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Barnes & Noble to reportedly release a cheaper, 8 GB Nook tablet this week

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According to a snippet of Walmart documentation seized by The Verge team, Barnes & Noble are ready to launch an 8 gig version of their Nook Tablet.

Being available only with 16 GB, it currently sports a higher asking price than that of the Kindle Fire, $249 vs $199, it’s less popular with customers. Read more »

Technical specs for the new Transformer TF300T leaked

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Earlier this month we saw some leaked images of a new Eee Pad. We now know the specs of the TF300T as well.

Although this is not as robust as the Transformer Prime TF700T announced earlier this year, it should nonetheless provide a more affordable alternative for consumers not wanting to dish out the announced $599 MSRP when the TF700T comes out later this year. Read more »

Max Payne for mobile devices is on the way, Rockstar confirms

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Rockstar keeps delivering great news to gamers around the planet today. First it was the new trailer of the upcoming Max Payne 3 and now the game studio confirms that the original Max Payne game will hit iOS and Android devices “very soon”.

The news came from a Q&A session hosted on the Rockstar website, where a fan asked whether Max Payne will be ported for mobile devices and Rockstar responded “Yes, it’s on its way”. Read more »

New Samsung Galaxy S II ICS ROM surfaces, we benchmark it

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Yet another Samsung Galaxy S II Android 4.0 ICS ROM escaped the Samsung R&D center and walked right into the hand of indie developers and smartphone enthusiasts. Carrying the version number I9100XXLPH, the new ROM has a build date of February 9 and, as you can expect, it is the most stable and functional ICS ROM for the Galaxy S II to date.

The LPH release is only a short step away from feeling like a polished final ROM. It’s smooth enough, it supports all of the phone’s hardware and it gets rid of the nagging “set up update” notification from previous beta releases. Read more »

Amazon approach Foxconn to produce the Kindle Fire 2

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The Kindle Fire was Amazon’s first step into the tablet world, discounting the E Ink enabled Kindles before it, the Fire was a full color, 7″ Android tab rocking Silk, its cloud-supported web browser.

Now it would appear that Amazon have approached electronics manufacturing giant Foxconn as a new OEM to add to list of those charged with producing its successor, the Kindle Fire 2. Read more »

Skype 2.7 with improved calling experience lands on Android

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The Android version of the popular Skype application just got an update. The messenger had its version number pumped up to 2.7.0.907 and received a few nice features to go with that.

First and foremost, the calling interface is updated and the quality of the calls is improved. The video-call support is now extended to the Samsung Epic 4G Touch and there are a few minor issues with the app resolved. Read more »

Swype keyboard updated to support Ice Cream Sandwich

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The perennial beta version of the Swype keyboard for Android has been updated to support the latest version of the operating system. The keyboard, as you may be aware, relies on swipes on the keys to enter words, along with traditional text input where you can just press individual keys. The new beta also offers the ability to install additional languages for tablets and accuracy improvements.

To test out the new beta, I installed it on my phone to see how well it works. Despite being a beta, the application was just as stable as it has ever been, with no real bugs or issues. However, there are some thing about the way the keypad works that still bugs me. Read more »

Samsung Galaxy Note ICS ROM leaks, we take it for a spin

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At this point we shouldn’t be more than a month and a half away from the Samsung Galaxy Note official Android 4.0 ICS update, but how about getting a little preview of what’s to come? The first ICS 4.0.3 ROM for the phoneblet just leaked and we even managed to install in on a Note we had lying around and test it.

As you will see in a bit, the ROM is really stable and snappy and seems good enough for everyday use. All the hardware is supported, including the S Pen. Read more »

Google Maps for Android updated, improves battery usage in Latitude and brings bug fixes

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The guys at Google who are working on the Android version of Maps seem to be determined to bring down battery usage. They put out an update in early January that improved consumption in Latitude and now (about a month later) they’re back with a brand new update to do just that again.

It’s a pretty minor update, but we like Google’s battery-conscious approach. Read more »

Adobe Flash player for Android updated, bug fixes and more

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Adobe added Flash support for Ice Cream Sandwich a while ago but an update by the company has popped up on Android Market, claiming added compatibility with new Android 4 supported devices.

Aside from the added ICS support, Adobe claims to have added performance improvements, bug fixes and a fixed security flaw that could’ve posed a threat to your phone’s security. Read more »

Pantech Burst for AT&T visits us, packs a lot of ambition

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Let’s be honest here – when talking high-end, dual-core Android smartphones, Pantech surely won’t be on top of your list of brands. The Korean company is mostly known around the world for making highly affordable feature phones, or low-end smartphones, with its home market being an exception of sorts. The aforementioned facts make the AT&T exclusive Pantech Burst quite interesting, as it aims to (cautiously) change the company’s image in the United States, where the market is brimming with options.

Believe it or not, the LTE sporting Pantech Burst has a spec sheet, which can compete with the top dogs in its segment. Read more »

CyanogenMod 9 for tablets could boast cool multitasking feature called Cornerstone

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Android has been being available for tablets for a long time now, but it never really succeed in letting you do multiple things at once as you would on a proper computer. With CyanogenMod 9, though, multitasking could get a lot more easier and intuitive thanks to an application called Cornerstone.

Created by the developers at Onskreen, Cornerstone is quite a simple way of working with up to three different apps visible on the screen. And if everything goes well, we can expect to see it in the future release of CyanogenMod 9. Read more »

Samsung Galaxy W gets to taste some CM9-based Android ICS love

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Samsung may still be mum on the Galaxy W for the Android 4.0.3 Ice Cream Sandwich update, but the dev community is already making progress on it. We just got a video of CM9-based Android ICS running on the mid-range droid and the future looks brighter for its owners.

The ROM is still in the very early stages of its development and we don’t even know if all of the hardware is operational. The public beta is said to be on its way, so we’ll find out soon enough. Read more »

Samsung Galaxy Note for AT&T comes our way, here’s the hands-on

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Despite looking just as imposing as its global sibling, the LTE packing Samsung Galaxy Note I717 for AT&T certainly is a different character from the international N7000. For starters, the U.S. bound phoneblet has gone through the same treatment as its local cousins from the Galaxy S II family, which includes having four touch-sensitive buttons at its front, instead of the three button configuration with a hardware button at the center of the global version. The AT&T Galaxy Note has also ditched the mighty Exynos chipset for Qualcomm-made silicon instead.

Like I mentioned above, the Samsung Galaxy Note for AT&T features a Qualcomm Snapdragon S3 chipset with two Scorpion cores, clocked at 1.5GHz. The GPU is Adreno 220. Read more »

Quadrant benchmark updated, now properly tests multi-core phones

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Quadrant is a highly popular benchmarking tool that tests CPU, I/O and 3D graphics capabilities on your Android device.

The new version features much-needed support for multi-core processors, as well as full Android Ice Cream Sandwich support. Read more »