Posts from: IFA 2013
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Samsung Galaxy Gear vs. Qualcomm Toq vs. Sony Smartwatch 2: Put your finger on it

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Smartwatches are the talk of the street right now and for a very good reason. They are cool, capable and understated. At the IFA 2013 expo, both Samsung and Qualcomm announced their smartwatch representatives: the Galaxy Gear and Toq. Naturally, we had to compare them to the Sony Smartwatch 2, which was announced a couple of months ago.

You may be thinking that smartwatches aren’t really our scope, but remember that while we are professional phone reviewers, we are also geeks. This puts the smartwatch product category right in our alley. Read more »

The Samsung Galaxy Note 3 Multi Vision is an awesome new feature you would probably never use

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The features that Samsung has baked into the TouchWiz user interface on the Galaxy Note 3 are so many that the company has issued a 16-minute official hands-on video just so they can go over the key ones. However, on that video there is one really innovative feature missing. And it’s awesome – that’s Multi Vision.

Multi Vision on the Samsung Galaxy Note 3 allows you to stack up several devices and get a bigger resulting screen area for your content. But really? It’s sounds way cooler than it’s useful, because… you know… who has four of these just lying around? Read more »

Samsung outs an official, extra long hands-on video of the Galaxy Note 3 and Galaxy Gear

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One of the headlines that has come out of IFA 2013 so far is the announcement of the Samsung Galaxy Note 3. It sports a plethora of new software features and awesome integration options with the just announced Galaxy Gear smartwatch.

So, in order to familiarize potential Note 3 owners with some of its new software tricks, Samsung has made a lengthy hands-on video of the phablet. Read more »

Lenovo S5000 is a 7″ Android 4.2 tablet with a quad-core Mediatek chipset, undercuts Nexus 7 (2013)’s pricing

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Along with the Vibe X smartphone, Lenovo also announced the 7″ S5000 tablet. The tablet shares the Vibe’s sleek design and while it’s not as thin as the smartphone (the S5000 is still pretty thin at 7.9mm), it’s very light for a 7″ tablet, tipping the scales at just 246g.

The tablet features 3G HSPA+ connectivity with voice call support (in select countries, the US isn’t getting it). There will also be a Wi-Fi only version. Read more »

Lenovo Yoga 2 Pro ups the resolution to 3200 x 1800, has an auto-flattening keyboard in tablet mode

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We here at GSMArena HQ have been fans of the Yoga ultrabook ever since it launched a year ago so naturally we were screaming like exited school girls when we saw what Lenovo has done with its next generation Yoga.

The Yoga 2 Pro ups the ante with a 13.3″ touchscreen of 3200 x 1800 (previously 1600 x 900) resolution resulting in an insane 276 ppi. The slate also runs on the fourth-gen Intel Core i7 Haswell processor and promises a battery life up to 9 hours. Read more »

Sony announces Android 4.1 powered Walkman F886 music player

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Sony has showcased its latest music player, the Walkman F886 at the on-going IFA consumer electronics exhibition in Berlin, Germany. The highlight of the newest addition is the high-resolution audio system along with its Android operating system.

With Sony Walkman F886 you can enjoy high-quality music and also share it among your friends without having to break a sweat, thanks to the built-in Bluetooth radio. Read more »

Sony Xperia Z1 benchmark results are here, check out the numbers inside

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Sony officially unveiled its latest flagship smartphone, the Xperia Z1 at its press conference at IFA, Berlin, yesterday. The cameraphone packs a punch with its Snapdragon 800 chipset clocked at 2.2 GHz along with Adreno 330 graphics and 2 GB of RAM.

We took the Xperia Z1 for a spin and the performance of the device was top notch. So, we decided to stack it up against other smartphones in the market, and here are the results. Read more »

Qualcomm announces new Toq smartwatch for Android smartphones

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While Samsung was announcing its Galaxy Gear smartwatch yesterday, Qualcomm was busy announcing its own smartwatch, called the Toq. Pronounced as “talk”, the Qualcomm Toq pairs with your existing Android smartphone and brings all your notifications where you can see them at a glance.

The main feature of the Qualcomm Toq is the unique Mirasol display. Developed by Qualcomm, Mirasol is a type of interferometric modulator display that works without the need of a backlight. Just like e-paper displays, Mirasol displays can stay on constantly without requiring power and are perfectly visible even under bright sunlight. But Mirasol goes one step ahead of current e-paper displays and is capable of displaying full color and it also uses the ambient light as a backlight, thus significantly reducing the power consumption. Read more »

Samsung shows off Galaxy Note 3 features in a six minute video

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Yesterday, Samsung took the wraps off the Galaxy Note 3 smartphone at IFA in Berlin. The company’s latest flagship comes packed with features, as is usual for a Samsung smartphone, and there is a whole bunch of new stuff to go alone with the stuff we have already seen in the past.

To show off all the new features of the Galaxy Note 3, Samsung has now released a fairly lengthy six and half minute long video that goes through each of them. Let’s talk about them briefly before we get to the video. Read more »

The first benchmark scores of the Samsung Galaxy Note 3 are in

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Samsung Galaxy Note 3 is the third device running on the Qualcomm’s latest and greatest Snapdragon 800 chipset we meet. It is powered by a quad-core 2.3GHz Krait 400 processor, an Adreno 330 graphics and has 3GB of RAM. It also packs a 1080p display, so we can easily compare the performance of the new chipset to the old generation processors.

We’ve managed to run a few tests after the announcement in Berlin. Here is how the Galaxy Note 3 stacks against the competition. Read more »

Samsung Galaxy Gear goes official, works only with the top end of the Galaxy line

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Samsung jumped head first into the smartwatch field with the Galaxy Gear. It’s made out of stainless steel for the body and futuristic material for the strap. The heart of Gear is a 1.63″ Super AMOLED touch screen with 320 x 320 resolution (that’s 277ppi pixel density).

In a throwback to the S9110 watch phone, the Galaxy Gear features a speaker and mic, so it can handle calls (with a noise cancellation mic), but also understand voice commands with S Voice. Read more »

Sony announces a new Action Cam with enhanced performance and features

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Sony has officially announced a new Action Cam model – HDR AS30V. The latest model is said to offer high-performance and a few new features like easy share via Wi-Fi, NFC one-touch remote, GPS, high resolution images and optional wearable live-view remote.

Sony’s Action Cam HRD-AS30V, the point-of-view video camera is designed exclusively to shoot full HD 1080p videos comes with an advanced design and optics. The Action Cam will come with a ruggedized waterproof housing, which is 35% lighter and 25% smaller than the previous models. Read more »

ASUS announces Transformer Book T300 and Transformer Book Trio

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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 announces a wide range of new mobile accessories for its Xperia smartphones

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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 »

Sony Xperia Z1 official promo video tells you the key features of the 20.7MP smartphone

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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 »