Leave it to a now-pulled eBay posting to give us a detailed look at the oft-leaked All New HTC One.
Someone walked away with a Verizon version of the phone for a steal of $499.99 (about £300, AU$556). While there's a chance it could be a repeat of the Xbox scam, so far no words of a hoax have surfaced.
Only the HTC One 2's packaging is shown in the listing, but the little white box is revealing.
For one, we know the phone is headed to at least one major US carrier (no surprise there).
The packaging is perhaps most valuable in that it gives us a full breakdown of specs, though many we've seen previously.
Unfocused HTC One 2 spec sheet
In addition to labeling the processor as a Snapdragon 801 clocked at 2.3GHz, the phone is said to sport a 5-inch 1920 x 1080 display and house a nanoSIM slot.
We do find some enlightenment on the storage side. This phone is a 32GB model, plus it has a microSD slot for memory expansion up to 128GB. RAM is specced at 2GB DDR2.
Of course, BoomSound is a noteworthy feature, and since we're looking at a Verizon device it's 4G LTE-capable.
New HTC One Camera and price
As for the new One's much talked about cameras, the snappers are listed as Duo Camera with UltraPixel on the back. They have a BSI sensor, an F2.0/28mm lens and HTC's ImageChip 2 with HDR video tech.
The front camera is listed as a 5MP BSI sensor with wide angle lens capable of HDR, 1080p video recording. HTC Zoe pokes her head out to say hi, too.
Finally, while the phone was listed for just under $500, expect the new One to cost significantly more off-contract. Except something at least $100-$200 more.
Heard about the Galaxy S5? Want to read our hands on?
At the end of February, the first pre-orders for the Sony Xperia Z2 began at £564, but back then it was noted that official pricing is yet to be confirmed. And today we have the real deal as Clove UK has listed Sony's flagship at £540. The availability date is still set for April 11, which suggests those manufacturing issues rumors might be off the mark.
Carphone Warehouse also offers the Xperia Z2 pre-orders - it charges a bit more at £549.95, but promises to deliver the smartphone earlier, on April 7. Other stores are yet to list SIM-free prices for the latest Sony flagship.
Sony has outdone itself and has partnered with UK carriers to promote the Xperia Z2 pre-order by any means necessary. A few days ago, we reported that Vodafone UK is actually bundling a free 32" Sony TV with every Z2 pre-order. Clove UK, too, is doing a promotion and throws in a free Sony wirelss speaker, noise-cancelling headphones and £80 of digital goods.
O2 and EE are also going to offer the Sony Xperia Z2, but haven't put up prices yet.
Samsung has been working on its ISOCELL tech for a while now and the new camera technology is ready for primetime – it's used in the main camera of the Samsung Galaxy S5, which is bound to sell in the tens of millions.
What's ISOCELL anyway? It turns out, individual pixels are in actual cells.
Barriers between the pixels reduce the crosstalk between them by 30%, which reduces noise in low-light conditions. An added advantage of the cells is that they improve on the back-side illumination by growing each pixel's light-collecting capacity by 30%, which enhances the dynamic range.
Samsung also claims that the ISOCELL sensors are thinner than traditional BSI sensors, making them more suitable for thin superphones. Watch the video below for a better explanation of how ISOCELL works.
We'll certainly take a few low-light snaps when we get a Samsung Galaxy S5 review unit. It's worth noting that it has a relatively large 1/2.6" sensor - close to the 1/2.5" sensor Nokia uses for the Lumia 1520 and Icon.
Owe someone for a coffee? Paym will let you square it away
The Payments Council, the organisation that sets strategy for UK payment mechanisms, has confirmed the name of a new secure way to pay using just a mobile phone number.
The new method will be called Paym, and will be integrated into customer's existing mobile banking or payment apps. At its launch (the data of which will be announced in April) nine bank and building societies will adopt the method.
Customers will be able to register their mobile number and select the account they wish to use before the service goes live. The new system, the Payment Council claims, will be the largest and most wide-ranging service for moving funds without an account number or sort code.
Easy, simple payments
The system will be expanded further in 2014, with other banks being added to the original nine, meaning that Paym will be available on more than nine out of 10 current accounts.
