Hasta La Gadget!

This week we’re seeing no lack of Sony on the mobile front, with a relatively massive component leaking from what its sources say is a plant creating a 6.44-inch phablet for this Summer season. This machine, if proven real, would be a real competitor for not just the Samsung Galaxy Note, but the LG Intuition as well, complete with 1080p or higher resolution, extremely thin bezel coverage around the display, and a teeny-tiny Sony logo up top. Of course when you see a photo like this isn’t not exactly drowning in details, but what’s obvious is obvious – Sony appears to be getting into the giant smartphone business.

This device would also look to be taking on the 6.1-inch beast known as the Huawei Ascend Mate, a machine we got to see for ourselves at CES 2013. This component photo you’re seeing above comes from the form known as Digi-Wo and also makes it appear as though Sony is going the Motorola DROID RAZR M route with a “near-borderless display”. With such a device the user is meant to feel like they’re holding one massive touchscreen rather than a machine that just so happens to have a display in and on it.

Sony also revealed their new Xperia Tablet Z in the past 24 hours, this device appearing very much to be coming in with many of the same design cues. Have a peek at the rather sharp corners and you’ll see what it’s all about for Sony’s mobile hardware for 2013; no cutting down for this manufacturer! Does it look like they’re on-point to you?

Meanwhile we’re expecting the Sony mobile team to be bringing the heat to Mobile World Congress with a variety of offerings, even if this rather sharp looking component is not included amongst them. Have a peek in the timeline below to get an idea of what Sony’s been showing off in the past few weeks and see if you can get a handle on what’ll be appearing in Barcelona. Follow us soon and very soon in our massive MWC 2013 portal!

[via Engadget]

Sony smartphone display photo leak tips Galaxy Note competitor is written by Chris Burns & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Samsung may have had big screens on its mind at CES, but the company also previewed what might be the display the Galaxy S IV (aka Galaxy S4) is blessed with, together with the flexible AMOLED we’d really like it to have. Buried on the company’s stand was a display of curved AMOLED concepts under Samsung’s YOUM brand, AnandTech reports, with the panels curving around the edges and sides of the mock-up devices. More imminent, however, is a 4.99-inch 1080p Full HD screen running at a luscious 440ppi, which is likely to find its way into Samsung’s next Android flagship.

Launching in Q1 2013, the panel apparently brings not only a bump in resolution over Samsung’s previous AMOLEDs – the Galaxy S III, for instance, has a 4.8-inch 720p screen – but a cut in power consumption. The company claims the newer panels use 25-percent less juice than before, thanks to a switch-up in materials, while a low-power mode cuts the battery drain by almost half.

It’s YOUM technology we’d really like to see show up in the wild, however. Samsung’s mock-ups weren’t flexible in the sense of being bendable by the user, but instead wrapped the panel around the edges of the device; since AMOLEDs can selectively turn on sections of the display while leaving other parts shut off, that could mean the side of your phone might perpetually show a status ticker – with new message alerts, battery and signal indicators, IM previews, music playlist details, or other information – while consuming minimal power.

That’s an idea Nokia has flirted with in its Gem concept phone, though there the touchscreen was altogether more comprehensive, envisaged as wrapping around the whole device. Meanwhile, Samsung itself has dabbled in dual-displays, with the Continuum of late 2010 having a pair of screens. Since Samsung didn’t have flexible panels available at the time, however, it put both displays on the front of the handset.

Exactly when we can expect to see YOUM displays in shipping devices is unclear, however. Samsung’s original plan was to begin volume-production of the technology in 2012, but according to sources within the company opted to delay that roadmap and focus instead on regular AMOLED panels, which were still in high demand thanks to strong sellers like the Galaxy S III.

Samsung demos curved phone concepts (plus what’s likely the Galaxy S4 display) is written by Chris Davies & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

We got the opportunity to take a peek at the ViewSonic VSD240 24-inch Smart Display, what’s essentially an oversized tablet on a stand working with an NVIDIA processor inside. This machine works with a full touch display attached to an NVIDIA Tegra 3 quad-core processor with 4-PLUS-1 technology. You’ll be working with HDMI via MHL, full-sized USB, and Bluetooth connectivity as well.

