Lately I have found myself doing a case review here and there, and battery cases are particularly interesting since they're easy enough for us to test and integrate into our workflow in a unique matter. Plus, there's never such thing as too much battery life for a device. Battery life is a big part of our smartphone reviews, and for a while now I've been carrying around the newly-released Mophie Juice Pack Helium case for the iPhone 5. Back in the iPhone 4S days, I had a previous generation Mophie for that form factor, and even though I ran the battery life tests, I never got around to actually writing a review of the case for whatever reason. When I saw the Helium come...
AT&T Sets Unlimited 3G Data cap to 3GB, 4G LTE Unlimited cap to 5GB
AT&T recently started taking heat as subscribers with grandfathered unlimited data plans saw their downstream throughput throttled after consuming just over 2GB on AT&T's 3G HSPA+ network. The primary...
47 by Brian Klug on 3/1/2012
TI Demos OMAP5 WiFi Display Mirroring on Development Platform
On our last day at MWC 2012, TI pulled me aside for a private demonstration of WiFi Display functionality they had only just recently finalized working on their OMAP...
3 by Brian Klug on 3/1/2012
TI Brings OMAP 5 to MWC
A month ago we saw weeks old OMAP 5 silicon running at CES. Earlier this week we got a chance to see TI's OMAP 5 reference platform playing back...
10 by Anand Lal Shimpi on 2/29/2012
Physical Impressions of the Nokia Lumia 610, 900, and Nokia 808 PureView
We just stopped by Nokia for our meeting and finally got a chance to play with the new Lumia 610, the Europe-bound Lumia 900, and the Nokia 808 PureView...
11 by Brian Klug on 2/29/2012
Sonic 4: Episode II, Now Optimized for Tegra
We had a chance to get some hands on time with the Tegra Zone enhanced version of Sonic the Hedgehog 4: Episode II, which was announced yesterday for NVIDIA's...
9 by Brian Klug on 2/28/2012
The Portland Group Announces OpenCL Compiler for ST-Ericsson ARM-Based NovaThor SoCs
Amidst all the major hardware announcements at MWC2012 there are also some announcements coming out of the software side. The Portland Group (PGI) sent word this afternoon that their...
2 by Ryan Smith on 2/28/2012
Physical Impressions from the Huawei Ascend D Quad
We headed over to the Huawei booth to check out the Ascend D Quad and get some photos of the device and some physical impressions. The device includes Huawei's...
5 by Brian Klug on 2/28/2012
Broadcom Announces New Combo Chips - BCM4334, BCM43241, Shows 802.11ac Once More
We've been covering the combo chip space for a while now, which is hugely important for both smartphones, tablets, and other form factors usually driven by ARM SoCs. Combo...
5 by Brian Klug on 2/28/2012
ST-E Will Have FD-SOI Based U8540: 35% Lower Power, Much Higher Frequencies
There's a close relationship between process technology and performance/power consumption, and it's about to get even more important in mobile. We've already seen that with the transition to 40nm...
4 by Anand Lal Shimpi on 2/28/2012
Hands on With Sony's Xperia P & U
Two days ago we covered Sony's announcement of the Xperia P and Xperia U. Both of these phones are based on ST-E's U8500 SoC, their full specs are below: Sony...
4 by Anand Lal Shimpi on 2/28/2012
ST-Ericsson's NovaThor L8540: 28nm Cortex A9 SoC with Integrated LTE
ST-E is currently laying out its strategy for the company going forward, having suffered a tremendous reduction in revenue as the mobile market has changed dramatically over the past...
5 by Anand Lal Shimpi on 2/28/2012
Intel Continues Its Smartphone March: Lava & ZTE Partnerships Announced
Intel had two more announcements yesterday about its Atom smartphone progress. The first was a partnership with Lava, an Indian mobile handset manufacturer. The Lava Xolo X900, a rebranded...
2 by Anand Lal Shimpi on 2/28/2012
Qualcomm Atheros Demos 802.11ac on MSM8960
Among a bunch of interesting Krait features is a noteworthy change in connectivity that represents some of the first fruits of the Qualcomm Atheros acquisition. We touched on it...
6 by Brian Klug on 2/27/2012
Intel Goes Higher & Lower End With Atom SoCs: Z2580 & Z2000 Announced at MWC
Intel had a few updates about its Android SoC strategy for us at MWC this week. The first is a spec revision. The Atom Z2460 we talked about in...
25 by Anand Lal Shimpi on 2/27/2012
Qualcomm Shows Off Quad Core Krait APQ8064 at 1.5 GHz
We stopped by Qualcomm's booth today for our meeting and, among other things, saw the first demonstration of APQ8064 on a tablet mobile development platform. As a refresher, APQ...
18 by Brian Klug on 2/27/2012
Qualcomm Announces Snapdragon S4 Pro: Krait with Adreno 320
Qualcomm announced the Snapdragon S4 Pro, a version of the MSM8960 with an Adreno 320 GPU instead of the Adreno 225 that is found in the initial shipping MSM8960...
14 by Anand Lal Shimpi on 2/27/2012
ASUS Reveals Padfone Specifications
ASUS has been talking about its Padfone product for quite a while now but we're finally getting some more detailed specs on it. As a recap, Padfone is a...
10 by Anand Lal Shimpi on 2/27/2012
Qualcomm Announces MDM9x25, MDM8225 support 3GPP Rel.10, advanced Carrier Aggregation
Paying attention to basebands is something that really has become one of our niches. So much of a smartphone's design is entirely rooted in requirements around what air interfaces...
4 by Brian Klug on 2/27/2012
Orange to Sell Co-Branded Intel Smartphone Reference Design Directly to Customers, Codename: Santa Clara
At CES Intel announced both Lenovo and Motorola would be bringing Atom based smartphones to market in 2012. Lenovo showed off its K800 for the China market at the...
19 by Anand Lal Shimpi on 2/26/2012
HTC's New Strategy - The HTC One
HTC begins 2012 with the reveal of a new unified brand strategy. Although HTC as a company has made significant progress in attaining mindshare, its devices lack a single...
66 by Anand Lal Shimpi on 2/26/2012