Alleged pictures of BlackBerry 10 developer device leak

RIM is holding a BlackBerry Jam conference next month in Orlando where it is supposed to give out development devices running the upcoming BlackBerry 10 to ten of the developers attending the event. We are now seeing what are allegedly pictures of this developer device, courtesy of a CrackBerry forum member.

The phone looks like a shrunken down PlayBook, with the same matte plastic back that goes around the side and surrounds the display. The front has the earpiece and a camera at the top, the display in the middle and what seems like a (blurred out) logo at the bottom.

Of course, how this device looks like is irrelevant because it is only intended as a developer unit and won't make it to production. The final devices are likely to have a bit more flair although to be honest this doesn't look to shabby either.

           Samsung Galaxy S3 photo leaks, yes, again

It's time for today's "photo of the Samsung Galaxy S3" leak - these seem to occur more and more often as we come closer to May 3, when Samsung's Unpacked event will finally settle things one and for all.

The leaked photo in question (the one on the left) shows a device with a hardware home button with two capacitive keys on its sides (menu and back). You can see the volume rocker on the left and the power/lock key on the right - basically, the standard Samsung arrangement.

Note: the middle and right photos come from previous leaks.

  
The newly leaked photo is the one on the left

The screen is off, so there's no way to tell if the device uses the on-screen buttons that we've seen in previous leaks. But it does look an awful lot like the sketch in the alleged leaked manual. And the bezel is very thin - as it would need to be with the rumored 4.6-4.8" screen.

Samsung Galaxy S3 supposed service manual revealed

Assuming we are to believe everything we heard so far about the Galaxy S3, and especially the leak in the KIES system, which is as good as official, the model name for Samsung's next flagship will be the I9300.

So today there is this leak, which shows the Samsung GT-I9300 service manual, so it should be nothing else but the S3, right?

Well, yes, assuming the manual is legit in the first place. But since we only got here after so much assuming, we'll let you decide whether that sketch of a phone is the final design.

                     

Regarding the specs, we are not that sure. Nothing there seems that much out of the ordinary, but the screen so far has only been rumored as a 4.6-incher and at 4.8 inches it's would be closer to the Note than to the regular phone lineup. For all we know, the whole leak could be bogus so take it with a pinch of salt. Anyway, we'll know the real specs come next week.

HTC Q1 results: profits are down, expected to bounce back in Q2

HTC's preliminary report made it pretty clear that the last couple of quarters were pretty tough for the company. Now, their full report is out and it gives us some more details on how HTC performed in Q1 of 2012.

The company's revenue ($2.3 billion) dropped about 34% both quarter on quarter and year on year. HTC attributes that to the product transition cycle (the new HTC One series went on sale after Q1 ended).

HTC managed to cut down operating expense during Q1 (mostly by reducing marketing costs), but the operating profit of $173 million was down 60% quarter on quarter and 69% compared to Q1 of last year. Both gross margin and operating margin are down as well.

For the second quarter of this year, HTC expects these margins to reach their Q4 2011 levels and the projected revenue is $3.59 billion or about what they were a year ago.

Samsung Galaxy S III test unit shown on video, specs and all

Yet another alleged live photo of the upcoming Samsung Galaxy S III flagship leaked yesterday, but the guys from Tinhte.vn got their hands on just that device and shot an informative video that reveals a lot about the phone.

It's important to note that the device shown isn't the final design - it's just a sort of test mule, with all the hardware packed in a box to let the carriers test it. This was done to prevent any leaks of what the final device will look like.

Here's the video in question (it's in Vietnamese, but there are English subtitles):

The hardware internals should be identical on the final product though and the video shows Android System Info running on the phone, so it reveals several key specs. The most important thing is the processor, of course, and it's a Samsung-made quad-core processor running at 1.4GHz, a Mali-400MP GPU (same as on the current Galaxy S II) and a screen with 320ppi pixel density.

The screen has 720p resolution, which works out to a 4.6" diagonal with the quoted pixel density (seems about right judging by the part of the video where the Galaxy S III is put next to a Galaxy Nexus). Part of the screen is reserved for ICS-style on-screen controls. The screen should be a Super AMOLED unit, though we don't know whether it's a Plus or not (meaning whether it uses a PenTile matrix or a conventional RGB one).

