We have an LG Optimus 7 that’s been lying aimlessly around the office ever since we finished off its review back in last November. It was still stuck on the original WP7 build since it always refused to update. We were really starting to think there was something wrong with it but honestly, we didn’t really care enough to research it.
Until yesterday that is, when the Windows Phone Mango update finally went live and we all turned our heads to the forgotten Optimus 7 up there on the shelf. And being the lucky boy that I am (I’m the rookie around here), I got the nasty job of finding a way to update it no matter what.
Well, I’m telling you, I was at loose ends with this task. I spent several hours of my time reading forums and trying what not.. until… the solution just popped up in my RSS reader. Thanks to this great tip, I managed to get our Optimus 7 go through two separate updates before I finally got to the coveted Mango as well (and saved my job along the way). Read on to see how. Read more »
Boy, this is big! Amazon just unveiled their Android-running Kindle Fire slate and it’s looking like a real winner. The $199 tablet has a 7″ IPS LCD with a resolution of 1024 x 600 pixels and runs on a TI OMAP chipset with a dual-core CPU. Its screen has a Gorilla glass cover on top and a special anti-reflective coating that should make it fully usable outdoors.
Weighing 413 grams, the Amazon Kindle Fire is a relatively compact tablet at 190 mm x 120 mm x 11.4 mm and it’s thinner than the Nook Color, which has a profile of 12mm. The Kindle Fire has just 8 GB of internal storage, but Amazon is offering free online storage for any content you get from their ecosystem. That means some of the 18 million movies, TV shows, songs, magazines, and books that you can purchase from the tablet itself plus the apps from the Amazon Android app store. Read more »
Today Sony Ericsson announced that another block buster game will be landing exclusively on its Xperia PLAY smartphone. Square Enix will be bringing Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light to the gaming-centered droid in November.
[prm p="20244"][/prm]
Of course, that exclusivity is only valid if you are talking about the Android platform. The title has been available on iOS-running devices for quite a while now. Yet the developer has assured us that with the rich set of gaming controls available on the XPERIA Play this will be the best place to enjoy the game.
We guess that the Android exclusivity of the Lara Croft and Guardian of Light will be limited to a few months with the game becoming available for the other devices on the platform after that.
There’s still nothing mentioned about the pricing of the title, but it shouldn’t be higher than the $2.99 that it costs on iOS.
There are some good news and some bad news for the MeeGo fans out there. The good news is that their platform isn’t dead, despite Nokia giving up on its development. The bad news is that MeeGo will have to go through another transformation in order to live on. So it’s so long to MeeGo, long live to Tizen.
Latest news is that Intel has finally found the partner it was looking for to help it shape MeeGo in Samsung. The Koreans will join Intel and The Linux Foundation in the development of Tizen – a new open-source project, of which Meego will become a part of. Read more »
Mozilla has just released the latest version of its Firefox browser for Android. Firefox 7 is immediately available in the Android market bringing improved copy and paste functionality along with performance updates.
The changelog also includes built-in language detection on first run and new WebSockets APIs, which should allow web developers to build better web apps and sites. Read more »
Every major smartphone OS has its own go-to place for apps and the biggest among them – Android and iOS have enjoyed online appstores for a long time. Finally, Windows Phone has joined the ranks of those with online access with its own WP Web Marketplace.
The web Marketplace is now up and running and offers purchasable and free apps at the same time. Users can buy apps with the credit cards they’ve listed in their Windows Live IDs after which the Marketplace will send SMS or email to the device itself with download links. Read more »
HTC’s next event is set on taking place on October 6th at the Roundhouse venue in England’s capital London. The slogan of the official invite is “Come feel every beat” and the new product announcements will be combines with a nice and loud party.
The expected handset in the spotlight will probably be the Sensation XL (previously rumored as Runnymede or Bass), sporting the Beats treatment. We previously had an encounter with its dual-core sibling the Sensation XE.
So, it’s here – it because we’re still not quite sure what to call the Samsung Galaxy Note. It’s too big to be a phone, a 5.3″ is quite a bit bigger than even the 4.65/4.7 inch screens we’ve been seeing lately.
The first member of the Galaxy S II U.S. trio paid us a visit and we have a whole bunch of initial impressions to share with you. The Samsung Galaxy S II Epic 4G Touch is the CDMA version of the powerful droid, already available exclusively at Sprint Wireless for $199.99 with a two-year contract.
It has grown in size, compared to the Galaxy S II which we (and about 10 million other people) have already grown quite fond of, dropping the 4.3″ Super AMOLED Plus for a 4.52″ display of the same kind. WiMax connectivity is also on board, promising some serious network speeds. Sounds enticing, doesn’t it? Let’s see what else this droid has to offer.
Yesterday we attended at the Samsung event in NYC, which saw the landing of three new Galaxy devices on the US shores. The Galaxy Tab 8.9 wasn’t particularly interesting to us as we have already previewed it, but that was our first encounter with the Galaxy Player 5.0 and Galaxy Player 4.0 Android-running PMPs.
So here we are bringing you a batch of live photos of the two along with some quick impressions of them. Read more »
Recently, there were rumors that Google+ is starting to lose its inertia and that users are leaving the social network rather than joining it. As it turns out, those were hugely exaggerated as the Google social network now has over 50 million users.
That’s 50 million people that registered in the 88 days since the network launched. A really impressive achievement, considering that Google+ was invite-only since last week. To put things in perspective, Facebook took almost four year to get that many users, while Twitter achieved it in three years.
And not only isn’t the growth slowing down, but it’s actually speeding up. Since registration was opened to everyone, there are 2 million new registrations per day. At that rate Google+ members will double in the next month and a half.
To celebrate the milestone Google+ introduced a new game to its users. Zynga’s CityVille is a huge success on Facebook and now its developers hope to replicate the success on the Google network.
Alright, so the Galaxy Tab 8.9 is not really new as it was announced back in March along with the Galaxy Tab 10.1 and we have even done a hands-on with it. But up until now the availability of the tablet was unknown. Samsung has finally come clean with it though, as you will now be able to get your hands on the Galaxy Tab 8.9 starting October 2, and it is available for pre-order right now.
It will be available in two models, 16GB and 32GB, with the former priced at $469 and the latter being $569. It’s not a lot cheaper than the bigger 10.1 model, which costs just $30 more in either memory capacity and seems better value in comparison. Read more »
First off, it’s essential to say that this device won’t be coming to the US or anywhere else outside of Japan. The ARROW Z ISW11F is just one of six Android handsets that Japanese carrier, KDDI recently brought to market.
The wonderfully named ISW11F is a veritable mixed bag of gadgetry (and a powerful mixed bag at that). Read more »
Don’t you just love the simple and easy to remember names that manufacturers give to their Japan-only products? Take the Asus Tough ETBW11AA Android Honeycomb tablet, which was just announced, for example.
The 7″ Android 3.2 tablet with a screen resolution of 1280 x 800 pixels and WiMax connectivity comes with IP54 certification. This means that the slate is capable of surviving water jets for 3 minutes and should be sealed against any particle larger than 1mm. It should also live through drops on concrete from up to 76 cm, which is not a lot, but still impressive for a tablet. Read more »
The the Mango-based ZTE Tania was showcased at the China International Communication Expo 2011 and there are still no official pictures pf it so the few blurry live ones will have to do for now. Read more »
Xiaomi Mi 4i battery life test
HTC One M9+ preview
Lenovo A7000 Preview
Hot or Not: Android M, iOS 9 and Watch OS 2.0
Benchmarking Asus ZenFone 2 ZE551ML with Intel Atom Z3580 SoC and 4GB of RAM
[/prm]
