Sporting a 4.3” inch capacitive touch display with WVGA resolution and providing enough real estate to comfortably browse the web, view videos or get comfortable with messaging.

LG Optimus L7 features a five megapixel camera on the back to capture decent quality pictures and video and is also assisted by a LED flash. Under the hood, the LG Optimus L7 Android phone is powered by a 1GHz Cortex A5 single-core (!) processor. But then, it runs Android 4.0 OS.

Now the 1GHz processor is certainly under powered against all the smartphones we’ve seen recently. However, if you are not in dire need of extensive gaming graphics and acute computing power, the LG Optimus L7 should be a decent phone to hang out with.

Interestingly, the device is just about 8.7mm thin, has beautifully designed body, 4 GB of onboard storage, support for up to 32GB of expandable storage and the usual set of connectivity options. A 1700mAh battery should provide enough juice to easily last through the day.

Dr Jong-seok Park, President & CEO of LG Electronics Mobile Communications believes that “L7 is a significant addition to our L-Series portfolio” and is “confident that it’ll prove highly attractive to users.” and it “offers beauty and performance in one package.”

There’s nary a word on its global release yet, but it will be soon be made available in Asia and Europe for £299 on pay-as-you-go, or for £329 unlocked.

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DVD playback support will therefore be not natively available in Windows 8. Apparently, the move comes as a consequence of the fact that DVD sales have been decling year over year and these days most of the media consumed by a common user comes from online/ web respositories.

Microsoft Windows 8 already supports plenty of codecs and video playback formats as compensation to the loss. And of course, there are always third party softwares available as pleasantires if you don’t want to hit that -per-use ‘Add Features to Windows 8’ icon in the Control Panel.

Justifying their decision for the aforementioned, Microsoft admits that including that feature cost it quite some royalties irrespective of whether the feature was used or not. So those customers interested in the feature can just request-add it for an undisclosed but presumably nominal fee.

As a refresher, Windows 8 will certainly include WinBdows Media Player in all editions but as of this announcement with DVD playback support, unless exclusively opted in. Simply said, Windows 8 Pro edition will natively include Windows Media Center while the basic editions won’t even though users can purchase the license later to start using the feature.

Here’s an excerpt from Microsoft in this regard:

“Given the changing landscape, the cost of decoder licensing, and the importance of a straight forward edition plan, we’ve decided to make Windows Media Center available to Windows 8 customers via the Add Features to Windows 8 control panel (formerly known as Windows Anytime Upgrade). This ensures that customers who are interested in Media Center have a convenient way to get it.

Windows Media Player will continue to be available in all editions, but without DVD playback support. For optical discs playback on new Windows 8 devices, we are going to rely on the many quality solutions on the market, which provide great experiences for both DVD and Blu-ray.”

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The whole HTC Android phones community was beaming with joy, but that had to change someday, and that day has come. It is being reported that the AT&T’s version of HTC One X, the HTC One XL will not support bootloader unlocking.

The HTC PR was quick to release a relevant statement but has assured that unlike AT&T HTC One XL, upcoming HTC Android phones will resume unlocker bootloader support. Meanwhile, the HTC One XL AT&T phone is all ready for the big reception.

Unlike the HTC One X which sports a quad-core Tegra 3 chip, the AT&T HTC One XL Android phone features a dual-core Qualcomm S4 processor. This is probably to make best use of built in LTE support and maximize battery life.

HTC One X features a 4.7” capacitive touch display with a resolution of 720×1280 pixels, an 8 megapixel autofocus camera on the rear plate, a 1.3 megapixel front-facing camera with 720p video calling support, 1GB RAM, 32GB storage space and much more.

Other interesting features include Beats audio enhancement, video stabilization, Bluetooth 4.0, Wi-Fi, DLNA support, microUSB 2.0 port and of course, Android 4.0 ICS OS under the hood.

Earlier, HTC has officially allowed HTC bootloader unlocking through their bootloader unlocking program. While many of Verizon HTC phones are still covered under this program, AT&T’s latest and greatest Android smartphone, the HTC One XL will seemingly remain an exception.

Here’s HTC’s justification for the sad hearts:

“HTC is committed to listening to users and delivering customer satisfaction. Since announcing our commitment to unlockable bootloaders, HTC has worked to enable our customers to unlock the bootloader on more than 45 devices over the past six months. In some cases, however, restrictions prevent certain devices from participating in our bootloader unlocking program. Rest assured, HTC is committed to assisting developers in unlocking bootloaders for HTC devices and we’ll continue to unlock additional devices in the future.”

What do think of this move? Will it affect your decision to buy HTC One XL if you were planning to? Let us know in the comments below.

We will keep you posted as more details surface. Stay tuned!

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Flextronics, a company that’s been manufacturing Xbox 360 hardware units is said to be discretely working on the next generation Xbox hardware. In fact, reports say that a seperate division of the unit has been set up solely for working on the new Xbox consoles.

The new Xbox console is expected to sport a powerful AMD processor, extremely enhanced graphics, deep integration with  the next genertion Kinect Xbox accesory an integrated touchscreen and much more.

Apparently, the new division of Flextronics that’s been set up in Austin, Texas is building the hardware already. But that hardware of the Xbox Durango or Xbox Loop (either of the two probable names we’ve been hearing for what we have been addressing as Xbox 720) might very well be just a square box built for developers. Of course, it can also be the actual Xbox, but the probability of latter is significantly less feasible.

There’s no word from either Flextronics or Microsoft that directly testifies of a new Xbox being in the works, but an excerpt from Microsoft in this regard states as follows:

“Xbox 360 has found new ways to extend its lifecycle like introducing the world to controller-free experiences with Kinect and re-inventing the console with a new dashboard and new entertainment content partnerships. We are always thinking about what is next for our platform and how to continue to defy the lifecycle convention. Beyond that we do not comment on rumors or speculation”.

While details about the hardware and software specifications are pretty scarce, we do know now that something is being  materialized inside those labs and if it’s going to be released for the developers now, it will not be too long (at least relatively) before it meets our eyes.

Anyway, here’s a video pulled up by TechRadar showing what the next generation Xbox should be like. Head past the dot and let your opinions flow in.

We will keep you posted as more details surface. Stay tuned!

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According to a report by iLounge, the new iPhone is up and ready for a significant overhaul, and that has everything to do with the screen size of the device. The latest report mentions that the iPhone will boast a metal back with a larger display on the front.

The transition of the screen size will not affect the width of the screen but only the length, which according to the report, will be increased by as much as 10mm. Whether it will be called the iPhone 5 or something else, it will be sporting the new Gorilla Glass 2 for more protection.

The new iPhone will also be about 2mm thinner than iPhone 4S. The metal back will add more strength to its back than the ceramic. It is also expected to have a smaller dock connector.

The report also mentions that the new iPhone, which will be apparently christened as iPhone 5, will have a design which is more or less inspired by iPhone 4/4S but not the unconventional tear-drop form factor we’ve been hearing since long.

Other speculated features include a faster processor, increased RAM storage, better gaming graphics, built-in NFC support and much more. While the rest of the competition has switched to larger displays, a trend well received by most of the smartphone enthusiasts, Apple has remained consistent with iPhone’s screen size at 3.5”.

Since the iPhone was first released in the year 2007 until this day, Apple’s iPhone has denied any changes to its physical size and yet managed to impress everyone with its display size froze at 3.5”.

Apple is expected to unveil the iPhone 5 soon, when exactly we are not certain. Wonder what Ive has produced off the many from the drawing boards. We are just as excited to discover as you are and we will keep you posted with more details as they surface.

But until that happens, we suggest you take this with a pinch of salt. Stay tuned!

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Via: iLounge.com

The London’s Earl’s court was filled with enthusiasts and eager press restlessly waiting to get the first take on Samsung Galaxy S3 superphone. But, all that’s done now and the phone itself is very much official. So, let’s take a look at what cosmic diversities Samsung has packed inside its newest Galaxy phone.

