Specs, leaks and rumors about Sony's new flagship continue to flood the internet. This week ePrice, a Taiwanese tech site, published a couple of pictures that they claim to be of Sony's i1 Honami smartphone.
Sony Honami Leaked Images
Sony, the electric samurai from the land of the setting sun, seems to have been lost it's fighting modjo in the last couple of years. At least on the smartphone market, Sony has constantly felled behind the big players, Samsung, HTC, LG or Apple. And this is not necessary the fault of uncompetitive hardware but rather a fail, in my opinion, of Sony's marketing department and bean counters. But now it's time for a glorious comeback.
Sony has in works a uber-smartphone, the Honami ( Honami is the name of an asteroid from the Asteroid Belt). The 20.7 megapixel camera will be a major selling point for this phone making Sony i1 a direct contender to Nokia 1020 41 megapixel camera phone.
The Asian beast codenamed "Honami" that will go by the name of Sony i1 is well equipped to face off the other Asian tigers Samsung, Lg and HTC. According to the latest leaks, Sony Honami is packing some serious piece of hardware:
Water&Dust Proof Sony Xperia
1080p display measuring 5 inches full HD display
20.7 megapixel rear camera
2 megapixel front facing camera
Sony i1 is sporting a 2.2GHz new generation Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 quad core processor
2GB of RAM
16GB of internal storage
micro SD card support ( a real rarity these days )
Honami i1 will be water proof and dust proof, like the current Sony Xperia models
non-removable 3000mAh battery
“Sony G Lens” which could be a image stabilization or optical zoom system
Sony will most likely officially announce the Sony Honami i1 at IFA Berlin, on 4th of September and the phone will be available for the masses in late autumn this year.
This being leaked, we expect the fight for smartphone market supremacy to get more animated towards the end of the year, in the middle of winter holidays shopping season, and this, of course, can only benefit us.
The Galaxy Note 3 (SM-N900) is expected to be Samsung’s Next Big Thing. The possible launch date is late this fall, September or even October, but according to new reports flooding in from all over the inter-webs, the Note 3 Phablet ( a term used to describe a combination between a smartphone and a tablet) may or may not arrive a bit sooner.
Rumours and whispers are heard everywhere on the internet about Samsung's next extra large device, and all this rumours point to the fact that the Samsung future Phablet will get even bigger in spite of the fact that the "old" Galaxy Note 2 still manages to raise some eyebrows with its huge 5.5' display.
So far, Samsung hasn’t given any hints about a possible release date, so for now we can only speculate and take wild guesses. But, we can assume that at the IFA 2013, held towards the end of August in Berlin, will get to see and play with the final version of Samsung Galaxy Note 3.
The first rumours surrounding this particular device had given it an gargantuan display sizes, 6.6 inch in some cases. But now we know for sure that this is not the case. The final specifications for Galaxy Note 3 will revolve around these specs:
5.7inch Full HD Super AMOLED display
13MP camera with a Xenon flash
3 GB of RAM
3.000+ mAh battery
4G LTE-A connectivity support
Android Jelly Bean 4.3 OS
Snapdragon 800 SoC processor clocked at 2.3GHz and the new and updated Samsung Exynos 5 Octa SoC.
Samsung Galaxy Note 3 Concept
For me personally, the fact that Samsung Galaxy Note III will come equipped with Xenon Flash is the good news here. Why? Because Xenon Flash equipped smartphone will always do a better job than conventional LED Flash phones in the sense that a Xenon Flash will allow for much better quality low-light conditions image capturing. Just look at the images capture with the Nokia Lumia 928 vs. images taken in the same conditions with a Led Flash camera from Galaxy S4.
But Note III is not alone anymore. In works is a new kid on the block. The HTC One Max. Nothing is confirmed yet, but there is a consensus in rumours about a HTC One Max that will come at the big screen table equipped with a huge 6.0 inch full HD 1080p, a Snapdragon 800 generation CPU, 2GB of RAM, 64GB of internal storage and HTC's exceptional Ultrapixel camera.
Another Samsung Galaxy Note III design study
So the fight for Godzilla size screen Phablet supremacy is intensifying. This is getting interesting and we, the end users, should benefit and see a price drop for these megaphones with King Kong size displays. As I'm running out of comparison terms for Galaxy Note 3 i will end this post with an obvious question: would YOU like one?
The force is strong with this one. The rumor mill and the hype machine, both running at maximum revolutions, coupled with some inside information and leaked specs place this particular smartphone, the Motorola X, on a higher than usual "IWant" scale. In this article you can read all about the rumored specs, price and release date of the Moto X smartphone.
The excitement and the drama surrounding Google's Motorola upcoming Moto X is at it's highest these days. Why? For this to work you will have put on your tin foils now. Look at the picture above. Do you see that guy jumping in the lake? Doesn't he look like a human X? Yes, it does. What about the women, doesn't she look like a big I letter or the one number to you? So what, you may ask, we have like a human "XI" or something like that, that doesn't mean anything...not so fast, cowboy. The Romans ( yes, the Romans from Roman Empire) used these symbols to count and these 2 symbols put together form a number and that number is...11! Motorola announced a big event for 11 of July 2013 at which were invited just a few carefully selected journalists. Well, it remains to be seen how things will unfold. Will we get the new Moto X or it will be just another publicity gimmick, only time will tell (3 days from now to be more precises).
