TCL Idol X has made its way to retail availability in China. The sleek-looking, bright-colored Android smartphone offers a quad-core SoC and 5" 1080p display, tucked into a 6.99mm thin body for only 1,699 yuan ($277; €207).
The TCL Idol X specs include a 1.5GHz quad-core MediaTek MT6589T CPU, 2GB of RAM, 16GB of expandable internal storage, and a 13.1MP camera. The OS on tap is Android 4.2 Jelly Bean.
T-Mobile US announced that it will officially offer the Sony Xperia Z in the "coming weeks." The Big Magenta will be the only carrier in the United States to offer Sony's water-resistant Android flagship.
As far as specs go, the T-Mobile exclusive Sony Xperia Z will be no different than the international version which we extensively reviewed, save for support for the carrier's brand new LTE network. The highlights include a Qualcomm Snapdragon SoC with 1.5GHz quad-core CPU, 5" 1080p display, 13MP Exmor RS camera, and Android Jelly Bean.
The Sony Xperia Z for T-Mobile will be available with the carrier's Simple Choice plans. Exact pricing and availability are yet to be confirmed.
Heavy texters who are joined at the hip with their smartphones could see that figure of speech become more literal in the future, as Intel has suggested it is working on wearable devices.
"We're looking at novel display devices," said Intel chief technology officer Justin Rattner at Bloomberg's The Next Big Thing Summit this week.
Rattner said that Intel is starting to build such devices internally and confirmed that it has experimental devices in the labs that could stream short messages like texts.
"Particularly if you think of how much texting goes on today, wouldn't it be nice if you could just glance at your wrist and see the message traffic?"
"[This is] as opposed to 'you have to pull out your phone and you have to be very public about it.'"
Winding the smartwatch battery
Intel may be poised to take on the emerging wearable computing market, Rattner pointed out.
"[It] requires a complete rethink of how you design systems and how you program systems."
"One of the challenges we see, and something that we're giving a lot of attention to - not surprisingly - is how does the silicon change if you're going to wear technology."
As the executive for the world's No. 1 semiconductor company, he estimates that devices worn all day long will have to be ten times more efficient than cell phones.
"That's where we're doing a lot of work."
Intel's rivals
Intel already has up-and-running rivals in the wearable technology field. Google Glass, for example, has already released to developers in the form of Explorer Edition glasses.
Even more closely linked to what Rattner is talking about, the Pebble Watch streams messages from phones, and Apple could dominate the space with a similar iWatch without even trying.
But the first sign of Intel's progress in this area comes from its next-generation chip technology, Merrifield, which incorporates sensors that understand environments to save battery life.
This energy-efficient 22nm Silvermont chip could be the key to Intel gaining marketshare over its rivals who already have a foot or wristhold.
Nvidia may be missing from the Xbox One and PS4, but the chip maker is about to start a whole new racket, one that could see its chips in everything from smartphones to supercomputers.
In a blog post, David Shannon, executive vice president, general counsel and secretary of Nvidia, announced today that the company will begin licensing its GPU core tech based on the Kepler architecture.
With DX11, OpenGL 4.3 and GPGPU capabilities, Shannon wrote that a whole new class of licensable GPU cores is about to land.
We reached out to Nvidia for word on any potential partners and the time frame for the licensing to get off the ground, and received this response from a company spokesperson:
"We're targeting designers of applications processors for a variety of markets. We're just getting going but we're in touch with several potentially significant customers, none of which we are disclosing today."
As for when these partnerships will poke about, look for them to likely emerge in 2015, "given design and testing requirements."
Line 'em up
While licensees can look forward to a full swath of Nvidia support as they work to integrate Nvidia's GPU tech into their own devices, Shannon said the company also plans to offer licensing rights to its visual computing portfolio.
But why license its proprietary tech in the first place? The answer lies in the "upended" IT world, one that's seeing PCs overtaken by smartphones and tablets.
"[It's] not practical to build silicon or systems to address every part of the expanding market," wrote Shannon. "Adopting a new business approach will allow us to address the universe of devices."
