It looks like Nokia might not be the only mobile tech heavyweight which is going to be sold this year. According to WSJ sources, the management team of the troubled BlackBerry is pushing for a sale of the company before the end of November.
The freshly emerged report claims that BlackBerry's special committee has already spoken to potentially interested parties, and prepared a short list of suitors. A sale however is not a sure thing, despite the Canadian company's haste in facilitating it.
According to a member of BlackBerry's board, pieces of the company should be sold, thus turning it into a "niche" player. Recent reports about BlackBerry Messenger being spun off into a separate company also point in this direction.
The Galaxy Note 3 does exactly what we thought it would do: takes over the mantle of the world's most powerful smartphone, although the gap is a lot smaller this time.
Samsung seems to have run out of ideas when it comes to improving the specs on its smartphones, and that's a jolly good thing. It's meant that the company has been forced to really think about what it's doing with the Galaxy Note 3, and it's all the better for it.
With the Galaxy S4 lauded for its core abilities, but criticised for its pointless amount of 'innovative' features, Samsung made far less of a point of talking about anything to do with eye tracking, and more about the enhanced use of the S Pen.
Don't get us wrong: we're still a long way from thinking that the S Pen is a killer feature, but what Samsung has done with it here has at least come from a place of sensibility and actually putting the user first.
Well, the user that can afford to spend a good portion of their wages on a smartphone, that is. In the UK, the Galaxy Note will be available for £47 per month if you want a free phone, and we're expecting the US Note 3-fanciers to shell out $299 on contract, making it one of the most expensive smartphones in the world.
However, that doesn't mean it's not worth the money - with so many features on offer, surely there's enough to warrant the cost?
Samsung is making a big deal about the freedom the S Pen brings you, with the definitely-not-a-stylus now imbued with even greater power.
Called Air Control, all you need to do is hover the S Pen over the screen and click the button, with a little fan dock coming up to give you some new options. These include smart cutting, where you simply draw a circle around the content you want and it will automatically save it to whichever scrapbook you want for future reference.
Why you'd want to do this (Samsung seems to think everyone from a chef to a florist will be snicking videos from the web) is a little less clear, but at least the option is there.
Other new abilities include an enhanced multi-tasking capability, with one of the fan-dock options in Air Power letting you draw a square on the screen and have a select amount of apps pop up for use. So if you need a calculator, to watch some YouTube or set an alarm, and can't be bothered to exit your current app, then this is a great option to have.
Samsung's back with the Multi-window too, and now you can add two of the same app at once. This makes sense if you want to check two emails at once or have two chat windows open at once, although it seems like more hassle than it's worth to do this.
This leads us neatly to one of the issues that we've got with the Samsung Galaxy Note family as a whole: there's just too much going on at once to be really worthwhile. Most people will never use multi-window, as nine times out of ten you'll find you're using it for the sake of it. On the odd occasion you annoyingly have to keep switching between windows to copy text, it's really helpful, but we've never found it anything other than fiddly to use.
The notion of being able to draw more windows fills us with dread, to compound that issue.
We're not criticising the amount of power on offer here though - far from it, we're all for a more powerful smartphone and it's the reason a lot of people pick it up. However, to sell it on such features feels a little counter-intuitive. Why not make a bigger deal of the amazing 5.7-inch screen with a much thinner bezel, and the fact it's been crammed into a frame that's even smaller than before?
That seems like a much better selling point than the ability to look at maps and email at the same time - but then again, perhaps millions of sales of the Note family worldwide tells a different story.
Talking of design, we can't really say we like the faux leather on offer. In the promotional videos it looks slick and premium, but when you hold it in the hand it doesn't give the desired 'life's notebook' feeling Samsung was clearly going for.
It will be interesting to see how people engage with this notion - it's not always practical to go for metal, so at least Samsung is taking things in a different direction - we're just not sure this is the right one.
Samsung has repeated another annoying trick from the S4, and that's the decision to release different versions of the Note 3 with a variety of functionality. You can get it with the ability to shoot in Ultra HD, or in an octa-core version, or just 2.3GHz quad core processor instead. We presumed the quad core option would have 4K capabilities, but that doesn't seem to be the case.
Early verdict
The Galaxy Note 3 is very much an evolution, with the specs starting to top out. The 3GB of RAM, the 13MP camera and octa-core processor are all nice additions, as well as things like superfast 4G on board.
It's excellent sonically, can display images in a superbly crisp manner and has a number of tweaks to really make the camera take some decent snaps. Those are the things we want to judge the Note 3 on, not the ability to click the S Pen in a different manner.
We're not sold on the design of the back, nor the high price - but there still seems to be an appetite for the Note range, so perhaps this is just the handset Samsung needs.
Sell out with me oh yeah, sell out with me tonight
BlackBerry looks like it may be the next former smartphone kingpin to admit defeat in its battle to rejoin the mobile elite, with the ailing Canadian company reportedly looking for a quick and painless sale.
Just days removed from Nokia's sale to Microsoft, the Wall Street Journal claimed BlackBerry has courted potential suitors with a view to handing over the keys, potentially as soon as November this year.
The paper said preliminary discussions have already taken place with interested parties regarding taking on all or part of the company.
Final throw
The BB10 experiment was widely seen as BlackBerry's final throw of the dice, but despite some respectable reviews for the Q10 QWERTY handset and Z10 all-touchscreen affair, both handsets fell flat commercially.
The company does have more phones in the pipeline, with the rumoured Z30 expected to arrive before the year is out.
What's this, another smartwatch is entering the fray? Yep, the Qualcomm Toq was a rather surprise announcement at the firm's annual Uplinq conference in San Diego this week, following swiftly in the footsteps of the Samsung Galaxy Gear.
Before you get too excited though we will start with the bad news. The Toq will only be available in the US, and Qualcomm is limiting the run to "tens of thousands" with the smartwatch only being sold via online marketplaces.
Qualcomm tells us the Toq will go on sale during the fourth quarter of the year and will retail somewhere between $300 and $350 (around £190-£225, AU$330-$380).
It will however work in any country round the world, so if you're really keen to get your hands on one you're not completely out of luck.
Sporting what is believed to be a 1.6-inch display, the Toq has a unique Mirasol screen which doesn't feature a back light, instead it harnesses the ambient light in its environment.
This means that even in direct sunlight you can see the display without issue, something which is almost impossible on many smartphones and other back-lit devices such as the Sony Smart Watch 2.
The colour display never switches off either, so you can quickly glance down and see what's on screen without having to wake the Toq or click a button.
Even though the screen never switches off Qualcomm claims you'll be able to get "days" of battery life from the Toq, depending on your usage patterns.
If you're struggling to see the screen on the Qualcomm Toq at night there is a front light which you can stick on to aid you.
The screen has a pretty low resolution, but that's not a huge issue as it is clear and it's not like you're going to be watching movies or viewing pictures on the Toq.
It's predominantly a text based display, with messages, call information, emails and calendar appointments front and centre.
We did find the Toq's screen looked washed out at times, and if you're not looking front on you will struggle a little to see what's being displayed.
The screen is responsive to the touch, although you won't be blown away by speed with an off-the-shelf 200MHz Cortex M3 processor stuck inside the Toq instead of one of Qualcomm's Snapdragon offerings - but it's not much of an issue.
We weren't left waiting long when we fired up the weather app or dived into the calendar, and the ability to select a custom homescreen on the Toq allows you to have the information most important to you front and centre.
You can have just a clock, the time and date or even your next calendar appointment or the weather on the homescreen. It's up to you.
The stocks and shares app will be handy for anyone business minded considering splashing out on the Toq, although everything requires a great deal of scrolling due to the tiny nature of the display - but that's hardly surprising.
A handy feature is the music player which gives you basic on screen controls allowing you to manipulate your tunes as the Toq streams them to the Bluetooth ear buds which come bundled in the box.
The ear pieces are both completely wireless, but have the unfortunate design which is very similar to a hearing aid, so they aren't exactly the coolest buds about.
Sadly they weren't available to get hands on (or should that be ears on?) with at Uplinq so apart from the look there's little else we can say about them for now.
The watch itself is relatively lightweight and it's pretty large, but certainly not as chunky as the Samsung Galaxy Gear, and there's no physical buttons present allowing for a clean design.
There's a touch sensitive button hidden in the strap below the screen though, allowing you to lock the Toq to avoid any unwanted presses and also toggle the front light if it's just too dark to see.
Qualcomm has managed to keep the size of the watch down by moving the battery for the unit into the clasp, allowing it to sit relatively flush to your wrist.
The clasp itself is a little clunky, the fastening mechanism doesn't feel overly robust and we can see it breaking if you're not careful with the Toq.
Rather frustratingly there's no easy way to adjust the strap on the Qualcomm Toq to fit the more dainty of wrists. You actually have to cut the strap to make it smaller - there's no links to remove or a range of holes for you to slip a peg into here.
The Qualcomm Toq smartwatch is compatible with handsets running Android 4.0.3 or higher, which pretty much covers the majority of the Android devices out there now. Obviously Bluetooth is also required to pair your phone with the Toq.
Qualcomm hopes app developers will get behind the Toq and update their applications to work with the smartwatch, plus the software is upgradeable so we could see new features in the future.
Another selling point for the Qualcomm Toq is that it's the first smartwatch to support fully wireless charging. You get a special charging tray for the watch as well as the two headphones, although you'll still need to plug that into a wall.
Early verdict
We quite like the Qualcomm Toq. It knows what it's doing and does it well. It's not trying to pull out all the stops with over the top functionality or gimmicky features, it's purely an aid to let you quickly check a notification or skip that One Direction track you've been meaning to remove from your playlist but haven't yet.
The small, low res screen can irk at times and the strap adjustment issue will cause some people grief, but if you're looking for simple companion device which saves you having to dig your smartphone out of your bag or pocket every two seconds then the Toq may well suit.
Android 4.3 in your hands, courtesy of a wristwatch
There's one benefit to the Samsung Galaxy Gear smartwatch even if you don't want to attach one to your wrist: the battery-friendly Android 4.3 update is reportedly being prepped for Samsung Galaxy smartphones.
The newer Jelly Bean update is said to add to Galaxy Gear functionality to the Galaxy S4.
TechRadar reached out to Samsung to see if the Galaxy Note 2 would share in the Android 4.3 download fun this October or a future release date. We'll update this story when we hear back.
Better battery over Bluetooth
It sounds like Samsung wants to take advantage of Android 4.3 features like Bluetooth 4.0, which would help keep the battery of the company's new smartwatch ticking all day long.
Considering the Galaxy Gear is touting a battery life of just "more than a day," the low-powered Bluetooth connection found in Android 4.3 would be a major benefit for both the phone and the smartwatch.
Right now, the Samsung smartwatch is only compatible with its newly unveiled Galaxy Note 3 phablet and Galaxy Note 10.1 2014 tablet, both of which run Android 4.3 with Bluetooth 4.0.
Look for the Samsung Galaxy S4 and Galaxy S3 Android 4.3 updates in October, if your carrier permits it, of course.
Qualcomm loves mobile. And let's be honest, who doesn't? But now it's looking to add to your touch, sight, smell, taste and hearing with something it's calling the "digital sixth sense".
While that sounds pretty brazen there is a deeper meaning behind the showy name, with Qualcomm aiming to connect all our devices and have them interact with others located in your current environment.
Predictions suggest that there will be 25 billion connected devices by 2020 and over half of those won't be a mobile phone, with things such as TVs, cars and wearable technology so Qualcomm is looking at ways to make all these work in unison.
It's not just the simple link of devices talking to each other either. Qualcomm is working on technology to allow your mobile phone to react to your preferences and your current location by providing useful, relevant and timely information.
Not so natural senses
There are a number of offerings Qualcomm has developed to push towards this extension of our natural senses, keeping the smartphone at the centre of everything we do, but requiring us to use it less.