If a Paym user finds their mobile phone is lost or stolen and is concerned that that someone could access their account, they can ask their bank or building society to suspend service from that phone.
"Paym is a mobile update for payments that means you can pay securely using just a mobile number," said Adrian Kamellard, chief executive of the Payments Council. "Paym will make it easier to repay a friend for cinema tickets, split a restaurant bill or settle up for a colleague's birthday collection."
The Sony Xperia Z2 might be delayed due to manufacturing issues. So says milukugiuniu from the Esato forum - a credible source of Sony-related info in the past. According to him the delay is caused by a supplier that isn't Qualcomm and that the issue is global and will likely force Sony to launch the Xperia Z2 in limited quantity at first with mass unit availability pushed back.
If the information turns out true, the Sony Xperia Z2 might come to the market a full month after the Galaxy S5 and perhaps even the All New One by HTC has gone on sale. In recent years Sony was enjoying a healthy lead with its flagships - the Xperia Z was on the shelves in February - two months before the Samsung Galaxy S4.
One Esato forum user believed Europe will be an exception to the delay. This was denied by the original source of the information, though.
So far official information states that the Sony Xperia Z2 will launch in bulk this month. And until we hear any sort of confirmation on these rumors, we'll be hoping that this is the truth.
The HTC One 2014 (M8) leaks have been all over the place lately, but didn't suspect they'll go as far as this. Verizon-branded 32GB HTC One 4G LTE has been listed on eBay for sale.
Carrying a $499.99 price tag, the eBay listing shows the packaging of the phone, which also confirms it's going to be called like its predecessor - the HTC One (the All New part has been dropped from the box label).
The phone itself isn't photographed for the eBay listing, but we already saw the 2014 HTC One with Verizon branding earlier today, when a dummy unit also hit eBay.
Yesterday we gave you almost all the information of the upcoming flagship phone you need. We already know the second camera will be used for selective focus and 3D shooting. The phone's specifications are also out detailing the One will feature a 5" 1080p screen, Snapdragon 801 chipset, 4MP camera on the back and a 5MP front-facing camera.
HTC will unveil the One 2014 edition on March 25, but at this point we are not sure there's a lot left for the company to announce.
New spy photos of the upcoming Oppo Find 7 have surfaced. In them, the phone seems to be in its packaging, but nevertheless the slim bezels and 5.5" display are clearly seen.
We've already seen leaked official photos of the phone and we have to say it looks really nice. The company has confirmed there'll be two versions of the phone - one with FHD display and the other with a 2K one.
In the second photo below, you can also see the capacitive keys below the display.
Additionally, rumors are floating around that the FHD version of the Find 7 is going to sale for CNY3,000, which is below $500. We've also heard it's going to pack a removable battery. The lower-resolution version of the Find 7 will be powered by a Snapdragon 800 chipset (with a quad-core Krait CPU), 2GB of RAM and will pack 16GB of internal storage.
As you already probably know, the Oppo Find 7 announcement will happen in just a week on March 19 in Beijing. The company has already sent out the invites to the event, and judging by their cool look, it's going to be quite a show.
Announcing the All New HTC One (M8) on March 25 rather than the MWC doesn’t seem to be paying off for the manufacturer – its upcoming flagship can't go five minutes without info leaking from somewhere. The latest shows photos of the Verizon-bound version of the One successor.
All New HTC One with Verizon branding
Note that these photos are of an in-store dummy rather than a working device.
We already know what the second camera on the back is for and have most of the phone's specifications. By the looks of it, the All New HTC One will have a 5" 1080p screen, Snapdragon 801 chipset, 4MP camera on the back and a 5MP shooter on the front.
Anyway, we've already seen the All New HTC One (this name is going to get tiring fast) with AT&T branding, so it seems that US carriers are covered.
We've had the Samsung Galaxy Round and LG G Flex, and now Nokia might be lining up a flexible device onslaught after filing a patent for a rollable battery.
The Finnish company's new design, spotted in a patent filing by Nokia Power User, looks like a swiss roll in the way it wraps around itself.
Annotations point towards the battery's bend and twist capabilities, while the texts notes "the flexible battery 10 may be used in a multi-function portable electronic device."
