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Here’s a little something that should brighten up your day and hopefully give some credence to the rumored Nokia Lumia PureView rumor that poped-up a little while ago. The unicorn device in question supposedly packs an Adreno 320 GPU which should only be available in two Sanpdragon S4 SoCs later this year: the Quad-Core APQ8064 (w/out the modem) and later the Dual-Core MSM8960 Pro. It now turns out that Qualcomm is right on track with its roadmap and is already sampling the APQ8064 for its OEMs which means that there’s a chances that we will see Windows Phone 8 and Windows 8 devices powered by these SoCs in the coming months.
The LG-E970 Android 4.0 handset (known as the LG-LS970 on Sprint) is already in wild and has been cough running the GLBenchmark suite lately to test out it’s beastly Adreno 320 GPU. Unfortunately for us the results aren’t really that interesting given that they were ran with Vsync on (@ 1280×768). Check out the result in the screen shot after the break:
Continue reading First Adreno 320 Benchmark results →
Quick! Everybody abandon ship! The Windows Phone ship is sinking…or maybe not. LG (Windows Phone’s premiere OEM partner..)has simply announced during its latest earnings conferences call that it has no immediate plans to manufacture or ship a new Windows Phone based smartphone. Nothing really shocking here given that the south Korean manufacturer was totally absent from the Windows Phone 7.5 Mango launch last year and hasn’t done anything meaningful to the Windows Phone ecosystem since the initial platform launch in 2010.
LG isn’t totally abandoning Windows Phone and will continue research and development efforts in hopes of a brighter future. The company’s mobile division has been in the crapper for a little while now even with the launch of several high-end Android smartphones plagued by atrocious firmware issues (everything isn’t to blame on Windows Phone..). The LG Fantasy E740 with it’s NFC chipset will remain a prototype for ever.
Continue reading LG temporarily abandons Windows Phone →
Nokia has officially announced the first NFC enabled Windows Phone handset today; the Nokia Lumia 610 NFC. This may sound surprising given that even the company’s high end Windows Phone model, the Lumia 900, which just launched a few days ago doesn’t have an NFC chip in there. Nokia has apparently added its own software stack on top of Windows Phone 7.5 Tango to get this whole NFC thing going. Remember that LG has apparently done something similar with, the yet to be announced, LG Fantasy handset. The Nokia Lumia 610 NFC will be available in Q3 2012 on Orange. Check out the full press release after the break and a video demo of the handset in action:
Continue reading Nokia Lumia 610 NFC officially announced: Q3 2012 release →
LG which was one of the most active launch partner of Windows Phone 7 in the fall of 2010 with the LG Optimus 7 and LG Quatum has been oddly missing from the WP7.5 Mango festivities a few months ago. The mysterious LG Fantasy that has emerged on the web several times in the past 6 months is back again flaunting in the wild and nearing it’s official unveiling later this month during MWC. So what can we expect from this devices? Well not much in terms of over all design compared to HTC and Nokia’s offerings and the SoC is apparently an MSM8255 clocked at only 1Ghz. The device also on packs 8GB of internal storage, a front facing VGA camera and a 5MP main camera with no flash on the back. The 4″ screen is a LCD TFT Nova panel. The most interesting part though is the inclusion of an NFC chip which as far as we knew won’t be supported until Windows Phone 8 Apollo launches later this year but seems to be functional under windows Phone 7.5 thanks to an native debug app developed by LG. Anyway, hit the break to watch the device in blurry action and more blurry pictures.
Continue reading LG Fantasy E740 aka LG Miracle out in the wild: First Windows Phone with NFC support →
Another bites the dust. Microsoft has added LG Electronics to its long list of Android manufacturers who are now paying the Redmond software giant every time the build a Google powered device. Samsung, HTC, Acer, Viewsonic, Compal etc the list goes on and Microsoft is most probably making more money through Android than windows Phone right now. As usual terms of the agreement were not disclosed but Microsoft is happy to announce that “more than 70 percent of all Android smartphones sold in the U.S. are now receiving coverage under Microsoft’s patent portfolio”. Full press release after the break:
Continue reading Microsoft signs Patent agreement with LG covering Android and Chrome OS devices →
Microsoft Romania is probably looking for a new Windows Phone tester as we speak because one has apparently sold the yet to b announced HTC Fantasy Mango handset to an XDA-dev poster this week. The only thing known right now is that it supposedly sports a 4″ IPS display which isn’t really that exciting anymore given the quality of the SLCD panels used by HTC on the HTC Titan, HTC Radar and all of their new high end smartphones. The back of the phone also reveals a 5Mpix camera. One more picture after the break.
