This week we’ve had our fair share of Android surprises in the world of future LG releases, coming up sharp with the LG G Pad, a device teased last month in a trademark filing and appearing here in a full specifications leak. This device has had its innards dropped by TechBlog, a Greek publication that […]
Samsung is expected to hold an event on the 4th of September to announce their Galaxy Note 3 device and possibly their smart watch as well, and now it looks like Sony’s own event for IFA has been confirmed as well. The company has recently begun to send out invites to their own event which will also be held on the 4th of September, but unfortunately unlike Samsung’s invite, Sony’s invite does not seem to hint at what could be announced. Previously we had heard the rumors that the 4th of September event could be for the Sony Xperia i1, or Honami as it has also been known as.
Sony could also take the opportunity to unveil their “lens cameras” as well, which for those unfamiliar are lenses that can be attached to iOS and Android smartphones to boost their photography abilities. In any case it will be an exciting event and fret not as we will bring you coverage as it unfolds, so be sure to check back with us on the 4th of September for the details! In the meantime which are you guys looking more forward to? Sony’s new smartphone or their possible camera-related announcements?
Sony Confirms 4th September IFA Press Event original content from Ubergizmo. 
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This week more details on the upcoming launch of the Sony Xperia i1, aka Honami, as well as a set of Sony Lens Cameras have appeared, complete with a possible launch date for the lot of them. Coming straight from trusted inside sources speaking with Sony Alpha Rumors is the tip that the smartphone and […]
Archos has had its fair share of devices released in the past, but chances are the brand name would not have been at the top of most people’s shopping lists when it comes to tablets – at least not on mine, but how about you? IFA 2013 is less than a month away, and Archos has revealed that they do have big plans for this year’s IFA 2013 event. In fact, according to a financial release (in PDF format) which was published recently, Archos has every intention of marketing what they say is “a full range” of seven Android smartphones which are tipped to roll out before we bid adieu to 2013.
Other than that, Archos also did mention that they will be investing in high end tablets with some on 3G technology, “with more than five product announcements at IFA 2013″. These tablets will come with a number of themes, including gaming, connected TV and education/early learning. Well, I guess when all is said and done, we just have to sit down and wait to see what the French company has in store for the world. Which device from Archos would you look forward to the most – a smartphone or a tablet? Granted, they have had far better luck with tablets rather than smartphones in my opinion.
Archos Has Big Plans For IFA 2013 With Over 5 Product Announcements original content from Ubergizmo. 
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Samsung has always had a big presence at the annual IFA convention in Berlin. It’s where they’ve unveiled a number of notable devices, including the Galaxy Camera and the Galaxy Note II. This time around, the company is teasing “UNPACKED 2013 Episode 2,” and if their clever “note the date” phrase is any indication, we […]
It’s once again time to get heavy into the world of conjecture for the Samsung Galaxy Note series, this time for the third iteration of the handheld machine that started the series in the first place. What we’re seeing this week is a heavy-handed drop of a release date – September 4th – as well as a rolling-up of specification rumors from the past several weeks. This device may well be the largest (non-tablet) Note in the family yet, and it’ll likely appear right before IFA 2013.
While sources speaking with China Mobile News have suggested the accelerated production on the Samsung Galaxy Note III, a person “close to the matter” speaking with Android Geeks has pinpointed the event in question to September 4th. As in past years the machine has been dropped inside the Berlin-based technology convention IFA, this push for a pre-event reveal would follow instead the Samsung-only event trend of devices like the Samsung Galaxy S 4.
This release will likely be paired with a larger display than in the past, reaching up towards 6-inches instead of the measely 5.5-inch panel working with the Galaxy Note II. While the current-gen machine has an HD Super AMOLED display at 1280 x 720, it’s been suggested that the Galaxy Note III might work with IPS LCD instead, and the size 5.9-inches has popped up more than once.
