Rumors - 8/24 - Android Police - Android News, Apps, Games, Phones, Tablets

Sep

[Rumor] Surprise! The Bootloader Is Reportedly Locked On Verizon's Galaxy Note II

Posted by Cameron Summerson in Galaxy Note II, News, Rumors, Verizon Wireless

We already know that the Big Four will be getting their own respective renditions of the Galaxy Note II. We also expect that it'll also be part of a unified release much like the Galaxy S III. We've even seen how Verizon defiled its home button. Turns out leaving its mark on the face of the device wasn't enough for Big Red, though; the carrier has also done some work to the bootloader.

They locked it, and there probably won't be any official method of unlocking.

Normally we don't post this type of rumor without confirmation from the development community, but at this point we have no reason to believe otherwise.

Sep

Samsung Claims Galaxy S IV Rumors Are Bogus, In Least Surprising Turn Of Events Ever

Posted by David Ruddock in Galaxy S III, News, Rumors, Samsung

Yesterday, a great many tech sites were quick to jump on the bandwagon about rumors of a Galaxy S IV. It doesn't really matter what these rumors were - they were reported by The Korea Times, a publication that has regularly offered up Samsung leaks because of their geographical proximity to the company's supply chain. They also tend to get a little, shall we say, cheerleady about anything Samsung lately, so perhaps they jumped the gun on this one.

Regardless, Samsung has discounted the Times' rumors with a tweet from the official Samsung Electronics Twitter account, albeit in Korean:

[알려드립니다] 일부 언론에서 보도한 '갤럭시 SⅢ 후속모델 출시 예정' 이라는 추측은 단순루머일 뿐 사실이 아닙니다.

Sep

Weibo User Reveals Questionable Press Shot Of HTC's Unannounced 5" Phone [Update: Shot Is Confirmed Unofficial]

Posted by Liam Spradlin in HTC, News, Rumors

Remember HTC's 5" mystery device we caught a glimpse of last month? Well, according to Engadget, a user of China's popular social network Weibo earlier revealed what may (or may not) be an official press shot of the device – a shot which also reveals the device's potential name – the HTC One X 5 (named, obviously, for its ample display size).

Engadget has "reason to believe [this] is an authentic press image of the finished result," but we're always skeptical of leaked press shots, and after putting the image under a magnifying glass, we're not so sure. Without further ado, here's the image in question:

Comparing this image to the blurry cam photos we saw before, the shot looks pretty accurate.

Sep

Acer Reportedly Cancels Announcement Of Aliyun-Powered Smartphone Following Google Warning, Says Alibaba

Posted by Liam Spradlin in Acer, Android OS, Google, News, Rumors

Earlier this evening, Nasdaq reported that Taiwanese manufacturer Acer decided to cancel a press conference scheduled for Thursday, which would have seen the announcement of Acer's CloudMobile A800.

The smartphone, which would have been unveiled in Shanghai, was set to run on Aliyun, a mobile OS developed by a Chinese Internet firm called Alibaba Group, the largest internet firm in China by transactions. Acer indicated that the press conference was canceled after Google, according to Nasdaq, "expressed concerns about the smartphone."

An anonymous official at Acer commented that "Acer will continue to communicate with Google and the company still wants to launch the new smartphone based on Alibaba software."

Sep

The Circle Is Complete: Galaxy Note II For Verizon Pops Up In Screenshot, Model SCH-I605

Posted by David Ruddock in Galaxy Note II, Leaks, News, Rumors, Verizon Wireless

BriefMobile has received a screenshot this morning that would seem to confirm the existence of a Verizon-flavored Galaxy Note II, rounding out the phone's appearances on each of the US's "big four" carriers.

Last week, we saw the device leaked for T-Mobile, Sprint, and AT&T. We had figured, at that point, that Verizon wouldn't be getting the device. Particularly because it's selling the LG Intuition, which is the Note II's one and only phablet (shudder) competitor here in the US.