This actually isn't something new for Nvidia: Shannon noted the company licensed an earlier GPU core to Sony for use in the PS3. Intel, meanwhile, pays it more than $250 million (about £159 million, AU$264 million) a year in licensing fees for visual computing patents.
But is there anything in specific behind the decision beyond the fluctuating tech world? You betcha.
"Now, with the explosion of Android devices presents an unprecedented opportunity to accelerate this effort," Shannon wrote.
Though there's a shout out to Android, it also stands to reason that Nvidia could license its chips to Apple for use in its iOS devices. Even Samsung could turn to Nvidia's processors if it so desired.
Looks like the sting of Tegra missing LTE capabilities may finally start to fade.
Nokia's Lumia phones could be about to get even flashier
Qualcomm's next-gen Snapdragon system on a chip (SoC), the Snapdragon 800, has already appeared in Android phones, and it's only a matter of time before Windows Phone devices get it too.
The blog TechTastic thinks that time is going to arrive sooner than later, as they've spotted what appears to be a Nokia Lumia device sporting the Snapdragon S4 MSM8974 chip.
The site examined a number of Nokia developer pages that list devices using the Snapdragon 800 MSM8974 chip.
They also claim that Nokia only lists hardware that it's actually using, indicating that an 800-equipped Lumia could arrive soon.
A gradual reveal
Qualcomm has been promising the rollout of its next-gen Snapdragon 800 SoC for months.
In April it said the new chipset would enter mass production in May, so it's sure to be appearing in more devices soon.
So far the only devices known to sport the Snapdragon MSM8974 are certain versions of the Samsung Galaxy S4 and the accidentally-announcedGalaxy Note 3.
The 800 supports 2.3GHz quad-core processing and Adreno 330 graphics, not to mention the possibility of 4K output.
The new SoC is also said to be appearing in new Windows RT 8.1 tablets, though we've yet to see any of those.
The Alienware 14 is the smallest of the new laptops
Alienware was pretty busy leading up to E3 2013, showing off three powerful new gaming laptops, size-appropriately named the Alienware 14, 17 and 18.
While the angular laptops sport Intel's latest Haswell chips, it looks as though the company still has much more up its sleeve.
When TechRadar caught up with the hardware maker at the annual gaming show in L.A., we asked about the tenets driving its current designs as well as what the future holds.
The answer? According to Alienware's Global Product Marketing Manager Eddy Goyanes, "This is just the beginning."
More than meets the eye
"We're working on a lot of exciting things," Goyanes said. "We really, really are. And that goes beyond desktops and notebooks."
Beyond desktops and notebooks points to mobile, but is Alienware really developing tablets and/or smartphones in a real, actually-coming-to-market kind of way?
"Nothing I could comment about really, or give a commitment for," Goyanes said, suggesting nonetheless that fans have been asking for more form factors from the company.
"We hear that feedback, and we hear that feedback at the highest levels of our organization," he explained.
Indeed, Alienware General Manager Frank Azor recently gave a similar tease to Slashgear, revealing that the company has thought extensively about what an Alienware tablet or smartphone will look like, but that the time is not yet right.
Some Alienware fans miss the 11-inch M11x
But what about older form factors in the Alienware laptop space? When we asked Goyanes about the 11-inch size that many fans miss from the days of the Alienware M11x, he offered nothing concrete, but promised again that the company is listening.
"Just keep your eyes open," he urged us.
Gamers get what gamers want
Goyanes showed TechRadar around the Alienware booth at E3, letting us get an up-close look at the Alienware 14, 17 and 18 laptops.
The new laptops are big and bulky, though certainly not without their charm. Alienware designs them like that because it knows where its fans' priorities lie, Goyanes told us.
"We don't sell them as thin and light," he said. "We're not competing with ultrabooks. We're trying to give gamers the most immersive PC gaming experience possible."
Compared to the last generation of Alienware laptops, the three new ones are "within decimal points" in terms of weight. That's because as the materials get lighter, Alienware beefs up the specs. The Alienware 18 can go up to 32GB of RAM and multiple terabytes of storage.