First up there's Gimbal, a context aware system which can communicate with Bluetooth beacons and push things such as notifications and offers to your smartphone - we've already tried out the system at the conference.
Then there's the AllJoyn and AllPlay services, the former providing a secure framework for joining various devices together and the latter building on top of that with a music streaming service allowing you to play music from your smartphone or tablet to enabled speakers.
It's a similar sort of deal to Sonos, but Qualcomm is offering the SDK for AllPlay to developers, allowing them to build the functionality directly into their applications.
Lastly is Qualcomm Vuforia, an augmented reality engine which allows you to interact with objects which aren't connected - such as magazines. Nothing really new here then.
What is new is something Qualcomm is calling Smart Terrain which uses Vuforia and it can turn every day objects into a virtual world which can then be used as a platform for game play.
The example we were shown during the conference was a coffee tablet being turned into a game world, with a unique 3D mapper slapped on the back of a Sony Xperia Tablet Z creating a mesh of the surface and the objects on it and then building the world on top.
It was certainly impressive, but we're not completely sold on the concept of people holding their smartphone or tablet up to their coffee table just to play a game, when sitting back on the sofa is a far more appealing option.
The Samsung Galaxy Note 3 was unveiled at Samsung Unpacked on September 4, and it didn't throw any real surprises at us. The massive smartphone or phablet--a word we still refuse to accept into the English language despite what the Oxford Dictionary says--is an incremental upgrade to its predecessor, the Galaxy Note 2.
Samsung's latest smartphone is bigger and better than the last generation model, if only by just a little bit. Physically, it has a bigger display than the Note 2, yet it's slimmer and lighter than the older version. Depending on your market, it also has a more powerful CPU.
Battery capacity has been upped, along with the camera resolution, which was to be expected since the Galaxy S4 is rocking a 13MP shooter, too.
Samsung also added a few extra software goodies to the latest Note smartphone, but we're left wondering whether you good folks will find use for them, or if they're just another array of gimmicks. But we guess it's better to have all the Note apps and not need them, than to need them and not have them?
One nice change is the faux-leather back with stitching. When it comes to Samsung's build quality and choice of materials, the chief complaint is that its hardware is made of mostly plastic, and it feels cheap. With the added touch of fake leather and possibly fake stitching, the Galaxy Note 3 will at least have a somewhat premium feel.
Take a quick look at the short comparison sheet below, and you'll find that the differences aren't very drastic. Though the Galaxy Note 3 isn't a radical overhaul of its predecessor, it's nice to have a new version with some bumped up specs. Whether you think it's worth upgrading is entirely up to you and your needs, but if I were to give a little advice for those that want it, I'd say go for it only if you can afford to throw away some cash.
The Samsung Galaxy Note 3 has been officially announced today at IFA 2013 in Berlin, complete with 4K UHD video recording at 30fps.
As expected, the device sports a 5.7-inch fullHD display of the Super AMOLED variety. It runs on a 2.3GHz quad-core processor, 32/64GB internal storage, 3GB of RAM, and a 3200 mAh battery. It comes in Jet Black, Classic White, and Blush Pink.
Samsung Galaxy Note 3 in black, white and pink color variations
There is also a selection of Flip Wallet leather covers in multiple colors.
Samsung Galaxy Note 3 Flip Wallet case color options
Also revealed is the Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1, 2014 edition. This refresh of the original Galaxy Note does away with the numbered naming scheme.
The Galaxy Note 10.1 (2014 Edition) also comes with a 2.3GHz quad-core CPU (for the LTE version), 3GB of RAM, and 16/32/64GB of internal storage. Its 10.1-inch screen is of 2560 x 1600 pixels resolution, and the 8MP main camera is capable of 1080p video recording at 60fps.
Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 (2014) in black
Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 (2014) in white
Both devices will run on the newest Android 4.3 with TouchWiz UI. The Note 3 will be available starting September 25 in 140 countries globally, while the Note 10.1 (2014) will go on sale later in Q3.
