HTC One Max to go official on October 17?

HTC One Max is a familiar name in Rumorland, the phablet making quite a few appearances in various forms before its official announcements. We know most of its specs and have a pretty good idea about its design, so the biggest mystery remaining was when will we be able to get it.

If the latest report from the Chinese website ePrice, quoted by Slashgear, is to be believed, HTC has already set the date for the unveiling of its latest flagship. The 5.9" One Max is said to debut on October 17, which is just over 2 weeks away now.

We also got another confirmation about the pricing of the device. The HTC One Max will reportedly cost NTD 23,900, which translates to just over $800 SIM-free. That will make the phablet one of the most expensive devices on the market and not only in the Android world at that.

Of course, there's no way to confirm the validity of these rumors at this point so take it all with a pinch of salt.

Read More

Unknown 09:40  No comment

HTC faces supply chain difficulties, expects poor Q3

HTC is currently experiencing trouble related to the supply of its latest smartphone the One mini, according to sources close to the manufacturing process quoted by Reuters.

More specifically, there is a shortage in the casing of the smartphone resulting in disturbance in the overall supply. As a result, the demand from telecoms and consumers can't be met.

HTC reportedly will only ship about 200,000 One mini smartphones each month, which is less than ideal for the company. Analysts predict that if the problem with the company's supply chain persists, it might be looking at a grim Q3 financial prospect.

In fact, this might very well be the first quarter to see the company post net loss. The third quarter of the year ends next week, with the report expected in October, so we'll see just how bad of a time HTC is actually having.

Read More

Unknown 03:01  No comment

HTC allegedly working on an Octa-core version of HTC One

HTC is allegedly working on an Octa-core variant of its current flagship smartphone, the HTC One. According to a new report, the upcoming version of the metallic beauty will also feature 3 GB of RAM. The HTC One with Octa-core processor is also said to come with a couple of software tweaks.

One of the major software additions include the clear audio option, which enhances the audio performance and improves the clarity during calls. If the rumors are to be trusted, the upcoming HTC One variant will feature more antennas to cover all networks across US, Europe and Asia.

Apart from the above additions the other hardware specifications remain similar to the original model, which comes with a 4.7-inch display, UltraPixel camera and a 2,300mAh battery.

Unfortunately, there is no official confirmation at the moment, so take the rumor with a pinch of salt.

Read More

Unknown 02:58  No comment

iPhone 5s chipset detailed, 1.3GHz CPU, PowerVR Series 6 GPU

Thanks to the guys over Chipworks and their detailed inspection of the board of the iPhone 5s, we now know the full specifications of the chipset of Apple's latest flagship.

As you probably know since day one, the new iPhone 5s runs on a new Apple A7 SoC that utilizes a 64-bit processor. This new CPU turns out to be a dual-core unit clocked at 1.3GHz and uses the latest ARM v8 64-bit cores. Apple's new cores are called Cyclone and the whole SoC is manufactured by Samsung on its 28nm High-K Metal Gate (HKMG) process.

The GPU in charge is the quad-core PowerVR (Series 6) G6430, which supports OpenGL 3.0, DirectX 10 and OpenCL 1.x. It's currently among the best of the market and eats benchmarks for breakfast.

Apple kept the RAM amount the same - 1GB, though the RAM used in the iPhone 5s is of the newer LPDDR3 variety, compared to the LPDDR2 embedded in the iPhone 5 and 5c.

Finally, the modem chips are made by Qualcomm. If you want to know more about their model numbers and other embedded controllers just head over to the source link below.

So, as expected, Apple is currently using the latest pieces of available technology for its flagship. There are no other smartphones that utilize the new ARM v8 cores (Cortex A53 and Cortex A57 are yet to come) yet and the new Series 6 of Imagination's PowerVR GPU's is making its official debut, too.

Read More

Unknown 02:58  No comment

Android 4.3 update for HTC One is coming this month

HTC America's president Jason Mackenzie responded to some questions on Twitter concerning the HTC One upcoming Android 4.3 update.

