Verizon DROIDs go up for cheap for the holidays

Motorola unveiled their new RAZR series a few months back at their On Display event in New York, where US residents were pleasantly surprised by the low on-contract prices for the DROID RAZR HD, RAZR MAXX HD, and RAZR M.

Verizon has slashed prices even further, and has knocked down the cost of each device by $50 a pop. The RAZR MAXX HD can be had for $249.99, the RAZR HD for $149.99, and the midrange RAZR M for $49.99. They're also putting up the DROID Incredible for $49.99 as well, among others.

Really savvy buyers can look to Amazon for even better deals, where the RAZR MAXX HD can be had for $149.99, the Incredible gets slashed down to $9.99, and the RAZR M can be had for just a penny.

Happy Shopping!

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Nokia Lumia 810 review: Back in black

Introduction

With the Nokia Lumia 820 locked up under AT&T exclusivity, the Finnish manufacturer had to resort to rebranding tactics in order to bring its capable mid-range Windows Phone 8 product to other carriers. Such is the case with the Nokia Lumia 810 for T-Mobile. Despite its slightly different design, the Big Magenta exclusive handset does little to hide its common family ties with the Nokia Lumia 820.

Nokia Lumia 810 official photos

Despite the eye-poking similarities between the two smartphones, the Nokia Lumia 810 has added a couple of extra tricks to its repertoire. Contrary to its model number, the T-Mobile offering sports a larger 1800mAh battery compared with the Lumia 820, a higher-res front facing camera, while, amazingly, turning up lighter in the process. Here goes the full list of talents which the Nokia Lumia 810 has on tap.

Key features

• Quad-band GSM/GPRS/EDGE support
• Quad-band 3G with 42 Mbps HSDPA and 5.7 Mbps HSUPA support
• 4.3" 16M-color ClearBlack AMOLED display with WVGA resolution
• 8 megapixel autofocus camera with LED flash, 1080p@30fps video recording
• 720p front-facing camera
• Windows Phone 8 OS
• 1.5GHz dual-core Krait CPU, Adreno 225 GPU, Qualcomm MSM8960 chipset, 1GB of RAM
• Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n, dual-band
• GPS receiver with A-GPS and GLONASS support
• 8GB of inbuilt storage, expandable through the microSD card slot
• Active noise cancellation with a dedicated mic
• Built-in accelerometer, gyroscope and proximity sensor
• Standard 3.5 mm audio jack
• 1800mAh user-replaceable battery
• microUSB port with file transfers
• Bluetooth v3.0 with A2DP and EDR, file transfers
• NFC support
• Digital compass
• Free lifetime voice-guided navigation via Nokia Drive
• Excellent social networks integration
• Xbox Live integration and Xbox management
• Nokia Music music streaming service

Main disadvantages

• App catalog falls short of Android and iOS
• No FM radio
• No system-wide file manager
• No lockscreen shortcuts
• Some might argue that design is a bit dull
• Price on a contract is a bit high

With a removable battery and a microSD card slot on board, the Nokia Lumia 810 one ups even the Lumia 920 flagship. The WVGA ClearBlack AMOLED display is a perfect fit for Windows Phone OS, even though its resolution is not high by today's high-end smartphones. It's also easy on the relatively beefy battery.

As far as limitations go, the Nokia Lumia 810 suffers from the same disadvantages as any Windows Phone 8 handset. They include lack of quality apps, compares to the major competitors' ecosystems and a lack of proper file manager on board (with none in sight). That second one is true for the iOS ecosystem too, so it's a disadvantage only when compared to Android.

Design on the other hand can go either way. Some of us found it pleasantly understated, while other called the 810 dull, compared to the rest of the current Nokia Lumia lineup.

Nokia Lumia 810 live photos

It was roughly a year ago when T-Mobile began offering the Nokia Lumia 710. Eventually, the handset turned out to be quite a successful product for the Big Magenta. We are now going to find out if its successor has what it takes to expand Nokia's share in today's cut-throat market. Naturally, we will kick things off with an unboxing, followed by a design and build quality inspection.

