Hasta La Gadget!

Huawei and the United States government may have their differences, but here’s something we can all agree on: Walmart’s going to sell whatever it darn well pleases. Including, mind you, Huawei’s first Windows Phone 8 smartphone. The W1 — which has made inroads in multiple markets already — is heading to Yankee soil, with shipments expected to begin “this month” at Walmart.com and at select Walmart stores. For those in need of a refresher, it’ll pack a 1.2GHz dual-core CPU, a 4-inch IPS touchpanel, 1.7GB of user-available internal storage (expandable to 32GB via microSD card), a 5 megapixel rear camera (with a 0.3MP shooter on the front) and the latest iteration of Microsoft’s mobile OS. Strangely, Huawei nor Walmart are saying what the damage will be, but it’ll reportedly be priced “competitively” on a prepaid, no-contract plan.

Filed under: Cellphones, Mobile, Microsoft

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Source: Windows Phone Blog, Huawei

Foursquare’s been rather attentive to most mobile plaforms this year, releasing updates for Android, BlackBerry and iOS in 2013. The time has finally come for Microsoft users as well, as a fresh WP8-compatible version has just hit the Windows Phone app store. Version 3.0 lets users pin people and places to Start screens, provides lock screen notifications and lets folks check-in and share via NFC. Oh, and should you grow weary of using swipes and taps, the addition of speech controls allows you to search and check-in using only your voice. Should you be among the socially-inclined Microsofties, you know what to do.

Filed under: Cellphones, Software, Microsoft

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Via: The Verge

Source: Windows Phone Blog, Windows Phone App Store

We’ve heard talk of a GDR2 update coming to Windows Phone 8, including more recent claims of restored FM radio support and a double-tap-to-wake feature, but it’s been unclear when the mid-cycle refresh would show up. Telstra may have just given us a better clue: the Australian carrier tells customers on its support forums that Nokia should deliver its version of GDR2 for testing sometime in mid-May. That suggests the upgrade is relatively close, although we wouldn’t make too many assumptions beyond that — Telstra is just one of many networks that needs to sign off on GDR2, and it’s likely neither the first nor the last. Nonetheless, it’s apparent that Microsoft is relatively close to delivering a big tune-up.

Filed under: Cellphones, Wireless, Mobile, Microsoft, Nokia

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Via: WMPoweruser

Source: Telstra

HTC’s financial results released today don’t contain much good news — take a quick look at the unaudited figures we reported last month. But despite its worst ever quarterly profit earlier this year, it’s banking on a substantial turnaround over the next few months. During an earnings call today referencing its audited results, HTC said that its outlook for Q2 2013 includes a revenue jump to around $2.4 billion — a huge increase from $1.45 billion registered in Q1. HTC CEO Peter Chou said that the company was fine “in terms of cash flow,” and that it would continue to support both Android and Windows Phone hardware in the near future. How about those recent supply woes? “We are working as hard as possible to meet the demand everywhere.” The company, however, wasn’t giving away any handset sales figures, something that the competition does enjoy flourishing.

When asked whether he was concerned with its recent hardware being copied, Chou was frank: ” In this industry, everything can be copied. I think there’s no point [in] thinking you can prevent this… but whether they would get this original quality — I think the most important [thing] is that you are first.”

Richard Lai contributed to this article.

Filed under: Cellphones, Mobile, HTC

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Source: HTC

Oh, for an easy life. Sometimes it’d be nice to just read a phone’s spec sheet, compare prices and make a decision. In a number of ways, the Nokia Lumia 520 looks like just the type of handset where this ought to be possible: it has the same reliable internals and happy design language that have already proven their worth in the Lumia 620, but it makes a couple of sacrifices for the sake of its £115 pay-as-you-go price tag in the UK — which undercuts the higher model by a good £30-£50 depending on where you shop. It’s even cheaper in the US, where a $150 Lumia 521 variant (not the one reviewed here) is scheduled for general availability on T-Mobile starting tomorrow.

These sacrifices seem straightforward enough, and they include things that many smartphone users may barely notice, such as the absence of a front-facing camera, camera flash module and NFC. The problem is that the specs are never the full story. Like any phone, the Lumia 520 comes with a few surprises. Read on and we’ll try to root them out.

Filed under: Cellphones, Mobile, Nokia

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