01
Mar
LG T-Mobile G Slate 4G Tablet at MobileCityOnline.com

More news has trickled out for the high-end tablet releases we are about to see. This time it appears that the upcoming Optimus Pad/G-Slate from LG will be priced at $699.99 on T-Mobile, according to a pre-order listing on Mobile City.

LG's 8.9" tablet will be the first to incorporate 3D technology, and, like most other new tablets we will be seeing soon, it will have Android 3.0 'Honeycomb' under the hood. No firm release date has been set.

The off-contract price for the 4G-ready tablet is in the same ballpark as the first generation iPad 3G (which obviously weighs heavily in determining costs), but if the same pattern holds as with the Motorola XOOM, we may not see a Wi-Fi-only model at release.

01
Mar
screen

With the wave of Tegra 2-powered phones and tablets that is already on its way, there lay a potential of a fragmented Android Market: those apps that require NVIDIA's new dual-core processor, and those that don't. Frustrating time spent searching the Market in vain could have loomed on the horizon. Thankfully, somebody was thinking ahead, as the Tegra 2 search engine Tegra Zone has arrived to help avert such confusion.

Tegra Zone gives you every Tegra 2-specific game in one place, including all the showcasing one would expect (screenshots, HD videos, etc.). While the app will become more and more useful as time passes (and more Tegra apps and devices hit the streets), there is already a burgeoning library in the making, including: Dungeon Defenders, Samurai 2, and a newly optimized version of Fruit Ninja (dubbed Fruit Ninja THD).

21
Feb
US-Cellular-Logo-Feb-09

There are deals, and then there are deals. US Cellular's latest offer definitely falls into the latter category - now through March 10th, customers can buy a Samsung Mesmerize ($99.99) and receive five free Optimus Us. Alternatively, you could buy one Optimus U for $29.99 and get five more for free - ridiculously awesome.

That's not all, however; US Cellular also announced that it's trimming the price of each and every one of its Android phones - the HTC Desire now costs $69.99, the LG Apex goes for $29.99, and the Samsung Acclaim can be had free of charge.

Sure, US Cellular's phones might not be the flashiest devices on the market anymore, but there's no denying that these are two insane deals.

17
Feb
benchmarks2

In what's sure to be a hit with hardware nerds, AnandTech has run a suite of benchmarks on 27 different devices. The line-up is dominated by Android, but also includes the iPhone 3GS (both on 4.1 and 4.2.1), iPhone 4, iPad, Blackberry Torch, and the WP7-powered HTC Surround. The results? Broadly speaking, Android comes out looking damn good. As for the dual cores - well, as you'd expect, they performed even better.

The hardware was all over the map, including dual-core devices such as the TI OMAP 4430-powered LG Optimus 3D, the Tegra 2-powered Optimus 2X, and the Exynos 4210-powered Samsung Galaxy S II, all the way through today's run of the mill (single core) high(er)-end devices packing A4's, Hummingbirds, Snapdragons and beyond.

15
Feb
netflix-lg-revolution
Last Updated: February 16th, 2011

Want Netflix on your current Android device? Too bad - as LG and Qualcomm told Engadget, the Netflix app will not be available on existing Android hardware (at least not officially).

Apparently, future Qualcomm CPUs will include additional DRM libraries that no current smartphone processor has, making the decision slightly more understandable (though still extremely disappointing). There's still no word on exactly what processors will support Netflix, but we do know that the LG Revolution will be compatible with it - meaning that the app works with single-core chips.

Disappointing news? Sure, but if it's any comfort, the app does look pretty sweet - check out Engadget's hands-on video:

Source: Engadget

14
Feb
image
Last Updated: April 18th, 2011

Earlier today at MWC, LG officially unveiled its most powerful upcoming smartphone: the Optimus 3D. We've already heard of the Optimus 3D before, and even witnessed both decent and disastrously cheesy ads LG put out ahead of the release, but what we didn't know is that the Optimus 3D would end up being the most powerful smartphone currently on the market.

Not only is the phone powered by a 1GHz TI OMAP4 dual-core processor (which seems to be just as beefy, if not beefier than Tegra 2), but it's also the world's first dual-channel and dual-memory Android smartphone to aid those 2 cores and squeeze every last bit of juice out of them.

14
Feb
image

Yesterday's announcement by Samsung of the Galaxy Tab 10.1 might have seemed like something of an echo of the Motorola XOOM. Well, with LG's recent unveiling of the Optimus Pad at MWC, we can still see some resemblance but with a few alterations making it worthy of further attention.

First up, the Optimus Pad refrains from the somewhat popular 10-inch screen diagonal seen on both Motorola and Samsung's tablets. If you have doubts about the handiness of a 10-inch device, it seems that LG shares your sentiments: the Optimus Tab scales the display back to 8.9 inches, while maintaining a similar 1280x760 WXGA resolution.

12
Feb
lgoptimus2x
Last Updated: July 24th, 2011

Ah yes, dual-core smartphones are no longer just a sweet, geeky dream; the LG Optimus 2X, the world's first Tegra 2-powered handset, is finally here. And with an amazingly thin design, an 8MP camera capable of 1080p video recording, and HDMI mirroring, the device has a lot going for it.

But does it live up to these high expectations? The early reviewers seem to be split - some of them found that the device went above and beyond their expectations, while others were slightly disappointed by its performance. Read on for four different opinions of the device.

Engadget

I was a bit surprised to see that Engadget gave the Optimus 2X a rating of 6/10 - after all, they freely admit to being "unabashed spec junkies." However, their complaints certainly make sense - the software is, apparently, quite buggy, and the Tegra 2 CPU hasn't been used to its full potential (at least not yet).

11
Feb
image

The upcoming 3D phone from LG, Optimus 3D, may be cool, with its glasses-free 3D and a dual-core CPU, but it certainly didn't stop the company from producing one of the cheesiest/worst commercials we've ever seen.

The premise is decent - a girl is doing yoga, and her 3D-capable phone provides her with 3D training videos, but the execution... well, you decide, because I'm out of words:

Source: LGMobileHQ

08
Feb
verizon_lte_4g_commercial

Verizon is about to add another card to its deck - at the Mobile World Conference in Barcelona, the carrier intends to announce VoLTE, which will enable voice calls to be routed over their fancy new LTE network. This opens the door for simultaneous voice and data usage, a feature AT&T customers have been bragging about for ages now. Additional benefits include superior call quality between VoLTE-enabled phones, though legacy 3G users will be left behind with no improved call clarity. Also in tow is video and text over LTE, with Verizon and Skype partnering up to provide conference calling opportunity to users.