Articles about Qualcomm

AT&T subscribers can now purchase the BlackBerry Q10, a little over two weeks after the US mobile operator introduced the QWERTY smartphone for pre-order. The Canadian maker's device is available today for $199.99 alongside a two-year agreement.

The BlackBerry Q10 is available on one-year contracts and month-to-month plans as well, for $449.99 and $584.99, respectively. AT&T subscribers can also trade-in "their current smartphone" to the mobile operator to receive a $100 discount off the purchase of the BlackBerry Q10 (the offer also applies to other new handsets in AT&T's lineup).

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There is a lot of hype about Windows 8.1, but we haven’t heard all that much about Windows RT as of late. The operating system is derived from Windows 8 and designed for mobile devices that utilize the ARM architecture.

Today at Computex 2013, Qualcomm announces that its high end processor, the Snapdragon 800, will power at least some of the next generation of Windows RT 8.1 devices.

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After launching the smartphone in its home market, on Thursday, South Korean manufacturer LG announces that the Optimus G Pro, the company's Android flagship, will finally be available in remaining Asian markets starting next month.

"Asian customers are leading many of today’s technology trends and we’re confident Optimus G Pro will find a large following in this region", says LG' Jong-seok Park. The handset, labeled indirectly as a phablet by the company, will be launched in Hong Kong first, followed by other local markets like Taiwan, Singapore, Thailand, India, Indonesia, Philippine, Vietnam and Malaysia throughout June.

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With a low price-tag and high-end hardware, the Oppo Find 5 has managed to make a name for itself as an affordable premium smartphone. The handset, which runs runs Android 4.1 Jelly Bean, is available in a number of major markets including the US but, until today, eluded the old continent.

On Monday, little over five months after its unveiling, the Find 5 is finally available in Europe. The Chinese maker sells the smartphone for EUR 399 in the 16 GB storage trim and EUR 429 for the 32 GB version. Available color choices include Midnight and White (the more expensive model can only be purchased in the former shade). Let's take a look at the specs.

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Yesterday, French consumer electronics company Archos unveiled a new 8-inch Android tablet called Xenon 80. The fondleslab runs the first Jelly Bean iteration and will cost $199.99 -- which is in line with Google's Nexus 7 pricing -- once it arrives in stores next month.

The Xenon 80 features support for 3G cellular connectivity and is SIM-unlocked, meaning that it can be used with any mobile operator in the world (as long as the network runs on the 2100 MHz band). The hardware specifications reflect the budget-oriented approach of the tablet.

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Verizon customers, it's time to stop feeling envious of folks on AT&T who can get the Lumia 920. Today, Nokia's new Windows Phone flagship, the Lumia 928, is available exclusively at the big red's online and brick and mortar stores.

Verizon's pricing for the Lumia 928 may lead to sales cannibalization of HTC's Windows Phone 8X. The latter finds itself in a difficult spot as it has to compete with a newer smartphone that is available for roughly the same money and with similar, if not better, hardware specifications.

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On Tuesday, at an event held in London, Nokia announced the new Lumia 925 Windows Phone. The handset shares most of its specifications with the Verizon-exclusive Lumia 928, unveiled four days ago, and represents a slight evolution from the currently available Lumia 920.

Available color choices for the Lumia 925 include black, gray and white. The handset sports a "metal design", similar to its Verizon-exclusive sibling. A silver-colored frame, which works as an antenna, surrounds the edges of the device, while on the back a polycarbonate (plastic) cover, in either glossy or matte finish, is used. Nokia calls the design "stunning", although from my point of view the Lumia 920 looks better.

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It is refreshing to see a big Android manufacturer give something back to the enthusiast and developer community that supports its devices. After the Xperia S AOSP (Android Open Source Project) experiment, which came to life in August last year, Sony announces that the recently-introduced Xperia Z will also get an AOSP makeover through an open-source project available on GitHub.

"This is a way for us to continue our commitment to support the open Android community. It is also a tool for us to facilitate and verify contributions to AOSP on the MSM8064 Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 Pro platform", says Sony. "The software will be open for you as a developer to use and contribute to".

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On Thursday, LG announced that the Optimus G Pro, the company's Android flagship smartphone, is now available at Japanese carrier NTT DOCOMO. In mid-January, NTT DOCOMO was the first to reveal the handset, a number of important specifications and its release date -- April 2013.

Unlike its international sibling which sports a 5.5-inch panel, the NTT DOCOMO variant of the Optimus G Pro comes with a smaller 5.0-inch IPS display. The resolution is the same -- 1080 by 1920 but the density is higher -- 440 ppi (pixels per inch). NTT DOCOMO originally revealed that the Optimus G Pro will ship with a 1.7 GHz quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 Pro processor, but today LG said that in fact the newer and faster, still Qualcomm-made, 1.7GHz quad-core Snapdragn 600 processor is used instead.

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Two days ago, at the Unpacked event held in New York, with much fanfare, South Korean manufacturer Samsung unveiled the new Galaxy S4. As we have come to expect, the company mostly focused on the added software benefits rather than showcasing the hardware underneath, leaving folks puzzled as to what powers the new Android flagship.

Samsung revealed two processor choices for the Galaxy S4 -- quad-core or octa-core solution depending on the market. Considering the scarcity of octa-core processors coming from high-end chip makers, the Exynos 5 Octa, which is scheduled for production in Q2 represents one-half of the equation. And, as Qualcomm has announced, the Snapdragon 600 represents the other half.

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Today the festivities at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain kicked off. Nokia announced the new Lumia 520 and Lumia 720 Windows Phone 8 devices aimed at the entry-level and mid-range smartphone market and earlier ASUS unveiled two Android tablets dubbed Fonepad and PadFone Infinity.

The Fonepad is a 7-inch tablet that features built-in 3G support for cellular voice and data. The device sports a 7-inch 10-point multitouch IPS display with a resolution of 1280 by 800 and at a first glance it's quite similar to the Nexus 7, which is also manufactured by ASUS, bar the phone functionality.

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There's a great saying that applies to new products -- get it while it's hot. Or shall I say, give it while it's hot. LG, sadly, is not familiar with either expression as the South Korean manufacturer has only now finally released the Optimus G on European soil. That's a whopping six months (well, nearly) after the smartphone's unveiling in late August, last year.

LG is its own worst enemy right now. The main problem with the late Optimus G release, apart from the obvious waning of initial interest, is the smartphone's bigger brother -- the Optimus G Pro -- and the plethora of new devices that were released after the Optimus G, with better specs and time advantage on their side. And we haven't yet reached MWC (Mobile World Congress) frenzy yet, where manufacturers are known to release or announce even more products.

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After unveiling the Snapdragon 600 and Snapdragon 800 at CES 2013, American mobile giant Qualcomm has on Wednesday taken the wraps off two new processors. The Snapdragon 200 and Snapdragon 400 join the company's latest lineup for smartphones and tablets, targeting the low-end and mid-range mobile market.

The Snapdragon 400 is the mid-range mobile processor and, to some extent, resembles the now-traditional Snapdragon S4 found in a number of currently-available smartphones such as the HTC Windows Phone 8X, Nokia Lumia 920 or Samsung Galaxy S III (US variants). The Snapdragon 400 features dual-core Krait CPUs with speeds of up to 1.7GHz per core or quad-core ARM Cortex-A7 CPUs with speeds of up to 1.4GHz per core.

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Qualcomm's new Snapdragon processor lineup has cast a shadow over Nvidia's Tegra 4 ever since its CES 2013 unveiling in Las Vegas. Especially thanks to new smartphone releases such as LG's Optimus G Pro and HTC's One flagship, which both feature Qualcomm's Snapdragon 600 processor. So where does Nvidia fit in the new mobile scene?

Accustomed to having its Tegra products used in flagship Android devices generally unveiled with much fanfare, Nvidia's latest partnership with Chinese telecommunications company ZTE seems bland by comparison, and almost flew under the radar. On Thursday, ZTE announced that it will release "the first super phones powered by the Nvidia Tegra 4 mobile processor", without going into too much detail as to what prospective customers can expect.

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On Tuesday, after numerous leaks and rumors, Taiwanese mobile device manufacturer HTC unveiled a new flagship Android smartphone tastefully named One. With One the company has jumped off the ever increasing display size bandwagon and decided to stick to a more tried and true 4.7-inch panel, while packing a high-end quad-core processor.

The international One comes in silver and black and, depending on the market, other colors such as red might be available as well. The front of the handset is dominated by rounded corners and symmetrical speakers while the back features the now traditional tapered edges that HTC previously introduced with smartphones such as the Windows Phone 8X or DROID DNA. It's simply striking to look at.

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