Sony Xperia Z1 mini allegedly revealed

While Sony is still busy on promoting its latest flagship smartphone, the Xperia Z1 globally, a site has posted a purported official document revealing the Xperia Z1 mini.

Xperiablog has published some leaked documents from NTT DoCoMo Japan, revealing the rumored specifications of the ‘Xperia Z1 f’ with model number SO-02F alongside the Xperia Z1 (SO-01F), which has already been launched last month at the IFA. The former is believed to be yet-to-be announced Xperia Z1 mini.

The leaked documents also reveal specifications of the ‘Xperia Z1 f’ a.k.a. ‘Xperia Z1 mini,’ which supposedly boast of a quad-core 2.2GHz Snapdragon 800 processor, the same as we have seen on the Xperia Z1. It is said to come with a 4.3-inch display with 720x1280 pixels resolution, 16GB of inbuilt storage, 2GB of RAM, apart from a 2300mAh battery. The documents reveal dimensions of 127x64.9x9.4mm for the Xperia Z1 mini, and also claim it will come with IP55/IP58 certification (dust and water resistant), just like the Xperia Z1 and Xperia Z Ultra.

Interestingly, the listing also reveals that the alleged Xperia Z1 mini will ship with the same 20.7-megapixel camera as the Xperia Z1, one of the recently unveiled flagship’s biggest highlights. Additionally, the Xperia Z1 mini is said to features the same Sony G lens, f/2.0 aperture and the same 1/2.3” sensor which has been seen on the Xperia Z1. One of the documents also show the Xperia Z1 compared alongside the alleged Xperia Z1 mini, wich gives some indication about its expected size.

Looking at the documentation, there are no details about the launch of the alleged Xperia Z1 min, but its provenance certainly does hint that the device may be launched first in Japan.

Prior to this, the Xperia Z1 mini was spotted in purported leaked images that revealed front panel with Sony branding on top beneath the earpiece. The design of the leaked front panel of the alleged Xperia Z1 mini was visibly different from the Xperia smartphones launched until now.

Meanwhile, the Sony Xperia Z1 was unveiled at IFA last month, while the device was released in India few days ago.

Windows Phone gains in Europe, iOS up in US: Survey

Windows-based smartphones are making significant inroads in Europe, while Apple’s iPhone is strengthening its position in the United States, a survey showed Monday.

Data from Kantar World panel ComTech for three month ending in August Showed Windows Phone, the mobile platform from Microsoft, has posted its highest ever sales share of 9.2 percent in the five major Europe markets.

Windows had a 12 percent share in Britain, 10.8 percent in France, 9.5 percent in Italy, 8.8 percent in Germany and 2.2 percent in Spain, the survey found.

“Windows Phone’s latest wave of growth is being driven by Nokia’s expansion into the low and mid range market with the Lumia 520 and Lumia 620 handsets,” said Kantar analyst Dominic Sunnebo.

“These models are hitting the sweet spot with 16 to 24 years-olds and 35 to 49 years-olds, two key groups that look for a balance of price and functionality in their smartphone,” he said.

Android, the Google platform used by Samsung and several other manufacturers, remains the top operating system across Europe with a 70 percent market share but it is being threatened by higher growth from Windows and Apple’s iOS, the survey found.

“After years of increasing market share, Android has now reached a point where significant growth in developed markets is becoming harder to find, “Sunnebo said.

“Android’s growth has been spearheaded by Samsung, but the manufacturer is now seeing its share of sales across the major European economic dip year as a sustained comeback from Sony, Nokia and LG begins to broaden the competitive landscape.

In the United States, Android has also seen its market share drop to 55.8 percent from 60.7 percent a year earlier, while Apple’s share was up more than five percentage points at 39.3 percent. Windows rose to 3.0 percent from 2.6 percent.

Kantar said it expects Apple’s share “to spike in the coming months with the release of the iPhone 5s and iPhone 5C,” unveiled on September 20.

Apple and Android are roughly even in Japan with 48.6 percent for iOS and 47.4 percent for Android. But the agreement with Japan’s largest carrier, NTT DoCoMo, for the first time makes it likely that Apple will pull ahead of Android in this market, according to Kantar.