Rollin' rollin' rollin'
Nokia's bendy plans start to unravel
The design looks similar to the foldable battery Nokia also patented last year, but less rigid. The new patent description clearly hints that Nokia is looking at how the smartphone space is changing and what it needs to do to keep up.
Nokia isn't limiting the options of its new battery technology to just the wearable sector though - an area of the market it is yet to launch itself into.
The patent reads: "Various embodiments of the invention could be used in any suitable type of portable electronic device such as a mobile phone, a gaming device, a music player, a notebook computer, or a personal digital assistant, for example."
The Samsung Galaxy S5 pre-orders are roving across Europe and its seems they'll hit the UK in a couple of weeks – the latest information says that Brits will be able to pre-order Samsung's new flagship starting March 28.
The actual launch date is set for April 11, other European countries are going for an April launch too.
There's no info on the price just yet but on the mainland it's €600-700, so expect a £500-600 price tag for a SIM-free Galaxy S5 in the UK. Unlocked Mobiles has a price already - £550 - but those early prices are sometimes inaccurate.
The phone will be available on-contract too, of course. EE, Vodafone and Three have already confirmed they'll be offering the S5.
Carphone Warehouse reports that pre-registrations of people interested in the Galaxy S5 over a 10 day period are 130% more than the pre-registrations for its predecessor, the Galaxy S4. We'll see how those translate to pre-orders in a couple of weeks' time.
The ZTE Nubia line is home to the company's flagship phones – powerful, slender and made of metal. The upcoming Nubia X6 is being teased on Weibo and promises to be on par with flagships from big makers.
The latest image shows a side glimpse of the upcoming device. The bezels around the screen will reportedly be very thin – 1.3mm – and while there's no info on screen specs, we can expect it to be an upgrade over the 5" 1080p IGZO panel of the Nubia Z5S.
By the same reasoning, the ZTE Nubia X6 will have a better than Snapdragon 800 chipset (so, 801 probably).
From the teasers, it's clear the X6 will have optical image stabilization like the Z5S before it. The camera on the current model shoots 13MP stills and 2160p video, so a bump in still resolution is to be expected.
ZTE Nubia Z6 teasers posted on Sina Weibo
The Nubia X6 will also feature stereo speakers with Dolby DTS tech, plus a large battery with fast charging capability. It's not clear why ZTE is moving to X from Z - the only Nubias so far are the Z5, Z5S and Z5S mini.
With Apple's CarPlay in-car tech recently in the news, you may be wondering what good it all is if you don't happen to be buying a new car in the next couple of years.
Put another way, is there any way you can get iOS into your existing car? Up to a point, yes, and part of the answer for you could be the Mobile Home in-car Siri enabling gadget.
Of course, there are many ways you can get some in-car iOS goodness. Simple things like a dock for for iPhone. If you want to go a bit Heath Robinson, you can DIY an iPad into your dash. It's been done.
But for most of us, what we want is something cheap, simple to set up and easy to use that gives at least some access to iOS in the car. And that's exactly what the $80/£50 Mobile Home does.
Simply clip it to a sun visor and let Siri do the hard work
It's essentially a Bluetooth-based patch through that links your car and Apple's Siri voice control system. On paper, it means you can have access to all your iPhone's Siri-based functionality in the car and on the move.
That means stuff like sending and listening to texts, emails and social network updates, controlling music playback, making phone calls, setting up calendar events, inputting navigation queries and destinations and more. Intriguing, eh?
The one proviso is that you'll need a car that already has integrated Bluetooth connectivity with hands free. Not too onerous a requirement, but worth noting.
Features
The Mobile Home proposition is pretty simple. It's a small device with a single button that essentially duplicates the functionality of holding the home button down on an iPhone to wake Siri up.
Via the magic of Bluetooth, you can then talk to your iPhone via your car's hands-free microphone and audio system, giving you access to the full gambit of Siri voice control.
Of course, the Mobile Home has no screen of any sort, so if you want to do something that requires visual interaction with iOS, you'll need to have your iPhone docked or cradled somewhere on the dash. The Mobile Home is purely about voice-based interaction with Siri.
This unassuming like object gives full access to Siri and iOS
It's also worth noting that the Mobile Home is not going to give you voice control of your car's broader multimedia kit. Its just about controlling your iPhone.
