Samsung heading for a merry Christmas with 300m sales figure

- Phil Lavelle  Dec. 13, 2011 at 19:00

Samsung looks like it's gearing up for a merry Christmas and who can blame it? The South Korean giant has seen its sales soar to the highest level in its history, with the final number set to hit a whopping 300 million by the end of this year.

That's up from a figure of 280 million last year, and it cements Sammy's position as the world's second largest handset maker based on volume.

No Comments

Want a new iPhone? Just lease one from O2

- Phil Lavelle  Dec. 13, 2011 at 18:30

Here's an interesting concept - O2 has launched a new leasing service for the iPhone where they own the phone and you just rent it from them for a 12-month period.

It's imaginatively called O2 Lease and here's how it works: You get a new iPhone (or something similar) with no up-front payment but have to shell out £55 a month. That gives you insurance (presumably compulsory), 750 mins, unlimited texts and 500MB. For that, you get a 16GB handset or you can bump your monthly payments up to £65GB and get a 32GB version.

7 Comments

Asus Transformer Prime delayed? Nope

- Lewis Curdie  Dec. 13, 2011 at 16:00

We’ve been hearing and writing about the Asus Transformer Prime for months now, eagerly anticipating the release of the quad-core successor to the keyboard-rockin’ Asus Eee Pad Transformer.

Even now, the release date is all over the shop. There were whispers of eleventh-hour technical problems that might put the Asus Transformer Prime's release back, but turns out those fears were unfounded.

4 Comments

Apple's App Store hits 500,000

- Lewis Curdie  Dec. 13, 2011 at 14:00

It’s official, boyee. Apple’s App Store has hit another landmark with a whopping 500,000 apps now available.

Of those 500,000 it’s estimated that 450,000 are must-haves, 40,000 are nice-to-haves, and 10,000 are simply ok. Ahh, I crack me up.

2 Comments

Google Wallet headed to the London Olympics?

- Lewis Curdie  Dec. 13, 2011 at 12:00

Google Wallet is just one of several products/technologies/devices we’ve seen roll out Stateside this year while we sit and twiddle our chubby little thumbs.

However, if French newspaper Les Echos (The Echoes, to you and me) is to be believed, Google might be bringing its Near Field Communication goodness to the UK in time for the Olympics.

1 Comment

HP might release more webOS devices

- Lewis Curdie  Dec. 13, 2011 at 11:00

Ahh, webOS. What a tangled web you weave. After being apparently ditched by HP, there were rumours that Amazon, Facebook and/or Samsung might be interested. Ultimately, however, HP announced that it’d make webOS open source.

It remains to be seen how much third-party interest there’ll be in webOS. HP recently said it had no immediate plans to release a new Pre smartphone or TouchPad tablet, but it’s not ruling anything out.

1 Comment

Huawei offering Ice Cream Sandwich

- Phil Lavelle  Dec. 12, 2011 at 19:00

This is one that's really going to have us reaching for the smelling salts. Remember a few months back, we told you of a fab new smartphone launching from Huawei called the Honor? 1.4GHz processor, 4-inch FWVGA display, 8MP and 2MP cameras and a stonking 1,900mAh battery running Gingerbread.

Well scrap that, because Huawei is upping the stakes and offering Android Ice Cream Sandwich, not Gingerbread, keeping things ticking over inside the Honor. And that's a pretty big deal, as up till now you could only get ICS on the Google-flagship Samsung Galaxy Nexus.

5 Comments

iPad 2 v molten lava: guess who wins...

- Phil Lavelle  Dec. 12, 2011 at 18:00

Remember those days when you queued and queued for the iPad and iPad 2? Maybe you were one of the lucky few who logged on to the Apple site at 9pm every night in the hope of reserving one in the 30 second window when units were actually available.

If so you'll no doubt be a little peeved at seeing someone show their love for the Apple tablet by dropping it into a pile of molten lava.

2 Comments

Amazon Kindle Fire update on the way

- Lewis Curdie  Dec. 12, 2011 at 16:00

Ahh, the Amazon Kindle Fire. How many news stories have you generated over the past few months? More than your fair share, you cheeky devil.

The Amazon Kindle Fire is selling by the bucket load over in the States, though “interface expert” Jakob Nielsen recently denounced the tablet as “disappointingly poor”. Amazon hopes to address at least some of the Kindle Fire’s apparent shortcomings with an imminent update.

No Comments

Last HP TouchPads sell out in minutes, melt eBay

- Lewis Curdie  Dec. 12, 2011 at 14:00

This could be it, man; the last time we ever write about the HP TouchPad. The Hewlett Packardians’ tablet - once touted as an iPad-puncher only to be canned after a couple of months - has now sold out. Want one? Tough. It’s over.

As planned, HP sold the last of its TouchPads (refurb 16 and 32GB units) on eBay yesterday, and – predictably – they went like the hottest of hotcakes.

