Iphone 4S,Galaxy s2, latest 2012 Tablets, Windows 8,2011 mac pro

FXI squeezes a dual-core chipset into a USB stick, lets you turn any monitor into an Android device

What you see here is one of the coolest USB sticks we’ve ever come across. Called Cotton Candy, it carries a fully functional chipset running the Android operating system inside it. All it needs is a USB cable to draw power and an HDMI cable to connect to a screen of some sort.

Thanks to this creation of the Norwegians from FXI technologies, you can turn any available screen into an Android device. Your TV and computer monitor can grow brains of their own with this stick.

And, rest assured, the non-touchscreen is not really an issue. Cotton Candy comes with Bluetooth connectivity so you can connect your keyboard and mouse to it. There’s even a microSD card slot on that thing.

Alternatively, you can just plug the stick into your laptop and have it running Android in a matter of seconds, using the built-in keyboard and mouse. We don’t know if it will have too many practical applications, but it’s hard to beat the Cotton Candy at coolness.

HP launches new Folio 13 Ultrabook, refreshes the Envy and Pavilion dm4 range

After nearly spinning off their PC division and then deciding to keep it HP is now back with a bang with three new laptops. First, they launched all a new Ultrabook because that’s what all the cool kids are doing these days. It’s called the Folio and according to HP it’s the first business Ultrabook, offering the best battery life in its class.

The Folion 13 has a 13.3-inch, 1366 x 768 display with an Intel Core i5-2467M processor, 4GB of RAM, 128GB mSATA SSD, USB 3.0, a backlit keyboard, six cell battery and HP’s CoolSense technology. All of this for $900. Compared to the other Ultrabooks on the market, the Folio is not as thin and light. But for that price and specifications, not to mention the claim of the best battery life, it is far better value.

Next is the HP MacBook Pro… errr… I mean the Envy, which has received a complete design makeover, compared to the previous generation model. The Envy is available in 15, 17 and 17 3D variations and has Beats audio, as can be seen by the logo on the front and the red highlights around the keyboard.

The Envy 15 gets a 15.6-inch display with 1366 x 768 resolution, although there is also an option to go for a 1080p IPS panel. It also has a Core i5-2430M CPU, AMD Readeon HD graphics (model not specified), 6GB RAM, 500GB, 7200-rpm HDD, slot loading drive, HDMI out, DisplayPort, two USB 3.0 portsand an eight cell, 76Wh battery with a claimed battery life of up to 9 hours.

The Envy 17 comes with a 1080p TN panel, Core i5-2430M CPU, AMD Radeon HD graphics, 6GB RAM, 750GB, 7,200-rpm HDD and a six cell, 91Wh battery that gives a claimed 9 and a half hours of battery life.

Then we have the Envy 17 3D, that has a 1080p 3D display, Core i5 processor, 8GB RAM, 750GB HDD, AMD Radeon HD graphics, six cell battery, Blu-ray drive and a pair of active shutter glasses.

All the models get an LED backlit keyboard that automatically switches on when it senses presence nearby.

The Envy 15, 17 and 17 3D will be priced at $1,100, $1,250 and $1,600 respectively.

Lastly we have the new HP Pavilion dm4, which is an updated version of last year’s model. One of the key differences is the new Beats audio system with a built-in subwoofer, in favor of the Altec Lansing speaker system on last year’s model. Other than that it has a 14-inch, 1366 x 768 LED backlit display, Core i3 CPU, AMD Radeon HD 7470M graphics, 6GB RAM and a 640GB 5,400-rpm HDD.

There is also a new Pavilion dm4 Beats Edition, that comes in the signature black and red Beats color scheme and a massive Beats logo on the lid. This model comes with a more powerful Core i5 processor, 8GB of RAM and a bigger 750GB hard drive.

The standard Pavilion dm4 will cost you $630 and the Beats Edition should set you back by $900, when they go on sale on December 18.

ASUS Transformer Prime live photos show its magnificence

Live photos of the Transformer Prime has hit the web. The quad-core monster of a table, pending its announcement for November 9, is one of the most anticipated devices of the year and now with its looks sort of revealed our excitement has gone through the roof.

That’s how the Transformer Prime will look like with its laptop dock on. Now, we don’t have any further information as to whether the dock is made of aluminum or not, but it looks gorgeous. I’ll admit it looks MacBook-ish, but nevertheless, it is a nice piece of kit.

On to the tablet itself, its back panel too looks as if it’s made of aluminum, but until we hear from ASUS on the Prime’s announcement date, we can’t be 100% sure. As you may recall from a recent interview with ASUS Chairman Jonney Shih, the tablet will rock the quad-core Nvidia Kal-El platform with 1GB of RAM and a 10.1-inch IPS display. Pretty juicy stuff.

