LTE-version of Samsung Galaxy S III headed to Germany

We've got some good news to our Galaxy S III-loving European friends with a thing for 4G networks. According to the (usually very reliable) SammyHub, Samsung is preparing to bring the LTE version of its flagship smartphone to markets outside Korea and US.

The next stop of the Samsung Galaxy S III LTE tour will reportedly be Germany, where the device is said to come in October.

The European LTE-enabled Galaxy S III unit will take after their Korean cousins, keeping the Exynos 4 chipsets. As you might know Samsung opted for the Snapdragon S4 chipsets in the US version of the smartphone.

According to the source, the expected retail price of the LTE-packing Samsung Galaxy S III is going to be around 749. That's quite a premium to pay, considering that the regular version is currently retailing for about 499.

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The jury reached a verdict in Apple vs. Samsung case

The tech's biggest court trial has ended with a verdict in Apple's favor. After a relatively short deliberation, the jury decided rather overwhelmingly that Samsung infringed Apple's intellectual property with multiple devices. The Korean company will therefore have to pay $ 1.05 billion in damages to Apple.

Furthermore, regarding Samsung's own countersuit against Apple, the jury has found that Apple has not infringed upon the Korean giant's patents. Samsung will therefore receive nothing from Apple for its claims.

Both companies have issued statements after the verdict.

Heres what Samsung had to say.

Today's verdict should not be viewed as a win for Apple, but as a loss for the American consumer. It will lead to fewer choices, less innovation, and potentially higher prices. It is unfortunate that patent law can be manipulated to give one company a monopoly over rectangles with rounded corners, or technology that is being improved every day by Samsung and other companies. Consumers have the right to choices, and they know what they are buying when they purchase Samsung products. This is not the final word in this case or in battles being waged in courts and tribunals around the world, some of which have already rejected many of Apple's claims. Samsung will continue to innovate and offer choices for the consumer.

And here is Apple's own statement, which followed right after Samsung's.

We are grateful to the jury for their service and for investing the time to listen to our story and we were thrilled to be able to finally tell it. The mountain of evidence presented during the trail showed that Samsungs copying went far deeper than even we knew. The lawsuits between Apple and Samsung were about much more than patents or money. They were about values. At Apple, we value originality and innovation and pour our lives into making the best products on earth. We make these products to delight our customers, not for our competitors to flagrantly copy. We applaud the court for finding Samsungs behavior willful and for sending a loud and clear message that stealing isnt right.

While the $1.05 billion which the jury awarded in Apple's favor is far from the $2.5 billion the Cupertino based company asked for, it is nevertheless a major win for the company. The verdict's significance will likely influence the future fate of quite a few legal tussles involving Apple. It is also likely to impact the design of future smartphones in a major fashion.

Of course, the whole affair is far from over. Following next is an injunction hearing, which is scheduled to take place on September 20th. It will determine the fate of many Samsung smartphones currently on sale, which the jury found as infringing on Apple's patents. As always, we'll keep a close look on the matter and update you accordingly.

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Motorola RAZR MAXX review: Power ranger

Introduction

Motorola achieved the unthinkable with the RAZR MAXX. A 9mm body, which is slim even by today's modern standards, fits a battery that dwarfs all others. With the CDMA version our all-time battery backup champion, it's now time to see how the GSM holds its juice and Ice Cream Sandwich.

Motorola RAZR MAXX official photos

Steamrolled to the staggering 7.1mm, the Motorola RAZR XT910 still managed to pack in a 1780mAh battery. Nothing short of impressive, but the RAZR MAXX almost doubles the battery capacity to 3,300 mAh and it's still only 9mm thin. For comparison's sake, an HTC One X has an 1800mAh battery, a Samsung Galaxy S III goes up to 2100mAh and even the LG Optimus 4X HD only manages 2150mAh. And those phones have four hungry CPU cores to feed.

The Motorola RAZR MAXX is more than just a big battery glued to a screen though. While its specs are no longer flagship-worthy specs, there's still plenty of oomph in the 1.2GHz dual-core CPU, the 8MP camera shoots 1080p footage and the 4.3 qHD Super AMOLED display sounds pretty sweet.

Here's a list of the key specs on the RAZR MAXX along with a few things we didn't like.

Key features

• Massive 3,300mAh battery in 9mm splash resistant body, Kevlar back
• Quad-band GSM and quad-band 3G with HSDPA and HSUPA
• 4.3" 16M-color capacitive SuperAMOLED touchscreen of qHD resolution (960 x 540 pixels, 256ppi), scratch-resistant Gorilla glass
• Dual-core 1.2GHz ARM Cortex-A9 processor, PowerVR SGX540 GPU, TI OMAP 4430 chipset; 1GB of RAM
• Android OS 4.0.4 Ice Cream Sandwich with customized UI
• 8 MP autofocus camera with LED flash; face detection, geotagging; 1.3MP front-mounted secondary camera
• 1080p video recording @ 30fps
• Wi-Fi b/g/n; Wi-Fi hotspot functionality; DLNA
• GPS with A-GPS; Digital compass
• 16GB of storage; microSD slot
• Accelerometer and proximity sensor
• Standard 3.5 mm audio jack
• microUSB port (charging) and stereo Bluetooth v4.0 with LE and A2DP
• standard microHDMI port; Web Top compatible (docks sold separately)
• Smart dial, voice dialing
• Office document editor; MOTOPRINT app to print Office docs
• Active noise cancellation with a dedicated secondary mic
• DivX/XviD/H.264 video support

Main disadvantages

• Bigger than other phones with the same screen size
• Screen uses PenTile matrix (offset by high ppi); a little dim too
• No FM radio
• No dedicated shutter key
• Non-user-replaceable battery

If you like accessories that extend the phone's capabilities, you'll appreciate the Motorola RAZR MAXX. It supports Moto's webtop functionality through a selection of docks that enable PC-like features. There's even one that turns the phone into a full-fledged 14" Android-running netbook ala Asus Padfone (full-size keyboard, Firefox browser, and such).

The RAZR MAXX is also a bit of a tough guy - the screen has the traditional Gorilla Glass protection, while the back is made of Kevlar. Not to menation that the phone is splash-resistant too.

Motorola RAZR MAXX live photos

Impressively built and carrying an extra fuel tank, the RAZR MAXX is ready to hit our test track. And for once we're more interested in how long it lasts than how fast it goes.

HTC 'Proto' images leak, looks like the Desire V

The Verge has uncovered pictures of an upcoming HTC phone, known for now as the HTC 'Proto'. It is said that this will be the successor to the HTC One V in the international markets, and has a 4-inch, WVGA display, 5 megapixel camera and a dual-core 1GHz Snapdragon processor in a 9.62mm thick body. It also comes with Beats Audio, as is evident from the logo on the back.

This phone looks identical to the Desire V, a dual-SIM phone sold in Asian markets. The Proto could just be a single SIM variant of the Desire V with slightly better hardware and meant for the international market.

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LG Singapore confirms ICS for Optimus 2X, Black, 3D, LTE, Prada

The last few weeks must have been really confusing for the LG Optimus owners around the globe. The company's 2011 lineup was first promised ICS updates but then those were delayed, denied, faked and for a brief moment it appeared that the saga will only have a happy ending for the 2X. Today, however LG Singapore stepped in and confirmed that things aren't as bad as they might have appeared.

According to its Facebook post, ICS will land on the Optimus 2X, Optimus Black, Optimus 3D, Prada and Optimus LTE "in due time". This is the first time we hear about ICS for the Prada, Optimus 3D and LTE. What's even better, the Optimus Black, which was officially denied an update twice already is apparently going to make the cut. If those really come out, it will be time to pop some champagne.

And even if you don't live in Singapore, this should still be good news to you. Once the ROM is done, it would b really easy for LG to bring it to other markets. Unfortunately LG Global refuses to make an official statement so we guess youll never know for sure, until you actually get an update notification.

Thanks to Simon Frady for the tip!

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T-Mobile allegedly cancels the Galaxy Note in the US

Many were surprised when T-Mobile decided to release the Galaxy Note in the US last month, almost a year after the phone was launched internationally and seven months after it was launched by AT&T.

But what caused the most confusion was T-Mobile releasing the Galaxy Note when the launch of its successor was only a month away.

Well, it seems the strangeness of the situation has dawned upon someone at T-Mobile, which is why they are now canceling the Galaxy Note in the US. The phone initially vanished from the T-Mobile website and third party retailers and now, according to an industry source who talked to Android Police, T-Mobile is discontinuing the Galaxy Note. The EOL (End of Life) date is said to be around November 1, but that could happen sooner depending upon T-Mobile's inventory.

This also leads us to believe that T-Mobile might be one of the first US carriers to get the upcoming Galaxy Note II, otherwise they wouldn't have been in such a hurry to discontinue the existing model. Nothing is official yet, however, so we'll just have to wait and see how it plays out.

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Xiaomi sold 200,000 Mi-One S phones in less than 30 minutes

A week ago, Chinese Android phone maker Xiaomi announced the Mi-Two - the first phone to have a Snapdragon S4 Pro chipset with a quad-core Krait processor and Adreno 320 GPU. At the same event, Xiaomi announced the Mi-One S, an updated version of its original smartphone that sold 3.5 million units.

