Hardware > Earlier Phones
New Lumia 925: This, loyalists, is the BIG ONE you've waited for
Hands-on Today, Nokia launched its best smartphone to date: the Lumia 925.
I got some hands-on time with the Windows Phone 8-powered device - and a tour of the gadget by shoegaze icon Nokia senior veep of product management Kevin Shields, who explained some of the key design decisions. It's a covetable bit of kit - but with iPhones and …
BlackBerry's Q5 QWERTY gets flirty with buy-curious teens
BlackBerry's new Q5 QWERTY smartphone was revealed today as "youthful and fun", rather distancing the device from its pinstripe pocket-dwelling siblings, the Q10 and Z10.
The Q5 a mid-range sibling to the first BlackBerry OS 10 QWERTY phone, the Q10, which we reviewed here last week. But somewhat surprisingly, the BB10-powered …
Full metal jacket: Nokia launches new Lumia 925
Nokia tweaked the top of its range with a new 4G Windows 8 model today.
The aluminium 925 breaks with Nokia’s Stickle Brick garish-coloured plastic design philosophy and offers a more grown-up styling. The camera module is snaffled from the erstwhile flagship, the 920, with optical image stabilisation, spruced up with an extra …
Android is a mess and needs sprucing up, admits chief
Comment Android looks unstoppable, and it's a mess. The first fact tends to eclipse the second observation, but Android's new supremo diplomatically acknowledges as much in an interview.
"Here’s the challenge: without changing the open nature of Android, how do we help improve the whole world’s end-user experience?" Chrome chief Sundar …
NYC attorney seeks mobe-makers' help to curb muggings
In a series of letters, New York State Attorney General Eric Schneiderman has called upon smartphone makers to explain what they are doing to combat the growing problem of handset theft.
"Cracking down on violent and dangerous cell phone thefts is important for New Yorkers," Schneiderman said in a canned statement. "The …
Report: AT&T dropping Facebook phone after dismal sales
Facebook's experiment with branded hardware may be coming to an abrupt end, according to a report that AT&T is discontinuing sales of the HTC First handset after finding that people won't buy it – even for 99 cents.
The First is Facebook's showpiece for its Home application, the mobile application that Mark Zuckerberg said at …
Review: Samsung Galaxy S4
In purely commercial terms, the Samsung Galaxy S III was always going to be a tough act to follow. After all, it established and then cemented Samsung’s position as the number one smartphone maker by volume - and the only one to give Apple the collywobbles.
I suspect that’s why Samsung has played it safe and opted for evolution …
Which petite model likes a fondle and GETTING WET? Sony's Xperia ZR
Pics Sony has come up with a new waterproof smartphone: the Xperia ZR, which is essentially an Xperia Z with a slightly smaller screen.
The gadget giant's other hydrophilic phone, the Z, is, our reviewer thought, “a bit of a slab”. Thankfully, the Japanese manufacturer has launched a slightly more compact model.
The Xperia ZR's …
New Ubuntu for phones due 'by end of May' – usable this time
When Canonical released the Developer Preview of the smartphone version of its Ubuntu Linux OS, it warned users that it was only an experimental snapshot and that it couldn't replace their current handsets. That could change soon, however, as one Canonical exec has vowed to make an Ubuntu device his day-to-day phone by the end …
Thongs of praise: Slip on Japan's skimpy mobe knickers
Pics The Japanese adult male is widely considered to be utterly obsessed with young women’s small clothing. While we’d rather not pander to this particular stereotype, we have to admit the Land of the Rising Sun doesn’t do itself any favours.
Well, not with products like these coming out of it.
Exhibit A is a set of “panties for …
AT&T drops Facebook phone to 99 cents
Facebook's long game looks to be an attempt to create a shadow web by making the site a reasonable substitute for almost anything one does online.
Why wade through Reddit when your friends share content on Facebook? Or bother with Flickr or Picasa when Facebook will store your snaps? Messaging also happens quite happily within …
Amazon readying smartphone with 3D DISPLAY – report
If Amazon does release its own smartphone, it won't be just another me-too number, according to a new report that says the online retailer is working on a handset with a 3D holographic display.
Citing anonymous sources, The Wall Street Journal reports that Amazon's device will use "retina-tracking technology" to make images …
40,000 Chinese workers say low-cost iPhone coming soon
The manufacturer of the still-popular iPhone 4S has said that it plans to add 40,000 workers, boosting rumors that Apple plans to release an entry-level iPhone soon.
Taiwan-based Pegatron, which has manufacturing plants in Taiwan, mainland China, Mexico, and the Czech Republic, told Reuters that it plans to increase its Chinese …
Nokia's debuts new 'Fastlane' UI in $99 flagship Asha 501
Nokia has unveiled a new UI in the flagship $99 Asha 501 to help fend off a dramatic collapse in sales of the low-end devices.
