From what we can gather, this will not be an entry-level consumer tablet like the Nexus 7 (that Asus also produces), but rather a more business-oriented 10-inch tablet. It’s also likely that they’ll come up with a better product name than the ME301T MemoPad 10, so it’s possible that it’ll fall under the Transformer Pad family in some fashion.

As far as the specs go, there will be an NVIDIA Tegra 3 quad core processor, 1280×800 pixel 10.1-inch display, 1GB of RAM, and 16GB of on-board storage. It will likely be offered in WiFi-only and WiFi+3G flavors, in your choice of white, blue and fuchsia. The leaked price from some retailers in Spain and Denmark have in the 300 Euro range, which translates to just over $400 US.

These specs pretty much run par for the mid-range course at the moment, so hopefully Asus has some unique business-oriented tricks up its sleeve to make this tablet stand out from the crowd.

[Source]

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The three variations of this device are fundamentally the same, aside from their respective names and some slight differences in the wireless radios. The HTC Butterfly is the international variant that should be the most compatible with the most wireless networks around the world, so even if you’re not in the UK, this is great news if you’re a fan of high-powered gadgetry.

As a quick refresher, the HTC Butterfly comes with a 5-inch display boasting an impressive 1920×1080 pixel resolution. It will ship with Android 4.1 Jelly Bean and feature the quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 Pro 1.5GHz processor, 2GB RAM, 8MP main camera, and 2.1MP front camera. The listing on Expansys UK doesn’t have pricing information yet, so you will be placing that pre-order a little on the blind side.

[Source]

The post Expansys UK Taking Pre-Orders for HTC Butterfly 1080p Superphone appeared first on Mobile Magazine.

The Samsung Galaxy S III Mini was announced last month, but Samsung didn’t make it clear whether the smaller cousin of the full-size S3 would be made available for the US market. That answer has now been provided courtesy of Amazon, because the online retailer has listed the Samsung smartphone.

The idea with the S3 Mini, in case you’re not so familiar, is to take the form factor of the S3, shrink it down, and reduce the specs for a reduced price. The net result is a Google Android 4.1 smartphone with a 4.0-inch Super AMOLED display, dual core 1GHz processor, 1GB RAM, 8/16GB storage and microSD expansion. There’s a 5-megapixel camera on the back and a VGA camera on the front. Realistically, the specs make it sound like an S II in a shrunken down S III body.

Now, it’s debatable whether the unlocked Galaxy S III Mini is worth it. You’ll find it listed on Amazon.com for $398.91 with 8GB of memory. By comparison, the equally unlocked but vanilla Android-powered 8GB Google Nexus 4 by LG is $100 less than that. Maybe you like TouchWiz and don’t want to try finding (or pay for) an unlocked S3. If that’s the case, the S3 Mini isn’t so shabby.

The post Amazon Lists Unlocked Samsung Galaxy S III Mini at $399 appeared first on Mobile Magazine.

Interested in getting your hands on Android 4.2 and the many new core apps that come with it? While it might be a while before the next version of Android comes to your particular device, you don’t have to wait for those core apps any longer— if you own a device running Android 4.1.

A new Nexus 4 system dump has been extracted and picked through by an XDA Dev member, Droid Hack. Now all of the core Android 4.2 apps and latest Google Apps are ready and prepped for installation on ANY Android 4.1 device.

The apps package includes updated versions of Camera, Desk Clock, Chrome, Maps, Street View, Gmail, Play Store, Google Talk, Google Music and all other core/system apps from Android 4.2. All additional libraries needed to make the apps run are also included in the package.

Interested? You can find the original thread and updated apps here. The only bad news is that most of us aren’t lucky enough to have Android 4.1 and are still rocking ICS– or even Gingerbread in some cases.

Anyone tried this XDA package out yet? What do you think?

[ source ]

The post Get Android 4.2 Core Apps on your Android 4.1 Device appeared first on Mobile Magazine.

Samsung’s anticipated Berlin Unpacked event is quickly approaching, with the center of the show likely to be the Samsung Galaxy Note 2. What’s even more important for Galaxy S3 users, though, is what is going to happen in the aftermath of the event. Sometime after the Unpacked Event, Samsung Galaxy S3 is getting an official upgrade to Android 4.1 Jelly Bean- though that really comes as no surprise to Mobile Magazine. The update is expected to roll out internationally to several different countries, though it unclear exactly when the U.S. and Canada will receive the update on their LTE-capable Galaxy S3 variants.

What can you expect with the upgrade? Obviously the essential changes like speed improvements and Google Now, the Siri-like voice search assistant, are some of the big changes. Beyond Jelly Bean specific changes, the update will also have improvements to the TouchWiz UI such as a dormant mode for improved notifications and alert management. The TouchWiz UI will also add an easy mode that will allow for a simpler home-screen experience.

With just a week or so away from an official upgrade to the latest version of Android, an already appealing smartphone has now become even better. For those that are interested in purchasing a Galaxy S3, check out the deals at Amazon Wireless from a variety of different carriers.

For current S3 owners, how excited are you about getting your hands on Jelly Bean?

