With increasingly larger screens on our smartphones, it’s clear enough that people want to have both a smartphone and a tablet. The Transphone is aiming to bridge that gap too and we’ve got the first exclusive hands-on photos of the upcoming device.

It works in much the same way as the Asus PadFone in that you have a smartphone portion and then this can be “docked” into the back of a tablet to give you the bigger screen experience. The 7-inch tablet (ExoTablet) is still “powered” by the smartphone, so everything is seamless as far as apps, media, contacts, and other data. There’s no need to sync your data between the two devices, because they’re effectively one and the same.

Based on the side-by-side pictures, it looks to be almost exactly the same dimensions as the iPhone 4/4S, including what looks like a 3.5-inch SVGA screen. We hear that the Transphone is being produced by CMIT. The rumors point toward a dual-core Qualcomm processor. It’s an Android device and word is that it will ship with Ice Cream Sandwich. The tablet portion has its own internal battery and you get dual battery icons in Android when you’re using the tablet. There appears to be a proprietary Apple-like connector too.

The first shipments of the TransPhone will be available through Exotablet.com starting on September 1st for $499.

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Even so, you still get Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich under the hood, the same wonderfully gorgeous display technology that you’ve come to expect from Samsung in this 7-inch screen, a faster dual core processor. Unlike the Nexus 7 that’s stuck with whatever internal storage it has, though, the Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 has a microSD slot to add up to 32GB of extra data storage. You also get a free one-year subscription to Dropbox for an added 50GB in the cloud.

The big bonus here, though, has to be the keyboard dock. Giving you a similar functionallity as the more expensive Asus Transformer Pad series, you can then use the Galaxy Tab 2 almost like a laptop, typing up emails and tweets in a much more expedient manner. And yes, you have full access to the Google Play Store for over 450,000 apps, plus music, books, and videos. The Smart Remote app with built-in IR blaster transforms the Galaxy Tab 2 into a pretty sweet universal remote too.

This package is being called the Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 7-inch Student Edition, but I don’t see any reason why this isn’t just as happy being in the hands of non-students. In addition to the keyboard dock and tablet, you also get a USB adapter bundled in there. AT $250 including free shipping, this is a great way to go back to school.

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Spec for the spec, the Ascend P1 looks like it can hold its own against most higher-end Android smartphones. There’s a 4.3-inch Super AMOLED display, a 1.5GHz dual core processor, and a full 1GB of RAM. As an added differentiator, it also boasts a unique 5.1 Dolby Surround Sound System. Rounding out the specs are its 8MP camera with 1080p support and a thin 7.69mm profile, which is a hair thicker than the 6.68mm Ascend P1 S. I guess the S stands for super-slim.

In keeping with the budget-friendly nature of Wind, the Huawei Ascend P1 has also been priced accordingly. If you take on a $40 monthly plan, the Ascend P1 can be yours for $49 on WINDtab. If you go for the cheaper $25 plan, then the price is $199. In both cases, you can get a free pair of tickets to see The Expendables 2 in theatres when you buy this phone. I’m not sure what Huawei has to do with Sylvester Stallone, but there you go. The full press release is below.

Highly Anticipated Huawei Ascend P1 smartphone now available in Canada at WIND Mobile

MARKHAM, ON, July 19, 2012 /CNW/ – Huawei Canada announced today that the Huawei Ascend P1, with its 1.5 GHz dual-core processor and Android 4.0 ICS OS, is now available to Canadians through WIND Mobile. The Ascend P1 is the latest offering from Huawei’s expanding suite of high-end smartphone devices.

“The Ascend P1 is a welcome addition to Huawei Canada’s device lineup and we’re very happy to be able to offer it to Canadians,” said Alane Zhang, General Manager of Huawei Device Canada. “Its exceptional craftsmanship and unparalleled performance create a truly unique mobile experience for the user.” The Huawei Ascend P1 combines good looks with a fantastic audiovisual experience. Powered by a 1.5 GHz dual-core processor, 1GB RAM and running on Android 4.0 ICS, the Ascend P1 offers users a movie theatre-quality cinematic experience with its super AMOLED, 4.3 inch screen and 5.1 Dolby Surround Sound System.

At only 7.69 mm thick, the Huawei Ascend P1 is one of the thinnest smartphones available in Canada. The 64.8 mm frame allows the Ascend P1 to sit comfortably in the user’s palm, giving them the ability to navigate all the phone’s features with a single hand.

“The Huawei Ascend P1 is the perfect device for smartphone enthusiasts,” said Anthony Lacavera, CEO and Chairman of WIND Mobile. “And when combined with our contract-free, truly unlimited plans users can get the most out of their Ascend P1.”

WIND Mobile will launch the Ascend P1 at for $49 on WINDtab and will be available at WIND Mobile locations nationwide. For a chance to win a Huawei Ascend P1 smartphone, and a trip to Los Angeles for the Hollywood premiere of The Expendables 2, please visit http://www.facebook.com/WINDmobile.

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The massive 5.3-inch “smablet” has been available through AT&T for some time, but now Old Magenta is getting into the mega-smartphone game too with the Samsung Galaxy Note. The confirmation comes by way of a press release issued early this morning after the official T-Mobile USA Twitter account.

