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Sony has gone to Twitter to tease its upcoming Honami smartphone. Accompanied by the hashtag #bestofSony comes an image of Sony's signature power button, complete with Sony's claims of precision engineering. Sony makes it pretty clear we're seeing the Honami power button with the caption "It's the smartphone everyone's been talking about... not long now". Sony teaser image Not long now is almost certainly referring to the September 4 IFA presentation Sony's already invited us to. We've already seen images of the Honami in the wild and this is the second time that power button has come to our attention. We know the device will come in white, purple and black and we've even seen some camera samples from it. Rumored to premiere as the Sony Xperia Z1, the Honami should have a 20.7 MP camera, Snapdragon 800 chipset with 2 GB of RAM and four Krait 400 cores clocked at 2.2 GHz.

Fresh off the press image leaks and the announcement of the Hennessy flip-phone Samsung has announced the Galaxy Golden. It employs the rare clamshell design and offers two 3.7" Super AMOLEDs along with a numpad. The device will cost KRW790,000 which amounts to around $700 - quite pricey considering the feature set. Samsung Galaxy Golden Powering the Galaxy Golden is a dual-core 1.7 GHz processor. There are also an FM Radio and 8 MP snapper on board. Samsung's easy mode is preinstalled - it gives a simplified UI so that core functions are easier to access. There's also a pedometer on board, which nicely matches with Samsung's S Health app. Finally there's business card recognition. Information on availability is still unavailable.

                      The stars are slowly aligning for a 6" 1080p Nokia phablet with Snapdragon 800 power. The information is pretty circumstantial, but it's there – in a Bluetooth SIG filing and from data collected by AdDuplex. AdDuplex collects stats on Windows Phone handsets and found in its logs a few unofficial Nokia devices like the RM-937, RM-927 and RM-940. RM-937 reported a scale factor (a measurement showing the relation between screen resolution and size) of 150, which is what 720p phones report. However, Nokia doesn’t have 720p devices, only WXGA (1280 x 768 instead of 1280 x 720). So, either Nokia is making a device called RM-937 with a 720p screen, or this is a 1080p device with a larger screen diagonal. Again, it's pretty circumstantial. The RM-940 was apparently the same device running on AT&T's netwok and the RM-927 was on Verizon.          It was the RM-940 that showed up in a filing with the Bluetooth SIG. What's interesting is tha

        It looks like Nokia isn't done with its announcements. The company has said that it would be making major announcements every quarter this year, and we may have the time and place for the next major announcement. Nokia has started to send out press invites for an event that will be held on August 28th in Moscow, Russia. Unfortunately, we have no idea what this announcement may be. The reports are saying that Nokia is going to announce a "major new smartphone". But, that seems unlikely, because the biggest thing in the Nokia rumor mill right now is the Windows RT tablet, but that won't be released until October, so Nokia's September event makes more sense for that announcement.           On the smartphone side, we still haven't seen the announcement for the Nokia Lumia 729, but that would be a Verizon phone, and it would make little sense to announce a Verizon phone in Moscow. And, of course there is the rumored Nokia phablet, but that has been r

One of the top requests from Android power-users is for manufacturers to give the option to turn off any custom skin that has been put on the Android software and run pure stock Android. That's why the recent Google Edition devices have been so positively received: you can get the hardware you want, without the software you don't. Well, it looks like Oppo has been listening as well, because the company just announced the launch of a new smartphone that gives you the option to run pure stock Android. The device is the Oppo R819, and while the choice of reverting to stock may impress power-users, the specs on the device won't. The Oppo R819 has a 4.7-inch 720p IPS display, a MediaTek quad-core 1.2GHz chipset, 1 GB of RAM, 16GB of storage, an 8MP Sony Exmor BSI rear camera, a 2MP front camera, a 2000mAh battery, and oddly, Android 4.2.1, rather than the usual 4.2 bump of 4.2.2. The Oppo R819 will be pretty thin and extremely light at 7.3mm and 110g, which makes it a bit

          Failing worse than the Newton handheld PDA, the biopic Jobs opened this weekend on 2381 screens, bringing in an estimated $6.7 million. The movie's distributor, Open Road Films, was hoping to sell $8 million to $9 million in tickets for the opening weekend. But with Steve Wozniak criticizing the truthfulness of the story, it would seem that even Apple fans stayed away from the movie. Starring Ashton Kutcher as Steve Jobs and Josh Gad as the Woz, Jobs garnered a aggregate score of 25% from the reviews on Rotten Tomatoes. But even with the poor turnout at the theaters, Jobs still could turn a profit since the budget for the movie came in at $12 million. After DVD sales and television rights, the movie should surpass its budget. Another movie about the late Apple co-founder is in the works, written by Aaron Sorkin and produced by Sony. This film is expected to be in three acts with each act showing Jobs backstage before the introduction of an Apple product including

