SmartColiseum

An as yet unidentified device from LG has on the popular GLBenchmark GPU benchmarking site. This is hardly important on its own, but the results posted by its Snapdragon 800 beat out the competition by a significant margin. The device is set to feature the new Snapdragon 800 (MSM8974) processor alongside Adreno 330 GPU with a screen resolution of 1794 x 1080 (which is 1080p with virtual buttons). The new GPU managed to easily outdo even the iPad 4, let alone the current smartphone top dogs. Not much else is known about the device beyond the Android 4.2.2 OS, although with such a specs sheet it will be quite a high-end offering when LG decide to put it on the market.

Sony didn't prove itself with the slim waterproof  Xperia Z  this season, but apparently CEO Kaz Hirai has a dream pet project to stuff everything that Sony is capable of in the camera and sound department (and that's a lot) into upcoming Xperia handsets, slated for release in time for the holiday shopping craze. We've been hearing rumors for a while about this project, allegedly under the  One Sony  umbrella, but now a tipster of ours fleshed out the strategy  with some heartwarming stories about  Cyber-shot and Walkman tech  about to be placed into flagship Xperia smartphones with Android. Of course, the information below is neither confirmed by Sony, nor verified, save for some rumblings on several company-centric forums, so we can't vouch for its credibility, but here's the full scoop: Apart from the xperia a,ul,phablet launching in summer... There are three more parallel flagships coming in q3. 1. This one is  5 inch xperia cybershot . It will be

Sounds like Japanese OEM Sony has a busy Summer planned. No, the company is not going to sleep-away camp. Instead, it has a number of new handsets coming to market, according to the latest rumors, including a 6.4 inch phablet. First, we have the Sony Xperia A , codenamed " Dogo". This is expected to have a 4.6 inch screen with the Qualcomm Snapdragon 600 processor under the hood, 2GB of RAM, 32GB of native storage, and a 2300mAh cell. The phone will be water and dust resistant and includes 1Seg Japanese TV support along with support for NFC. An IR Blaster is also said to be aboard. According to the speculation, you will find this model at Japanese carrier NTT Docomo this summer. Also on the road map is the Sony Xperia UL (which is codenamed "Gaga"), a phone that is similar to the Sony Xperia ZL but with the Qualcomm Snapdragon 600 powering the device rather than the Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 Pro. 32GB of native storage, 2GB of RAM, and a 2300mAh battery are include

We were just sent a render of an yet unannounced Motorola Android smartphone. What you see pictured below is supposedly the Motorola X Phone, which might break cover at Google I/O starting on May 15. Along with the render came a short description of the specs, as reported by a person close to the team behind the X Phone. Since we got no proof of that information or the acual source of the tip, you'd do well to take this with more than a pinch of salt. Anyway, the Motorola X Phone will allegedly use a Snapdragon 800 chipset and a 4.7" 1280 x 768 resolution display. The battery inside is supposedly a 4000 mAh unit, which goes in line with Motorola's recent policies. Motorola X Phone render (click for larger image) The Android version is 4.2 Jelly Bean with a very few customizations job by Motorola. In the image (assuming that it pictures the real thing) you'll notice that the icons are stock Android. According to the tipster the X Phone could be IP57 certified (me

The release of Apple's iPhone 5S and iPad 5 is definitely close, and everybody is trying to find out the specific date. According to the latest rumor, Apple's supply chain will start shipping the components for the iPhone 5S at the end of May, so the next generation smartphone will likely have a chance of showing up in the third quarter, reports Digitimes . The site also mentions that "Foxconn Electronics chairman Terry Guo previously noted that the company's performance will start picking up after April or May; however, Foxconn declined to comment about its clients when asked about iPhone orders." This new information comes after Gizmorati reported yesterday that according to an Apple inside source, "iPhone 5S and the iPad 5 will be unveiled during a special event called ‘Original Passion, New Ideas’, on June 29, 2013." The event has the purpose to "reconquer the public and reassure the investors". The analysts predict that Apple will

This is not turning out to be the U.S.launch of the BlackBerry Z10 that CEO Thorsten Heins had been dreaming about. Consider the response at Amazon, which has the Blackberry z10 in stock and ready to to be shipped for $199.99 with a signed two-year pact. How embarrassing would it be for BlackBerry if we told you that the Z10 did not even make the AT&T Top 100 smartphones on Amazon's list? And suppose we told you that beating out the first BlackBerry 10 handset is the Sony Ericsson W580i , made by a company that is no longer around. Even worse is the news that the BlackBerry Curve 8520 is number 67 and the flagship 'Berry before the Z10, the BlackBerry Bold 9900 is number 38. The highest ranking 'Berry is the BlackBerry Torch 9810 at number 21 on a list dominated by Android models like the Samsung Galaxy S III and the Samsung GALAXY Note II . Perhaps BlackBerry misjudged the market and should have released the QWERTY equipped BlackBerry Q10 first. That is the mode

