Philips Xenium x525 goes official, provides up to 1.5 months worth of stand-by time

Power to the people is a somewhat apt term for this phone, as it’d be hard, nigh impossible for users to complain about battery life on the Philips Xenium x525.

The x525 offers around 50 days worth of standby time or approximately 1200 hours in all. Oh and did I mention, this is a dual-SIM phone too.

The Xenium name has demonstrated impressive battery stamina for a long while now and as devices continue to surface, they try to eek a few more hours from their power sources every time. Despite having a far smaller battery capacity than its Xenium sibling, the x523 (2000mAh), the x525 with it’s 1530mAh power source can still hold it’s own with a rich feature set twinned with its modern looks and functionality.

For a start, to mirror the impressive standby time, talk time is a more-than-decent 14 hours. The x525 sports a 3″ WQVGA TFT touchscreen, an FM radio, Bluetooth 2.1 with A2DP support, a 3.5 mm standard audio jack, a 3MP camera plus flash that can shoot stills and videos with support for an array of formats and despite the mere 44MB of onboard storage, content is expandable via microSD up to 32GB. The x525 is also EDGE capable for web browsing and you can download Java application too.

Obviously the Philips Xenium x525 isn’t going to give any of the top iOS/Symbian/BBOS/WP7/Android (did I forget any?) smartphones a run for their money, but for a compact dual-SIM touchscreen device, it has essentially the best battery life around, without compromising on features and for some, this is all it needs to be a winner.

Sony Ericsson Nozomi leaks again, dual-core processor and 720p display confirmed

The Sony Ericsson Nozomi is still happily living in rumorland, but we keep getting more information about it. The latest bit of online gossip has it that the future Sony Ericsson flagship will feature a dual-core processor -and one that’s clocked at 1.5GHz. Previous rumors suggested otherwise, but the new CPU seems more worthy of a flagship device.

The rest of the Nozomi specs include Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich, a 4.3″ 1280×720 resolution display with the amazing 342 ppi (pixels per inch), which is more than the one on the Retina display, 12 MP camera, 1 gig or RAM, a 1750 mAh battery and a microSIM slot.

According to the source, the Nozomi should be announced January 2012 and ship as early as March next year.

Keep in mind, though, that these are just preliminary specs of a yet unannounced device – taking them all with a pinch of salt is the right thing to do.

Verizon DROID Bionic now on sale, will set you back by $299

After many months of waiting, Verizon has finally started selling the DROID Bionic. The handset is now available throughout the carrier’s retail network and will set you back by $299 on a 2-year contract.

The DROID Bionic has a 4.3-inch qHD display, TI OMAP4430 SoC with 1GHz dual-core ARM Cortex-A9 CPU and PowerVR SGX540 GPU, 1GB RAM, 32GB storage space (16GB internal + 16GB microSD card), expandable up to 48GB, 8 megapixel camera with auto-focus and LED flash, 1080p video recording, HDMI out and Android 2.3.4. It will be powered by a 1,735mAh battery.

The DROID Bionic will also have support for Motorola’s various docks, such as the keyboard dock, HD dock and desktop dock. There is also a $30 Webtop adapter, which turns the phone into a keyboard and trackpad when connected to a bigger display.

Samsung Galaxy Note 

Samsung has released two videos of the Galaxy Note smartphonlet. The first one is your typical music-accompanied promo video while the second one features YH Lee, Senior Vice President of Samsung Mobile Communications Business, Global Marketing.

Here goes the promo video below. It highlights the SuperAMOLED “HD” 5.3-incher, the minimum scrolling and screen transition features, the 1.4 GHz dual-core Exynos processor, the S pen drawing functionality and more.

And here’s the chance for you to brush up your Korean with this video interview with YH Lee, Samsung Vice President. Alright, I’m kidding, the video has proper subtitles.

Samsung releases a 2000 mAh extended battery for the Galaxy S II, gives you all the juice you need

We’ve got some great news for those the Samsung Galaxy S II owners (or at least for those that find its battery life not quite satisfactory). The Korean company has just announced an official extended battery for its top dog smartphone that has 2000 mAh worth of juice.

The price that needs to be paid for the extra endurance is an increase in thickness of 1.5mm over the original 1650 mAh battery. Naturally, the new thicker battery doesn’t fit under the old battery cover, so Samsung is shipping the new battery with a replacement back panel.

From the first photos of those replacement covers, provided by the xda-developers forum, they won’t be making the phone much thicker overall – they just level the slim back with the previously protruding camera lens and chin.

The new battery and cover are already on sale, but specific market availability is pretty much a mistery. The pricing isn’t particularly attractive, with Samsung Italy listing the combo for €45, but unfortunately, that’s how it usually goes with official accessories.