Apple also made strong gains in Britain, France and Spain, the survey found.

Blackberry’s woes have deepened, with the Canadian firm accounting for just 2.4 percent of sales across the five European markets and 1.8 percent in the United States, Kantar said. 

Samsung confirms Galaxy Note 3 and other high-end smartphones are region-locked

We’ve all heard of region-locked DVD players and DVDs, but it turns out Samsung wants to introduce the same resolutions on its smartphones.

It all started with UK-based mobile retailer Clove detailing certain functionality limitations regarding SIM cards on the Samsung Galaxy Note 3, the newest iteration of Samsung’s popular phablet.

The Samsung Galaxy Note 3 box featured a sticker that said that the phones are only compatible with a SIM-card issued from a mobile operator within Europe.

Following a disclosure, a number of customers shared a images of the American box as well, that had a sticker which mentioned that the phone was compatible with a SIM-card issued from a mobile operator within the Americas, including North, South and Central Americas and the Caribbean.

When phones by carriers under contracts are locked to prevent violations, it’s hard to understand why carrier-unlocked phones should come with regional restrictions except for preventing grey market imports and exports. But this also implies that customers would not be able to buy phones from other regions.

After widespread outrage, Samsung issued a statement to German website All about Samsung saying that the company is SIM-locking new devices including the Galaxy S II, Galaxy S III, Galaxy Note, Galaxy S4, Galaxy S4 Mini, and Galaxy Note 3 devices produced after the end of July 2013. It is also clarifies that all these devices sport a sticker indicating the same and that the region look can be removed free of charge through a Samsung service partner if the device is used outside the region it’s meant fro and has not been used with a local SIM that region.

The statement doesn’t clarify if users will be able to use a local SIM-card when travelling outside their region, and it even mentions that internationally roaming services would work. However, developer Jan Ole Suhr tweeted about Samsung Germany clarify that the region lock is automatically removed once a user plugs in the local SIM-card.

iPhone 5s costs $191 to make, cheaper than iPhone 5: IHS

While the iPhone 5s includes of new features that set it apart from Apple’s previous model, the actual cost to make the phone hasn’t changes very much, according to a new study.

An IHS Inc. teardown of the new smartphone found that the components make up a 16-gigabyte iPhone 5s (Review) cost $190.70. Manufacturing costs add another $8, bringing the total production cost to $198.70.

In comparison of iPhone 5 that will be hit the market last year ago that costs up to $197 to make.

According to a Andrew Rassaweiler, the IHS director the cost of the benchmarking service has been noted the iPhone 5s includes the extra new features that gives extra functionality to this smartphone, such are 64-bit apps processor and a finger-print identification sensor without any kind of significant jump in the costs of this iPhone.

Also the research firm also dissected a 16-gigabyte iPhone 5c (Review), a cheaper version of the 5s, and put its total production cost at $173.45, including all the manufacturing costs that are $7.

In the last press interview, Rassweiler said the 5c is basically an iPhone 5 wrapped in plastic, nothing that it has basically the same features, but benefits from typical components price drops, along with its cheaper plastic enclose.

The starting price of iPhone 5c is $549, but it will sell for $99 with a two year wireless contract. It’s Apple’s least-expensive iPhone ever and is an effort to boost sales in China and other areas where people don’t have as much money to expend on new gadgets as they do in the U.S. and Europe. But critics have said that the phone is still too expensive to sell well in emerging markets.

IHS said that while I cost substantially less to produce an iPhone 5c than it did an iPhone 5, those costs are still on the high side.

It added that in order to merit the low-end smartphone pricing of $400 that many industry observers had expected while maintaining typical Apple profit margins the company would need to reduce its 5c production to about $130.

Monday Apple reported that it sold 9 million of the two new models since their launch on Friday – its strongest iPhone launch ever – and that demand was exceeding supply.

In midday trading, shares of the Cupertino, Calif., company slipped $5.98 to $483.12.

HTC One Android 4.3 update reportedly begins rolling out

While we have not heard any official word from HTC about the Android 4.3 update to the HTC One, it seems the company has started the rollout in its home-turf, according to reports.

