ZTE has launched the Grand S II in India. The phone will be sold exclusively through Amazon India and is priced at just Rs. 13,999 ($225).
The Grand S II has a 5.5-inch 1080p display, Snapdragon 801 processor, 2GB RAM, 16GB memory with microSD support, 13 megapixel rear camera, 2 megapixel front camera, and 3100mAh battery.
The only drawback is that the Grand S II runs on Android 4.2 Jelly Bean and ZTE will not be updating to the phone to KitKat, leave alone Lollipop or any future versions.
Alleged specs of HTC’s next flagship smartphone made the rounds on Chinese social media. The high-end handset will likely debut in the first quarter of next year with the model number M9.
HTC One (M9) is tipped to pack Qualcomm Snapdragon 805 chipset and 3GB of RAM. The display of the device is a 5.5” QHD unit. A 16MP camera with optical image stabilization, 3,500mAh battery, and stereo speakers with Bose tech round up the leaked specs.
The specs you see above appear legitimate for a flagship smartphone, though we advise you to take a pinch of salt when you read through them. Quite frankly, we will be surprised if the Taiwanese manufacturer’s next flagship doesn’t ship with 64-bit Snapdragon 810 silicon.
A “Prime” version of the upcoming device is also mentioned in the rumor. However, there are no details about it beyond its name.
USA is always getting the cool Windows Phone deals and there is no denying that. Microsoft has always been promoting the Windows Phone OS throughout super affordable Lumia phones in its homeland for years, mostly using carrier or major retailer campaigns.
In these rare occasions, such as today, other countries also enjoy similar promotions. The affordable Nokia Lumia 530 is even more affordable in the UK today for the next 10 hours, if you opt to get it contract-free from Amazon UK. The retailer is selling it online for just £49.99, which is at least £30 less than competing retailers' listings.
Australians seems to be getting quite a treatment if they opt for the phone through Telstra. If you chose to get Telstra's Pre-Paid $2 Starter Kit, you can have the Nokia Lumia 530 on half the price at AU$39.50.
It seems Microsoft is pushing the Lumia 530 in various deals worldwide, so you might be getting it cheap in your market very soon.
Cyber Monday is upon us and that means huge discounts on older tech. To celebrate we offer you a discount on old tech news – welcome back to Counterclockwise, our weekly trip down memory lane. This week we see LTE met with both excitement and indifference, the smartphone successfully dispatching aftermarket SatNavs and failing to do the same to handheld consoles.
LG managed to wrestle the Nexus gig from Samsung and created the Nexus 4 – it had the same great specs as the LG Optimus G, but was considerably cheaper than similarly specced phones. There was no LTE on the official specs, but two years ago LTE coverage was so limited that few people cared.
Some did though and were disappointed at the omission. The ever-curious iFixit team took the Nexus 4 apart and did find an LTE chip. It wasn’t long after that when people figured out how to enable it – it was as simple as changing a setting. It worked both in Canada and in the US.
And just like that the Nexus 4 has LTE
LG had to come out with an official statement – it used the same internals for the Nexus 4 that go into the Optimus G, including an LTE-capable Qualcomm chip. However, the Nexus lacked essential supporting hardware for LTE to function properly.
In fact, LTE support was later removed after a software patch, though industrious hackers found a way to re-enable it once again. Most recently, the LTE functionality was disabled yet again with the Lollipop update, that was quickly dealt with too.
While all this was going on, there were no Nexus 4 units to be had in the US – it sold out! A few days later Google notified people that new units will be available, no more than two per customer. Such limitations were necessary as the previous batch sold out in less than an hour.
Part of the popularity can be attributed to the great specs for the low, low price of $350. That was in North America though, in Europe the phone was listed at £280 om the UK Play Store, while Carphone Warehouse was even asking £390 for it.
Did we mention that LTE rollout was slow? It was slooow – near the end of 2011 Japan got its first LTE device, the Samsung Galaxy S II LTE. Japan is often way ahead of the rest of the world in technological terms, but local carriers took a leisurely pace in adopting 4G.
NTT DoCoMo, the country's biggest carrier, launched its LTE network in 2010 but it took until the end of November 2011 to get a compatible phone.