Strong sales of cheap but decent quality Asha in growth markets like China and Africa had helped the fallen Finnish giant weather a tumultuous transition to Windows Phone, which saw its smartphone sales …
How smart does your desk phone need to be?
The business IP telephone market has spent more than a decade trying to establish exactly how much intelligence the market wants in its telephones. The customer's answer has almost always been “less than the vendors want to sell us.” Anyone looking for an albino pachyderm can therefore point to the CPUs and APIs baked into IP …
Review: BlackBerry Q10
One of my four-year-olds pointed to a BlackBerry Bold recently and exclaimed "It's HALF A PHONE!". She was pointing at the screen. And the other half? The answer, I elicited later, was that it was some kind of letters game.
Just think about that for a moment. Every day of your life you've seen adults pawing at a phone, but only …
Nokia teases world+dog with snap of new 4G Lumia 928
Pic Nokia nerds are all aquiver about the Finnish giant’s latest smartphone, the Lumia 928 - but it appears to be little more than a Lumia 920 for US operator Verizon.
The 928 model now has a page on the Nokia website albeit with little information beyond a picture of the device which, with the page’s URL, confirms the phone’s …
Google's Page, LG boss's SECRET confab sparks Nexus 5 rumour
The smartphone rumour mill is in overdrive again after reports that mobe maker LG is prepping a new Nexus phone with Google.
Meanwhile, separate leaked photos have led to rumours that an LG Optimus 2 handset is in the works.
The South Korean electronics firm's CEO Koo Bon-joon met Google boss Larry Page on his visit to Seoul …
Politically-correct 'Fairphone' goes on pre-sale next week
Fairphone, a social enterprise aiming “to bring a fair smartphone to the market – one designed and produced with minimal harm to people and planet” will next week offer pre-sales of its first handset, and if it can find 5,000 buyers the phone will become a reality.
The Fairphone's design calls for it to use minerals sourced from …
Flat mobe battery? Just light a fire
Sick of running out of charge while on long walks, a Swedish tinkerer has crafted a thermoelectric phone charger to revive his smartphone and GPS by burning butane.
Vulture South notes that the setup, posted on Instructables here, is wildly inefficient, but it's a use-in-emergency approach. As David Johansson, the creator of the …
BlackBerry 10 passes US defence department tests
BlackBerry has secured access to a critical market – the US military – for its new operating system and handsets and version 10 of its Enterprise Service software.
Sighs of relief at the news may well be rattling the windows at BlackBerry's headquarters, because the company has staked its future on secure messaging. Winning …
Samsung Galaxy chip confusion halts bonking plastered apps
Samsung's Galaxy S4 flagship mobile can't grok data transmitted by stickers sold by Samsung to eager app makers.
Electronics embedded in the labels fire out pre-programmed information when a compatible wireless NFC chip comes within range, and work with Samsung's Galaxy S3.
But a new NFC chip in the S4 is incompatible with the …
BlackBerry: THE TRUTH about that 5.1 per cent UK market figure
BlackBerry has rebutted a claim that its UK smartphone market share was just 5.1 per cent during the first three months of 2013.
It says independent sales figures show it notched up ten per cent of the market during that period.
The smaller figure comes from Kantar WorldPanel ComTech, a market watcher, and was released earlier …
Fanbois vs fandroids: Punters display 'tribal loyalty'
Does how you feel about your current smartphone really inform the handset you’ll acquire two, three or four years hence? The Yankee Group, a market watcher, thinks it might. And that’s good news for Apple. Possibly.
Apple currently sits just behind Google in the future purchasing stakes. According to Kantar Worldpanel ComTech, …
Combover King Donald Trump: 'I miss Steve Jobs'
Never being a man to shy away from whatever current controversy might get his name into headlines*, the indefatigable Republican presidential candidate, Obama-baiting birther, and TV "personality" Donald Trump has weighed in on whether Apple should offer an iPhone with a larger display.
I have a lot of @apple stock--- and I …
Peak txt: 1.5 BEELLLION more chat app msgs sent than SMSes a day
WhatsApp, BlackBerry Messenger and other online chat apps handled more messages than telcos handled texts, says market research biz Informa.
And by the end of 2013, the number of online messages will be double the number of SMS texts, leaving the phone network operators scrabbling for revenue.
Informa pegged 2012's global SMS …
iPhone 5 totters at the top as Samsung thrusts up UK mobe chart
Apple’s three most recent mobiles together took more than a quarter of smartphones sales in Britain during the first three months of 2013, we're told.
The iPhone 5 was the period’s most popular handset, but the Cupertino giant's UK market share continues to be eroded by Android - and even Windows Phone 8.
Google’s Linux-derived …
PEAK iPHONE? Apple mobe growth slumps to ‘lowest in its history’
Samsung has extended its lead over Apple by shifting considerably more smartphones than its adversary during the first quarter of 2013.