Apple launches the new MacBook Pro line-up, faster performance, same look

Apple has just released the new line-up of MacBook Pro laptops and, it looks like it’s the iPhone 4S story all over again.

The new MacBook Pros have been speed bumped with a new family of Intel core i5 and core i7 processors bundled with the latest in AMD mobile graphics. More specifically, the dual-core processors are to be found in the entry level 13-inch MacBook Pro with the option to be replaced with the beefier 2.8GHz Intel core i7 dual-core chip.

If dual-core is too 2008 for you, the 15-inch and 17-inch MacBooks come with core i7 quad-core CPUs out of the box and either the AMD Radeon HD 6750M with 512MB of memory or the beastly Radeon HD 6770M with 1GB GDDR5 memory discrete GPU.

Both 13-inch and 15-inch MacBooks can be ordered with either 500GB or 750GB hard drives. The 17-incher is only available with a 750GB hard drive.

Prices remain the same as before with the 13-incher starting at $1199 and $1799 for the base configuration of the 15-inch one. The 17-inch monster will cost you north of $2499.

Samsung Galaxy Tab 7.0 Plus 

In case you liked our hands-on of the recently announced Samsung Galaxy Tab 7.0 Plus, and wondered when can you get your own, we have an official date for you. The most pocket friendly Android Honeycomb slate from the Samsung family will hit the shelves in the United States on November 13, with prices starting a $399.99.

In case you are extra anxious about getting one, you can pre-order it from October 23. The tablet will be available in a number of major retailers including BestBuy, Amazon, Tiger Direct, etc.

With a zippy, dual-core CPU and the latest Android Honeycomb 3.2, all wrapped in a sleek and stylish body with compact measures, I am quite curious to see how is the Galaxy Tab 7.0 Plus going to fare against the competition. With similar offerings from Acer and Toshiba with lower price tags lurking around, it surely won’t be very easy.

Toshiba extends the Thrive lineup with a 7″ Android Honeycomb tablet

As Android 3.2 Honeycomb with its built-in support for smaller screens got released, there is little surprise that 7″ tablets, with the latest Google OS on board, started rolling out with a rapid pace. Toshiba is the latest manufacturer to offer a 7″ slate with the unveiling of its second Thrive Android Honeycomb tablet.

The 7″ Thrive carries the same styling as its bigger brother, featuring a rugged looking, textured plastic-made back cover, but in a significantly smaller body. The specs include a dual-core NVIDIA Tegra CPU, a gig of RAM, 16 or 32GB of built-in memory expandable through a microSD card slot, and a “true HD display” with 1280×800 pixels resolution. Two HD capable camera units are aboard – a 5MP back snapper, and a 2MP front-facing unit for video chats. Full connectivity suite will be featured, including a microHDMI and microUSB ports. All this functionality will be packed in a body which is 12mm thick, weighing less than 1lb.

The tablet will hit the retail shelves in December. Its pricing has not been revealed yet, but we expect it to be in line with the current tablet offerings.

Asus Eee Pad Slider for $475

The Eee Pad Slider will come with Android Honeycomb 3.2 with a starting price of $475 for the 16 gig model and about $100 more for the doubled capacity 32GB model.

That’s great news and one unearthed by Engadget at a media event held last night in New York City, USA. For more official photos of the device jump past the break.

The Asus Eee Pad Slider offers a very interesting design, which is sort of along the lines of the Transformer – in the sense that it combines the tablet main body with an attached keyboard, only this time it’s a non-detachable keyboard and it features a slider design – hence the name.

The Eee Pad Slider offers a 10.1-incher of 1280 x 800 resolution, dual-core 1.2GHz Qualcomm processor, 5 MP main camera and 1 gig of ram amongst other specs. There’s no word on specific carriers yet or set dates but we’re now only two weeks away from September’s end.

Windows 8 previewed on video, mysterious Samsung slate leaks

A Samsung-made tablet has leaked from Microsoft’s BUILD developer conference, sporting what appears to be Windows 8. The device is a demo one intended to be given to devs (exclusively) to begin testing on.

It could be the Samsung Series 7 Slate PC, which was revealed at IFA at the beginning of the month, meaning it will have an 11.6″ capacitive touch display with 1366×768 pixels resolution and 400 nits of brightness and a selection of Sandy Bridge Core i3, i5 and i7 (all should be Ultra low-voltage ones) processors with the generous 4 gigs of DDR3 RAM. The Series 7 Slate PC will feature Windows 7 upon launch and will be upgradable to Windows 8, once it’s let loose by Microsoft.

The other possibility is that it will be the NVIDIA Kal-El powered slate – it means it will have 4 (four!) cores instead of just two and run on Windows 8. The difference with Intel’s processors is that NVIDIA’s will have an ARM architecture and perhaps lower battery consumption.

Last but not least it could be this mystery slate, which got in Gizmodo’s hands. It’s running on a test version of Windows 8 but the hardware it’s running on isn’t disclosed. There’s a short video preview of the unknown tablet, which you can check out in the source link below.

As the BUILD conference develops we’ll update with further information, as soon as it becomes available so stay tuned.

Both an iPhone 4S and an Galaxy S II take the plunge, only one survives

Let me be clear up front – this video is not suitable if your heart misses a beat every time you see a tech device getting abused. With that said, we urge you to take a look at this cool experiment courtesy of the guys from SquareTrade.

They get a hot Apple iPhone 4S and Samsung Galaxy S II and drop them three times from different heights onto concrete. While here at GSMArena we may test everything there is to test on a mobile device, we can’t test how physically strong and durable these devices actually are. So, if you are interested how the iPhone 4S and the Galaxy S II fare on this test, watch this video.

Nice, eh? The result isn’t all that surprising considering the Gorilla Glass display of the Galaxy S II, but this hasn’t stopped more than 4 million people getting themselves an iPhone 4S.

If you were given the opportunity to make such a test which devices would you pick and why?

Samsung Galaxy Nexus SuperAMOLED comes with PenTile matrix

As you probably know, despite the 720p resolution, the Samsung Galaxy Nexus isn’t packing a Super AMOLED Plus, but a regular Super AMOLED screen. Those of you that have been paying more attention would even know what the main difference between the two is that the “Plus” AMOLED uses a conventional 3-subpixel-per-pixel RGB matrix, while the regular one goes by with 2-subpixel-per-pixel RGBG PenTile matrix.

So the Samsung Galaxy Nexus should come with one of those PenTile matrices, right? Well, as our macro shots showed – yes. The question remains if that really matters here.

As you can see from the close-up photo of the Galaxy Nexus display below, each of its pixels consists of a green sub-pixel and either a double-sized blue or a double-sized red sub-pixels. So even if the Samsung Galaxy Nexus has higher pixel count than any other smartphone on the market it’s sub-pixel count is identical to that of the iPhone 4S/4 Retina.

Samsung Galaxy Nexus display close-up shot

That means that in applications where sub-pixel rendering is used, the Samsung Galaxy Nexus will have about 60% more resolution than a Galaxy S II or 19% more than an HTC Sensation (instead of the promised 140% and 78%). And things are even closer in terms of sub-pixel density – the Galaxy Nexus advantage being just 48% and 10% respectively.

On the other hand, no one was complaining that the Galaxy S II and the Sensation aren’t sharp enough, so we can’t see anyone frowning at the Galaxy Nexus Prime screen, either. It’s actually next to impossible to see the dotiness or graininess of the on-screen image, as you may have seen it on previous PenTile smartphones, and we doubt anyone will reconsider purchasing the Galaxy Nexus because of it.

Nokia 800 and 710

 Nokia 800 and 710 web benchmarks turn as good as you’d expect

We conclude our coverage of the second day of Nokia World 2011 with a portion of benchmarks of the newly announced WP smartphones. The Nokia Lumia 800 and Lumia 710 were both present so we could check out how those 1.4Ghz Snapdragon chipsets fare.

To put their performance into perspective we threw in the HTC Radar and an HTC 7 Mozart running the Mango update into the mix. The Radar has a chipset very similar to the two Lumia smartphones, but its Scorpion CPU is clocked at 1GHz. It should show us what kind of an advantage the extra 400MHz of clock speeds actually bring. The 7 Mozart not only has a slower CPU than the two Nokia smartphones, but also a weaker GPU (Adreno 200, instead of Adreno 205) so we’ll see how much of a difference that makes.

We started with BrowserMark and it was Nokia Lumia 710 that drew first blood, scoring 32,854 points (higher is better here). The Lumia 800 came in second with 32,594 points, but for all purposes practical the performance of the two was identical. The HTC Radar came in third and HTC 7 Mozart ended up last with the margin of their defeat being about what the specs difference suggests.

Nokia 800 Lumia evened the score by winning the second benchmark, Microsoft’s FishIE Tank. It delivered 53 fps compared to 50fps of the Lumia 710. The HTC Radar was some way behind with 38fps, while the less powerful GPU of the 7 Mozart only allowed it to do 30fps.

The Lumia 800 scored another point at the SunSpider JavaScript benchmark and once again the Lumia 710 came so close that the two were virtually indistinguishable. The HTC smartphones got very similar results here, but neither of them came anywhere near the Lumia scores. That’s all understandable considering given the nature of the benchmark (it only stresses the CPU).

The final test was Celtikcane’s JSBenchmark and the Nokia Lumia 800 made it three wins out of four. The Lumia 710 didn’t disappoint either and came a really close second, while the Radar placed third 25% off the pace. The 7 Mozart was nearly two times slower than the leader.

All in all, the 1.4GHz Scorpions inside the two Nokia smartphones give about as big a processing power boost (compared to the 1GHz options) as you’d expect.

LG Optimus U1 first Android ICS smartphone

LG Optimus U1 Android ICS smartphone

We just got wind of some photos of an upcoming LG smartphone, which is yet to be announced. The device will reportedly be called LG Optimus U1 and will be the company’s first handset to run on Android Ice Cream Sandwich.

Our anonymous tipster didn’t give us any more details and we cannot confirm the authenticity of the image, but we couldn’t find anything wrong with it so we’re giving it the benefit of doubt. Plus, this one looks like a Korea-bound smartphone, judging by its design and it would make perfect sense for LG to release a handset called Optimus U1 there.

As you probably know, the LG-owned telecom in Korea was recently renamed to U+ and U1 seems like a proper name for a smartphone that will be launched on it. Or it could all be a product of our wild imagination.

Anyway, the LG Optimus U1 is said to launch next year, so we’ll have to wait for quite a long time before we find the truth. We’d certainly be on the lookout for more info about it, though.

Thanks, anonymous for sending this in!

Sony Ericsson Xperia Arc HD in the works, 720p screen and 1080p

We got an interesting tip from one of our readers, about the upcoming Sony Ericsson flagship. The handset, which he refers to as Sony Ericsson Arc HD (though the final name will probably be different) is said to come with a 720p screen (that’s 1280 x 720 pixels) and support FullHD video recording.

A pretty cool feature of the Sony Ericsson (or just Sony, if the deal goes through before the announcement) Xperia Arc HD will be the option to capture full-res still shots while recording video. That would allow you to capture the most interesting moments of your videos in full resolution without interrupting the videos themselves.

Our tipster couldn’t share any specifics about the Xperia Arc HD chipset, but he did mention that it’s blazing fast.

The information is said to be coming from a major phone retailer in Europe, but there’s no way to prove its authenticity, so take it with a pinch of salt.

However, we have to admit that it all makes sense. With the Holiday season just about to start it’s too late for Sony Ericsson to be making any new announcements now, so its flagship should pop up at the start of 2012. If they keep their tradition, the Arc S successor should be unveiled at the MWC in Barcelona at the end of February.

We’ve previously heard that Sony Ericsson will be unveiling a dual-core smartphone at the start of 2012 and a dual-core chipset seems like a mandatory prerequisite for a handset to be able to do full-res stills and 1080p video simultaneously. It would also explain the blazing fast part.

Finally, as we know from the Galaxy Nexus launch event, 720p is the native resolution for Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich. It’s safe to say that the next Xperia flagship will either be running ICS at launch or it will be updated shortly after that, so it would make great sense for it to have a 720p screen.

A hat tip to our anonymous tipster!

T-Mobile Samsung Galaxy S II overclocked to 1.8GHz

The Samsung Galaxy S II is certainly one of the snappiest smartphones around, but there’s no such thing as a too fast CPU. That’s why the XDA community stepped in and pushed the clock speed of the CPU of the T-Mobile version of the smartphone to the mind-blowing 1.8 GHz.

The exact CPU frequency that was achieved is actually 1.836 GHz. The kernel used to achieve this kind of speed is publicly available and you can try it on your Galaxy S II, if you dare.

The detailed instructions on how to flash it can be found by following the source link below. As usual with such custom kernels, proceed at your own risk and know that if something goes south, you are on your own, as you warranty will be voided.

If you do bring your dual-core CPU to such frequencies though, do not hesitate to share some of those benchmark scores with us in the comments section below.

The bad news is that the T-Mobile version of the Galaxy S II uses a chipset different to all the other models, so there’s no easy way of porting this one around.

Samsung Galaxy S II Android ICS and 2x performance boost in MIUI ROM

That’s right fellas, there’s no need to wait any more. You can have an Android Ice Cream Sandwich firmware up and running on you Samsung Galaxy S II right now, thanks to the skillful developers behind the MIUI ROM.

