Samsung Galaxy S4 hits 20m sales in two months

Vast marketing spend paying off?

The Samsung Galaxy S4 isn’t underperforming in the sales stakes to the extent that some would have us believe, latest figures from the phone-maker suggest.
Samsung CEO JK Shin has today announced that its flagship phone has shifted some 20 million units since landing two months or so ago in a blaze of publicity and a marketing campaign the size of some countries’ total GDP.

By way of comparison, the Galaxy S3, which was previously Samsung’s fastest-selling smartphone ever, took three months to hit the 20-million mark.
The strong showing comes amid claims in some quarters that the Galaxy S4 has failed to live up to its billing. In particular, it was posited that the smartphone's Nature UX features, such as tilt to scroll and the SmartPause intelligent pause mode, were not as much of a draw as Samsung thought.
Last month a series of analysts scaling down sales forecasts for the handset, in turn, prompting a full in the company’s share price to dive by $20 billion.

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iPhone 5S / iPhone 6: plastic low-cost phone snapped again, blue model too

Poly-hued, polycarbonate smartphone reappears.

New photos have appeared of a smartphone that looks an awful lot like the low-cost iPhone, as Apple’s first-ever budget effort edges ever closer to reality.
Snared from a Chinese site by French Apple acolytes Nowhereelse.fr, which was behind last week’s leak of snaps of a very similar-looking handset, the photos once again show the shell of the smartphone, which is clearly fashioned from polycarbonate.

But while the latest image features the same pink, yellow, green and white colourways that featured previously, this time around there’s a blue model too.
Other than that it’s hard to make out much that we hadn’t discerned previously, with the photos corroborating the impression that the plastic iPhone will stick fairly closely to the design that Apple has favoured since the iPhone 4.
Variously dubbed the ‘iPhone 5S’ or ‘iPhone 6’ by tech sites in recent months after initially being titled the ‘iPhone mini’, the cheaper Apple smartphone is expected to recycle parts from earlier models to keep costs down and might feature a smaller 3.5-inch display.
Analysts have forecast price points ranging from £99 to £249 for the phone, which is expected to be sold on pay as you go and is intended to helpi Apple boost its marketshare in the developing world.

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Budget iPhone: new designs revealed

Plastic fantastic.

A new set of budget iPhone renders, based on a string of leaked design drawings, have been revealed by the Apple fanatics at MacRumors.
Depicting the low-cost device in a series of bright colours, the new renders show a phone that packs in much of the same design language as the iPhone 5.
However, subtle changes to the size and volume controls suggest there could be some minor tweaks to what is already a winning formula.
Apple’s budget iPhone has been a staple part of the gossip menu for almost a year.
Cupertino has failed to deny it’s working on such a handset and these latest pictures will only serve to cause more excitement.

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Samsung Galaxy S4 Mini now out on Three, EE, O2 and Vodafone.

Also on Orange and T-Mobile.

The Samsung Galaxy S4 Mini has finally landed in the UK, now available on every major network in the land on a host of pay-monthly tariffs.
The smaller, cheaper and arguably cuter sibling to Samsung’s latest flagship is currently up for grabs for free on contract deals from Three, Orange, T-Mobile, EE, O2 and Vodafone.

On Three, the S4 Mini is free to snap up from £26 per month on the Ultimate Internet 100 tariff, with allowances including all-you-can-eat data, 100 minutes and 5,000 texts.
Orange and T-Mobile are also offering the handset gratis from £26 a month. Pick Orange’s Dolphin 26 plan and you’ll receive 200 minutes, unlimited texts and 750MB of data, while T-Mobile customers will be entitled to 300 minutes, 500 texts and 1000MB internet.
The S4 Mini is also free on EE’s 4G price plans from £31 per month, which comes with unlimited calls, texts and 500MB of data.
Choose O2 or Vodafone and you’re looking at a steeper outlay of £33 and £37 a month respectively for a free handset.
Vodafone subscribers will be furnished with 600 minutes, 500MB data and unlimited texts. O2, meanwhile, is offering 600 minutes, unlimited texts and 750MB data.

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iPhone 5S / iPhone 6 to offer super-fast LTE-A 150Mbps connectivity?