To begin with, Samsung Galaxy S3 features a 4.8” HD Super AMOLED display, an amazing 8 megapixel primary camera, a 1.9 megapixels front-facing camera, advanced face recognition, incredible storage options, a quad-core processor, Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich OS and much more. More incredible details after the break.

The Galaxy S3 smartphone is almost entirely made up of plastic. It has narrower bezel than its predecessor which fairly compensates for the overall size of the device mostly contributed by the large Pentile Matrix display. Interestingly, it’s just 8.6mm thin and weighs only 133 grams.

The Pentile Matrix display uses a combination of Red, Green and Blue subpixels to form a pixel on the screen instead of the regual pixels. This causes the screen to generate more brighter, crisper and clearer colors while the HD Super AMOLED takes care of energy efficiency.

Featured: White Samsung Galaxy S3

Under the hood, driving smoothly all the graphical aesthetics and super fast performance is the EXYNOS Quad, the successor the Exynos 2. It has a ARM Mali-400/MP4 GPU. The EXYNOS Quad Processor has 4 cores, each with its own dynamic range and voltage.

Now, the big questions is where does the Galaxy S3 stand against the competition? To be frank (even if that’s too early to say), the Galaxy S3 outdoes almost every other smartphone in existence in terms of hardware specifications. The build quality doesn’t seem quite praise worthy (blame Samsung’s choice of plastic for that), but then we are yet to try our hands-on with the device.

On the software front, the Galaxy S3 does outperform the rest of the Android phones. Samsung’s has blessed it with a bunch of Galaxy S3 specific fetaures like ‘S Beam’, ‘Direct Call’ and so on. Besides that, the very fact that it runs Android 4.0 out of the box makes it considerably distinct.

Now the 8 megapixel camera may sound a little underpowered against the 12 megapixel found in other smartphones, but in reality, it is not. The camera is equipped with burst mode capabilities that allow it to shoot as much as 20 photos in one go. It also has zero shutter lag which practically gives you no delay or wait time between clicking shots.

The superphone will come in three storage variants – 16GB, 32GB and 64GB while at launch only the first two variants will be available and the 64GB will be eventually released to the market. Furthermore, the device supports up to 64GB of SDXC storage which makes the maximum storage space of the device as 128GB in the top-notch variant.

Under the hood, there’s Android 4.0 OS with all its awesomeness, integrated Google services, advanced Face Recognition support, an extension of the NFC-based Android Beam feature called S Beam which allows you to share as much as 1 GB in just 3 minutes, Direct Call feature that enables lift-to-call and such more pleasantries.

Galaxy S3 Android Phone: Beauty in Blue

It will be available in two colors including Marble White and Pebble Blue and will come with a 2100mAh powerful battery to power it all through the day and hopefully, even more.

The anticipated Galaxy S3 launch does bring solace to all those die-hard fanatics who were impatiently waiting for this day, however, we are unsure (yet) if the magnitude of that wait is justified. But that, we will find out soon.

As far as other phones are concerned, early test results seem to be favoring the GSIII, but the real competition is with the upcoming iPhone, which Apple is due to announce shortly. In the European markets, the device will be available from 29th May onwards and should soon make it to other markets too.

There’s nary a word with us on pricing and global availability yet, but we will be sure to hit back with an update as soon as it develops. Stay tuned!

Click here to know more about Samsung Galaxy S3 specs, features and everything you’d care about.

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Motrr, the company that makes Galileo has made an SDK available for developers to get creative with the product and come up with an entirely new software or just integrate Galileo into their existing app. Though its an interesting product and will sell like hot cakes, I doubt if many people will put it to use as intended or find any use of it in the regular course of day. It’s an awesome gadget, I just don’t think everyone has an extra iPhone to leave it on the mount for remote monitoring or given its screen size leaving it couple of feets away while on a video call might not be that great of an experience. After watching the videos I understand time-lapse could be an interesting use of this gadget.

I might be jumping the gun, after all I am yet to get my hands on it, but if you end-up buying one as well, be sure to let us know how often you put it to use.

Also, if you are planning to buy one, this might be the best time to pre-order as its selling for $85 on Kickstarter after (21st April) which it will come to the market at a retail price of around $130.