Goyanes said Alienware is not opposed to making slimmer devices - "so long as the technology can afford us to do that without sacrificing performance."
"We do this because we don't want to sacrifice what our gamers care about," he said. "We would not try to sell this 18-inch product to someone who is looking for a Macbook Air."
As Azor told Slashgear, "We're not willing to compromise the integrity of the brand to deliver a form-factor just because it's in high-demand."
Goyanes added that Alienware is always looking for feedback, even on just-released products. So be mindful what you say in the comments, lest someone at the company actually take it seriously.
"We can't always make everybody happy," he said. "But if there are certain features that are compelling and that people want, we'll take that feedback and we'll try to incorporate it in the next generation."
Need to get your PC gaming on in a park, classroom or other location that's not your house? Check out TechRadar's list of the best gaming laptops.
We've discovered that the model we were sent for review is pre-production, despite Huawei's proclamations otherwise. In line with our stringent reviews guarantee, we've rolled this back to a preview - stay tuned for our full review when we get a final sample in soon.
The Huawei Ascend P6 represents the Chinese smartphone manufacturer's biggest attempt yet to join the Android elite. It boasts a level of design and a range of quietly innovative features that are in many ways worthy of Samsung, HTC, LG and Sony at their best.
Despite this, it's not quite in the same category as the absolute top-spec beasts such as the HTC One, Samsung Galaxy S4, and Sony Xperia Z. In fact, with its 4.7-inch 720p display and 8-megapixel camera it's closer in raw specs to the likes of the Google Nexus 4 and the Samsung Galaxy S3.
Infact the Huawei Ascend P2 features slightly better specs such as a 13MP rear camera, although it's body isn't as premium as the P6's.
Of course, with the phone set to be offered for around £25 per month on contract, the Ascend P6 will also be considerably cheaper than the current top crop. You might even call it an upper-mid range device.
But you get the feeling Huawei is taking a slightly different approach here. With some of its sleek hardware, software design cues and focus on style and functionality over willy-waving specs, the Huawei Ascend P6 appears to be following Apple's lead more than any of the aforementioned Android giants.
It's immediately clear the moment you take it out of its classy, compact white box. The super-slim, squared-off body, flat surfaces and metallic rim are pure iPhone 5 (though the colouring of our black model is closer to the iPhone 4S). It even comes with its own pre-packed 'bumper', but don't worry - we didn't notice any death-grip issues.
That's not to say that the Huawei Ascend P6 is a straight-ahead iPhone knock-off - its rounded bottom edge and subtly textured rear see off that charge.
Unlike the major devices listed above, then, the Huawei Ascend P6 doesn't have a distinctive design language to call its own, but that doesn't mean it isn't a pleasure to hold and to look at.
The handset's sleek design isn't just easy on the eye, either. At a shade under 6.2 mm thick, Huawei is claiming that this is the slimmest smartphone in the world. It's certainly a good 1.4 mm thinner than the iPhone 5 and a whopping 3.1 mm slimmer than the HTC One, which is the closest Android phone to this in terms of premium feel.
At 120g, the Huawei Ascend P6 is also a good 10 grams lighter than the Samsung Galaxy S4 or the Google Nexus 4.
All in all,the phone's lightness and slimness, allied to an extremely thin bezel, makes for a rare 4.7-inch smartphone that's viable to use one-handed - provided you have reasonably long flexible fingers, of course.
Going back to that 4.7-inch display, whilst it's 'only' a 720p model - which means it can't compete with 1080p big-hitters like the HTC One for sheer sharpness - it is one of the better examples of its kind.
Colour reproduction is excellent, and you can tweak the colour temperature within the settings menu if you're used to a warmer or cooler display.
There's even a Magic Touch feature that enables you to use the phone with your gloves on, which is a fantastic thing to have when you live in a generally chilly country like the UK.
This should really be in more smartphones by now, but so far it's only really Nokia (although the likes of Samsung and co. are getting on board slowly) that's adopted it with any enthusiasm. Well done Huawei.