The S4 Pro chipset stole the spotlight, but the Mi-One S phone turned out to be a star of its own. Check this out - here's the tweet announcing that Mi-One S sales are live, it's time stamped 7:18PM.

At 8:06PM, less than an hour later comes this tweet:

Xiaomi manufactures its phones in batches and releases them on its site as soon as they are ready. The first batch of 200,000 phones went in less than half an hour. That's not the end of it either - there are 1.1 million more Mi-One S phones pre-ordered.

In case you're wondering what's the big deal with the Mi-One S, it's nearly identical to the original phone but it's dual-core Snapdragon S3 chipset had its CPU overclocked to 1.7GHz. The best feature is its price though - RMB 1,499 ($235, 190).

Note that Xiaomi phones are only sold in mainland China, though the company is interested in bringing them to other markets in the future.

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Qualcomm and LG collaborate on quad-core Krait smartphone

Qualcomm has announced that its latest Snapdragon S4 Pro platform is finally going to debut on a global smartphone. Built by LG the new Android handset features a quad-core Krait CPU, the latest Adreno 320 GPU and LTE connectivity.

Qualcomm says that the device will arrive this Fall and will feature S4 Pro-exclusive features such as seamless toggling between 3G, 4G and LTE networks designed to ensure that calls from the LTE-enabled phone do not drop if users enter an area with a different network.

The smartphone, which remains unnamed for now is already in production with anticipated commercial availability in Korea in September and global rollout to follow.

There were no further details provided, but Anandtech managed to get a confirmation that the handset will feature the APQ8064 and MDM9615 chips.

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European HTC One S receives OTA update to ICS 4.0.4

We received a few reports that the European variant of the Krait-packing HTC One S is getting an over the air update. The new firmware brings Android Ice Cream Sandwich 4.0.4 and the latest Sense version 4.1 to the HTC mid-range smartphone.

As you may remember the bigger, quad-core, brother of the One S, the One X, got the same update about two weeks ago.

Sense 4.1 is a big improvement in terms of speed - there's no longer lag when using a live wallpaper, most of the app drawer 3D effects have been removed to speed things up even further and it's using a new kernel, which is faster all round. Sense 4.1 is also supposed to be less taxing on the battery life.

Don't forget to stop by the comments section if you've already received the OTA update on your European One S.

Thanks, Gunar for sending this in!

Acer announces ICS-powered Liquid Gallant and Gallant Duo

Acer has just announced its IFA lineup 10 days before the expo kicks off. It seems Acer has no intention to hold a press-conference like the others, but we will be able to find and see the new phones on its booth starting on August 31.

The two new handsets are Liquid Gallant and Liquid Gallant Duo. Both devices are identical, but for the fact that the Duo model offers dual-SIM (with dual-standby) support.

The Acer Gallant smartphones feature 4.3-inch qHD LCD displays and are based on the low-cost MediaTek MT6575 platform with a single-core 1GHz ARM Cortex-A9 processor, 1GB RAM and PowerVR SGX531 GPU.

The rest of the specs include a 5MP snapper with LED flash, 4GB internal storage expandable via a microSD slot, Wi-Fi, GPS, Bluetooth 3.0 and 3G with HSPA support. Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich is ticking inside both phones probably with some minor Acer customizations.

The new Acer smartphones will be available in Ceramic White and Gentle Black and are expected to launch in September. There is no info on the pricing just yet, but chances are their price tags will be easy to swallow.

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More than half of WP phones worldwide are Nokias

Nokia has bet the house on Windows Phone and the numbers show that the Finnish company dominates the field when it comes to Microsoft's mobile OS. The stats were posted by the analysts over at Localytics and are based on app usage statistics from the Windows Phone Market place. Yet, Stephen Elop should probably hold off on popping open a bottle of champagne.

Worldwide Nokia holds over half of the market share of Windows Phone 7 handsets. They crossed the 50% mark in May and have continued their ever upwards trend since then.

Nokia's Q1 and Q2 reports, however, puts things in perspective - 2.2 million Lumias were sold in the first quarter and 4 million in the second. It didnt take all that much to conquer the Windows Phone market.

Still, Nokia's push has helped Windows Phone grow 312% in the first half of this year alone. For their effort, Nokia took a $750 million check from Microsoft.

In the US - a market that Nokia has been desperately hoping to recapture - things arent quite as rosy. The first Lumias hit US shores in January this year, so the company got a slow start. It climbed into second place in May but is still 4 percentage points behind the leaders, HTC.

