Should going small mean scaling back? That’s often the choice smartphone
buyers have to make when deciding between large screen phones and more compact 4
– 4.3-inch models. Even when the devices bear the same name or branding as their
superphone siblings, the mini versions often have scaled back specs. Recently,
we’ve seen this on the HTC One Mini and the Galaxy S4 Mini. Is Motorola’s new
Droid Mini more of the same?
On the outside, the Mini looks just like a smaller Droid Ultra and Motorola
reps repeatedly told us to think of them as the same phone just in different
sizes. We went hands-on to find out how true that is.
The Droid Mini sports a 4.3-inch display tucked into a very compact body.
The design isn’t as ultra slim as the Ultra, though that’s not as much of an
issue given the overall smaller size. The glossy back and smooth, comfortable
edges make an appearance here, too, and sadly the fingerprint problem we
mentioned in the Ultra hands-on is just as bad. Keep a cloth handy. We like the
way the Mini feels in the hand, especially when typing and swiping. Most of you
will have no trouble reaching every edge of the screen with your thumb, and the
comfortable grip will keep the phone cradled securely in the hand while you use
it.
Other than size, the difference between the Mini’s display and the Ultra’s
is type. You get LCD, not AMOLED, with the smaller Droid. Same 720p resolution,
though. And the screen is still bright and vivid.
Other internal specs are the same as the other Droids. Like the Ultra, the
Droid Mini runs on Motorola’s X8 Mobile Computing System that utilizes eight
cores. The central processor is dual-core, the graphics processor (GPU) is
quad-core, and the other two cores handle sensor and natural language
processing. All together this makes for a speedy phone (the 2GB of RAM helps)
that can do some neat tricks. The natural language bit comes from Google Now,
and it’s possible to wake the Droid Mini via voice by saying “Okay, Google Now.”
All of the voice commands available for Now are integrated into the phone, and
even when demoed in a crowded, noisy room, the Droids were able to recognize and
interpret voice commands quickly.
Other great features include Active Display, which detects when the Mini is
resting on a flat surface and shows the time if you just nudge it. You can tap
and hold the icon to see text of other notifications and decide if you want to
open or ignore it. We also like Droid Zap for sharing photos with friends within
300 feet. You need a Droid Ultra, Maxx, or Mini to send photos, but any Android
phone can accept them (as long as you have the app). Droid owners can send a
link to the app directly to friends. Sharing to a larger screen is easy thanks
to built-in Wireless Display. It will work with any Miracast-enabled television
or streamer.
Tuesday, 23 July 2013
A familiar sight in public is someone with an iPad
The iPad garnered the reputation as a new form of device created for
undertaking entertaining issues at dwelling. People have been straight away
taken with the fact that the iPad could do numerous fun points, endearing it to
the masses. Then developers started writing thousands of apps for the iPad that
started to bridge exciting stuff with activities normally done on a Computer,
even Windows PCs. Consumers noticed that the Windows Pc (desktop or laptop) that
they kept at residence was being utilized much less and much less. Ultimately
they have been only making use of Windows at operate.
A familiar sight in public is someone with an iPad in hand, or one being utilised using a keyboard case. Where it utilised to become a lot more frequent to determine persons utilizing Windows laptops of varying sizes in public venues lots of of them happen to be replaced with the iPad. More substantially, iPad customers aren't just carrying out fun stuff that tablets are believed to be designed for, they are performing almost everything they used to perform with the forgotten Windows laptop back at property.
Microsoft saw this coming and radically changed the style of Windows to perform on tablets, desktops, and laptops. The folks in Redmond saw the writing on the wall and knew they had to adjust the OS into a tablet OS to maintain Windows within the property. They currently had the enterprise locked up so bringing Windows to the tablet was an effort to maintain people applying the OS at dwelling.
Make no mistake, the Surface RT was firmly aimed at getting consumers to think about Windows on residence tablets, and that work has failed. Those wanting to make use of a simple tablet at dwelling have quite a lot already adopted the iPad. It sports a mobile form issue that runs a easy OS created especially for the tablet. Certain iOS can also be a telephone platform but Apple has adapted it to manage the iPad nicely. It was also able to acquire app developers to adapt or make iPad-specific versions of apps to operate well on the slate.
I like my ThinkPad Tablet two, a good Windows tablet. It takes benefit of Windows 8, specially each of the tablet capabilities Microsoft implemented for that goal. But when I show it (or any Windows tablet) to people I get fairly a great deal the same reaction.
