O2 officially launches 4G LTE network, going live on August 29

Good news for O2's 23m UK customers O2 has officially confirmed its 4G LTE network will go live in the UK on August 29, with SIM-Only tariffs starting at just £26 a month. The company will switch on its next-gen network in London and Leeds and Bradford on the first day, with plans to open up 4G access in ten more areas before 2013 comes to a close. Those...

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SMS SOS: BlackBerry 10 users reporting messaging issues after latest update

BlackBerry magic makes messages disappear As if BlackBerry hasn't had a difficult enough time re-establishing itself in the Android/iOS dominated market, the latest BlackBerry 10 update has certainly caused a few more brows to furrow. According to N4BB, the latest operating system update has stymied the messaging attempts of a decent portion of the BB10...

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Moto X to follow in iPhone 5's nano-SIM footsteps?

The Moto X, nano-SIM or not, will be unveiled tomorrow Motorola's Moto X could be the next device to sport the new nano-SIM cards, judging by a photo that reportedly leaked out of Hong Kong this week. Engadget today published this photo, which appears to show the Moto X with its nano-SIM tray ejected. The nano-SIM is 40 percent smaller than the micro-SIM...

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Sony updates Xperia Z and Xperia ZL, improves performance

New firmware updates are now available for the Sony Xperia Z and Xperia ZL. Both new ROMs bring similar improvements over the system, signal and touch sensitivity, bug fixes and are still based on the Android 4.2.2 Jelly Bean. There is no official change log on the updates, but some users have already compiled a list of all the notable changes. More smooth Boot...

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Office Mobile shuffles onto Android phones, tablets left out

Pandas - the key to everyone's heart After its launch on iPhone last month, Office Mobile is now rolling over to Android starting today. Making the announcement on its blog, Microsoft declared that phones supporting Android 4.0 or higher will be able to get the app allowing access to Word, Excel and Powerpoint, although Android tablets won't be getting in...

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Samsung outs dual-mode LTE Galaxy S4 and S4 Mini versions

Samsung has made big claims regarding its readiness to support developing LTE markets, and its most recent announcement of two new Galaxy S4 and Galaxy S4 Mini variants supporting both FDD and TDD LTE networks confirms that sentiment. As global LTE coverage expands, many markets are adding support for TDD-LTE networks, particularly in places where FDD-LTE technology...

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Microsoft releases Office Mobile for Office 365 Android app

Last month Microsoft unveiled the Office Mobile for Office 365 for iOS and now the Redmond company is following up with an Android version. It allows you to edit docs on your phone and sync them with SkyDrive. The user interface looks lifted straight out of the Windows Phone 8 version, but the flat design goes well with Android's Holo looks. The app supports...

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Xiaomi unveils quad-core Red Rice droid as Hongmi

Xiaomi has announced the long rumored Red Rice smartphone. Its official name is Hongmi which is Chinese for... well, red rice. Xiaomi Hongmi packs a 4.7-inch 720p IPS display with 312ppi density, protected by a Gorilla Glass 2. The Hongmi is powered by Mediatek's MT6589 chipset featuring a quad-core 1.5GHz Cortex-A7 processor, PowerVR SGX544 graphics and 1GB of RAM....

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Is that what the Samsung Galaxy S5 will look like?

New look, new era? (credit: Patent Bolt) Samsung could be about to ditch nature and shake up its smartphone design if a new patent is any indication. With the Samsung Galaxy S4 now a few months old - and a slew of S4 variants out the door - it's little surprise that we're hearing rumblings of what could be next. The patent images, unearthed by Patent...

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Samsung denies rigging Galaxy S4 benchmarking results

We just don't know what to believe any more In response to the accusation that it has been jimmying Galaxy S4 benchmark results just to make its handset look good, Samsung says nuh-uh guv'nor. The company's statement explains that whatever GPU frequencies "BenchmarkBooster" rigged up on the Exynos 5 variant are "not intended to improve certain benchmark...

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Government unveils plans to extend mobile coverage

You'd be lucky to get this in some parts of the country Eastern Scotland, Cumbria, central Wales and Strabane will be the first parts of the UK to benefit from the Government's £150 million spend on improving mobile phone coverage in rural areas. They are covered by the first phase of the Mobile Infrastructure Project, details of which have been published...

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Samsung Galaxy Note 3 leaked from inside out in yet more snaps

Cover yourself up, Note 3 With September 4 inching ever closer, more leaks about the Samsung Galaxy Note 3 are trickling out and, while we're still missing a proper photo of the thing, today's sees the handsets insides displayed for all to see. These photos are supposedly of a prototype Note 3 and were posted on Weibo by an "insider" known as C Technology...

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Spy shots reveal Moto X will be very compact, use nanoSIM

The Moto X phone will be announced at tomorrow's event but the specs won't be a huge surprise as we've seen so many leaks already and today brought a new batch. First off, the phone will use a nanoSIM card, instead of the more popular microSIM as revealed by a photo from Hong Kong. Moto X will use a nanoSIM card Why Hong Kong, when the Moto X should be assembled in...

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BlackBerry Q5 hits Canada on August 13, USA to follow suit

BlackBerry has just announced its cheaper QWERTY smartphone - the BlackBerry Q5 - will be unleashed across Canada on August 13. According to the official press release the Q5 messenger will be available through these authorized partners: Bell, Fido, Koodo, Sasktel, TELUS, and Virgin Mobile Canada, as well as retail stores Best Buy Canada, Future Shop, Target, TBooth...