In terms of external ports and buttons, Huawei has made some interesting decisions. The power button and volume rocker placement is pretty tradition, up high on the right hand side. In both look and ultra-clicky feel they reminded us of the Asus PadFone 2 equivalents, which is no bad thing.
The most notable thing on the controls front is the lack of physical or capacitive control keys. Rather, Huawei is one of the few third party manufacturers to follow Google's lead and opt for virtual buttons built into the UI (more on which in a moment).
The ports are even more unorthodox. You'll find the microUSB port situated on the top edge of the Ascend P6, which is unusual in itself. But the truly out-there element here is the 3.5mm headphone jack, which is situated right at the bottom of the left hand edge.
That would be odd enough, but then there's the bizarre metal nub-like cover that we initially mistook for a lanyard hook. Once removed, it turns out that it's a small drawing pin-shaped tool for accessing the Ascend P6's SIM and microSD trays.
It looks quite stylish when in place and serves its purpose well when out and in use, but what do you do with this tiny metal object when you're using the headphone socket? Lose it, we suspect.
Still, at least there is a microSD slot present to require such a tool. With a paltry 8GB of internal storage available here, additional memory is sorely needed. For music fans, gamers, and power users 8GB definitely won't be enough, so we're extremely glad that Huawei included a microSD slot - even if accessing it proves a little fiddly.
But for those who feel they need to know everything as it happens, fear not, because Samsung is livestreaming the entire event on its YouTube channel so you can feel like you're there in person. Or as close as.
We'll be there covering the news (and all the extra stuff), so keep all eyes on TechRadar for everything as it breaks.
Huawei CEO Richard Yu confirmed that the Ascend P6 would be on sale in 19 countries by the end of July, including the UK, Australia, China, Italy and Spain.
Those of you luckily enough to be in China will be able to pick up the Huawei Ascend P6 from today - with the smartphone sporting a recommended retail price of €449 SIM-free (that's around £380, $600, AU$635) - making it considerably cheaper than rival flagships such as the Samsung Galaxy S4, iPhone 5, and HTC One.
Triple figures in sight
There's currently no word on the US and other countries, but Huawei has confirmed that during August of this year the Ascend P6 will roll out to a total of 100 global markets, so expect this slender piece of metal to be popping up all over the shop.
If you don't fancy shelling out for the handset up front you can expect the Huawei Ascend P6 to be available for free on contracts between €21 and €26 per month - so around the £25 mark if you're in the UK.
The Ascend P6 measure just 6.18mm in depth making it super slender, and it manages to pack in a quad-core processor, 2GB of RAM, 8MP rear camera and 5MP front camera into its wafer thin frame.
Huawei's CEO told has told TechRadar that it could offer stock Android with its new Ascend P6, but doesn't think it would benefit consumers.
With the Samsung Galaxy S4 and the HTC One both being offered with a stripped down, native Android experience, we asked Huawei's Consumer Business Group CEO Richard Yu whether Huawei would follow suit for the world's slimmest smartphone, offering an option that removes its own custom skin on top of Android 4.2 that is currently running on the P6.
"We can provide an original Android OS, but we find people like our Emotion UI more as it's more simple and easy to use. It's also more interesting [than stock android] as well as more customisable, allowing us to connect more easily to people's emotions."
When asked if Huawei would consider allowing it as an option, Yu reiterated that Huawei had looked as such an option, but said "more people like Emotion UI – our consumer surveys have told us this, that they like this kind of functionality.
We've improved Android
"We've made several hundred improvements to the Android OS, we can bring a lot of value to customers, such as improving background running, [the way the phones] use data and battery consumption.
"Apple make simple, easy to use products that are very successful – even kids can use and iPhone and iPad. We are leaning from them; we try to improve our Android OS but our competitors never sleep, so we have to keep improving to do better than them."
The debate over whether phone manufacturers should be offering a stripped-down native version of Google's Android phone rages on, and will only grow in volume from the small portion of smartphone fans that prefer the choice to remove device-native user interfaces, such as Huawei's Emotion UI.
Given the relatively low market share Huawei currently enjoys, it would also be a boon for the company to be one of the few to offer the 'Nexus' native Android experience, not least because the hardware alone would attract a number of users.
