18/01/2013: Samsung Galaxy Xcover II and the LG Optimus G Pro leaked! Rumours of GAME buying out HMV and much more!

Samsung's Galaxy Xcover II leaked!

   The guys over SamMobile have done it again with yet another leak and this time it is the follow up to Samsung's ultra durable Galaxy Xcover! The full list of specs includes:

• Code name: Skomer

• Android: version 4.1 / 4.2 Jelly Bean

• Official name: GALAXY X Cover 2

• Product codes: GT-S7110

• Battery: 1700 mAh

• Dimension: 130.5×67.7×11.9mm , 148 gram.

• Display: 4” TFT 480×800 WVGA

• GSM networks: EDGE (850/900/1800/1900) HSPA+21.1Mbps, HSUPA 5.76Mbps (850/900/1900/2100)

• Camera 5 Megapixel (BACK)

• Camera 0.3 megapixel (FRONT)

• 4GB intern + microSD (up to 32GB)

• Connections:  BT 4.0, USB 2.0, Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n, A-GPS

   Now this isn't going to be a high end device, but with extra durability and reasonable specs this should prove to be right up some people's streets! What do you think? Let us know in the comments below!
Via SamMobile.

LG's Optimus G Pro leaks as well!

   The leaks seem to have been the order of today's news and so we're not surprised to hear something about next gen devices from LG given their lack of new devices at CES. The LG Optimus G Pro, as pictured above, will supposedly be a new device destined for NTT DoCoMo. The rumoured specs will reportedly include:

• 5-inch 1920 x 1080 p display

• Android Jelly Bean

• 1.7Ghz Snapdragon S4 Pro APQ8064

• 2GB RAM

• 32GB internal storage

• 13-megapixel camera

• 2.4-megapixel front-facing camera

• 3000mAh battery

• 4G LTE

• 139 x 70 x 10.1mm

   This will certainly be a flagship device and it will have a couple of extra NTT DoCoMo specific features such as One-Seg and NOTTV support. With a bit of luck this will have a cousin which will arrive in the United States and Europe, but we'll have to wait for MWC to find out about that!
Via Engadget.

In other news:

• Asus UK's store now has the music dock for the Nexus 7 available! The dock can be yours for £24.99 (plus £6.00 shipping), only thing is that the dock will be with you within 14 days of your order, so we're not entirely sure if this is pre-order because the product will only display if you directly search for it on the site, no explicit link is available so this one may have been let out of the bag a bit early! You can order the dock here, but we'd recommend waiting until this is officially available just to be safe!
  Via AndroidCentral.

• Sharp has “nearly halted” production of 9.7 inch displays for Apple's iPad, supposedly the result of people choosing Apple's iPad Mini instead of the full version of the iPad. Reuters has cited “industry sources with knowledge of Sharp's production plans,” as they describe how Sharp has decreased production of 9.7in screens at its Kameyama, Japan plant to the lowest possible level.
  Via ITProportal. 

• The Samsung Galaxy S4 has supposedly been spotted in some AnTuTu benchmarks. The model numbers SHV-E300S and GT-I9500 have both been spotted and a few of the benchmarks have noted that there is Android 4.2.1 Jelly Bean running on a 1.8Ghz Exynos 5 Octa-core processor!
  Via SamMobile.

• LG has announced that their Optimus G handset has shipped one million units! Now that might not sound like much but the phone hasn't landed in either China or Europe yet so that's not bad going!
  Via TheNextWeb.

• ABI Research have published some findings about Apple's projected performance over the next few years. In line with most estimates, they predicted that the company’s market share will plateau this year and will reportedly remain flat in the next 5 years!
  Via PhoneArena.

• We already know Sony is aiming for the high-end smartphone market to save their company. Sony CEO, Hirai said, “We are more in toward the high end of the market as opposed to trying to get into the commoditized portion” where Sony’s phone unit operating loss remains huge. We see where Sony is trying to go, but they face very stiff competition from Samsung and Apple if they want to go for the top end of the mobile market.
  Via Bloomberg.

And finally, HMV may well have a very unlikely buyer coming to the fore. That buyer was one of the first companies to feel the squeeze on the high street and that was GAME. GAME boss, Martyn Gibbs, expressed his interest in buying a limited number of stores, but he didn't offer anything concrete. There is currently 40 HMV branches where there is no GAME stores so these places could well double up as the best of both stores! We'll have to wait and see how this plays out!

Via CNet.

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Editorial: The Future of Phones!

Nokia's Morph: A wearable dream of the future!

   The image above gives you Nokia's vision of the future of smartphones and undoubtedly it looks cool! Samsung share a similar vision and are also aiming for the bendy, unbreakable screens for tomorrows world. But, I'm not sure that is where the future lies. I think that's just the future for PDA's or maybe smartphone accessories.

   Let me explain; things like watch attachments for your phone, which give you a snapshot of what's going on on your phone, without you actually physically taking it out and having to look at it, would be insanely useful. Imagine a touchscreen watch which is essentially a notifications area that will let you control music playback, reply to emails and texts in a fun, bendy and interactive way that you can attach around your wrist, like the Nokia Morph concept above.

Dockable devices like Asus' Padfones will be the future.

   This is where I think companies have a big part to play in the future of phones; they will want to keep the device divide like this; Smartphones-Tablets-PC, each one of them in a market of their own. It makes sense, they earn money from three separate devices.

   I have a different plan for the future and in my head I merge the ideas of Asus, with their Padfone and Motorola with their Laptop Docks and then I take it even further! In my future the phone is the brain of all of the operations, the phone will have the specs and processing prowess of the computers of today or maybe even more (they're getting close already). They can be any size you want, depending on the amount of hard-drive memory you want, the size of the screen you want, the quality of the camera and any other feature you can think of, so in that regard they remain similar to today's.

   This is where the laptop dock, tablet dock, watch notification area/remote control display and ultimately a desktop PC dock all come in. Whatever accessory you want to view your 'phone' on is only a connection, physical or wireless, away. An example would be, if want to do some browsing all you have to do is dock your phone and hey presto you have your phones display on a tablet screen, laptop screen or desktop computer screen and your work can begin.

   Your phone becomes your digital world, you work, relax, play and do your other 'habits' with your phone and if you don't want to do it on the phone itself you have a full set of accessories to use with it. This completely eliminates any need for multiple devices. Think of it another way, you don't need an iPhone, iPad and a Mac. Instead you need an iPhone, an iPad dock and a Mac dock.

   At all times your information is exactly where you left it, there is no need for syncing because it really all is in one place, this is truly post PC, because your PC is with you in your pocket and it handles everything.

   The implications in my mind are endless. A good example to explain exactly what I'm on about is that you have a movie on your phone. If you're in bed and you want to start watching it then you place your phone into your tablet dock and can easily hold it and watch it in your hand, held above your head, if that's your preference. You fall asleep watching the film. The next day you're sitting on a train, you're bored but your laptop doesn't have the film synced to it, in today's world. That's not a problem when your phone is your computer. You whip out your laptop dock and watch it on the table on your laptop with your phone docked in it. Then you arrive at work, your boss isn't in yet and you have ten minutes of the film left, but at the moment your work PC doesn't have the film on it either. No problem, in the future you can just dock your phone and finish of the last ten minutes before he turns up late at 9:05, he's the boss no one shouts at him and he can't tell you off for cheekily finishing off your film.

   Ok, that was a silly little story but I think it conveys the point, phones can be so much more and I think they should be. The future's coming and at the moment Motorola and Asus have the vision but they don't quite have it in them to fully commit to a full tech revolution. I really hope this could be the future and for some reason, if this were to come true, my money would be on Apple to deliver it.

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