ASUS has announced a slew of new notebooks at IFA 2013. We already saw the Zenbook UX301 and now there are two more. One of them is the Transformer Book T300, which is an updated version of the Transformer Pad TX300 launched earlier this year. The major update here is a switch to a more modern fourth generation Intel Haswell processor. The RAM and storage have also been doubled and now stands at 8GB and 256GB respectively.

Other than that it is mostly the same 13-inch tablet/notebook hybrid as before. You can simply un-dock the display from the keyboard and use it as a 13-inch Windows 8 tablet or dock it in and it turns into a full-fledged notebook. Read more »

Sony’s IFA 2013 press event concluded just a while ago and as expected, the company announced the Xperia Z1, its latest flagship smartphone. The announcement also saw the unveiling of the QX lens-style cameras and a wide range of high-tech accessories.

The list of notable accessories includes the Smart Imaging Stand, Smartphone Tripod and the SmartTags. There is also an enhanced magnetic charging dock, Bluetooth music receiver, Wireless headset and a smart Bluetooth handset. Read more »

The Sony Xperia Z1 (previously dubbed Honami) is now official and with one of its promo videos now out in the wild, the company has now launched a second one, showcasing some of the phone’s capabilities.

Naturally, the main accent falls onto the smartphone’s 20.7MP camera with Sony’s G Lens and Exmor RS CMOS Image Sensor. Its demoed on a number of occasions including low-light scenarios as well as a short trip underwater for some adventurous video shooting. Read more »

The much-awaited third-generation Samsung Galaxy Note phablet will be officially announced in the next couple of hours. However, that does not stop the leaks coming in, and we now have the first S Orb photo sample from the Galaxy Note III’s camera.

The image comes from the Galaxy Note III with the model number SM-N900T (T-Mobile variant). It looks like S Orb is a special app that allows you to take 360 degree panorama shots from your Galaxy Note phablet. Read more »

Sony isn’t doing a great job of keeping those QX cameras secret – the press release for them plus the complete specifications have leaked, including pricing, and it’s still hours before the announcement event even starts. And yesterday we saw the promo video, too.

Most of the specs we’ve seen already, but there are questions regarding video recording and dimensions that had so far gone unanswered. And by the way, just for the record, the QX10 and QX100 are called “lens-style cameras”. Read more »

A disobedient promo video for Sony’s attachable camera modules, the CyberShot QX100 and QX10, has jumped over the virtual fence and gives us a minute and a half look of one of Sony’s big announcements tomorrow (the other being the Xperia Z1 / Honami).

The QX devices are cameras that have been stripped down to the basics – lens, sensor and power to keep it all going. Read more »

Sony’s QX detachable lens modules should be unveiled tomorrow at the company’s IFA event, but what they look like will not be a surprise – with today’s leak, virtually all press images of both models have leaked.

Besides looks, the images give out some of the vital specs and reveal a new way to attach the module to an Xperia Z1 (Honami). Read more »

Oppo has outed yet another piece of the N1 cameraphone puzzle. In a tweet, the Chinese phonemaker has revealed that their upcoming Oppo N1 will sport a 5.9″ display.

This will put the phone right against the likes of the yet-to-be announced Samsung Galaxy Note III, which too is rumored to pack a similarly sized display. However, the Oppo N1 will probably be more about advanced camera performance, as the latest teaser hinted. Read more »

BlackBerry had promised us a version of its popular BlackBerry Messenger or BBM service for Android and iOS devices quite a while ago now. While we are yet to see the final version release on either platform, someone managed to get their hands on a beta and has a uploaded a video for our viewing pleasure.

As you can see from the image above, BBM for Android looks nothing like any other Android app. Instead of adopting the look of the platform, BlackBerry has decided to instead port over the look of BB10, which is why the BBM for Android looks exactly the way it does on BB10, complete with the tabs on the bottom and screens on the side. Read more »

LG G2 flagship is the second smartphone powered by the latest Snapdragon 800 chipset we are examining today. Its four Krait 400 cores are clocked with 100 MHz higher than those on Sony’s Xperia Z Ultra at 2.26 GHz.

Other than the higher CPU clock, the LG G2 packs the same Adreno 330 graphics and 2GB of RAM. We noticed the LG G2 has 1.81 GB of RAM available, while the Xperia Z Ultra offers 1.76 GB RAM to the Android OS. Because the smartphones share the RAM with the GPU, this means Sony has made 50MB more RAM available to the Adreno 330 than LG. Read more »

Sony Xperia Z Ultra is the first device running on the Qualcomm’s latest and greatest Snapdragon 800 chipset we meet. It is powered by a quad-core 2.2GHz Krait 400 processor, an Adreno 330 graphics and has 2GB of RAM.

The Xperia Z Ultra, like the most flagships out there, is packing a 1080p display, so we can easily compare the performance of the new chipset to the old generation processors. Read more »

Google’s Gmail, YouTube and Google Play services apps are the top downloaded Android apps from the Play Store with Maps and Facebook following. The five apps have an install base between 500 million and 1 billion each.

The information has been gathered by tech blog Digital Inspiration, which has used data from the Play Store. The graph above shows the average user rating of an app (blue bars) as well as the total number of users that have left a rating for said apps (orange line). Read more »

The pre-IFA festivities from Acer continue, as the company has just announced the DA241HL, a 24″ Android-powered all-in-one featuring a quad-core Tegra 3 processor.

The AiO operates on the Android 4.2 build, which allows you to enjoy the latest games and apps in all their glory on the fullHD 24-inch display. Read more »

If you have been around over the last few days, you probably know that we’ve been hard at work, putting the Sony Xperia Z Ultra monster of a phablet through its paces. And while the review is still some way off from being complete, we though you might enjoy some photos coming from the camera of the device.

It’s a bit early to pass any final verdict at this point, as we need to do some more shooting before we are ready for that, so we’ll just let you enjoy the shots. Read more »

Acer has decided not to wait until IFA officially kicks off and has announced its Iconia A3 10″ tablet in both Wi-Fi and 3G versions.

The slate is running Android 4.2 Jelly Bean on a 1.2GHz quad-core Cortex-A7 CPU. The 10″ display is of IPS variety and features a modest 1280 x 800 pixel resolution resulting in a pixel density of 149ppi. Read more »