However, Yu's point is strong: Huawei has made a phone to cater for those that want a powerful experience, as well as stamping the company's brand onto the market through the UI.
Whether many will like the loss of the app tray is another question for debate, but there's no doubt that adding the option for stock Android on the phone would add another layer of complexity to a phone that is being sold as 'accessible'.
Huawei has launched its new flagship 'design-oriented' phone, with top-end specs crammed into a tiny frame.
Unlike the Ascend P2, this phone is design-led, but with a decent spec list second. It comes with a 1.5GHz quad core processor with 2GB RAM.
Like most Huawei devices, the Ascend P6 has been leaked all over the shop – but it appears to be worth it, with the brushed metal device sporting a 5MP camera on the front of the phone, for even clearer duck-pout shots.
Good for the face
The rear packs an 8MP option, which is less impressive (although does have an f2.0 aperture, which will give good low-light performance), as is the 4.7-inch 1280 x 720 screen, although Huawei has stepped up its game recently with improving the clarity of its displays, with in-cell LCD technology on offer.
It's also running the latest version of Android in the shape of 4.2.2, as well as 8GB of internal storage, supplemented by a microSD card slot.
Confusingly there's no 4G capability on offer with this handset either, so it's only DC-HSPA on offer for 3.9G (or whatever stupid number they're giving it these days) connectivity.
Android has been skinned somewhat – and some may not like the new Emotion UI. It's a simplified version, but takes away things like the app tray, which any user of Android will be used to – but at least there's Dolby Digital Plus in the mix, which mitigates the slightly lower 2000mAh battery.
Automated something Reception something
Huawei wants us to believe that its 'unique Automated Discontinuous Reception (ADRX) and Quick Power Control (QPC) battery optimization and power saving technology improves performance by more than 30%'… a theory we've yet to see proven.
The phone will be available in white, black or pink (for the men who care about their skin. Not the ladies. That would be sexist), and will be coming to 'Western Europe' in July through most of the networks – although not EE, obviously.
There's no word on price as yet, but we're expecting this to come in significantly cheaper than the likes of the Galaxy S4 and HTC One when it lands next month.
The Huawei Ascend P6 entered our rumor mill a while ago with full specs, official and livepictures coming since. Today Huawei finally is holding a press event in London where it promised to show the Ascend P6 officially.
Well, the event is still half an hour away but Huawei has just made the Ascend P6 official via a press release. It might have been a mistake by someone in the PR department as the page has been taken down since, but the info is already out.
Huawei Ascend P6 features a glove-friendly 4.7-inch 720p in-cell LCD and is powered by Huawei's home-brewed K3V2 chipset. The same SoC powers the Ascend Mate, Ascend P2 and Ascend D2 with its quad-core 1.5GHz Cortex-A9 processor and 2GB of RAM.
The key selling point of the Huawei Ascend P6 is its extremely slim profile - just 6.18mm. The smartphone also weighs mere 120 grams.
The rest of the Ascend P6 features include an 8MP primary camera (BSI, F2.0) with 1080p video recording, a 5MP front snapper for video chats and self-portraits, 8GB expandable internal storage, and a 2000 mAh battery.
The connectivity department of the Huawei Ascend P6 may lack LTE support, but has covered most other bases. The Ascend P6 comes with dual-SIM with dual stand-by support by default. Naturally HSPA, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and FM radio are supported.
Huawei Ascend P6 runs on Android 4.2.2 Jelly Bean with Huawei's Emotion UI on top of it. You'll get a chance to see the Emotion UI in action later today as part of our upcoming Huawei Ascend Mate review.
Huawei Ascend P6 will hit the shelves in China this month, while Western Europe will be getting it in July through a bunch of carriers and retailers. The partners already confirmed include Vodafone, Telefonica, Orange, H3G, O2, Carphone Warehouse, TalkTalk, Media Markt, Saturn, TIM as well as online retailers Amazon and CDiscount.
Other markets should follow soon after the Western Europe premiere.