Continue reading LG Fantasy out in the wild →
Got to love baseless rumors and blurry pictures. Lot’s Mango rumors apparently originating from Orange France lately…the latest is blurry picture which is said to be from somebody who sent out his phone for repair at Orange France and got it back from them with Windows Phone 7.5 pre-loaded on it. Well, the first thing I did was to look up the device firmware and strangely this is exactly the same as the official NoDo one that was pushed out back on July 21st:
- Firmware Rev 1.0.10.10
- Hardware Rev 1.0.0.0
- Radio Software 1.0.10.10
- Radio Hardware 0.3.5.0
- Bootloader Ver 1.5.1.0
- Chip SOC 0.30.2.0
So what with have here is essentially a device with the RTM code (which has leaked a little while ago..) running on it. Either LG isn’t going to update it’s Optimus 7 firmware for Mango which I find a bit unlikely given that HTC and Samsung are updating them or Orange’s repair center is having some fun…or this is simply a picture of somebody’s device with the leaked Mango RTM code on it with a nice little story attached to it. You be the judge but we won’t have long to wait given that fall is when all the action begins.
Continue reading Blurry pictures aren’t proof of Windows Phone 7.5 Mango roll out →
Grab some salt and sit tight cause Pocketnow is claiming to have gotten their hands on LG’s upcoming road map which is filled with Android smartphones and one single Windows Phone 7 handset running Mango ; the LG Fantasy. As its usually the case with these kinds of leaks nothing should be taken as a fact until the company officially unveils its plans. What we know for sure though is that LG has a Mango device currently in the making currently named the LG-E906 and this could very well be the LG Fantasy device rendered above which strangely looks like a cousin of the HTC HD2/7.
Continue reading LG Fantasy Mango handset and 6 other Android devices coming this year? →
Several Windows Phone devices have firmware updates now available to instal when the handset is plugged in the the PC. Keep in mind that these will only update the firmware part and not the OS itself. As of right now several models are part of the roll out: the Samsung Omnia 7, HTC Mozart, LG Optimus 7. There nothing to really get excited about here folks and in the case of the Omnia 7 this update doesn’t included the latest bootloader available for the device which can be manually installed here (but it does include the disable capacitive hardware buttons when the screen is touched). As a matter of fact I didn’t even get the update notification at all.
Continue reading Windows Phone 7 device firmware updates being rolled out for Omnia 7, Optimus 7 and others →
With all of the Nokia , HTC and Samsung buzz people tend to forget that LG is still a Windows Phone OEM and that we should expect new Mango devices from the Korean company later this year. The first one seems to be the LG-906 which has been WiFi certified back in May and is known to run Mango thanks to its User Agent xml.
Continue reading LG-E906 Windows Phone 7 Mango handset in the works →
Amazon Wireless is running a promotion ending June 30th on their Windows Pone 7 catalog: If you buy a WP7 handsets between midnight, May 30, 2011, and 11:59 p.m. PDT, June 30, 2011 you will receive a $25 amazon.com Gift card. Four of the seven devices available are only priced at $0.01! Check them out after the break:
Continue reading $25 Amazon Gift Card with Purchase of Windows Phone 7 handset →
The Verizon HTC trophy is now finally available for order on the company’s website alongside the Xperia Play. The HTC Trophy costs $149.99 with a 2 year contract and a free Xbox 360 game (Halo Reach, Kinect Sports or Lode Runner) while the Xperia Play is priced at $199.99 with a 2 year contract and is pre-loadeded with 6 PlayStation certified games: Bruce Lee Dragon Warrior, The Sims 3, Star Battalion, Asphalt 6: Adrenaline, Madden NFL 11 from EA, and Crash Bandicoot (hands on video here).
Continue reading Verizon HTC Trophy and Xperia Play available for order →
LG has just announced that it has licensed the ARM Cortex-A9 & Cortex-A15 MPCore processors and Mali T-604 GPU. This most probably means that future LG smartphones,tablets, and other multi-media devices will no longer use third-party SoC’s (nVidia Tegra, TI OMAP etc) but LG’s own chips instead. It the case of windows Phone 7(and future versions of WP) LG will still be obliged to use Qualcomm’s certified SoCs.