The good news is Nokia does hold a third of the market in the US and WP share there has grown 273% since the beginning of the year.

Of course, all those numbers will soon become irrelevant - since no current WP7 devices won't see Windows Phone 8 (just 7.8), the new mobile OS from Microsoft will have to start from scratch.

It does fix a lot of issues with WP7 by adding support for more varied hardware and a great deal of exciting software features. And if Nokia leads the WP8 assault with a PureView-powered WP8 phone, things might start to look up for the ailing giant. A Windows 8 tablet won't hurt either, but that's just hearsay for now.

Nokia is feeling confident in the next-generation Lumia phones, that will come on September 5.

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Leaked specs could be showing a revamped Nexus

SamMobile.com have unearthed some specs of a peculiar Samsung device that has a model number I9260. The device is similar to the Samsung Galaxy Nexus, offering a 4.65" SuperAMOLED display but raises the bar with two Cortex-A9 cores clocked at 1.5 GHz (compared to 1.2GHz on the Galaxy Nexus), an 8 MP camera on the back and 1.9 MP one on the front. The smartphone reportedly comes with 16 GB of on-board storage and... wait for it... a microSD card slot.

The HSPA Galaxy Nexus carries the model number I9250 so if rumored I9260 makes it to the market it could be a slightly updated version of the Google purebred by Samsung.

Still, you would do well to take this information with a pinch of salt as this could just be a Samsung device that will come with TouchWiz and not a part of the Nexus family. Also it strikes us as odd that the device in question features a microSD card, which is unlike every Nexus device to date. And we wonder about the dual-core processor - the next Nexus device should follow the Nexus 7 slate and offer at least a Tegra 3 quad-core chip.

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Preview of Sony Xperia J comes before the official announcement

Info on the Sony Xperia J has leaked before, but now the smartphone followed in the footsteps of the Xperia T (Mint) and Xperia XT (Hayabusa) and got a preview before its official announcement, which should happen at IFA (starting at the end of this month).

The Sony Xperia J borrows design cues from the T and TX, but is a low end device. The screen is a 4" FWVGA LCD, but has narrow viewing angles and isn't very bright, according to Mobile-review's early impressions.

Sony Xperia J is an entry level Android ICS phone

The phone is powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon MSM7227A chipset (Cortex-A5, Adreno 200, 512MB RAM), the same chipset we saw on the Samsung Galaxy S Duos and other phones (the Xperia miro and tipo use the 7225A version, which has a lower CPU clock speed).

The chipset reportedly offers good enough performance for ICS and the 1700mAh battery is enough for a day of heavy usage but can easily go two days if you don't push it too much.

In the end, the Sony Xperia J seems to offer a very attractive package for its price of 150-160, with good build quality, great display for the class and good reception and audio quality.

If you can read Russian (or you're okay with Google Translate), you can read the Xperia J preview for more details by following the source link.

Source (in Russian)

Xperia 2011 smartphones get an update, it's still ICS

Sony will push a new update for the Xperia 2011 smartphones in the upcoming days. It will keep the Android version at 4.0.4 but will bring some "bug fixes, performance tweaks and other improvements".

In case youve missed the news, the entire Xperia 2011 lineup - Xperia arc, Xperia arc S, Xperia neo, Xperia neo V, Xperia mini, Xperia pro, Xperia active and Xperia ray - is already upgraded to Android 4.0.4 ICS.

The phones will get the new firmware update over-the-air, but those who are still running on Gingerbread will need to use PC Companion or Mac Bridge for the process.

Thanks, Andrew, for the tip!

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Model numbers and pricing of Samsung's WP8 phones surface

As the latest rumor has it Samsungs upcoming Windows Phone 8-based smartphones will be the I8370 codenamed Macro and the I8750 codenamed Odyssey. We already knew the code names from a previous leak.

The Samsung I8370 will be the cheaper device, sporting a 4.0-inch Super AMOLED WVGA screen, a dual-core 1.5GHz Krait processor, a 5 MP rear and a 1.9MP front cameras. The 8GB internal storage will be expandable via a microSD slot.

The Samsung I8570 specs sheet is basically identical to the US Galaxy S III, featuring the same 4.8-inch Super AMOLED HD screen and a 1.5GHz dual-core Krait. An 8MP rear and a 1.9MP front cameras will cater for your photography needs and there will be two options for the internal storage - 16 or 32 GB. Further expansion will be possibel thanks to the microSD slot.

Both Omnia phones should be released in Q4 this year with the I8370 price being somewhere between 350 and 450 while the I8570 should go for something between 500 and 600.

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Samsung Galaxy S Duos S7562 preview : First look

Introduction

The Samsung Duos line has been slowly working up the ranks to finally cross paths with the Galaxy S line. It's obviously not the kind of collision to create a big bang but we're still pretty excited about the exchange of DNA.

Honestly, if it takes nothing less than a Samsung Galaxy S III to light your candle, there's little to see here. Dual-SIM phones are in a niche of their own and usually keep a safe distance from flagships, old and new. And no, the Galaxy S Duos hasn't crossed any lines but dares to do things a little differently.

The Samsung Galaxy S Duos official picture

The Galaxy S Duos could easily pass for a Galaxy S III mini. It too runs the revamped version of TouchWiz dubbed Nature UX. It has two fully-functioning SIM slots, a 1GHz single-core processor and 512 MB of RAM. For a, hopefully, reasonable price you will also get a decent 4"WVGA screen and a 5MP still camera. Here's what else the Galaxy S Duos offers.

Samsung Galaxy S Duos S7560 at a glance

• General:Dual-SIM (Dual Stand-by) GSM 850/900/1800/1900 MHz, UMTS 900/2100 MHz, HSDPA 7.2 Mbps, HSUPA 5.76
• Form factor: Touchscreen bar
• Dimensions: 121.5 x 63.1 x 10.5 mm, 120 g
• Display: 4.0" 16M-color WVGA (480 x 800 pixels, ~233 ppi) TFT capacitive touchscreen
• Chipset: 1 GHz single-core Cortex-A5 processor, Adreno 200 GPU, 512MB RAM
• OS: Android 4.0.4 (Ice Cream Sandwich)
• Memory: 4 GB of inbuilt storage, microSD card slot (up to 32 GB)
• Camera: 5 megapixel camera with geotagging; VGA video recording at 30fps
• Connectivity: Wi-Fi b/g/n, Wi-Fi hotspot, stereo Bluetooth 3.0, standard microUSB port, GPS receiver with A-GPS, 3.5mm audio jack, stereo FM radio with RDS
• Misc:Nature UX version of TouchWiz, built-in accelerometer, multi-touch input, proximity sensor, Swype text input, 1500mAh battery

Good looks and Ice-cream Sandwich are major points in favor of the Galaxy S Duos. It is clearly better than the Ace Duos in every way possible and will certainly cost a lot more. It would be a huge surprise for a dual-SIM smartphone to outsell a typical midrange droid and the Galaxy S Duos won't even be trying. But it's might be able to change the users' perception of dual-SIM phones and probably spur new demand.

The Samsung Galaxy S Duos at HQ

Frequent travelers and people looking to get the best out of multiple carrier plans are not after the ultimate in processing power or eye-popping screen resolution and the Galaxy S Duos is OK with that. It's offering reasonable equipment and good looks, on top of being able to handle two SIM cards.

That's not a bad start for a phone that wants to do well in the midrange but we always like to have a closer look. Next stop is hardware and you're more than welcome to join us.

LG Optimus Black ICS update confirmed by the retail box stamp

LGs PR is not having the best of streaks recently. First Optimus 2X and Black were supposed to get ICS updates. Then they were apparently left out of the fun according to LG Canada. Later on, the LG Optimus 2X ICS was confirmed again, or at least in Korea.

Even though the mess grows bigger and more confusing, LG Global still has nothing to say on the matter.

LG Optimus Black retail box

Thankfully, the latest retail boxes of LG Optimus Black are talking. They come with "Android 4.0 ICS upgradable" stickers. There is no info where exactly you can find the pictured boxes (though they are labeled in English, which leaves South Korea out of the question) or which retailer was offering them. There is a chance these units were released months before LG decided not to update the Optimus Black, or it is some retailers attempt to clear its dusty Optimus Black stock.

Whatever turns to be the case, the boxes seem legitimate and if LG fails to push the ICS update, the Koreans should probably expect an angry crowd to drag them to court.

Thank you, Banerjee, for the tip!

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Lenovo announces LePhone K860 quad-core Android smartphone

We reported back in June about the Lenovo LePhone K860 when it was spotted for the first time on a Japanese mobile blog. The phone has now been made official by Lenovo, although there is no pricing or availability info to go with it.

On paper, the K860 comes across as a rather formidable device. It has a massive 5-inch HD display, quad-core Exynos 4412 processor, same as the one under the international Galaxy S III, 1GB RAM, 8 megapixel camera with 100 shot burst mode and 1080p video recording and Android 4.0.4. The K860 will be powered by a 2,250mAh battery.

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