Click here to buy Galileo from Kickstarter or watch the following videos to see how it works.

Time-lapse shot using The Galileo

Most of these companies track user behavior and use other user related information to show relevant advertisements and improve product experience for the user. With so many privacy policies floating around it’s hard to tell who is tracking what.

I think technology and competition is the worst thing ever happened to user privacy and given the recent mishandling of user information, I am just as concerned as you are! So, few weeks ago, just when Kevin Rose announced that Oink will shut down, I left him a message on G+ urging him to consider working on a product that puts privacy ahead of everything else!

Here is a part of what I wrote to Kevin..

“Given the current state of e-mail service providers, Google, Microsoft, Yahoo, etc.. people like me have growing privacy concerns and I am pretty sure there are millions out there.

How about creating a product which only and only does email and if I am not happy with your service then I’ll take my email address (xxxxx@gmail.com) somewhere else, just like I can take my mobile number to any service provider. No ads, no partners, no sharing of personal information for targeted ads, no scanning through the emails, etc… I am ready to pay up to $10 per month for a service like this. I am sure you will find a million others who will pay too.

All the current email providers do what they like because of the fact that our email addresses are locked with them. If we decide to move, we’ll not only lose the email address which is no less than an online identity now, but also years of emails.
So create a service which will encourage competition and let customers chose whats right for them.

I know the idea of being able to take your email address to other service providers sound crazy, but how else will you change the world? I don’t have the technical expertise or a team that can drill into the idea to see how feasible it is, but you can, you have the technical expertise, the team, network, contacts and everything else to make it happen.

I am not in it for money or some sort of success, I’ve just have had enough of these tech giants taking our privacy and opinion for granted. I am in it for choice!”

I never heard from Kevin, but it made all the sense when Kevin announced that the Oink team is joining Google, so there was no way he was going to comment or even acknowledge my message.

But something happened this week which tells me I am not the only one concerned about my privacy, there are other who are not only thinking of putting privacy first but also finding way to do it.

Nicholas Merrill, of The Calyx Institute is raising funds to launch an ISP that encrypts user information and protects it from government and other agencies. Nicholas plans to launch encrypted cloud storage and file transfer service followed by e-mail using public key cryptography which makes it impossible for even the email provider to read into your emails. Only the owner of the account can decrypt the encryption.

The Calyx Institute project is currently listed on Indiegogo to raise initial funding of $1 million to kick start this project. I encourage our readers to contribute to the fund and make this project a reality. Given the current state of privacy and how companies handle our information, projects like these are the only ray of hope for people who want to keep their online life just as private as their life offline.

Image credit: http://protect.iu.edu/privacy/cartoons

I moved to Windows Phone, Nokia’s Lumia 900 about a week ago and I’ve had an awesome experience with the Windows platform so far, but not so much with the applications. It’s clearly a half-assed attempt from some of the biggest and most popular names in the app world.

When it comes to app quality, it goes without saying that my point of reference are apps running on iPhone. So when I use some of my favorite applications like Facebook, WhatsApp, Hulu, etc.. I can’t help but compare the user experience of these apps with the ones on iPhone and the results are below average at best.

Most of the apps have features on iPhone, that are completely missing on Windows phones! I don’t get it; if a particular feature worked for millions of users on the iPhone, what makes the developers think Windows Phone users won’t like or need it? It’s a no brainer!

Though most of these applications offer basic functionality and get the job done it feels like they are on the Windows Marketplace just for the heck of it. If you consider Windows Phone any less important than iPhone or its closest rivals because of the number of users, do all of us a favor, don’t develop apps for the “less important” platforms and small number of users, but if you decide to do it, we expect you to deliver an experience that is comparable to apps on other popular platforms.

I really hope this write-up reaches some of the developers working on popular windows mobile apps. So, if you are a windows phone user or just someone who appreciates good quality apps, share it and spread the word!

Thank You!

This is not a complete review, these are my first impressions as I’ve only been using this phone for the past 24hrs.