Editorial: You might notice that this review is shorter than usual and doesn't include some of our proprietary tests. The reason is it has been prepared and written far away from our office and test lab. The Nokia Lumia 810 for T-Mobile is a US-only phone and it will not be making rounds on the Old Continent. Still, we think we've captured the essence of the phone in the same precise, informative and detailed way that's become our trademark. Enjoy the good read!

Nokia Lumia 505 is now official, pricing remains unknown

Nokia Mexico has made the Lumia 505 official, after teasing it last week. The exclusive low-end Windows Phone device modeled after the Lumia 510 and is going to launch on Mexico's Telcel network in the upcoming weeks.

Launching in red, pink or black, the Lumia 505 runs on Windows Phone 7.8 and features a 3.7" AMOLED display and a single-core 800MHz CPU with 256MB of RAM. It's not known whether the display is going to utilize Nokia's ClearBlack technology just yet, but it's still a solid feature in a budget phone.

On the back, there's an 8MP camera, albeit sans Carl Zeiss technology. To keep the price down, Nokia hasn't included a front-facing camera and has reduced the amount of user available storage to 4GB. Sadly, it's not user expandable, but Nokia and Microsoft will throw in 7GB of free SkyDrive storage.

The Nokia Lumia 505 weighs 131 grams and measures 118.1 x 61.2 x 11.3 mm. It rocks a 1300mAh battery, which Nokia says will be good for 36 hours of music playback and 7.2 hours of 3G talk time. The maximum standby time is reported at 600 hours.

Pricing and exact availability are still to be announced by Telcel, with the Lumia 505 expected to be launched in the coming weeks.

Source | Via

LG Nexus 4 hits Three UK, costs £29 with a £35/month contract

The Google Nexus 4 is now available for purchase over at Three UK. It will set you back 29 upfront if you agree to sign a two-year contract on "The One Plan" with a 35 monthly fee.

For the duration of the contract you'll get 2,000 national minutes, plus 5,000 more minutes to use within Three's network, along with all you can eat data and 5,000 free texts.

The Nexus 4 will come to you with free delivery and is expected to be at your door as soon as December 17 - that's on Monday.

The Nexus 4 packs a 4.7" HD screen, quad-core Krait processor, 8 MP camera and, naturally, the latest Android software available. You can check out our take on it here.

Thanks, Noel Carson, for the tip!

Source

Apple found to infringe MobileMedia patents in US

Apple lost a weeklong patent infringement case brought by a patent-licensing company MobileMedia Ideas LLC, a company in which Nokia, Sony and MPEG LA own about a 10% stake.

It took the jury just four hours of deliberation to find that the iPhone 5 was in violation of three of the patents held by MobileMedia.

The patents in question, which had been whittled down from 14 initially contested by MobileMedia, are 6070068 "incoming/current call processing", 6253075 "incoming call rejection", and 6427078 "image capture/transfer." The patents were filed between 1994-1998, when these technologies were first introduced, and originally belonged to Sony and Nokia.

CEO Larry Horn claims that MobileMedia will suffer "irreparable injury" if Apple continues to use the patents without paying royalties, which he claims could be "substantial."

U.S. District Judge Sue L. Robinson has yet to schedule a trial date to determine what sort of damages Apple will pay.

Source | Via

Unofficial WP7.8 for first-gen Lumias available on Navifrim

The Windows Phone 7.8 update for first generation WP phones was neglected by Microsoft for a while, but the company committed to an early 2013 release and now builds for the WP7 Lumias have started to appear on Navifirm.

The firmwares are version ****.****.8858.***** and are available for the entire first-gen lineup - that is the Lumia 510, 610, 710, 800 and 900. They can be downloaded and installed using the Navifirm tool.

We should note that these are not official firmware updates, so if you choose to install them you will be doing so at your own risk. With the end of 2012 in sight, you might be better off just waiting for the official update to hit.

