LG Optimus G Pro review: Proceed to checkout

Introduction

LG's first 1080p droid is also the company's first smartphone to cross the 5" mark, but a massive screen isn't the only thing that warrants the Pro tag. The LG Optimus G Pro boasts a new chipset too, and a significant software update over the Optimus G.

LG Optimus G Pro official images

The phablet duties are taken seriously - the screen offers 20% more real estate than a full-HD 5 incher, without dropping below 400ppi. The Optimus G Pro also improves on multi-tasking with the updated Snapdragon 600 chipset and revamped QSlide multi-tasking that works a lot better than the version we saw on the Optimus G.

The LG Optimus G Pro is quite the entertainer too - it can be the device that ties together your whole multimedia setup at home. It has multiple ways to stream multimedia (both wired and wireless) and thanks to Dual Screen Dual Play, the phablet's display is independent of the TV display.

And it's not done when you press play either, with its IR emitter and QRemote app the G Pro can control your TV and stereo, but also a projector and even an air con.

Key features

• Quad-band GSM/GPRS/EDGE support
• 3G with HSPA; LTE
• 5.5" 16M-color 1080p True HD IPS Plus FullHD capacitive touchscreen; works with gloves
• Android OS v4.1.2 Jelly Bean; LG Optimus UI
• Quad-core 1.5 GHz Krait 300 CPU, 2 GB RAM, Adreno 320 GPU, Qualcomm Snapdragon 600 chipset
• 13 MP autofocus camera with LED flash, geotagging, Intelligent Auto, image stabilization, Time catch shot, smart shutter and VR panoramas
• 1080p video recording @ 30fps with continuous autofocus and stereo sound; HDR mode, Dual recording
• 2.1 MP front-facing camera, 1080p video recording
• 32GB of built-in storage; microSD card slot
• MHL-enabled microUSB port, USB host support
• Independent content output over MHL (Dual Screen Dual Play), Miracast
• Bluetooth v4.0
• NFC
• Wi-Fi a/ac/b/g/n, Wi-Fi Direct and DLNA
• GPS with A-GPS, GLONASS
• Standard 3.5 mm audio jack
• Stereo FM radio with RDS
• Voice dialing
• Multi-tasking with mini-apps and optional transparency (QSlide)
• Accelerometer and proximity sensor
• Active noise cancellation with dedicated mic
• User-replaceable 3,140mAh Li-Po battery
• Wireless charging support (Qi)
• IR emitter for remote control of home appliances

Main disadvantages

• Reflective screen doesn't do too well outdoors
• No Android 4.2 at launch
• 1080p video quality is unimpressive, HDR video is poor
• Over-sensitive screen prone to accidental taps

LG has put a 13MP main camera on the Optimus G Pro, same as the regular G, and bumped up the front-facer to 2.1MP / 1080p. This may seem as a minor upgrade, but it's made cooler by the Dual recording feature - it uses both cameras to capture both the photographer and the subject. The still camera grew a couple of new features too, Intelligent Auto and VR Panoramas (which are basically Photo Spheres).

The phablet has a 3,140mAh battery, about what you'd expect from a device this size. But it also comes with a spare battery with its own charging dock, which also serves as a stand for the handset (no need to swap batteries to have them both charged, but no simultaneous charging either). That's great news anyway for heavy users who run their battery flat in under a day. The G Pro supports wireless charging out of the box too.

LG Optimus G Pro at our office

The LG Optimus G Pro has the specs to appeal to both business users and tech enthusiasts, but those two groups are quite picky about the hardware - it just has to be top notch. So, can the flagship LG phablet deliver? Head over to the next page where we begin to find out.

Microsoft temporarily suspends Windows Phone 7.8 updates

Microsoft has stopped Windows Phone 7.8 updates for the aged Windows Phone smartphones like the Nokia Lumia 800, Lumia 900 and Lumia 610. The company is working to fix a software glitch in the release, but it's unclear how long the suspension will last.