No Comments

Widespread UK 4G not expected till 2015

- Lewis Curdie  Dec. 12, 2011 at 12:10

Why is it that all stories concerning Ofcom and 4G are invariably rubbish? One of these days we’ll write a story with the headline: UK 4G coming sooner than expected! Or maybe not.

Yeah, so, you know how we were hoping 4G would arrive in the UK in 2013/14? Well, Ofcom doesn’t expect “wide availability” till – wait for it – space year 2015AD! By which time we’ll have been colonised by aliens.

1 Comment

iPad 3 expected in 3-4 months

- Lewis Curdie  Dec. 12, 2011 at 11:37

The first Jesus Slate – or “iPad”, if you prefer – touched down in April 2010, and its successor – which introduced front and rear cameras and a dual-core processor – landed less than a year later, in March 2011.

Now we’re hearing from Digitimes that the next generation iPad is expected to burst forth from Apple's groin in three to four months. Not exactly a huge stretch of the old imagination.

10 Comments

HP decides to keep webOS after all

- Martin James  Dec. 11, 2011 at 11:30

HP has finally come to a decision on what to do with webOS, and despite months of speculation linking many top tech firms with a buyout, in the end HP has decided not to sell.

Instead it will open up the source code for the troubled platform to the open-source community in the hope of getting other hardware manufacturers interested in working with it.

1 Comment

Windows Phone already supports NFC

- Lewis Curdie  Dec. 10, 2011 at 18:00

According to UK mobile network bigwigs, Near Field Communication (NFC) is the future of everything, and before long will make your wallet and your freakin’ keys obsolete; all you’ll need when you go out is your phone. Hmm.

Now we’re hearing from Microsoft and Nokia folk that NFC is coming soon, just as soon as manufacturers can be bothered to implement it.

No Comments

Pre-order your Asus Transformer Prime now at Clove

- Lewis Curdie  Dec. 10, 2011 at 15:52

There was a time when we were expecting the Asus Transformer Prime to touch down before Christmas, but it looks like we’ll now have to wait till January 2012. Poo. That’s ages away.

While we wait patiently (ahem), Clove has erected a couple of pre-order pages. The online retailer has set the price at £550.80 including the taxes of added value.

1 Comment

HP TouchPad refurbs are a go-er, definitely not for UK

- Lewis Curdie  Dec. 10, 2011 at 14:00

As we mentioned yesterday, HP is bringing the TouchPad saga to a close this Sunday by way of a sale on its eBay site, with refurb models starting at $99 (£63).

HP exclusively told us a few months ago that the final batch - "one last run" - of TouchPads would be US-only, but we figured we’d chance our Mobo-arm and ask if international purchases were permitted from the UK. The answer made us cry into our Rice Krispies.

No Comments

Review of the week, menu-style

- Lewis Curdie  Dec. 10, 2011 at 13:00

What a week. The running joke is that we’re going to have to start making up our own news in the run up to CES and Mobile World Congress. Brace yourselves for some outrageous stories, such as Jan overthrowing Stephen Elop to become CEO of Nokia. How awesome would that be?!

No one story dominated this week’s news, so I’ll stick with my recently favoured menu-style presentation. Stelph and blizzard7 seem to like it, and Emma still hasn’t poked me with the discipline stick, so it’s all good. Let’s do it!

8 Comments

Nokia Lumia 710 starts global rollout

- Martin James  Dec. 10, 2011 at 11:00

Well, there you have it. No sooner have we reported that Nokia's second Windows Phone – the Lumia 710 – is being lined up to go on sale in the first week of the new year than Nokia itself announces it's shipping as of today.

The only downside, for now at least anyway, is that you'll have to head out to Taiwan to get your hands on one now, with Nokia yet to confirm exactly when it'll be available closer to home.

4 Comments

Twitter gets major overhaul across web, iPhone and Android

- Phil Lavelle  Dec. 9, 2011 at 19:00

Twitter's had a major lick of paint - and, for once, it's across the spectrum with the web and mobile apps redesigned to give them a fairly unified look on both the iPhone and Android (iPad owners are still out in the cold, though we don't expect that to last.)

Users now have four main tabs which consist of Home, Discover, Me and Connect. One cool new ability is that to just see those who have mentioned or retweeted you - handy for those of us who are extremely popular (he says, wishfully!).

6 Comments

Toshiba's new tablet: Excited?

- Phil Lavelle  Dec. 9, 2011 at 18:00

It's all in the name. At least that's what Toshiba will be hoping since it's called its new Android tablet the Excite.

The rather fatter Toshiba Thrive will no longer do that (thrive) if this sells in the numbers Toshiba is hoping - and it's going for the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1's mantle here with a dual-core 1.2GHz Texas Instruments OMAP4 processor and even a 10.1-inch display rocking a 1280 x 800 resolution.

3 Comments