The Sony Xperia ZL has been available from the Sony website since March, but if you have been waiting for their Xperia Z, then your day has come. The handset is now available through the US Sony Store.

The device is available unlocked, in black, white, and purple colors, with a price tag of $630. But, it will only work on AT&T’s HSPA+ network, there is no LTE.

Fortunately, Sony has decided to ask the same price for its Xperia ZL. So for $630 (down from $760), you can choose the ZL with LTE and the same hardware as the Xperia Z, though no water-resistivity. Or you can simply wait for an official LTE version to launch on AT&T, although there is no certainty about that happening. There have also been rumors and leaks about the Z heading to T-Mobile.

So, are you going for one of the Xperia phones? Or are you interested in the S4’s extra power under the hood? Maybe our comparison will help you to make a decision.

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The long awaited Galaxy S4 was introduced a month ago by Samsung, but people are still playing the waiting game as there hasn’t been any confirmation regarding the release date of the device on any carrier. The good news is that we won’t have to wait too long, at least if we are to believe the leaked document from Staples that you see above.

The leak suggests that the S4 will be available from AT&T on April 26, T-Mobile on May 1, and Verizon on May 30. Of course those launch dates are “tentative”. There is no mention about the S4 model on the Now Network and no pricing details for the handsets sold at Staples. As for T-Mobile? The ‘uncarrier‘ earlier confirmed that they will make the Galaxy S4 available on May 1^st.

AT&T recently announced pre-order starting date of April 16 for the S4, and they will be offering both the 32GB and the 16GB models for $249.99 and $199.99 respectively, with a two-year contract. T-Mobile is expected to offer the device for $99.99 down with 24 monthly payments of $20.

Meanwhile, another leak says that Walmart will start taking pre-orders for S4 on April 16th. No hints on which carriers are involved, but Walmart currently offers the S3 on Verizon, AT&T, Sprint and T-Mobile.

In short, the wait for the next big thing is almost over. Are you anxiously awaiting the Galaxy S4? If not, what handset holds your fancy instead?

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Apple is famous for its products but the Mac maker is equally famous for its trademark issues. You might not have forgotten the company’s secret moves to acquire the iPad trademark and their eventual payment of $60 million. Now they are having trouble with ‘iPad Mini’.

The US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) has denied Apple’s application for a trademark on ‘iPad mini’. According to the USPTO, “The term “MINI” in the applied for mark is also descriptive of a feature of applicant’s product. Specifically, the attached evidence shows this wording means “something that is distinctively smaller than other members of its type or class”. It means that even a company as big as Apple can’t patent words.

And it appears like the USPTO is against the name ‘iPad’ as well, since the ‘i’ stands for internet, and therefore also descriptive. They are saying, “When a mark consists of this prefix coupled with a descriptive word or term for Internet-related goods and/or services, then the entire mark may be considered merely descriptive”. But iPad is a registered trademark of Apple in the US.

Now, if Apple plans to get ‘iPad Mini’ they can only do it by proving to the USPTO that the name is descriptive of the entire device and not a smaller iPad. But that might be difficult to do as, according to Apple, the iPad Mini is “Every inch an iPad”, only smaller.

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UK customers are lucky that the hotly anticipated Samsung Galaxy S4 is available for pre-order from Vodafone, EE and O2, and the luckiest 2000 of them will get to play with a free 7 inch Galaxy Tab 2 also, as we reported earlier. For those of you anxious folks in the US, AT&T has announced that the S4 will be available for pre-order starting April 16 priced at $249.99 with a two-year contract.

The carrier hasn’t announced which model they are offering (maybe the 32GB S4), and no hints on exactly when the device will be shipped. If it’s the 16GB model, the announced price is $50 higher than what the iPhone 5 is currently available for. Head to the AT&T website for signing up to be notified when the S4 will be available.

As for other US carriers, T-Mobile will start offering the S4 on May 1^st (no contract of course), and it is also expected to be available from Verizon, Sprint, as well as MetroPCS, U.S. Cellular and Cricket.