A look at the back of the device reveals a microSD card slot to expand the 16GB of built-in memory. Next to it is a SIM slot of about the same size, so the Galaxy S III should be using the microSIM standard. The battery has an ample 2050mAh capacity and the phone will support NFC connectivity.

 
Photos of a Samsung Galaxy S III test unit

The camera interface on the Samsung Galaxy S III (if that's even its final name) reports a maximum resolution of 8MP and not 12MP as earlier rumors suggested. This could be just a software limitation, but there's no way to know for sure, at least until the official announcement comes.

That is expected to happen on May 3, when we should see the final design, name and specs of the Galaxy S II successor.

    Panasonic Eluga is now available throughout Europe

It’s been quite a while since we last saw Panasonic phones on the European market. Recently though, Panasonic announced the Eluga and Eluga Power droids, which come with IP57 certification for dust and water resistance.

The good news is the Eluga is already available in silver and black colors. It costs £365/€440 and you can have it right now. The device was released in Germany a few days ago.

The Eluga is based on the TI OMAP 4430 chipset featuring a dual-core 1GHz processor and PowerVR SGX540 GPU. It uses a 4.3-inch OLED qHD display, an 8 megapixel camera and non-expandable 8GB storage. Panasonic Eluga runs on Android 2.3 Gingerbread but the 4.0 ICS upgrade is already in the works.

In case you are more interested in getting the Eluga Power (1.5GHz dua-core Krait, Adreno 225, 5" HD LCD screen, Android 4.0 ICS), you should know it is supposed to be released until the end of this month. We've already got a pre-order price for it, too – £480/€585.

ARM reveals a new low-power quad-core Cortex-A15 variant

Chip manufacturer ARM, famous for its Cortex A-series of processors, today introduced a new low-power design of its quad-core Cortex-A15 chip. Its main purpose is to help system-on-a-chip manufacturers design their products faster and with lower power use.

This will be achieved using the company's new hard macrocell implementations of the Cortex A-series of processors. Those versions will boast four cores clocked at 2GHz based on a 28nm design that have fixed specifications. This means that companies using those "hard macro" implementations will not be able to heavily customize ARM's design to their liking.

As a result, manufacturers will get the same power usage as earlier Cortex-A9 chips and faster turnaround times for their SoCs, since they won't be able to fiddle with them. ARM says this will bring "balance of performance and power", which could eventually be used even in notebooks or fast network devices such as smart routers.

ARM is expected to reveal more details on their new work at tomorrow's IEEE symposium in Yokohama. Chips are expected to start shipping as early as the end of 2012.

It's not yet clear how this would reflect on various manufacturers, but it's certainly going to give them the option to quickly utilize the Cortex-A15 processor, without spending too much time on its development to suite their own needs.

      Nokia 808 PureView surfaces on pre-order in the UK

We've already seen Nokia 808 PureView pre-orders pop up elsewhere but now we're talking the UK.

Clove.co.uk now offers the ultra-high-megapixel cameraphone but the pricetag is a bit harder to swallow than the one we saw from Nokia Italy. With the VAT included, the UK price amounts to £538.80, which is roughly €655, while Nokia Italy's asking price is €599.

We hope other UK retailers chime in on that one and make a more palatable offer for the Nokia 808. A Dutch retailer, for instance, has a pre-order listed at €565.

Clove doesn't mention a release date but the Nokia Italy pre-order had May as a projected time frame for the launch of the highly anticipated cameraphone.

Asus Transformer Pad TF300T to ship on April 22, unofficially priced at $399

Another member of the Transformer family is about to hit the shelves in the US – the Asus Transformer Pad TF300T will ship on April 22. The tablet is slightly thicker than the Prime model and uses a non-Super IPS LCD, but packs the same quad-core processor package courtesy of the Tegra 3 chipset.

The TF300T runs Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich and is, of course, compatible with the Asus’ keyboard dock, which turns it into an Android-powered netbook and adds 5 extra hours of battery life (on top of the 10 h the tablet does itself).

