Hasta La Gadget!

LG G2 owners may have to wait a while to get the Android 4.4 KitKat software that their Nexus 5-toting counterparts already enjoy. A spokesperson for the company’s Canadian branch informs MobileSyrup that the G2 should get its KitKat upgrade late in the first quarter of 2014 — in other words, March. While that will disappoint early adopters, LG does note that every local carrier will receive the update at about the same time. Whether or not Americans will see the new OS any sooner is another matter. We’ve asked the company about its US upgrade schedule, and we’ll let you know if it can provide some details.

Filed under: Cellphones, Mobile, LG

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SlashGear

Source: MobileSyrup

Samsung has yet to make an official announcement about the followup to its Galaxy S Duos. But, if the company’s online store in India is any indication, it won’t be too long before the second-gen dual-SIM-toting handset becomes available. According to the product page, Samsung’s Galaxy S Duos 2 features a 4-inch, 800 x 480 screen, a “fast and powerful” 1.2GHz processor with 768MB RAM, 4GB of internal storage (expandable up to 64GB) and a 1,500mAh battery. The listing also notes that the Duos 2 — said to be running Android 4.2 — will be sold for 10,999 Indian rupees, which comes out to a little over 175 bucks in the US.

Filed under: Cellphones, Mobile, Samsung

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Via: Sammy Hub, Phone Arena

Source: Samsung India

Watch out if someone sends a flood of text messages to your Nexus phone — they may be trying to break in or otherwise cause havoc. IT administrator Bogdan Alecu has discovered an Android bug that triggers exploitable behavior in the Galaxy Nexus, Nexus 4 and Nexus 5 whenever they’re hit by a large volume of Class 0 SMS messages, or texts that aren’t automatically stored on the phone. The denial of service attack usually forces the handset to reboot, but it can also disable the network connection (if temporarily) or crash the messaging app. Non-Nexus hardware appears to be safe, although Alecu notes that he hasn’t had a chance to test a wide variety of gadgets. Regardless of the problem’s scale, affected users will have to be cautious for a while; Google tells PCWorld that it’s looking into the exploit, but there’s no word on just when we can expect a patch.

Update: There’s already a firewall app in Google Play that protects against the exploit. Thanks, Chipsy4!

Filed under: Cellphones, Mobile, Google

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PCWorld

Source: DefCamp, Google Play

Jolla’s self-titled and first smartphone launched in partnership with Finnish carrier DNA this week, with a few hundred handsets finding their way to early pre-orderers. Today, a couple of familiar faces from the company stopped off in London to let us play with the final hardware and get to grips with Jolla’s Sailfish OS, which is based somewhat on Nokia’s old MeeGo platform. If you caught our tour of the Jolla prototype earlier this year then you’ve got a good idea of what the handset looks like. In fact, the only differences we can see aesthetically are slightly smaller bezels above and below the screen, and that the rear camera has moved from right flank to center stage. Internally, the core specs are: A 1.4GHz dual-core Snapdragon 400 (MSM8930), 1GB of RAM, 16GB of storage space (expandable), a 4.5-inch, 960×540 (qHD) IPS LCD display, an 8-megapixel rear camera and 2-megapixel shooter on the front. We only had a few hours to probe Jolla’s first device, but head past the break for our initial impressions.%Gallery-slideshow124244%

Filed under: Cellphones, Software, Mobile

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Gionee isn’t exactly a name that you’d come across in the Western market every day, but this time, the Chinese company has big global ambitions. The latest proof is its Elife E7, a 5.5-inch 1080p Android phone that boasts two titles: it’s the first known phone featuring the 2.5GHz flavor of Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 800 chip (MSM8974AC); plus it has the most sensitive 16-megapixel camera, courtesy of its Largan M8 lens (though the aperture is still unknown) and 1/2.3-inch sensor with large 1.34µm pixels. Compared to the competition, Gionee believes this particular OmniVision sensor has the best balance between resolution and pixel size, and the phone maker even went as far as claiming this already beats the 1.12µm, 16-megapixel counterpart on the yet-to-be-announced Galaxy S 5. Of course, we’ll believe it when we get to properly test the E7’s camera ourselves.

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Filed under: Cellphones, Mobile

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Gionee (Chinese)