Sony Xperia Selfie Phone (Codenamed Gina) Spotted in New Photos [Video]

Today, Japanese mobile phone maker Sony Mobile has started teasing a new selfie-centered smartphone for tomorrow, and some additional details on the device have emerged online, courtesy of leaked photos and a video with it.

The mobile phone hasn’t been officially named as of now, but rumor has it that it could arrive on shelves as Xperia C3. Moreover, a new report on the matter suggests that it would be codenamed Gina. The main selling point of this device will be a LED flash next to the front camera, which will allow users to take clear photos of themselves even in low-light conditions. The front camera on this phone might be of around 5 megapixels or higher, yet no specific info on the matter has been provided as of now. However, you can see the sensor and the LED flash in action in the video embedded below, available courtesy of ePrice. As XperiaBlog notes, the handset appears to have been packed with a special feature that will allow users to snap photos by double-tapping on its back. However, the function will act like some sort of a timer, as the picture will be snapped only several seconds after the phone is tapped twice.

Moreover, the clip shows some of the software that this new device will arrive on shelves with, and which resembles the Portrait Retouch camera app, allowing users to tweak their complexion with preset tones, and to change eye pattern as well. Other editing tools should also be included in the package. On top of that, the upcoming mobile phone appears to arrive on the market with a Self-portrait voice guide, similar to what the original Xperia C had to offer. Basically, the functionality will enable people to snap photos with the phone’s rear camera using their voice. The upcoming selfie phone from Sony is also said to include a 2500mAh battery, which will allow it to deliver long usage times.

According to ePrice, the handset might sport a 5-inch touchscreen display of unknown resolution, yet no confirmation on this has been provided as of now. All in all, specific details on what the phone will have to offer will emerge only tomorrow, when Sony officially introduces it. One other thing that should be noted here is the fact that Sony is also expected to announce the Xperia Z2a smartphone in Taiwan tomorrow, and chances are that the two will be unveiled simultaneously.

Sony's Xperia selfie phone
Image credits to ePrice

Sony's Xperia selfie phone
Image credits to esato via gforgames

Sony's Xperia selfie phone
Image credits to ePrice

Video credits to ePrice HK

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Motorola Confirms Android L Will Be Available for Moto X and Moto G

We reported late last month, Motorola confirmed the next version of Android, currently called L, will be arriving on Moto X and Moto G smartphones sometime in the fall.

However, what appeared to be an obvious confirmation from the US-based handset maker turned out to be just a speculation from an unofficial Facebook page, according to Motorola. Here is the company’s official statement regarding the previous rumors: "Unfortunately, we have found that a Facebook profile under the name ‘Motorola Germany’ with the following URL facebook.com/MotoDACH/ was created. We would like to point out that this is not an official Motorola site and expressly distance ourselves from said content. All relevant information about Motorola can be found only here on this page.”

Even though Motorola denied the confirmation of the Android L for Moto X and Moto G, it’s almost certain that the company will offer the update by the end of the year if nothing wrong happens. The assumption seems to be backed by the latest news on the presumably Android L update for the Moto X and Moto G, which confirms it for later this year. The folks over at AndroidOrigin have been recently tipped on the upcoming availability of Android L for Moto X and Moto G, which seems to have been confirmed by the company’s technical support reps. Although it’s not the most reliable source for this kind of information, it’s the first time that a Motorola official is pretty clear on the release of the highly anticipated Android L upgrade for both smartphones.

While replying to one of its customers, a Motorola technical support rep confirmed Android L would be released for Moto X and Moto G “once it is available.” This means that Motorola may offer the next major Android upgrade to Moto X and Moto G, as early as this fall. Google is likely to release Android L in October, but a more accurate timeframe is likely to be announced in the coming months. Moto E owners will probably be disappointed to hear Motorola did not confirm Android L will be released for this particular smartphone as well. According to the same Motorola technical support rep, the company does “not have any information as of today” in regard with Android L for Moto E. This means that Motorola is still assessing the possibility of Moto E getting this update as well, but a decision has yet to be made.

Motorola Moto X
Image credits to Motorola Mobility

Motorola technical support conversation
Image credits to AndroidOrigin

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"Nokia by Microsoft" Lumia 1525 to Feature Snapdragon 801 CPU

One of the Windows Phone 8.1 smartphones that have been rumored recently to arrive on shelves soon is the Lumia 1525, and some more info on it is now available.