The folks at CNET claim to have received a confirmation for the halt of the update from Nokia as well. According to a representative of the Finnish compnay, the glitch seems to be a minor issue in the Windows Phone 7.8 software and the roll out will resume shortly.

The latest Windows Phone 7.8 update comes with a refreshed home-screen and resizable live tiles. Unfortunately, this seems to be the last major update for the Windows Phone 7.x smartphones as Microsoft has already confirmed that these smartphones will not be getting to taste Windows Phone 8.x.

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HTC One might get delayed due to components shortage

Industrial sources suggest HTC is having a bad time with the HTC One flagship manufacturing. The latest reports claim HTC is capable of producing just 20% of the stock it's supposed to.

The massive cut in production is because of the shortage of two components - the voice coil motor and the camera module. Because of the camera module shortages HTC might ship only 800,000 to 1,200,000 One smartphones in the next couple of months.

Even though HTC promises to launch the phone on March 15, lots of markets might not get it before May (at the earliest). HTC has already declared the USA market as a major target, so if the rumors come true it's likely that other markets might not get the smartphone for months.

HTC already lost a huge part of its market share to other manufacturers and the latest financial results proved it's time for a change. It will be a real pity if component supplies are what prevent the HTC One from turning into the miracle HTC was hoping for.

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Samsung, Apple to use wireless charging on their phones?

Wireless charging tech has been around for a few years now, but 2013 might be the year it finally goes mainstream. Industry sources say that Samsung and Apple are both working on wireless charging for their 2013 flagships smartphones.

Samsung is reportedly looking at Qi from the Wireless Power Consortium its currently the most popular choice with members including Nokia, LG, HTC, Sony and Motorola. Its worth noting that Samsung is currently a member of a competing standard run by the Alliance for Wireless Power (along with Qualcomm, TI, Broadcom and others).

Whichever standard it goes for, Samsung may not integrate the tech right into the Galaxy S IV, but put it in an optional back cover instead (like the Nokia Lumia 820). There are currently third-party Qi charging kits for the Galaxy S III as well, but not an official Samsung-made accessory.

Apple is also looking into enabling wireless charging on its products, but the company will reportedly go for a homegrown solution, which wont be out of character for the Cupertino giant. According to insiders Apple is also investigating an implementation og the tech as an add-on rather than build it into the iPhone 5S.

In less than a week well know if Samsung has put wireless charging tech in the Galaxy S IV and what kind. Apples announcement wont be for some time, though.

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DROID RAZR and DROID RAZR MAXX get Jelly Bean 4.1.2

Finally, Motorola has updated its DROID RAZR and RAZR MAXX smartphones to Jelly Bean. Mind you, the update brings the devices to Android 4.1.2, and not 4.2, but it's still a push in the right direction.

Weirdly, or rather not, the update does as much shredding as adding new features. The usual Moto software such as the My Music, My Gallery as well as Weather and World Clock widgets are now history. So is MOTOCAST altogether, for that matter, as are the My Gallery and My Music apps, which are now replaced with the standard Google Gallery app and Google Play Music, respectively.

Nevertheless, there are some goodies that Motorola has added (apart from Project Butter, Google Now, richer notifications and voice search). Google Maps requires less time to get a GPS signal lock, and the cameras of the DROIDs boast improved image quality and better contrast and detail. The Panorama Mode should be more intuitive to use as well.

The firmware update should hit Verizon users starting today and bring their software version to 98.72.16.XT912.Verizon.en.US. Happy updating!

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Apple wins patent infringement lawsuit against Samsung in UK

The Apple vs. Samsung legal kerfuffle continues, with the latest round going in favor of Apple. According to a UK court, Apple was not found guilty of infringing upon three of Samsung's patents.

Samsung had claimed in court that Apple was infringing upon three of its patents related to processing and transmitting data over 3G mobile networks, however, the court found all three claims invalid.

