One of Samsung’s surprises for its “Premiere 2013” event on June 20, the Samsung Galaxy S4 mini, may well have been spoiled, and the company only has itself to blame. Details of the Galaxy S 4 mini were temporarily available at the Samsung Apps site, with the handset cropping up in not one but two variants, the GT-I9195 and the SGH-I257.
Listings for the two phones were swiftly removed, but not before screenshots were acquired. Aesthetically, they come close to the styling of the full-sized Galaxy S 4, and are expected to be offered in both white and black versions when they finally hit stores.
Other specifications have already leaked, including a more humble processor than the full-size phone, and of course a smaller display. The Galaxy S4 mini is expected to be fronted by a 4.3-inch Super AMOLED panel running at qHD 540 x 960 resolution, and powered by a 1.6GHz dualcore processor, a far cry from the quadcore in its bigger brother.
There’s also an 8-megapixel camera on the back – down from the Galaxy S 4′s 13-megapixels – and 32GB of internal storage. The LTE version of the phone is tipped to have 2GB of RAM, while the 3G-only model makes do with half that.
Finally, there’s a 2,100 mAh battery and a copy of Android 4.2 Jelly Bean, with Samsung’s familiar TouchWiz interface sat on top.
The new S4 mini is certainly pared back in terms of specifications compared to the phone it apes with its name, though that arguably didn’t hold back the Galaxy S III mini last year. Exactly when it will launch is unclear, though a safe bet would likely be on the June 20 event in London.
Samsung will bring a new batch of Galaxy and ATIV phones and tablets to play in a launch event in late June, the company has confirmed, teasing the new range ahead of its UK debut. The event, to be held in the evening of June 20 at London’s Earl’s Court Exhibition Center, has been dubbed “Samsung Premiere 2013″ and will presumably see at least two devices added to the company’s line-up.
The Galaxy range needs little introduction, being headlined of course by the Galaxy S 4. One possibility is that Samsung could use the London event to reveal the Galaxy S 4 mini, the rumored smaller version of the flagship.
As for ATIV, that branding is a little less known than the Galaxy series. On the one hand, there are the ATIV tablets, which have so far included Windows 8 and Windows RT models; that’s been underplayed in recent months, especially after Samsung opted not to launch the RT-based ATIV Tab in the US.
The other possibility is a new Windows Phone, since Samsung uses the ATIV name for that series of devices as well. The company’s mobile emphasis has so far been predominantly on Android, but a new Windows Phone 8 device, perhaps with some of the specifications of the Galaxy S 4, could be one possibility.
However, thanks to some brand streamlining, ATIV also covers Samsung’s all-in-ones and laptops, in addition to its Windows-based tablets, so the London event could well see a broader line-up unveiled.
We’ll know for sure on June 20, with the show kicking off at 6pm BST (1PM ET/10AM PT) and livestreamed at the Samsung Mobile YouTube channel.
Nokia‘s push to differentiate its Lumia smartphones with PureView camera technology will see “computational imaging” – where shots can be tweaked and modified thanks to clever lens tech – come to the fore, smart devices chief Jo Harlow has teased. “Being able to capture even more data [is an area of exploration]” Harlow told DNA, “data you cannot even see with the human eye that you can only see by actually going back to the picture and being able to do things with them.” The comments are already being seen as further evidence that array cameras from Nokia-invested Pelican Imaging could show up in Lumia devices sooner rather than later.
Pelican’s system uses 25 lenses and sensors clustered into one block, the results from which can be combined into an image that allows for post-processing from the raw data. That can mean Lytro-style changes in focus, where the focal point of a shot can be altered without demanding that a new image be taken.
Pelican Imaging sensor technology overview:
Alternatively, 3D effects can be introduced, or elements of the image digitally excised without any loss in quality. The Pelican investment joined Nokia’s existing holding in InVisage Technologies, which uses quantum-dot sensors for a fourfold increase in light sensitivity.