The South Korean giant also managed to ship 56 per cent more mobes in those three months than it did in the same period a year ago.
Among the world’s top five smartphone vendors, Apple - …
Review: Nokia Lumia 520
A few years ago the late music magazine The Word coined the phrase "landfill indie" to describe the thousands of generic groups it encountered. Today the shops are full of "landfill Android": utterly generic, non-too-inspiring handsets. It’s into this Valley of Death that Nokia tosses its new Lumia 520.
In the UK, the average …
Samsung to launch Galaxy S 4 without Knox security layer
After hyping it for months, Samsung has delayed the release of Knox, its new enterprise security framework for its Galaxy line of Android phones, sources claim.
The South Korean mobile maker first touted the new security features at February's Mobile World Conference in Barcelona, claiming they would ship with its forthcoming …
Mobes' pay-by-bonk just isn't cool enough, sniffs Tesco bod
Tesco reckons contact-less pay-by-wave technology in phones has had its day - and the shopping giant is moving back to relying on cash and traditional payment cards.
The stumbling shelf-stacking titan will continue to punt its customer loyalty schemes and vouchers on smartmobes - but bonking NFC-capable devices against tills to …
Your phone may not be spying on you now - BUT it soon will be
Infosec 2013 Tibetan political campaigners targeted by mysterious smartphone-spying software. Eastern European governments' mobiles allegedly snooped on by state-sponsored hackers. Malware feared injected into gadgets during customs inspections.
You've seen these headlines. And according to Kaspersky Lab’s senior malware analyst Denis …
Galaxy S4 radiant, but has black holes
First Look Samsung's Galaxy S4 is as wonderfully polished as you would expect from the Korean manufacturer's latest flagship, but the software the company says turns it into a “life companion” will be an acquired taste for many.
Samsung yesterday officially launched the S4 for Australians at a lavish event staged at Sydney's Opera House. …
Huawei preps new mobes to overhaul Apple
Huawei says it’s on track to almost double its smartphone sales this year with a target of 60 million units shifted, as it looks to peg back “superheroes” Samsung and Apple, but admitted its brand image is still holding it back from world domination.
Speaking to media at the firm’s annual global analyst event in Shenzhen on …
First batch of Firefox OS phones sells out in hours
The first batch of phones based on the Mozilla Foundation's open source Firefox OS has sold out, mere hours after they were announced for sale.
As we press the big, red Publish button on this story, Geeksphone, the Spanish startup that designed and built the devices, has shut down its online store, replacing it with a notice …
Yelling at mobes while driving just as bad as texting
Using voice-to-text tech to send messages while driving is just as dangerous as regular texting, a new study has found.
Drivers' response times doubled regardless of whether they were speaking or typing their messages, compared to when they weren't texting, the Texas Transportation Institute at Texas A&M University said.
The …
Review: Nokia Lumia 720
Nokia completed its Windows 8 range with two new models recently, including this midrange offering the 720. With a choice of five Lumias it's now clearer to see what Nokia hopes to achieve.
The 720 strikes me as the Ford Cortina of the Lumias, a well made mass market compact. The 720 has everything going for it except, perhaps, …
Turn off the mic: Nokia gets injunction on 'key' HTC One component
Nokia has said it bagged a court injunction in Amsterdam that effectively prevents HTC from using the microphones that are a "key" component of its HTC One smartphone.
The Finnish phone maker won a preliminary ban on the mikes, made by ST Microelectronics, stopping the firm from selling them on to HTC or anyone else.
"In its …
First Firefox OS developer phones to launch on Tuesday
Developers who are interested in building apps for the Mozilla Foundation's web standards–based Firefox OS will be able to get their hands on the first handsets running the open source platform beginning on Tuesday.
As The Reg has previously reported, the phones will be manufactured by Spanish startup Geeksphone and will be …
Report: Apple returned 8M shoddy iPhones to Foxconn
Foxconn has apparently botched a batch of iPhones, which Apple returned to the contract manufacturer because they were not fit for sale.
Details of just what went wrong are sketchy, as the source for this tale is an anonymous Foxconn staffer chatting to China Business. That report, after being forced through a couple of …
Review: Asus PadFone 2 phone-tablet combo
I thought the first Asus PadFone was a jolly good idea the moment I clapped eyes on it. Sadly it never made it to these shores but the PadFone 2 has. In a nutshell, what we have here is an Android smartphone that can be docked into a dumb tablet giving you not only a choice of two screen sizes but also the convenience of one …
Huawei Ascend Mate lands in Australia
Huawei is clearly hoping that 2013 will be the year that it shakes off the “cheap” image, but its Ascend Mate, first seen earlier this year at CES, still sports a notable $AU429 price tag.
But a second agenda is at work, with the 1280x720 resolution, 6.1-inch Ascend Mate based on Huawei's own silicon and a custom UI – both of …