He says the Android 4.3 development for the HTC One is right on schedule and the rollout will start by the end of this month as promised. This applies for both the US and the EU HTC One units.

Update: To lend further credibility to the rumors, the following image was sent to us by one of our readers. It shows the HTC One running Android 4.3. Allegedly, the image was shot at IFA. Thanks for the tip, Daki!

HTC One running Android 4.3 spotted at IFA 2013

It seems HTC will manage to seed the Android 4.3 update ahead of the competition. Samsung is supposed to bring that release to its 1H flagship in October, and Sony is yet to announce a schedule for the Xperia Z updates.

Thank you, geordieboy, for the tip!

Read More

Unknown 23:29  No comment

HTC One Max spotted again with dual SIM slot and removable back

The HTC One Max has surfaced yet again, this time in China, sporting a dual SIM slot and a fingerprint scanner. The SIM slots are placed underneath a back cover, which unlike on the One and One Mini, can be removed.

The fingerprint scanner can also be seen below the camera sensor and there is also an button in the notification screen that shows a fingerprint icon.

Lastly, there are also metal connectors on the side that hint at a case for wireless charging. The current metal body of the One Max wouldn't allow wireless charging directly without a snap on case, which is likely what the connectors are for.

The One Max, is essentially a bigger HTC One (although it looks more like the One Mini) with a rumored 5.9-inch 1080p display, Snapdragon 800 SoC, UltraPixel camera, Android 4.3 and Sense 5.5. The phone is expected to be announced next month, around the same time as the Samsung Galaxy Note III.

Read More

Unknown 22:37  No comment

HTC updates the One X+ to Android 4.2.2 with Sense 5 UI

Android 4.2.2 Jelly Bean with the HTC Sense 5 topping has been unleashed in the form of an over-the-air update for the HTC One X+.

The update brings some sweet features to One X+ owners like the BlinkFeed homescreen, which has been present on all recent high-end smartphones of the Taiwanese company. There's also a new lockscreen to go with it dubbed "electronic gadgets."

Battery endurance is reportedly also improved thanks to a new sleep mode switch. Users can track the status of the battery easily by turning on the percentage battery meter in the status bar. Since this is Android 4.2.2, the Quick settings panel is also presents and can be accessed by a two-finger swipe down.

There are updates for the camera, A long tap on the camera UI screen locks exposure and focus. HTC has also included the video highlights feature, which allows you to choose from 12 kinds of music theme styles and easily make a quick 30 seconds video.

To get the update, check out your software update screen or go to the HTC Sync Manager to see if the company has rolled out the update for your region.

Read More

Unknown 01:05  No comment

We go hands-on with the HTC One mini, compare it with its big bro

The HTC One mini just went official and we were lucky enough to get to handle the new diminutive handset. The One mini takes the aluminum unibody, UltraPixel camera, BoomSound stereo speakers and Android 4.2.2 with Sense 5 of the regular One and compacts them into a smaller package with a 4.3″ 720p screen.

So, how much smaller is it? It’s 5mm shorter and 5mm narrower (about 0.2″ on a side) and lighter too – 122g vs. 143g for the big One. The one thing that hasn’t changed is the thickness.

The HTC One mini isn’t as compact as the Samsung Galaxy S4 mini (which is 8mm shorter than the One mini), but then it fits two stereo speakers on its front. What counts is that it’s tangibly more compact than the HTC One without sacrificing the premium build, which was the whole point. Let’s face it, even the big Galaxy S4 doesn’t feel as deluxe as the One mini.

The screen on the HTC One mini is a 720p Super LCD 2 with Gorilla Glass 2. It’s much sharper than the qHD screen of the S4 mini – 342ppi vs. 256ppi – and has great viewing angles too.

The two things we’re not sold on are the chipset (Snapdragon 400 is usually good, but HTC downclocked it to 1.4GHz) and the non-expandable 16GB storage (12GB user available).