NTT needed a headliner since it was the only one of Japan's three major carriers to not have an iPhone (over a dispute with Apple about preloaded apps). And with the allure of LTE – ten times faster than the prevailing 3G tech in Japan at the time – the Galaxy S II LTE was that headliner.
Smartphones have long aspired to push car SatNav units out of the market – even back in the days when you had to hook up an external GPS receiver. At one point it seemed that Nokia's Symbian phones will be the ones to kill SatNavs – after buying map-maker Navteq and with slumping sales, the Finns enabled free, worldwide offline navigation on all of their smartphones.
That never happened though, Ovi/Nokia Maps were a great perk for Symbians but iPhones and Androids were demolishing the old platform. And Google Maps Navigation was one of the final nails in the coffin.
Originally launched for Android 2.0 and only in the US, but as an early Christmas present Google released Navigation for Android 1.6 Donut in late November 2009. The US-only restriction was not lifted, but the move gave a huge boost to the young OS.
Google Maps have expanded greatly since then, coming to many countries, often bringing Street View along with it. It even gained the ability to guide you indoors with v6.0, which launched in November 2011.
Nokia's switch to Windows Phone saw its navigation software move to the Lumia lineup, but Nokia launched an Android version as soon as the ink dried on the deal with Microsoft.
Perched on top of the world, Nokia was planning for the future – one idea was to revolutionize the SatNav market, another was to take over handheld gaming. The Nokia N-Gage is infamous, but even other handsets got a taste of real gaming.
Right on time for Thanksgiving in 2008, a developer released Quake III Arena for Symbian phones like the Nokia N95 8GB, the N82 and the E90. The game even supported multiplayer and controls with a Bluetooth keyboard and mouse for a PC-like experience.
While Nokia was a contender to the throne, some of Sony's most successful products ever were game consoles. It went portable with the PSP, which sold in record numbers.
The fledging smartphone gaming industry was relying on casual games, so when rumors started of a PSP smartphone everyone held their breath. Back in November 2010 it was just that, a rumor, but it already met the first round of disappointing news – the phone won't actually play PSP games.
Sony Ericsson "PlayStation phone" (aka Xperia Play)
This was, of course, the Sony Ericsson Xperia Play and while PSP Go games eventually did make it to the phone, the whole Xperia Play business went barely better than the N-Gage.
According to the Japanese publication Mac Fan, Apple will released a 12.2” iPad Air Plus in the spring of next year. The report is featured in the magazine’s January 2015 issue and includes alleged details about the upcoming slate, including a blueprint with physical measures.
Apple iPad Air Plus will unsurprisingly sit above the iPad Air 2 when it launches. Purported measures of the previously rumored device are 305.31 x 220.8 x 7 mm (12 x 8.7 x .28 inches). The slate is said to feature Apple’s next generation A9 processor.
The potential launch of a 12.2” iPad would make sense considering Apple’s latest product launches. The company delivered a significant upgrade over last year’s model with the iPad Air 2, but barely touched anything with the iPad mini 3.
Apple’s Lack of attention towards the compact slate makes sense with iPhone 6 Plus in the marketplace. As we found out earlier this week, people fancy their large-screen iPhones a lot more than their iPads.
One thing we wonder about is what will happen with the MacBook Air family if a 12.2” iPad launches. Our guess is that Apple might simply merge its MacBook Air and Pro families into a single product range in order to make space for the massive iPad Air Plus.
The Dual SIM Xolo Opus 3 has been announced in its home country India. The smartphone is a midranger with a focus on selfies as it's got a wide-angle 5MP front snapper.
The smartphone's midrange status is most noticeable in the choice of chipset - it's got a quad-core 1.3GHz Mediatek MTK6582M chipset with 1GB RAM at its heart.
Other than that, the rest of the specs are pretty well stacked up. The Xolo Opus 3 has a 5-inch 720p IPS screen and a Sony-made 8MP auto-focus camera with 1080p video recording.
In terms of connectivity, the Xolo Opus 3 enjoys HSPA+ support, Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n, FM radio and Bluetooth 4.0 support.
The 8GB worth of on-board storage is expandable via the microSD slot and the battery capacity is 2,500mAh.
