Intel introduces Atom Z2420 for emerging markets, Lava announced as the partner

Intel just unveiled its new SoC platform for value smartphones in emerging markets. It is codenamed the Atom Z2420, and it directly aimed at the ever burgeoning mid range smartphone market that craves for powerful hardware. And it looks like Intel might have just the solution for value smartphones, yes, that’s what they call mid range devices now. The platform was unveiled today along with a reference device with a 3.5 inch screen, 5 megapixel camera that can shoot 7 frames per second and 1080p full HD video.

The Atom Z2420 has a 1.2 GHz single core processor with hyper threading technology and incorporates the Power VR SGX540 GPU from Imagination technologies. The SGX540 was introduced with the Galaxy S, if we remember right. According to Inte, this chip enables low – mid range smartphone to be blazing fast in web browsing and major multimedia tasks. And talking about multimedia, Intel has made sure that this reference platform is choc a bloc filled with every feature that you can imagine, including full support for most of the video codecs and full HD 1080p encoding/decoding with Intel Wireless display support. We find it a pretty impressive feat for this reference platform. And yes it runs Android and can run all the apps and games, much like the Intel XOLO.

Intel also claims that they have massively improved upon in the battery life department claiming that they can last even longer than rival ARM platforms like the Qualcomm S4. And that’s not it, it includes full support for micro SD, dual SIMs and FM radio. Now we are talking! This pretty much sums up the mid range device range. This platform is all set to be utilised by partners like Lava, Acer and Safaricom. With the popularity of the Xolo range of devices here, the Z2420 based devices can’t come sooner.

Image via Engadget

Alcatel One Touch X’Pop, S’Pop and T’Pop Android Phones

We’re hearing plenty of news from the Alcatel camp today and now we have details of the new 2013 lineup of budget Android smartphones from the company. These One Touch handsets will be released in Q1 and available in Asia, Africa and Europe. The three phones on the way are the One Touch X’Pop, S’Pop and T’Pop with the X’Pop top dog followed by the S’Pop and the T’Pop in that order, although all have something to offer those who want an affordable smartphone.

Earlier today we told readers about the quietly impressive Alcatel One Touch Scribe HD 5-inch smartphone and also new Alcatel One Touch tablets so Alcatel is certainly setting out purposefully into the New Year. Each of the three One Touch Pop phones detailed here come in two varieties, one offering HSPA connectivity over 900/2100MHz bands and the other touting HSPA over 850/1900/2100MHz bands. Quad-band GSM connectivity is available on every model.

We’ll start with the best of these three One Touch handsets, the X’Pop with specs including a 1GHz dual-core processor, 4.5-inch qHD display with resolution of 960 x 540, 512MB of RAM and microSD card slot. It also features a 5-megapixel rear camera and a VGA front-facing camera and runs on Android 4.1 jelly Bean and will be released later this month, according toEngadget.

Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 and 600 quad-core processors announced, offers speeds up to 2.3 GHz

Qualcomm has announced Snapdragon 800 and Snapdragon 600 series at CES 2013. The Snapdragon 800 is the high-end processor that has quad core Krait 400 CPU and Adreno 330 GPU. It would offer speeds of up to 2.3 GHz per core and up to 75 percent better performance than the Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 Pro processors. It can also play UltraHD or 4K videos and has built-in 4G LTE Cat 4 and 802.11ac support. The Snapdragon 600 series has quad-core Krait 300 CPU running at up to 1.9 GHz and Adreno 320 GPU that offers 40% better performance than the Snapdragon S4 Pro processor. The company has also announced Snapdragon 400 series of processors for mid-range phones and Snapdragon 200 series aimed at entry level smartphones.

Features of new Qualcomm Snapdragon Processors

• Snapdragon 800 Processors – up to 2.3 GHz quad-core Krait 400 CPU, Adreno 330 GPU, 4G LTE Cat 4 and 802.11ac, UltraHD 4K video support DTS-HD, Dolby Digital Plus and 7.1 surround sound, Dual Image Signal Processors (ISPs) up to 55MP. aimed at premium smartphones, Smart TVs, digital media adapters and tablets.
• Snapdragon 600 Processors – up to 1.9 GHz quad-core Krait 300 CPU, Adreno 320 GPU, LPDDR3 RAM, aimed at  mid-high tier smartphones and tablets.
• Snapdragon 400 Processors  - aimed at high volume smartphones and tablets.
• Snapdragon 200 Processors – aimed at entry level smartphones.

The Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 and the Snapdragon 600 processors are expected to be available in commercial devices by mid-2013.

Huawei Ascend D2 announced at CES, 5 inch 1080p 1.5 GHz Quad core Android Jellybean

We have seen the leaks and we definitely saw this coming. Yes, Huawei has unveiled the new Ascend D2 and Ascend Mate at CES today, at their press conference. It has a 5 inch full HD 1080p screen, which means that it will join the ranks of HTC’s J Butterfly and many more Android devices to come this year. The phone sports a 1.5 GHz Quad core in house K3V3 processor and runs on Android Jellybean. The battery is rated at 3000 mAH and the device sports a 13 megapixel rear camera.

As we said earlier, the screen is a 5 inch 1080p LCD TFT display with a pixel density of 443 ppi, the same as the HTC J butterfly. Interesting facts about the camera is that it has a f2.2 aperture and  a hybrid IR filter. The device also boasts a very loud loudspeaker that can be heard from 2 metres away. Additional features being dust proof and water proof.

The device measures at 9.9mm in thickness and has a curved design, with a plastic back. Huawei also calls this the “most powerful” smartphone. The jury is still out on that one and we are sure that our friends at AnandTech will clear those doubts soon. Is Huawei hitting this out of the park? We’ll see for sure, soon.

The Huawei Ascend mate was also launched along with the Ascend D2, sporting a bigger screen and similar internals save for the display, which is 720p on the Ascend Mate. You can check out the Ascend Mate here.

Sony Xperia Z with 5-inch 1080p display, 1.5 GHz quad-core processor, 13MP camera announced

Sony has finally announced the Xperia Z, their latest flagship at CES 2013. It has a 5-inch Full HD (1920×1080 pixels) Reality display with mobile Bravia Engine 2 and is powered by 1.5GHz quad-core Qualcomm APQ 8064 processor with Adreno 320 GPU. It has a 13MP camera with LED Flash, Exmor RS sensor for HDR images and video. It has IP55 and IP57 ratings for dust and water resistance and has PlayStation Mobile support.

Munitio Nines Tactical 9mm Bullet Earphones with debatable price

We’re already seeing news coming from CES 2013 in Las Vegas and a unique item that has come to our attention so far is the Munitio Nines Tactical 9mm bullet Earphones. The increasing desire for high-end headphones should be fulfilled by these earphones and they certainly stand out amongst the many others aimed at this end of the market. Munitio aims itself at the urban lifestyle brand and we think the design of the Nines Tactical 9mm Earphones will appeal to many.

We have said in the title Munitio Nines Tactical 9mm Bullet Earphones with debatable price because we are not too sure if the price is too steep or just right. Before you flinch at the $169.99 price tag take a good look at our images here and you can see just how stylish these Munitio earphones are. If they sound as good as they look then they could well be worth the money and Munitio itself bills them as delivering “unmatched sound quality.” The Nines Tactical earphones have enhanced acoustics and the new Nines have earth neodymium 9mm drivers and Bass Enhancing Chamber tweaks and also custom tuned Acoustic Sound Flow System. This offers less bass distortion, crystal clear mids and detailed highs and a more expansive dynamic range.

According to Nokia WP 7.8 Update for Lumia’s “Imminent”

It seems that Nokia is ready and willing to roll out the Windows Phone 7.8 update to all their devices but they are waiting on Microsoft at the moment.

This is according to a site called PocketGamer.biz. Nokia has told them:

...the roll out of 7.8 to existing devices remains in Microsoft's hands, though the firm's Windows Phone 7 currently shipping to retail – such as the Lumia 800 – have the update pre-loaded.

However sadly that is all the information that Nokia could give on this subject at the time.

"With Windows Phone 7.8 beginning to ship pre-loaded on Nokia Lumia smartphones, we will naturally be deploying the software to our factories for product rollout,... At present we have no more information we can give about wider availability of the update for phones running Windows Phone 7.5."

This update was expected late last month and devices have already been flashed to WP 7.8 using Navifirm so it is disappointing that Microsoft is not letting it go to the masses. Hopefully this leak is a good start and it will force Microsoft's hand on this update.