31/08/2012

Are these two of Nokia's new Windows Phone 8 devices?

   Given last weeks Apple vs Samsung ruling, quite a lot of people have been turning to Microsoft to see what their upcoming Windows Phone 8 will be running on. Yesterday we saw what Samsung had planned, that was the ATIV S and it was stunnning! Not to be out done it seems someone has been digging around at Nokia and the results of that are two new phones.

   The first is reportedly called the Lumia 920 and will feature a 4.5" screen and some of Nokia's much heralded Pureview camera tech, but it's safe to assume that it won't be a 41MP sensor this time! This one is the device pictured above.

   The second phone is the Lumia 820 and as we expected isn't quite as premium as the 920. But, you won't get the PureView branding, but an LED flash is a banker if the the leaked photo is accurate. The tipster also notes that there's a 4.3-inch display but we don't know if the resolution will be HD yet!

Huawei Ascend G600 released!

   That phone in the picture above is Huawei's latest foray into the smartphone market, the G600. Yes it looks like both the Samsung Galaxy S2 and the LG Optimus 4X HD and the specs sheet puts it near enough on par with the former.

   The phone touts, as two of it's key features, Android 4.0 and an eight-megapixel auto focusing rear camera. On top of that there's a pair of speakers with DTS surround sound, a solid 4.5-inch IPS LCD screen with a resolution of 960 x 540. The phone has a 1.2 GHz dual-core processor from Qualcomm, that'll happily power most things you throw at. Don't worry about this chipset draining the battery though as the large 1930 mAh lithium polymer battery will get you through most of the day and it'll charge from nothing to full in around four hours. The phone promises to start quickly with power on in only 5 second!

   The phone has a number of other features including; Wi-Fi Direct, Bluetooth, NFC and DLNA compatibility. Storage is ok too because there is 768 MB of RAM and 4 GB of ROM storage. But, don't worry you can put up to 32GB's of extra storage in with the MicroSD card slot!

   And just for the record there's white and black varieties coming and the phone will be available this autumn!

In other news:

• Apple's upcoming iPhone might be facing a slight delay because one of the three screen producers, Sharp, is having issues pumping out enough of the custom screens to meet Apple's huge demand. This might not be true but brace yourself for limited availability when the phone launches!

• Google's efforts to create a driveless car have been acknowledged in California as the State has now said it is legal to drive(?) the cars on the road!

• Since Facebook's stock market floatation things haven't exactly gone swimmingly, quite the opposite. Today things got a little worse too as their predicted revenue for 2012 got chopped down by $1billion!!!

• Huawei's MediaPad 10 FHD will ship globally in September complete with it's 1920x1200 screen and it's keyboard dock!

• Apple vs Samsung rumbles on with Samsung promising to sue Apple if they have any sort of implementation of LTE on their upcoming iPhone (Sammy owns about 10% of the world's LTE patents) but this might be FRAND technology. Also, Japan is struggling to find any patent infringement which is good news for Samsung!

• Also, it seems Apple and Google have sat down together for patent talks, but there's nothing more to say about it than that there is more meetings to come!

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Apple Vs. Samsung Part 1 concludes.

   The clash of the two biggest names in the Mobile Phone world came to a head in America over night. Jurors has sat through hours and hours of testimonies and they had reached their decisions.

   The conclusions they reached supported, some would say rightly, Apple. Samsung's punishment came in to the tune of a $1billion!! Almost all of Apple's patents were upheld and none, yes absolutely none of Samsung's patents were found to be valid!

   Just as an example, here is a list of devices that show the fines that made up that $billion;

• Infuse 4G: $44,792,974
• Prevail: $57,000,000+
• Mesmerize: $53,123,612
• Replenish: $3,350,256
• Transform: $954,060

Some perspective:

    Overnight there has been lots and lots of reaction from over the web but let's put this in some kind of perspective;

• Apple's had a win here, but then there's appeals to come so the figure might come down a small amount.
• Samsung did copy Apple's design on the original Galaxy S and they utilised Apple's 'trade dress' for their own advantage. So it is a fair decision.
• This ruling does NOT affect newer Samsung devices such as the Galaxy S3 or Galaxy Note 10.1 who's design is notably original!

   The $1billion is about a sixth of Samsung's $6billion profit from Q2 alone! They can easily take the hit and it will make the company more careful and original in future.   

Is this the end of Android?

   The patents that Apple has had 'validated' by this ruling are not the be all and end all for Android. Yes this is undoubtedly a set back for Android manufacturers and it may give Apple the confidence to go after them more aggressively. But, there's the option to license these patents or as we have seen with HTC, there are ways to get around Apple's patents. The 'bounceback' patent has been circumvented by HTC with a slightly edited animation that is widely regarded as an improvement anyway! 

   Also it's worth mentioning that Apple manufacturers all create their own skins and none of them apart from LG's look like iOS anymore. So this is not really an issue!

Windows Phone looking good now?   

   There's also been a lot of commentary overnight about the impact this will have on Windows Phone and whether manufacturers will be pushed into M$ arms.

   This is unlikely, companies may get slightly more cosy and release a few more Microsoft devices, but most will stick with Android because it sells extremely well. We expect Android manufacturers to continue their work on Android until the 'licensing fees' become more than the cost of buying copies of Microsoft's OS and they'll probably continue to after that as well!

   We'll see how this one plays out though!

What now?

   It is conceivable that Samsung will stop releasing as many devices in the US market, so essentially the country has restricted their choices with this decision. But, on the contrary Samsung might be more determined to go after market share now and come out with absolutely stellar devices in the country.

   This court proceeding isn't quite over yet either; Apple has until August 29, next Wednesday, to file their opinions, and Samsung will have 14 days after that to respond to the decision. Once Samsung has filed its response on September 12, Apple will have only two days to file a response of its own. This will all culminate with a preliminary injunction hearing on September 20. Stay tuned folks, because even though the trial is over, the fight between Apple and Samsung isn’t finished yet.

   And just for reassurance if you think Apple is going to be taking your phone off you, they can't! If you've bought a phone that infringes Apple's patents then you will not have anyone coming to your house and you are free to use it until you no longer want it! This isn't mobile armegeddon!

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