The handset runs Android 4.4 KitKat out of the box.
The Xolo Opus 3 will become available in a few days for 8499 Indian Rupee, which is about US$135.
The Google Play edition of the LG G Pad 8.3 is now receiving the Android 5.0 update. It may not have been as quick as one would have expected, with Google definitely not being as quick as before for rolling out the updates for its own devices but better late than never.
Being the stock version of Android, the 5.0 update should bring all the Lollipop goodness, including the new Material Design, updated lockscreen, new notifications, improved performance, and (supposedly) improved battery life.
If you have one of these devices then check to see the update is available.
Just a few days ago a Samsung SM-E500F was spotted entering India for testing purposes by an import tracking website.
And now it's been joined by the Samsung SM-E700F, and in this case we're even graced with a couple of specs for the device. The E700 will apparently come with a 5.5-inch touchscreen, as well as dual-SIM support, though no other details about it are known at this time.
Still, this is more than we know about the previously mentioned SM-E500F. These handsets could very well be two members of a new Galaxy E series of devices from Samsung. The Korean company has been rumored to adopt more and more letter-based lineups, following the first one which was the A series. That was recently made official with the announcement of the Galaxy A3 and Galaxy A5, and a Galaxy A7 should join those two pretty soon, as it's just been given the go-ahead at the FCC.
Since the A3 and A5 have the model numbers SM-A300 and SM-A500 respectively, you can see why we'd assume the SM-E500 and SM-E700 will be sold as the Galaxy E5 and Galaxy E7. If that happens (which is by no means a given), then expect the E5 to be smaller and perhaps a bit lesser-specced than the E7.
The LG G Flex (pictured below) was announced last year as one of the first two smartphones with a bent screen, along with Samsung's Galaxy Round. While Samsung has introduced the Galaxy Note Edge recently, LG is yet to follow up its G Flex.
The G Flex 2 has so far been rumored to be made oficial either by the end of 2014, or in the first quarter of 2015. And it turns out that the latter estimation may have been right after all.
According to a new bit of information coming from unnamed sources, LG will unveil the G Flex 2 during CES in early January. The show starts on January 6, so we might be just over one month away from the introduction of the Korean company's next curved smartphone.
As for specs, we can apparently expect a "major upgrade" over the original G Flex. The new model will once again sport a plastic OLED screen, though it's said to be 1080p this time around. The self-healing coating will be improved too, and the next G Flex should be smaller than its predecessor.
Earlier this month Micromax, the biggest Indian smartphone maker, announced a partnership with Cyanogen, Inc., the company behind the popular CyanogenMod custom ROM for Android. Cyanogen's software was said to be powering a new, upcoming line of devices from Micromax, which are going to be sold under the Yu brand.
When the original announcement came, it was apparently lacking one very important detail: Cyanogen has effectively committed to offering Micromax exclusivity when it comes to future software update support for the Indian market.
This puts OnePlus in an awkward position. The Chinese startup is due to launch its One smartphone in India on December 2, which is next Tuesday. Due to Cyanogen's decision, those who buy a OnePlus One from India won't receive any software updates for it.
So OnePlus has decided to fast track its own ROM development efforts, which were initially only meant for its next handset. Thus, the company will release a beta version of a new ROM for the Indian market sometime in December, with a full release planned for February. This ROM will be based on Android 5.0 Lollipop, and OnePlus promises it will be free of bloatware, and will keep Google's Material Design philosophy.
So, if you buy a OnePlus One from India, it will come running CyanogenMod 11S - just like the other handsets sold outside of China. But you won't receive any updates from Cyanogen. Then, in December you'll be able to flash the beta version of the new OnePlus ROM, and the final version in February. OnePlus has committed to two years of software support for the One from the time when the first build is released.
If you buy a OnePlus One and you're in a country that isn't India or China, you'll still get it running CyanogenMod 11S and you'll receive future updates from Cyanogen. In China, the phone is sold running Color OS, the Android overlay developed by Oppo.
What prompted Cyanogen to do this to OnePlus is still unclear, and it amounts to yet another hiccup in the very tumultuous life of this startup.
