Hardware > Earlier Phones
Perky smartphone figures can't stop droop of worldwide mobe sales
Worldwide mobile phone sales fell 1.7 per cent in 2012, a shrinkage of 30 million units from 2011. Increasing smartphone sales were not enough to compensate for the fall in feature phone sales, according to a Gartner report. Total global sales to end users for 2012 were down 30 million units to 1.75 billion from 1.78 billion in …
Home Depot pulls out of newly-named RIM, gets in bed with Apple
Home Depot is the latest US company to drop BlackBerry, handing out 10,000 iPhones to executives and other management staff and wiping out 3 per cent of BlackBerry's share price in the process.
News of the decision left BlackBerry shares down, but it remains unclear if Home Depot made its decision before or after the launch of …
iOS 6.1 KNACKERED our mobile phone networks, claim Vodafone, Three
Updated Vodafone has urged iPhone 4S owners to not upgrade to iOS 6.1, the latest available, because it believes the software jams 3G and phone connections.
Vodafone claimed that the bug is Apple's fault and that it affects Voda's rivals as well as its own UK network, although it only named Three Austria* as another impacted telco. The …
Smartphone-in-a-box maker cooks up cheap Facebook-flavoured chips
Smartphone platform provider Spreadtrum will work with Facebook to integrate its the social network into the platform at firmware level, putting the interactive life blog into the cheapest hardware.
The deal will see Spreadtrum working with Facebook to optimise client software running on its chips, just as it does with Google ( …
BlackBerry Q10: This quirky QWERTY will keep loyalists perky
Hands On Eight million people in the UK use a BlackBerry and almost every single one of those phones has a physical QWERTY keyboard. And as good as the virtual keyboard on BlackBerry's touchscreen Z10 may be - it's the best, for my money - a fair number of people will want to use a smartphone with a real keyboard. The Q10 is BlackBerry's …
Review: Seagate Wireless Plus Wi-Fi hard drive
In the week Apple finally released an iPad with a storage capacity greater than 64GB - double that; 128GB to be precise - Seagate made its Wireless Plus available. Of course, if Apple’s Flash mark-up wasn’t so colossal, or it had had the wit to either built a Micro SD port into its tablets or allow USB mass storage devices to …
BlackBerry bets fans are willing to upgrade skills
First Look BlackBerry OS 10 is slick, fast, usable and oozes potential, but is sufficiently different from previous that users of older BlackBerries won't see an upgrade as a natural choice, based on what we've seen so far.
That means the company's greatest strength – millions of users, many of them very enthusiastic – is somewhat negated …
Spanish startup to ship first Mozilla-phones
Mozilla has taken a small step closer to finding out whether the world wants another smartphone operating system, with Spanish startup Geeksphone (working with Telefonica) announcing developer previews of two Firefox-based devices.
Details are relatively sketchy about the two Qualcomm Snapdragon-based 3G mobiles. One, the Keon, …
Nokia lets Lumia 820 owners 3D print their own case
Nokia has posted the templates 3D printer users need to make their own shell or case for its Lumia 820 smartphone.
The mobe is already designed to swap some of its plastic parts, with the rear plate available as inert plastic or one of Nokia's inductive charging gadgets.
Three different batches of files are offered to DIY mobe- …
ST-Ericsson uncloaks 2.5GHz Jekyll & Hyde smartphone chip
CES 2013 The CES 2013 show floor may be crammed with smartphones, tablets, and other ARM-powered gadgets, but there's more news from the show than just the gadgets themselves. There's also a new chip that can power them – namely a new 2.5GHz part from ST-Ericsson.
"Building on the architecture of our first generation NovaThor L8540 LTE …
Review: HTC 8X Windows Phone 8 handset
It’s hard not to feel a little sorry for HTC. Eighteen months ago it was the darling of smartphone manufacturers having reinvented itself from a maker of unbranded handsets for the likes of O2 to an outfit boasting some of the best Android smartphones around.
HTC 8X Windows Phone 8 Platform alteration: HTC's 8X Windows Phone 8 …
Big screened quad-core Chinese beasts splash down at CES
CES 2013 Not content with squeezing out foreign rivals in their domestic market, China’s homegrown smartphone giants are set to make a splash overseas this month with some impressive handset designs including the world’s thinnest smartphone and a giant 6.1in phone/tablet hybrid.
Leading the charge at this week’s annual gadget-fest CES in …
Samsung confirms Tizen-based mobes to debut this year
Samsung says it is pressing ahead with plans to release mobile phones running the Linux-based Tizen OS, with more than one model due to arrive in 2013.
"We plan to release new, competitive Tizen devices within this year and will keep expanding the lineup depending on market conditions," the company told Bloomberg News in an …
Kickstarted mobe charger 'kicked to death by Apple'
Apple has apparently screwed a bullet into a project to build a charger for iPads, iPhones, Android mobes and other handheld gadgets.
The device includes Apple's new Lightning power and high-speed data connector but, we're told, the Cupertino giant refused to grant a licence for its use because the charger can also top up rival …
Brazilian-made 'iphone' runs Android 2.3 Gingerbread
There's a new official iphone out this week, but it's only available in Brazil and it doesn't run iOS 6, the latest incarnation of Apple's smartphone OS. In fact, it runs Android.
The Associated Press reports that Brazilian consumer electronics maker Gradiente has begun marketing a device under the iphone brand after being …
iPhone 5 launches in China, late and expensive. Chinese say 'meh'
The iPhone 5 has finally launched in China, but reaction has been lukewarm.
Launching their fastest-selling product ever in the world's biggest market is an opportunity for Apple to clock up major sales. And Apple need to maintain global market share against Android, which took 75 percent of smartphone sales in the last three …
Nokia uncloaks Lumia 620: A 'budget' $249 Windows 8 mobe
Nokia has announced its third Windows Phone 8 mobile, the sixth from any manufacturer to use Microsoft’s new operating system. Priced at $249 (£154) SIM-free, the Lumia 620 is a diminutive "budget" model with a 3.8in screen, parking it at the rather pricey end of where the budget market it is today.
The 620 includes a microSD …
Twenty years of text messages: We've reached Peak SMS
The first SMS text message was sent twenty years ago, when Neil Papworth sent a Merry Christmas to a mobile phone, an innovation which went almost unnoticed for the next half-decade.
The Short Message Service took a while to take hold, longer still before network operators realised what a cash cow SMS could be, and longer again …
Chinese buyers falling out of love with iPhones
Google famously failed to make a big dent in China and now it looks like Apple may be about to hit the Great Wall too, after new analysis of local sentiment found the fruity company out of favour with local consumers.
The source of that analysis is Taiwan’s TRENDforce which teamed with Chinese outfit AVANTI Research Partners to …
Troll sues Apple for daring to plug headphones into iPhone
A patent hoarding firm is suing Apple for $3m for allegedly ripping off a protected design that describes plugging headphones into a mobile phone.
Intelligent Smart Phone Concepts, a Delaware company with no web presence, launched its legal action against iPhone-maker Apple in California. ISPC has demanded damages for the …
Ten weird Chinese mobile phones
Product Round-up Shopping for a mobile phone this Christmas? You could make the easy choice and get an Apple iPhone 5, one of Samsung's recent releases or take a punt on whether enough apps will emerge to make the Nokia Lumia 920 worth your hard-earned cash.
But no matter how refined those phones, they're also common as muck, so they're never …
Nokia Lumia 820 WinPho 8 review
The Nokia Lumia 820 is the second of Nokia's two new Windows phones. It's the neglected sibling of the flagship Lumia 920, and is barely mentioned in Nokia's presentations. But I found it a very capable handset, with plenty to commend it. Why does this sound a bit familiar?
Nokia Lumia 820 Windows Phone 8 Nokia's Lumia 820: It …
Nexus 4 actually has 4G: But only in Canada, and potentially ILLEGAL
The Nexus 4, Google's surprisingly cheap Android flagship, has another trick up its sleeve: an LTE radio which can be activated from some hidden settings.
The handset, which retails at £239 if you can get one, isn't supposed to support 4G at all, but the Qualcomm chip inside it supports LTE and users on XDA Developers discovered …
Huawei hawks hundred quid handset hupdate
Huawei's refreshed sub-£100 Android phone, the Ascend G330, will be available in the UK from early December, the manufacturer said today.
The Chinese company will attempt to build upon the G300's success in the budget Android market through the next-gen model, which steps things up a notch from its highly-rated predecessor.
The …
Nokia HERE iOS maps app review
There’s never been a better time to publish a mapping app for iOS. Apple’s own Maps app is a laughing stock and Google is apparently dithering over whether to bother submitting an app version of its mapping solution for Apple’s approval, or lack thereof. So Nokia has stepped into the breach with HERE, a re-branded version of its …
No hiding now, fandroids: Smartmobe chip STALKS YOU INDOORS
Vid Qualcomm and Cisco are collaborating to produce better location-tracking technology using networking gear and the Snapdragon chip otherwise found in smartphones.
The process uses Cisco's new HotSpot 2.0 wireless routers, which can pinpoint a connected user's position within a couple of metres; good enough for following one …
Acer CloudMobile S500 Android phone review
When I recently took a quick shufti at the alternatives on offer to anyone harbouring doubts about the iPhone 5 I stuck my neck out and awarded a Recommended badge to a phone I’d only used briefly at a trade show. After using it for a week has my enthusiasm waned? Nope.
Acer CloudMobile S500 Android smartphone Bargain blower: …
Bah humbug! Google cancels Christmas
The People app in Android 4.2 has forgotten that the month of December exists.
