CES 2013 – Huawei Announces the Massive Ascend Mate
Go big or go home - That's the lesson Huawei is trying to teach at this years Consumer Electronics Show. The newly announced Ascend Mate takes the thought of what a large smartphone might be, to a whole new level. The Mate features an incredibly large 6.1 inch HD display with a resolution of 1280 x 720, and powered by a quad-core processor with a 4050 mAh battery. Coming to market in China for February of 2013, the Mate will be running Android 4.1 and features an 8 megapixel rear camera, 1 megapixel front camera, Dolby sound system with stereo recording, and is just 6.5mm thin. Following Nokia's lead, Huawei has also added enhanced screen response while wearing gloves. They managed to pack a fair amount into this phone, although, given he 6.1 inch screen, they would certainly have the space available for lots of extras. This could be a phone to watch, if you have big hands or like that large screen. Of course, as with most announcements made at CES, there was no price mentioned, … [--Read More--]
Nokia Lumia 920 on Rogers Starts Receiving Windows Phone Update
A new update for Nokia’s Lumia 920 has started to make it’s way to Roger’s devices. The update brings enhancements in messaging, more efficient and reliable Bluetooth, more efficient and reliable start-up sequence, enhancements to imaging performance and battery management, and various other platform updates and enhancements. Your phone should notify you when the update is available, but if you don’t want to wait, you can force it to check by tapping Settings / Phone Update / Check for updates. The update is delivered over the air (OTA), which means you don’t need to connect your phone to your computer and install it using the Zune client like you did with the older version or Windows Phone. However, due to the size of the update, it is required that you to connect the phone to WiFi for downloading. I found the download was pretty quick, but the real delay came in the “preparing to install” stage. Even after it reached 100%, it took a while longer before it prompted … [--Read More--]
Reserve Your BlackBerry 10 Device on Rogers Starting Today
Rogers has announced that starting today, existing customers can reserve RIM's forthcoming BlackBerry 10 device using their reservation system. Very little has actually been confirmed by RIM about the upcoming device. We do know that it is a touch screen only device, features LTE, and has an enhanced touch screen keyboard that allows for fast input including a powerful predictive engine. RIM is expected to share all the details in early 2013, but for now, there is no price, processor, storage, camera, or even color information. At least nothing official from RIM. I'm sure you can find a rumor or two floating around the internet. I can understand being excited about the launch of the new BlackBerry 10 platform, but it seems a little much to offer a reservation for something that hasn't even been announced by RIM yet. The official launch is scheduled for January 30th in New York. Hopefully it measures up to everyone's expectations, especially those that signed up to reserve one. … [--Read More--]
Bing’s Broken Lockscreen Image Update on Windows Phone 8
One of the cool new features with Windows Phone 8 is the ability to have live lockscreen images. This is where applications can define the image to be placed on your lockscreen. Lockscreen apps are popping up in the store on a daily basis. As well, the phone ships with a Bing engine that will automatically use Bing's daily image for the phones lockscreen. The result is that you get to see the beautiful Bing images on your lockscreen everyday. Unfortunately, the Bing engine is broken and doesn't correctly update your image. Don't get me wrong, it does update your lockscreen to show the Bing image, the only problem is that it updates at the wrong time, which results in showing yesterdays image. So your phone is always a day behind. If you go into the settings and turn it off and then on again, it will then download todays image, but you will be stuck with that image for 2 days before you see it change. And yes, when it does change it will be to yesterdays image. The below image is … [--Read More--]
New SwiftKey Flow Beta for Even Faster Typing!