Asus says that the price of the Transformer Pad TF300T will be revealed on the day it ships – April 22 – but retailers like BJ’s and Office Depot are already taking preorders for it, at $399 for the 32GB Wi-Fi-only version (the keyboard dock is sold separately). French site Tablette Store also have the Transformer Pad TF300T on pre-order for €500 (Wi-Fi only version, 32GB), but I’m not sure on the shipping date for this one.

Coincidentally, it was Office Depot who leaked the price for the upcoming Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 10.1 – $399, for a dual-core ICS tablet with 8GB of storage. Neither price has been confirmed, but if those are the final prices, the Tab 2 10.1 will have stiff competition.

                 HTC Golf leaks out in a press image

An entry level device from HTC is coming our way, carrying the code name "Golf". The smartphone is bound to combine Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich and HTC's latest Sense 4.0 UI with a low price tag when launched.

The HTC Golf will positioned below the HTC One X, One S, and One V trio when launched. The smartphone is rumored to feature a single-core CPU with a clock speed below 1GHz. It will have 512MB of RAM and 4GB of built-in memory, along with a microSD card slot and 25GB of free Dropbox cloud storage for a period of two years. The screen will be a 3.5" unit with a resolution of 480 x 320 pixels. Bluetooth 3.0, Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n will be part of the spec sheet as well. The same goes for the Beats Audio software enhancement. Camera is rumored to be a 5MP unit, whose alleged sample we've encountered before.

The HTC Golf is expected to launch before the end of this quarter. Its retail name will be HTC Wildfire C, which clearly suggests that the smartphone will be a successor of the HTC Wildfire and Wildfire S budget smartphones. An affordable price               tag is also all but guaranteed.

            Is this a live photo of Samsung Galaxy S III?

Just as we started to get a bit worried about the lack of Samsung Galaxy S III leaks for the past three days or so, our luck struck again. Get your salt ready, because here goes an alleged live photo of the upcoming Samsung top dog, courtesy of a person, who claims to be a device tester.

As you can notice in the picture above, the suspected Samsung Galaxy S III sports a five-column UI, as well as a rectangular home button below its display. Both features fall right in line with previous leaks of the highly anticipated device.

Of course, we wish we could take a better look at the UI, but, unfortunately, the image supplier has decided to give it the 8-bit treatment before releasing it into the wild. It does however, look a lot like a stock Android ICS, which leads us to think that we are looking at a test mule.

Speaking of test mules, there is a high probability that the leaked design is not final either. In any case, we hope for an official announcement from Samsung, which will put an end to the "Galaxy S III leaks" saga, to take place in the near future.

India gets its first 4G LTE network, courtesy of Bharti Airtel

India is about to join the list of countries with fully operational 4G LTE networks. And the company responsible for this is Bharti Airtel, which also happens to be the fifth largest carrier in the world by number of subscribers.

Kolkata, a large metropolitan area in Eastern India, is the first area to be blessed with 4G LTE service. It will be followed by Karnataka, Punjab and other parts of India in Q3 of this year.

Since 4G-enabled smartphones aren’t yet available in India, the Bharti Airtel LTE network will be initially only be used with 4G USB dongles, which will enable connecting your laptop or tablet to the fast network. Manufactured by ZTE, the 4G dongle will be priced at 7,999INR ($155), which seems rather steep, though.

If, however, you still want to use 4G on your smartphone, you’ll have to wait until the end of 2012 when some LTE-enabled devices like HTC Evo 4G, Motorola Droid Razr Maxx, Samsung Galaxy Nexus, Samsung Galaxy S II Skyrocket and HTC Sensation 4G will be hitting the Indian market.

       Nokia acknowledges Lumia 900 issues, offers a fix

Nokia Lumia 900 has become available just recently and exclusively (for now) for AT&T in the USA. Unfortunately, some users reported inability to establish or loss of data connection. Often those people were cut off from the LTE network completely.

Nokia’s response came rather quickly – the issue is said to be software-related and the fix is already in the works. The firmware update to resolve it will become available on Monday, April 16.

In case you own a troubled Lumia 900, but don’t want to wait for another week, you are welcome to switch your unit for a new and updated one at the AT&T’s stores immediately.

As an apology for the inconvenience Nokia is giving $100 credit to the AT&T’s bill to everyone, who bought or plans on buying the Lumia 900 until April 21.