This beast is made for someone wishing for the future right this minute, bringing you Android 4.1 Jelly Bean on a display that’ll allow you to watch your videos at a tap. While we’re not sure the uses of this machine are numerous enough for us to want to get such a massive machine with a stand built-in for the desktop running Android, the prospect of an all-touch monitor future does seem encouragingly cool.

The best thing about this monitor from our perspective may be the fact that you’re able to work with the NVIDIA Tegra Zone collection of games. NVIDIA works closely with a variety of developers to make games that work especially well with their processors, and having seen the power of the NVIDIA Tegra 3 over these past 12 months working with high-powered games galore, we’re rather pumped up indeed.

Have a peek at our hands-on video above and photos above and below to see a bit more close-up look at this machine and get pumped up as it hits the market very, very soon. You’ll be able to pick this machine up for MSRP $675 USD and it’ll be in its final form then – what we’re seeing here may be changed just a bit, but it’s essentially complete. Have a peek at our CES portal for all the CES 2013 action you can handle as well!

ViewSonic VSD240 24-inch Smart Display Hands-on is written by Chris Burns & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

This week we’ve gotten the opportunity to have a talk with Sriram K Peruvemba, Chief Marketing Officer of Eink, showing today what’s now the world’s thinnest watch. This is the CST-01, a Kickstarter project at the moment, coming from the folks at CST (aka Central Standard Timing) and Eink itself, a partnership that’ll be delivering the watch to users this year. Have a peek at our talk with Peruvemba in video form here at Showstoppers during CES 2013.

What we’re seeing here is a watch that takes the best features of a regular watch, that being low power, readability, and an overall pleasing experience and made it as thin as its ever been. This watch is more than just rugged, too, able to be punched directly in the face (so to speak) without having its usability altered at all. The watch itself is actually only 0.80mm thin – miraculous, really.

The watch is charged through a base station that’ll be coming with the device when users receive it in the mail (or in stores in the future) and you’ll be able to choose from two different time displays, 24 or 12 hour formats. The whole weight of the device is 12 grams – that’s less than 5 pennies, imagine that! From what we’ve heard from Peruvemba right here live and in-action at Showstoppers, this machine is going to be a real fashion hit (as well as a tech hit for nerds of all kinds). See it soon!

The watch is in the process of being funded by a Kickstarter where the first 500 users will be able to own it for $99 (if you fund it, of course). After that you’ll be paying for the watch for a total of $129 USD. The watches we’re seeing here are right off the assembly line, prototypes right out of the factory, literally. Check the photos above and below and see it all in your hands soon!

Eink CST-01 world’s thinnest watch hands-on is written by Chris Burns & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

The majority of Sharp’s area on the CES show floor is taken up by its 2013 consumer AQUOS range, but hidden in dark corners are tech demos, concept panels, and ridiculously priced displays. One demonstration set is split into two sections, comparing the company’s next-gen Quattron yellow sub-pixel technology with the current generation. Did the color’s look great? For sure. Did it look like the current-gen Quattron had been made intentionally low quality? Definitely. The two-faced demo TV also had the glare-reducing Moth-Eye technology on board, as did a 70-inch UHDTV concept model which a Sharp rep called “just an exercise in engineering.” It wasn’t exactly gasp-inducing, but the anti-reflective tech was certainly working. Finally, hidden behind a curtain and crammed into a small pitch-black room (literally) were a bunch of Sharp’s “Integrated Cognitive Creation” (ICC) 60-inch 4K LCDs. The hook of the ICC PURIOS is that it upscales 1080p to 4K, and will do so for only $25,000 – $30,000 when it launches in the US this summer. We couldn’t really tell the difference between the HD and 4K pictures, but maybe we should’ve brought a microscope for a more thorough analysis.

Filed under: Displays, HD

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