Vertu Ti goes on sale in Hong Kong as the world’s most expensive Android smartphone
Vertu’s first ever smartphone to run Android, the Ti, has now gone on sale. Hong Kong is the first market to get it, and, as you’d expect, it’s not cheap. Not only that, but it turns out to be quite a bit more expensive in Hong Kong than the suggested retail price that Vertu announced [...]
Neo T001: a Samsung Galaxy S III Mini clone that will cost $65
Clones, clones, clones. Chinese clones. Phone clones. Chinese phone clones. They’re everywhere. Well, in China they are. But so far we’ve focused a lot on clones of high-end devices, be they not-yet-announced (the case the HTC One was in back when the GooPhone One caught our eye), or highly successful in terms of sales for [...]
Behold the smallest and lightest phone in the world
The Alcatel One Touch Idol Ultra may be the thinnest smartphone in the world, and in fact if we go into the non-smartphone category we might find even thinner offerings out there, but the subject of this post is the world’s smallest and lightest phone. So not the thinnest. In fact, it’s much thicker than [...]
Ubuntu for tablets announced with side-by-side multitasking. Developer Preview out on Thursday
Canonical (the company behind the Ubuntu brand) unveiled its smartphone operating system ambitions last month, and today was the turn of the tablet-focused variation of the OS to get the spotlight. Ubuntu for tablets is now a thing too, and it closely resembles its smartphone counterpart, while coming with some neat tablet-only tricks. The interface [...]
Ubuntu jumps into the smartphone operating system game, promises first devices next year
The latest entrant into the smartphone operating system space has been announced today – it’s Ubuntu. The most widely used Linux desktop distribution is coming to a smartphone near you. This, of course, is hardly unexpected, because every company that has a desktop presence is trying its hand at mobile stuff too, since that particular [...]
Camera phones with 3 MP and bigger sensors outsold digital still cameras 6:1 this year
If you were thinking that the advent of camera phones over the past few years negatively influenced the sales of standalone digital cameras, well… you were right. Very much so, in fact. It took digital cameras only ten years to render film cameras obsolete, and in almost the same time camera-equipped phones have begun to [...]
Baidu’s Cloud Phone will be a “100% Internet Phone”, announcement coming on December 21
Baidu is finally getting ready to launch its first smartphone, after no less than two years of rumors on the matter. The tentatively called Baidu Cloud Phone (although its official name may differ) is set to be unveiled on December 21, at 12:21, through a ‘grand’ online conference. That’s also when we’re supposed to find [...]
Rovio moves beyond Angry Birds, will launch Amazing Alex game tomorrow
Angry Birds here, Angry Birds there, Angry Birds everywhere. Rovio’s game (and its endless variations) has been incredibly successful, but you don’t need us to remind you of that. Angry Birds has proven that you don’t need amazing graphics or intricate textures and details to have a highly successful mobile game. All it takes is [...]
Foxconn becomes biggest Sharp shareholder. Eyes mobile for global dominance
The Hon Hai Group (better known to those of you in the ‘Western’ world as Foxconn) has entered a major partnership with Sharp Corporation of Japan, after more than nine months of negotiations. Foxconn is best known for being the maker of Apple’s iPhones and iPads, but it also makes many other electronics. Sharp is [...]
The reason your cheap Android is (almost) good enough? It has a Broadcom CPU inside
Broadcom isn’t exactly the first company that comes to mind when you think about smartphone processor makers, or those producing SoCs (Systems-on-a-Chip) for mobile devices. Qualcomm, Nvidia, TI are all more well known players in the field. However, Broadcom has recently stepped into this game, and so far has had encouraging (yet unpublicized) results. Broadcom [...]
O2 UK will lease you a smartphone for £55 per month, with minutes, texts, data, and insurance included
If you’re in the UK, you should know that O2 has just announced the first smartphone leasing programme for consumers. As the name implies, this effectively means that the operator will lease you “a new 16 GB smartphone” for 12 months. After that time elapses, you can choose to renew your lease, choose another smartphone [...]
Orange Dallas is a cheap candybar coming soon on PAYG
In the UK, Orange has just added yet another own-brand device to its website. And just like many previous phones, it sports the name of a city. This time, it’s called the Dallas from Orange (although we’ll refer to it as the Orange Dallas). This is no smartphone, let that be clear. In fact, it’s [...]
Vodafone 555 Blue is a prepaid Facebook phone
Vodafone has unveiled yet another Facebook-centric phone earlier today. And it’s the one we’ve exclusively shown you back in June, which now has a name: Vodafone 555 Blue. Unlike previous efforts such as the INQ Cloud Touch, the HTC Salsa or HTC ChaCha though, this isn’t a smartphone. It’s an featurephone built by Alcatel, and [...]
India: Micromax Q80 is a dual-SIM QWERTY candybar with its own push email service
In India, Micromax is one of the best known local brands of mobile phones, and thanks to its very affordably priced handsets, and its dual-SIM focus (that’s common among all Indian phone makers), the company sure sells a lot of low-end devices over there. In fact, it’s companies such as Micromax, and many others like [...]
India: Maxx Vista MS502 is a dual-SIM QWERTY portrait slider aimed at women
To be honest, I’ve never known whether mobile devices aimed primarily at women sell well. I have seen many of these beasts over the years, and you probably have too. You know the type: with some pink, orange or red thrown in alongside some bling items like fake crystals or something like that. All design [...]
India: Maxx Mobiles launches MX372 and MQ368, two new cheap dual-SIM phones
One of the phone manufacturers that we don’t get to write about all that often is India’s Maxx Mobiles. Well, today we’ve got something new from that exact outfit. Maxx Mobiles has launched two new dual-SIM phones, the MX372 and MQ368, the latter having a full physical QWERTY keyboard fitted. The MX372 has a ‘normal’ [...]
UK: The Atlanta from Orange is a cheap PAYG featurephone that requires a massive £50 top-up
Here’s one for you featurephone lovers, smartphone haters, or both. Orange UK has a new own-brand featurephone up its sleeves, and it’s calling it the Atlanta from Orange. At least there’s some consistency there with regard to using city names for own-brand devices. That’s where the consistency ends, though, and strangeness intervenes. The Orange Atlanta [...]
Canada: Sonim XP1300 Core launched by Rogers
The (very) rugged, IP-68 rated, built to military standards Sonim XP1300 Core phone has been launched in Canada by Rogers. From the start, you should know that this device isn’t for you if you’re more interested in how many apps a phone can run than in whether you can run it over with a car [...]
Vodafone’s Emporia RL1 is the ‘back to basics’ anti-smartphone that costs £60 on PAYG
Vodafone has launched a handset that can rightly be called an anti-smartphone, with its clear focus on just making calls and texting. However, the lack of features is something that many will find refreshing, for not every single person on this planet needs or wants a superphone, not even in 2011. For the ‘back to [...]
UK: Orange Rio II is a touchscreen + QWERTY candybar that costs £69.99 on Pay as you go
Orange UK has launched an interesting own-brand device, the Orange Rio II. This is (obviously) the sequel to the original Rio launched last year, and it’s a candybar BlackBerry-esque (or, why not, Nokia E6-esque) device that has both a touchscreen and a full physical QWERTY keyboard. But probably the best thing about the Orange Rio [...]
