News

Asus reveals Tranformer Prime TF700T

Asus certainly isn’t slowing down with their Android tablets. Not only have they been hard at work to bring ICS to their line-up, they are also going to be adding more to their line-up. They just revealed at CES that they will offer a higher-end version of the new Transformer Prime, called the Tranformer Prime TF700T. (The illustration picture is simply the regular Transformer Prime since Asus has not provide any different pics for this new version.) Many of the specs are similar, but their are some notable exceptions detailed below:

• A higher resolution (1920×1200) display
• An improved front facing camera (2MP)
• A new back panel design

New Year’s Eve data surge on Three

We all know that come midnight it has been tradition on New Year’s Eve for millions of people to text message good wishes to their friends and family. Now with the smartphone market so big a large proportion of those sms messages have now been replaced with data, whether it be social networking, instant iessaging applications of just plain old email.

Over on the ‘Three’ blog they released some interesting facts and figures regarding the data surge experienced on the network this New Years Eve.

You can see the full details below:

BlackBerry PlayBook OS 2.0 to be shown off at CES

Us BlackBerry PlayBook owners all know that version 2.0 of the OS is coming real soon but if you are lucky enough to be attending CES is Las Vegas this week you can get hands on with the revised software.

CrackBerry.com have posted the following changes that will certainly be welcomed by PlayBook users.

• New unified inbox – a powerful unified inbox within the built-in messaging app allows users to quickly manage their personal email and work email accounts as well as the messaging capabilities of popular social networking sites like Twitter®, LinkedIn® and others – all in one place.
• Multi-tasking within email – by extending the BlackBerry PlayBook tablet’s multitasking capabilities to ‘tabbed email’, users are able to reference one email while they compose another.
• Rich-text email composing and editing – new features within the Messages app enable users to benefit from full support of fonts, formatting and editing of email threads, offering a robust email experience similar to that of a PC or laptop.
• Inbox management tools – allows for powerful inbox search across multiple email accounts, as well as the ability to set out-of-office messages and email signatures directly from their tablet.

Toshiba tablets for the year ahead

Toshiba has pre-announced plans to release two new tablets at CES this year. One is going to be the exact opposite of their previous outing. The Toshiba Thrive is super-packed with tons of features, but those extra features came at the price of making the tablet notoriously thick. One of the new Toshiba tablets debuting at CES this year will go the opposite route. We have shared a few rumour articles previously about the Excite AT200, but now we have a few more interesting details about the device. Here’s a breakdown:

• Initially Honeycomb OS
• Ultra-thin 7.7mm thick
• 10.1-inch 1280×800 resolution display
• 1.2GHz dual-core OMAP 4430 processor
• 5MP rear/2MP front facing cameras
• micro HDMI out and either 16GB or 32GB storage options

Supposedly, they will also be unveiling a second tablet that is even more mysterious. This other tab will reportedly be waterproof (or water-resistant), will have a 7-inch OLED display, and use a Qualcomm processor. Above is a screenshot of the back of the super-thin Excite. Intriguing.

Posted by: Gareth

A Google Nexus Tablet?

This is an interesting rumour, in which Google’s own Eric Schmidt let slip the possibility of a Google branded Nexus-style tablet. According to this latest rumour, Google really is working on some form of a Nexus-Style Google branded tablet, and it may be coming to market as early as the end of Q1 2012. The tablet will be a 7-inch product and is actually designed to offer up an alternative to the Amazon Kindle Fire instead of compete directly with Apple’s iPad series. The rumour-mill further suggests that the pricing will be competitive with Amazon’s product as well, and should retail for around $199.99 in American Dollars, from America.

Right now, this Intel is highly speculative, and in fact, Google Taiwan already released a statement indirectly refuting it. They indicated that Google Taiwan has "never heard about plans of launching an own-brand tablet PC". Of course, this isn’t an outright denial, but we should still take this "news" with extra seasoning. If Google does go this route, they will likely be selling the device at an even greater loss than Amazon, since they would probably make the specs more competitive. It’ll be interesting to see how this pans out.

Posted by: Gareth

PRADA phone by LG 3.0 incoming

Clove have the ‘PRADA phone by LG 3.0’ – that’s the official name for it as opposed to the LG Prada phone coming the week commencing 6^th Feb.

You want a phone that can offer you a blend of performance and style and more often than not phones deliver one and not the other, but with the Prada Phone by LG, things are a little bit different.

Prada have worked with LG to produce a phone like no other. Said to be the worlds most stylish smartphone, tailored to a discerning, fashion-conscious audience.

Following a long tradition of aesthetic codes and craftsmanship that is at the heart at all Prada products the Prada phone by LG 3.0 has a Saffiano leather on the back cover which contrasts the chromed metal frame of the phone and its camera.

The phone evokes minimalist functional design and this is reflected inside and out. The Prada phone by LG has unique Prada-style icons on the main menu that compliment the exterior design on offer to you and completes the immersive Prada experience.

You can read more, see full specs and view further images below:

White Galaxy Nexus incoming

Clove have announced that the White variant of the Google Galaxy Nexus should be hitting the selves of the UK week commencing February 6th. If you head on over to Clove you can sign up for further updates.

The Galaxy Nexus is proving to be a big hit with the Android community and Android 4.0 is a great improvement in my opinion.

Having previously manufactured the Google Nexus S, Samsung has once again been chosen by Google to apply its innovative smartphone expertise to its latest handset and this knowledge is married perfectly with the range of new features that Ice Cream Sandwich has to offer.

A range of cutting edge Android features are introduced via the Galaxy Nexus thanks to Android ICS. These include Face Unlock, a means of unlocking the device by looking at the 1.3 MP front facing camera. There’s also ‘Android Beam’, a feature that allows you to easily share contacts, apps, websites and more between two NFC enabled Android devices. Improvements have been made to several of the stock apps, such as camera, calendar and the web browser.

GameCommand Android app for Qualcomm launches CES 2012

Last year saw Nvidia’s Tegra 2 processor inside the cutting edge smartphones, which gave them a new class of power ready to be exploiting for gaming. Tegra 2 was new however, meaning most games were not optimized to run on their chipsets. Eventually their Tegra Zone app collected the games that would best show their gaming prowess. This year, Qualcomm are set to release their own take, called GameCommand, showcasing high quality immersive games as well as news feeds to keep updated on the latest gaming news.

It will feature over 100 titles optimised (and some exclusive) for Qualcomm Snapdragon chips, which are already present in high end smartphones today, such as the HTC Sensation and Sony Ericsson XPERIA Play. Find more in the PR, and look out for the app launching January 10th.

Blaq for BlackBerry PlayBook updated to Version 1.6

If you are a BlackBerry PlayBook owner you will be pleased to know that Blaq has been updated overnight. If you are a PlayBook owner but don’t use Blaq then I strongly suggest you do, as it is by far the best Twitter option for the PlayBook.

Full changes for the update can be seen below:

Nokia Lumia 710 coming soon to Orange

If you are in the market for a new Windows Mango Phone but don’t want the expense of the Lumia 800 then it’s good news as I have just seen the 710 on the Orange ‘coming soon’ page.

I used the Lumia 710 back at Nokia World and while it doesn’t have the same amazing build quality of the 800 it is still a real beauty with interchangeable back covers that the youngsters will love.

Specs wise it is pretty decent too, with a 3.7 inch display, 5 megapixel camera, HD video recording and not forgetting Nokia Drive so free satellite navigation.

You can see full specs below: