Hasta La Gadget!

AT&T is targeting a November 2 launch date for Nokia’s new Windows Phone 8 flagship, sources suggest, with the Lumia 920 said to be currently in testing at the carrier. Announced on Wednesday, though with no more specific release timescale than “later in the year,” the Lumia 920 is likely to support LTE on AT&T’s 4G network – Nokia confirmed that there would be LTE and HSPA+ versions of the smartphone – though the goal release date could still slip.

That’s because the phone is currently going through sign-off testing in AT&T labs, according to multiple sources talking to The Verge, potentially complicated by the state of the software. Microsoft has not yet finalized Windows Phone 8, though the company is tipped to be close to that point, and expected to release the OS to manufacturing (RTM) next week.

If that process is delayed – or, indeed, if AT&T comes across any issues during its testing process – the November 2 release might prove unfeasible. European carrier sources have already been whispering about a mid- to late-November release of the handset outside of the US.

What may prove the tipping point, however, is pricing, and that’s something nobody in the know is discussing right now. Nokia and AT&T undercut smartphone rivals in the US with the Lumia 900, by aggressively putting it out at $99.99 with a new agreement, rather than the more traditional $199.99; a similar approach with the Lumia 920 could well make the relatively unknown Windows Phone 8 platform more appealing to consumers in-store.

There’s more on the Lumia 920 in our initial hands-on and our more extended exploration of the Nokia’s new features.

AT&T Nokia Lumia 920 due November 2 squeak insiders is written by Chris Davies & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

For the most part we’re sure that many aren’t too concerned about every single component that goes into their iPhone, after all its usually the exterior design of the device and hardware specs such as processor speed, RAM and camera megapixels that help sell the phone, wouldn’t you agree? Either way for those interested about the innards of their iPhone device, it featured a noise suppression chip that was introduced as a separate component in the iPhone 4, and an integrated one on the A5 chip in the iPhone 4S. This chip was built by a company called Audience and according to recent reports, it looks like Apple might be passing on Audience’s chip for the next-gen iPhone.

According to the company’s CEO, Peter Santos, “Audience now believes that it is unlikely that the OEM will enable Audience’s processor IP in its next generation mobile phone. Audience is not aware of any intended changes by this OEM to its use of Audience’s processors or processor IP in prior generations of the OEM’s mobile phones.” This has led to some speculating that Apple could have built their own chip instead. Will it handle as well as Audience’s? We guess we will have to wait for the folks at iFixit to tear down the next-gen iPhone to see if these rumors pan out.

[Image credit – iFixit]

By Ubergizmo. Related articles: iPhone 5 Mockup Shown Off By iGearUnlimited, iPhone 5 releases on September 21st, available for pre-order on the 14th?,

At first glance, one might say that the $349.99 Spinnaker Bluetooth Speaker System resemble that of a shark’s fin, but upon closer inspection, you would realize that this is actually a Bluetooth speaker system with a mean design. Sleek and sexy, the Spinnaker Bluetooth Speaker System boasts of a 10W tweeter, and a 10W 2-3/4″ midrange speaker in addition to a 25W 4″ downward-firing subwoofer.

When all three combine their “powers” and work together, you can be sure that your ears will be blown away, especially when you pair it up with your notebook. Not only that, since we are more or less living the wireless lifestyle these days, it makes perfect sense for the Spinnaker Speaker System to come with Bluetooth connectivity, playing nice with Bluetooth enabled devices. Just in case some of your devices do not have the versatility of Bluetooth, you can always rely on the auxiliary input port to get the job done.

[ Spinnaker Bluetooth Speaker System copyright by Coolest Gadgets ]

For the second time, we’re seeing specs leak out from what would no doubt be HTC’s flagship phone, the One X+, but this time there’s a lot more detail. An anonymous XDA developer called @Football4PDA, who has shown reliable form in the past by outing the HTC Accord Windows Phone, has tweeted the impressive specs for the possible HTC One X successor. He claims that the phone will be about 134 x 70 x 9.3 mm in size, weight in at 129 grams and pack the new Tegra 3+ AP37 1.6GHz quad-core / 1.7GHz single-core processor with 1GB of RAM and a 32GB ROM. The tipster also said it’ll be skinned with HTC Sense 4.5 on top of Android 4.1 Jelly Bean, while still sporting the rather anemic One X 1800mAH battery. Naturally, a tweet out of the blue accompanied by no other proof shouldn’t be taken as gospel, but it does reinforce another recent leak regarding the high-end device. Either way, we’ll probably find out at HTC’s big event on September 19th.

Filed under: Cellphones, Mobile

Were HTC One X+ specs just leaked anonymously by an XDA developer’s tweet? originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 07 Sep 2012 08:16:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Amazon will only offer advertising-supported Kindle Fire tablets, injecting “special offers” into the standby screen of its Android slates, and giving no option to pay more to remove the promotions. The “special offers” concept was launched for e-paper Kindles some time back, subsidizing the upfront cost of the ereader in return for showing adverts on the homescreen (though not during actual ebook display); now, that same concept has been included in the new range of Kindle Fire and Kindle Fire HD tablets.

However, whereas Amazon charges $20 more to opt out of the advertising from the e-paper Kindles, including the new Paperwhite model, no such option is available for the Kindle Fire tablets. Amazon has already undercut Google’s Nexus 7 with the cheapest Kindle Fire, bringing it in at $159.

According to Amazon, potential offers for the Kindle Fire to display include a $5 credit for the MP3 Store and $5 for “select titles” in Amazon’s Instant Video Store. Third-party brands involved include AT&T, Discover, and Intel – one such promo is a $10 Amazon gift card for those who use a Discover card to buy an Amazon digital product – and they may also show up on advertising screensavers.

The Kindle has always been considered something of a loss-leader for Amazon, the Kindle Fire particularly, with the retailer using the hardware to encourage content sales of ebooks, video, music, and apps. It appears the assurance of that long-tail revenue stream isn’t quite enough to satisfy Amazon with the second-gen Kindle Fire line-up, however.

More on the Kindle Fire in our full hands-on with the 7-inch and 8.9-inch versions. Check out our wrap-up for all the news from Amazon this week.

Update: Looks like this won’t always be the case; however. An Amazon support team member told one customer that “options for unsubscribing [from] special offer [sic] will be announced soon,” Engadget reports.

Update 2: Bad news – Amazon PR says there’s actually no plan to release a non-Special Offers version of any Kindle Fire model, despite what a (presumably misinformed) customer services rep might claim.

Amazon forces “Special Offers” ads on all Kindle Fire tablets [Update 2] is written by Chris Davies & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.