If you're not clear on what changes the Windows Phone 7.8 update will bring (Microsoft was mum on this for a long time), you can check out this Lumia 900 that runs on the updated firmware.

Thanks to Sajan for sending this in!

Source

EE UK to bring LTE coverage to 17 new cities by March 2013

Everything Everywhere UK, the carrier merger between Orange UK and T-Mobile UK, will add 17 new markets to its list of 4G-supported ones by March 2013.

UK's only 4G provider for now announced that it will close 2012 with a bang, bringing next-gen network coverage to 18 cities instead of the estimated 16.

The 17 new towns and cities are Bradford, Chelmsford, Coventry, Doncaster, Dudley, Leicester, Luton, Newport, Reading, Rotherham, St Albans, Sunderland, Sutton Coldfield, Walsall, Watford, West Bromwich and Wolverhampton. The extended coverage will allow 4 million new UK residents to get a taste of LTE (as long as they have an LTE-enabled phone, of course).

The rest of the UK carriers are still on 3G but that should change once the auction of 800 MHz and 2600 MHz spectrum is complete, hopefully, next year.

Source | Via

Budget-oriented Samsung I8262D with Jelly Bean leaks

Yet another Samsung leak from China, this time in the form of the dual-SIM GT-I8262D. Specs-wise there's nothing really groundbreaking, the smartphone offering a single-core 1 GHz CPU and WVGA screen.

Alongside the 4.3 inch display, you'll get Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, microSD support, and an 8MP shooter.

Perhaps its greatest feature will be support for Android 4.1 out of box, and given the meager specifications, the I8262D will probably be sold at a very low price point.

Source | Via

Oppo Find 5 camera samples and video ad emerge

The Oppo Find 5 was officially unveiled yesterday and is the most impressive phone to come out of China yet. It packs a 5" screen with full HD resolution and the quad-core Snapdragon S4 Pro chip, in addition to the sleek design.

The camera department is quite impressive, using the latest 13MP Exmor RS sensor from Sony. It boasts HDR support for both videos and stills and 120 fps high-speed video recording. Sounds great indeed and luckily a trio of camera samples are now available for your viewing pleasure below.

Oppo Find 5 camera samples

The samples look great - sharp and with great colors, while noise is pretty low. We can't wait to spend some quality time with the camera and do some more extensive testing.

Additionally, Oppo has released the first video ad for the Find 5 powerhouse. Check it out.

Source | Via

YotaPhone to bring E-Ink and LCD in one smartphone

The upcoming YotaPhone smartphone will feature a rear-facing E-Ink display to compliment the LCD display on the front of the device.

With E-Ink's ability to display notifications and such at very little energy cost, the YotaPhone claims to increase battery performance by as much as 50%.

Both displays will have a 4.3" diagonal and Gorilla Glass protection. The LCD resolution will be 720 x 1280 pixels, while the E-Ink will have a density of 200 dpi.

A dual-core 1.5GHz processor will power the YotaPhone, alongside 2GB of RAM and 32/64GB of storage (no microSD though). It'll all run on a 2,100mAh battery, and there's even LTE connectivity and a 12MP shooter (plus 720p front-facing unit) as well.

Two displays might theoretically increase the overall thickness when compared to a single-screen device, but Yota has managed to keep it less than 10mm thick, with a weight of just 140 grams.

No word yet on pricing or availability, but Yota has confirmed its participation at MWC this coming February, so expect to hear more about the YotaPhone then.

Source 1 | Source 2

Oppo Find 5 with 5" 1080p screen and S4 Pro SoC unveiled

Oppo has just made its latest Android smartphone official and it's one hot-looking device. The Oppo Find 5 is built around a 5" 1080p IPS display, which matches the 441 ppi density of the HTC DROID DNA, and is powered by the Qualcomm S4 Pro monster of a chipset.

