Sunday, February 24, 2013

Microsoft suffers Surface Pro shortage 2013

Less than a week after Microsoft began taking reservation orders for its 128GB Surface Pro tablet, the company on Thursday again slapped a sold-out sign on its website.
Thursday afternoon, Microsoft's online store displayed "Out of stock" and refused to accept orders for that configuration. The message remained in place Friday. On Saturday, the website said you can order now for shipment by March 1.
The new shortage makes Microsoft's blog post of Feb. 15 seem prescient. Then, as the company announced it would start taking orders for the 128GB Surface Pro, it warned customers that, "Once inventory is depleted, the system will show as 'out of stock' until new inventory is available to ship."
That's exactly what it did.
The Surface Pro has had an up-down-up-down history, brief as it's been.
Microsoft started selling the 128GB Surface Pro on Feb. 9 for $999, but within hours supplies dried up. Customers were furious, frustrated at coming up empty in their searches for the tablet, and took it out on Microsoft in scathing comments on the company's own blog and others.
A week ago, Microsoft reopened online ordering, telling customers that their tablet would ship on or before March 1. Rather than simply extend that shipping date into the future as supplied dwindled -- a practice most other vendors, including Apple, take when orders exceed demand -- Microsoft shut down orders completely.
The $899 64GB Surface Pro, which has been derided by some for having only about 30GB of storage space for customer content and apps, has remained available throughout the sell-outs of its sibling.
The on-again, off-again 128GB Surface Pro availability shows that Microsoft seriously underestimated demand for the tablet-becomes-an-ultrabook, said Ezra Gottheil, an analyst with Technology Business Research.
"It's beginning to look like this isn't a problem with building up enough inventory for the launch, but that Microsoft underestimated demand," said Gottheil, countering those who two weeks ago accused Microsoft of a marketing gimmick by purposefully holding back the tablet.
Instead, Gottheil traced the supply snafu to Microsoft's change in Surface strategy last year.
"Surface was first to be an inspiration to the OEMs, a marketing device to increase awareness of Windows 8, a challenge to the OEMs to come up with better designs," said Gottheil, echoing pundits' takes of mid-2012 when Microsoft surprised the technology industry with tablets of its own design that it would sell itself.
"That made perfect sense then, and didn't bother OEMs too much," Gottheil continued. "I'd also argue that Microsoft succeeded at that. It has been able to increase awareness of Windows tablets, and been able to define Windows 8 tablets as a different breed of cat.
"But somewhere along the line, their emphasis shifted," Gottheil said, of Microsoft. "They started saying, 'We're a device company,' they broadened distribution, they launched a large marketing campaign to make the Surface the thing you want to buy."
Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer's contention in his annual letter to shareholders last October that, "We see ourselves as a devices and services company," was the first public pronouncement of the shift in strategy.
In Gottheil's scenario, Microsoft's expectations for the Surface under that first strategy were necessarily low, and it placed orders accordingly. "They scoped out much lower component orders," Gottheil speculated, of Microsoft's doings last year.
The current shortages, then, are a result of plotting out one path, then changing directions after the initial ramp-up for the tablet was set in stone with suppliers.
And it may take some time for Microsoft to balance supply and demand, Gottheil warned. Touchscreens are tight for most device makers -- Apple seems to be one of the few OEMs to be immune, likely because of its longer history sourcing components for its iPad line -- and it's possible Microsoft will have trouble upping production of the Surface because of that.
"Microsoft just didn't get a chair at the touchscreen table early enough," said Gottheil.
Analysts and vendors expect that touchscreen inventories will climb in the second half of this year as more production comes on line to meet demand by traditional PC notebook makers, part of which was sparked by Windows 8, part, said Gottheil, due to an increasing familiarity with touch on tablets and an expectation that the same functionality should be on laptops.
"I don't think that many [vendors] expected people to want touchscreens on old-style PCs," said Gottheil.


iPhones are 3X Samsung smartphones - FixYa says 2013

iPhones are 3X more reliable than Samsung smartphones, FixYa says




iPhone users might occasionally complain about battery life and Apple’s slowness to add new features or enable complete customizability. But according to FixYa, Apple smartphones are the best-performing devices on the market: three times more reliable than Samsung smartphones, and a staggering 25 times more reliable than Motorola phones.
“With Apple and Samsung in an epic battle over smartphone supremacy, the biggest issue that no one talks about is overall reliability,” FixYa CEO Yaniv Bensadon told me via email.
FixYa’s smartphone reliability report says that Samsung smartphone owners have consistent issues with microphone and speaker quality — plus battery life problems, particularly with the Nexus line. According to the report, Nokia users say their phones are laggy and have a poor app ecosystem — this is not a shock — and Motorola customers say their phones have too much pre-installed crapware, poor quality touchscreens, and bad cameras.
How did FixYa arrive at these conclusions?
The product Q&A site took 722,558 troubleshooting requests posted by smartphone owners to its site and analyzed the data to see what issues were reported most for each manufacturer. Then FixYa normalized the data for relative market share — as defined by Statcounter.org — and derived a Smartphone Reliability Score.
The upshot? Apple wins, big time, and it’s not even close:
  1. Apple: 3.47
    26 percent market share, 74,163 problem impressions
  2. Samsung: 1.21
    23 percent market share, 187,520 problem impressions
  3. Nokia: 0.68
    22 percent market share, 324,439 problem impressions
  4. Morotola: 0.13
    1.8 percent market share, 136,436 problem impressions
“Our newest FixYa report looks at lines like the iPhone, Galaxy, or Lumia,” Bensadon said in a statement. “The result is a scaled approach to fairly compare these top companies to truly see who is the most reliable, and who is barely even competing.”

BlackBerry Z10 A boring beta -2013

blackberry 10 launch 2 q10 z10

The BlackBerry Z10 isn’t a complete failure, as it manages to impress at first glance (hence my enthusiastic first look at the phone). From afar it looks a lot like the iPhone 5. Up close it bears a simplicity that’s exceedingly rare as smartphone makers obsess with screen size and design bling. It looks like an expensive device that only business people should be using — which is great for maintaining BlackBerry’s image but somewhat damning when attracting typical smartphone buyers.
With its rounded corners and soft-touch rear cover, the BlackBerry Z10 feels more like an expensive leather briefcase than your typical smartphone. It’s also comfortable to hold and navigate with one hand thanks to a reasonably-sized 4.2-inch screen. BlackBerry could have tried to spar with big-screen Android phone makers, but the smaller screen size shows a certain amount of restraint that I can’t help but appreciate. (It’s also slightly bigger than the 4-inch iPhone 5, so BlackBerry can still hold that over Apple.)
The BlackBerry 10 has a few other things to like as well, though it still has a long way to go. It relies on a gesture-based interface that quickly becomes intuitive — swipe up from the bottom of the screen to show your running apps, swipe from the left edge go backward, and swipe down to reveal more options. A helpful gesture — swiping up, then right — sends you to the BlackBerry Hub, which puts all of your e-mail, texts, Twitter updates, and other communication alerts into a single interface.
Few apps stood out on the Z10 (more on that below), but its browser is worth mentioning. It’s fast, renders web pages accurately, and it even supports Adobe Flash. BlackBerry clearly put a lot of thought into the browser’s rendering engine, which feels as zippy as Chrome on Android and the latest version of the iOS browser.
The phone also sports BlackBerry Messenger, which for some fans may be the only reason they’ll need a new BlackBerry device. At this point, modern messaging apps and services like iMessage and Kik are far more useful than BlackBerry Messenger. But for business people who’ve lived with BlackBerry phones over the past year, it’ll be tough to give up BBM.
Just like the BlackBerry PlayBook tablet, which runs an operating system that serves as the core of BlackBerry 10, moving between multiple applications on the Z10 is fast and seamless. It’s powered by a fast 1.5 GHz dual-core processor and 2GB RAM, so it’s certainly no hardware slouch either.
Call quality and reception was impressive, though that’s something BlackBerry should have mastered by now. Its touchscreen keyboard is fashioned after the physical BlackBerry keyboard, and it’s also helped by some impressive predictive text technology (though BlackBerry hasn’t confirmed this, I believe it’s powered by SnapKeys, the folks behind the excellent Android keyboard).
But despite those few positives, the Z10’s problems make it impossible to recommend.
BlackBerry Z10 5