            For quite a while now we've been hearing rumors about Nokia possibly working on a Windows RT tablet. Well, these rumors may be on the right track as we're now looking at what might be device in question. The spy photo you see below was leaked on a Chinese Twitter-like web site, depicting a slate bearing three branding logos. One of them is clearly Nokia's and below it we see a "Windows RT" label indicating the OS running on this colorful tablet. But what makes this leak particularly interesting is the presence of a Verizon logo and 4G LTE label. This may be a Nokia Windows RT tablet for Verizon So yeah, if this leak truly holds water, then we might soon see a Windows RT tablet by Nokia riding on Verizon's 4G LTE airwaves. We think it is a safe bet to assume that a Wi-Fi-only variant of the device will be offered as well. The colorful shell of the slate is a clue, leading us to believe that Nokia's tablet will come in multiple fresh co

       Pop quiz: what is the reward for taking charge of a sinking ship and failing to keep it from going down? If you answered $55.6 million, you are correct. According to a proxy report filed in May, that's how much BlackBerry CEO Thorsten Heins stands to make if/when the company is sold and he is removed as CEO. And, the worst part of it is that it was the BlackBerry board of directors that are responsible for Heins' windfall.               Apparently, when Heins was offered the position of CEO, the BlackBerry board structured his contract in such a way that if the company is sold and Heins is removed from his position, Heins will be due $55.6 million in salary, incentive payments, and equity awards. This is based on BlackBerry’s stock price at the end of the fiscal fourth quarter, and the plan was approved by shareholders on July 9th. Given the troubled position of the company over the past few years, it's hard to understand why the board would structure Heins

The latest trend with handset manufacturers is to make a"mini" version of their flagship phone.          Samsung, HTC and even Motorola has done this. Now, there is speculation that Japanese based OEM Sony will do the same with its upcoming new flagship model. The Sony i1 Honami is expected to be the first of Sony's new camera-centric phones and is scheduled to be introduced September 4th in Berlin. Even though the full-sized phone has not even been introduced by Sony, already specs for the Honami mini have leaked. If true, Sony is going to be the first to truly keep flagship type specs in a mini version of their flagship phone. According to a tipster on the Esato.com forums with a great track record, the Sony Honami mini will pack a 4.3 inch Triluminos display with resolution of 720 x 1280 (Ok, so its not perfectly the same), with a 2.2GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 under the hood, 2GB of RAM and 16GB of internal storage. A microSD slot will be available and a 2400m

According to sources close to ZDNet’s Mary Jo Foley Microsoft’s Windows 8.1 update will be released to end users by mid-October. The RTM version will start seeding in the beginning of August and after manufacturers have fiddled and optimized it for their varying hardware it’s expected to be available to the general public by mid-October. Sources point say that those hoping to get an early taste of Windows 8.1 via MSDN or TechNet by mid-August might be out of luck. But that’s still to be verified so we’ll be keeping an ear on the ground. Formerly known as Blue, the 8.1 Windows brings a start button (but without the Windows 7-style Start Menu), the option to boot directly into Desktop mode, wallpaper support in the Modern UI and more.

          Over the weekend, we brought word of Apple's anticipated September 10 announcement date for its new iPhone models, the iPhone 5S and iPhone 5C. Now, an October 25 release date has been tipped as well - that's when we will allegedly see the two new Apple smartphones on the store shelves. The Apple iPhone 5S is expected to feature an improved 8MP camera sensor with f/2.0 aperture, which should result in better low-light shots. There's also hints of an alleged fingerprint scanner on the home button, and a heftier battery inside, which should bump up the weight slightly over the current iPhone 5. The iPhone 5C is rumored as the budget alternative of the iPhone 5, featuring a plastic construction that helps keep costs down. The device has made the rounds several times in rumorland over the past several months, and should come in various color combinations as well. The October 25 release date could also see the release of a new MacBook Air, although we'

LG released its Optimus Vu II smartphone almost a year ago and now, the specifications of the next-generation Vu phablet have surfaced. According to a report from Korean Daily, the LG Vu III will come out with model numbers F-300K, F-300L and F-300S. The upcoming smartphone will sport a 5.2-inch display with a resolution of 1280 x 960 pixels with the usual 4:3 aspect ratio.          The LG Optimus Vu II successor will be powered by a Snapdragon 800 chipset, which is arguably the most potent performer on the market right now. Furthermore, the Vu III is said to feature a 13-megapixel rear camera and support for LTE-A networks. There is no information on the other hardware specifications of the device, but the smartphone is rumored to feature a similar design to that of its predecessor. LG Vu III is expected to be announced at IFA 2013, but there is no official confirmation of an LG event at the moment.