In case you're no familiar with SwiftKey, it's a cool keyboard you can install on your Android smartphone. But it's more than just another keyboard. SwiftKey allows you to trace the letters of the word you want, instead of hammering away at that small screen keyboard. Simply place your finger on the first letter, and then trace along the keyboard, turning at each letter you want. It's fast, it has great prediction capabilities, and it was the best selling application in the Android Play Store for 2012. Now there's a new beta release called SwiftKey Flow. This new beta brings some pretty awesome new features, like the ability to trace out whole sentences without taking your finger off the screen. Just trace over the space key and start your next word. Sure, it doesn't seem like much, but check out this video to see it in action, and I'm sure you'll agree that it's easier and faster than traditional text entry on mobile … [--Read More--]
Nokia Could Learn a Thing or Two from Google and The Nexus Line of Phones
Back at the start of September Nokia announced their new Lumia 920 smartphone. It’s been called the only true innovative smartphone on the market today, and that’s because of the unique and awesome wireless charging, the incredible camera with real optical image stabilization, a larger screen and even 4G. I haven’t even mentioned the amazing extra apps and tweaks like City Lens, Nokia Music, and more, that they have already added to the platform. And of course we can’t forget the awesome colors available. At the end of October, Microsoft announced Windows Phone 8 to the world and phones started to go on sale with select carriers. At least, that’s what they claimed, but it sure was hard to locate a device to buy. Fast forward another month, and there’s still lots of people that want a device, but they still can’t get the model and configuration they’re looking for. It’s been more than 3 months since they were announced and getting your hands on one is still … [--Read More--]
Over 40 Million Windows 8 Licenses Sold
Microsoft is reporting in the first month of availability, Windows 8 has already sold more than 40 million licenses, outpacing the ever popular predecessor Windows 7. There was no breakdown of these numbers to indicate how many are new sales versus upgrades. There was also no mention of exactly how many Microsoft Surface RTs have been sold either. The information comes from a Microsoft employee, Tami Reller, speaking at the Credit Suisse 2012 Annual Technology Conference. Tami is quoted as saying “The journey is just beginning, but I am please to announce today that we have sold 40 million Windows 8 licenses so far.” That’s not the only good sales news that Microsoft had this week. They also sold over 750,000 Xbox 360’s during the US long weekend. That’s pretty impressive numbers considering that the console was originally released in November 2005. Even after 7 years, it’s still managing to sell some pretty impressive numbers. It looks like Microsoft is going to … [--Read More--]
Microsoft Announces Pricing for Surface Pro Coming in January
It was originally scheduled for 90 days after the the Surface RT and Windows 8 became available, and it looks like Microsoft is on target to make that happen. Today they announced pricing for the Surface Pro - like the RT, but powered by Intel with more memory, more storage, and running Windows 8 Pro. It’s a little thicker, and a little heavier, but you’ll have all the power that many laptops have today, in a 14mm thick, 2 lb tablet with a 10 point touch screen. I’m sure you can see the appeal of the Surface Pro. The Surface Pro starts with 64GB for $899, or you can step up to 128GB for $999. Both version will come with a Surface pen for note taking, and of course they will also function with either of the Surface keyboards - Touch or Type (sold separately). The exact day of availability is expected to be at the end of January, but Microsoft didn’t disclose any details around this today. They also didn’t mention any details about if or when you could expect pre-orders to … [--Read More--]
Microsoft’s Surface Touch Keyboard Already Starting to Come Apart
Microsoft's Surface isn't even 3 weeks old and there is already issues emerging with the build quality of the Touch keyboard. My Touch keyboard was just over a week old when I first noticed the fabric around the hinge starting to come undone. For the last 4 or 5 days I've been battling this little tear, repeatedly pushing it back under the magnetic bar that connects it to the Surface only to have it pop out again the next time I fold the keyboard behind the screen. It's really too bad, because the keyboard itself, is a wonderfully engineered piece of hardware. It's amazingly good to type on, and incredibly thin. Unfortunately, it just looks like they cut the fabric a little too short where it goes under the hinge. Hopefully this is issue is limited and a simple exchange means you won't have to deal with it again. The thought has crossed my mind to get the Type keyboard with the actual moving keys, but I don't really need the extra width. And while the moving keys may be more … [--Read More--]
HTC’s Windows Phone 8X Screen Scratching Issues, Already!
Early reports are showing that HTC's super thin Windows Phone 8X devices might suffer from quality control issues with their implementation of Gorilla Glass 2 from Corning. Customers are starting to notice small hair-line scratches on their recently purchased devices. Hopefully this issue is limited to a small portion of devices and not all the HTC 8Xs. Johan, from Mobility Minded, has attempted to reach out to HTC for more information on why this is happening to his brand new phone. So far, there has been no response. Overall, I found the HTC 8X to be a nice, light, and fast phone. It would be really bad if the flagship Windows Phone from HTC is flawed. Check out Johan's post for more pictures. … [--Read More--]
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