As you probably already know, Sony made the Xperia Z and ZL official yesterday at CES. David got to spend some hands-on time with both handsets, and shared his initial thoughts on the duo right here. If that wasn't good enough for you, though, then perhaps the metric ton of videos Sony just uploaded will get the job done.
Without further ado, I present to you: slews and slews and slews of videos about the Xperia Z and ZL. Enjoy.
It seems like every month we get a new world's thinnest smartphone, but Chinese manufacturer ZTE knows that's a mug's game. They've decided to go for broke with the Grand S, which sports a 5-inch 1080p screen (like all the cool kids do) and still manages to fit into a case that's just 6.9mm thin at the thickest point. For what it's worth, that makes the Grand S the thinnest 5-inch, 1080p phone out there. (The current holder of the coveted "world's thinnest" title is the 6.45mm Alcatel One Touch Idol Ultra, introduced just yesterday.) Other drool-worthy specs include a 1.7Ghz quad-core Snapdragon S4 processor, 2GB of RAM, and a 13MP rear camera.
If you fired up the web version of the Play Store today and everything felt a little off, don't panic. Google just decided to apply its Roboto font to all text on the site. Stock Android users will already be familiar with the typeface as the default setting for all written words on their Nexus devices. Outside of that family, though, it may be relatively unknown. Which is a shame, because it's beautiful.
The new...
...and the old.
That being said, in times past Roboto has not shown itself to be terribly versatile in scaling down to relatively low-ppi displays such as computer monitors and in this case it seems to work alright for headings, though to my eyes, some of the smaller text gets a little messy.
Do you think phones should be even bigger? Good news: so does Huawei. You've probably already heard about the Mate, but we got a little hands-on time before the show floor opened last night at CES Digital Experience, and, well, it's big. Really big. And yes, we put it next to a Note II to show you just how mind-bogglingly large it is.
Note: there's some artifacting near the end of the video. Sorry about that!
As far as initial impressions, the device runs Android 4.1 with Huawei's light UI overlay quite smoothly. This is the second phone to date to use Huawei's in-house quad-core KVM processor, which is paired (interestingly) with an Intel modem (GSM 3G only).
Drop this one in the "noteworthy, but not notable" bucket, but we had some time last night to check out AT&T's Pantech Discover, a phone with a pretty impressive specification sheet given its price point - just $50 on contract.
The Discover has a 4.8" 720p display, 1.5GHz dual-core Snapdragon processor, 16GB of internal storage, 12.6MP rear camera, LTE, and runs Android 4.0 (OK, that's a bit of a miss). While we wouldn't call this a groundbreaking device in and of itself, the price AT&T will be peddling this particular piece of hardware at is going to make it a very attractive option for the brick-and-mortar crowd (eg, your parents).
Hey Rogers guys – did you think HTC forgot about you? Turns out they didn't, as the Android 4.1 update is making its way to your variant of the One X as I type this. Exciting, no?
The update – which should clock in at around 635MB – brings all sorts of goodies to the flagship device, including Sense 4+, Google Now, Project Butter, and... some more stuff. Unfortunately, there's nary a changelog in sight so we can't tell you exactly what else to expect. In fact, the OTA is so fresh, even Rogers hasn't updated its OS update page just yet.
If you have Sprint's version of the LG Optimus G, you may want to head into Settings > About phone and see if the latest OTA is available on your handset. The update – which bumps the device up to build LS970ZV9 – is just a small one that brings a couple of fairly minor enhancements to the device:
This just started rolling out today, so don't stress if it's not yet available to you. Give it a few days – Sprint says that all users should have the update "within 10 days."
[Sprint]
Sony's latest Android phones are probably the most exciting thing the Japanese company has done in the smartphone arena to date. I mean, Sony unveiled a flagship phone that is water and dustproof.* (to one meter for up to 30 minutes.)
That alone is something worthy of attention. The sister device, the ZL, is a slightly downmarket version of the phone, though even saying that much isn't exactly fair. There's nothing particularly worse about the ZL, other than the fact that it lacks the glass backing of the Z, or its tolerance for wet and sandy situations.
In fact, many people may prefer the ZL - its headphone and microUSB ports are exposed, whereas every access point on the Z is guarded by a watertight cover that has to be pried open to access the respective port.
In quite an interesting turn of events, at its CES press conference, Sony has laid its wares bare on the show floor: the Xperia Z and ZL are there for all to gawk at. Unfortunately, we aren't allowed to go hands-on yet, but we figured we'd tide you over with some photos before we actually get to the touch-feely part. The Z has been announced officially, as well.
We had heard that Huawei was going to shock the world (or at least impressionable gadget lovers) with an enormous smartphone, and they've made it official here at CES. The Ascend Mate is real, it's got a 6.1-inch screen, and it will be coming to China in February. That monster panel is a 720p IPS LCD - strangely, a lower resolution than the new 5-inch Ascend D2 - and gives the device a 73% screen-to-body ratio. Something called Magic Touch, which Huawei isn't elaborating on in the press materials, will make the screen work through gloves. Interestingly, there doesn't seem to be a stylus included.
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