Just to remind you, the S4 is coming with a 5-inch 1920×1080 Super AMOLED screen, a 1.9GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon 600 processor in the US (1.8GHz Exnyos 5 Octa everywhere else), Android 4.2.2. Jelly Bean, and an amazing 13-megapixel shooter.

Do you have plans to order the S4?

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The hotly anticipated Samsung Galaxy S4 will be unveiled in New York next week, but nobody knows exactly what the device is coming packed with. The talk about S4 featuring different chipsets for different regions is of course not new, but that rumor is still around.

According to a recent report, the Galaxy S4 might be launched in the US featuring Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 600 chipset, while the device’s European version will get Samsung’s own Exynos 5 8-core chipset.

As you might not have forgotten, last year Samsung launched its S3 in the US with the Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 chipset inside because the Samsung Exynos chipset did not feature LTE. That may not be the problem here since the Galaxy Note 2 is proof that Samsung does not need Qualcomm to provide LTE. And also LTE will become more popular in Europe this year, so Samsung has to provide it with the European version of the S4 as well. So, LTE may not be the issue for the company.

Another suggestion is the heat issue. But if that’s the case, Samsung definitely won’t launch a device with known issues onto any market. So, most likely the problem is related to production. Just to remind you, the Samsung’s upcoming greatest device is expected to sell around 100 million units. The company might simply be incapable of making enough chips in time.

All these are just theories though and the best thing to do is to wait for a confirmation from the company. We will keep you updated as we learn more, so stay tuned to Mobile Magazine.

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The post Samsung Galaxy S4 With Exynos 5 Octa For Europe, Snapdragon 600 For US? appeared first on Mobile Magazine.

Fujitsu has now revealed plans to release its Raku Raku phone for seniors in the United States and Europe.

The Raku Raku smartphone has a simplified interface to make it easier for aging users to operate. The phone runs a modified version of Android 4.0 and has larger, better legible text and a home screen that allows just a few larger senior-friendly apps like email, phone book, phone dialer and the always requested weather app.

The phone also features a voice slowing feature that makes understanding those fast talkers easier. There is also noise cancelling features.

Masami Yamamoto, the company president said it hopes to bolster its sales from 8 million to a hopeful 10 million by 2014 with the overseas release.

There is no word on what carrier will have this phone or pricing, but we will continue to follow it and provide more details as they develop.

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Private companies are “encouraged” to “monitor” for “cyber threat” information happening on their networks, even if they have no real reason to do so. As Kendall Burman from the Center for Democracy and Technology explains in the video below, the breadth of the bill is remarkably broad, covering just about any kind of Internet activity at all. It doesn’t even really say what “government” can demand this kind of information, leaving it very vague and wide-reaching.

Ironically, even GOP candidate Rick Santorum went out to say that the Internet is “not a free zone,” and that regulations have to be in place to prevent an “anything goes” environment online. So much for small government. Following the Supreme Court ruling that allows getting strip searched for even the most minor of offenses, CISPA could allow the strip-searching of your online habits too… even without any kind of offense at all.

The post CISPA Bill Even Worse Than SOPA/PIPA appeared first on Mobile Magazine.

It’s time you threw away your dumb walkie-talkie style baby monitor and try the “smart” way of keeping an eye on your little ones. The Smart Baby Monitor from French company Withings will allow you to check on your baby through your iPhone, iPad or iPod touch. The sensor-packed web cam was released in the UK last year and now US citizens can finally get their hands on it.

So what’s very smart about this new product, you ask? Well, the fact is that everything about it is smart. First of all, the iOS accessory is not just about a camera. It comes equipped with many sensors for detecting sound, movement, temperature and humidity levels. The wide-angle camera is a 3MP one which can be tilted or swiveled into place all thanks to the monitor’s hinged design.

