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This year’s MWC is all about folding phones and 5G connectivity, and Xiaomi just threw its hat in the ring with the announcement of its first 5G smartphone: the Mi Mix 3 5G. As the name implies, this is simply the Mi Mix 3 but with an upgraded Qualcomm Snapdragon 855 processor and X50 5G modem.
The default way to order content from the Play Store is to add a credit card to Google Wallet, but if you've grown accustomed to having purchases show up on your bill like the good ol' days when phones were phones, there's the option to enable carrier billing. The choice isn't universal, and while it's available to customers on AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile, and Verizon here in the US, it still has to trickle out to other carriers around the world. The latest addition is Orange in France, joining the likes of competitors SFR and Bouygues in the country. All three accept payment in Euros.
If you've been waiting to pre-order the Samsung Galaxy S4, today's the big day, and you're not short of choices when it comes to retailers or networks.
Now that Samsung has officially announced the Galaxy S III Mini, Phones4U has started to take pre-orders in the UK, with prices for the mid-range phone starting at £25 a month.
Orange and T-Mobile UK, the two companies forming the new 4G EE network in the UK, have launched three 4G capable Android phones today.
It looks like mobile device users in the UK can expect 4G services to begin rolling out a bit sooner than previously expected – six months sooner, to be specific.
If you asked someone off the street what Everything Everywhere was, they probably wouldn't have a clue what you were talking about. The company is yet to establish its own brand presence in the UK, but it's certainly busy setting things up behind the scenes.
Intel has been conspicuously absent from the mobile arms race in recent years but 2012 is the year the company changes all that. After a significant showing at CES this year, Intel has now teamed up with Orange to deliver San Diego. No, not the city, and get used to making the distinction. The San Diego is Europe's first Intel-powered Android phone.
I won't lie: I have no qualms about calling shenanigans on this one, especially considering the recent Nokia/Microsoft alliance. So with that said, let's proceed to examine what is, most likely, the latest entry in the Android Photoshop fail series:
Having your phone model supported by CyanogenMod's community is quite an honor nowadays, and for many people it's a deciding factor when picking up a new phone. CM usually stays ahead of the curve and is likely to support your phone well after manufacturers and carriers stop showing any interest.
Since the advent of Android in 2009, the family of devices running Google's mobile OS has grown from one handset to now hundreds and possibly thousands of unique models. In recent months, Android has seen an explosion of devices coming from lesser-known Asian manufacturers, with one of the main selling points being price. The manufacturers realized that with Android they had a readily and freely accessible operating system, a large market of potential customers, and all they had to do was put together a cheap device to capitalize on Android's continued growth. Unfortunately, these devices often cut corners where things mattered the most - poor displays, resistive touchscreens, bad build quality and a litany of other crimes against the gods of consumer electronics.
Here's a device that's been making some waves in the UK Android community. Over at MoDaCo.com, founder Paul O'Brien picked up Orange's rebranded ZTE Blade for £99 ($160) with a pre-paid SIM. Judging from his video, it seems that you get quite a lot of device for your money, including that aforementioned 3.5" AMOLED screen. Despite being burdened with a silly name and an abundance of network shovelware, the Blade/SanFran's 600 MHz CPU appears to run Android 2.1 pretty nicely.