Recently, photographs of Sony's Xperia D6503 madethe rounds on the internet. From the picture, the device looks almost bezel-less, suggesting that it has an extremely large screen, while perhaps maintaining manageable ergonomics.
Today, we have some news on the rumored specs of the Sirius, along with screenshots of its camera interface. Someone who has managed to get their hands on the Sirius was able to upload screenshots of the 4K video app, the Creative Effect camera app, and the Timeshift video app.
4K Video * Timeshift Video * Creative Effect
These won't be Sirius exclusives, however. With the latest Android 4.4.2 update rolling out for the Xperia Z1 compact, Xperia Z1, and Sony Xperia Z Ultra, owners of the aforementioned handsets will get to enjoy the new camera features as well.
Furthermore, the leaked screenshots showcase the different video capture quality options. The still image resolution options are showcased too.
Video capture quality * still image resolution
Video recording quality of upcoming handset is capable of 1080p@60fps - an improvement over the Xperia Z1's 1080p@30fps. Still photography on the other hand reveals a number of available image resolutions, ranging from the full 20.7MP, through 15.5MP, all the way to 2MP images. A manual mode which is bound to appeal to photography enthusiasts is also present.
The handset should be making an appearance at Mobile Word Congress which will be going on from February 24th-27th. In addition to the beefy camera, the Sirius should be packing a 5.2” Triluminos display, Snapdragon 800 CPU, 3GB RAM, 16GB internal storage, and new and improved Xperia UI.
A couple of newly leaked, alleged photos of the upcoming HTC M8 made the rounds. The duo of images gives us another look at the HTC One successor’s dual-camera setup and on-screen buttons.
Despite its far from great quality, the photo of the device’s dual-camera clearly reveals a dual, two-tone LED flash, like the one found in the Apple iPhone 5s. Curiously, the image shows a slightly different camera setup than the previous time we saw it, possibly due to the prototype nature of the leaked devices.
The leaked photo of the on-screen buttons on the other hand, shows their setup in both landscape and portrait mode. The image is in line with what we’ve seen already.
It has been rumoured for a while that the Windows Phone 8.1 update will have a notifications centre to catch-up with iOS and Android and now we know it's going to be an all-action solution.
According to the first leaked screenshots, Microsoft's interpretation of an all encompassing notifications portal will be called the 'Action Centre.'
For a start, isn't that way better than Notifications Centre? Secondly, judging by a 'Microsoft Confidential' email obtained by Winphollowers, it actually looks kinda neat too.
The Action Centre shows applications segregated by icons, while there's also a 'Clear All' option and a chance to access 'All Settings' within the portal.
Intelligently managed
According to the screenshot, and accompanying text, Action Centre is a "central location to surface missed notifications," while apps can "intelligently manage notifications," meaning you can choose which apps you wish to receive them from and silence others.
There's also a toolbar offering quick access to Bluetooth, Driving Mode, Airplane and Wi-Fi settings with a single tap, much like the Android OS.
It seems the elusive Nokia Lumia Icon is finally about to complete the trip from a mere rumor to an official smartphone. A newly leaked internal document aligns, which aligns nicely with the teaser that Nokia released yesterday and gives a possible date for the launch of the handset on the Verizon network.
According to a leaked Verizon inventory document the Nokia Lumia Icon will be making its way to the stores of the big red on February 19. A bunch of accessories for the handset will be arriving a day later, on February 20, when the sales are expected to start.
Furthermore, a new report by WPcentral has it that pre-orders for the upcoming Nokia flagship will start as soon as next week. The exact date mentioned is February 12, so the announcement must be coming in less than three days. And, in case you are interested in booking your Nokia Lumia Icon unit, you should know that pre-orders will be accepted against a $50 deposit.
In case you got lost in the sea of leaks so far, the Nokia Lumia Icon should be a WP8 GDR3-running smartphone with a 5” 1080p AMOLED screen and a Snapdragon 800 chipset (2.2GHz quad-core Krait CPU, Adreno 330 GPU, 2GB of RAM). It should have the same 20MP camera as the Lumia 1520 and a 2,510 mAh juice pack.
All of our questions about the Samsung Galaxy S5 will be answered come February 24th in Barcelona, but that hasn't stopped more rumors and speculations about the device from circulating the media. In fact, a newest piece of data from AnTuTu suggests that there will be two different Galaxy S5 devices with significantly disparate technical specifications: the SM-G900H and SM-G900R4.
This falls in line with predictions that Samsung may be going the iPhone route with the Samsung Galaxy S5; making a lower end version of their popular smartphone as Apple did with the 5s and 5c models.
Let's take a look at the specs of the bench-marked devices. The SM-G900R4 is packing a 2.5GHz quad-core Snapdragon 800 CPU, 3GBRAM, Andreno 330 GPU, 32GB internal storage, 16MP primary camera, 2.1MP front-facing unit, a QHD display, and will have Kit Kit 4.4.2 out of the box.
With these tech specs, how did this variant of the S5 score in the benchmarks? It nabbed 31,483 points, which is lower than the Note 3. It might seem odd that despite the S5 having similar specs to the Note 3, it also has a higher resolution screen to power, which puts a slightly heavier burden on the GPU of the device.
The SM-G900H version comes with much different specs: a 1.5GHz Octa-Core Samsung Exynos 522 CPU, 2GB RAM, ARM Mali-T628 GPU, 16GB internal storage, and an HD Display. The camera and Android versions are identical to the G900R4.
The latter version ended up scoring high on the benchmark test: 35,445, edging out both the Note 3 and its brother variant.
We are yet still waiting for the official premiere of the HTC M8 otherwise known as HTC One+, One 2 or simply the next HTC flagship. However, this hasn’t stopped the first rumors of a mini version from coming in and today we get to learn its key specs.