While Apple declined to comment on the court's verdict, a Samsung spokeswoman said that "Upon a thorough review of the judgment we will decide whether to file an appeal".

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Sony Xperia ZL goes on sale in Oz, priced at $699

Sony Xperia ZL, which is the non-water-resistant brother of the popular Sony Xperia Z, is now available in Australia. The smartphone has been listed by MobiCity, an online retailer and the device costs you $699 for the unlocked version.

Sony Xperia ZL comes with a 5" Full HD scratch-resistant TFT display with 1920 x 1080p resolution. The smartphone is powered by a 1.5 GHz quad-core Qualcomm processor along with 2 GB of RAM and has 16 GB internal memory.

The device also features a 13-megapixel rear camera with LED flash, 2-megapixel secondary camera, Android 4.1 Jelly Bean and runs on 2,370mAh battery.

Unfortunately, Sony Xperia ZL is currently available only in Black color option and there is no confirmation on the availability of the other shades. Meanwhile, we were able to get our hands on the Xperia ZL at the recently concluded MWC. Check out our first impressions of the smartphone.

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HTC sales continue to plummet in February

It seems that poor HTC just can't catch a break. The company released the first 1080p smartphone in the US with the DROID DNA, followed by the first global 1080p smartphone - the HTC Butterfly and yet its sales have failed to pick up.

Previously the company identified its poor marketing efforts as the cause for the unconvincing performance and promised to do something about it. The first attempt it made was to hold a dedicated event for its new One flagship, instead of introducing it at the MWC floor, so the smartphone has more time in the spotlight.

We'll see if this strategy works and exactly how much of an impact the One will make, but the fact is last March HTC stock was trading at over NT$600, and now it sits at just NT$255.50, a 57% decline.

The trend will probably continue now as HTC confirmed that its sales for February 2013 drop 44% compared to the same period of last year. In the past month HTC brought in NT$11 billion ($384 million), compared to over NT$20 billion ($685 million) for the February 2012.

Here's hoping that HTC manages to right the ship, as it's a shame to see a company that otherwise makes such quality products suffer because of poor marketing decisions.

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Samsung Galaxy Note III rumored to sport a 5.9-inch display

The Samsung Galaxy Note II is just six months old now, but the rumors of the next generation Galaxy Note phablet have already started to make its rounds. The potential successor of the sensational Galaxy Note II is said to feature a 5.9" display, according to a report from Korean Times.

Samsung Galaxy Note III is also rumored to come out with an AMOLED display and the plablet is very likely to use the latest octa-core processors from the company, but take it all with a pinch of salt, since the information is not from an official source.

Meanwhile, Samsung will be unveiling its next-generation Galaxy S smartphone on March 14. Watch this space to see how things unfold.

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Screenshots confirm Smart scroll and Smart pause for Galaxy S IV

Earlier this year Samsung trademarked Eye Scroll and Eye Pause and a couple of days ago the eye scrolling rumor reappeared. Today we can add several screenshots to the evidence that the Samsung Galaxy S IV will have both of these features.

Update: It turns out that the tipster sent SamMobile the wrong info - the screenshots are from the Android 4.2.1 update for the Samsung Galaxy S III. The Galaxy S IV will have those features too, but those screenshots are not from it.

These screenshots have 1080p resolution (note: we downscaled the screenshots to make them easier to view), which also confirms the screen resolution rumors, and are our first look at Nature UX 2.0. Too bad its just the settings menu, which look unchanged.

Anyway, Smart scroll joins the list of Smart screen features just like the rest it will use the front-facing camera to track your gaze. It will start scrolling automatically when it detects that youre looking at the screen.

Smart scroll and Smart pause options

By the looks of it, it wont track your eyes but your whole head that is it will scroll vertically while youre looking at the screen and tilting your heard vertically will adjust the scroll speed. There are options for acceleration and visual feedback.

The second new option, Smart pause, is simpler but very useful it will pause video playback when you look away from the device. This will do for watching videos what Smart stay did for reading.