The bad: No compelling features or apps

For a device that should remind us why BlackBerry is a smartphone brand that matters, the Z10 is surprisingly average.
It has 70,000 apps, but few that you’ll actually want to use. Apps for popular services like Twitter work, but these are riddled with bugs and errors. Twitter would often just stop refreshing my timeline and mentions, and sometimes I had to reboot the app to get it working again. It’s also still missing popular apps like Spotify and Instagram. Don’t expect to keep up with the cool kids with this phone.
Core applications are surprisingly lacking as well. For maps, the Z10 relies on a modified version of Microsoft’s Bing Maps, which doesn’t have nearly as much location data as Google Maps. Simply using the maps application was a pain — it would often take forever to load, and it had issues finding my location. It’s inexcusable for a modern smartphone platform to have unreliable mapping — just look at the backlash against Apple Maps.
The Z10 is all about productivity, except it doesn’t always work properly. My Gmail account stopped updating for days on end, apps crashed frequently, and the phone often got stuck in landscape orientation. All of this led to me completely rebooting the Z10 far more often than I would have liked.
Battery life is somewhat disappointing as well. Sometimes the Z10 would last for a typical workday, and sometimes I had to charge it in the middle of the afternoon. I was never able to figure out what was draining the battery on certain days. At least the battery is removable — it’s an increasingly uncommon feature in smartphones, but something that BlackBerry road warriors should appreciate.

Boring and soulless

What bothered me the most about the Z10 was perhaps more aesthetic than functional. It’s simply boring. The home screen is uninspired (down to generic-looking icons), BlackBerry Hub feels like a messy block of text, and I’ve yet to find an app that truly felt interesting.
I’ve always felt that one of Android’s biggest problems over its first few years was that it didn’t really have a soul. It wasn’t until former WebOS designer Matias Duarte joined up as Android’s director of user experience that Google’s mobile OS finally got a swift dose of personality.
The BlackBerry Z10 doesn’t have that problem. It definitely has a soul, but it’s one of a buttoned-up and humorless corporate drone. Forget about attracting new users: With an image like this, BlackBerry will have trouble holding onto its 80 million users.
I have a feeling BlackBerry knows just how boring BlackBerry 10 currently is, otherwise it wouldn’t have named Grammy-winner Alicia Keys its global creative director. Right now it’s unclear if Keys will have any actual creative input or if she’s just a celebrity name to make younger buyers pay attention. But hopefully her mere presence will be enough to inspire the company.
BlackBerry already has a strong hardware lead in Todd Wood, its VP of design, but the company needs a strong software designer like Duarte to give BlackBerry 10 some character. Judging from some of the most popular apps on iOS and Android, consumers are beginning to recognize the importance of good design. It’s not something that BlackBerry can avoid for too long in its software.

The verdict: This phone isn’t meant for you — or anyone

The BlackBerry Z10 isn’t the worst phone I’ve come across, but I can’t in good conscience recommend it to anyone. BlackBerry still has a lot of work ahead of it in terms of software updates and attracting developers. And maybe along the way, it can also figure out who the heck needs this phone.
BlackBerry-faithful should keep an eye out for the keyboard-equipped Q10. Pricing and availability of that model still hasn’t been announced.
The Z10 won’t be the phone that saves BlackBerry, but at least the company has finally gotten the ball rolling on its next-generation devices.
Hopefully by the next round BlackBerry will figure out who it’s actually serving.