A new smartphone by the Chenese maker Oppo popped up on the website of the China certification authority TENAA. According to the posted specifications the Oppo R8207 will feature a 6.85mm body, a 5 inch TFT screen with a resolution of 720 x 1080 pixels. Other hardware on the device includes a 1.5 GHz octa-core processor, 2GB of RAM, 16GB onboard storage plus an SD card slot, as well as two cameras - 13 MP main and 5 MP front.
Design-wise the smartphone does resemble the iPhone 6 and to some extent the upcoming Samsung A series and will probably be aiming at the same consumer niche. If Oppo play their cards right and give the device a competitive price tag, just like their track record suggests, it might fare nicely against competitors, considering what it has to offer.
In other news, the Chinese company is also participating in the annual Black Friday frenzy. The Oppo online store, Oppo Style, is currently offering the Oppo Find 7a in all its variants for $499 along with a full pack of accessories: a cover, screen protector, 32GB microSD card and they are even throwing in a complimentary Bluetooth Headset.
The Oppo Find 7 flagship can also be picked up with the same pack of goodies and will set you back $609. Interestingly enough Oppo Style does also offer an extended battery option of 3000 mAh instead of the standard 2800 mAh one, which is nice touch for the 7a model.
Oppo R8207 TENAA shots
A few months after filing for bankruptcy, South Korea's No.3 smartphone maker Pantech has released a new phablet which has some really solid specs and a low price tag. Dubbed Vega Pop-up Note, the device has reportedly been a runaway hit, with the initial 300,000 units getting sold in less than half a day.
Featurewise, the device packs in a Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 chipset as well as a 5.6" 1080p display, 2GB of RAM, 16GB of flash memory, which can be further expanded via a microSD card slot. There's a 13-megapixel rear camera with LED flash and autofocus, 2.1-megapixel front camera, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 4.0 LE adapters, and a removable 3220 mAh battery. There’s also a stylus that doubles as a digital TV antenna.
As for the price, the Pop-up Note retails for just 352,000 Korean won, or $317, and that’s not even including carrier subsidies, post which the price comes down to less than 200,000 Korean won, or $180. This compares to Samsung's Galaxy Note 4, which retails for 957,000 won, or $861, in Korea.
This month Windows Phone reached an important milestone - the latest version (WP8.1) now powers over half of all devices. Added together with devices still on WP8.0 (which could be updated to 8.1), that leaves about one seventh as legacy devices (WP7.x, which cannot be updated).
There's more good news too, new devices are climbing up in market share. There's a bit of bad news to go along with that too, it's the Lumia 63x that is seeing the biggest gains.
The Other group keeps growing - this month by 2% - which suggests there is some diversification going on in Windows Phone land, but the market is still heavily skewed towards the entry-level devices.
"Other" grew when it comes to manufacturers too, but Nokia - that is Microsoft - still has 95% of the market. That will change soon, but only because Microsoft has retired the "Nokia" brand in favor of its own.
Just a few months after announcing its plans to enter 10 new markets by the end of 2014, Xiaomi has pushed back the expansion plans for some markets, and has said that it will instead focus on existing markets such as India and Indonesia, according to a Bloomberg report.
"We realized that it's a smarter thing to do to scale back a bit and put a ton of effort in India and Indonesia before expanding further," said the company’s vice president Hugo Barra, who was previously VP of Google's Android division.
Despite being a newcomer, Xiaomi’s products have been selling like hotcakes in India with the company struggling to meet demand. The report notes that in the past two months, the company had to charter special flights four times to make scheduled deliveries into India.
"We're shipping absurd quantities into India," Barra said. "We went from shipping 50,000 a week into India to 200,000".
In an effort to solve the supply–demand problem, Xiaomi is now planning to produce its smartphones in India as well as Brazil, and is already in talks with electronics manufacturer Foxconn. While production in India will likely begin in the next couple of years, Brazil may start sooner, the report notes.
The news of delay in expansion comes nearly a week after Xiaomi CEO Lei Jun said that the 4-year-old company could become the world’s biggest smartphone maker in 5-10 years. Last month, the company became the world’s third largest smartphone maker.
The Samsung Galaxy A5 is currently on sale in China and the Galaxy A3 soon to follow, but the top of the line Galaxy A7 is yet to come out. The phone's visit to the FCC is a strong indication that this will happen sooner than later.
In the process, the specs of the Galaxy A7 were also revealed. They are align nicely with the the ones leaked in the end of October.
The phone is built around a 5.2" display of 1080p resolution and is powered by the Snapdragon 615 chipset with 64-bit 1.5GHz octa-core CPU and 2GB of RAM. Internal storage is 16GB, but there's no information if there's a microSD card slot on board yet.
The main camera is expected to be a 12 MP unit with Full HD video recording, while the selfie snapper will top out at 5 MP. The phone will also have an accelerometer, Bluetooth, a compass, GPS, NFC, and Wi-Fi.
Here's hoping the phone launches by the end of the year. Pricing and official information regarding availability are unavailable at the moment, though.
OnePlus One has really been generating a stir in the smartphone market the last couple of months. If you have been eyeballing the premium device, nicknamed "flagship killer", but have not been able to get your hands on an invite you might be in luck. For the next 72 hours only and with limited quantities all of the versions of the smartphone can be ordered freely!
But don`t get too caught up in the Black Friday storm, because the device is still only available in select markets. Furthermore there is no actual price reduction, but that is more than justifiable given the overwhelming interest.
The 16GB Silk one is priced at $299, while the more spacious 64GB Black version will set you back $349. This is definitely a premium, but do get very high-end hardware for that price. The OnePlus One is powered by a formidable Snapdragon 801 8974-AC chip at 2.5 GHz, with 3GB of RAM, a 5.5 inch LTPS display and runs CyanogenMod 11s.
The Chinese manufacturer also promises, that any order placed in the next 3 days will arrive just in time for the holidays so be sure to check the source link if you want a new One.
Following its official announcement a few weeks ago, and subsequent special introduction for the Indian market, the Microsoft Lumia 535 is also headed to the UK.
This has been revealed by Microsoft itself, which has listed the Lumia 535 on its device website for the UK. Next to the phone sits a "Coming soon" notice, and not much more - we don't get an estimated launch date or anything like that. Not yet, at least.
But if you're in the UK and are interested in the first smartphone to bear the Microsoft brand after the company bought Nokia's devices business, then you'll at least be happy to know that it's on its way to your neck of the woods.
The handset has also been spotted up for pre-order in Germany, so it looks like it should be headed to the major European markets in due course. The release date for Germany seems to be December 5, so perhaps we should expect something similar for the UK. The Lumia 535 will probably be priced around £100, if not lower (in Germany it starts at €120, which at the current exchange rates means £95).
The phone comes with a 5-inch 540x960 touchscreen, a 5 MP rear camera with LED flash, a 5 MP front camera, 1GB of RAM, 8GB of storage (with microSD expansion), and a 1,905 mAh battery. It runs Windows Phone 8.1, and it's powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 200 SoC with a 1.2 GHz quad-core Cortex-A7 CPU and Adreno 302 GPU.
There's already a Technical Preview of Windows 10 out, which you can download and install if you're so inclined, but that's only for computers. When Microsoft first introduced its next version of Windows back in September, it mainly presented the new developer-focused features of the OS, along with just a few consumer-oriented tidbits.
Ever since that point, Microsoft has been promising a consumer announcement of Windows 10 which should come in the future, and now a rumor claims that will happen in January.
Although Microsoft will be present at CES in early January, that's not the avenue it will use for the Windows 10 intro. Apparently the company will hold a separate conference towards the end of the month, and it could be a more comprehensive one compared to the one from September.
Alongside making all the consumer-facing features of Windows 10 known, during the same late January gathering Microsoft will also unveil Windows 10 for phones and tablets. This will thus be the first time we'll get a glimpse at the mobile version of the new OS.
Windows 10 is designed to run across multiple devices, such as PCs, tablets, phones, and the Xbox One. The exact date of the event in January is expected to be made official by the end of this year.
Just a few days ago the Samsung SM-E500F got leaked for the first time, and back then we speculated that it could be the first member of an upcoming Galaxy E series from the Korean smartphone maker.
We arrived at that idea based on the E in its model number. Samsung hasn't so far released a phone with that letter in its model number, and the recently unveiled Galaxy A devices both have A in their model numbers.
If all of this pans out, then there's another lineup of handsets coming from Samsung in the future too, and these ones could be called Galaxy J. That's because a previously unheard of Samsung SM-J100F got put through the paces of a graphics benchmark for Android.
As always, this has resulted in a list of its most important specs becoming public. The J100F boasts a 4.8-inch 480x800 touchscreen, a 5 MP rear camera with LED flash, a 5 MP front camera (both with 1080p video recording support), 1GB of RAM, and 4GB of built-in storage (of which 2.2GB will be user accessible).
Running the show is a not often seen Marvell PXA1908 chipset, which has 64-bit support and a 1.2 GHz quad-core Cortex-A53 CPU. A Vivante GC7000UL GPU is also present.
Although exact mobile data connectivity options haven't been revealed by the benchmark, the SoC in the J100F does support 4G LTE Cat.4 (with theoretical peak download speeds of up to 150Mbps), so hopefully that's made it into this smartphone.
The benchmarked handset runs Android 4.4.4 KitKat, and it also has Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, and GPS. It's clearly a low-end offering through and through, we'll have to see how well it's going to be priced in order to know whether it will sell in any significant numbers.
Samsung was strangely vague about the image sensor in the Galaxy Note 4. It bragged about its in-house ISOCELL sensor in the Galaxy S5, but not a peep about who made the Note's sensor. The deal was resolved with the simplest solution – an eyes on test, which found a Sony IMX240 sensor.
Or was it? New evidence suggests there's more than a difference in chipsets between the two Galaxy Note 4 versions – the Snapdragon 805 one and the Exynos 5433 one. Using a hidden service menu the camera firmware version was checked to find that the two different models report two different things.
The Exynos-based Note 4 version string is very similar to what the Galaxy S5 reports, while the Snapdragon variation just outputs SONY_IMX240.
You can check your Note 4 phablet by opening the dialer and typing *#34971539# and hitting the ISP Ver Check button.
Anyway, this raises the question – does the Samsung Galaxy Note 4 (Exynos) camera support phase-detection autofocus? The sensor does and it is used in the Galaxy S5. Samsung tries to equalize performance between the Snapdragon/Exynos versions but the ISP version does differ from that of the S5.
IDC put out a new report, stating that India continues to be the fastest growing Asia Pacific market for smartphones. The Q3 smartphone sales saw a growth of 82% over the same period of 2013.
The data also mentions a quarter-on-quarter growth of 27%. This exponential growth has largely been boosted by the festive demands.
There are also a number of other reasons that have played a crucial part in forming the favorable statistics that exceed every other market in the Asian Pacific region in terms of growth. Karan Thakkar, senior market analyst at IDC India, puts a lot of emphasis on positive customer attitude toward the market and mostly the existing low levels of inflation.
He believes, that these are the needed ingredients to ensure a fast paced and quickly refreshing device market. When the intensifying push towards 4G is added to the mix, Karan predicts an even greater spike in demand, reaching upwards of 80 million units in 2015.
Another peculiar trend, identified by the same researcher is a possible rise in interest towards phablet devices, which the IDC defines as having a screen size between 5.5 and 6.99 inches. At current their overall market share in India is pretty low and constant at 6%. Consumers still regard smartphones with screens between 4.5 and 5.5 inches as the ideal everyday device. Karan, however believes that richer media content and faster data connection will bring about a need for higher resolution and bigger screens and definitely sees this type of hardware making a return.
Motorola has started offering standalone band purchases for the Moto 360. Now, you can buy additional bands from Motorola and they come in five options.
You can choose from three 22mm leather options, including the standard black and stone and there is now a new cognac leather option as well. In metal, you can choose between 23mm black and silver options. The leather belts cost $29.99 while the metal ones cost $79.99.
The Moto 360 can also be purchased with new thin 18mm gold and silver bands but those cannot be purchased separately.
Google's Android One series of smartphone recently launched in India but has been limited to one country for now. However, the phones will now be available in Europe, with Amazon beginning the sales of the Karbonn Sparkle V on its UK website.
The Sparkle V is available for £129.99 on Amazon UK SIM free, which about the same as other low-end Android phones in the market such as the Moto G. As an added bonus, the phone will be available on Black Friday for £99.99, making it really good value.