Inside we’ll likely see specifications rather similar to that of the Samsung Galaxy S 4, as in past iterations. Android 4.2.2 Jelly Bean will almost certainly be onboard with Samsung’s TouchWiz UI over the top, complete with a set of hover-friendly abilities like the Galaxy Note 8.0.
The big difference between the Galaxy S 4 and the Galaxy Note III (besides its size and addition of S Pen technology) may be the processor inside. As the Samsung Galaxy S III worked with a Qualcomm processor inside the USA and an Exynos processor abroad, so too has this situation arisen for the Galaxy S 4. It’s been suggested that, as with the Galaxy Note II, the Exynos processor included in the international edition of the Galaxy S device from this generation will be appearing in the USA release of the newest Note.
It all depends on how willing Samsung is to work with Qualcomm radios inside paired with their own “Octa” processor. We shall see!
Samsung Galaxy Note III release details stack up is written by Chris Burns & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2013, SlashGear. All right reserved.
As the next Samsung press event approaches, device names have been appearing here and there both with and without specifications attached. In this case it’s the inevitable Samsung Galaxy Note III, complete with its code-name SM-N9000 riding in the source code of Samsung Kazakhstan, of all places, along with some other rumored devices. Here we also see the Samsung Galaxy Tab 3 10.1, 8.0, and 7.0, along with the Samsung Galaxy S 4 Zoom – a replacement for the Samsung Galaxy Camera.
The Samsung Galaxy line of smartphone-sized devices has been an apparent success for the brand, bringing on a second round last year (two years ago the original Galaxy Note was introduced), along with two sizes of Galaxy Note tablets. As the Samsung Galaxy Note 8.0 appeared with styling not unlike that of the GALAXY S 4, Samsung all but guaranteed the release of another new Galaxy Note “phablet”.
According to this leak, all we can really tell is that the device exists – or will exist soon. If history tells us anything, it suggests that this machine will be revealed at one of two places. The first and more sensible place would be at the June 20th event Samsung has planned for new Galaxy and ATIV devices. The second place the Galaxy Note III could be revealed is at IFA 2013 – the original Galaxy Note was born there, as was the second, so there’s always a chance that Samsung might stick to tradition.
Samsung has been turning toward a model in which they announce their hero devices at their own, separate events over the past year or so, so sticking with IFA and going it alone (in this already announced event) for the Galaxy Note III are just as likely possibilities as one another.
he Samsung Galaxy Note III has been strongly suggested by SamMobile to work with a 2.3GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 processor, 5.99-inch display with 1080p resolution, and a 13-megapixel camera. Inside we’ll either find Android 4.2.2 or Android 4.3, depending on when the device is released – with Samsung’s TouchWiz over the top, of course. Then it goes without saying that the Note III will work with the newest in Samsung’s S-Pen technology.
VIA: Techtastic
Galaxy Note III appears in Samsung code aside Tab 3, Galaxy Zoom is written by Chris Burns & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.
Is there room in the market still for e-paper ereaders? Kobo says yes, and has the consumer research to prove it and the new model, the Kobo Aura HD, it claims will fit the bill. A survey of 10,000 of the company’s existing users found that 90-percent plan to buy a new, dedicated ereader sometime in the next twelve months, Kobo says; 36-percent apparently have both a tablet and an ereader, and 53-percent use their ereader every day. We caught up with Kobo to take a look.
For that target audience of avid readers, Kobo insists that E Ink remains the way forward for usability. The Aura HD’s panel sees a step up in specifications, however, with a 1440 x 1080 resolution, 6.8-inch Pearl panel, running at 256ppi; it also has front-lighting, as we’ve seen on other recent ereaders from Amazon and B&N, though Kobo claims its system offers the most even illumination. It’s certainly bright and looked consistent across the panel. Inside, there’s WiFi b/g/n though no cellular connectivity, Kobo telling us it still doesn’t believe the hassle of getting 3G/4G hardware certified and the costs of data involved make it worthwhile for its audience.