Read More

Unknown 07:58  No comment

Benchmarks of the leaked Android 4.3 for Nexus 4 show an overall performance improvement

The Android 4.3 system dump for the Nexus 4 from yesterday is still not perfectly ready for daily use, but it’s now much easier to install. You can follow instructions here to flash it (using any recovery) to your Nexus 4, it shouldn’t delete your data (once again, proceed at your own risk and do a backup for peace of mind).

Why would you risk it when the official update could be just days away? Android 4.3 brings few changes over 4.2.2, but they are important – and better performance is seemingly one of them.

Native performance is virtually unchanged (as measure by CFBench), but that’s hardly a surprise. The Dalvik VM has been retooled and apps that don’t use the NDK (that’s the majority of them) should see a performance bump.

CFBench – native

Higher is better

• Sort by Label
• Sort by Value
• Expand

• Nexus 4 (Android 4.2.2)22876
• Nexus 4 (Android 4.3)22342

CFBench – Java

Higher is better

• Sort by Label
• Sort by Value
• Expand

• Nexus 4 (Android 4.3)7390
• Nexus 4 (Android 4.2.2)6872

Android 4.3 supports OpenGL ES 3.0 and seems to include other changes to the graphics stack as 3D performance in GLBenchmark 2.5 has gone up by several frames in both on and off screen tests. It’s a pretty big difference indeed, but developers will also have to do their part and take advantage of it.

Read More

Unknown 07:57  No comment

First official video of the HTC One mini arrives

The new compact HTC One mini has just went official, and as tradition dictates, HTC has released a promo video on YouTube to mark the occasion.

The HTC One mini looks just like a minuaturized version of the HTC One flagship, all the way down to its aluminum body and UltraPixel camera (even if the Optical Image Stabilization has been stripped).

Read More

Unknown 07:55  No comment

Android 4.3 for Nexus 4 caught in the wild, system dump available for download

Android 4.3 cropped up on the Google Play Editions of the Samsung Galaxy S4 and HTC One first but you shouldn’t doubt that the Nexus 4 will get it too. Some already have it – one Jeff Williams apparently bought a Nexus 4 from a Google employee and to his surprise the phone was running Android 4.3 JWR66N, thesame build number we saw on the Galaxy S4 GPE.

With some help, he managed to get a system dump of the phone. There’s no radio and bootloader yet

 (Jeff promised to get those soon), but reports say you can use TWRP to restore the dump and get it to work. Proceed with caution (and full backup) as there’s no guarantee of the result.

Or you can wait – the official unveiling will be in less than a week, the even is scheduled for July 24. The delivery of the update for the Nexus 4 shouldn’t take too long after that.

You can grab the dump from here (339MB). If that’s not working, Android Police has set up a number of mirrors you can try.

In the meantime, we’ll wait and see if people digging through the system dump find anything that wasn’t on the Samsung Galaxy S4 Google Play Edition, which we reviewed.

So, will the Samsung Galaxy Nexus get 4.3 as well? It’s currently on 4.2 and this is a relatively minor update.

Read More

Unknown 07:54  No comment

HTC One Google Edition spotted at Bluetooth SIG with Android 4.3

Traces of an HTC One Google Play Store edition running Android 4.3 Jelly Bean have been found over at the Bluetooth SIG. Carrying the model number PNG71xx_Android_4.3_G, the smartphone has undergone the certification process starting June 18 and has got the all clear on July 5.

The reason for the re-certification of the HTC One is that Android 4.3 supports Bluetooth 4.0 LE. As a result, the Google Play Store versions of the HTC One and Samsung Galaxy S4 running Android 4.3 will be able to connect to a myriad of accessories supporting the new low power standard.

Android 4.3 is still expected to be carrying the Jelly Bean name and as we found out in our testing of the Samsung Galaxy S4 leaked ROM, there are few changes worth writing home about. Google is yet to officially announced the next version of Android, but judging by the more and more intensive leaks, it can't be far away now.