Featuring a 1.5GHz quad-core Krait CPU, the Adreno 320 GPU and 2 gigabytes of RAM, the Oppo Find 5 should be blazing fast, while the Android 4.1 Jelly Bean OS and its Project Butter guarantee excellently smooth UI. The internal storage is 16GB, but there's no microSD card slot so expanding it is not an option.

The Oppo Find 5 offers a 13 megapixel primary camera with high-speed 120fps video recording, HDR support and bright F/2.2 lens. There's also a front-facing 1.9 megapixel shooter for video-chats.

Oppo Find 5 official photos

There's quad-band 3G/HSPA and quad-band GSM/GPRS/EDGE support, but there's no LTE radio on board. Local connectivity is covered with Wi-Fi, GPS, as well as Bluetooth and a standard USB port.

Oppo Find 5 official photos

The Oppo Find 5 is powered by a 2500 mAh non-removable battery. The smartphone owes its sleek looks to the steel front frame, which takes 4 hours and 12 manufacturing processes to make, and the 8.8mm slim waistline.

Oppo Find 5 is set to launch in early 2013 across selected markets. Pricing is yet to be confirmed.

BlackBerry L-Series leaks out in live photos, looks familiar

Barely a day after we caught a glimpse of it in a teaser image on RIM's website, the upcoming BlackBerry L-Series smartphone emerged once again. A rather extensive photo session of the device has made the rounds, this time leaving nothing to imagination as far as hardware goes.

The live images of the previously seen, likely BlackBerry 10 flagship reveal what appears to be a well-built handset with a massive touchscreen. Connectivity looks to be well-covered with microHDMI port and NFC antenna present on the device. We also get to have a peak under the back cover of the device, which reveals a removable 1800mAh battery, microSD card slot, and the microSIM compartment.

With the hardware on the photos looking expectedly solid, it is up to the OS to deliver the goods and meet all the high expectations. We will likely find out on January 30, 2013, when BlackBerry 10 is scheduled to go official.

Source | Via

Samsung ATIV S now available in Austria, soon in Sweden

Announced back in the end of August, the Samsung ATIV S was expected to be available to users this month. However, the device was never to be seen anywhere up until now when it popped up on T-Mobile Austria's website.

The carrier currently offers the ATIV S for as low as 49 on a 2-year-contract with a 55.99 plan. It includes 1000 SMS, 4000 minutes and unlimited Internet. Alternatively, you can get the smartphone for 399 with a 16/month plan.

T-Mobile Austria hasn't confirmed it's the first in the world to carry the smartphone, but it has said to derStandard.at that it is the first in Europe.

Rumors are also saying that Sweden's Telia is planning on offering Samsung's Windows Phone 8 flagship within a week, but that hasn't been officially confirmed just yet.

The Samsung ATIV S is built around a 4.8-inch Super AMOLED display of HD resolution and has Gorilla Glass 2 on top for extra protection. Powering the smartphone is a 1.5GHz dual-core Qualcomm Krait processor and 1GB of RAM. At the back, theres an 8MP camera, while a 1.9MP snapper is at the front.

Source, Source (2) | Via

FM radio might come on Windows Phone 8 devices after update

Windows Phone 7.x supported FM radio from day one, but the arrival of Windows Phone 8 axed the support for that feature. As it turned out though, all the currently available WP8 smartphone have the required hardware inside and it's the software that caused this. What's missing is apparently some drivers and the actual FM app.

The latest rumor suggests the FM radio will return with the next major Windows Phone 8 update. The reason for the lack of FM radio support might be that Microsoft run out of time and decided to launch the platform without it. Rumor also has it that the notification center shared a similar fate.

The codenamed Apollo+ update is supposed to bring that notification center and FM radio support, along with drivers for Bluetooth 4.0 and hopefully add VPN support and Wi-Fi always on option.

Source | Via

Samsung Galaxy Note II gets Android 4.1.2 update

The Note II has been selling very well for the Korean tech giant, so it's understandable that Samsung has been hard at work at getting all of the kinks out of the 4.1 Jelly Bean release.

