Dell blames 'deteriorating outlook' for PCs in SEC filing

SEC filing paints Dell's future as private company

In a massive filing with the SEC last Friday, Dell bares its soul on the company's reasons for going private.

CNET reported Sunday that PC maker Dell has plenty of valid reasons for going public, laying them all out for the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) late last week.

In a 274-page filing presented to the SEC on Friday, Dell argues its case for the company going private by accepting a $24.4 billion offer currently on the table.

Included among the scathing evidence presented in the filing is a "deteriorating outlook for the PC market as a result of, among other things, smartphones and tablets cannibalizing PC sales."

Shaky PC future

Dell's filing includes portions of a December, 2012 presentation from founder and Chief Executive Officer Michael Dell, who told the Board of Directors that going private would be "the best course for the Company and its unaffiliated stockholders."

Other meetings from the same month point a finger at the "uncertain adoption of the Windows 8 operating system," which threatens to further drag on the ailing PC maker.

"Mr. Dell stated his belief that such initiatives, if undertaken as a public company, would be poorly received by the stock market because they would reduce near-term profitability, raise operating expenses and capital expenditures, and involve significant risk," the SEC filing added.

Dell Chief Financial Officer Brian Gladden also painted a dreary picture last September, citing "adverse developments, coupled with generally weakening demand in the global PC market and lower PC margin rates."

Source : http://www.techradar.com/news/computing/pc/dell-blames-deteriorating-outlook-for-pcs-in-sec-filing-1141797

Read More

HTC DROID DNA back on Verizon's website without a word

Verizon seems to have changed its mind about the DROID DNA. A couple of days ago it was taken off the carrier’s site with sales reps saying it’s been retired in favor of an upcoming project (presumably the HTC One). And now it’s back.

And not just back on the site, there are available units. According to GottaBeMobile, the SKU has changed pointing to a slightly different unit (though the specs sheet seems unchanged). So, was this just a resupply issue that got resolved quickly? Perhaps, but Verizon isn’t saying anything.

What does it mean for the HTC One? Probably nothing as it doesn’t share hardware components with the DROID DNA. It’s just that the One is hard to make.

In the mean time, you can grab the bigger, slightly older sibling of the One for $199 from Verizon’s site (note that it’s cheaper in other places, $50 at Amazon Wireless, for example).

Source | Via

Source : http://www.gsmarena.com/htc_droid_dna_back_on_verizons_website_without_a_word-news-5789.php

Read More

Lenovo set to design its own mobile processors following Samsung snub

Process that, Samsung!

Chinese PC manufacturer Lenovo will aid its mission to build a larger global presence in smartphones and tablets by designing its own line of processors, reports on Monday claimed.

EE Times' sources said the company will hire 100 engineers by the middle of the year in order to aid a small chip engineering team it has kept on the books over the last decade.

The decidion may be in response to Samsung's reported refusal to supply Lenovo with the latest generation of Exynos 5 Octa processor, an eight-core beast currently in production.

Until this point, the report claimed, Lenovo had enjoyed the freedom to pick and choose its processing suppliers, which have included Samsung Exynos, Intel Atom with the K800 and MediaTek.

NEC and BlackBerry on the menu?

The speculation comes following reports this weekend that Lenovo had entered talks with struggling Japanese electronics company NEC over a potential takeover of its ailing mobile business.

In recent weeks the company has also spoken of its potential interest in taking over BlackBerry, but appears to be considering all options to boost its global presence beyond PCs.

Source : http://www.techradar.com/news/phone-and-communications/mobile-phones/lenovo-set-to-design-its-own-mobile-processors-following-samsung-snub-1141768

Read More

GSMArena labs: Our latest tool gives you instant reviews

One of the main critiques we are getting recently is that we take too long with the publishing of our reviews. Whereas some of our competitors can often cook a review in a day, our aim to provide as much details as possible means you often have to much longer to know more about your favorite smartphone.

Due to the huge number of tests we do, a review of a phone can take up a week (or even more). You see our human reviewers want to sleep, eat and they take way too many coffee breaks. So, we decided that if we want to be fast we’ll have to let computers be more involved in it.

This is how ReviewerBot 9000 was born. It uses accurate sensors and advanced machine learning algorithms to write a full review of any device in our database – phone or tablet – in a matter of seconds.

