Hasta La Gadget!

All right, so the Fairphone is not all that it is cracked up to be – there is no balance to the Force that needs to be done, although on certain levels, some people might agree that there is a need for the smartphone manufacturing industry to encourage a change that will keep things sustainable in the long run. Apparently, the manufacturing process of smartphones do seem to come with its fair share of environmental and social issues, ranging from their use of conflict minerals all the way to the working conditions at the factory for the workers there. The Fairphone hopes to change that, being an idea from a social enterprise.

What kind of positive vibes does the Fairphone bring with it? Well, for starters, it will make use of conflict-free raw materials during its construction and manufacturing, while the workers who work at the assembly lines will be paid a fair wage, which in turn would reduce exploitation of manpower while raising the standard of living in the community around. Not only that, there is also the effort to set up e-waste recycling programs that will ensure that such consumer electronics devices will be recycled or disposed off properly at the end of their life cycle.

As for the materials used by the Fairphone, it will contain conflict-free tin where its soldering paste is concerned, hailing from conflict-free mines in the South Kivu Province, Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). The tantalum in its capacitors too, have been extracted from coltan sourced from Mai Baridi, Kisengo and Luba, which so happens to be conflict-free mines located in the northern part of the Katanga Province, DRC.

The other hardware specifications include a durable and scratch-resistant 4.3″ touchscreen display, 16GB of internal memory, cameras at the back as well as in front, a quad-core processor, and the Fairphone OS which is based on Android 4.2.2 Jelly Bean. Available in Europe for 310€ each, it remains to be seen whether it will be released worldwide or not.

Product Page
[ Fairphone intends to bring balance to the Force copyright by Coolest Gadgets ]

Blu Products has been releasing a number of new smartphones that run the Android operating system recently. Back in late December 2013, Blu launched its flagship phone called the Life … Continue reading

For those living in South Korea, Hong Kong and Singapore, you would most probably have seen people carry the LG G Flex around already, which so happens to be the first smartphone in the world that was specially designed for it to follow the curve of the human face. Hmmm, this certainly brings back memories of the Nokia handset that Neo used in the Matrix, where it had a curved bottom, no? The Banana Phone, if I am not mistaken. Well, this just goes to prove how fashion recycles trends from before, although the LG G Flex is light years ahead of Nokia’s archaic device in terms of hardware technology. We now have word that LG is preparing to roll out the LG G Flex to over 20 countries in Europe soon.

Among the major European markets where you will find the LG G Flex, they would include the U.K., Germany, France, Italy, Sweden and Austria, among others. This is a surefire way of attracting attention, as the LG G Flex sports a 6” display that relies on Plastic OLED (P-OLED) technology, and it will also make use of the world’s first curved battery. Apart from that, there is another feather in its distinguished crown, that is, this is the first handset that boasts of a self-healing coating on the back cover. This means you need not worry yourself sick too much about minor scratches and nicks happening, as just like Wolverine’s body, it ought to shrug off such scratches without batting an eyelid.

Other hardware specifications of the LG G Flex include a quad-core 2.26GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 (MSM 8974) processor with an Adreno 330 450MHz GPU, a 1280 x 720 resolution 6” curved P-OLED (Real RGB) display, 2GB RAM, 32GB of internal memory, a 13MP shooter at the back with a front-facing 2.1MP camera, a 3,500mAh battery, and Android 4.2.2 Jelly Bean as the mobile operating system of choice. Connectivity options include Bluetooth 4.0 and WiFi (802.11 a/b/g/n/ac) alongside NFC support.

Press Release
[ LG G Flex to arrive in Europe soon copyright by Coolest Gadgets ]

Last week smartphone maker Blu unveiled a pair of new Android-powered smartphones that offered modest features for people needing a new device on a budget without a contract. The smartphones … Continue reading

A Russian company called Yota Devices has been teasing us with a dual screen smartphone for a while. In fact, we spent some hands on time with the device back in January of this year. The company announced in February that the YotaPhone would be coming this year. That was as close as we had […]