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Android 4.3 Jelly Bean update rolling out to UK Google Nexus 4 handsets

Four Point Three hits Blighty Reports have emerged seemingly confirming that the Android 4.3 Jelly Bean update is making its presence felt in the UK on Google's own-branded Nexus 4 handsets. Multiple sources on Monday and Tuesday brought word from Nexus 4 owners who've been notified that the newest version of the software has arrived and is ready to be downloaded...

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Sony Xperia Honami's new camera UI may enable Facebook live streaming

AR dinosaurs! Sony will debut its brand new, feature-packed camera interface to harness the rumoured 20-megapixel camera on its next flagship 'Honami' phone, leaked snaps seem to confirm. The Gadget Helpline site, which brought us leaked snaps of the device (aka Xperia 1i) last week, has now posted pics of the new camera UI, previously outed by XDA developers...

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Trouble in paradise? Nokia blasts Microsoft for Windows Phone app failings

Nokia's hardware innovations being undermined? Nokia has expressed frustration with Microsoft's failure to give smartphone users a convincing reason to switch to Windows Phone, in comments representing the public first signs of strain in the pair's relationship. The Finnish company's vice president Bryan Biniak said Microsoft has not held up its end of the...

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Another budget iPhone photo leaks, this time with FCC labels

So far we’ve been pretty skeptical of the budget iPhone leaks as they bear a very strong resemblance to a certain China-built Android phone. This, however, could be the money shot - the plastic budget iPhone with FCC labels on the back. None of the other leaks we’ve seen (and there have been plenty) had such labels. The labels could, of course, be faked quite...

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Android 4.3 has a sort-of hidden app permissions manager

Android 4.3 App Ops can be accessed with a third party app (credit: Android Police) It can be hard for Android users to keep track of what exactly their apps are doing, but it looks like that's about to change with Android 4.3. Android Police caught wind of a function called "App Ops" in the latest Android update that lets you control exactly what apps...

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Android 4.3 has a semi-hidden app permissions manager

Android 4.3 App Ops can be accessed with a third party app (credit: Android Police) It can be hard for Android users to keep track of what exactly their apps are doing, but it looks like that's changing in Android 4.3. Android Police caught wind of a function called "App Ops" in the latest Android update that lets you control exactly what apps can access,...

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Google is working on real time translator phones

Android features speech-to-text, but how long before it's English-to-Spanish? Google has its sights set on the future with projects like Google Fiber and Google Glass, and now it's adding real time voice-to-voice translation to that list as well. Google's Vice President of Android Hugo Barra said this week that Google is now in the early stages of creating...

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Ubuntu may do it better, but Canonical head sees merits of Windows 8 efforts

A truly seamless switch? Canonical is heading into the weekend with about $6.6 million (about £4.29m, AU$7.14m) raised for the Ubuntu Edge, not too shabby for the superphone's 5-day old Indiegogo campaign. We chatted with Mark Shuttleworth, the software company's founder, on the day Edge was announced, discussing this "concept car" device and the potential...

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IDC: Apple and Samsung lose market share in Q2

According to the latest figures from Internation Data Corporation (IDC) market analysis, Apple and Samsung continue to dominate the smartphone market. However, the companies have seen their shares slip in Q2 of this year compared to what they had last year. Of the estimated total of 237.9 million smartphones shipped this past quarter, Samsung accounted for some 72.4...

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'Siri, why do I hate you so much?'

Maybe he didn't hold it close enough to his mouth... You know what I hate about iPhone owners? Siri. I can't stand them for it. I have this notion that they're all sitting around in bars, screaming into their phone that they want to know what the weather is like (have you looked out the window?), or asking if they have emails from Mum. They're probably...

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T-Mobile US drops all phones to $0 on contract, iPhone 5 included

T-Mobile has dropped the upfront cost of all phones available in the carrier's stores to $0, including flagships like the Apple iPhone 5, Samsung Galaxy S4, Sony Xperia Z and Nokia Lumia 925. There's a catch though – you still have to pay for the phone, you just do it in monthly installments on top of your regular monthly payments. Starting tomorrow, customers can grab a new phone on T-Mobile's Simple Choice Plan (starts at $50 for unlimited talk and text plus 500MB high-speed data). Here's a table that shows the monthly payments for some...

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Multiple Samsung Galaxy Note 3 models looking more likely than ever

Take note After whisperings of such a thing previously, the Galaxy Note 3 could arrive in triplicate according to the latest leak which suggests the company is working on 5.5-, 5.7- and 6-inch varieties. The current Galaxy Note 2 totes a 5.5-inch screen which some might say is plenty big enough for a phone-tablet-crossover-thing. On an Indian import and...

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Video: Apple should drop the iPhone

How does the Apple Tornado sound? The Apple iPhone. A product synonymous with the advent of the smartphone and largely credited for shaping the current crop of mobile devices - but is it time for a change? Back in 2007, the iPhone brand wooed fans with its simplistic concept (who puts the description of the product in the brand name anyway?), but the novelty...

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3CX updates MDM to extend Android control

It's added email on Android into the mix IP telephony firm 3CX has updated its cloud-based Mobile Device Manager (MDM) service to give small and midsized businesses (SMBs) greater control over corporate email on Android devices. The company has equipped Version 6.3 of its MDM with AquaMail, a commercial Android email client that allows administrators to...

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