ReviewerBot 9000 is a rational, calculating machine and is completely unbiased. Thanks to that we are finally introduce review scores, which let get an idea of how good a smartphone is with a single glance.

What you are about to see is still a beta version of our automated reviewer. We still have some i-dotting and t-crossing to do, but we expect the fully functional version to be launched towards the end of the week. You can help us by taking it for a spin and if you find any bugs submit a report here.

Use the search field below to find a device (even unofficial ones, ReviewerBot is that good) and see its review written before your eyes. And if you are not perfectly happy with the result, you can try refreshing a few times to see some alternative versions.

Search for a phone and select it to generate its review.

• Loading...

Generated review

Pick a phone from the list

Source : http://www.gsmarena.com/reviewerbot_9000-news-5767.php

Read More

Shares of Android, Samsung and Sprint rise in early 2013

The market share of Android has continued to climb and the shares of Sprint and the current global market leader Samsung have also seen an increase in the US, according to a report from Kantar Worldpanel ComTech.

The data suggests that the Android market share in US has increased by 5.8% pts compared to the same period last year. Android leads the pack with more than 51.2% of smartphone sales, while the shares of iOS are down by 3.5% pts. Meanwhile, Windows has seen its share grow to 4.1%.

The shares of Sprint, one of the leading carriers has also increased its share to 15%, but remains in the third spot. Verizon sits in pole position with more than 35% of smartphone sales. AT&T has managed to hang on to its second position, despite losing nearly 4% pts of its market share.

As one can expect, Samsung Galaxy S III is popular smartphone accounting to 52% of all Samsung devices and surprisingly the sales of Galaxy S II is still going strong with 21%. However, the sales of Galaxy Note II saw a downfall and resulted in only 5% of the sales of the Korean giant.

Samsung's handset cost and carrier brand were the key factors for its recent success and the price drops on Sprint has helped the carrier to increase its shares. The sales of Motorola and Nokia smartphones saw a very slight increase.

Find all the numbers from the Kantar report by following the source link below.

Source

Source : http://www.gsmarena.com/shares_of_android_samsung_and_sprint_rise_in_early_2013_-news-5788.php

Read More

Samsung Galaxy S4 Mini could go official this week

Just a couple of weeks after the company made its new Galaxy S4 flagship a reality, there's word that Samsung is getting ready to announce the new Galaxy S4 Mini, which could come as early as this week.

Rumors say that the device is slated for a late May or early June release in one of two color varieties - Black Mist or White Frost. It'll supposedly come in a wide variety of alternatives to compliment the standard quad-core S4 Mini: a dual-core dual-SIM variant, an LTE edition, and a TD-SCDMA version for China Mobile.

Specs-wise the Samsung Galaxy S4 mini is expected to have a 4.3-inch Super AMOLED screen of qHD resolution, 8MP shooter with front-facer, 1GB of RAM, and 8/16/32GB of storage. Like the Galaxy S4, the mini should run the latest Android 4.2.2 Jelly Bean release, and will likely cost around £300 / $450.

Be sure to check back with us for more news on the Galaxy S4 Mini as it occurs.

Source | Via

Source : http://www.gsmarena.com/samsung_galaxy_s4_mini_could_hit_this_week-news-5787.php

Read More

Camera samples from WP8-powered Nokia Lumia 520 surface

Camera samples of the upcoming Nokia Lumia 520 have leaked on Flickr. By the time it hits the market, the Nokia Lumia 520 will be the most affordable Windows Phone 8 handset from the Finnish company (it’s expected in April). It will be cheaper than the already quite affordable Lumia 620 and, from the looks of it, will offer just about the same camera.

Thanks to Flickr user thai_qv, we have our first look at the image quality. Here are a few camera samples (note they appear full res but may have been downscaled by Flickr or before uploading):

Nokia Lumia 520 camera samples

For more, you can hit up the Flickr account with the rest of them.

Also, you can check out our thoughts on the Lumia 520 for more info on the new baby brother of the WP8 Lumia family.

The photos look very good for the 520 camera with F/2.4 aperture and 1/4” sensor, but then again the Lumia 620 had a pretty good camera too. Keep in mind these shots are coming from an unofficial source and may not have been taken with final hardware.

Source | Via
Source : http://www.gsmarena.com/camera_samples_from_wp8_powered_nokia_lumia_520_surface-news-5785.php

Read More