The Samsung Galaxy S IV is due for official announcement on March 14 and well be there live.

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Android in Feb 2013: Jelly Bean grows, Gingerbread dominates

The platform distribution numbers for Android in February are out and they bring little surprises. The trends from the previous few months continue, with Jelly Bean gaining ground on ICS and the now long outdated Gingerbread.

The Gingerbread userbase has dropped from 45.6% to 44.2%, but this is still enough to make it the most popular Android version globally. And given that Gingerbread is more than two years old now, this hardly bodes too well for Android OEMs and their updates.

The ICS has seen a drop of 0.4 percent points, but it still holds nearly twice bigger market share than the two Jelly Bean releases combined.

The good news is that the Jelly Bean user base is up by 3 percent points over the previous month and the latest version of Android is starting to quickly gain traction now. Still, it remains to be seen if Jelly Bean will become the most widely-spread Android release before its Key Lime Pie successor comes in the summer.

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Nokia celebrates 2 million Lumia devices sold in China

According to a report by WinP.cn, what you see below is the Nokia team celebrating two million Nokia Lumia activations in China alone.

More impressively, it only took the company from December 5 through March 5 to achieve this. What's even more encouraging is the fact that there were severe Lumia 920 supply shortages at the end of last year, which undoubtedly slowed the sales.

Nevertheless, Nokia has had a small internal celebration led by the company's VP and head of Nokia China Gustavo Eichelmann.

The Chinese versions of the Nokia Lumia 520 and 720 are expected to hit shelves in the coming weeks helping the company pave the way to a decent first quarter earnings report.

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Next Apple iPhone might feature a smart stylus, rumor suggests

As the rumor has it Apple might be working on a smart stylus for its next-gen iPhone 6. It should work the similar way as the Note and Note II S-Pens but support even more functionality.

You should definitely take this one with a healthy pinch of salt as it's coming from The Sun, which is not exactly known for its tech industry coverage. Anyway the tabloid's sources had it that the next iPhone will have a smart stylus, just like the S-Pen on the Note smartphones.

The rumor also has it that the next flagship by Apple will offer some sort of motion gesture password protection and mini barcode scanner.

What lends some credence to those rumors is the fact that Apple recently filed three patents for stylus technology. The Cupertino giant might simply be preparing for another legal round (with Samsung probably), but it might be getting ready to try and attack the Koreans' Note lineup instead. We guess only time will tell.

Thanks Ras Santa Rasta for the tip!

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Purported official image of Samsung Galaxy S IV shows up

Samsung Galaxy S IV rumors pop up by the day and the last one comes from the relentless leak mill evleaks. What looks to be a Galaxy S IV presentation slide, containing an image of the smartphone popped on the famous Twitter account .

Although evleaks has proven its reliability numerous times in the past we remain dubious on this particular image's authenticity. The Galaxy S IV photo looks like a quick mockup rather than an actual product image.

Besides Samsung did quite well in hiding the face of the Galaxy S III until its official unveiling last year. We wouldn't be at all surprised if the image you see here is just a placeholder, and not the real deal.

As for the S IV's specs on the slide, they coincide with what the AnTuTu benchmark test showed yesterday.

There's little left until March 14, when the Galaxy S IV will shine on Times Square in New York, so we'll know all about it soon enough. You can check out the phone's teaser video released yesterday to make the wait easier to bear.

Update: It turns out the image comes from UK online retailer Expansys and not evleaks. In fact the tweet has since been removed, suggesting that it's very unlikely that this is the real thing. Move along, nothing to see here.

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Samsung Galaxy Xcover 2 goes on sale, priced at '329

Samsung Galaxy Xcover 2, a recent addition to the extensive collection of smartphones from the company is up for grabs. The device has been listed on gigantti.fi, a Finnish retailer, with a price tag of 329 (about $428).