For power, the Mobile Home uses a single CR2550 disc/coin-shaped non-rechargeable lithium battery. You get two batteries with the unit, each claimed to be good for about six months.
Performance
Setting the Mobile Home is pretty straight forward. First you sync your iPhone with your car. Then your sync the Mobile Phone with your iPhone. And that's it.
From then on, you simply leave the Mobile clipped to your sun visor or similar. It automatically goes to sleep after extended periods without use. To wake it up, you just press the button when you jump onboard.
We sampled the Mobile Home courtesy of the new Vauxhall Adam White Edition, a car that happens to have quite a bit of iOS support of its own.
Anyway, in our testing, there wasn't any detectable drop-off in voice recognition performance. In other words, Siri via the Adam's microphone and on the move was just as accurate or not as using Siri out of the car and via the iPhone handset.
The need for an internet connection is a possible deal breaker
We assume your mileage may vary according to the quality of your car's Bluetooth installation. But without testing a given car, it's hard to get specific about likely performance.
What was less impressive was general responsiveness and reliability of operation. We often had to have a couple of stabs at pressing the button to wake Siri up, which does a pretty good job of dispelling the sense of ease of use.
Arguably worse was a glitch with Siri's voice output via the Adam's audio system, which was sometimes clipped. In other words, you lost some of what Siri was saying.
How much of that is down to the car or the Mobile Home device is hard to say, but it does make it hard to give the device a really strong immediate recommendation. In an ideal world, you'd try it with your car before you buy.
Finally, it's worth noting that Siri requires an internet connection to function and that can be a problem for cars moving in and out of range.
Tizen gets mentioned mostly in association with Samsung – indeed the company has the only retail-ready devices – but Intel is the other big player. It turns out that the chipmaker has a reference device, codenamed Josephine, and its own UI, called Obsidian.
Samsung leans towards a TouchWiz interface and brought a prototype phone at the MWC. Intel's Obsidian UI is more distinct from Android and features a lot of diamond shapes – for widgets, for icons, even notifications.
Tizen screenshot of Intel's Obsidian UI
Interestingly, the app drawer screenshots reveal a lot of popular apps including Skype, Flickr, Twitter, Facebook, Netflix and even Google's Drive and Currents. Now, either those are just mockups or Tizen features Android app compatibility a la BlackBerry OS 10 and Jolla.
Anyway, check out this demo video that was uploaded on Tizen Indonesia in June last year. It's probably an old version of the OS and UI, but is still interesting to see.
It seems that shortcuts are square and rotate 45° to attract attention (giving them the diamond shape). Also, Obsidian uses a lot to panels that overlay part of the screen instead of popups or floating apps.
The video quality is too poor to tell if this is Josephine or an Android phone with a custom ROM. Considering the timerframe, it could well be a repurposed droid. Intel has so far refrained from making Intel-branded phones, but this might change with Josephine.
You can also watch this demo of Samsung's prototype device running TouchWizzified Tizen to compare the two different approaches.
Sony Xperia E1 is now available through various retailers in India. Both single and dual-SIM version are available for purchase in all three color flavors - black, white and purple. The black models are quickly running out of stock though, so if you want one you should hurry making an order.
Sony Xperia E1 Dual costs INR9,750 or €115, while the single SIM Xperia E1 is oddly priced at INR9,990 or €118. Anyway, the price difference is quite insignificant.
We also checked for the EU price and found Amazon DE has it on pre-order for €144 for the single-SIM and €149 for the dual-SIM Xperia E1. Clove UK has also listed the smartphone on pre-order for £135, but the official pricing and availability is yet to be confirmed. According to previous reports the Xperia E1 should be hitting Europe this spring.
In case you need a refresh, Sony Xperia E1 was announced on CES with a 4" WVGA display and a Snapdragon 200 SoC with dual-core 1.2GHz Cortex-A7 processor, Adreno 302 and 512MB of RAM. The smartphone features a 3MP rear camera, a microSD card slot, 3G with HSPA, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, GPS and FM radio.
The version of the Android OS ticking inside is 4.3 Jelly Bean and it is unknown if the phone will be getting KitKat later or not.
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