Hasta La Gadget!

If you’re in the market for a budget smartphone with Nokia’s signature color splash in th near future, you may just be in luck. A leak of a stack of smartphones with the name Nokia Asha 501 has been pushed today with black, white, green, yellow, blue, and red on the docket for 2013. This release is likely to be announced officially inside the week if not early next week, this informed suggestion brought to you by waves of similar leak patterns taking place across this past year.

The Nokia Asha 501 is just the latest in a recent run of budget devices shown by Nokia here in 2013. The Nokia Asha 210 brought a QWERTY hardware smartphone to the market with its own dedicated WhatsApp key. The Nokia 105 introduced at MWC 2013 brought on just about the most simple mobile phone in the history of the world to the market.

UPDATE: Evleaks updates us with the following: “Tomorrow, in India, actually :D”. We’ll be waiting!

Likewise the Nokia 301 was introduced to keep the company’s budget filings at a head. Windows Phone remains the mainstay of Nokia’s push with their Lumia lineup, as well, budget devices continuing to hit the airwaves throughout the end of Winter and the start of Spring – see SlashGear’s review lineup of the Nokia Lumia 620, Nokia Lumia 520, and Nokia Lumia 720, each of them having popped up in the past few months.

It should come as no surprise that Nokia will be continuing to create Asha smartphones as reports from earlier this year made it clear: Asha out-sells Lumia 2 to 1. And it wouldn’t be right for Nokia to keep with the Asha 205 and 206 for very much longer – gotta stay fresh!

[via Evleaks]

Nokia Asha 501 teased in tiny leak of a tiny budget phone is written by Chris Burns & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Following its successful unveiling at the 2013 Mobile World Congress, the Optimus F5 — the first device from LG’s newest Optimus F Series — will make its world debut starting in Europe on April 29. Launching initially in France, LG will roll out the Optimus F5 in South and Central America, Asia and the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) over the next several weeks.

The Optimus F Series is a new family of Android smartphones for consumers who are ready to experience the blazing speeds of 4G LTE without the high costs that normally go with such a device. As a key component of LG’s strategy to make 4G smartphones as ubiquitous as they are fast, the Optimus F5 features LG’s advanced LTE technology and enhanced user experience (UX) features.

As display size and battery life become increasingly important among smartphone consumers, the 1.2GHz Qualcomm Dual-Core Optimus F5 addresses user demands by featuring a 4.3-inch IPS display and a largest-in-class 2,150mAh battery. LG engineers
designed the Optimus F5 to deliver longer battery life without creating a larger battery. And the 4.3-inch IPS display offers clear, lifelike images for a superior viewing experience.

The Optimus F5 includes the latest Android Jelly Bean 4.1.2 operating system and the best of LG’s innovative and exclusive UX features:

• QSlide allows users to open multiple apps at the same time in full screen mode with the ability to change the size, position and transparency of the windows.
• Live Zooming lets users zoom in on videos so they can get a closer, detailed look at any specific area.
• Video Wiz lets users play movie director by giving them the power to edit videos and enhance them with sound and music right on the phone itself.
• QTranslator function instantly translates not only words, but also entire sentences and phrases by simply using the camera to scan the text. QTranslator accepts 44 different languages and can translate them into any one of 64 languages.

Key Specifications:

• OS: Android Jelly Bean 4.1.2
• Processor: Qualcomm 1.2 GHz Dual-Core
• Display: 4.3-inch IPS (256 ppi)
• Battery: 2,150mAh
• Size: 126.04 x 64.46 x 9.30mm
• Memory: 8 GB / 1 GB RAM / microSD (up to 32GB)
• Camera: 5.0 MP AF Front / 1.3 MP Rear

Softbank announced that they will release a simple smart phone “Softbank 204SH” manufactured by SHARP and targeted to seniors. Release date is in May or later.

The 4 inch LCD display shows bigger letters and icons in order for smartphone beginners or senior to use it easily. To prevent incorrect operation, when users touch an icon they want to control, a blue circle will show up on the icon and they will feel a vibration through the tip of their finger. Other functions include an application that starts phone functionality by saying the name of the function that users would like to use (such as “camera”) and one that reads text out loud for people who have a hard time reading the text.

SoftBank will provide service for “204SH” users at a reasonable fixed monthly packet data charge of 2,980 yen.

Size: 64×128×12.0mm
Weight: 130 g
Color: Silver, Pink, and Navy
Platform: Android 4.0

Unlike the entertaining and lively Chatheads the ad recommend we put on our Facebook Home screens, we don’t get to choose floating family members. It’s a dystopian situation when everyone matches our interests and we don’t feel obliged to try …

This afternoon the folks at Yahoo have announced their intent to end services with Yahoo Deals, Yahoo SMS Alerts, Yahoo Kids, and the feature phone versions of Yahoo Mail and Messenger. While the smartphone versions of both Yahoo Messenger and Yahoo Mail will (of course) continue to roll forward, both the feature phone versions and legacy smartphone versions of these apps “will be going away”, as Yahoo reports. This is all part of Yahoo’s move into the mobile universe they’ve been vocal about this week more than once.

This set of updates includes an April 30th shutdown date for several of the services listed. If you’re using Yahoo’s “Upcoming” service, you’re out on the 30th – the same goes for Yahoo Deals and Yahoo SMS Alerts. Those amongst you that’ve been making use of Yahoo Kids will be kicked as of April 30th, and users under 13 hoping to continue using Yahoo services will beed to do so with Yahoo’s Family Accounts program.

If you’d like to gain access to Yahoo’s Family Account’s program, you have only to head down to the Yahoo Family Accounts Program webspace where you’ll learn more about all sorts of family-friendly services including Yahoo Movies – which will NOT be shutting down, incidentally.

With the launch of the newest iterations – and major changes – to Yahoo Mail and Yahoo Weather shown off this week, the company is cutting out the dead weight. Feature phone (J2ME) devices will no longer have support from Yahoo – time to join the future! Yahoo Mail apps for iOS, Android, and Windows 8 as well as Yahoo Messenger apps for iOS as well as Android will be updated through the future – grab on tight!

[via Yahoo]

Yahoo makes major cuts in services as Mobile ramps up is written by Chris Burns & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.