Hasta La Gadget!

Amid the bevy of phones outed in NTT DoCoMo’s summer lineup, the Japanese carrier snuck in a tablet: Sharp’s Aquos Pad SH-08E. A 7-inch 1,920 x 1,200 IGZO display dominates the front of the Android 4.2 device, while a 1.7GHz quad-core Snapdragon 600 processor and a 4,200mAh battery are tucked inside. When it comes to imaging, the slab totes an 8.1-megapixel shooter on its rear, and wears a 2.1-megapixel cam on the front. The hardware’s also been kitted out with WiFi, NFC and TV tuning capabilities, along with waterproofing and dustproofing, to boot. As the slate’s outfitted to work with DoCoMo’s Xi LTE network, it’s capable of sucking down 100Mbps and uploading at 37.5Mbps. There’s no word on how much it’ll empty wallets, but it’s penciled in to be available in Japan by the end of July.

Filed under: Cellphones, Mobile

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Source: NTT DoCoMo (PDF)

Sharp finally had something positive to report a couple of months ago when it received a much-need cash injection from Samsung, but today’s news isn’t so rosy. According to The Asahi Shimbun, Sharp will reveal a three-year management plan next Tuesday that’ll see 5,000 workers losing their jobs as part of the company’s efforts to claw its way back into the black. Many of those who are expected to be axed are said to be employed outside of Japan, but the number of empty desks at Sharp’s head office in Osaka is also set to increase — half of the workforce there will be sent on their way, including half of the company’s directors. Allegedly, Sharp will also begin producing more 4K sets and 70-inch or over HDTVs for the US market, and also shift its broader focus towards making more “small-sized panels for smartphones and other devices.” Who exactly are these displays being made for, we wonder?

Filed under: Cellphones, Home Entertainment, Tablets, Mobile

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Via: TechEye

Source: Asahi Shimbun

Quad-core smart TVs? Move over, Samsung and Haier, because another company’s now joining the party. At a press event in Beijing yesterday, Chinese video content provider LeTV announced its first TV series dubbed “Super TV.” Despite the cheesy name, there are a handful of big names behind it: Kai-Fu Lee’s Innovation Works, Qualcomm, Foxconn and Sharp. The last two aren’t surprising considering Foxconn’s parent company, Hon Hai, is an investor of Sharp as well as LeTV. It’s also worth noting, though, that Hon Hai already has a deal with RadioShack to make and sell a 60-inch TV, the RS60-V1, in China since January.

The flagship X60 (pictured above at GMIC Beijing) features an aluminum alloy body that encases Sharp’s 10th-generation 60-inch 1080p panel — as featured on the RadioShack TV — with 120Hz 3D, on top of a 1.7GHz quad-core Snapdragon S4 Prime MPQ8064 (with 2GB of RAM and Adreno 320 graphics), dual-band WiFi and S/PDIF optical output. You can also add an optional 2.4GHz gyroscopic remote control and a PrimeSense motion sensor just for giggles. But most importantly, LeTV now streams over 2,000 TV apps as well as some 90,000 TV episodes and 5,000 movies for free (LeTV claims to own the rights to 95 percent of the video content). So, the ¥6,999 or $1,140 price tag seems a steal for the X60. There will also be a 39-inch 1080p (likely 2D only), dual-core S40 model priced at ¥1,999 or about $330, and both TVs will be available by the end of June.

Filed under: Home Entertainment, HD

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Via: Engadget Chinese

Source: LeTV

It is more or less expected that Apple will be announcing the iPhone 5S later this year, which based on the previous releases in the past will most likely be an iPhone 5 with some incremental upgrades and nothing too major. Thanks to a new rumor, it would seem as though that Sharp is expected to begin ramping up their production of the iPhone 5S’ displays starting next month, suggesting that the phone could see a release later in the year, likely around the same time as the iPhone 5. This seems to contradict earlier rumors which suggested that the device could be revealed at WWDC 2013 which is taking place in the middle of the year.

Of course it is also possible that Sharp is not the main display supplier for Apple, and that they might simply be ramping up production to help ease the load of other manufacturers in order to ensure the phone is ready on time for customers to purchase. As is with most Apple rumors, it’s best taken with a grain of salt for now, but with WWDC taking place next month, we guess we won’t have to wait too long to find out if the iPhone 5S will be making its debut then.

By Ubergizmo. Related articles: Verizon To Offer $100 Discount On iPhone 5 Mid-May [Rumor], Parts Supplier “Confirms” Existence Of Budget iPhone,

Five-inch smartphones with 1080p displays aren’t uncommon now, but Sharp‘s new AQUOS Phone Xx SoftBank 206SH does have one advantage: enough battery life to get it through a promised two full days. The new handset, part of Japanese carrier SoftBank’s Summer 2013 line-up, uses a combination of old and new tech to help subscribers skip the overnight charge, with a huge battery paired with a clever CG Silicon TFT LCD display.

On the old-tech side, Sharp squeezes a massive 3,080 mAh battery into the 5-inch phone, only slightly smaller than the pack Samsung fits to the larger Galaxy Note II. With Sharp’s “Eco Tech” settings enabled – which seems to involve throttling the 1.7GHz Snapdragon S4 Pro quadcore processor (APQ8064) at times – the phone will supposedly last through two days of use.

However, the CG Silicon display also weighs in with some improvements of its own, using continuous grain silicon for the backplane rather than the amorphous silicon more traditionally found in LCD TFT panels. That, Sharp says, makes for a thinner and better-performing display, with higher quality graphics and reduced power consumption.

Interestingly, Sharp sees CG Silicon technology as a way to eventually build an entire computer on a single sheet of glass, in effect creating smartphones and mobile devices that were one, fused gadget rather than a selection of sandwiched individual parts. Exactly when that will be feasible remains to be seen, however; Sharp has created demo rigs with processors embedded into the substrate, but commercial applications haven’t been begun yet.

Instead, we get the 206SH and the 5-inch, 443ppi display Sharp showed off at CEATEC last year. Since then, the company has slapped on a touchscreen layer, of course, though the smaller number of overall layers should still pay dividends on display visibility.

Sharp has a track record of trialling new panel technology in devices for the Japanese market. Last year, the company released the AQUOS TAB SHT21, a 7-inch Android tablet using an IGZO display rather than LCD TFT or OLED. IGZO promises either roughly twice the runtime as an LCD panel at the same brightness, or as much as twice the brightness for outdoor usability, though manufacturing yields have meant the tech is yet to comprehensively spread.

The Sharp AQUOS Phone Xx SoftBank 206SH will go on sale in late June. It has a 13.1-megapixel camera with f/1.9 optics, 1-Seg digital TV, LTE, and runs Android 4.2, while wireless options include WiFi a/b/g/n/ac and Bluetooth 4.0 along with infrared. It’s also waterproof, and will be offered with a desktop dock for charging and entertainment use.

Sharp AQUOS 206SH debuts 5″ CG-S 1080p display and two day battery is written by Chris Davies & originally posted on SlashGear.
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