The great news is this thing is blazing fast. The first benchmarks indicate that the performance has doubled compared to what the stock Galaxy S II has to offer. The Quadrant score is over 5,000, compared to 3,500 before the update (higher is better here).

The SunSpider JavaScript benchmark tells a similar story – the ICS-powered Galaxy S II got 1774, while its Gingerbread-tasting version was getting scores of over 3385 (in this case lower is better).

Of course, you should also note that the Galaxy S II in question also got its CPU overclocked to 1.6GHz, but that should only account for a 30% improvement on SunSpider and even less on Quadrant, where the GPU also comes into play.

The bad news is that the MIUI ROM comes with heavy UI customization and it won’t let you enjoy the ICS UI novelties, but that’s not necessarily a bad news. If you want to try it, you should follow the source link to the XDA forum thread where you can find instructions on how to get it. It’s not without risk though, so only proceed at your own peril.

HTC Ville 8mm thick, thinnest HTC phone

HTC have some interesting droids in the pipeline and we get to glean some specs from occasional leaks. Now we've learned a new detail about the rumored HTC Ville droid - it will be HTC's thinnest phone to date with an 8mm thin waistline.

The thinnest current HTCs are at just under the 10mm mark, so the newcomer will have them easily beat. There's no indication that the HTC Ville will dethrone the Motorola RAZR but from the leaked images it looks like it will have a metal back and will have more uniform thickness than the Moto.

Anyway, the Ville is slated to use Snapdragon's new S4 chipsets with dual-core CPUs at 1.5GHz, unlike its quad-core compatriots in the rumor mill (the HTC Edge and HTC Zeta). It will use a 4.3" qHD SuperAMOLED screen, probably the same as the one on the Motorola RAZR.

The HTC Ville is most likely to be unveiled at the Mobile World Congress and we should see it running Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich with Sense UI version 4.0. It will pack Beats Audio too, like all recent high-end Androids from HTC.

Motorola MT917 - 720p display, 13 MP, Kevlar

Motorola has announced the MT917 Android smartphone, which will be an TD-SCDMA exclusive for China Mobile. The phone's highlights are a 1280 x 720 4.5-incher (~330 ppi), a dual-core 1.2 GHz processor, 1 gig of RAM, 13 MP camera (capable of 1080p video capture) on the back, and speaking of which, the back is made of Kevlar just like on the RAZR.

   
The Motorola MT917

The phone is due to launch mid-December on China Mobile's network and there's no word on global availability just yet.

The phone is among the slimmest around with a 8.5 mm profile (not quite as slim as the RAZR, though) and will offer a scratch-resistant Gorilla Glass display, Kevlar fiber back, zinc frame and splash resistant coating on the inside and out. It will come with Android 2.3 Gingerbread but hopefully will offer ICS some time post-launch.

We'll be eagerly awaiting a global GSM variant of the MT917, that will enter the elite among 720p-bearingphones and, hopefully, have a non-cyborg name to go along with it too.

‘Inferior products’ to blame for weak HTC sales in Q4, Citigroup says

HTC cut its fourth-quarter guidance for the second time earlier this week, sending shares of the company’s stock to their lowest point in more than a year. The Taiwan-based smartphone vendor cut revenue estimates by roughly 23% for the fourth quarter as steep competition from Samsung, Apple and other companies will seemingly makeHTC’s run at the top short-lived. But pent up demand for a new iPhone and Samsung’s ongoing charge are only half of the equation according to two Citigroup analysts. HTC’s weak fourth quarter is “driven more by inferior product than by macro reasons,” analysts Kevin Chang and Jonathan Gu wrote in a research note earlier this week according to Bloomberg. “We are most surprised by the lack of visibility and by how fast things deteriorate in the smartphone business.” Chang and Gu cut their price target on HTC stock to NT$463, dropping their earlier Buy rating to Neutral.

Quad-core ASUS Transformer Prime tablet now available for pre-order

The highly anticipated sequel to ASUS’ convertible Android tablet, the Eee Pad Transformer, is now available for pre-order in North America. Set for release some time next month, the Transformer Prime features a 1.3GHz quad-core Tegra 3 processor, Android 3.2 Honeycomb, a 10.1-inch display, 1GB of RAM, an 8-megapixel rear camera, a 1.2-megapixel front-facing camera, a microHDMI-out port and SD card support. ASUS has also promised that an update to Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich isn’t far off. The tablet will cost $499.99 for the 32GB model and $599.99 for the 64GB model, and it is available in gray or champagne. ASUS had trouble keeping the original Transformer on store shelves for quite some time after it was released, so pre-orders are definitely recommended for those who hope to snag a tablet out of the first batch to ship.