Apple’s ‘slapband’ iWatch patent - Looks a lot like this forgotten Nokia concep

Apple’s ‘slapband’ iWatch patent looks a lot like this forgotten Nokia concept

Apple’s ‘slapband’ iWatch patent looks a lot like this forgotten Nokia concept
Long before the iPhone changed how we think of cellphones, Nokia was dabbling in even more radical cellphone concepts.
The Nokia 888, a concept from designer Tamer Nakisci, was a flexible design that could fit around your wrist, lay flat for reading, and take on a few other shapes. I haven’t thought much about the 888 since it won Nokia’s Benelux design contest in 2005, but after AppleInsider dug up Apple’s slapband-esque iWatch patent yesterday (below), Nakisci’s concept feels strangely relevant.
As he envisioned it, the 888 featured a liquid battery, a flexible touchscreen, and relied on speech recognition rather than a keyboard. If that sounds to you like shades of what we’re hearing about the iWatch coupled with Apple’s Siri virtual assistant, you’re not alone.
To be clear, I’m not implying Apple in any way stole this design concept. It’s just interesting to see how close we are today toward building devices that once seemed impossible.
Here’s how Nakisci described the functionality of the 888′s form to Yanko Design:
Nokia 888 -2
You don’t have to carry it in your pocket or on your wrist. You can carry it anywhere, in any form. You can roll it, bend it, put on your clothes like a clip. It also makes some form changes that makes it more ergonomical: i.e., when you want to talk on the phone, the body form turns into the form of the good old telephone. You can personalize these forms and record them. So it fits you the best in the way that you have chosen. The functions that it has also create a feeling of electronical pet, as it senses your moves, understands what you want, responds to you in the best way. It learns you, to fit you better. Also e-motions lets you send forms to the other 888 users. It could be the shape of a heart or a small dance. This way you can talk without words.
Like any great concept design, Nakisci’s vision was far beyond the technology available at the time. It may even be too advanced to build today; Apple’s iWatch concept still relies on a wireless connection with your iPhone to fetch data, which removes the need for bulky cellular electronics and a bigger battery.anywhere in the patent):
A wearable video device arranged to be worn by an end-user, comprising: a flexible substrate having a flat state and a curled state; a flexible display disposed upon a first surface of the flexible substrate, wherein in the curled state the flexible substrate conforms to an appendage of the end-user, the flexible substrate further comprising: an electronic module in communication with the flexible display, the electronic module providing information to the display, at least a part of which is presented in real time for presentation by the flexible display; and a mechanism for detecting an end portion of the flexible display, the detection for adjusting the arrangement of information shown on the flexible display to match the size of the appendage the wearable video device is mounted on.

Galaxy Note 8.0 touted on Samsung stand prior to MWC 2013 launch - 2013

Galaxy Note 8.0 touted on Samsung stand prior to MWC 2013 launch



Not that this will be a surprise to most readers, but it now seems absolutely certain that

Samsung's long-rumoured Galaxy Note 8.0 will be officially unveiled in a couple of days at

Mobile World Congress.
An anonymous tipster, presumably part of the set-up crew in Barcelona, snapped a picture of
the Samsung stand and there, lo and behold, is the Galaxy Note 8.0 featured on the big screen.
Naturally, the device looks absolutely gigantic, but it seems Samsung is still intent on us using it
in portrait mode with one-hand, although that could be a bit of a stretch for anyone who's not
named LeBron James.
The latest leak comes just a week after the Note 8.0 was accidentally revealed at a Samsung
event in South Korea.
Top billing
Speculation has suggested that the new, iPad mini-bothering member of the Note family will

pack a 1280 x 800 Super Clear LCD display, Android 4.2 Jelly Bean, a 1.6GHz quad-core

processor and 2GB RAM.
The placement of the Galaxy Note 8.0 promotional screen, in the centre of the Samsung stand,
suggests that it'll probably be the Korean giant's top announcement at MWC 2013.
We already know that the Samsung Galaxy S4 won't be making an appearance at the event
this year, with latest speculation suggesting it will arrive at a dedicated event on March 14.