And that’s not all. It also features night vision via infrared LEDs (switches on automatically when light gets dim) and 4X zoom for zooming in on your baby. If the infant starts crying or moving, or if the room’s conditions become a bit unbearable, the monitor will sense it and will let you know via alerts on your device.

The monitor’s two-way microphone will allow you to hear your baby crying and sing a lullaby to it, provided you know any good ones. The monitor can wirelessly connect to your home internet connection or can connect to your device via Bluetooth. It’s also coming with a lullaby-playing feature and built-in night light.

You must have the WithBaby app on your device for connecting to the monitor. It’s available for free in the Apple App Store. But, as you might have guessed by now, the supermonitor is not cheap. With a $299 price tag, the monitor probably costs more than your handset.

The post Smart Baby Monitor For iPhone, iPad And iPod touch Users (Video) appeared first on Mobile Magazine.

Forgetting the passport is certainly not a good way to start your journey into a foreign territory, especially if the country you are visiting is the United States. But Canadian Martin Reisch managed to gain entry into the US after presenting a scanned copy of his passport on an iPad.

According to the available info, Reisch was traveling to the US to deliver some Christmas gifts to his friend’s children. He might have been too excited about the matter that he forgot about his passport and realized about it only when he was about half an hour away from the border.

Rather than turning back and making a two-hour trek back to his home in Montreal to fetch his passport, Reisch decided to try his luck at crossing the border without the required documents, but with his iPad.

The tablet had a scanned copy of his passport which he had saved in it just, you know, in case.

The US border officer who was presented with the iPad and Reisch’s driver’s licence was reportedly slightly annoyed with the presentation, but was most probably full of Christmas spirit as he allowed Reisch to pass.

According to Reisch, “I thought I’d at least give it a try. He took the iPad into the little border hut. He was in there a good five, six minutes. It seemed like an eternity. When he came back he took a good long pause before wishing me a Merry Christmas“.

Since 2009, Canadians are required to carry with them more than just a driver’s licence for identification for US land border crossings.

Canadian visitors have to produce an enhanced driver’s license, or should be part of the Trusted Traveler Program, or should have, well, a passport. Scans, photocopies or artistic impressions are not in the list. Reisch’s case appears to be an isolated example of flexibility at the US-Canadian border.

Reisch used his iPad once again on his return journey when he showed the device to Canadian Customs, and believes that digital identification will arrive in the near future. He says, “I see the future as 100 percent being able to cross with your identity on a digital device — it’s just a matter of time“.

US Customs and Border Protection hasn’t commented on the matter so far.

The post Canadian Man Uses iPad To Cross US Border appeared first on Mobile Magazine.

The Apple iPhone 4S found its way to millions of customers within just a few days of its release back in October. But many Apple fans who were waiting for an iPhone 5 were deeply disappointed with the latest iPhone. That might have helped the Android platform to become a bit more popular. According to the latest info, over 700,000 Android devices are being activated every day.

That’s according to Andy Rubin, Google’s Android chief, who announced the numbers via Google+ and Twitter late Tuesday. That means around 5 million new Android activations are made every week.

Rubin also revealed that those 700,000 activations are for new devices only and not for resold ones.

According to Rubin, “”We count each device only once. Activations means you go into a store, buy a device, [and] put it on the network by subscribing to a wireless service“. That might be a reply to a comment about Android by Steve Jobs in September last year: “We think some of our friends are counting upgrades in their numbers“.

Although Rubin did not specifically say anything about counting upgrades, he did say that Google counts each device only once.

Eric Schmidt, Google’s executive chairman, revealed earlier this month that about 550,000 Android phones were being activated per day. But that announcement was specifically about phones. It appears that Rubin is talking about phones as well as tablets as he has mentioned “devices”.

But it is a fact that Android is already the most popular platform in the US. It’s going to be a bit difficult for Apple to hit back as it is just a single company. Android devices are made by many manufacturers from around the world with a good range in pricing for all budgets. Whatever Apple is planning, they better make it big and quick.

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