This is strictly in unconfirmed rumors territory, but we’re hearing a lot about Samsung’s tablet plans in 2013. The company already delivered the Galaxy Note 8.0 and Galaxy Tab 3 7.0 and seems intent on following up with Galaxy Tab DUOS 7.0, Galaxy Tab 8.0, Galaxy Tab 11, Nexus 11 and finally (maybe) the Galaxy Tab 3 10.1.

Coming from sources close to SamMobile we now have some preliminary specs for those, but sadly no availability information. Read more »

The Samsung Galaxy S4 has a few surprises in store for those upgrading from the Galaxy S III. It uses a new NFC chipset, which doesn’t support the company’s older NFC tags, dubbed TecTiles. So if you’ve set up those around your crib keep in mind your new Galaxy S4 won’t be able to communicate with them.

Samsung has issued a statement that its new NFC tags, TecTiles 2, will be available in the coming weeks and will be compatible with older NFC-enabled devices. Read more »

The Sony Xperia ZL went through our battery tests and we’ve got all sorts of interesting numbers to share with you.

The smartphone has a similar battery to its Xperia Z sibling – the 2370mAh capacity of the Xperia ZL unit is just 40 mAh more than the waterproof flagship offers. Yet, Sony has rated the Xperia ZL to last a tad shorter than the Xperia Z for both stand-by and talk time and as we found out there are in fact some differences in real-life performance.. Read more »

An alleged (that being the key word here) internal test on the Samsung Galaxy S4, performed by Samsung, revealed that the company thinks the device is good but not quite the best.

The report acknowledges that the device is good, but doubts that “this model can revolutionize the market”. Still the study concludes that Samsung is conquering the smartphone market and leading among manufacturers of Android devices. Read more »

According to a study by German Security firm AV-TEST Institute Google is a safer search engine than Bing. The study spanned across 18 months and included more than 40 million search results (read sites) and pit together Google, Bing and others like the popular Russian search engine Yandex.

Microsoft’s Bing delivered more than four times as many infected with malware websites than Google. The chart above shows the results – from almost 11 million results on Google around 272 were infected, while the same number of search results on Bing contained 1285 potentially dangerous pages. Read more »

Google has given Glass sets to a select few and hasn’t really revealed much about its market availability thus far.

Speaking to Radio 4 Eric Schmidt has finally confirmed that Google Glass will hit the retail shelves next year (that narrows it down) but hasn’t said anything about pricing. A number of developers have been given the option to pre-order Glass at the staggering $1500, but that doesn’t look likely as final pricing. Read more »

Do you feel a sadistic pleasure every time you watch a scratch test video of a high-end smartphone? You’ll enjoy this, then.

The Samsung Galaxy S4 is the first device on the market to sport Corning Gorilla Glass 3 screen protection, which is supposed to be really tough. Well, someone’s decided to finally give it a proper test and has been kind enough to share the resulting video with the rest of us. Read more »

We’ve heard about this before but it doesn’t hurt to mention it yet again – Instagram is coming to Windows Phone. So says the official Nokia Sweden account on Facebook in response to one user. The response reads roughly like this – “Instagram is on the way but can’t give an exact date right now”. The comment has been taken down, which does add an air of legitimacy to the information (or just the opposite, depending how you look at it).

Last month, a Nokia Sweden account tweeted that an app for WP is under development, which fueled the users expectations. The question is – do Windows Phone users really care if Instagram is coming? Read more »

The LG Optimus 4X HD is fresh off its Jelly Bean update and has now received CyanogenMod 10.1 Nightly builds based on Android 4.2 Jelly Bean.

The release is said to be working good enough for a daily driver but as with all Nightly builds you should know that some things won’t be working properly or at all. Read more »

Those lucky few, which got to pre-order a Google Glass set at Goole I/O last year have already received the Google Glass Explorer Edition (XE) and decided to share some photos of an unboxing, and even some footage captured with the Glass itself.

Brandon Allgood has an unboxing image, which shows the Google Glass set along with sunglasses, pouch and charging piece. Read more »

Over at the AllThingsD Dive Into Mobile conference WhatsApp CEO Jan Koum took to the stage to discuss the app’s position, users and drop a bomb that his app is “bigger than Twitter” when looking at the active monthly users.

Although the two platforms differ in the way the work – Twitter being more of a social network where your tweets are public and WhatsApp being a peer-to-peer messaging service – Jan Koum said WhatsApp has more than 200 million active users a month, thus besting Twitter. Read more »

Ricoh hasn’t been making headlines lately but has the imaging pedigree to stir the attention of photography enthusiasts. Today, the Pentax-owned company came out with the GR – a compact camera with a 16.2 MP APS-C (read DSLR-sized) sensor on board and a fixed 18.3 mm (28 mm equivalent) f/2.8 lens.

The Ricoh GR comes to challenge the Nikon Coolpix A but at a lower price – $800, coming to the US next month. Read more »

We’ve heard this one before. Over in Hong Kong at a booth in the local Electronics Fair resides a case that was supposedly made for an early next-generation iPad mold.

If the case is legit we can gather that the fifth generation iPad will sports a thinner and narrower body, meaning if it retains its 9.7″ Retina then we can expect slimmer bezels on each side of it, in order for it to fit the smaller footprint. Read more »

The Samsung Galaxy S4 comes with support for the MHL 2.0 standard, which aside from streaming high definition content to your TV or monitor set can also allow the external screen to charge the smartphone along the way. The Galaxy S4 is the first smartphone to offer the MHL 2.0 standard, which means that you no longer need to plug in a charger in your adapter.

Now, the good news is the first Samsung-made adapter is already available and can be yours for £33 or around $40. It still comes with a microUSB port for charging, so it’s backwards compatible with MHL 1.0 devices like the Galaxy Note II and Samsung Galaxy S III. Read more »

The Nokia Lumia 520 is the Finn’s entry-level Windows Phone designed to win over those on a budget.

It features Nokia’s exclusive apps (like Here Drive, App Highlights, Nokia Music, etc.), costs around $180 sans contract and is equipped with a 4″ WVGA (480 x 800) IPS display, 8 gigs of internal storage with the option of a microSD expansion and not least of all a 5 MP snapper. Read more »