LG Optimus L9 arrives in Europe

Put with the Nexus 4 for company, who would buy it?

The LG Optimus L9 has touched down in Germany, where consumers can purchase the smartphone online SIM-free.

Available for €299 (around £240) on Amazon, LG has been slow to roll out the Optimus L9 to Europe, making it available in Asia and the US first.

It's the most powerful handset in the Korean firm's L-Style range, with the disappointing LG Optimus L7, and rather uninspiring Optimus L3 already on sale in Britain, while the Optimus L5 remains pretty anonymous.

Middle of the road

LG lifted the lid of the Optimus L9 at the end of August, revealing its 4.7-inch True IPS display, 1GHz dual-core processor, 1GB of RAM, 5MP camera and Android 4.0 innards.

There's nothing here to get the heart racing, but if LG keep the Optimus L9 at a competitively low price it could turn out to be a decent mid-range phone – we just hope it works better than the L7.

LG may have cannibalised the Optimus L9's sales though; with the Google Nexus 4 boasting far superior specifications and starting at just £239 SIM-free, we're not sure who would plump for the L9.

We have contacted LG to find out if the Optimus L9 will make it across the channel to Britain, and we'll update this article once we hear back.

Source : http://www.techradar.com/news/phone-and-communications/mobile-phones/lg-optimus-l9-arrives-in-europe-1110729

Read More

Samsung Galaxy S3 Mini officially unveiled

Yes, it looks like a Galaxy S3, but what's the point?

The Samsung Galaxy S3 Mini has been officially announced by the South Korean firm at an event in Germany, which showed off the 4-inch, Android toting handset.

We've been hearing rumblings over the past weeks about a smaller version of the extremely popular Samsung Galaxy S3 being in the works, and today the rumours transformed into truth.

The Galaxy S3 Mini sports a 4-inch, 480 x 800 display Super AMOLED display, 1GHz dual-core processor, 1GB of RAM, 16GB of internal memory, 5MP rear camera with LED flash, front-facing VGA snapper, NFC, microSD card slot and a 1,500mAh battery.

Less than SPEC-tacular

JK Shin, Samsung's head of communications said yesterday that the Galaxy S3 Mini won't be found wanting in terms of specifications when compared to its big brother, and while the slimmed down offering may ship with Android 4.1 out the box, some fans may be disappointed by what's inside.

Gone is the quad-core grunt and HD display of the Galaxy S3, and the 5MP camera is on a mediocre par with the Samsung Galaxy Nexus, and below what you find on the Galaxy S2.

Obviously the Galaxy S3 Mini is kinder to your pocket and easier to hold in the hand, with it measuring 121.55 x 63 x 9.85mm and weighing 111.5g – it's smaller and lighter than the original S3, although it is slightly thicker.

Currently the Samsung Galaxy S3 release date and price are unknown, but we'd expect it to arrive in time for the lucrative Christmas market.

In terms of price we reckon it will come in between the £220-£270 ($350-£430/AU$340-420) mark, with the specifications quoted rivalling the likes of the HTC One V, Orange San Diego, Nokia Lumia 710 and Samsung Galaxy Ace 2.

Source : http://www.techradar.com/news/phone-and-communications/mobile-phones/samsung-galaxy-s3-mini-officially-unveiled-1103710

Read More

4-inch Samsung Galaxy S III mini officially unveiled

No, we didn’t scale the images wrong, it's the new Samsung I8190 Galaxy S III mini that was just announced in Germany. Brought on by an increasing demand for 4" droids with good specs, the S III mini wants to please people who find the 4.8" screen of its big brother to be just too big.

Bearing the S III title, the mini has the same nature-inspired design as the big S III and the Galaxy Note II. And it will be running Android 4.1 Jelly Bean at launch with the same TouchWiz customizations that its bigger siblings enjoy, like S Voice and Smart Stay.