@LlabTooFeR, who claims to be a ROM developer, has posted an image of the screenshots of the Android 4.3 update for the HTC One Twitter. The tweet mentions, “HTC One in Taiwan just started getting Android 4.3.”

The latest Android 4.3 Jelly Bean update for the HTC’s flagship smart phone looks to be available over the air (OTA). The screen reveals the software build number to be 3.18.709.2 and is about 512MB. The tweet also mentions that the update brings bug fixes and enhancements for the HTC One which is majority include battery charging animation in power-off state, improvements in gallery and camera department with upgrade to colour contrasts in low-light situations and adding soundtracks to highlights. However, the official change log has not been revealed, yet.

It was also rumored that with Android 4.3 update, the HTC One would also receive the new Sense 5.5 UI, however there’s been no mention of this with the currently reported update.

Last month, a tweet by HTC’s president of global sales, Jason Mackenzie confirmed that the Android 4.3 update would be rolled out to the HTC One in US and Canada by the end of September. HTC’s 2013 flagship smartphone was released in February and natively ran Android 4.1 Jelly Bean with Sense 5 UI out of the box. Despite the company announcing an update for the One to Android 4.2.2 in Asia and European markets, the update has not been rolled out across the globe.

For those unaware, the HTC One comes with a 4.7-inch full-HD display with 468 pixels per inch packed in an aluminium unibody. It is powered by a 1.7 GHz quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 600 processor alongside 2GB of RAM. HTC One comes with 32GB and 64GB storage options, but without expandable storage. Connectivity options include Wi-FI 802.11 a/ac/b/g/n. Bluetooth 4.0, GPS, NFC, Infrared and Micro-USB.

Samsung announces curved display smartphone for October release

Samsung Electronics Co Ltd said it will introduce a smartphone with a curved display in October, as the world's top handset maker seeks to set the pace of hardware innovation and maintain its supremacy in a fiercely competitive business.

Curved displays are an early stage in screen evolution which is shifting to bendable or foldable designs, eventually allowing mobile and wearable gadgets to take on new forms that could radically change the high-end smartphone market.

“We plan to introduce a Smartphone with a curved display in South Korea in October, “Samsung’s mobile business head of strategic marketing D.J. Lee said on Wednesday at an event launching the Galaxy Note 3 Smartphone in Seoul.

In January Samsung which has taken over from Apple as the global Smartphone leader, showed off prototype products with a flexible screen and a display that extends from the side of a device.

But technology firms have yet to figure out how to mass produce the parts cheaply and come up with display panels that can be as a sheet and highly heat resistant.

Curved display is already commercially available in large-screen televisions. Samsung and its home rival LG Electronics Inc had started selling curved OLED TV sets year priced at about $9,000.

LG Vu 3 with 5.2-inch display, Snapdragon 800 processor unveiled

LG has finally taken the wraps off the third generation of the Optimus Vu smarrtphone in Korea. However, the company has not revealed the pricing and availability details of the new phablet, yet.

The LG Vu 3 comes with a 5.2-inch IPS display with a 960x1280 pixel resolution. It is powered by 2.26GHz quad-core Snapdragon 800 (MSM8974) processor, coupled with a 480MHz Aderno 330 GPU. The device sports a 13-megapixel rear camera and a 2.1-megapixel front-facing camera, both with BSI. It comes with 2GB of RAM and includes 16GB of inbuilt storage, though there is no word for now about expandable storage.

It also includes speakers that can deliver high-quality 24-bit/192KHz audio, which were first seen on LG’s flagship smartphone, the G2. The company has also included Carrier Aggregation (CA) technology that doubles the speed of LTE-advanced. The LG Vu 3 runs Android 4.2.2 Jelly Bean and packs in a 2610mAh battery (unspecified talktime and standby time). Connectivity options include Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, NFC, AGPS and Micro-USB. The device comes with dimensions 132.1x85.6x9.34mm and weighs 161 grams. It will come in three colours variants – Indigo Black, Mint and White.

Earlier this month, a Korean report noted that the South Korean major will officially announce the LG Vu 3 at the end of September while the device will be released in October. Additionally, the company had teased few images of the QuickView cases for the LG Vu 3.

Moreover, LG also pulled the curtains off its long-rumoured tablet, the LG G Pad 8.3 earlier this month.