We urge you to check out the Google Play Store edition HTC One unboxing and hands-on in our Blog.

Read More

Unknown 07:46  No comment

Android in June 2013: Jelly Bean overtakes Gingerbread

It's Android OS version stats time again and it's an end of an era – the era of Gingerbread dominance. Jelly Bean (Android 4.1 and 4.2) finally did what ICS (4.0.x) never managed – get more market share than Gingerbread.

Gingerbread in its current form (API level 10) debuted in February 2011, while the initial version, API level 9, came out in December 2010, but all GB phones were updated. Anyway, it's still the most popular version of Android going by version numbers rather than nicknames – v2.3 is at 34.1% and v4.1 is at 32.3%, with v4.2 contributing another 5.6%.

Both Jelly Bean versions saw an increase in market sharesince May at the cost of Gingerbread and Ice Cream Sandwich. Eclair and Froyo, which still hold single digit percentages have barely moved.

The Holo-centric Android 4.0+ versions now power over 60% of the Android market, which will hopefully mean that more devs focus on bringing a Holo interface with their apps.

Read More

Unknown 07:42  No comment

Google Edition HTC One source code released, won’t be getting direct updates from Google

Along with its launch on the Google Play store, the kernel source code for the HTC One “Google Edition” has been released on HTCDev.

Also revealed is that the device won’t be receiving its Android updates directly from Google, since it is not technically a Nexus device. The same applies to the upcoming Samsung Galaxy S4 Google Edition.

One of the main advantages of Nexus devices is that they’ll always be the first to get any Android releases, and that they’ll be “pure” Android versions, with no added modifications from the manufacturer.

While lack of direct updates from Google may sound like a bit of a downer, it’s not necessarily a bad thing. After all, several small tweaks with added functionality have been implemented by the manufacturer, like the addition of Beats audio support on the HTC One, which is not found in the 100% pure AOSP.

Also, we’re fairly removed from the days when manufacturers took significantly longer than Google to push the latest Android versions to their devices, and what are typically the most time consuming middlemen of all when it comes to receiving updates – carriers – are out of the picture.

So, while Nexus users will still have the purest version of Android out there first, Google dition devices shouldn’t be too far behind – although we’ll have to wait and see how this plays out in practice.

Meanwhile, you can get your hands on the HTC One Google Play edition kernel source here.

Read More

Unknown 02:16  No comment

1.2 million HTC Ones were sold in May, twice more than April

According to Citigroup Global Markets Inc analyst Kevin Chang HTC may have sold 1.2 million HTC Oneunits in May, which is a 100% increase compared to April.

That would mean that with the addition of the first week of June around 2 million HTC Ones were sold, which fits-in nicely with the revenue increase HTC posted in May but drastically contradicts previous reports that HTC has sold 5 million One units. However until we see a complete breakdown of the numbers by HTC itself we cannot say for sure.

Analysts expect the momentum to continue throughout this month and, barring any major announcements in the Summer as well..

HTC has apparently dealt with the shortages in the HTC One's production, which in turn leads to higher sales.

Read More

Unknown 05:17  No comment

HTC One mini M4 gets certified by Bluetooth SIG

HTC M4 leaks have been around since February. We saw its specs, live pictures and even camera details recently.

    
HTC One mini next to the big HTC One

We already know M4 is the codename behind the HTC One mini. The handset is supposed to be a mini version of the 4.7" HTC One (M7) flagship powered by a dual-core chipset and running on a smaller 4.3" 720p display.

Today, the HTC One mini was certified by the Bluetooth SIG, so if the live pictures weren't enough to convince you of its existence, the certification will do the job. The document also points to the fact that the launch of the device is drawing close and we should see an announcement sooner rather than later.

In case you wonder how we know HTC PO58XXX means HTC M4 - the M4 already appeared under the same model in the Wi-Fi certification database.

Read More

Unknown 05:04  No comment