Perhaps in the near future, when you drop your Apple iPhone , a number of things will take place quickly inside the phone that change the device's center of mass in order to control the phone's landing. It is all part of a patent awarded to Apple called " Protective Mechanism for an Electronic Device ". The application was filed in 2011 and mentions the use of the phone's accelerometer, gyroscope and a position sensor to help the handset know if it is free falling and how close it is to the ground. GPS and imaging sensors can also be employed. The idea is to alleviate the damage to the phone in case it is dropped. According to the patent, this could be achieved by changing "the angular velocity, device positioning or device rotation ." Although the process can work with any electronic device with a processor, the patent mentions the Apple iPhone by name. The system memory keeps some statistics including fall heights, speeds and other data which cou

Samsung has only issued one tablet with its trademark AMOLED display technology, the Tab 7.7 , but is aiming to change that with the new fabrication method, dedicated to building larger slate panels. The company is allegedly firing on all cylinders, developing 10.1" and 11.6" panels, which, given the technology that made the Full HD AMOLED screen on the Galaxy S 4 possible, are also expected to sport some top-notch pixel density. Sources say that Samsung will actually be aiming to take on the top dog designs in the tablet space, Apple's iPad line and Sony's Xperia Tablet Z , with an upcoming AMOLED slate, dubbed Galaxy Tab 3 Plus, so we can't wait to see what they have in store for us. The insiders also hinted that it will be powered by an Exynos 5-series chipset, and might be ready in time for IFA 2013 unveiling at the end of August.

MediaTek’s quad-core MT6589 chip is behind the boom in cheap 1080p smartphones in China, and its popularity is only about to grow as big name manufacturers like Sony, Lenovo, Huawei and ZTE are all expected to launch devices with the MediaTek chip. Overall, the chip maker has partnered with 20 manufacturers, all expected to roll out devices with its silicon in March to April. To help its popularity, MediaTek is expected to slash the price of the chip by 10% from April. The quad-core MT6589 might not be among the most powerful ones out there, but it delivers a very solid performance for an extremely low price that allows Chinese manufacturers like Umi to deliver 1080p 5-inch phones with an IPS screen for a price of around $200 or less. That is the off contract price, nearly three times less than what known manufacturers charge for their 1080p smartphones. With Sony, Lenovo, Huawei and ZTE on board, though, that might be a huge opportunity for Taiwanese chip maker MediaTek to start

Not that it would come as any surprise, but Microsoft is already working on the next major Windows Phone 9 version, a job listing reveals. WP9 is expected to hit devices old and new in time for the holiday shopping craze . We know about Microsoft's Windows Blue project, but that seems to be aimed at ironing out the win 8/RT kinks, rather than bring WP convergence of sorts, so no hints so far on specific new features in Windows Phone 9 have been given. The big story here is that in the job listing only Nokia, HTC and Qualcomm are mentioned to have provided reference devices, while Samsung seems to be left out of the equation. Given that Samsung actually identifies Android now, and is also developing its own Tizen OS , that omission might be the law of the land for Windows Phone 9 devices.

HTC, Sony, and Samsung have all had their big reveals for new flagship devices, and Motorola/Google is still a couple months away from Google I/O and whatever announcement is made there. So, that means it's time for analysts to come back out and talk about Apple. The newest bit of "analysis" says that the iPhone 5S (but really iOS) will have a new "killer feature", which seems like a pretty obvious thing for Apple to aim at providing. Morgan Stanley analyst Katy Huberty may be a bit more reliable of a source, because she has recently met with Apple CFO Peter Oppenheimer. Huberty is saying that "Apple will surprise this year" with "a killer feature that drives consumers increasingly to the platform”. She said that the feature would start on the iPhone 5S, but made it clear that whatever the improvement, it would be a software feature, because it would increase "the value of those 500 million [Apple] accounts." Given that the "S&

Xiaomi phones are known for their excellent specs and surprisingly low price and the rumored third generation is no exception. The Xiaomi Mi-3 is not official yet and the announcement will probably wait until Google I/O as the new phone from the young Chinese company is said to launch with MIUI software based on Android 5.0. The Xiaomi Mi-3 will reportedly feature a 5" 1080p screen and a Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 chipset. The Krait 400 cores will be clocked at the stunning (and implausible sounding) 2.3GHz. Previous rumors said 4.5” screen and Tegra 4 chipset (quad Cortex-A15 CPU). Anyway, the upcoming Xiaomi is said to pack a 13MP camera and a massive 3,000mAh battery. There’s no word on pricing yet, but the previous two Xiaomi phones launched at RMB 1,999 or about $310, so there’s no reason to expect the Mi-3 to be any different. Again, these are just rumors, we’ll have to wait for official info from Xiaomi. It’s a real shame that the company’s phones are virtually impossi

At their GPU Technology Conference in San Jose, NVIDIA revealed the roadmap for future Tegra-series processors, among other things. The roadmap highlights NVIDIA’s plans for 2013 and 2014 with two future processors, Logan and its successor, Parker, which continue NVIDIA’s tradition of naming them after the real last names of superheroes. Logan will be the successor to Wayne, more commonly known as the Tegra 4 chipset, and will be appearing in devices in early 2014. It will feature a quad-core ARM Cortex A15 MPCore alongside a low power companion core. It will also be the first Tegra chip to include CUDA cores, NVIDIA’s solution for parallel computing on the GPU, and will be based on a Kepler architecture, similar to the desktop GPUs that NVIDIA makes. Logan will also be introducing support for CUDA 5.0, the latest version of CUDA, as well as OpenGL 4.3, which brings new features such as tessellation, computer shaders and geometry shaders over OpenGL ES 3.0. Next is Parker, which

At the day of the Galaxy S4 event, LG officially announced its Smart Video feature for the Optimus G Pro, and later Samsung touted a similar Smart Pause feature for its flagship. As a result, LG says Samsung violates its eye-tracking patent with Smart Pause. The patent in question is applied for in 2009, but LG suspects its domestic rival of violating more patents dating as far back as 2005. LG will start investigating once the Samsung Galaxy S4 hits the market next month. Naturally, Samsung denied the accusations, stating that it uses different methodology to implement its Smart Pause feature. We'll see if LG and Samsung go in court over the eye-tracking patent in a month when both the Optimus G Pro and Galaxy S4 will go on sale.

The Samsung I9500 Galaxy S4 is the first smartphone with an octa-core processor or at least in some regions. As expected, the North American versions of the phone will use a Snapdragon chipset instead (a 600 to be precise). So, both the US and Canada are getting quad Krait 300 cores and Adreno 320 GPU instead of Cortex-A15 / A7 CPU cores (four of each) and PowerVR SGX544MP3 GPU. We expected that version to only be available in North America and the European version to use the Exynos 5 Octa chipset. The Swedish site for major European carrier Tele2, however, lists the Samsung Galaxy S4 on pre-order with the Snapdragon 600 chipset. The prices start at SEK 220 (about $34) per month on contract. That’s a bit disappointing, but the Qualcomm-designed chipset should still offer stellar performance – better than the competing flagships, which use the same chip but at lower frequency. Benchmarks point to great SunSpider performance – 822ms vs. 1124ms for the HTC One and 1336ms for the So

The Samsung Galaxy S 4 had absolutely nothing to really surprise us with on the hardware side when it was finally announced, because everything there was to know about the hardware was leaked before the event, all the way down to a complete teardown of the device less than an hour before Samsung's live event. So, we knew exactly what to expect on the hardware end, but as usual, the software was the star of the show, and so we want to talk about all of the new additions. When it comes to hardware in a smartphone, the best a manufacturer can tend to hope for is something evolutionary. The Galaxy S 4 has a screen similar to what we're seeing on other flagship devices. The processor will rock benchmark tests, but probably won't translate to any real-world difference in performance compared to say the HTC One's Snapdragon 600. Even at its best, we don't expect the camera quality to be leaps ahead of the competition. The real key to the experience is in the software,

Was it only a year ago that Sony had introduced the Sony Xperia S ? With its thin translucent strip that lights up under certain circumstances, the design garnered plenty of attention last year. The phone started life powered by Android 2.3.5 and was updated to Android 2.3.7 and then Android 4.04., where it sits today. Back in December, there was a question whether or not the phone would move on , a question that no one would have conceived being asked earlier in the year. The question of whether the Sony Xperia S would be Jelly Beaned had apparently been answered in January when a leaked screenshot revealed that the update would be coming to the phone . As for timing, an earlier Sony Android 4.1 update road map indicated that the update would probably not take place earlier than April . But Sony Germany apparently has some up-to-date information on when the handset will be Jelly Beaned and for owners of the Sony Xperia S, it is good news. In a rather straightforward statement sen

With the Samsung Galaxy S 4 about to be introduced on Thursday, we can't blame the Android world for focusing on a phone that could sell more than 100 million units . But there are still a large number of Motorola fans that have been eagerly waiting for information on the Motorola X . This is expected to be the first phone to be a true collaboration between Motorola and its corporate parent Google and the possibilities seem endless. The latest rumor about the device is that it will be called the Motorola NXT and will be equipped with a 4.7 inch FHD display, which works out to a 468ppi pixel density, the same as the screen on the HTC One . The phone will be powered by the quad-core NVIDIA Tegra 4i which is said to be as powerful as the top of the line Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 , but at half the size. A 16MP camera will be on the back and the front-facing 5MP camera will also track your eye movement to control scrolling on the screen, similar to the new feature that will be on the