The Surface is Microsoft’s first tablet and the software giant is quite proud of the design, but as iFixit found out, the sleek external shell is hard to get open if you need to do some repairs. A total of 17 screws hold the back in place and 7 of those are under a hard to remove plastic bezel.

Anyway, the inside of the Surface holds several interesting chips, including an NVIDIA Tegra 3. There’s also 2GB of DDR3 RAM from Micron, 32GB flash storage from Samsung and a Wolfson audio chip. Read more »

The new Android 4.2 Jelly Bean was just announced and one of the most interesting new features is called Photo Sphere. It lets you shoot spherical panoramas, similar to what you see in Google Street View.

Capturing a Photo Sphere is easy, you just snap photos left, right, up, down, wherever, and the camera app will automatically stitch them. If it still sounds confusing, check out this video demo by Hugo Barra himself (Android’s Director of Product Management). Read more »

The LG Nexus 4 has to be one of the most-leaked phones in recent memory – the latest premature release comes from the official YouTube channel of Sweden’s carrier Three, who posted a quick hands-on with the upcoming Nexus (which was supposed to be announced today, maybe 3 Sweden didn’t get the memo about the cancellation). Update: It’s official, LG announced it even without the event.

The quick UI demo doesn’t really show much, but there are new notification area toggles which look quite interesting. They are not placed above the notifications as usual, but are instead a separate screen you can access by tapping a button. Read more »

The LG Optimus G is the first phone with the monster Snapdragon S4 Pro chipset that we’ve reviewed, so we’re very curios to see how battery efficient it is. Four powerful cores can be a blessing (get the job done quicker, go to sleep quicker) or a curse (burn more energy, even if the job takes less time than on slower cores).

So, which is it? The battery has 2100mAh capacity, which is exactly as much as the Samsung Galaxy S III and HTC One X+ have, so the Optimus G can’t rely on that to gain advantage. Read more »

Apple’s event brought things like a refreshed retina iPad, the long expected iPad mini and new Mac computers. There were new accessories too – several new Lightning cables (HDMI, VGA, SD and USB) and a Smart Cover for the iPad mini.

The iPad mini covers are smaller versions of the ones for the full-size iPad and they have the same functionality – automatically waking the tablet when you open them and then serving as stands (in two different positions). Here’s a video that shows it in action: Read more »

A hotly anticipated Apple event will take place later today and the rumor mill is adamant that the star of the show will be the iPad mini. We’ve seen a long, LONG stream of leaks of just about every component of the iPad mini, so let’s unwind with a bit of lighthearted humor before the big event begins.

First, there’s an animated music video that tells the story of the creation of the iPad mini and features a couple of surprising cameos. Read more »

The Nokia Lumia 510 aims to be the company’s most affordable Lumia handset, but still bring excellent features like a 4″ screen and a 5MP autofocus wide angle amera. It will run Windows Phone 7.5 at first (complete with Nokia Drive navigation), but it should get the WP7.8 update too.

The first promo video is already out, giving you the lowdown on the newest Lumia member, check it out after the break. Read more »

Well, it’s good to know that even Microsoft guys aren’t above throwing gadgets just to see what will happen. Okay, officially it was presented as a reliability test for the Surface tablet, but you can see way too many smiling faces for this to be a boring, repetitive durability test.

The Windows 8 RT-powered slate was shooting 1080p video at the time of the test, which consisted of falling 30″ (76cm) on a hardwood floor. Check out the video of the Surface taking a plunge after the break. Read more »

It’s been about a year since the GoPro HD Hero2 came out and it’s time for it to retire – the new model, Hero3, is smaller, lighter and faster. It comes in three different editions called White, Silver and Black.

All three editions come with Wi-Fi built-in (so you don’t need a the Wi-Fi BacPack) and are compatible with the Wi-Fi Remote (which is included in the Black edition package).

The top of the line model is the Hero3 Black, which has a 12MP sensor and can shoot up to 4K video. There are two versions of 4K – 3840×2160 (TV’s Ultra High Definition) that can be recorded at 15fps and 4096×2160 (a movie-making standard) at 12fps. Read more »

Making your own chips seems to be all the rage these days – a new rumor claims that Amazon is looking to acquire Texas Instruments’ high-end OMAP chipset manufacturing business.

TI recently announced they’ll be expanding the focus of their chips to “automotive, industrial, enterprise communication, vision and robotics”, but they won’t give up on the mobile phone and tablet market. Read more »

Sony is busy revamping its computer lineup, bringing new devices in several categories. The VAIO Tap 20 and VAIO Duo 11 will be firsts for the US market, but more importantly we have pricing and launch dates.

Along with the additions of the new models, there’s one line that has been showed the door – the awesome (and wallet-punching) VAIO Z is nowhere to be found on the new roster. Read more »

Nokia City Lens is one of the “most well received new applications” from the Finnish company (they also used it to generate buzz for the WP8 Lumias before unveiling them). The Symbian and MeeGo users weren’t left out – they got to participate in the beta trials, which are now over.

There’s some bad news though – City Lens is becoming Lumia-exclusive. Read more »

The launch of the new Windows 8 OS (and probably Microsoft Surface tablets right along with it) is coming later this month and the first crop of Windows 8 ads is already out – even if Microsoft didn’t intend it to be.

The videos showcase some of the new gestures and features of the new OS, check it out after the jump. UPDATE: The videos have been pulled. Read more »

The rumor mill is going wild with gossip about various Nexus devices – from an LG-made Nexus phone to a new 10″ Nexus tablet. The rumor claims the new tab will have a killer screen, better than even the one on the new iPad.

It will reportedly be a high-end device, unlike the current (and only) Nexus tablet -the Asus-made Nexus 7 (and it’s potential $99 version). The Nexus 10 will reportedly be manufactured and co-branded with Samsung. Read more »

Hot on the heels of the desktop Opera 12.1 beta browser comes the Opera Mobile for Android 12.1 (and this one isn’t beta). Just like its PC counterpart, Opera Mobile 12.1 brings support for SPDY plus some extra features.

SPDY is a networking protocol proposed by Google that is similar to HTTP but faster (with special attention paid to mobile internet) and is already supported by Android’s native browser, Chrome and Firefox for Android, so you can expect to see increasing support on the server side. Read more »