Kobo is pretty keen to highlight its angular back-panel, though, modeled after a creased sheet of paper. The raised edges give your fingers somewhere to rest, so the theory goes; in practice, it’s certainly not the thinnest way to read an ebook – the iPad mini and Nexus 7 have replaced a standalone ereader for many – but the Aura HD is easy to grip and feels like it could survive a fall from your nightstand. Physical controls are limited to a power button (finished in a contrasting color) and a key for the “ComfortLight” illumination.
Everything else is operated with the touchscreen, which seems reasonably responsive. The Kobo homescreen pulls together your recently read titles – complete with both a percentage of how much is read, and a useful indication of roughly how long it might take you to read the rest, handy if you’re trying to plan ahead for a journey – with recommendations for new books and authors. A tally keeps track of how many books you’ve finished and how long you spent reading them, and you’re prompted to rate completed titles. The Aura HD also supports basic gaming, like chess, with widgets to access your most recent game.
In use, what impresses the most is the clarity of the ereader’s screen. Even at small font levels, there’s no graininess or jagged edges to the text, something Kobo said it achieved not only by virtue of the higher-density display resolution but by going back to first-principles with the fonts and redesigning them pixel-by-pixel to suit the E Ink panel. The screen is also 30-percent larger than other ereaders of a similar scale, and together with the improved readability at small sizes, that means more text on a single page and fewer turns. Fewer turns also adds up to longer battery life, as e-paper displays like the Aura HD’s only use power when they’re changing the content of the display, not maintaining it.
Otherwise, it’s pretty much par for the course for the Aura HD. The onboard 4GB of storage can be expanded by up to 32GB with a microSD card, and there’s a new Freescale i.MX527 processor that, at 1GHz, is apparently 25-percent faster than any rival model out there. We can’t say we noticed a significant uptick in speed, though we also didn’t encounter responsiveness issues.
Kobo has high hopes for the Aura HD, and says there’s still a strong market for ebook-centric devices rather than tablets. In fact, its own ereader sales tripled year-over-year, something the $169.99/€169.99 Aura HD is expected to contribute to. It’s already up for preorder in the US and Europe, and will arrive in US and UK stores come April 25.
Kobo Aura HD ereader hands-on is written by Chris Davies & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.
Samsung may have only just put its S-Series Ultra HD TVs on sale recently, but the company isn’t slowing down, revealing it has new models – big and small – due in September. Presenting at the pre-IFA Global Press Conference, Samsung confirmed that it has larger and smaller versions of its UHD S9000 sets running at 4K resolution for IFA 2013 later this year.
The company wouldn’t be drawn on exactly how large or small the new models would be, only referring to the 85-inch “entry level” S-Series set currently available. That leaves plenty of room for those with smaller rooms to find a model to fit, though whether they’d have sufficient space to make the most of the high resolution remains to be seen.
There’s also the question of content, something which even Samsung concedes that is significantly lacking unless you’re relying on upscaling. Broadcast UHD shows aren’t expected until 2016 at the earliest – Samsung pointed out that the decoding and tuner standards aren’t settled upon yet, which means they can’t yet build them into the TVs with any confidence – while physical content will probably land in 2015.
Streaming or downloading might be the answer, though it’ll demand a fat internet connection. Again, though, there are issues surrounding that, not least the fact that the HEVC codec likely to be used – the successor to the MPEG4 codec currently prevalent – isn’t yet standardized for UHD 3D at 60fps.
In short, “currently there is no television which is compatible with the upcoming UHD standards” Samsung admitted, its own included. However, the firm is relying on its Evolution Kit to fill that gap down the line, a slot-in box that will add an upgraded processor, graphics chip, connectivity and more, bringing older sets up to speed with technology released after they’ve gone on sale.
So far, though, we’ve only seen Evolution Kit plans for the 2012 range, granting them the same specs as the 2013 line-up; it’s unclear how far back Samsung will retroactively be polishing old products. We’ll be at IFA 2013 in September to find out how the new size Ultra HD sets slot into the new range.
Samsung: Bigger and smaller Ultra HD sets incoming at IFA 2013 is written by Chris Davies & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.
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