200 million workers want Windows tablets instead of iPads 2013

 Forrester Research study from yesterday got a lot of attention because of one surprising fact: workers would rather have a Windows tablet at work than an iPad.

Buried a little deeper is one likely reason why -- and it also explains why Microsoft might never put out a version of Office for the iPad.
First, the surprise. In a survey of nearly 10,000 employees from 17 countries, 33% said they'd prefer a Windows tablet for their next work tablet. Based on Forrester's estimates of the total size of the "information worker" market, that means 200 million people are clamoring for a Windows tablet.
Only 26% wanted an iPad for work, and 12% would pick an Android tablet. That seems pretty startling to the tech press, given the middling reviews and sales performance of Windows 8 and Surface so far.
The numbers were switched around in similar proportions for smartphones: 33% want an iPhone for work, 22% an Android phone, and only 10% a Windows Phone.
But equally interesting was the chart of common app usage for work on PCs, tablets, and smartphones. The top work app on all three devices was email. After that, it split in an interesting fashion.

Word processing was the second most used app on a PC, used by 80% of workers. It was number three for tablets, down at 40%.
But on smartphones, word processing was way down the list, behind social networking, expense-reporting apps, and HR apps, and in the same neighborhood as data dashboards, finance apps, and travel apps.
In other words, smartphones are suited for quick lookup and data entry.
Tablets are more like PCs, and workers want to use tablets like they use PCs -- for productivity. Right or wrong, most workers probably associate work productivity with Microsoft Office. And, by extension, with Windows.
This is still Microsoft's best chance to make a dent in the tablet market -- by promoting it as the best tablet for running Office to get work done. That's also a very good reason for Microsoft never to release a full version of Office for iPad.

Mini iPhone -




The next device from Apple is rumored to be the iPhone Mini, a smaller - and more importantly cheaper - version of its smartphone, and the release date may be in the summer.
There are plenty of reasons why Apple needs to start making the cheaper iPhone Mini, and the Morgan Stanley managing director of the PC hardware industry, Katy Huberty, points that out after meeting with Apple Chief Financial Officer Peter Oppenheimer.
Emerging markets like China and Brazil have snapped up the iPad Mini, according to her comments picked up by CNET.
"iPad Mini is expanding Apple's customer base with 50 [percent] of purchases in China/Brazil representing new customers to the ecosystem," said Huberty.
Likewise, Chinese consumers are showing signs that they're willing to buy into the latest models of the iPhone instead of the smartphone's older generations.
Preparing for expanding markets as well as existing ones, she anticipates that new carrier partnerships will take place in Q2 2014 with NTT Docomo, T-Mobile, and China Mobile.

All Quiet on the Western Front

Outside of those emerging markets, Huberty notes that Apple's everyday consumers have been buying older versions of the iPhone.
"iPhone 4 demand surprised to the upside in the December quarter," she said.
She didn't speculate whether the reason for this is due to the lower price of the iPhone 4 and iPhone 4S or the lack of innovation in the iPhone 5.
In addition to saying that the iPhone Mini could launch in the summer, Huberty said that she expects that the iPad could be refreshed in the middle of the year.
I'm no analyst, but I think summer and middle of the year might happen at the same time.
Either way, rumors suggest that an iPad Mini 2 will roll out with a Retina display, and that iPad 5 will be completely redesigned.

Samsung Galaxy S4 a no-show at Mobile World Congress - 2013




The Galaxy S3 launch event last year in the U.K.


Samsung Electronics wants the spotlight all to itself for the Galaxy S4.