Headline speed is double standard LTE

The next iPhone could support mobile internet speeds that dwarf those offered by the current-gen model, it has emerged.
According to Korea Times, Apple is mulling incorporating LTE-Advanced (LTE-A) connectivity in its next-generation smartphone, enabling it to reach connection speeds of up to 150Mbps.
LTE-A is the next standard of 4G technology, following on from the long-term-evolution (LTE) tech that features in the iPhone 5, and is twice as fast as its predecessor.
An unnamed exec at SK Telecom claims that the Korean network is discussing LTE-A with Apple, having worked with Samsung to incorporate the technology in the Galaxy S4 last year.
The executive said: “SK Telecom is approaching Apple to put our LTE-A technology on the upcoming iPhone 5S. We are in the middle of negotiations.”

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HP’s smartphone comeback: surely, it’s doomed to failure

Tech giant should learn to pick its battles, reckons Joe Minihane.

It’s not even two years since HP quite the smartphone game, the disaster of its webOS venture barely a few months old when it decided enough was enough.
Yet the company is now suggesting that it could be set for a comeback, with its Asia-Pacific Director of Consumer PCs and Tablets saying that it would be “silly” not to give it another go.
In quotes from The India Express, Yam Su Sin said: “It would be silly if we say no. HP has to be in the game.
“Being late you have to create a different set of propositions. There are still things that can be done. It's not late.
“When HP has a smartphone, it will give a differentiated experience."
That last line is perhaps the most telling.

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EE 4G at Glastonbury prompts surge in high-res photo uploads

Next-gen network transforming usage habits.

The debut of 4G network technology at Glastonbury festival saw consumers' uploads overtake downloads for the first time ever, as Glasto-goers took to social networking sites to share high-res photos of artists' performances.
According to Olaf Swanatee, CEO of EE which provided next-gen service for free at the festival, upload activity unprecedentedly surged after bands finished their sets at the event, as a result of 4G facilitating sharing of high quality snaps on Facebook and Twitter.
The shift, engendered by a network on site capable of delivering speeds up to five times faster than the UK's average 3G connection speed, is perhaps indicative of how the availability of 4G has the potential to chance consumer usage habits.

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HTC One S won’t get Android 4.2

One S stranded.

HTC has said it will not be upgrading 2012’s One S handset to Android 4.2. The mid-range device, revealed in February of last year, will instead remain stranded on Android 4.1.
In a statement, the Taiwanese mobile maker said, “We can confirm that the HTC One S will not receive further Android OS updates and will remain on the current version of Android and HTC Sense. 
“We realize [sic] this news will be met with disappointment by some, but our customers should feel confident that we have designed the HTC One S to be optimized [sic] with our amazing camera and audio experiences.”
The move has been greeted with disbelief among the hardcore Android community, especially as Samsung is currently pushing out Android 4.2 to its two-year-old Galaxy S2.

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Budget iPhone: new designs revealed

Plastic fantastic.

A new set of budget iPhone renders, based on a string of leaked design drawings, have been revealed by the Apple fanatics at MacRumors.
Depicting the low-cost device in a series of bright colours, the new renders show a phone that packs in much of the same design language as the iPhone 5.
However, subtle changes to the size and volume controls suggest there could be some minor tweaks to what is already a winning formula.
Apple’s budget iPhone has been a staple part of the gossip menu for almost a year.
Cupertino has failed to deny it’s working on such a handset and these latest pictures will only serve to cause more excitement.

Read more »

Nokia Lumia 925 hands-on first impressions

We take our first look at Nokia’s first all-metal addition to the Lumia family.

Since the painful demise of its once world-conquering Symbian OS, Nokia has made a slow but steady recovery with its widely acclaimed Windows Phone-powered Lumia range of smartphones.
While it may not be quite out of the woods yet, the Finnish phone-maker has proven itself a worthy contender in the smartphone landscape by producing some of the best-designed handsets in recent memory.

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The culmination of this mobile renaissance is Nokia’s latest flagship smartphone – the Lumia 925, which replaces the sturdy but still plastic polycarbonate shell of its predecessor for meticulously crafted, and inarguably more stylish, unibody aluminium construction that not just looks premium, it feels it too.
Admittedly, beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but as far as we’re concerned, the Lumia 925 is right up there among the smartest-looking smartphones currently out there.

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