Nokia Lumia 900 is available only (for a limited time) on AT&T and costs $100 with a 2-year contract. And if you get one until April 21 you’ll get that $100 back. Now seems like the right time to buy one, isn’t it?

   Nokia announces the 103 - its most affordable phone ever

Meet the Nokia 103 - the most affordable phone the Fins have ever manufactured. Announced in Nigeria today, the Nokia 103 will cost just €16 and is aimed at developing markets.

The Nokia 103 runs Series 30 on a 1,36-inch black and white display (how long has it been since you last saw a new device with this type of display?). And with its sturdy, anti-scratch covers and dust resistance the Nokia 103 will be pretty hard to break.

Measuring at 107.2mm x 45.1mm x 15.3mm and weighing just 77 grams, the 103 features a 800mAh battery, which can keep it going for 27 days of standby and 11 hours of talk time. There's also an integrated flashlight, preloaded games and stereo FM.

The Nokia 103 will initially start selling in Nigeria, but you can expect it to go global appearance in the coming weeks.

 Nokia 306 graphic leaks out from a manual, raises questions

A graphic, taken from the manual of a prototype has leaked out, showing us the touch screen sporting, Nokia 306. Curiously enough however, there is no information on the OS, which the upcoming Nokia will be running.

The device could be running a Symbian version, due to its support for multiple home screens, along with a status menu, located at the top of the screen. On the other hand, the two button configuration below the display, and its resolution of 240x412 pixels point into an updated S40. So does the name of the device, which strongly suggests that the Nokia 306 belongs to the Asha family.

The leaked specs of the Nokia 306 include Bluetooth, Wi-Fi (b/g), MicroSD card slot, Micro USB port, FM Radio, and AV Out. The battery is Nokia BL-4U with a 1100mAh capacity.

   New Galaxy S III render leaks in a purported press invite

Another day, another Galaxy S III leaked image. This one appears on a press release (whose authenticity is yet to be confirmed) and we must say, of all the ones we have seen till now this one looks the most realistic to us.

The press image just shows a part of the phone, where we can see a sleek metal casing that tapers and bends backwards towards the bottom, with the display infusing seamlessly on the front. Strangely, there is no micro USB port at the bottom, as is usually the case with recent Samsung devices. The sides have been scooped out but there are no visible keys in the picture.

The press release announces May 22 as the launch date for the handset, with London being chosen as the venue for the launch. We'll just have to wait and see how much of this comes true.

Android in March: Gingerbread keeps growing, ICS on the rise too

Google released their monthly Android Platform version statistics and they show that the Gingerbread line is still on the rise (in fact, it grew the most), despite being succeeded by Ice Cream Sandwich.

The good news is that obsolete versions (pre-Eclair) now account for just 1% of all Android devices, with rusty Eclair itself sitting at 6%. Froyo is declining, but still commands - 23.1%. It debuted a little less than two years ago, so it will probably hold on to a considerable share for a little white longer.

Gingerbread keeps growing, despite several devices getting the ICS update, and currently holds a 63.2% share. ICS phones that dazzled as at the MWC are just hitting the shelves, so there isn't much to drive adoption up (besides the Galaxy Nexus and the updated devices).

Anyway, here's the table with the new OS version shares for March and how they changed compared to February:

Version	Market Share, March	Market Share, February	Change
1.5 Cupcake	0.3%	0.4%	▼0.1
1.6 Donut	0.7%	0.8%	▼0.1
2.1 Eclair	6.0%	6.6%	▼0.6
2.2 Froyo	23.1%	25.3%	▼2.2
2.3 Gingerbread	0.5%	0.5%	0.0
2.3.3-2.3.7 Gingerbread	63.2%	61.5%	▲1.7
3.0 Honeycomb	0.1%	0.1%	0.0
3.1 Honeycomb	1.0%	1.1%	▼0.1
3.2 Honeycomb	2.2%	2.1%	▼0.1
4.0-4.0.2 Ice Cream Sandwich	0.5%	0.4%	▲0.1
4.0.3 Ice Cream Sandwich	2.4%	1.2%	▲1.2

With yet more devices getting updated to ICS and phones with ICS out of the box, we expect next month's report to show a big jump in Android 4.0 adoption.