News

ZTE Skate and Libra in stock at thesmartphonecentre

Are you looking for a decent specced Android device sim free but don’t want to pay a fortune? Well good news as thesmartphonecentre now has both the ZTE Skate and Libra in stock and ready for shipping.

At only £214.95 the ZTE Skate is superb value for money and comes with a massive 4.3 inch touch screen.

Inspired by the skateboard, the ZTE Skate is fashionably thin and lightweight at only 120g, featuring a large 4.3-inch screen to provide an optimal web surfing experience to consumers. It uses the Android 2.3 operating system, an 800MHz processor and the Adreno 200 graphics processing unit (GPU) to support the widescreen, high-definition display. In addition, the ZTE Skate also incorporates a 5MP camera, multimedia Bluetooth extension, A-GPS capability, hardware compass, and G-sensor.

Mango arriving!

The next release of Windows Phone is here. The UK and rest of the world will now see the update (codenamed Mango) rolling out to all Windows Phone 7 owners, beginning today, with the aim of all users receiving the update by the end of October. Check ‘where’s my update’ for the latest information on the update. Also take a look at our update guide to make sure you are prepared.

The latest release of Windows Phone brings your contacts, messages and pictures together in one place, making it easy to share life with the people you care about most, keeping you in touch and always up to date.

Archos spec change at the last minute

Looks like Archos is having to review their upcoming 1.5GHz G9 Honeycomb tablets. Apparently, Texas Instruments wont be able to keep their end of the bargain with their 1.5GHz OMAP 4 processors as they are being pushed back until next year. This, in turn, is causing Archos to rethink their tablet loadout. Rather than delay the October launch of their 10-inch (and higher-end 8-inch) tablets, Archos will instead rename these versions “Turbo” and equip them with slightly overclocked 1.2GHz versions of the dual-core TI processors found in the lower 8GB model. Come next year, when Texas Instruments is able to get their act together, Archos will re-outfit these “Turbo” versions with the newer TI 1.5GHz OMAP 4 processors.

Not sure what exactly this is going to do to the price tag or if there will be an option to have the devices re-fit with the speedier processor ala Motorola’s 4G shenanigans, only time will tell.

Posted by Gareth

ZTE show of the first Tegra 3 tablet

ZTE showcased, at the CES (China International Exhibition Center) expo event held in Beijing, its latest 7-inch T98 Android 3.2 Honeycomb tablet powered by Nvidia’s Tegra3 chipset.

ZTE T98 features a 7-inch WXGA touchscreen display with 1280*800p resolution, equipped with a 1.5GHz Tegra3 quad-core processor, 1GB of RAM, 16GB on-board storage, two cameras a 5MP on the back with 1080p HD video rec capabilities and a 2MP on the front for video chat. T98 is 11.5mm thick and it comes with a battery capacity of 4000mAh.

The slate comes with 3G GSM enabled, weird that it doesn’t pack 4G/LTE technology and no mention about NFC support either. There’s no information regarding an availability date, nor any pricing information.

Posted by Gareth

Rather exciting lookin: The Dark Meadow trailer

Phosphor Game Studios’ The Dark Meadow is an action-adventure monster slaying game set in a creepy abandoned hospital. The Dark Meadow is coming next month, and is boasting some incredibly compelling features such as gesture-based combat, "console-level" story and production, and a six-ish hour campaign that will need to be replayed multiple times if you want to see all the game has to offer.

This looks to be a pretty exciting game, and for good reason too. For the hardware and popularity of the iOS devices there should be more projects like this on there way, as sometimes it feels like a waste to be playing simple 2D physics games on iOS devices when they’re totally capable of this.

Samsung shifts 10 million Galaxy SII smartphones

Samsung’s Galaxy SII with a seemingly no-compromise spec sheet has drawn some big attention, and now Samsung have the numbers to prove it. Just in the last eight weeks, Samsung have enjoyed their sales double from 5 million to 10 million, a truly impressive milestone to say the least, especially when one of the largest markets, the United States, hasn’t even contributed. I know that the Galaxy SII really does deserve the huge sales numbers it has already achieved – I myself own one of the 10 million. If you haven’t read our glowing review of the GSII, check it out now!

Sony Ericsson Xperia Arc S landing soon

Sony Ericsson are launching a new a smartphone in October and calling it the Sony Ericsson Xperia Arc S.  It seems the new Arc S is pumped with a 1.4 Ghz processor compared to its predecessor which clocked at 1Ghz. The Xperia Arc S has a 2d to 3d converter which lets you take photos and use ” 3d sweep panorama” application to display 2d photos in 3d if you plug it into a 3d TV or any other 3d display using a HDMI port. The phone will use Android OS Gingerbread 2.3 and have pretty much the same hardware features the original Arc did including ultra thinness at 8.7mm.  The Sony Ericsson Xperia Arc S is available in an array of colours :  pure white, gloss black, misty silver, sakura pink and midnight blue.

Posted by Gareth

Android 2.3.6 arrives on………

This morning I rolled over to my Nexus One to see an update message. How very exciting and unexpected. Not much is known about the contents of the software other than it includes ‘important bug fixes and security patches.’ It doesn’t allude to anything in particular so you’re just going to have to download it and see what it takes care of.

The Nexus S recently saw an update to 2.3.6 that included some sort of voice search fix. There have been some unconfirmed reports that the update was breaking USB and Wi-Fi tethering.

So, for those of you that haven’t seen it roll out OTA just yet, here is how to get Android 2.3.6 on your Nexus One at this very moment. The steps are pretty easy so even if you’re not proficient in tinkering with your device, you should be able to do this.

Could Google become a wireless carrier

There is some industry speculation that Google may be planning to take on the role of wireless carrier in parts of Europe soon. In fact, they may have already started testing a Mobile Virtual Network (MVN) in Spain. The images posted are of what appears to be a Google-branded SIM card and a Nexus S running on a network dubbed “Google_es”. According to the report, a few trusted engineers have started receiving this starter pack for testing purposes already. Here’s a quote with a few more details,

HTC and Dropbox to offer 5GB accounts for Sense 3.5 users

HTC has partnered with Dropbox to bring a deal to those who upgrade to an HTC Sense 3.5 device. While we mere peasants are entitled to a paltry 2 GB of free cloud storage, HTC Sense 3.5 devices will get access to 5 GB at no extra price. Pretty sweet deal if you ask us.

Currently, the only device with Sense 3.5 is the brand new HTC Rhyme on Verizon. If you happen to get this device, odds are that it will be through an upgrade or new contract. This means you’ll be hitching your wagon to data caps.

This isn’t exactly a new idea, companies like Asus have been doing it for a few years right back from their original Eeepc. Data caps from network providers do limit what you can do with your phone, Spotify and music and video streaming services are a fine examples.  If you plan to take advantage of those 5 free GB, you’d better keep that unlimited data contract. Your 2 GB will fly away in no time if you use cloud storage constantly. So be careful with those transfers! You can also use WiFi when transferring large files to/from your Dropbox account (or upgrade to a higher data cap).

There’s still no word on whether current HTC Sense users will also get this treat or not. Future Sense 3.5 smartphones will definitely get an extra 3 GB, though. It might not be a major decision factor when choosing your next smartphone, but it’s definitely a nice extra. These devices will also come with the Dropbox app pre-installed. Depending on how you see it, this could be great or just more bloatware.

Posted by Gareth