The Android version of the Google+ app just got an update, bringing a redesigned UI, several new features and the usual for such releases batch of bugfixes. The latest version of Google+ is already available in the Android Market for most regions and as you can see it brings an Ice Cream Sandwich-inspired UI.

Along with the new looks, Google+ should bring improvements to battery life, better notifications, a sign out option and several more minor improvements like the option to add people to a circle from the circle profiles screen. Read more »

We just got wind of some photos of an upcoming LG smartphone, which is yet to be announced. The device will reportedly be called LG Optimus U1 and will be the company’s first handset to run on Android Ice Cream Sandwich.

Our anonymous tipster didn’t give us any more details and we cannot confirm the authenticity of the image, but we couldn’t find anything wrong with it so we’re giving it the benefit of doubt. Plus, this one looks like a Korea-bound smartphone, judging by its design and it would make perfect sense for LG to release a handset called Optimus U1 there. Read more »

Nokia continues with the aggressive market campaign of its Windows Phone-running Lumia smartphones. The more expensive member of the duo, the Nokia Lumia 800, has just been pronounced the official smartphone of the UK X Factor talent show.

Each of the finalists got a brand new Nokia Lumia 800 and as you can you’ll see from some videos in a minute they really loved it. Given that Nokia is trying really hard to impress the younger audience, where most of the heavy smartphone users belong, you can see where this is coming from. Read more »

Sony, one of the two shareholders in the S-LCD Corporation, is reportedly considering selling its shares in the joint venture. The company TV division is having a hard time on the market recently and continues to lose money, which has made the Japanese giant consider leaving the S-LCD Corporation.

According to the reports, Sony has already started negotiations with the other shareholder in S-LCD Corp – Samsung. The Koreans currently own 51% of the joint venture and if the source has it correct, that Sony’s exit negotiations will be completed this year, will end up in control of the whole company in 2012. Read more »

With all the hot features of the Samsung Galaxy Note you may have forgotten that the phoneblet comes with a nifty little accessory called the S Pen. Unfortunate choice of naming aside, the S Pen might turn out to be one of the hottest features of the Galaxy Note as it adds quite a lot of extra functionality.

Samsung has included cool gesture controls that you can use with the S Pen, like making a screenshot and making notes on top of it and launching the notepad from anywhere in the interface, opening contexts menus and whatnot. The fancy stylus seems to offer pretty good response time and allows for the kind of accuracy that lets you create some pretty impressive sketches right on the Note’s 5.3″ HD Super AMOLED screen. Read more »

When the Samsung Galaxy Nexus was announced last week, giving us the first taste of Android Ice Cream Sandwich, many of you wanted to know if the smartphone uses its entire screen, or if the menu navigation keys are always there, taking up a part of precious screen real estate.

Well, tonight we got the chance to play with a Galaxy Nexus version that’s closer to the retail one, and we can give you the answer. Read more »

We conclude our coverage of the second day of Nokia World 2011 with a portion of benchmarks of the newly announced WP smartphones. The Nokia Lumia 800 and Lumia 710 were both present so we could check out how those 1.4Ghz Snapdragon chipsets fare.

To put their performance into perspective we threw in the HTC Radar and an HTC 7 Mozart running the Mango update into the mix. The Radar has a chipset very similar to the two Lumia smartphones, but its Scorpion CPU is clocked at 1GHz. It should show us what kind of an advantage the extra 400MHz of clock speeds actually bring. The 7 Mozart not only has a slower CPU than the two Nokia smartphones, but also a weaker GPU (Adreno 200, instead of Adreno 205) so we’ll see how much of a difference that makes. Read more »

During our hands-on time with the Nokia Lumia 800 at the Nokia World event we managed to put its camera to a test, as well. We returned with a bunch of photos, which we are now about to present for your viewing pleasure.

The image quality is a story of two parts here with the Lumia 800. At pixel level they might not be the most impressive around as the amount of detail and the noise levels are only average. However when downsized for viewing on a computer screen or the phone itself they are really impressive. Read more »

As the Samsung Galaxy Note launch nears (we’ll be covering the launch event on Thursday live) we got to see the first video ad of the upcoming device. The 30-second promo focuses on that huge HD Super AMOLED and all the benefits of the S Pen.

Samsung also flirts with the too-big-a-phone-or-too-small-a-tablet body of the Galaxy Note towards the end. We are yet to see if there’s enough demand for such a product, but the video is definitely worth checking out. Read more »

The iPad continues to be the undisputed tablet market leader as the Q3, analysts show. During the past three months 16.7 million slates were sold and the mind-blowing 66.6% of those were iPads.

The few dozens Android tablets shipped a total of 4.5 million in the third quarter, giving them a share of 26.9%. Now that may be enough to make Android the only other major player in the tablet game, but it’s actually a step back for the Google OS, compared to Q2. Read more »

As you probably know, despite the 720p resolution, the Samsung Galaxy Nexus isn’t packing a Super AMOLED Plus, but a regular Super AMOLED screen. Those of you that have been paying more attention would even know what the main difference between the two is that the “Plus” AMOLED uses a conventional 3-subpixel-per-pixel RGB matrix, while the regular one goes by with 2-subpixel-per-pixel RGBG PenTile matrix.

So the Samsung Galaxy Nexus should come with one of those PenTile matrices, right? Well, as our macro shots showed – yes. The question remains if that really matters here. Read more »

If you are waiting for the reviews of the new iPhone 4S to come up so you can make up your mind whether or not to go for it, you are in for a treat. What we have for you is a roundup of all iPhone 4S reviews that surfaced over the past days, courtesy of those lucky enough to have received their units ahead of schedule.

The review compilation, created by 9to5mac, suggests that the iPhone 4S is quite a worthy upgrade over any iPhone, prior to the iPhone 4. Whether or not it’s worth it to add an S to the already excellent iPhone 4 is a much tougher call, but it still seems like a decision you are unlikely to regret. Read more »

A press image of the yet unannounced LG Doubleplay for T-Mobile US (which we first saw under the assumed name ‘Flip II’) just appeared online and gave us a clearer view of what the upcoming droid will look like. The peculiar QWERTY slider will pack a couple of screens – a HVGA main one and a secondary display of unknown resolution on the QWERTY.

Other specs of the T-Mobile Doubleplay that we know include a 5 MP camera, GPS, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth. That logo on the screen also shows that there’s 4G connectivity, which in T-Mobile’s case couldn’t be anything but HSPA+. Read more »

It appears that some iPhone 4S units were delivered a few days early and some lucky fellas got to play with the Apple latest smartphone earlier than expected. But hey, that’s good news for everyone as more information about the iPhone 4S is starting to flow.

The morning brought us the first benchmarks of the new iOS flagship, along with the first sample from its camera and now we have its first tear-down and a bill of materials estimate. Read more »

Opera has just announced that it has released updated versions of its two Android-compatible mobile browsers. Opera Mini 6.5 and Opera Mobile 11.5 are already available for download in the Android market, allowing users to experience the latest goodies brought by the Norwegians.

The first change you will notice when you start the Opera Mini 6.5 or Opera Mobile 11.5 is the newly added screen, which shows you exactly how much data you have spent and saved using the two browsers. Read more »