Samsung Galaxy Xcover 2, which is an IP 67-certified smartphone, comes with 4" LCD display, 1 GHz dual-core processor along with 1 GB of RAM, 5-megapixel rear camera with LED flash, VGA front facing camera, 4 GB inbuilt memory with microSD slot and latest connectivity options.

Galaxy Xcover 2 runs on Android 4.1.2 Jelly Bean and is powered by a relatively small 1,700mAH battery. Just in case if you are wondering about the features and the performance of the smartphone, check out our detailed review.

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Sony aiming to become 3rd overall smartphone manufacturer

The current top spots amongst smartphone manufacturers are taken up by Samsung and Apple, who combine for the lion's share of the market, making other manufacturers seem like they're arguing over scraps.

Nevertheless, Sony hopes to take over that elusive 3rd position, which, as of December 31st, was occupied by China-based manufacturer Huawei with its 4.9% markeshare. The rankings, provided by market research company IDC, put Sony at 4.5% for the same period, while ZTE, another emerging smartphone manufacturer from China, is next at 4.3%.

So, it's obvious that the race for 3rd place is neck-and-neck, which means that we should see a significant number of affordable devices from Sony, to rival those released by the Chinese for emerging markets.

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Galaxy S IV specs all but official thanks to an AnTuTu scorecard

The Samsung Galaxy S IV specifications are now all but officially confirmed thanks to a leaked AnTuTu benchmark test that the phone has undergone.

Samsung's upcoming flagship will sport an Exynos 5 Octa 5410 chipset with a CPU running at 1.8GHz, 2GB of RAM and a PowerVR SGX 544MP GPU. Previously the Galaxy S IV was rumored to sport the Exynos 5 Octa 5450 chipset rather than 5410. Still, the four Cortex-A15 cores combined with four Cortex-A7's are sure to be a pretty capable combo.

Additionally, the AnTuTu testing also confirms a 4.99" screen of Full HD resolution, providing a pixel density of 441 ppi. Android 4.2 is what the Galaxy S IV will run on out of box.

Interestingly, the scoresheet confirms that the Exynos Octa chip on the Galaxy S IV supports GSM, WCDMA as well as LTE networks. This refutes the rumor that Samsung will launch the phone in two versions with different chipsets.

Meanwhile another piece of Galaxy S IV gossip comes from Eldar Murtazin, who says that the device is going to be built from plastic. Mind you, he also claimed that the S III is going to sport a 12MP camera, and that he has personally played with it. We all know how facts turned out to be in the end.

Lastly, according to the benchmark's report, the camera of the Galaxy S IV is going to be 13MP, breaking Samsung's habit of using 8MP sensors in its high-end devices (Galaxy S II, Galaxy Note, Galaxy S III and Galaxy Note II).

The Samsung Unpacked event is going to take place in New York on March 14. We're sure it will be quite the show and naturally we'll be covering it live, so stay tuned.

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The first teaser ad for the Samsung Galaxy S IV is out

Samsung is shifting its PR machine in full gear to build up hype over the Samsung Unpacked event planned for March 14. Its no big secret that the company will introduce its Galaxy S IV new flagship there. Even the tag line of the teasers is not coy about it Be ready 4 the next Galaxy.

A week after the official announcement of the date for the Unpacked event, Samsung released this teaser video. The company is promising nothing short of the most amazing product to hit the market since TVs went color.

Young Jeremy Maxwell hasnt been doing a terrific job at keeping the secrets of whats in the box various tipsters have taken a peek and are reporting a 4.99 Super AMOLED screen with FullHD resolution, Exynos 5 Octa chipset with 8-core CPU (4x Cortex-A15, 4x Cortex-A7) and a 13MP / FullHD camera.

There's some speculation that the exec that walks into the room while on the phone is talking on a Galaxy S IV. That doesn't make much sense since the S IV is supposed to be a secret hidden in the box. Plus, all you can see really is something black and rectangular, so not very interesting.

The teaser ad ends with "to be continued..." so we can expect more videos soon.

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