The handset, previously said to be en route to wireless carrier T-Mobile, is now expected to arrive at AT&T and Verizon too, at least this is what a recent post on evleaks.at reads. Lumia 1525 is also said to be among the first handsets to arrive with the recently spotted Nokia by Microsoft branding on the back. Moreover, the infamous tipster claims that the mobile phone will be powered by a Snapdragon 801 processor, but that it will be similar in every other aspect to the Nokia Lumia 1520 that was released last year. Thus, we’ll see the Windows Phone 8.1 device released with a 6-inch touchscreen display capable of delivering a full HD resolution, as well as with 2GB of RAM inside.

Moreover, the phone should sport 32GB of internal memory, a microSD memory card slot for expansion purposes, 4G LTE connectivity, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, NFC, and a built-in GPS receiver, along with the usual set of sensors. On the back, Lumia 1525 will feature a 20-megapixel camera with dual-LED flash, ZEISS optics, and full HD video recording, paired with a 1.2MP front camera for video calling. No official confirmation on this device has been provided as of now, but chances are that a formal announcement will be made in the not-too-distant future, so keep an eye on this space for additional details on this.

Nokia Lumia 1520
Image credits to Nokia

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“Nokia by Microsoft” Branded Android Smartphones Coming Soon

There have been some rumors that Microsoft it looking to license the Nokia brand in order to continue to use it on its Windows Phone handsets after the initial licensing agreement will expire next year.

The first details regarding this marketing move emerged online last week, along with the information that Microsoft may replace the Surface brand with Nokia’s Lumia. Today, @evleaks is back with a follow-up on the initial rumor, which claims the next handsets to be branded with the “Nokia by Microsoft” name will ship with Android operating system out of the box. The Android smartphones that are expected to come soon will also bear the Lumia name aside bring being tagged with the “Nokia by Microsoft” brand. For the time being, it’s unclear whether “Nokia by Microsoft” brand will also be used on future Windows Phone handsets, but we expect more details to surface in the coming months.

Microsoft’s plans for Windows Phone and Android are a bit unclear, as many unconfirmed rumors are running around in the wild. Hopefully, the Redmond-based company will come forward with an official statement that would confirm or deny these speculations. What do you think about the company’s plans to add the “Nokia by Microsoft” brand to its Android smartphones? Share your thoughts with us in the comments.

Nokia X Android smartphones
Image credits to Nokia

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“NOKIA by Microsoft” Branding Spotted on Supposedly Leaked Lumia 830

One of the changes that Microsoft has been rumored to make to the current series of Lumia devices involves changing their brand name, and the first signs of this appear to have already emerged online.

An allegedly leaked press photo with the recently rumored Lumia 830 smartphone shows that the upcoming device might no longer sport the usual Nokia branding on the its back, but that it will feature “NOKIA by Microsoft” instead. This is not the first time that such a rumor emerges, and there is a chance that things will turn out this way in the end, although no official confirmation on the matter has been provided. Of course, there is also the possibility that the said leaked image, which made it online courtesy of baidu, is nothing more than an elaborate fake, and that Microsoft will never go for said change in branding in the end. On the other hand, previously spotted photos with the rumored Lumia 830 have already showed a similar rear design, which should imply that the photo is the real deal. On the back, the handset appears to feature a large camera, one that resembles the camera present on Nokia Lumia 1020, but which is a bit smaller, as mynokiablog notes.

According to the leaked render, the upcoming smartphone should include a 13-megapixel PureView camera, with ZEISS lens and LED flash, a pretty decent feature for a mid-range device, that’s for sure. Microsoft has already been rumored to have a series of new phones under development, including a flagship device codenamed McLaren, yet the smartphone in the allegedly leaked photo embedded above is clearly not it (it should pack a higher quality camera). Nokia has always focused on delivering a great imaging experience to its users, and Microsoft appears set to continue on this direction after purchasing the vendor’s Devices and Services division. Thus, more mid-range phones from the company might start arriving on the market with PureView cameras on the back, and Lumia 830 might be the first of them.

Of course, these phones might not be able to provide the same level of performance that the Lumia 1020 can deliver, though they should fare much better than the average mid-range handsets out there. For the time being, however, this is only a supposition, and you should take it with a grain of salt, as Microsoft’s plans for the next generation Lumia handsets could be completely different. Hopefully, more details on this will emerge soon, so stay tuned for more on the matter.

Allegedly leaked Lumia 830 photo shows "NOKIA by Microsoft" branding
Image credits to Baidu

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Possible NVIDIA GeForce GTX 880 Smiles for the Camera

NVIDIA launched the GTX 700 series graphics cards about a year ago, so judging by the usual yearly refresh cycle, the new GeForce GTX 800 series should be making an appearance any time now.

According to a leak from Chinese website GamerSky, the new graphics card has already shown up in a photograph. We can’t be sure this is it, especially since the PCB is quite pixelated and blurry in the image, but the card doesn’t seem to be something we have seen before. ComputerBase has done some digging around hoping to find out more information. They have found out that the board has a new GPU, which is reportedly a Maxwell-based GM204. The die area is larger than the GK104 of the first high-end Kepler GPU, but a tad smaller than the GK110.

On the back, we find eight dual-sided SK Hynix memory modules that make up around 8GB of frame buffer. The GPU will probably be launched with 4GB of VRAM, but a later 8GB model will become available at some point. The top edge is home to three possible PCle power connectors: two with six pins and one with eight pins. It should be noted that this might be just a feature needed for prototype testing. We hope to see the GTX 880 in the wild soon enough.

Possible NVIDIA GeForce GTX 880
Image credits to GamerSky

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Samsung Galaxy F Allegedly Leaks in Live Photo

Following a long series of rumors and leaks on Samsung Galaxy F, said to be a premium smartphone coming from the South Korean mobile phone maker, an alleged live photo with the device is now available online, though it does not show much of the device.

Only a portion of the top of the smartphone is visible in the aforementioned image, confirming that Samsung would plan on releasing it with a metallic body, something that Galaxy S5 too was expected to sport. The leaked photo, available courtesy of GSMArena, also allows us to have a closer look at this metallic case, though the news site claims that the phone will feature only a metallic frame, with the back plate being made out of plastic. The recently leaked press renders with the device have suggested that it would sport a brushed metal finish on the back, and that Samsung would move away from the plastic case available on its Galaxy models, but it seems that things were only partially true. However, no official confirmation on any of these has been provided as of now, and we’ll have to take the info above with a grain of salt for the time being.

In the meantime, we should note that Samsung Galaxy F is rumored to arrive on shelves with a 5.3-inch touchscreen display capable of delivering a Quad HD resolution, which would make it a bit larger than the Galaxy S5. Moreover, the mobile phone is said to hit shelves with a quad-core Snapdragon 805 processor inside, which will be accompanied by 3GB of RAM, so as to provide users with great performance capabilities at all times. Considering the fact that Samsung has already launched a Galaxy S5 LTE-A model in South Korea with this processor inside, as well as with a 2K screen, the hardware specs rumored for the Galaxy F are not far-fetched. However, this also means that the company will need to include some impressive new capabilities inside the upcoming device, so as to justify its positioning above the current flagship.

One of these was said to be the aforementioned all-metallic body, paired with the Snapdragon 805 processor, yet it remains to be seen whether the vendor will make some other changes inside the device as well, such as an upgrade to the rear camera, and more. Samsung Galaxy F is expected to become official sometime in September, perhaps at the IFA 2014 show in Berlin, so it will take a while before we know what it will have to offer.

Alleged Samsung Galaxy F live photo
Image credits to GSMArena

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Intel Core M Broadwell Gets Detailed: Core M 5Y70, Core M 5Y10 and Core M5Y10a

Intel’s next-gen Broadwell architecture, which employs 14nm technology, will make a real life debut towards the end of the year.

At Computex 2014, Intel already showed prototypes of super thin and sleek tablets taking advantage of the upcoming Core M series processors based on Broadwell. Compared to their Atom cousins, these new chips are more powerful, but less so when contrasted with the Core i series. Anyway, the upcoming lineup has three distinct versions coming, including the Core M5Y70, Core M 5Y10 and Core M 5Y10a. However, these might not be the final nomenclature, and we might end up seeing the chips arrive on the market sporting names like Core M 70 or something of the sort. The Broadwell “Y” parts arrive with 2 CPU cores and 4MB of L3 cache. The 5Y10 and 5Y10a models will be able to run at 800MHz with the integrated GPU following suit at 100MHz. The microprocessors will take advantage of Turbo Boost, as you can see in this tablet provided by CPU-World. The CPUs bundle VT-d virtualization, which is quite an advanced feat to have onboard. Virtualization solutions allow users to run multiple operating system and application to run in independent partitions all on a single computer.

The 5Y10 and 5Y10A work with DDR3L and LPDDR3 memory and data rates going as far as 1600MHz. Intel rates the microprocessors at 4.5Watt, but the 5Y10 also arrives with a configurable TDP feature, allowing it to run at a lower 4Watt TDP. Last but not least, the 5Y70 has 2 cores and takes advantage of Hyper-Threading technology, which allows the processor to run 4 threads at once. The chip also has Trusted Execution and Vpro. It supports DDR3L/LPDDR3-1600 memory and has 4.5Watt TDP. Its frequency can be raised in Turbo mode to 2.6GHz. It’s pretty cool that these new chips will be able to normally run at a very low frequency, but when the need strikes, the Turbo Boost feat will be able to bestow double the power.

Anyway, now that we know the details of these chips, we’re quite eager to see the first products embedding the architecture arrive into the wild. Intel already teased the Llama Mountain 2-in-1 device, in 12.5-inch and 10-inch flavors but ASUS appears to be the first device maker to have actually taken up this reference design. The Transformer Book Chi T300 is one of the first consumer-ready Core M products, and if we’re lucky, we’re going to be seeing it on retail shelves just in time for the holiday season.

Intel Core M Broadwell first details appear
Image credits to CPU-World

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Nova Launcher 3.0.2 Beta 1 Comes with Android L Looks

An updated flavor of the Nova Launcher application is now available for download for the owners of Android-based devices, namely version 3.0.2 Beta 1, meant to provide users with a taste of the newly announced Android L OS.

Courtesy of this update, owners of non-Nexus devices will be able to bring some Android L looks on their handsets before Google makes the platform available for them, if it should ever do that. According to the release notes attached to the application, those who will download and install it will enjoy features such as ”L” Folder Preview (Nova Settings – Folder – Folder Preview – Line) and ”L” App Animation (Nova Settings – Look and Feel – App Animation – Slide Up). Moreover, they will also see the “L” App Drawer Icon (Long-press app drawer – Edit – Tap Icon – All white icon under “Built-in”).

Additionally, the new app iteration arrives with a series of small tweaks for running on Android L Dev Preview, as well as with a series of optimizations and bug fixes packed inside. Those who would like to enjoy the features and capabilities of the new application release should head over to the Nova Launcher Beta community to join the beta testing program and receive the new app iteration, as Phandroid notes.

Nova Launcher for Android
Image credits to Phandroid

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4.7" iPhone Screen Gets In-depth Video Appearance

We've seen some interesting front panels this week coming from China. The leaked photos show what it seems to be an iPhone 6 screen which measures 4.7" and has rounded edges.

A new video coming from China gets a closer look and a hands on with the front panel. It is a well known fact that Chinese manufacturers do not keep the parts they make under wraps and anyone can assemble a next-generation iPhone using the parts that come out of Foxconn. There are a few notable differences between the iPhone 5s' front panel and iPhone 6', besides the rounded corners. The new one is almost half as thin as the other one. The rounded edge goes around the whole panel, not just the top and the bottom. Also, the front camera hole seems to be in a different spot. With iPhone 5, Apple chose to have "the selfie camera" above the earpiece. Now, that has moved half an inch to the left. The hole itself has the same size, but Apple was seemingly forced to take this design decision based on the fact that the top glass is narrower. On the other hand, the bottom part of the front panel looks unchanged with the exception of the width. The side bezel appears to have exactly the same as the current iPhone model.

Based on these specs, the iPhone 6 will come out with a 4.7" display which is not considerably wider or taller. This may allow an extra row of icons at the bottom of the screen, unless Apple decides to scale the icons in which case, they may be somewhere between the size of the iPad Mini and the current iPhone 5s. One of the drawbacks of this screen size is that Apple is forcing the user to one-hand operation of the device. That may not be a problem for Android users who are going to switch from HTC and Samsung to the new iPhone 6 this fall. The leak coming from China does not say anything about the 5.5" display size. Earlier reports suggested that the tech giant may release two different size phones together with iOS 8. In other news, Apple is expected to show the new iPhone on September 19, according to Chinese sources. The new model may be released a week later, on September 25. Same reports say the 5.5" iPhone appearance may be pushed for a few months due to production issues.

4.7" screen for iPhone 6 vs iPhone 5s front plate
Image credits to ifanr.com

Video credits to Adrian Boioglu

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