Holding back deployment of technology like that Pelican has developed has been the processing power of mobile devices, something both Pelican and Harlow agree is gradually becoming less of an issue. The camera array company’s CEO suggested the first phones to use the tech – not necessarily from Nokia, however – are due to reach the market in 2014, in part because mobile CPU/GPU capabilities can now support that degree of data crunching.
“I think that is a key challenge to bring to the smartphone because computational imagine or computational photography requires computational power” Harlow suggested. “That was one of the limitations in bringing that kind of experiences on a smartphone. Changes in the processing capabilities of smartphones opens it up as an area of exploration.”
Nokia isn’t waiting until it has 25 cameras on the back of every phone before it tries to coax more out of mobile photography, however. The company’s most recent smartphone, the Lumia 925, debuts the new version of the company’s Smart Camera app, which includes features like object-removal, combining elements from multiple images into a single frame, and tweaking the background of images to increase the sense of movement in them.
Nokia Smart Camera demo on the Lumia 925:
As we found during our hands-on with the Lumia 925, there’s still some work to go in finessing the processing experience. Still, it’s an example of how the company is doing more than simply bringing extremely high sensor resolution – such as on the 41-megapixel Nokia 808 – under the PureView umbrella.
Instead, there’ll be a focus on photography as a whole and how Nokia can position its devices as the best-performing camera-phones on the market. That will require consumer education as to what makes a good picture, Harlow conceded when we spoke to her at the Lumia 925 launch earlier this month, but will benefit from goodwill upgrade gestures such as bringing the bulk of the new Smart Camera technologies to the existing Lumia Windows Phone 8 range.
While Lenovo is one of the fastest-rising smartphone makers today, many Americans wouldn’t know it when the company has never officially sold handsets in the country. They might soon be well acquainted, according to CEO Yang Yuanqing: he wants Lenovo to be selling smartphones in the US within a year’s time. Mobile is the firm’s next growth machine, he tells the Wall Street Journal, and that entails having smartphones in big markets beyond China, India and Russia. Yang is under no illusions that Lenovo can simply waltz into the fiercely competitive US market, but he also doesn’t see much choice — when the PC market is slowing down, business as usual may not be enough.
We joke that most people don’t like QR codes, but those codes link to a lot of information through one snapshot — and Mercedes-Benz may just use that efficiency to save lives. The automaker is putting the symbols on vehicles so that emergency crews just need a phone camera scan for easy access to rescue sheets, which are schematics that show where to cut into a wrecked car when recovering trapped passengers. With such immediate knowledge, rescuers don’t have to wait for a model confirmation or else risk cutting wires and fuel lines. While we’ll initially see the QR codes only in Mercedes-Benz cars made this year and beyond (placed inside the fuel door and on the opposite side B-pillar), the company isn’t being selfish: it’s refusing to patent its method in the hope that every vehicle manufacturer will quickly embrace the technology.
On February 25, we reported that Samsung would be stopping work on Bada OS while merging some of its features into Tizen OS, making the latter operating system backwards compatible with Bada apps. Almost a month later, word surfaced yet again that the Korean company will be releasing a high-end Tizen smartphone in August or September of this year, but all went silent again. Now a Tizen-based Samsung smartphone has been imaged and leaked online.
The images appeared over on the Greek Tizen community website Tizen.gr, with the “About phone” menu showing the codename “Redwood” and the model number being listed as GT-18800. They also reveal that Samsung has implemented S-Voice, S-Beam, and Wi-Fi Direct into the handset, which is a welcomed addition. The operating system is Tizen 2.1.
The handset is slated for release to 500 developers who are taking part in the Tizen Developer Conference, and so it is possible this is a development-only handset that won’t ever be an official, commercially-available phone. No specs on it were revealed except for the resolution of its display, which sits at 720p HD. The images are too dark to see anything about the body of the phone, unfortunately.
As we mentioned, Samsung will reportedly release a Tizen handset this fall, per a statement made by the company’s mobile business Executive Vice President Lee Young Hee at a conference in Seoul. According to Hee, the phone will be “in the the high-end category. The device will be the best product equipped with the best specifications.” No specifics were provided, however.