So far only one of the three Android One phones is being launched in Europe but with all of them being mostly identical it shouldn't matter much.
LG electronics has just appointed a new head of its mobile division. Juno Cho will be taking over the position of president and CEO of the division from Park Jong-Seok, who has been dealing with health problems, but will retain a supporting role in the management.
The new CEO will be in charge of leading a formidable expansion in global markets, which builds upon the company's recent success in the mobile sector. This year the second largest Korean handset manufacturer regained profitability, with a formidable 16.3% market share in North America during Q3.
This is in large part thanks to the huge success of their flagship device, the LG G3. This sets a veritable record for LG, with almost double the market shares from last year. Furthermore the company announced its highest operation profits, since 2010 at $152 million.
Juno Chou can already boast formidable success at LG. He is largely credited for the North America branch success around the mid-2000s and the very well-received Chocolate Phone in 2006, which he was in charge of. This track record has made him a perfect candidate to lead LG mobile sales into foreign markets and especially China.
The announcement also commented on several other management rearrangements. Kwon Bong-suk, who is currently heading LG Corp's Synergy Division, was promoted to president and CEO of the entire consumer electronics segment at LG. It seems that this is part of the expansion of OLED TVs, planned for next year.
This drive towards the technology is also supported by the decision to keep Han Sang-beom as CEO of LG display. Several other rearrangement are also set to occur in LG affiliates - LG Display, LG InnoTek and LG Chem, but they concern mostly mid-level management.
Starting today, you can purchase a Karbonn Sparkle V even if you're in the UK. This is interesting because this device is part of the Android One lineup which got official in India in September. Thus, the Sparkle V is the first Android One phone to be sold in the UK.
The Android One initiative was made public earlier this year during Google's developer conference. The smartphones in this lineup are primarily built for emerging markets, have specs put together by Google, and they run stock Android. Furthermore, they receive software updates straight from Android's maker.
All of the three Android One handsets that have launched so far have the exact same innards - the Karbonn Sparkle V shares its specs with the Micromax Canvas A1 and the Spice Dream Uno.
The Sparkle V features a 4.5-inch 480x854 touchscreen, a 5 MP rear camera with LED flash, a 2 MP front snapper, 1GB of RAM, 4GB of built-in storage, and microSD card support for expanding that.
Running the show is a MediaTek MT6582 SoC with a 1.3 GHz quad-core Cortex-A7 CPU, and powering things up is a 1,700 mAh battery. The phone currently runs Android 4.4.4 KitKat, with the update to version 5.0 Lollipop reportedly coming by the end of January.
Amazon UK is selling the Karbonn Sparkle V for £129.99, with free delivery. What's more, a Black Friday deal will see the price drop to just £99.99 in a couple of days.
However, the original Moto G from last year, with a higher-res screen, more internal storage, and a bigger battery, can be had for £127.98. And this year's slightly updated Moto G goes for £139.95 at the same retailer. So the Karbonn Sparkle V just isn't as good of a buy as many would have expected.
Back in April, Xiaomi had big plans for 2014 in terms of expanding its reach internationally. The company then announced that it would enter ten new markets by the end of the year. These were supposed to be India, Brazil, Russia, Mexico, Malaysia, the Philippines, Indonesia, Thailand, Vietnam, and Turkey.
While it has entered some of those countries already, Xiaomi won't be able to arrive in all of them this year. And it doesn't even want to anymore.
In a change of strategy, Xiaomi will focus on India and Indonesia in 2014, two markets which it did enter this year. Xiaomi VP Hugo Barra said his company now wants to expand slowly, only entering a new market after it's brought all of its products to the previous one, and so on. So hopefully we'll see the Mi 4 (pictured above) officially on sale in more places soon.
Scaling back its international expansion is apparently the smart thing to do. So the next country in which Xiaomi will sell its wares will be Brazil, but its arrival there will only happen in the first half of 2015. After that, it will finally make it to Thailand, Russia, Mexico, and Turkey, though for these markets we don't even get a rough timeline.
A report posted by Taiwan's Industrial and Commercial Times states that the iPhone 5c production will likely stop in the middle next year.