The Korean electronics giant will be holding off on any major announcements at Mobile World Congress later this month, according to a person familiar with its launch plans. As with last year, Samsung will likely hold its own separate event to launch the latest iteration of its flagship Galaxy S franchise.
We're making the annual pilgrimage to Barcelona to worship at the altar of all things mobile so join us for our comprehensive MWC 2013 coverage
.

We're not sure exactly how many major new phones will launch at the show this year, with Samsung, HTC and Apple all saving their flagships for separate events.
But we're really excited to see what Nokia's got up its sleeve, and we're expecting a slew of handsets from the likes of LG, Huawei, ZTE and Acer.

Tablet time

Not forgetting tablets, of course, which we reckon Samsung and Asus are likely to focus on at the show.
And in between the two, we have no doubt that 'phablet' will be one of this year's biggest buzzwords - perhaps we'll get the answer to that age old question: at what size does a 'phablet' become a tablet?
The coverage kicks off on Sunday and we'll be bringing you all the news and the most comprehensive hands on reviews of the new gizmos all the way through the week.
So sit back, relax and join us - we'll be updating this page to keep you posted on what's what, as well as tweeting and Facebooking throughout.
The issue comes down to the general tendency for technology companies to be run by engineers with no IT experience and therefore no real clue about what a business IT organization-including their own-actually does.
IT, when done right, is largely transparent. As a result, it's often taken for granted. This makes it hard to build products for IT without engaging IT and hiring people with significant IT experience to work on the effort.
BlackBerry: Keeping IT in Mind From the Beginning
BlackBerry started with businesses as its primary customers. Then known as Research in Motion, the company initially brought the two-way pager into the mainstream-and, unlike today's typical smartphones and tablets, these actually entered the market as executive tools, not consumer products. From the very start, the company had to learn what IT needed and how to protect top executives. These were lessons hard learned.
Look at BlackBerry security efforts, then, and you see that they start and end with targeted IT needs. BlackBerry ties its systems into IT policy, assuring that IT can easily get the devices to conform. This is critical; IT doesn't have the time to manage everything that's currently on the table, and BlackBerry is designed to assure compliance without significantly increasing IT overhead.
One of the most talked-about problems since the introduction of the smartphone is separating personal and corporate information. This is because IT doesn't want to deal with personal apps and files, and users don't want IT seeing their personal stuff.
BlackBerry separates the environments on its devices, giving the user his own space and letting IT manage and secure the business information under its control. This is unique in the market-and it was driven by IT demands for this feature.
When developing its unique tablet, the BlackBerry PlayBook, the company tied it to its overall security framework and sandboxed the apps so they can't do hostile things. Looking at the overall nature of email and application attacks, BlackBerry created permissions and monitoring components that directly address the damage these attacks can cause, even though BlackBerry platform is generally less likely to be attacked than one of the consumer platforms.
Samsung: Start With an Insecure Platform, Bolt on Security
Samsung, in contrast, created SAFE. The company started with Android, the only platform actively being blocked by IT organizations due to security concerns. I was at an event last year where McAfee showcased that an Android phone can be remotely attacked, put into a loop, overheat and catastrophically fail.

Top 5 phone - Best mobile phones to buy in 2013

Samsung Galaxy S3


The best Android smartphone just got better
Samsung Galaxy S3 LTE
Our Expert Opinion The Samsung Galaxy S3 is still the best Android smartphone there is. It's slim, fast, has a beautiful AMOLED screen and runs the bang-up-to-date Android 4.1 Jelly Bean operating system.
The phone has just got better, too, thanks to an upgrade to support 4G. On Everything Everywhere's network we saw speeds up to 25Mbit/s, which is twice as quick as many home broadband connections.
Samsung has also loaded the phone with clever features. If you bring the phone to your ear while a contact is on screen it will call that person automatically, if you flip the phone over while it's ringing it will turn the ringer off, and the Smart Stay feature uses the front camera to keep the screen on while you're looking at it.
Throw in an excellent camera and you've got all the ingredients for the perfect smartphone.
SPECS
OPERATING SYSTEM Android 4.1
PROCESSOR SPEED 1.4GHz
NUMBER OF CORES 4
RAM 2GB
MOBILE DATA GPRS, EDGE, 3G, HSDPA, 4G
DISPLAY 4.8in 720x1,280 LCD
CAMERA 8-megapixel
INTERNAL STORAGE 16GB
MEMORY CARD SLOT microSD
DIMENSIONS 137x71x9mm, 133g

