imagining the look on your face when someone asks you; “What phone is that?” and you reply; “Thats my Goophone”.

Gross!

What is not gross however are the specification on the Goophone X1. The Goophone X1 is not a new release either – having been around for the past year. However, what it does with that year old hardware at such a low cost is compelling. For your information, this thing runs Android 4.2 and packs in a Quad Core processor deep inside! That is ridiculous for just 82 Euros, isn’t it? True, the model might have been “inspired” from a rather popular product from another mainstream company headquartered in the far east, but this thing is waay cheaper!

Mind you, the Goophone X1 is not a top of the line device and gets a 4.7-inch large display with a resolution of 854 x 480 pixels, which endows it with a not too impressive pixel density of 204 ppi. The quad core processor we talked about earlier is housed inside a Mediatek MT6589 chipset and is clocked at 1.2 GHz. Supporting the processor is a decent  1GB of RAM which coupled with the 4 GB of internal memory and an option to expand it further using micro Sd cards, makes it quite a decent purchase for the price it is expected to go for.

Moving on to the imaging bit, the 5 megapixel shooter at the rear should take decent pictures while the 1.3 megapixel front camera can help you with video calling. The battery however is just 1800 mAH and thanks to the devices’ dual SIM configuration, you might have issues keeping it powered on for an entire day.

Anyway, for just 82 Euros, this one is a steal!

]]> http://www.mobilegeeks.com/goophone-x1-quad-core-android-4-2-smartphone-82-euros/feed/ 5 http://www.mobilegeeks.com/goophone-x1-quad-core-android-4-2-smartphone-82-euros/ http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/netbooknews/nbn/~3/nW3ebQXQ5Go/ http://www.mobilegeeks.com/android-update-google-io-2013-big-news/#comments Fri, 17 May 2013 07:32:56 +0000 Nicole http://www.mobilegeeks.com/?p=5968 Google IO 2013 was the launch pad of tons of new android services and features, but there was one thing that was most notably missing, an actual upgrade to android. Where was Android 4.3? There …]]>

Google IO 2013 was the launch pad of tons of new android services and features, but there was one thing that was most notably missing, an actual upgrade to android. Where was Android 4.3? There was enough speculation about it, heck blogs were even confirming that it was going to be launched hours before the keynote, yet the three and half hours passed and we never actually learned about the infamous 4.3 update.

Instead we learned about a new Maps experience, Google Play got 41 updates; Google Now is more conversational and offers a whole bunch more information and functionality; Google game services is upping the ante on all your Android devices and Google Play Music, All Access is going to completely change how music works on your Android device.

If we take a minute to think about it, I could have said Android 4.3 has a ton of new features and then gone through the exact same list. The absence of a new version of Android is actually note worthy and pretty exciting because this is Google’s answer to fragmentation. I’ve got a video below where I go into more detail about the non announcment at Google I/O 2013.

Google IO is like Christmas for Android fanboy’s, it give us reasons to lust for new devices and upgrades and this year Google CEO Larry Page took the microphone to talk about how important it is to focus on technology and getting people more people involved.

He openly expressed a disdain for Microsoft and the way that they are approaching the industry attempting to put of more barriers rather than taking them down.  Also that companies are being pitted against each other rather than working together. The focus should be on making “new and important things to make people’s lives better,” he said.

But by far the best part of the entire keynote was the 35 minute question and answer at the end of the keynote.  We’ve got the whole thing below, it’s worth checking out, he tackles a lot of questions about the future of hardware, the internet and the importance of women in tech.

It was just yesterday that we talked about the then “soon to be announced” Nokia Lumia 925 which was leaked in the form of a teaser video and images. A day later, we have full details about this handset which has now seen the official light of the day. Let’s now take a quick look at the phone.

After looking at yesterdays leaked images, we had hoped that the Nokia Lumia 925 would be lighter than the Nokia Lumia 920 , which as you already know happens to be a little clunky at 185 grams. The Lumia 925 cuts the flab and tips the scales at just 139 grams making it nearly 50 grams lighter than the Lumia 920. Good job!

Lets now take a look at what the phone has on offer when it comes to the overall specifications.  The Lumia 925 features a 4.5-inch AMOLED display which is as large as its predecessors. The display resolution remains unchanged at 1,280 x 768 pixels, which corresponds to a pixel density of 334 ppi. It comes with a Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 processor with its two cores clocked at 1.5 GHz each. The CPU is supported by the Adreno 225 GPU for graphics. We are dealing with 1 GB of RAM, the internal memory of the device is 16 GB in size (Vodafone will exclusively offer a black version with 32 GB). The non-replaceable battery is 2000 mAh and the dimensions of the device are 129 mm x 70.6 mm x 8.5 mm.

The phone gets a micro SIM slot and also supports LTE networks. The camera is basically the same unit as the on on the Lumia 920 and as expected, gets the 8.7 megapixel sensor and adds in an optical image stabilizer with a Carl Zeiss lens as well. You can capture videos in full HD at 30 fps. There is a 1.3 MP front camera using which you can record 720p videos too.

On the design front, there has been a massive change with the Lumia 925 dropping its predecessors’ polycarbonate shell construction in favour of an all metal frame. The aluminium finish of the phone lends it a premium air. There us still judicious usage of Polycarbonate though which is still used on the back.

The phone is set to roll out in global markets starting July at an approximate price of 469 Euros (before taxes).

Well, apologies for that misleading headline! 5G is not “here”. In fact it’s not anywhere near us at this juncture. BUT, Samsung earlier today made it onto the front pages of most technology portals when they announced that they have in their labs tested core technologies that would by 2020 allow for Wireless data transfer speeds that would be several times faster than todays 4G LTE Networks.

Samsung has decided to call this technology “5G” already – although there have been reservations by many on Samsung’s decision to use the same without  consultation. As Samsung puts it, “5G mobile communications technology is the next generation of the existing 4G Long Term Evolution (LTE) network technology. 5G will be capable of providing a ubiquitous Gbps experience to subscribers anywhere and offers data transmission speeds of up to several tens of Gbps per base station.” Yes , you heard that right. 10 Gbps indeed. Go pinch yourself once again. With these kinds of download speeds, you could download an entire movie within a few seconds. (As if you didn’t figure that out already!)

Anyway, with even 4G LTE networks still to see widespread deployment, rest assured we have a long long time to go before we get this kinds of speeds on our mobile phones.

You might want to delve more about this by going to this link here

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