LG is now in a situation similar to Samsung: both companies will uses their own SoCs on most of their products and will only have to use competitor chipsts when need it (currently Tegra 2 is the only Honeycomb certified chipset for example). This announcement could also mean that LG uses it’s on SoC in future Windows 8 tablets in the future. Full press release after the break:
Continue reading LG licenses ARM Cortex-A9 ,Cortex-A15 MPCore processors and Mali T-604 GPU →
Here’s a relatively rough estimation of the Windows Phone 7 manufacturers market share and most successful devices based on the handsets running applications using the AdGAC ad control. As you can see above that HTC is the clear leader mainly because of the sheer number of models it currently offers (and HD2′s running WP7 too…). It is followed by Samsung who offers only one model in EU (Omnia 7), one in NA (Focus) and then LG who only offers one model in NA/AUS (Quantum) and one in Europe (Optimus 7).
Continue reading Windows Phone 7 Manufacturer market share estimation →
Microsoft has just officially announced that AT&T’s LG Quantum and Samsung Focus are now scheduled to receive the NoDo update in the coming days. Unfortunately the HTC Surround isn’t invited to the party yet and is still being tested by Microsoft and AT&T. You can read the full explanation on the situation after the break:
Continue reading Official: AT&T Windows Phone 7 devices to receive NoDo fairly soon →
This just came out of nowhere…AT&T and HTC have just announced an updated version of the HTC HD7 (which was only available on the now soon to be defunct T-Mobile US). So, what’s new in the HTC HD7S? Well it will come pre-loaded with the latest NoDo version of Windows Phone 7 and will also feature a 4.3inch Super LCD panel (this is a first as there was no SLCD panels of this size manufactured before). AT&T is also going to carry the LG Optimus 3D which is renamed as the LG Thrill 4G. Check out the full press release after the break:
Continue reading HTC HD7S with Super LCD announced, LG Optimus 3D renamed LG Thrill 4G →
One more hands preview from Mobile World Congress today. This time it’s the LG Optimus Black Android handset which feature the company’s newest 4inch WVGA IPS panel called Nova display. Under the hood you’ll find a TI OMAP 3630 SoC clocked at 1Ghz powering the whole thing. This is obviously far from the Optimus 3D’s insane hardware specifications but should be enough to run Android 2.3 without any problem. This SoC includes a PowerVRSGX530 GPU so you can expect 3D performance to be weaker than the Galaxy S and its SGX540.
Continue reading LG Optimus Black Preview: Hands on video →
The LG Optimus Pad is planned to be the second Android 3.0 Honeycomb tablet to hit the market later this year after the Motorola Xoom finally launchs at the end of this month in the US. What sets the Optimus Pad apart from its direct competition is its physical size and smaller 8.9 inch screen (15:9 aspect ratio) which was specifically designed to be easily portable with one hand. The device also packs two 5 Mpix cameras to shoot 720P 3D Stereoscopic content which can then be viewed on a 3D enabled TV through the device’s HDMI port, directly on the device screen in red/blue anaglyph mode or uploaded to YouTube’s 3D channel. Out of all of the Honeycomb tablet’s I’ve played with the LG Optimus Pad was surprisingly the snappiest and smoothest even though they were all powered by the same nVidia Tegra 2 chipset. But I’ will obviously reserve my final judgment until the final retail products are released. Check out my hands-on video after the break:
Continue reading LG Optimus Pad preview: Hands on video →
Today LG officially unveiled the first smartphone featuring a glasses free 3D screen and also using TI’s OMAP4 4430 SoC to power whole thing. The LG Optimus 3D has a Dual-core Cortex A9 CPU coupled with a PowerVR SGX540 GPU, Dual Channel DDR2 memory and Dual Memory banks according to the company (3 Ds.. get it?). What you essential have here is one powerful smartphone that looks more like a experiment than a really fully thought out product. Why do I say that? Well, first off I’m really a fan of all things 3D (stereoscopic viewing) and the 4.3 inch Parallax Barrier screen only really works well when you view it at a certain angle and from a certain distance. But what really kills it is that everything displayed in 3D looks like a bloody low resolution mess on such a big panel. The parallax barrier also makes the screen look like plastic under certain angles. The other 3D feature of the Optimus 3D is the 2 5Mpix camera on the back that can shoot 720P 3D footage (in 2D the device can shoot in 1080P). Once again I’m not a big fan of this so you will have to try it out yourself and decide if it’s worth it. LG has collaborated with YouTube so you can directly upload the 3D videos shot with the Optimus 3D OTA to YouTube’s 3D channel via the built-in client on the device. LG has also developed a 3D stereoscopic UI that is toggle via a hardware button on the side of the phone. It’s a bit of a gimmick and definitely not a great UX.
Continue reading LG Optimus 3D Preview: Hands on video →
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