Google Nexus 4


Google's cut-price Android 4.2 wonder
Google Nexus 4
Our Expert Opinion The latest Google-branded smartphone is made by LG, and it's a stormer. The Nexus 4's quad-core 1.5GHz processor runs Android 4.2 incredibly quickly, and its 4.7in 1,280x768 display has a similar pixel density to the iPhone 5's Retina screen.
There's also a high-quality 8-megapixel camera and built-in NFC, so the phone will support Google Wallet's tap-and-pay service when it arrives in the UK.
The phone is also incredibly good value SIM-free at just £239 - it's a lot of phone for the money.
SPECS
OPERATING SYSTEM Android 4.2
PROCESSOR SPEED 1.5GHz
NUMBER OF CORES 4
RAM 2GB
MOBILE DATA GPRS, EDGE, HSDPA, HSUPA
DISPLAY 4.7in 768x1,280 LCD
CAMERA 8-megapixel
INTERNAL STORAGE 8GB
MEMORY CARD SLOT none
CLAIMED BATTERY LIFE 15 hours talktime, 16 days standby
DIMENSIONS 134x69x9.1mm, 139g

Apple iPhone 5


A worthy update to the iPhone
Apple iPhone 5
Our Expert Opinion Five generations on, and the iPhone is still the model to beat. Android has taken great strides, but iOS is still the slickest, fastest and easiest to use operating system, and there's no arguing with the quality of the apps in the Apple App Store.
The iPhone 5 is an evolution of the 4, with a longer screen for more room for app icons and an aspect ratio better suited to widescreen films. It's also incredibly quick - more than twice as fast as the iPhone 4S in the Sunspider JavaScript benchmark.
The only thing stopping the iPhone 5 from getting an award is Apple's horrendous new Maps app, which replaces Google Maps, but this should improve with time.
SPECS
OPERATING SYSTEM iOS 6
PROCESSOR SPEED 1GHz
NUMBER OF CORES 2
RAM 1GB
MOBILE DATA 4G
DISPLAY 4in 1,136x640 LCD
CAMERA 8-megapixel
INTERNAL STORAGE 16GB
MEMORY CARD SLOT none
DIMENSIONS 124x59x8mm, 112g


Motorola RAZR i


A gorgeous slimline Intel phone
Motorola RAZRi
Our Expert Opinion The RAZR i has an Intel rather than ARM processor, and it's seriously quick - around the same speed as the iPhone 5 in the Sunspider JavaScript benchmark. It runs Android 4.0 incredibly smoothly, and the operating system looks great on the phone's 960x540-pixel Super AMOLED screen.
The RAZR i has a 4.3in screen, which is big considering how compact the phone is. It's also incredibly slim, and the rubberised back looks great and makes the phone comfortable to hold.
It's a classy handset all round, and is also remarkably good value on contract.
SPECS
OPERATING SYSTEM Android 4.04
PROCESSOR SPEED 2GHz
NUMBER OF CORES 1
RAM 1GB
MOBILE DATA GPRS, EDGE, 3G, HSDPA
DISPLAY 4.3in 960x540 LCD
CAMERA 8-megapixel
INTERNAL STORAGE 8GB
MEMORY CARD SLOT microSD
DIMENSIONS 123x61x8mm, 126g