We're still waiting for the first Tizen device – it will launch in August or September according to Samsung VP. In the meantime we get leaks that paint a picture of what the device will be like – a smartphone with 720p screen and an Exynos 4 chipset.
TechTastic looked through the Tizen repository for stuff committed by Samsung and there seems to be support for only two chipsets – the Exynos 4212 and Exynos 4412. The first is a revamped version of what went into the Galaxy S II (under the alias s5pc2xx) and the second is the Galaxy S III chipset.
The chipsets pack two and four Cortex-A9 cores respectively (at 1.4-1.6GHz clockspeed) and a Mali-400 GPU.
This means the Samsung I8805 Redwood, which is the first Tizen to launch according to rumors, won't match Android flagships like the Galaxy S4 in terms of raw power (actual performance is another story, of course). It's the higher-end of the two Tizens that have leaked so far – Redwod and the I8800 Melius.
HTC One owners may be concerned by the lack of word on Android 4.2 coming to the phone, but HTC has confirmed that an update is on its way – so hold tight.
While HTC hasn't given the Android 4.2.2 Jelly Bean upgrade a specific release date, it told Engadget that it's still very much on its way.
The update was thought to be coming in mid-June, though HTC has been rather quiet on the matter, and without 4.2 making an appearance it's left a lot of users scratching their heads.
Three UK tweeted at one such user, telling them that HTC had "pulled the 4.2.2 release" but said it didn't have any idea as to what the schedule might be going forward.
We One-t our update
We assume that the update just needed a bit of last minute tweaking, and could even have had something to do with Three's network. Who knows?
We contacted HTC to ask if there was further clarification on the matter, and will update as soon as we hear more.
The original HTC Desire is one of an exclusive coterie of phones that have achieved the highest honour a phone can enjoy: a five star TechRadar review.
We don't think the HTC Desire 200 will quite manage to reach the same heady heights as its forefather, but for a budget phone, its specs are not too shabby.
We're looking at a 1GHz Snapdragon S1 processor with 512MB of DDR1 and 4GB of onboard storage (expandable with microSD).
Audio smarts
HTC is pushing the handset's audio smarts, boasting Beats Audio and bundling "our highest quality in-ear headset" with the handset.
The HTC Desire 200 also comes with a 5MP camera which HTC says is super intuitive to use, and runs HTC Sense over Android (although HTC hasn't deigned to tell us which iteration).
Wonderfully, HTC has provided an illustration of the handset's size, pegging it at 'a bit bigger than a credit card':
No word yet from HTC on availability or pricing - but for something this small and with these level of specs, we're thinking HTC should channel Flo-rida and go low low low low low low low.
The evidence that Nokia is working on a quad-core Windows Phone 8 handset is mounting and this time we're talking the big guns – Qualcomm Snapdragon 800. A changelog in a file hosted on Nokia's servers indicates that the terms "quad_core", "adreno_330", "qualcomm_snapdragon_s4_msm8274" and "qualcomm_snapdragon_s4_msm8974" were added recently.
The MSM8274 is a Snapdragon 800 chipset with four Krait 400 cores at up to 2.3GHz and Adreno 330 GPU. The MSM8974 also adds support for LTE-Advanced, CDMA, and the Chinese TD-SCDMA.
Yesterday's quad-core Nokia device most likely used a Snapdragon 400 – a quad Cortex A7 part with Adreno 305 and LTE support. The screen resolution on that mid-range phone was 720p.
Unfortunately, there's no mention of screen resolution in the document anywhere, but Adreno 330 would be a waste on anything less than 1080p. By the way, the Snapdragon 800 chipset will also be put in a new, faster Galaxy S4, so this unannounced Nokia device will be on par with the fastest of the Android world and Windows Phone 8 might finally catch up in the specs race.
The GSM variant of the Samsung Galaxy Tab 8.0 will soon be hitting the American shores. AT&T will begin selling the tablet starting June 21 for $399 along with a two-year contract.
If, however, you also choose to purchase either of the Samsung S4, S4 Active or the Galaxy Note II from AT&T, then the tablet will only cost you $199.
You can read our review of the Galaxy Tab 8.0 here.
-580-75.jpg)
