HTC Brings the One (M8), Desire 816 and Desire 210 in India
At long last, the HTC One (M8) is available in India, and as you might have been expecting, it’s certainly not cheap, that’s for sure. As I found out in my review, the M8 is an excellent smartphone, but is it worth RS 49, 990? That’s up to you of course, but if you’re an HTC fan on something of a tighter budget, you could take a look at the Desire 816 and Desire 210 which have launched for RS 23,990 and RS 8,700, respectively. The Desire 816 made waves at Mobile World Congress for offering a large device with premium features like BoomSound on a budget.
Carrier Billing for Play Store Purchases Rolls Out in Austria and Singapore
For those that prefer to keep things nice and simple when it comes to paying for apps and such from the Play Store in Austria and Singapore, there’s good news. Carrier billing for A1 in Austira and Starhub in Singapore is now available. As always, if you want to check if your carrier supports billing, you can take a look at Google’s support page.
Xolo Q1010i Launches in India Complete With Sony Camera
For just RS 13,499 XOLO have launched the Q1010i, with some decent specs for that price. Coming with a 5-inch 1280 x 720 display, a MediaTek MT6582, 1GB of RAM, 8GB of internal storage and Android 4.2. For that sort of price, this is a pretty good deal, it’s just a shame that the MediaTek CPU in here is really starting to show its age, but we’re sure everyday tasks will be just as good here as in other devices.
Pantech IM-A888S With QHD Display and Snapdragon 805 Appears in Benchmarks
Pantech looks ready to release some pretty exciting products later this year, as the Vega Iron 2 has recently been spotted in benchmarks with a Snapdragon 805 and a display of 2560 x 1440. Now, an unknown device has appeared in AnTuTu’s databases with the same processor and screen resolution, complete with 3GB of RAM. The A888S is a bit of a mystery right now, but we’re sure that the device will be announced for an early summer release, if not a little later than that.
EE UK Hits 200th Town in Its 4G Rollout
The UK network that was formed of T-Mobile and Orange has been giving the UK 4G speeds since lat 2012 and throughout 2013 they’ve marched into more and more towns and cities. The town of Rhyl, in Wales, was the 200th town to get treated to 4G LTE speeds from the network and brings the network’s coverage of the UK to 72 percent. That’s 72 percent of the country with access to EE’s 4G network, that’s a pretty decent number, but they’r pricing does leave a little to be desired. With folks like 3 giving customers 4G at no extra cost, EE will have to work on more than just their excellent network to keep on reeling in customers.
Spanish Airline Iberia Teams Up with Samsung to Offer Boarding Passes to the Gear 2
As we reported earlier in the week, those with a Gear 2 from Samsung will soon be able to board their flights using their smartwatches. The Spanish airline Iberia will be offering an app to Gear 2 users that will generate a QR code to be scanned at the gate in order to quickly board outgoing flights. While only available on the Gear 2, a whole host of Galaxy devices are compatible with it, right the way down to the Galaxy S III, so there’s every chance your Galaxy device will support the new watch.
Galaxy Beam 2 Listed on Samsung’s Chinese Website
When the Galaxy Beam launched a few years ago, we were a little surprised to see Samsung branching out so widely. What’s even more confusing however, is that the recent follow-up spotted on their Chinese website is hardly much of an update over the original. The Galaxy Beam 2 is listed as featuring a 4.66-inch 800 x 480 display an unnamed 1.2 Ghz quad-core CPU running Android 4.2.2. Where things get a little more exciting is the 16-megapixel camera and of course the projector, however that can only output at 800 x 400, so this is definitely more of a mid-range device than anything else.
Oppo Release the R1S, An Updated R1 With Snapdragon CPU
The sleek-looking Oppo R1 was a good device, but its follow-up the R1S is that much better. The 5-inch, 720p display is still the same here, as is most of the look and feel of the device, but where things have been upgraded quite a bit is with the quad-core Snapdragon 400 clocked at 1.6 Ghz. As we noted earlier in the week, this gives the R1S 4G LTE capability, which will make a lot of customers in regions with newly launched 4G networks very happy. As an added bonus, the cameras on the R1S have gotten a little better as well.
Acer’s Latest Intel-Powered Tablet to be Announced April 29th
Acer have produced a number of devices with Intel CPUs in them in the past and now they’re getting for another one. The Iconia B1-730 is obviously going to be a budget-minded device (the B moniker tells us that) and will feature an Intel Atom Z2560, 1GB of RAM and a 7-inch 1280 x 720 display running Jelly Bean. According to PhoneArena, the device is to be launched on April 29th, which only gives us a few more days to see what the latest team-up between Intel and Acer will bring to the table.
ZTE Star 1 is Just 6.58mm Thin
If you didn’t think ZTE could make premium devices, then the Star 1 will change all that. With a 5-inch 1080p display, a Snapdragon 400 CPU, 1GB of RAm and an 8-megapixel camera. The specs clearly aren’t all that great here, but the fit and finish is what makes this a great device. Coming in at just 130g, and measuring 6.58mm thick, the Star 1 features a 1.18mm bezel. It’s also to be available in white, pink and black. Definitely one for those looking for a cool phone, the Star 1 won’t disappoint.