People includes a limited calendaring function that is mainly used to assign birthdays to contacts.
But if you try to use it to record the birthday of a certain Judean carpenter, you'll struggle to do so, because the whole month of December, …
'iPhone 5S' said to begin trial production next month
This December, Apple's Asian product assemblers will begin the first trial-production batch of its next version of the iPhone, said to be dubbed the iPhone 5S, in preparation for large-scale shipments (大舉出貨) to begin in the first quarter of next year.
This news rumor comes via the Chinese-language Commercial Times in an article …
RIM sets date for BlackBerry 10 reveal
Research in Motion has finally set an official launch date for BlackBerry 10. The full reveal will take place at event to be held on 30 January 2013.
The much-hyped BlackBerry 10 platform will be announced "simultaneously in multiple countries across the world", the company says in its BlackBerry blog.
While we have yet to hear …
Samsung turns screws on Apple, hikes A6 processor price 20%
Samsung has hiked the price of processors used in Apple's iDevices by 20 per cent and the fruity firm has had to suck it up, Korean newspaper Chosun Ilbo said.
A source told the paper that Samsung said it wanted more moolah for its application processors and Apple has had to accept this because no one else can fulfil the …
Ofcom sets auction timetable: UK's 4G monopoly will end in June
Ofcom has drafted the legislation to open up two 4G bands next year, with bidders required to register by 11 December, the auction in January and the awards in June.
The regulator published its proposals for the auction in August, but this is the proposed legislation which will make that auction happen. The final rules don't …
20 years of GSM digital mobile phones
Twenty years ago today, on 9 November 1992, Nokia launched the world's first commercially available GSM digital mobile phone - the Nokia 1011 - strengthening consumer interest in the world of mobile connectivity. The candybar device - which weighed a whopping 475g and could sustain a conversation for no more than 90 minutes - …
Nokia Lumia 920 Windows Phone 8 handset review
If you ever go down the pub and let slip you’re a tech writer, you’re invariably asked for recommendations. With smartphones, this is pretty difficult these days because they’re all pretty good. No, scrap that, today’s devices are just amazing compared to what you could get a few years ago. They all do a job; you can’t really …
Xbox SmartGlass comes to iOS
The iOS version of Xbox SmartGlass hit the App Store this week, bringing Microsoft's advanced remote console controllability to those with Apple devices a week after the release of the Android version.
Microsoft's Xbox SmartGlass technology turns mobile gadgets like the iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad into interactive second screens …
WTF is... RF-MEMS?
Feature Smartphones nowadays come with big screens, megapixel-packed cameras and, thanks to apps, many, many more features than anyone could have dreamed of in the early days of mobile telephony. It has even reached the stage where making telephone calls is just one small part of a modern phone. And yet the need to support all the radio …
Credit card-sized mobile simplified for oldies
Charity Age UK has unveiled a basic Sim-free mobile phone that lets users dial contacts directly with the touch of an oversized button.
The credit card-sized UK My Phone, jointly developed with specialist network operator CyCell, comes with a maximum of eight customised homescreen buttons, simplifying the art of speed-dial.
Age …
Sony's iOS Reader app hits iTunes - TWO YEARS LATE
In January 2011, Apple rejected Sony’s Reader app for iDevices. Sony today revealed the software is back on the cards.
A “media alert” from Sony US was issued at lunchtime today headed, “Sony Reader Store Introduces Reader for iOS.”
Unfortunately, the alert links to an empty HTML page, as does the headline that appears on Sony’ …
Virgin liberates landlines with converged call service
Virgin Media today unveiled SmartCall, an app which lets customers use unlimited minutes from their landline talk plans on smartphones through a Wi-Fi connection.
SmartCall automatically detects when such a service is possible and whether it would be included in a Virgin landline customer's talk plan. Subscribers with …
Skype floods UK stores with top-up cards
Skype has introduced prepaid cards to the UK, offering shoppers the option to purchase their call credits in stores.
Top-up VoIP vouchers - available for £10 and £20 - are on the way to various retailers, including Asda, Currys, PC World, Sainsburys and WHSmith. The prepaid amounts can be put towards subscription bundles as well …
Facebook Phone rumours are back: And probably true this time
The Facebook Phone rumours are back again. This time it's absolutely, positively, certainly, proven to exist by gadget blog Pocket-Lint and its "very reliable source". Sarcasm aside, it's true that a Facebook Phone has never had a better reason to exist.
Pocket-Lint reckons the Facebook Phone, made by HTC and named "HTC Opera UL …
Virgin close to releasing long-delayed TiVo app
Virgin Media first showed a TiVo app for iDevices off in June 2011. Almost 18 months later, the cable telly company may at long last be gearing up to release the software.
The app, which works with Virgin’s TiVo-based set-top box was originally due to go live in September 2011 but with that deadline missed, the company kept …
