Hasta La Gadget!

Your smartphone and / or tablet is just begging for an update. From time to time, these mobile devices are blessed with maintenance refreshes, bug fixes, custom ROMs and anything in between, and so many of them are floating around that it’s easy for a sizable chunk to get lost in the mix. To make sure they don’t escape without notice, we’ve gathered every possible update, hack, and other miscellaneous tomfoolery we could find during the last week and crammed them into one convenient roundup. If you find something available for your device, please give us a shout at tips at engadget dawt com and let us know. Enjoy!

Filed under: Cellphones, Tablets, Software, Mobile

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Spring may have sprung two weeks ago, but believe us, it’s still winter somewhere. (Ed note: I’m typing this from underneath an NVIDIA Snuggie — Dana.) In fact, Darren’s had a reason to test out some touchscreen-friendly gloves, even in his southerly state of North Carolina. Up north, our own Jon Fingas has been playing with the Lumia 620 on Canada’s Telus networks. No complaints from him about the 40-degree temps, though.

Filed under: Misc, Nokia

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It’s been a long time coming, but Verizon Wireless customers should soon have another high-end Windows Phone 8 device to lust after. After the handset was spotted both in both the FCC’s and Verizon’s systems, noted leaker @evleaks has come through yet again with a new image of the upcoming Nokia Lumia 928 (formerly known as the “Laser”).

There’s not a whole lot to be gleaned from the image save for the fact that the device seems to have done away with the rounded sides and flat top and bottom edges of its immediate predecessor the Lumia 920. As it turns out, one of the neatest potential features noted in early reports is nowhere to be found here — according to The Verge, the Lumia 928 will sport a more traditional polycarbonate body instead of the aluminum chassis that was originally slated for the device way back when. Most of the 928′s internals (think the 1.5GHz dual-core Qualcomm MSM8960 processor, 1GB of RAM, and 32GB of internal storage) are expected to remain the same as its cousin the 920, but Nokia may run with an OLED panel this time around rather than the IPS LCD as seen in the 920.

In short, it’s hard not to think of the Lumia 928 as what the Lumia 920 should’ve been when it launched.

According to recent figures from Kantar Worldpanel, Windows Phone has managed to pull away from BlackBerry in terms of mobile OS market share, and devices like the 928 should help Microsoft’s mobile efforts pick up a little more steam in the coming weeks. Meanwhile, Nokia has been working to make its Windows Phones the most feature-rich out there with exclusivity agreements with companies like Zinio, so it’s clear that some developers are starting to see the benefits of embracing the prospect of developing for the Windows Phone platform.

That said, WP’s third place position isn’t completely safe at this point — BlackBerry posted some promising quarterly financials and if recent leaks are to be believed, a low-cost BlackBerry 10 device with a QWERTY keyboard could see the light very soon. Z10 shipments point to reasonably healthy demand, and an affordable device launched in key markets could be just what the doctor ordered for BlackBerry.

We’ve heard about the Nokia Lumia 928 off-and-on this year, reporting early in March that the handset had surfaced in Verizon’s inventory log, having been placed nearly two months earlier than that on January 17. A couple months later, it was tipped that the Lumia 928 would have an aluminum body and some other googies. Now an image of the handset has been posted by @evleaks.

The image isn’t accompanied by much data, except that it is black, destined for Verizon, and will be available this year. According to information that surfaced in March, the Lumia 928, which is an upgraded Lumia 920, will have an aluminum body, a Xenon flash for the rear camera, and its new name. It’ll support 4G LTE, and will be available to Verizon subscribers.

According to that source, the handset was set to launch in April some time, meaning there’s a chance we could see it roll out this month. There’s said to be a “slightly curved back,” with the thinnest part measuring it at a svelte 10.2mm, making it smaller than the Lumia 920. It is also said that the device will have a more squared shape akin to the Lumia 720.

You can see in the image above that the handset is, indeed, rather square shaped, and you can also see the rounded edges on the rear shot. The image shows Verizon branding on the upper-right side of the device’s face. Aside from an 8-megapixel rear camera, there’s not much else currently known about the device, but while we wait for it to be unveiled, you can check out our Lumia 920 review to get an idea of what to expect.

[via @evleaks]

Nokia Lumia 928 for Verizon image surfaces is written by Brittany Hillen & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Nokia has vehemently denied that they have a Windows 8 powered tablet in the pipeline, although developers do seem to work against Nokia’s favor as they on the other hand, keep on leaking it, so we as consumers remain up in arms. Is Nokia going to churn out a Windows 8 tablet for the masses, or are they not going to do so? The latest development on a potential Windows 8 tablet by Nokia sees a developer write that he was one person who helped design a proposal for an exclusive Nokia Tablet app.

Considering how the Finnish smartphone company’s Lumia handsets are full of exclusive apps which seem to work in the Windows Phone 8 ecosystem, it would not be a stretch of the imagination to see Nokia work on something similar, albeit in the tablet format. The same developer said, “Helped design and concept the Adidas micoach app proposal for the Nokia Tablet. The Tablet App intended to be an extension of coaches allowing them to build teams and monitor individual trainings for each athlete. The way that works is to connect the app to existing technology on Adidas products to read the workout data registered by cell chip implants. The app also tapped into the community allowing users to challenge each other by sending notifications to friends and their social feeds” What do you think?

By Ubergizmo. Related articles: Best Buy Begins Taking $249 T-Mobile HTC One Pre-Orders, Purported Verizon Nokia Lumia 928 Image Leaked,