The specs of the hotly anticipated Samsung Galaxy Note III have allegedly been revealed. The second flagship handset by Samsung this year will launch in at least two different versions, dubbed SM-N900 and SM-N9005.            The Samsung Galaxy Note III SM-N900 will reportedly pack a 1.8GHz Octa-core Exynos 5420 SoC and ARM Mali-T628 MP6 GPU. There is no info on the CPU and GPU of the SM-9005 version. However, we will be surprised if the handset doesn't come with Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 SoC with quad-core Krait 400 CPU and Adreno 330 GPU. Previous leaks have pointed in this direction. The display will be a 5.68" 1080p Super AMOLED unit for both versions. There will be 3GB of RAM on board and 16, 32, and 64GB of built-in memory available. A microSD card slot will also be present. The Samsung Galaxy Note III SM-N900 is tipped to come without LTE connectivity on board. The SM-N9005 on the other hand, will come with 4G on board. Both devices will be powered by a 3200mAh b

            Sony's upcoming flagship smartphone codenamed 'Honami' has been known to exist for quite some time now, with several leaks in the past and a launch event planned on September 4 in Berlin. We have heard almost all the specifications of the device by now, including the supposed 20.7 megapixel camera. With this latest leak, that last bit seems to have been confirmed.              An image was uploaded on Picasa that, according to the EXIF details, was captured by the C6902, which has long been rumored to be the model number of the Honami. The EXIF also confirm a resolution of 5248 x 3936 pixels, which is approximately 20.7 megapixels, again matching previous rumors. The camera has a standard 4:3 aspect ratio (at least according for this image) and an aperture of f/2.0. We are roughly three weeks away from launch so expect more detail   soon.

»»» Benchmark comparison: The Sony Xperia Z Ultra is not only an enormous 6.4″ beast of a phablet but it also belongs to a very exclusive group of devices that have the Snapdragon 800 chipset up and running. We got our hands on the device once again and this time we even managed to run a few synthetic benchmarks and see how much of a performance update you are actually getting.         The device should be very zippy courtesy of four Krait 400 cores clocked way up at 2.2 GHz and 2 gigs of RAM. The graphics are dealt with by the latest Adreno 330 GPU, which we’ve heard does a pretty good job. So let’s look at the numbers. With the hardware specifics out of the way the only thing left to do is analyze the scores. First comes BenchmarkPi, which gives a premium on per-core calculations performance. Here the Sony Xperia Z Ultra was a point shy of tying the first spot – an impressive result indeed, but not quite the one we expected. Geekbench 2 is a CPU and memory benchmark and

Android has come a long way from where it started; and, it had to because in some ways it had been playing catch up with iOS for a long time. Apple made sure from the start that iOS was focused on the user experience, so there were never really issues of lag; and, the UI, while plain, was consistent and polished. Over the years, Apple has continued that focus at the expense of adding features more quickly, and at the expense of having the UI look the same, until now. On the other hand, Google started off with a platform that was full of potential, but was clearly a work in progress. Google never slowed down in adding features to the platform, but it took a few years for Android to find that level of polish and usability that iOS had. Right now, if you set the two platforms side-by-side, it is clear that from a usability standpoint, the platforms are on equal footing, and from a features standpoint, Android has pulled ahead considerably. Unfortunately, you still see the same tired

Samsung's foray into all matters mobile has been one of great consequences, and according to the company, its new Exynos 5420 Octa SoC will stay true to that legacy. The Samsung Exynos blog has outed a more in-depth look at what the new and improved SoC will bring to the table, and we've got to admit that its got us anxious to put the new silicon to use ASAP.          But performance has always come at a price – battery life. Which is what ARM's big.LITTLE platform and the Exynos 5420 Octa are all about – power, only when and if needed. But make no mistake, the Exynos 5420 doesn't trade performance for longevity – the new chipset promises “more than twice” the graphical capabilities over its predecessor (Exynos 5410 Octa), thanks to its six-core Mali-T628 GPU. Apart from coming with support for OpenGL ES 3.0, the new Mali GPU also features GPU Computing functionality, which will give the CPU a hand with certain tasks which can be performed both faster and more ef