There’s no mention of color choices, pricing or release date beyond “the coming weeks.” The assumption is that T-Mobile will simply be getting the “original” Galaxy Note that is already available in North America, but they’ll naturally make sure that it plays friendly with T-Mobile’s network. It does mean that you’ll have to do without blazing fast LTE, but you’ll still get that big screen and “S Pen” stylus.

It’s possible that the T-Mobile version will sell with Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich right out of the box, but that’s just a guess. It’s also a guess that T-Mobile would have to launch the Galaxy Note soon, since the Galaxy Note 2 is likely just around the corner and they don’t want to look like they’re selling terribly outdated hardware. I guess we’ll just have to stay tuned.

T-Mobile Expands Its Galaxy Lineup With the Samsung Galaxy Note™

Smartphone Delivers Innovative All-in-One Experience With the Perfect Blend of Work and Play Features

BELLEVUE, Wash., — July 17, 2012 — T-Mobile USA, Inc., the No. 1 mobile operator brand in Samsung Galaxy S™ sales, and Samsung Telecommunications America (Samsung Mobile), the No. 1 mobile phone provider in the U.S. and the No. 1 smartphone provider worldwide1, today announced the upcoming availability of the Samsung Galaxy Note™. One of T-Mobile’s fastest devices leveraging its 4G (HSPA+ 42) network and running on Android™ 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich and Samsung’s Premium Suite, the Galaxy Note provides an innovative, all-in-one experience that is perfect for work, play and everything in between.

Consumers are demanding larger smartphone screen sizes. In fact, a recent T-Mobile survey2 showed 77 percent of consumers prefer a device with a 4.5-inch or larger display rather than a smaller screen. The Galaxy Note speaks directly to that demand with a 5.3-inch HD Super AMOLED™ touch screen — the largest screen on a T-Mobile® smartphone. The device is elegantly designed to handle both business and home tasks with ease.

The Galaxy Note with Premium Suite provides a range of productivity-enhancing features, such as the S Pen™, S Note, S Memo™ and Polaris Office. Now T-Mobile customers can write notes, to-do lists and annotate documents; share ideas and edited content; and create documents, presentations and spreadsheets to maximize efficiency while on the go. S Note helps to professionalize communications by providing templates for seven commonly used documents such as an idea note, travel notes, diary entry, meeting notes and recipes. S Note also allows you to import and annotate a PDF file and convert dictated or handwritten memos to text with the Continual Voice Input and Handwriting-to-Text features. With S Memo, Galaxy Note users have one-touch access to creating a typewritten, handwritten or voice dictated memo; researching information during creation; and adding an image.

The Galaxy Note also has the SAFE (Samsung Approved for Enterprise™) designation, which means it has a full suite of enterprise-ready features and capabilities, including comprehensive IT policy support for top-tier mobile device management (MDM) providers, on-device AES256-bit encryption, enhanced support for Microsoft Exchange, as well as integrated support for a range of virtual private network (VPN) solutions. The Galaxy Note also provides Wi-Fi Calling capabilities and, with a qualifying rate plan, can act as a Smartphone Mobile HotSpot for up to five devices.

“In addition to larger screens, today customers demand more from their devices — from having safeguarded access to corporate email and other productivity features to being able to rely on a speedy network for streaming content,” said Andrew Morrison, vice president, product management, T-Mobile USA. “With the unique and highly innovative Galaxy Note in our lineup, we are even better equipped to help our customers strike the perfect balance as they juggle both professional and personal activities.”

The Samsung Galaxy Note also offers the T-Mobile 4G Pro App Pack, an aggregation of key applications, such as Dropbox, Evernote, Square, TripIt, CamScanner and LinkedIn, that can reduce the complexity and effort associated with finding and downloading business-related applications. By providing an easy path to cloud services such as Dropbox and Evernote, T-Mobile helps professionals easily store and access the documents, files, images and notes that will help them better manage their work from virtually anywhere.

Featuring a snappy Qualcomm® Snapdragon™ S3 Processor with 1.5 Ghz Dual-Core CPUs, the Galaxy Note provides customers with incredible 4G experiences, making it the perfect all-in-one device to maximize efficiency and productivity, in addition to fun. The Galaxy Note offers a variety of entertainment experiences, such as T-Mobile TV in mobile HD3 for watching live TV programming, Samsung Media Hub for renting and buying the latest movies and TV shows, and Google Play Music for streaming and purchasing music. The Galaxy Note also features an 8-megapixel rear camera and a 2-megapixel front-facing camera, to capture pictures and HD videos to share with friends, family and social networks.

Availability

The Samsung Galaxy Note is expected to be available at select T-Mobile retail stores and online via www.T-Mobile.com in the coming weeks.

[Source]

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When a typical new video game console hits the market, you can usually expect to spend several hundred dollars to buy it. You might even remember the frenzy surrounding the PS3 launch with systems going for up to $2,000 on eBay. The Ouya is not that kind of video game console. It’s only $100.

