22/01/2013: Microsoft confirms Surface Pro availability and pricing, EE offers improved 4G plans, AMD appointments and much more!

Microsoft Surface Pro gets arrival time and price tags!

   Microsoft’s Surface RT tablet has proved to be an interesting device, it's not running fully fledged Windows, but the device definitely has a place and more importantly a future at Microsoft. The new Surface Pro on the other hand is a totally different beast. Running full Windows 8 on relatively conventional hardware, all of which is crammed into a tablet form factor, this truly is the mobile computing experience. 

   We've had to wait a little while to hear about the Surface Pro's but alas we now know the devices will be available in both America and Canada from February the 9th! The tablets are a step up in price from the Surface RT's and so this bunch starts from $899! 

   The $899 will buy you 64GB of solid-state storage as standard, as well as a digital Surface pen, but if you add another hundred dollars you can have a 128GB of storage. 

   The rest of the device's internals include Intel’s Core i5 processor and HD Graphics 4000 GPU pairing, 4GB of dual-channel memory and a 10.6-inch Clear Type display which is Full HD, 1920 x 1080, and offers 10-point multitouch and support for the stylus we mentioned earlier!

   The device will have a good set of connections which include; WiFi a/b/g/n, Bluetooth 4.0, a USB 3.0 port, a microSDXC memory card slot, a headset jack, a Mini DisplayPort, and of course the connector for those keyboard covers! Your device will be nicely rounded out with a microphone, stereo speakers, and a two 720p capable webcams, one on each side of the device, all of which should make those Skype calls work well, as will the kickstand!

   All of this is crammed into a case which is 10.81 x 6.81 x 0.53 inches and will weigh less than 2lbs! One interesting addition is a special 48W power supply which has a little 5W USB port for making sure your accessories keep going as long as the tablet does!

   You can pick one of these up from Microsoft stores or online, unless of course you would prefer to pop to Staples or Best Buy if you live in the USA! If you live outside of the US or Canada you are still greeted with the 'Coming Soon' message, so we might see something soon about wider releases!
Via Engadget.

EE out new limited edition 4G plans with extra data!

   Since EE, the terrible twosome of Orange and T-Mobile, outed their 4G plans they were widely criticised by tech websites for their extortionate prices and very limited data options. Surprisingly it actually seems like EE took a little bit of notice and they've offered up a few more tariffs which have caught our attention this time! 

   EE are today offering some more less expensive plans the first of which is £31 per month plan costs, some £5 per month less than EE's cheapest standard offer. This plan will be available from January 31st to March 31st and it will include your normal unlimited minutes and texts, 500MB of data and it will require a 24 month commitment, but you will now be able to get some more inexpensive phones which have 4G capabilities. You can get both the HTC One SV and the Windows Phone 8 powered Nokia Lumia 820 from £29.99, which is actually a saving of nearly £100 compared to standard EE deals!

   Most of you will probably be more drawn in by this one though. It's designed for 'super users', who currently make up less than 1% of EE's users, but you can get your hands on 20GB of data, as well as those unlimited minutes and texts, for £46. If you want a phone with that the contract price jumps up to £61. You can get the deals in store from today all the way up to February the 28th!

   These still aren't cheap plans by any stretch of the imagination, but we'll have to wait for 4G deployment from other networks before we see some sort of value! For the moment we're sticking with unlimited 3G data!

The press release is available here.

In other news:

• The guys over at TechnoBuffalo have got their hands on a supposedly leaked roadmap of recent Samsung devices which will supposedly confirm the existence of the Galaxy Note 8.0 and the Galaxy Xcover 2! Head over to their site if you're interested, but they appear to be pretty much what we covered here and here!

• Phones4U has partnered with EE to create another UK based MNVO, this one is called Life Mobile. We're not sure exactly what unique features Life will bring, but we expect this is Phones4U's answer to the Carphone Warehouse's TalkMobile!
  Via EE.

• Slashgear things that this Q1 will work out as being one of the best periods of iPhone sales in Apple's history! This would certainly disprove reports of Apple cutting order numbers if this proves to be right. You can check out their mathematics here.

• HMV will temporarily be taken under the wing of Canadian company Hilco. They are the people who have previously saved Polaroid and they essentially own all of HMV's UK assets now that they have bought the debt off of Lloyds and the Royal Bank of Scotland. This deal is supposedly popular with record labels and film studios. On the plus side gift vouchers can now be used again!
  Via BBC.

• Huawei's P1 smartphone is currently available at the cheap price of £200 from the UK brand of Expansys! Their tweet embedded below will give you all the information you need to pick one up!

Huawei Ascend P1 now only £199.99 - #SAVE £95!bit.ly/WEud4c

— EXPANSYS.com (@expansysUK) January 22, 2013

• AMD has hired two senior engineers from Apple and Qualcomm to boost their system-on-chip (SoC) development.
  Charles Matar, came to fame at Qualcomm, where he worked on low-power and embedded chip design. He will be AMD's vice president of System-on-Chip Development according to Reuters' sources.
  Wayne Meretsky used to be employed by Cupertino's finest and he was charged with processors for i devices. He is AMD's new vice president of software IP development!
  Via Reuters.