The company did not cite any specific reason for the withdraw of the model, but dwindling interest seems like a likely explanation. In September the 4.7-inch iPhone 6 was introduced, along with the iPhone 6 Plus phablet and stores still offer the 5s model for as little as $99 in certain deals. So saving just $100 on the plastic iPhone 5c is not a viable option for many.
The 5C was unveiled last year as a low-cost alternative to the very popular iPhone 5s and it is basically a plastic-dressed iPhone 5.
Statistics show that during the last quarter of 2013, the device was doing quite alright, even outselling Samsung premium devices on certain carrier contracts, like AT&T and Sprint. Sales of the 5c however failed to meet initial expectations and have slowly been dwindling ever since. It seems that more and more users are looking towards the premium iPhone 5s if they need a lower-cost/more compact iOS phone now.
Even though the iPhone 5c was expected to be geared towards budget users, with its regular retail price set at about $550 was never actually set to be a budget smartphone. It never stood out as a "cheap" phone and was quite out of reach to developing markets.
Without seeing a detailed report of Apple`s sales, which is unlikely, given that they only put out total numbers, it is really hard to accurately determine how successful the Apple iPhone 5c actually was.
One thing is for sure though, the enormous demand for this year's iPhone 6 and 6 Plus models and the availability of the 5s in retail will make sure no one misses the iPhone 5c.
Just a few weeks after admitting that it did not price the device correctly, Amazon has slashed the price of the unlocked version of 32GB Fire Phone to $199.
The company is still including one year of free Amazon Prime (worth $99), a service that allows you to get unlimited, free shipping upgrades on various purchases without a minimum-order balance, stream unlimited music, movies, and TV shows from the company’s library, as well as access to one free Kindle book to borrow each month.
Originally unveiled back in June this year, the smartphone was initially priced at $199 with a two-year AT&T contract or $649 unlocked. A few months later, the price was dropped to 99 cents with a two-year contract, or $449 unlocked.
The Fire Phone runs on Fire OS, a heavily modified version of Android with no Google services. It packs in a Snapdragon 800 chipset with a 2.2 GHz quad-core CPU and a 4.7-inch 720p LCD display, face-tracking IR cameras, 13MP camera at the back, 2.1 MP camera at the front, 2GB RAM, and a 2,400 mAh battery.
Photos and specifications of the unannounced HTC Desire 620 have popped up courtesy of Bulgarian blogger Nixanbal. The phone is going to be the latest mid-range addition to the company's line-up and packs a 5" IPS display of 720p resolution and is reported to have slightly larger dimensions than the One (M8).
Reportedly, the HTC Desire 620 is powered by a Snapdragon 410 chipset with a 1.2GHz quad-core Cortex-A53 CPU and Adreno 306 GPU as well as 1GB of RAM. At the back, there's an 8MP camera with LED flash and 1080p video recording, while at the front there's a 5MP snapper.
The Desire 620 runs Android 4.4.4 KitKat, but will probably be updated to Lollipop. The back cover of the Desire 620 is removable and reveals the 2,100mAh battery as well as the microSIM and microSD card slots. Internal storage is 8GB.
HTC Desire 620 live photos
The phone is expected to make its official debut in Europe in January next year for an approximate price of €255 (BGN 500).
Today Microsoft announced the arrival of the Lumia 535 to the Indian market. For its $150 price (INR 9,200) you get a 5" IPS LCD display a Snapdragon 200 CPU, 1 GB of RAM, as well as two 5 MP cameras, which as a whole is really good bang for the buck.
The device is powered by Windows Phone 8.1 and comes preloaded with Jabong, Flipkart, Paytm and Box TV apps, each of them bundled with an exclusive deal. Jabong offers a total of INR 6,000 off on their online purchases over a 3 months period, while Flipkart and Box Tv are respectively giving device owners INR 1,500 worth of eBooks and a 2 month free Box TV subscription.
Other goodies include 500 MB of free mobile data traffic for Vodafone subscribers, not yet using an internet package, as well as a total of INR 600 extra charge value from Paytm over a period of 4 moths.
The Dual SIM version of the device will hit the market this week with a wide array of color choices: bright green, bright orange, white, dark grey, cyan and black.