Lets take the good, the bad and the ugly approach and talk about things I liked the most (The Good) followed by things that could have been better (The Bad) and few that are outright worst (The Ugly)!

The Good

Windows Phone OS: Beautiful! I never thought I’ll use this term to describe any other mobile OS but, HP’s WebOS. It’s obvious that Microsoft paid great deal of attention to the details to ensure that the OS stands out on it own. It’s well polished (mostly) and ready for the prime time. I’ve been an iPhone user for the last three years and I couldn’t help but notice that there is so much one can do on a Windows Phone without installing a single app vs iOS.

Users can post messages, keep up with their family and friends on Facebook and Twitter without installing any applications. Check-in to places and look for places around you without installing applications like Foursquare or Around me, etc..

One of the other small but awesome features I like is how pictures from your friends albums start appearing in the pictures app once you login to Facebook or Twitter. You can select a set of friends who you want to keep up with and every time a friend from the select group uploads a picture on Facebook or Twitter, it appears on your phone without having to search for it. Pretty cool!

Live Tiles: Brilliant concept. You can pin almost anything to the “Start” screen on your windows phone to keep up with that piece of information without having to navigate through multiple screens or searching for applications. For example you can pin a specific folder from Gmail on the Start screen and dive right into it without having to launch the email app and navigate to that folder.

You can create Group tiles by adding a bunch of contacts to a group and “pin” it as a live tile. Every time you open that group, it shows all updates from Facebook, Twitter, recent emails, text messages sent to each of the contacts in that group, etc.. Within 24 hours I’ve grown to love how social Windows Phone is and I probably won’t got back to an iPhone again.

The Bad! (Can be better!)

Nokia Lumia 900: Awesome phone! I like the screen size, touch-n-feel, the texture, etc.. Its not too heavy and slides into the pocket without a problem. I feel Nokia could have done a better job shaving the edges, there is a lot of padding around the screen, getting rid of that would have reduced the overall size of the handset while maintaining the bigger screen size.

I’ve had some voice issues with the phone, if I don’t keep the talking end of the phone close to my mouth, I am not very audible and the moment I turn the volume more than half way up, person on the other end start to hear echo of their own voice. It might be a little too early to say its a definite problem, but at least two people I’ve talk to have pointed these issues out.

Windows Phone UI: Though I feel that the overall experience with Windows Phone 7 OS is great, it can be improved by making changes to the UI to eliminate a few swipes and clicks to complete a task.

For example, if the phone is in sleeping or lock mode, you cannot take the call unless you slide the screen up and hit “Answer”. That’s a two step process, where as it should just be one, sliding the screen up should automatically answer the call. Another one I can think of is the notification system. When you receive a text message or some sort of notification shows towards the top of the screen just like it does on iPhone but these notifications are read-only, meaning, nothing happens when you click on these notifications. Ideally, on-touch these notifications should open the application that triggered the notification, but that not the case.

Apps: List wouldn’t be complete without talking about the Apps in the Marketplace, would it? I’ve already installed most of the applications I regularly use on the iPhone, but given that the market place has about 70k apps only, there are a LOT of apps yet to come to the Windows Phone OS.

Microsoft has done a splendid job with the OS itself, now the success of the phone completely relies on how quickly the of apps in the market place grow to offer a better and bigger experience to Windows Phone users.

The Ugly!

Camera: Camera is the only component of this phone that makes me feel like I am downgrading from iPhone 4s, otherwise everything is great! I noticed some sort of a strange cast in the middle of the frame and the white balance is completely off.

For now that the only thing that makes the ugly list, I’ll update this post as I continue to use this phone and Windows Phone OS.

My overall experience has been great so far. Though I’ll have to compromise by giving up on few applications that I use to use on iPhone, I think its totally worth it. Windows Phone OS is by far the most social mobile platform I’ve ever used. If you were thinking about getting a smartphone or maybe dump your iPhone, Android or Blackberry and try something new, I bet you wont regret your move to Windows Phone OS with Nokia Lumia 900!

If you’ve recently upgraded to Nokia Lumia 900 or Windows Phone OS, feel free to share your experience with us.