LG’s yet to be launched 4.5″ AH-IPS mobile display scores an award by outclassing Samsung Galaxy SII’s Super AMOLED unit

It is well known to everyone these days, that the Samsung made Super AMOLED screens are the standard to beat in the mobile industry. LG surely thinks so. The Korean company’s yet to be launched AH-IPS display for mobile devices, just received the prestigious Quality & Performance Mark from Intertek – a global testing and certification company. What’s particularly important about this award for LG, is that it has been achieved by comparing its display with no other but Samsung Galaxy SII’s Super AMOLED screen.

Now on with some numbers. The award winning AH-IPS display from LG measures 4.5″ and has HD(720×1280 pixels) resolution with 329ppi. Samsung Galaxu SII’s Super AMOLED unit on the other hand, measures 4.3″ and settles for WVGA (480×800 pixels) resolution and 217ppi.

All in all, the LG unit trumped the Samsung made screen in color accuracy and power consumption by a significant margin. In the color accuracy test, the LG display scored a rating of 0.012, compared with 0.037 for the Super AMOLED from Samsung. Here, it is important to note that the lower the color accuracy value is, the smaller the gap between original and reproduced color.

In the power consumption test, the AH-IPS screen was found to consume a constant level of power, measured at 624mW, compared to 1130mW of the Super AMOLED, while boasting 600 nits of brightness. In plain words, the LG screen is significantly more power efficient than its competitor.

While this is all great news for LG, I can’t help but wonder if this can be considered a victory for the company against Samsung in the battle of mobile screens. LG’s AH-IPS screen is yet to be seen in a mobile device, while Samsung’s Super AMOLED screen has been out on the market for well over six months. Samsung is also about to release its own AMOLED screen with HD resolution in the nearest future and, I dare to think, it will be more appropriate for it to be compared with the excellent LG unit. The results might just end up being a bit different then, don’t you think?

Here’s a crafty fake video of the iPhone 5 – still a great rumor roundup

We came across a really good fake video of the Apple Germany website, detailing the iPhone 5. Someone really gave their all when creating this one. It details everything from the new design, the new dual-core A5 chip, better 8 MP camera with FullHD video recording and the bigger display.

The video is obviously fake – you can bet your good money on that fact and I’ve prepared the proof that’s needed. Still it’s pretty well made and makes for a good rumor roundup so checking it out is worth it.

We have the bigger display with the thin bezel (4″ with a 960×640 resolution), the 8 MP snapper with 1080p video capture, the slimmer body and redesign (quoted to be 6mm at its slimmest point).

Here’s the video itself. It wouldn’t be too great a surprise if this one turns out to be pretty close to the real thing come the next-gen iPhone announcement by Apple. As a matter of fact, I’d love that to be the case as the mockup is really sweet looking.

Now there are some gaps, but that was to be expected, given the size of the project. For example at one point the display is quoted at being a 4-incher and a couple of slides later it becomes a 4.2″. And Grosserer is obviously a typo as it roughly translates as “bigerer” in English. But the real give-away is right there in front of you in the beginning of the video. 

Sony’s next-generation LCD technology for mobile devices: WhiteMagic

There are an array of different screen technologies out their vying for superiority in a crowded device world. Of course with displays it’s having the right tool for the job; a low power, high legibility e-ink screen suits the Kindle’s purpose, where as a super high-res, high pixel density HAST LCD would feel right at home on the latest entertainment-centric tab.

Now Sony send another contender into the display-fray, their next generation LCD technology announced under the name, WhiteMagic.

Sony’s 3 inch WhiteMagic TFT LCD’s promise 1.23M-dot full VGA resolution, but where they really stand out is their dual-mode design. In “low power mode” the 3 inch WhiteMagic LCD runs at 50% brightness and uses 125mW, this, Sony say, is similar to typical LCD’s of the current generation.

The alternative side to this technology is “outdoors mode”. In this mode the display brightness gets a huge boost from 470 nits up to a blinding 1,000 nits (giving the LG Prada K2‘s NOVA display a run for its money), but power consumption only reaches 300mW which is more on par with current gen displays.

Sony have pushed the power to brightness ratio by adding a white pixel to the typical RGB configuration and then employing a set of algorithms to counter image distortion using the RGBW method. So that means brighter displays, without the battery drain.

Sales of MagicWhite displays look to be kicking off in October this year at the earliest with prices starting from $65. The biggest benefit I can see with this is sunlight legibility, you can have a great looking, super high-res display but if you can’t see it in the sun, it’s not a whole lot of good. With these new MagicWhite’s, digital cameras, phones and tablets that would have suffered otherwise can lay out with you in the sun all day and get some decent use whilst they’re out there too.

A quad-core Windows 8-running tablet from Samsung coming next week?

As far as news from the electronics business go, it doesn’t get much more exciting than this. If the latest bit of online rumor is true (and given that it comes from Korea Economic Daily that’s quite probable) we are just a week away from seeing the first Windows 8-running tablet. And the first tablet with a quad-core CPU. And the first Windows device with an ARM processor. And the best bit is, those aren’t three different devices.

According to the industry source that went all chatty in front of the Korean newspaper, Samsung will manufacture the slate that will be given to developers at the upcoming Microsoft BUILD event next week. It will be running the software giant’s newest OS and will rely on NVIDIA’s Kal-El chipset.

Now, the unnamed Samsung slate probably won’t make it to the market as the Windows 8 OS is still some way off completion and by the time Microsoft is done with the i-dotting and t-crossing, Samsung will probably have better hardware to offer. So developers attending the event will be the only lucky guys and gals to get a taste of the described awesomeness this year.

Your thoughts? Would you be willing to sacrifice the great number of available Windows apps for the superior battery life provided by the ARM CPUs? Or will you be waiting for a slate with Intel-made internals instead?

Acer Aspire 3951 images and specs leak, an ultrabook that takes aim at the MacBook Air

Intel has been talking about its ultrabooks for a while and now some leaked specs of an Acer-made ultrabook show what they could be like. The Acer Aspire 3951 (catchy name) is a 13.3″ laptop with aluminum body that is just 13mm thick and weighs about 1.4kg.

I’d love to see some official specs on the Aspire 3951 but for now we’ll just have to look at the rumors – a second-generation Intel Core processor (that’s Sandy Bridge) and optional SSD sure sound good. If the 160GB SSD is too small for you, there are 250GB and 500GB HDD options too.

The Acer Aspire 3951 also reportedly features goodies like an HDMI port and Bluetooth 4.0 (that enables low-power Bluetooth accessories). The battery of the Acer ultrabook should last for 6 hours on one charge, which is pretty impressive too.

There’s no info on graphics but the integrated Intel graphics are probably what we’ll get. Fitting dedicated GPUs in super thin laptops usually drives the price up quite a bit, not to mention that it often causes heat issues.

The Acer Aspire 3951 will reportedly ship in November for $770-$960 (€540-€670), depending on configuration. That should give the new 13″ MacBook Airs a run for their money – they start at $1,300 (with a 128GB SSD).

Leaked Sony A77 is one 24MP monster of an EVIL camera with 1080p video recording

A few photos and some specs of an upcoming 24 megapixel Sony A77 camera surfaced and they look quite exciting. The mirrorless camera with Electronic Viewfinder and Interchangeable Lens (EVIL) looks like a real beast and judging by the resolution and its reported ability to record 1080p video, it might be the most capable in its class to date.

The only thing that puzzles us a bit is its size. As far as we know, the main advantage of EVIL cameras compared to DSLR cameras is that they are way more compact and this one looks anything, but that.

Then again, that grip looks detachable, so it might not be that bad after all. One thing is for sure – if mirrorless cameras are to replace DSLRs some pro-grade units should appear as photography pros are quite a major part of the DSLR users. What’s left is for us to hope that the performance is as good as the looks.

Wave II running Bada OS 2.0.1 gets the Blurry Video Of The Day award

Sure, we have seen the Wave II run Bada OS 2.0, but Samsung made that v.2.0 release history before it was even released. The Koreans decided to revamp the UI before they let the next major Bada release hit the shelves. Enter the 2.0.1. version, which is a more major overhaul than the name suggests.

And if you were worried that changes run deep enough to prevent the Wave II from getting the nod for an update, you can calm down now. For Mr. Blurrycam has just delivered a video, showing the smartphone running the latest Bada release.

There’s no demo of the features brought by the 2.0.1. update yet, but at least we know that it is on the way. Here’s hoping that Samsung doesn’t take too long to release it.

iPhone 5 mockups summarize rumors, look real hot

There’s just so many iPhone rumors these days that it’s hard to keep track. Luckily, here comes this Brazilian tech site to the rescue summarizing them all and creating a hot-looking concept based on them.

So yeah that mockup doesn’t bring much new information (in fact none at all), but it just helped us realize how hot of a device the new iPhone will be. The slimmer body, following the iPhone 4 design lines, carries one less aperture and much more screen on the front and the result is just marvelous to behold.

There’s not much more to say here, now sit back and enjoy the rest of the images.

Samsung helps you take better pictures of your kids with a clever update to its 2View cameras [VIDEO]

Samsung’s 2View line of dual screen digital cameras has been quite popular since its launch in 2009. Now, to strengthen up its position even further, the company has developed a clever way to attract a very powerful group of consumers – those with children.

As some of you might know, taking pictures of children is not the easiest task in the world since they tend to move a lot and not look at the camera.

With up to 21 kid-friendly videos which display on the front LCD screens of the Samsung ST700, PL170 and PL120 digital cameras, the children’s attention will go right where it has to – to the camera. The videos are available for free download at the Samsung website and can be uploaded to your camera through its bundled software.

Clever, isn’t it? Take a look at the video below to see how it works.