Looks aside, the specs of the I8190 Galaxy S III mini doesn’t quite live up to its name. It has a 4" Super AMOLED screen of WVGA resolution (and a PenTile matrix). Inside is a ST-Ericsson NovaThor chipset with two Cortex-A9 cores, ticking at 1GHz, 1GB of RAM and a Mali-400 GPU.

The main camera has a 5MP sensor and an LED flash and it's capable of shooting 720p video. There's a VGA front-facing camera too.

The Samsung Galaxy S III mini offers quad-band 2G and tri-band 3G connectivity (with 14.4Mbps HSDPA and 5.76Mbps HSUPA), dual-band Wi-Fi a/b/g/n, Bluetooth 4.0 and NFC. The internal storage comes in 8GB or 16GB versions and there's a microSD card slot if you need more.

Basically, the whole Samsung I8190 Galaxy S III mini is a Galaxy S/Galaxy S II hybrid (with almost the exact same specs as the I9070 Galaxy S Advance) that was styled to look like a Galaxy S III.

The dimensions of the phone are 121.6 x 63 x 9.9 mm and it weighs 111.5g and the battery has 1500mAh capacity.

We're still waiting on the launch date and pricing info to come in.

Source

Source : http://www.gsmarena.com/samsung_galaxy_s_iii_mini_officially_unveiled-news-4933.php

Read More

Samsung Galaxy S3 Mini launching tomorrow

I will call him... Mini Galaxy S3

The Samsung Galaxy S3 Mini launch event has been confirmed as tomorrow, when the 4-inch handset will take to the stage in Germany.

We first reported that we may see a slimmed down version of the popular, but rather large Samsung Galaxy S3 last week after an invite to the German event showed up online.

JK Shin, Samsung's head of communications has now confirmed that the Korean firm will indeed release the Galaxy S3 Mini on October 11.

Expect big power in a smaller package

Shin also said that Samsung fans shouldn't be concerned about the specifications of the Galaxy S3 Mini, as the handset won't be found wanting in that department, and would have a "full form factor".

It's unclear if the Samsung Galaxy S3 Mini will sport exactly the same quad-core processor and 8MP camera as found in the S3 - although that would be pretty fantastic, we also reckon it's highly unlikely.

Our money is on a punchy dual-core chip and potentially toned-down camera – however this would mean the Galaxy S3 Mini would be similar, if not slightly less featured packed than the still excellent, but now reasonably priced Samsung Galaxy S2.

The 4-inch display means the Galaxy S3 Mini could turn out to be a direct rival to the new iPhone 5, which sports, for the first time on an Apple smartphone, a bigger display.

The Galaxy S3 Mini could also come running Android 4.1, which would be the first handset in Samsung's core range (ignoring the Galaxy Nexus) to sport the Jelly Bean software.

Luckily we've not got long to wait, with all our questions being answered tomorrow. We spoke to Samsung, and a spokeperson for the company said: "The Galaxy S III Mini will come with a 4" display and we are going to unveil the product tomorrow (Oct 11th)."

Source : http://www.techradar.com/news/phone-and-communications/mobile-phones/samsung-galaxy-s3-mini-launching-tomorrow-1103366

Read More

Samsung launches Galaxy Note II in India and Germany

Samsung has launched the Galaxy Note II in India and Germany. In India the phone is being priced at ₹39,000 whereas in Germany the phone will be sold for €599.

In case you're not aware of this device, the Galaxy Note II is an updated version of last year's Galaxy Note and is basically a stretched Galaxy S III. It has a 5.5-inch Super AMOLED display, up from 5.3-inch on last year's model and comes with the same pressure sensitive S-Pen stylus from the Galaxy Note 10.1.

Other features include a 1.6GHz quad-core Exynos processor, 2GB of RAM, 8 megapixel camera with 1080p video recording, 16/32/64GB internal memory with microSD card slot and the latest Android 4.1 Jelly Bean.

You can check out the live stream from the Galaxy Note II release event over here:

Source : http://www.gsmarena.com/samsung_launches_galaxy_note_ii_in_india_and_germany-news-4863.php

Read More