Google has updated the Play Store app to version 4.3.10 that brings new features including recently updated section, combined updated notifications and lots more. This update also includes some UI tweaks to Play Books, Movies & TV and more. These are just minor changes, but the recently updated section would be more useful if you have lot of apps. The combined update notifications would save lot of space in the notification bar. New features in Google Play Store 4.3.10 √_Recently updated section in My Apps √_Combined update notifications in the notification bar √_Settings screen now lists the active account, tap it to bring up the account switcher √_UI tweaks in Books and Movies & TV The new Google Play Store started rolling out earlier this week, which is now now rolling out more widely. The Play Store on your device would automatically get updated in the background.

LG’s latest flagship smartphone – the G2 – wowed us with its unique design and more importantly, the fantastic set of specifications. Naturally, then, it was bound to be put through its paces sooner or later and so it has. Droid-Life managed to get their hands on a device and run two of the most popular benchmarks on it – AnTuTu and Quadrant. While the jury is out on the reliability of these benchmarks, especially considering how they can easily be gamed, you can still derive some idea about the device’s performance. As you can expect from a device running a Snapdragon 800 processor, the performance is pretty darn impressive. Although the LG did not quite manage to beat the Sony Xperia Z Ultra in AnTuTu, as you can see from the chart above, it still takes the second spot above “optimized” Galaxy S4 running the Exynos 5 Octa processor. The difference between the LG and the Sony is quite significant right now, which may have to do with the software on the G2 not being final yet

GENERAL 2G Network GSM 850 / 900 / 1800 / 1900 3G Network HSDPA 850 / 900 / 1900 / 2100 4G Network LTE 900 / 1800 / 2100 / 2600 / 850 SIM Micro-SIM Announced  – 2013, August Status Coming soon. 2013, Q3 BODY Dimensions 138.5 x 70.9 x 8.9 mm (5.45 x 2.79 x 0.35 in) Weight 143 g (5.04 oz) DISPLAY Type True HD-IPS + LCD capacitive touchscreen, 16M colors Size 1080 x 1920 pixels, 5.2 inches (~424 ppi pixel density) Multitouch Yes Protection Corning Gorilla Glass 3 SOUND Alert types Vibration, MP3, WAV ringtones Loudspeaker Yes 3.5mm jack Yes   - Dolby mobile sound enhancement MEMORY Card slot No Internal 32 GB (24GB user avaialble), 2 GB RAM DATA GPRS Class 12 (4+1/3+2/2+3/1+4 slots), 32 - 48 kbps EDGE Class 12 Speed HSDPA, 42 Mbps; HSUPA, 5.76 Mbps; LTE, Cat3, 50 Mbps UL, 100 Mbps DL WLAN Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac, dual-band, Wi-Fi Direct, DLNA, Wi-Fi hotspot Bluetooth Yes, v4.0 with A2DP NFC Yes Infrared port Yes USB Yes, microUSB v2.0 (MHL), USB Ho

GENERAL 2G Network GSM 850 / 900 / 1800 / 1900   CDMA 800 / 1900 3G Network HSDPA   CDMA2000 1xEV-DO 4G Network LTE SIM Nano-SIM Announced 2013, August Status Coming soon. Exp. release 2013, August BODY Dimensions 129.3 x 65.3 x 10.4 mm (5.09 x 2.57 x 0.41 in) Weight 130 g (4.59 oz) DISPLAY Type AMOLED capacitive touchscreen, 16M colors Size 720 x 1280 pixels, 4.7 inches (~312 ppi pixel density) Multitouch Yes Protection Corning Gorilla Glass SOUND Alert types Vibration, MP3, WAV ringtones Loudspeaker Yes 3.5mm jack Yes MEMORY Card slot No Internal 16/32 GB, 2 GB RAM DATA GPRS Yes EDGE Yes Speed HSDPA, 42.2 Mbps; HSUPA, 5.76 Mbps; LTE, Cat3, 50 Mbps UL, 100 Mbps DL / EV-DO Rev. A, up to 3.1 Mbps WLAN Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac, dual-band, DLNA, Wi-Fi hotspot Bluetooth Yes, v4.0 with A2DP, LE, EDR NFC Yes USB Yes, microUSB v2.0 CAMERA Primary 10 MP, autofocus, LED flash Features 1.4 µm pixel size, geo-tagging, touc