The leak is coming from the popular evleaks twitter account, which has proven reliable on multiple occasions in the past. The HTC M8 mini will allegedly run on Android 4.4 KitKat, coupled with the proprietary Sense 6.0 launcher.
And while that wasn’t too hard to guess, the Snapdragon 400 chipset inside is somewhat surprising. If the rumor pans out the next HTC mini will have a chipset from the exact same family as the current one. There will be a slight difference though – the two Krait cores will be replaced by a quad-core Cortex-A7 CPU running at 1.4GHz. It certainly doesn’t sound too promising though – we were hoping to see more manufacturers follow Sony in releasing powerful compact smartphones.
The screen of the HTC M8 mini should measure 4.5” in diagonal (up from 4.3” on the One mini) and will have the same 720p resolution. The RAM will be 1GB, internal storage will be 16GB, only this time it will be expandable via the microSD card slot.
HTC M8 mini (mem_ul): SD400 (1.4GHz x4), 4.5", 720p, 1GB/16GB (+microSD), 13MP/5MP, a/b/g/n/ac, BT4.0, KK4.4.2, Sense6.0, buttons on screen.
On the connectivity end, the M8 mini is said to come with Wi-Fi a/b/g/n/ac and Bluetooth 4.0. It will also join the full-size M8 in offering virtual buttons as opposed to dedicated hardware keys.
There’s no saying when the new HTC mini might launch, so we guess we’ll have to wait for a while longer before we can say for sure if those specs are indeed the real thing.
The first week of February has traditionally been a very interesting week – a little event known as the Mobile World Congress used to start in the middle of the month back then (not at the end like now) and the rumor mill went in overdrive those few days.
Come back in time with us to look at the rumors from back in the day through eyes that have the benefit of hindsight.
The infamous Burning Platform memo had been published and Nokia's path was clear – drop Symbian, bet the house on Windows Phone. Eventually in 2012 it became clear that the fan-favorite smartphone OS will be discontinued, but at least rumors promised one last great hurrah.
That same week we saw the silhouette of a Nokia 803 and heard plenty of talk how it will have the biggest camera sensor of any mobile phone. We remember chalking off the talk of a 41MP camera to wishful thinking. And we also remember the geek chills we felt when Nokia actually trotted out a 41MP cameraphone on stage, the Nokia 808 (close enough).
The Nokia 808 PureView will always be one of our favorite camera phones, but Symbian's path was nearing its end.
That week back in 2012, Nokia was rolling out the Belle update for Symbian^3 devices, but the battle had already been lost. Windows Phone 8 appeared on video giving us the first taste of Nokia's current hopes and dreams.
The smartphone OS that put an end to Symbian's domination and currently far outstrips Windows Phone was going through changes of its own – Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich was out and Google just announced that it had secured 1% of the market. ICS marked a turning point in Android's interface design by introducing Holo, but the old school Gingerbread had a massive 60% share of the market.
Going back one year further to February 2011, we find an excited GSMArena team handling the LG Optimus 2X for the first time. It was the first phone to feature a dual-core processor and LG used that new found power to enable 1080p video capture on a phone, another first.
Could it have been so soon? These days we get octa-cores and UHD video, but back then the Tegra 2 chipset was a big deal. A bit later on we found that 720p video shot with the Optimus 2X was better than the 1080p video. Oh well, first steps.
This week in February is something special for cameras – the Nokia 808 rumors, the Optimus 2X video camera and, of course, the Optimus 3D. The phone boasted a camera that could snap 3D photos and videos and while details at the time were scarce, it fed into the 3D craze started by Avatar. Looking back at it, it's almost surprising (but not really) how quickly this fad died.
Turn the clock back another year and we arrive before Symbian^3 was a thing. Nokia had just finished up buying out all other shareholders in Symbian, open-sourced it and made it available for download.
Maemo was another open source OS Nokia was using at the time and we excitedly expected its next iteration. If only we had known what would happen to Maemo, later turned into MeeGo, then into Tizen.
At least Nokia's Ovi Maps were doing okay, scoring 1.4 million downloads in a week. The Ovi Maps service may have underwent several rebrandings (it's now HERE Maps), but it outlived both Symbian and Maemo.
Do you remember the Toshiba TG01? We do – it was the first phone with a powerful Snapdragon chipset with a 1GHz processor (a first), featured a large, sharp screen (4.1" WVGA was really impressive in 2009) and was super slim at 9.9mm.
The concrete numbers sound boring today, but this was the first phone that defined the formula – large screen, powerful chipset, thin chassis. Today's oversized flagships owe the TG01 a debt, even if Toshiba never made it big on the smartphone market.
While the Toshiba TG01 set our brains on fire with its awesome specs, a modest HTC Dream was unveiled. Its specs don't even come close to that of the TG01, but it was HTC's first Android phone to bear the company's own logo. It was essentially the T-Mobile G1, which was also made by HTC.
While the company is in a financial pickle now, it has produced some of the best Android smartphones over the years and this is where it all started.
"Talk about big" boasts an Apple ad from early February 2008. An iPhone with 16GB storage was a big jump in built-in storage – the Toshiba above came a year later and had only 512MB, while the HTC Dream had even less.
With that in mind, we don't mean to sound ungrateful but very often today 16GB built-in storage is insufficient. You see, smartphone OSes back in 2008 ate a lot less of the built-in storage and the iPhone had no high-resolution camera with 1080p video recording (or any video recording) to dwindle the storage further.
But you have to admit that six years later iPhones still come with 16GB storage by default and upgrades are costly. Flash storage technology certainly did not take nap for half a decade.
