Tracy and Matt

Rumour has it the next generation of Nexus 7 would still be from Asus and would likely come with a Qualcomm Snapdragon processor instead of the current NVIDIA Tegra processor. A new report from Reuters confirms a lot of the speculation. According to their sources, the new Nexus 7 will again be made by Asus and will launch in July of this year. Furthermore, the new tablet will be coming with the Qualcomm Snapdragon instead of NVIDIA tech. Here's a quote with more info,

Quote:

The latest version will have a higher screen resolution, a thinner bezel design and adopt Qualcomm's chip in place of Nvidia Corp's Tegra 3, which was used in the first Nexus 7s released last year, the sources said, declining to be identified because they are not authorized to speak to the media.
In a blow to Nvidia, Google weighed both U.S. chipmakers' processors but finally decided on Qualcomm's for power reasons, one of the sources added.

If this report turns out to be accurate, it probably doesn't come as a surprise. NVIDIA is great at making powerful processors and GPUs but Qualcomm is just flat out better at building a more power efficient product right now. Additionally, there is speculation Google is planning a price drop for the tablet to just £149.99(ish). Right now their pricing plans are in flux and they may stick with their current plan, but if there is a price drop it will likely be an attempt to increase sales of the Nexus 7 to put even more market pressure on Amazon and Apple. Here's another quote with more of the details:

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O2 will extend its "Chargers out of the Box" environmental initiative to the flagship HTC One mobile handset. This is the first time a network and manufacturer have collaborated to sell a flagship smartphone without the charging unit.

The all new HTC One will be sold with a USB-to-micro-USB cable, which can be used with existing chargers that have a USB input or with a PC USB slot. Any customers who need to buy a standalone charger unit can do so in-store or online at a discounted price.

In October 2012, O2 and HTC created a pilot scheme in which an HTC handset was sold charger-free. Of all customers buying the handset, 82% did so without taking the handset. The success of the pilot has given both businesses the confidence to apply the initiative more widely.

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The guys over at Expansys dropped me a line today to let us know they have a great selection of bargain SIM free smartphones ranging from just under £200 and all under the £300 mark. If you fancy some phone shopping check out the links below:

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Posted by: James

This one's just clearing up a wee bit of confusion that may have been surrounding the Samsung Galaxy S4. Just to clarify in case you were not aware the device will have a quad-core processor not an octa-core as originally expected.

Expansys have the SGS4 up for pre-order if you fancy picking up one SIM free - and it looks to be a real monster!

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Just a few hours ago you may have seen news that Star Trek legend and actor William Shatner will appear with a role in the new Star Wars Episode VII. This is something of a turn around after Shatner went on record calling director JJ Abrams a 'pig' for hogging both Star Wars and Star Trek.

I am finally pleased to announce that I too will have a role in the up coming Star Wars movie playing the part of a Astromech Droid called UR-DooDoo.

Sadly it wont be the first time that a Star Wars movie was full of Shat.

Posted by: Matt

Ok so the title of this post might be a bit extreme but HTC has been a company that I have followed for the past 12 years.

I've been using HTC devices even before HTC were selling devices with their own brand name on them. My 'smartphone' obsession began long before the term smartphone was in common use. I first got my hands on the HTC Canary, being sold as the Orange SPV here in the UK, in November of 2002. By today's standard it was an extremely basic phone but at the time it was groundbreaking with its 176x220 colour screen, 132MHz CPU, SD Card reader, 16MB RAM and running Windows Smartphone 2002. It could run some of the existing Windows CE apps but there was suddenly a raft of apps that began to flood the scene soon after. You could even use MSN Messenger!

This was all at a time when many other phones were still using mono LCD screens.

There have been many other iterations of the SPV range and some of these began to spill over to other mobile networks here in the UK and beyond.

It wasn't until June 2007 with the launch of the HTC Touch, powered by Windows Mobile 6.0, that HTC really began to drive forward with the use of their own brand name and have now, just under 6 years later, really established themselves as a global player in the smartphone market.

Over the past 11 years I've been lucky enough to be able to use and/or own almost every device that HTC made. Some have been amazing, those that stick in my mind most include the HTC Touch Diamond, TyTN and TyTN 2 and the Desire. At the moment I am super-impressed with the HTC One and really enjoy using it as my main daily phone, easily knocking the iPhone 5 off that spot.

Over the next few weeks I thought it would be fun to look back at some of the HTC phones that I still own. Feel free to fire over your requests and of course share your own experiences!

Posted by: Matt

HTC has just appointed a new head of EMEA (Europe, Middle East and Africa), Phil Blair. Philip was previously product director for Europe Previous roles as Head of Handset Commercialisation at Orange, and as a consultant with PA Consulting.

HTC, a global leader in smartphone innovation, has today announced the appointment of Phil Blair as its new Head of EMEA. Previously Vice President of Product and Operations for the region, Phil has been with the company since it launched in EMEA in 2005 and has worked closely with Florian Seiche as co-founder during that time to grow the business to where it is today. Replacing Florian, who has made the decision to leave the company, Phil will be responsible for leading HTC's strategic growth across EMEA, in addition to heading up the UK arm of the business. Phil's depth of experience in the smartphone market, intrinsic understanding of mobile products and long-standing relationships with key industry partners put him in a strong position to create new opportunities for the business, taking HTC into its next phase of growth. We would like to thank Florian for his commitment to the company and to wish him well in his future endeavours.

Posted by: Matt