And finally, If you pick up an Xperia Tablet Z from Sony then it seems you'll also have the privilege of charging your Xperia Z straight from your tablet! Only thing is that the only device which will support this currently is the Xperia Z, so hopefully Sony can add a few more devices to this list!
Via XperiaBlog.

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04/01/2013: HTC blame poor advertising for poor sales, Spotify suspends song downloads, Corning tease Gorilla Glass 3 and much more!

HTC's Peter Chou blames lack of advertising for poor sales.

   HTC's chairman, Peter Chou, spoke to the Wall Street Journal yesterday and said that he thought his company's poor performance last year was down to a lack of marketing and advertising budget.

   He specifically outlined his challenges of competing with the "strong and very resourceful" marketing of his competitors, presumably he means Apple and Samsung, who have to ability to pou "lots of money into marketing." 

   Chou continued. "the worst for HTC has probably passed. 2013 will not be too bad/" Interestingly he didn't say good either, so he's realistic about the challenges which his company faces as they try to go toe to toe with the behemoths from Cupertino and Korea. The best way HTC see of challenging this pairing is to offer "unique products" and presumably offering the first 1080p phone, the Droid DNA, was a start on this path. 

   We're not sure whether HTC will stick religiously to a 'hero phone' strategy like they tried to to last year with their One series, but we'll have to wait and see what they bring to CES next week! Naturally you'll be able to get all the important news from each day right here!
WSJ Via Engadget.

Spotify suspends music download options!

   If you're a Spotify member and you try to download a song to keep today you'll be greeted with this message: "We're no longer supporting new download purchases on Spotify." Instead this will direct you to a a lovely FAQ page on the company's site.

   For the moment the songs you have already downloaded will still appear in your library and will play despite the current embargo. At the moment no one is sure but once the song meets its expiry date it will likely not be able to play any more.

   Spotify's FAQ page, on the matter, currently reads, "We’re currently not offering new download purchases on Spotify. You can still use downloads you’ve already purchased" and "even though it’s not possible to buy downloads using Spotify Desktop, you’ll still be able to use your Spotify gift card, as long as it’s one of the cards that features 'Downloads' as an option." Which is good news for those of you who just got a lovely Spotify giftcard for Christmas!
Via PocketLint.

Corning have teased Gorilla Glass 3: Arriving at CES?

   Corning's Gorilla Glass is one of the most popular options amongst manufacturers for offering you strong and long lasting screen protection on your mobile phone and it's employed on both the iPhone 5 and the Samsung Galaxy S3 amongst other devices. Both of those phones use Gorilla Glass 2 which is very good in itself! 

   Corning wasn't going to rest on their laurels though and they've teased the arrival of 'something tougher' and in this case it'll be Gorilla Glass 3 which is said to be three times stronger than Gorilla Glass 2! Other enhancements include 40 per cent less scratches than the last version and 50 per cent better shock resistance, both of which will make Gorilla Glass 3 the new standard for tough phone and tablet displays! We expect to see this screen launch on some of the devices manufacturers bring to CES next week! We're starting to get excited!
Via T3.

In other news:

• Twitter has received a valuation from Forbes that Twitter has been valued at $11 billion (£6.8 billion) in some recent trades an increase of $3 billion since August of 2011 when it was valued at $8 billion (£4.9 billion).
  Via Wired.

• The Nexus 10 is currently back in stock in the UK Play Store. The 16GB is the only available option at the moment and you can pick it up for £319 here!

• Talking of tablets Microsoft's Surface Pro tablets will be arriving on January 26th if CNET's calls to US stores turn out to be correct!

• Acer's Iconia B, or B1 as we used to know it, looks to be all but set for it's release after CES! A couple of days back it was spied on Acer USA's website and it is set to go on sale in India RS $7,999, which is equivalent to $147 USD. That money buys you a dual-core 1.2Ghz processor, a 7" 1024x600 resolution display, 512MB of RAM, 8GB of internal storage and Android 4.1! We're not sure whether this will be coming to the whole world, but with a US version of the site having been published we'd be surprised if it wasn't!
  Via PhoneArena.

• EE is now offering Femtocells to their customers and they go by the name of the EE Signal Box. Unfortunately the devices only give you 3G signal through your home broadband but if you're struggling for signal we're sure you won't mind not getting your 4G connection! You can check the device out here and we're not sure about the cost at the moment but we assume EE will just lend you one if you're out of range of their network!
  Via Coolsmartphone.

• In the last couple of years there's been a lot of fines issued from countries around the world to Samsung, LG and four Taiwanese firms for their parts in the LCD screen price fixing issue which happened a couple of years ago. Today we've seen a fine of £35m come in from Chinese trade regulators for this crime, which compared to the £357 million fines issued in America this one seems like a bit of a let off!
  Via BBC.

And finally, LG has released a little CES teaser that hints at what is coming in the next week. Now the video doesn't give much away, but it looks like LG could be offering up some interesting devices! Many people believe there's a small glimpse of the Optimus G2 which is rumoured to include a 5.5-inch display with a 1080p resolution as well as a 13-megapixel camera, Android 4.1 Jelly Bean and possible a bump to 3GB of RAM.

Via Recombu.

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