Nokia Lumia 920


The best Windows Phone 8 handset there is
Nokia Lumia 920
Our Expert Opinion Nokia really went to town with its first Windows Phone 8 handset. It's a chunky phone which feels beautifully made, and has a 4.5in screen with a huge 1,280x768 resolution.
The screen is an IPS model, and has excellent contrast and viewing angles. The display's resolution is big enough for web browsing without having to zoom in and out, and particularly suits Microsoft's gorgeous Windows Phone 8 operating system.
Windows Phone 8 has had some useful tweaks, such as the ability to resize the home screen's Live Tiles depending on how much information you want each to show, and it runs beautifully on the phone's dual-core 1.5GHz processor. The phone also has a camera with optical image stabilisation, which excels in low light; the only disadvantage is the phone produces over-processed daylight shots.
SPECS
OPERATING SYSTEM Windows Mobile 8
PROCESSOR SPEED 1.5GHz
NUMBER OF CORES 2
RAM 1GB
MOBILE DATA GPRS, EDGE, 3G, HSDPA
DISPLAY 4.5in 1,280x768 LCD
CAMERA 8.7-megapixel
INTERNAL STORAGE 32GB
MEMORY CARD SLOT microSD
DIMENSIONS 130x71x11mm, 185g

Samsung GALAXY Note2

Network
3G: HSPA+21Mbps

(HSDPA 21Mbps / HSUPA 5.76Mbps)
4G LTE: 100Mbps / 50Mbps
Processor


1.6 GHz quad-core processor
OS
Android 4.1 (Jelly Bean)
Display
140.9 mm (5.5") HD Super AMOLED (1,280 x 720)
Dimension
80.5 x 151.1 x 9.4 mm, 182.5g
Battery
Standard battery, Li-ion 3,100mAh
Memory
16/32/64GB User memory + 2GB (RAM)
microSD slot (up to 64GB)

S Pen Optimized Features
S Pen Experience
- S Note, S Planner, Email with hand-writing
integration
- S Pen Keeper
- Quick Command, Easy Clip, Photo Note,
Paper Artist
- Shape Match, Formula Match





1 Step tasking / Multitasking features
Air View
Popup Note, Popup Video
Page Buddy / Tag Buddy / Word Buddy
Connectivity / Sharing Features
Bluetooth® v 4.0 (Apt-X Codec support) LE
USB 2.0 Host
WiFi 802.11 a/b/g/n (2.4 & 5 GHz), Wi-Fi HT40
Wi-Fi Direct
NFC
S Beam
Samsung AllShare Play & Control
Samsung AllShare Cast (WiFi Display)
- Mirroring & Extention
Samsung AllShare Framework
Other
Samsung TouchWiz / Samsung L!ve Panel
Samsung Kies /Samsung Kies Air
Samsung ChatOn mobile communication service
Smart Stay, Direct claa, Screen Recorder,
Quick Glance
Samsung ChatOn mobile communication service
Samsung S Suggest
Camera
Main (Rear) : 8 Megapixel Auto Focus Camera with LED Flash, BSI
Sub (Front) : 1.9 Megapixel VT Camera, BSI
Best Photo, Best Face, Low light shot
Video
Codec: MPEG4, H.263, H.264, VC-1, DivX, WMV7, WMV8, WMV9, VP8
Format: 3GP(MP4), WMV(ASF), AVI, FLV, MKV, WebM
Full HD(1080p) Playback & Recording
Audio
Codec: MP3, OGG, WMA, AAC, ACC+, eAAC+, AMR(NB,WB), MIDI, WAV, AC-3, Flac
Music Player with SoundAlive
3.5mm Ear Jack
Content / Services
Samsung Apps
Samsung Hub
- Game Hub
- Media Hub (US only)
- Learning Hub / Music Hub / Video Hub
※ The availability of each Samsung Hubs may
differ by country
Sensor
Accelerometer, RGB Light, Digital Compass, Proximity, Gyro, Barometer
GPS
A-GPS
Glonass
Enterprise Solutions
On Device Encryption (H/W)
Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync
VPN(F5, Cisco, Juniper)
MDM(Sybase Afaria, MobileIron, SOTI, Good)
CCX
VMware MVP