Such a statement followed a leaked image of a Samsung Tizen smartphone that was imaged back in May 2012, with not much being said about it except that it featured a 720p display and a 1.2GHz dual-core ARM chipset. Such a device wasn’t intended for consumer release, however, being aimed at developers working on Tizen apps.
When few (if any) web browsers do everything well, many of us have more than one client just to cover all the bases. The GO Launcher Dev Team’s just-launched Next Browser for Android tries to solve this in the simplest way possible: it cherry picks features from established rivals. Sharing extensions from Dolphin? Check. Chrome’s frequently visited pages? Check. Speed Dial from Opera? Check. There’s even a Flipboard-style RSS reader. As there’s also bookmark syncing and voice search, Next Browser is theoretically the only client that Android users could want. How well that pastiche works is another matter, but those who’ve been pining for an all-encompassing browser can give the new app a try at the source link.
It’s an age-old problem: do we clamor for a company to ship a product that’s not ready, or do we swallow delays with grace as it aims to deliver when things are good and ready? Such a choice has to be made when it comes to Automatic, the California-based startup which had originally hoped to start shipping its automotive dongle + app platform at the end of this month. Those (including yours truly) who pre-ordered on day one received an email last night delivering the news that things were running a bit behind schedule. The hardware itself is actually already being manufactured, but stellar components are only a piece of the total puzzle. The software — an iPhone app, in this instance — still needs more time in the proverbial oven, and now we’re being told that packages won’t ship until “the end of August.”
A three-month hiccup is nothing to scoff at, and Automatic seemingly knows it. In order to sate those who were hoping to use the $70 product during their upcoming summer road trips, the company is giving early pre-orderers the option to beta test the app as it stands today. For those who agree, they’ll receive their hardware in mid-June, but they’ll be forced to use it with a version of the app that “lacks a few features like Crash Alert and support for multiple cars and users.” We’ll be keeping a close eye as the situation develops, and will definitely endeavor to pass along a review just as soon as we’re able. If you’re curious, we’ve embedded the email in full just after the break.
After a bit of a quarrel between Microsoft and Google over what kind of application they thought they were building for YouTube, they’ve shaken on a co-developed final iteration. If you’ve been using the Microsoft-made YouTube app recently, you may have noticed a change: advertisements were dropped, and you were even able to download videos for a while. Google didn’t like that.
After sending Microsoft a Cease and Desist letter when they realized Microsoft’s YouTube app for Windows Phone 8 was stripping adds out and not building in support for third-party apps, the companies had a chat. They’ve since agreed that the first step they’ll be taking in a happier co-existence will be taking down the app Microsoft just updated, replacing it with the update released before that.
“Microsoft and YouTube are working together to update the new YouTube for Windows Phone app to enable compliance with YouTube’s API terms of service, including enabling ads, in the coming weeks. Microsoft will replace the existing YouTube app in Windows Phone Store with the previous version during this time.” – Microsoft and YouTube Joint Statement
Of course, as you can see, it’s not “Google” that’s speaking with Microsoft, it’s YouTube. The terms and services violated by Microsoft were up against YouTube’s own, but here in the near future, all will be made right.
Nothing like a big company pushing another big company into cooperating with them to make an app for the latter on the first’s operating system. Perhaps Microsoft will create a Vine app next for Windows Phone 8 that allows users to upload videos – or something along those lines.
With the Sony XPERIA ZL, the company took a double-tiered approach to a hero smartphone release – unlike what Samsung and HTC have done with their HTC One and GALAXY S 4, Sony has created a machine that’s got the same innards as the XPERIA Z, but with a body that’s almost like an alternate reality iteration. Here with the XPERIA ZL, Sony has taken the display, the software, the processor, and the camera technology from the XPERIA Z, putting it in a body that’s both more rugged and thinner than the hero.