Tin foils off gentleman's, time for some true facts now. Let's start with Motorola X Phone specs:
Motorola Moto X Smartphone (picture courtesy of GSMArena)
4.7 inch display with a resolution of 720p
1.7 GHz dual core ARM processor
2.0 GB of RAM
Adreno 320 GPU graphics processor (a special one as you will see)
At first glimpse this looks not at all so impressive, more like middelish smartphone specs for 2013. But don't forget for a second that Motorola is a Google owned company now. Back in 2012 all mighty Google acquired Motorola Mobility for $12.5 billions. You don't invest so much if you don't have a carefully layout plan to dominate the market (and the world!). Maybe the new mobile Android ecosystem that Google has envision for the future doesn't require top of the line hardware, maybe Google is focusing more on providing a context aware, adaptative and anticipatory smartphone. So, how smart can you make a smartphone? Very smart, according to Google and Motorola:
Motorola X will make good use of Google's advanced voice recognition technology and will know that you are in your car, driving to work for example, and will automatically turn on voice search and voice commands
take your Moto X out of your pocket and hold it like you gonna take a picture and the camera app will automatically open for you. You can evean film slow motion videos with MotoX phone
are you speeding on the highway with over 80 miles? Motorola X is smart enough to not let you open the messaging app, for your safety, of course
To be able to achieve this kind of software-hardware integration Motorola X phone will make good use of the so called "ultra-low power sensors" that won't consume much of smartphone’s battery. The Moto X will use a couple of processors on the GPU that enable “always-on” sensors, like always on gyroscope or microphone for voice commands, so that your phone will remain contextually aware of what’s going on around it.
Another first in smartphone industry is that Moto X phone will allow customers to completely customize the look and feel of the device. You will be able to choose from a palette of different colors -at least 12 of them- for your back cover, trim of the phone or front cover, you will have the possibility to engrave text or signs on your Motorola X and all of this personalized devices will be delivered to buyers all over the world within a couple of days after placing the order.
Motorola X Phone Press Release Photo
Instead of the usual closing words for my articles i will leave you with what seems to be a very patriotic and uplifting promotional campaign:
“The first smartphone designed, engineered and assembled in the USA is coming.”
A bit too cheesy? Or maybe is just me? Ok, it's just me.
What are your thoughts on the new Motorola X Phone? Are you excited, will you sell your Samsung Galaxy S3 or S4 and buy a Moto X instead?
L.E. According to Huffington Post, Moto X could be launched "in the coming weeks". Until then i leave you with a picture that captures Motorola X Phone in the wild ( at the ear of a prominent CEO )
What better way is there to promote Motorola X then Eric Schmidt, the CEO at Google, holding it at his ear?
For the next week or so i will be making some changes for Android Bureau "user interface". This means that i will test different themes and designs, font and layouts. All for the better good. I apologize in advance for any inconvenience that this changes may cause but i really want for you, my dear reader, to have the best experience both visually and regarding the quality of articles that you will find on this blog.
Android 4.3 Jelly Bean ROM leaked last week and the most interesting fact is that it wasn't for a Google Nexus device. This leaked ROM was for the Samsung Galaxy S4 Google Play Edition. It must be sad that this leaked Android 4.3 is an early build and changes may be present in the final build.
For now we have very few user-facing changes in this version, but we could see some modifications in the official Android 4.3 final build when it comes out. Listed below is what is new in leaked Android 4.3 found on Samsung Galaxy S4:
The Camera: this camera is the same with the one that we find on Google Play Edition Samsung Galaxy S4 and HTC One. For most part, there are UI changes and improvements on what is already a very good camera. The big change here is the camera settings circle, which has gone from a full circle design to a semi circle. The interesting part is that you can already Download Android 4.3 Camera apk and install it on your non-Nexus device. It works flawlessly, i can tell you from my on experience. You can go ahead and download it from the link above.
Google Android 4.3 new camera user interface
NewSunBeam live wallpaper: this was first seen this on Google Play Edition of HTC One and Samsung Galaxy S4. Now it has a new name and it's called Phase Beam live wallpaper and like the camera, you can Download Sun Beam Live Wallpaper apk and install it on your smartphone. It's new and shiny!
New SunBeam Live Wallpaper
Always on Wi-Fi : hidden deep in advanced WiFi settings there is a strange option which states “Scanning always available”. This means that your Wi-Fi will always be turned on, enabling applications, and Google of course, to always get a position on you. But don't panic, this option has more to do with saving your precious battery juice than with invading your privacy. This method of determining your exact position is much more battery friendly than the other one, GPS always on. A big improvement if you ask me. But if you have privacy concerns than simply turn it off.
Low Energy Bluetooth: this feature has been talked about for a while now, and it appears that this option has finally made it's debut on this leaked Android Jelly Bean 4.3 build. The name "Bluetooth Low Energy" is telling us exactly what this feature will do for your smartphone. Yes, you guessed it, it will go easy on your battery and it will enable a bluetooth frequency that consumes considerably less power.
Other Minor Changes: you will find some new developer settings as well as some renaming of different settings like “cell broadcast” setting which will be known from now by the name of “mobile broadcasts”.
Bellow you have a short video presentation of this build:
Conclusion: this particular build of Android 4.3 doesn’t have many user side changes, changes that are very visible for the end user but it seems that Android 4.3 Jelly Bean will be more of an refinement rather than an big evolution. The revolution would be televised and will be brought to you by the next big thing from Google: Android Key Lime Pie.
When will we see it? Well, let me take here a wild guess...pretty, pretty soon! Internet rumors place the official launch of Android Jelly Bean 4.3 toward the end of summer.
So, what are your thoughts on this early leak, are you a bit disappointed, did you expected more from Android 4.3? What other changes/additions did you hope for?