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The new Jellybean variant was put up in a YouTube video by Ricardo Cerqueira, running on an LG Optimus 4X HD. Is it perfect or ready for the hands of wouldbe-modders? Not just yet, it seems that they’ve run into a few snags with Google’s new search system, but considering 4.1 just arrived to a limited public very recently and they are already this far, it’s likely only a matter of time before a reasonably stable version of JellyBean is achieved.
The video of Jellybean running on the Optimus can be seen below.

[ source ]

The post CyanogenMod Developers Already Have Jellybean Somewhat-Running On An LG Optimus 4X HD appeared first on Mobile Magazine.

Pre-orders are currently being taken by GameStop for the 16GB version, which retails for $249 and will be available around the middle of July. While there is the cheaper 8GB model at $199, it doesn’t look like GameStop is going to take pre-orders for it. Thankfully, you can make up some of that value by trading in your old video games, gaming hardware, accessories, iDevices and eligible Android tablets.

GameStop has been accepting trade-ins for a while, but they’re offering a 30% bonus on the trade-in value when you put it toward the purchase of a 16GB Nexus 7. Remember that, for a limited time, you also get the $25 credit for the Google Play Store, plus a free copy of Transformers: Dark of the Moon.

“We’ve seen great consumer enthusiasm for our recommerce initiatives, particularly our iDevice trade program that launched last fall,” said Tony Bartel, president of GameStop. “With the increasing popularity of Android tablets and the emerging multiscreen gaming trend, this is the ideal time to expand the program to meet the needs of our hybrid customers.”

[Source]

The post Google Nexus 7 Pre-Orders at GameStop with 30% Bonus Trade-In Value appeared first on Mobile Magazine.

This isn’t an official release from Google, but RootzWiki went ahead and made the Jelly Bean preview update available to the masses right after the Google I/O event. This update was originally intended for the GSM versions of the Galaxy Nexus, but it has been adapted to work with the LTE models too. This means that all Galaxy Nexus models are eligible for the Android 4.1 upgrade.

At this point, absolutely no bugs have been found and the ROM appears to be 100% functional. Of course, if you want to load up this somewhat unofficial version of Jelly Bean on your Galaxy Nexus, you will need to have root access. That said, if you want Google Now, offline voice dictation, and Project Butter speed, this is the only way you’ll get it at the moment.

You can get the “reverse engineered preview build” of Jelly Bean for your VZW Galaxy Nexus on Rootzwiki. Of course, proceed at your own risk.

[Source]

The post Galaxy Nexus Gets Android 4.1 Jelly Bean Early appeared first on Mobile Magazine.

The version numbers of Jelly Bean and Key Lime Pie aren’t quite so clear, since Google jumped from 2.3 Gingerbread to 3.0 Honeycomb to 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich. Even so, a “reliable source” is saying that Key Lime Pie is being prepared in the Google kitchen as the next iteration of its mobile operating system. I’d imagine that both JB and KLP will continue down the ICS path of being both smartphone and tablet friendly.

It’s also hard to say just how far down the timeline we’re looking here. The Verge is guessing that Key Lime Pie won’t be dished out until some time in 2013, which makes sense if Jelly Bean won’t show up until the end of this year. Then, we have to start thinking about “L” names for the next Android. Lemon Meringue Pie? Followed by Marzipan or Macaroon?

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Google’s Eric Shmidt has reportedly said that a Google-branded tablet might be launched in the first six months of 2012. The tablet plans were mentioned during an interview with Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera. Schmidt’s quote could mean many things. First, that Google has plans to develop, market and sell its own tablet within the next six months. Or second, and perhaps more likely, Schmidt’s statement could mean that Google is planning to begin pumping up the marketing around Ice Cream Sandwich and improving the experience that Google offers on Android tablets. Currently, Android 3.0 (Honeycomb) tablets leave much to be desired when it comes to the end-user’s overall experience, and sales have been lackluster at best according to numerous reports. The effort to put Ice Cream Sandwich on every tablet though can be easily seen in recent appearance of the Ainol Novo 7 Basic, a strange cheapo Chinese 7″ device endorsed by Andy Rubin nevertheless.

The interview in question took place in mid-December. Since then, further rumors are abound: according to DigiTimes sources, sales of tablets of Google’s Android partners may suffer because of this decision. This is a highly speculative outcome though; similar favoritism didn’t do much to boost the sales of previously Google-endorsed Motorola XOOM or later Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 as opposed to other Honeycomb tablets out there, as they all didn’t fare well. Then, the same sources have hinted that Google may choose Android 4.1 which supposedly will boast features unavailable to other, non-Google-branded tablets that will stay with Android 4.0.x at best for a time being. This particular part of a rumor looks quite realistic: why bolster the competition by scattering development efforts across so many different platforms?

Whether or not the Nexus moniker will be attached to this future Google tablet is to be seen, but highly unlikely. Google has not put forward an official name for it and since Google will only be ‘marketing’ the tablet, it’s hard to imagine they will follow suit with the Samsung line of the past. It’s worth mentioning that since the XOOM 2 AKA XYBOARD was just released by Motorola, the chances of it being Motorola is highly unlikely. But, since Google acquired Motorola Mobility division for $12.5 billion in the beginning of 2012, it may make choosing a manufacturer of this first Android 4.1 tablet with Google logos a little easier.

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