Hardware
The XPERIA ZL works with a body that’s less wide than the ZPERIA Z, complete with a smaller bezel and rubbery back panel that makes it a bit less prone to busting on a violent drop. Here the device is much easier to grip, but no longer works with the waterproofing provided in the Z. You’ll also notice there’s no massive barrage of port covers, either.
This smartphone works with a 5-inch 1080 x 1920 pixel full HD Reality Display with Mobile BRAVIA Engine 2, easily the nicest display brought to the market by Sony on a smartphone. While it’s still not exactly a display you’ll be using in direct sunlight on the regular, it’s still one of the best on the market.
Around the edges you’ll find a power button – a little above the center on the right side of the phone – as well as a camera shutter button and a volume bar. Each of these buttons rest on the right side of the phone, while the back has a rather large flap that pulls down and out to reveal slots for both a microSD card and a microSIM.
The back-facing camera on this device has a large metal rim around its lens, this allowing for some protection of the lens, but also adds a bit of difficulty to cleaning said lens without a miniature tool. Around the ring you’ll find this device’s external speakers and a single LED flash as well.
Software
Inside an XPERIA device you’re going to be working with some apps you’re not going to see anywhere else in the Android universe. You’ve got apps like WALKMAN, Sony Album, Movies, and Sony Select. Each of these apps makes the case for you staying inside a strictly Sony environment, and makes it comfortable for you to be there if you’re willing. Xperia Link also makes a similar case with a Sony-specific connection to your desktop-based files.
You’ll also see Smart Connect – similar to Xperia Link, as well as Wisepilot for XPERIA. While we were surprised by the amount of apps built-in to this system back when it was first shown, the launch of the Samsung GALAXY S 4 has taught us a valuable lesson: the average consumer doesn’t count a cleaner system amongst their must-have items in a popular smartphone – it does not seem to be an issue, as 10 million unit sales in the GALAXY S 4′s first month can attest.
Apps like “Remote Control”, on the other hand, are extremely useful and add to the value of the smartphone. The Sony XPERIA ZL has an IR-Blaster for control of your television, stereo, or home entertainment system set, and with the simple Remote Control app, it’s quite easy to implement. A couple taps through the system to find the device you want to control, a test run, and you’re off.
Beyond that, Sony’s implementation of their own user interface has proven itself to be swift and responsive as it should be, doing the processor under the hood justice. This Qualcomm SoC also lends itself to a long battery life: more info on that below.
Camera
The camera here is 13 megapixels strong, and it shows. The Sony-made custom camera interface here brings a “Superior Auto” system that calls upon the many modes available outside it – this means that if sensors on the device notice it’s dark where you’re about to take a photo, the system’s night compensation switches on. There are also customizations to your user interface here in the camera app that allow you to make the experience your own.
Battery
This machine works with a Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 Pro quad-core processor, meaning you’ll be seeing some optimization of the system with regard to battery life specifically. Because of this, you’ll be rolling with at least a full day of up-time just so long as you’re not a heavy user. If you’re thinking about testing this device’s ability to keep its display on while you’re downloading files and streaming video at the same time, you can expect something more like a few hours of battery life.
Bringing down the brightness on this device’s extremely bright display will do wonders for conserving battery life, while blasting the light all night will knock it out.
Wrap-up
The Sony XPERIA ZL takes what the Sony XPERIA Z was good at – and remains good at – and puts it in a slightly more hand-friendly form factor. If you’d like your handset to have a massive amount of glass, you’ll want the Z. If instead you want a slightly less pretty machine that’s better for an accident here or there, go ZL.
Both the Sony XPERIA Z and the Sony XPERIA ZL are available in the United States today, though you’ll not find them attached to any one unique carrier. This unit works with AT&T and T-Mobile microSIM cards: you’ll also not find any Verizon 4G LTE attaching itself to this set. Consider that, but consider this too: here Sony puts forth its greatest effort to date. If you’ve enjoyed Sony smartphones in the past, you’ll certainly have an impressive time here.
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