This latest update is being pushed out now to both the international Galaxy Note II and international Galaxy Note II LTE models.

What's included in the JZO54K update are new notification toggles and customizations, smoother browser performance, and the new Ink Effect lockscreen and Group Cast app, among other bug fixes and optimizations.

You can get the latest version either through Samsung's KIES utility, or via OTA software update. Follow our source link to see if the update has gone live in your region.

Source 1 | Source 2

Android 4.1 Jelly Bean for Asus PadFone 2 now available

Asus has just released the Android 4.1.1 Jelly Bean update for the PadFone 2. The device was announced back in October and is available in limited countries around the world, with most major markets still on the waiting list.

The build date is December 4 and as expected, the update brings all the Project Butter smoothness, Google Now assistant, etc. All Asus customizations are still present, of course. You can upgrade only over-the-air for now.

We are happy to see Asus kept its promise for the Jelly Bean and released it on schedule. Let's hope it keeps this policy in the future.

The quad-core Krait-powered PadFone 2 is rather expensive gadget, but is surely one of the best smartphone packages with that PadFone station turning the thing into a full-featured tablet.

You can check out our Padfone 2 hands-on over here.

Source

Sony Xperia E and E Dual will be priced around 160 euro

Sony announced the Xperia E and Xperia E dual entry-level Androids last week but said nothing about their price. It turns out, though, that the press releases that Sony Mobile Germany sent out sheds some light on it.

The single-SIM Xperia E will cost 160, while the dual-SIM version is 10 more. This is around the same price as the Xperia miro right now (Amazon.de, single-SIM only) or a dual-SIM Samsung Galaxy Ace Duos (Amazon.de), both of which have specs comparable to the Xperia E. The current dual-SIM Xperia, the tipo dual, has lower specs and price (Amazon.de)

The Sony Xperia E and E Duos will be coming out in the first quarter of next year. They pack a single-core Cortex-A5, Android 4.1 Jelly Bean, a 3.5" HVGA screen and a 3MP camera with FWVGA video capture.

Source | Via

LG announces 10 million L-Series Android smartphones sold

LG announced that it has sold 10 million of its L-Series smartphones to date. The number includes the entire range from the entry-level LG Optimus L3, through the Optimus L5 and Optimus L7, all the way to the imposing looking Optimus L9.

While LG calls the eight-figure sales number a "modest milestone", it still pats itself on the back for it. The official press release points out the fresh styling of the range, the high quality displays of the handsets , as well as LG's proprietary UX features as the main reason for its commercial success.

LG's L-Series broke cover during MWC 2012. The devices in the range are available in 50 markets worldwide.

Via

Motorola updates Jelly Bean upgrade schedule

Motorola has updated the software update schedule for its Android devices, clarifying approximately when some of these eligible devices will be getting the coveted Android 4.1 Jelly Bean update.

Starting with the US market, the RAZR M update has already started rolling out in November whereas the DROID RAZR HD, DROID RAZR MAXX HD and the ATRIX HD will be getting the update in December, 2012. The ELECTRIFY M will get the update in Q1, 2013.

The PHOTON Q, ELECTRIFY 2, DROID RAZR, DROID RAZR MAXX, DROID 4, DROID BIONIC will be updated to Jelly Bean at an unspecified date.

In Canada, the RAZR HD and ATRIX HD will be updated in Q1, 2013.

In the Europe, Middle East and Africa, the RAZR HD rollout begins in December, RAZR i in Q1, 2013 and the RAZR and RAZR MAXX at an unspecified date.

In Asia Pacific, the RAZR, RAZR M and RAZR HD will be getting the update depending upon the carrier and location.

In Latin America and Mexico, the RAZR, RAZR MAXX, RAZR HD, RAZR i will be getting the update, again, depending upon the carrier and the region.

For more detailed information, click on the source link below.

Source