The screenshot shows the model number as SCH-I605, SCH being the Verizon prefix for Samsung smartphones.

In the form of some additional possible confirmation, a quick search of Flickr yielded one image taken by an SCH-I605, though it's just a blank shot.

Sep

Leak: ZTE Warp Sequent Headed To Boost Mobile With Vanilla Android 4.0, May Be Grand X IN Variant

Posted by Liam Spradlin in Boost Mobile, Grand X IN, Ice Cream Sandwich 4.0, Leaks, News, Rumors

In a tweet earlier this evening, the recently resurrected evleaks Twitter account revealed what may be a variant of ZTE's Intel-powered Grand X IN phone which we saw at IFA 2012 headed for Boost Mobile.

ZTE Warp Sequent for Boost Mobile (ZTE Grand X IN): 1.4GHz, 4.3-inch qHD, 5MP cam. 9/17 for $200. twitter.com/evleaks/status…

— E (@evleaks) September 8, 2012

It's definitely worth noting, though, that this ZTE Grand X IN (if that is what we're looking at) is a tad different from the original. Most notably, it appears to be running vanilla Android 4.0 rather than ZTE's own custom overlay.

Sep

Sources Confirm To The Verge That An Amazon Smartphone Is Coming, May Be Announced Tomorrow

Posted by David Ruddock in Amazon, Android OS, News, Rumors

After Motorola's big event today, we didn't figure much of anything else interesting would be going on. We were wrong - numerous sources have confirmed to TheVerge that Amazon is legitimately, actually working on a smartphone. We totally pretended to call it.

Those same sources say that Amazon's phone is yet to be totally finished, but that we may see a prototype tomorrow at Amazon's event in Los Angeles. They've also confirmed it runs a variant of an expected-to-be-announced Android 4.0-based Kindle Fire OS, which makes sense. That means no Google services, which definitely would put it at a disadvantage compared to, well, almost everything on the market.

Sep

Motorola Allegedly Confirms RAZR M Will Pack Intel Atom Processor In The UK

Posted by David Ruddock in Motorola, News, RAZR M, Rumors

Speaking to Pocket-Lint at today's unveiling of the RAZR M and RAZR HD, Motorola has reportedly confirmed that the RAZR M will be announced in the UK with an Intel chip, ousting the Qualcomm S4 found in the US Verizon version. Pocket-lint says the device will also get a "name change," but that just may be referring to the dropping of the DROID branding.

What we've seen of Intel phones so far hasn't been too impressive, so let's hope Motorola has managed to tame the Medfield-based Atom processor into something you'd actually want inside your smartphone. There's no word on LTE support, either.

Sep

Samsung SGH-T889 Shows Up Running On T-Mobile's HSPA+ Network, Is The Galaxy Note II

Posted by Cameron Summerson in Galaxy Note II, News, Rumors, T-Mobile

T-Mobile got into the phablet game a little late when it released the Galaxy Note back in early August. Then, some three weeks later, all traces of the giant Samsung phone inexplicably disappeared from T-Mo's site, and third-party retailers were "out of stock." The latter incident lead us to believe one thing: T-Mobile was canning the original Note and would be getting the Note II soon after it launches in the U.S.

Now, TmoNews has gotten ahold of a screenshot that further backs up that hunch. The shot shows a Samsung device with the model number SGH-T889 running on what is said to be T-Mobile's 4G HSPA+ network.

Sep

Online Phone Store Accidentally Outs AT&T Version Of The Sony Xperia T

Posted by David Ruddock in Leaks, News, Rumors, Sony, Xperia T

Well, look what we have here. It appears an observant shopper got in touch with Android Central this morning with a link to a piece of evidence that is so random it must be real.

A British online phone store called phones4u (shudder) put up some product images for its Xperia T page. What it didn't notice, apparently, was that at least one of the images Sony sent along was for the wrong phone. It's still an Xperia T, but "oops" is probably the best way to describe this leak: