Category Archives: Handsets

Radio Shack Leak Outs New Release Date for HTC Vigor (Incredible HD) and Samsung Stratosphere

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Looks like Radio Shack may be expecting a nice little shipment of HTC Vigors in their stores come October 20th. This leaked document also shows the Samsung Stratosphere (Epic 4G) arriving on October 6th. Last we heard, the HTC Vigor could launch as the Droid Incredible HD and early leaks were showing it for an October 13th launch. So either Radio Shack has a more up-to-date launch date, or they’ll get it a little later than everyone else. Either way, the battle for best 720p Android device is on this holiday season!

[Via Droid-Life]

Anonymous 4Chan User Also Talks About The Samsung Galaxy S III

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Once again people, I’m not taking this information as true, I just love juicy gossip. Even still, I’d be lying to say it didn’t give me goosebumps. It’s the weekend! Loosen up a bit. Okay, so first off, we know Samsung has been hard at work on the Galaxy S III and they’ve even semi-announced that it will be dropping sometime in 2012. But just how much better could a device get than the Galaxy S II? I mean, you can’t go above 1080p video recording, right? Well, according to anonymous 4chan user, things can get a lot better.

The specifications for the SGSIII are of course subject to change, but are Samsung-developed 2.0GHz quad-core CPU (no codename given), 1.5gb RAM, 32gb internal memory (with sd card slot), and a 4.65 inch screen. A new display called Super AMOLED III is being developed specifically for the phone (SGS had Super AMOLED, SGS II had Super AMOLED Plus, SGS III has Super AMOLED III) with 1280×1024 resolution, giving the phone a ppi of 352, which they emphasized that a 352ppi will make it the highest ppi mobile phone.

It also has a 2250 mAh battery, 10 megapixel camera and is capable of shooting 1080p video at 60 frames per second, and will come with an inbuilt NFC chip. The device is 9mm thick, has a metal and glass body (a really clean, shiny look to it in the pictures), has a 2250mAh battery, 10 megapixel camera and is capable of shooting 1080p video at 60 frames per second.

The reason for no demo phone was that the screen technology was still in the final stages of design and production of them have not started.

The phone will have Androids latest Ice Cream Sandwich software and an all new TouchWiz 5 which has been in co-development with Google during the development of the Galaxy Nexus, so according to the Samsung representatives, it isn’t as "intrusive to Android" as previous TouchWiz versions were. It seems TouchWiz will play a minor role and only have little improvements to ICS. It won’t control the user experience.

One of the reasons why they’re not going with a full TouchWiz experience is for a few reasons, one being that the ICS experience is very user friendly already and also it will also Samsung to update software on their phones at a faster rate than they have in the past.

Okay, this is where things go a little bit into la-la land for me. If there’s anything that questions this “source’s” credibility, it would be this Galaxy S III leak. Let’s pretend what he’s saying is in fact true. With these kind of specs, there would be almost little-to-no room for improvement in say, the Galaxy S IV. And companies are always planning ahead whether that means “leaving room for improvement” or planned obsolescence. Whatever you want to call it. Don’t even get me started on the quad-core processor or the fact that the phone will have a 2250mAh battery, yet still remain 9mm thick. Oh — and this is all going off of his memory which he uses as his excuse for some “inconsistencies.” But what IF everything he said panned out to be true? Time to boomark this post and revisit it in a few months.

[Via 4chan]

LG U+ LTE Revealed – 1.5GHz Dual-core, 75Mbs and 720p HD Display

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Looks like LG isn’t ready to throw in the towel just yet. The South Korean manufacturer recently put up an extremely impressive flash site for their upcoming LG U+ LTE. So, just what is this LG U+? Well, the model number for the device could be the LG-LU6200 and if you want to do some serious speculating, judging from that leaked Verizon roadmap we saw a few weeks ago, could also be the Revolution 2 dropping on October 20th.

As far as specs go, the LG U+ LTE will feature a 1.5GHz dual-core Snapdragon processor, support for LTE up to 75Mbps and a 4.5-inch “True HD” 720p AHIPS display of which recently won an award for outclassing Samsung’s Galaxy S II AMOLED unit. The device will also come equipped with an 8MP camera, 1.3MP front facing webcam, 1GB of RAM and a super slick profile coming in at only 10.5mm thick. As it stands, the LG U+ LTE will be announced next week on the 26th and launch exclusively in South Korea (just like the Galaxy S II) but I imagine it wont be long before we see a global release. It’s going to be an interesting holiday season for Android…

[Via GSMArena]

Perfect Timing: Samsung Epic 4G Touch Source Code Now Available

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Well, that was a lot quicker than what we were expecting (but trust us, we aren’t complaining). The Samsung Epic 4G Touch is now out in stores and online and Samsung has made the source code available at their developer portal for all to download. With this, the hardworking Android development community will be able to get started on all the custom ROMs you could want. Root’s still not here yet (Motorola’s after-market community has that on lock) but we can’t imagine it won’t be worked on ASAP. If you yourself want the source code in the meantime, head to Samsung’s portal and do a search for D710. [Pocketnow]

Motorola DROID Bionic Bootstrap (Beta, We Think) Now Available

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As promised, cvpcs has released the Bootstrap application for the Motorola DROID BIONIC that’ll get you the custom recovery you’re looking forward. Considering how recently this device came out we’re not sure it’ll be of much use to typical users right now, but developers are encouraged to download it so they can begin on their own ROMs and other such things. It’s a simple .APK file and works just like the DROID X and DROID 2′s bootstrap apps. It should be noted that this is for the DROIDN Bionic only – trying to use this on a DROID 3 will supposedly wipe your data even if the two devices are very similar. Check out the notes from cvpcs below and hit this link up for the download. [Thanks to everyone who sent this in!]

  • This is not an official CWR release. Official CWR releases are signed off by Koush.
  • This will not be on market. I’ll leave that for when Koush makes an official release.
  • This is for BIONIC ONLY.
  • I am not responsible for any loss of data if there are bugs present. I have tested it but that doesn’t mean it’s bug free!

[Poll] Buying the Epic 4G Touch Today?

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So today marks the release of the first Galaxy S II smartphone in America – Sprint’s Samsung Epic 4G Touch Having used the phone myself for a few days now, I can tell you that it’s everything it’s cracked up to be and 10 times more. While my official review has yet to come out (it will be out very soon, but read my initial hands-on impressions here), I can certainly tell you that I’ll have a ton of praise and very little reproach.

With that said, if you were to take a walk into a Sprint store right now to play with it and found yourself liking it, would you buy it? Sure, it’s been out for several months in the world over, but the funny thing is that this is still one of the most powerful smartphones over there and over here.

Will you let your indecisiveness or need to get the absolute latest technology hold you back from buying or will you just settle and accept the fact the phone may be “outdated” within a few weeks’ time? Sound off in the poll below and be sure to leave a comment explaining your choice!

Samsung Illusion For Verizon Is Revealed Via Flickr

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Samsung let the cat out the bag today when they posted an image of their upcoming Illusion handset coming soon to Verizon Wireless. The image of the device was posted on their Flickr account along with some information confirming the model number (SCH-I110) and showing off their “green” award for the Illusion. Although no other specs were revealed for the Samsung Illusion we can expect this to be a 3G only device (judging by the pic) and rumored specs are placing it with a budget friendly 800MHz processor, 3MP camera and more than likely featuring a 480×320 display. Oh yeah — and it’s “green.”

[Via Electronista]

Samsung Galaxy S II, Epic 4G Touch Is Now Available From Sprint

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Rejoice! The time is finally here, folks. It’s a little past midnight on the east coast and Sprint’s website has finally made available the uber fast, uber amazing, uber sexy, Samsung Epic 4G Touch for sale! With it’s 4.52-inch Super AMOLED Plus display, 1.2GHz dual-core Exynos processor, 16GB of internal storage, 8MP rear/2MP front facing cameras, 1080p video recording, running Android 2.3.4… Who’s getting one!?

Oh, and don’t forget to hit up the Samsung Epic 4G Touch Forum for anything and everything on this device from deals, rooting and general praise. Cheers.

[Via Sprint]

Motorola Droid Bionic Successfully Boots CyanogenMod 7 – Bye, Bye MotoBlur! [Video]

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CyanogenMod 7 or CM7 as the kids call it, has just shown up on the Motorola DROID BIONIC Popular Android developer @cvpcs tweeted the successful Blur-less bootup today and was even generous enough to include some footage. Check it out:

The Motorola Droid Bionic hasn’t even been out for more than a week and there’s already some great progress being made on it. Keep in mind, this ROM isn’t nowhere near ready for primetime seeing how there are a handful of essentials not working just yet. Things like, no radio (for making calls) or data, device wont charge, no sound and the camera doesn’t work either. For all you Droid Bionic early adopters, I don’t imagine it will be too much longer before all the kinks are worked out and you can finally have your device Blur free.

[Via Twitter]

Leaked Doc Reveals HTC Vigor Launching As The Droid Incredible HD On Oct 13th

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If the above image is to be believed, the HTC Vigor that we’ve been following for weeks now, could be rebranded the DROID Incredible HD when it hits Verizon on October 13th. The leaked image goes on to show the specs of the phone aside from one glaring typo: a “4.3-inch WVGA display?” While, I wouldn’t call shenanigans on that alone, (seeing how it correctly lists the device’s resolution in the next line) I’m sure it will raise a few eyebrows. Leaked pics of the device (and more recently the leaked press shot) reveal the Vigor as taking some major styling cues from the Incredible line so the change in name seems very plausible.

The rest of the specs are spot on with what we’ve been hearing on the HTC Vigor. 4G LTE enabled,  720p HD screen, 1.5GHz dual-core processor with 1GB of RAM, Android 2.3.4 Gingerbread, 8MP rear/2MP font facing camera, and Beats by Dr. Dre earbuds. Oh- and as an added bonus, a 32GB class 10 microSD will come inside the device to compliment the already 16GB of onboard storage (sounds fishy). If this device isn’t HTC’s next flagship, I don’t know what is. HTC is throwing their very best into this device and it looks like HTC will be first-to-market with an HD 1280×720 screen. Once again, this leaves other Android OEM’s to play catch-up. Definitely excited to see what comes of this device, how ’bout you?

[Via Droid-Life]