The unassuming silver box will be powered by Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich and a NVIDIA Tegra 3 quad-core processor. There is 1GB of RAM to go along with 8GB of flash storage, HDMI, 802.11n Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 4.0, and a wireless controller that looks similar to that of the OnLive console or the Xbox 360 controller. Those specs make it sound like a pretty decent smartphone or tablet, but this is meant to be a home gaming console.

Perhaps the even bigger kicker is that there is an open SDK where they promise to provide digitally-delivered titles for free. I imagine the marketplace will start with a handful of freeware titles and free-to-try games, but it has to open up to paid games eventually. In any case, the Ouya is only $100 and it’ll be interesting to see how it fares in an environment where we’ve grown accustomed to Android games on the go. Does this spell eventual doom for the Wii U, PS4, and Xbox 720?

[ Uncrate via Kickstarter ]

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As its name implies, the 97 Carbon features a 9.7-inch 5X multitouch IPS screen. There’s Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich under the hood and, thankfully, there is full access to Google Play and the full suite of Google apps right out of the box. Power comes by way of a 1GHz processor and 1GB of RAM. The 16GB model has the same $249.99 retail price as the 16GB Nexus 7, but the 97 Carbon also has a microSD expansion slot and a full-sized USB host port. It has the bigger screen too, as mentioned.

More information can be found on the official page on the Archos website. Expect the Archos 97 Carbon to launch later this month.

[Source]

The post Archos 97 Carbon Android ICS Tablet Challenges Nexus 7 appeared first on Mobile Magazine.

The HTC One S and One X have been receiving some favorable reviews, but now it’s time for HTC to update its INCREDIBLE line of smartphones too. In the official HTC tweet, they say that they’ve got “some special fun” heading our way and “it’s going to be INCREDIBLE.” That has now been confirmed as the HTC Droid Incredible 4G LTE for Verizon.

Set to hit shelves later this week on July 5, the new Incredible is once again “Beats-enhanced” and it will naturally have Verizon-friendly 4G LTE. Instead of following the trend toward mega-sized screens, the Droid Incredible 4G LTE is sticking with a 4-inch Super LCD qHD screen, along with a 1.2GHz dual-core Snapdragon S4. HTC Sense 4 will run on top of Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich.

The HTC Droid Incredible 4G LTE will retail for $149.99 with a two-year contract and a $50 mail-in rebate.

[Source]

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Available as a free (of course) download through the Google Play Store, Chrome for Android is currently only compatible with devices running on Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich (or higher). It’s unclear whether Google will eventually port it to Honeycomb and Gingerbread, since they’d rather you keep upgrading to the newest version of Android anyhow.

You can expect to get tabbed browsing, of course, but Chrome for Android also has incognito. There’s also the ability to sync your open tabs with your desktop to read later and the ability to switch tabs “the way you would fan a deck of cards.” They’ve made some minor UI adjustments that are meant to make the browser better for tablets too.

[Source]

The post Chrome Browser for Android Exits Beta, Available Through Google Play appeared first on Mobile Magazine.

They were supposed to get a taste of Ice Cream Sandwich at the same time, but I guess that hinge in the middle turned out to be a bit of a speed bump. As you might recall, the Sony Tablet S got the official ICS update late last month, but Tablet P owners have been stuck with Honeycomb in the interim. That’s changing now, Sony is ready to push out Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich to the dual screen Sony Tablet P. As with the Tablet S, the update will be pushed out automatically via the software update feature.

The skinned version of Android 4.0 going to the Tablet P is pretty much identical to the one for the Tablet S, except that it’ll be displayed across the two screens. What this means is that you’ll get access to the “small apps” of the browser, remote control, and calculator that can then be overlaid on top of the full app you have running behind it. There’s also the quick access to the camera from the home screen, as well as the inclusion of a native screenshot feature. The better file manager with full direct access to the SD card should be there too, as will the “enhanced gallery media viewer.”

Android 4.0 ICS update for the Sony Tablet P will be officially unleashed onto the world on May 24. While the official announcement only made mention of the Japanese market, the international release should be at or around the same time. All you have to do is keep your Tablet P connected to Wi-Fi and it’ll let you know when a software update is available.

[Source]

The post Sony Tablet P Finally Getting Android 4.0 ICS on May 24 appeared first on Mobile Magazine.

Personally, one of the highlights is the inclusion of a native screenshot capture. It used to be that you had to root the Sony Tablet S to get this feature, but now it’s built-in; just press the power and reduce volume buttons at the same time. The ICS update also brings direct access to the SD card, an enhanced web browser that allows for offline viewing, a new panoramic camera mode, and an enhanced gallery media viewer with photo editing tools.

The lock screen is also enhanced, giving direct access to notifications and giving the ability to unlock directly to the camera app. On the home screen, you can now create folders for apps by dragging them together and these folders can be named as you see fit. And finally, they’ve developed exclusive “small apps” that can run over top other apps for some multi-tasking, not unlike what you get in a desktop environment.

The update is automatic. The next time your Sony Tablet S connects to Wi-Fi, it’ll prompt you to do a system update. Click OK, let it jump through some hoops, and you’ll have Android 4.0 running in a few minutes.

[Source]

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