The discussion proceeds with me explaining how you are able to run Windows apps and how new apps are becoming written for the Windows 8 app store. That is followed by a conversation that tends to make it clear the other party not merely has no desire to run Windows and its apps on a tablet, they genuinely can not see why everyone would want to do that. The iPad does every little thing they want a tablet to do and more so why would they want to use a tablet with Windows?
For a lot of shoppers Windows represents perform. It is around the computer in the workplace and they "have" to make use of it there. They don't forget all of the occasions they had to get the IT folks to come repair the Computer that stopped carrying out anything. They feel of how they cannot go to all the cool websites because they're blocked at perform, which they come to think of as a Windows point. They assume of how trouble-free their house computing has grow to be due to the fact they just naturally started undertaking www.windows7mart.com it all on the iPad at home.
Most of the folks I interact with about Windows on tablets who like it, and are excited about Windows eight, are individuals who either make a living within the Windows ecosystem or possess a unique need for applying Windows outdoors the scope of standard dwelling computing. Having full Windows within a tablet type is just what they must do what they want each for perform and at home.
Unfortunately for Microsoft, there are not sufficient of those enthusiasts to produce a difference, as confirmed by both the Surface RT debacle, and low Surface Pro sales (compared to the iPad). The vast majority have already been shown that their beloved iPad is all they need outdoors of perform. The iPad has entirely replaced Pc usage within the property for a lot of owners and kicked Windows back to the office.
A familiar sight in public is someone with an iPad in hand, or one being utilised using a keyboard case. Where it utilised to become a lot more frequent to determine persons utilizing Windows laptops of varying sizes in public venues lots of of them happen to be replaced with the iPad. More substantially, iPad customers aren't just carrying out fun stuff that tablets are believed to be designed for, they are performing almost everything they used to perform with the forgotten Windows laptop back at property.
Microsoft saw this coming and radically changed the style of Windows to perform on tablets, desktops, and laptops. The folks in Redmond saw the writing on the wall and knew they had to adjust the OS into a tablet OS to maintain Windows within the property. They currently had the enterprise locked up so bringing Windows to the tablet was an effort to maintain people applying the OS at dwelling.
Make no mistake, the Surface RT was firmly aimed at getting consumers to think about Windows on residence tablets, and that work has failed. Those wanting to make use of a simple tablet at dwelling have quite a lot already adopted the iPad. It sports a mobile form issue that runs a easy OS created especially for the tablet. Certain iOS can also be a telephone platform but Apple has adapted it to manage the iPad nicely. It was also able to acquire app developers to adapt or make iPad-specific versions of apps to operate well on the slate.
I like my ThinkPad Tablet two, a good Windows tablet. It takes benefit of Windows 8, specially each of the tablet capabilities Microsoft implemented for that goal. But when I show it (or any Windows tablet) to people I get fairly a great deal the same reaction.
The discussion proceeds with me explaining how you are able to run Windows apps and how new apps are becoming written for the Windows 8 app store. That is followed by a conversation that tends to make it clear the other party not merely has no desire to run Windows and its apps on a tablet, they genuinely can not see why everyone would want to do that. The iPad does every little thing they want a tablet to do and more so why would they want to use a tablet with Windows?
For a lot of shoppers Windows represents perform. It is around the computer in the workplace and they "have" to make use of it there. They don't forget all of the occasions they had to get the IT folks to come repair the Computer that stopped carrying out anything. They feel of how they cannot go to all the cool websites because they're blocked at perform, which they come to think of as a Windows point. They assume of how trouble-free their house computing has grow to be due to the fact they just naturally started undertaking www.windows7mart.com it all on the iPad at home.
Most of the folks I interact with about Windows on tablets who like it, and are excited about Windows eight, are individuals who either make a living within the Windows ecosystem or possess a unique need for applying Windows outdoors the scope of standard dwelling computing. Having full Windows within a tablet type is just what they must do what they want each for perform and at home.
Unfortunately for Microsoft, there are not sufficient of those enthusiasts to produce a difference, as confirmed by both the Surface RT debacle, and low Surface Pro sales (compared to the iPad). The vast majority have already been shown that their beloved iPad is all they need outdoors of perform. The iPad has entirely replaced Pc usage within the property for a lot of owners and kicked Windows back to the office.
Sunday, 14 July 2013
BlackBerry Z10 Prices Drop to $49 Amid Weak Sales
Four months after launching BlackBerry Ltd.’s flagship Z10 smartphone, U.S.
carriers and retailers are already discounting the device by as much as 75%.
AT&T Inc. and Verizon Wireless, stung by slower sales of the all-touch-screen phone, have cut the price in half to $99 from $199 with a two-year contract. Best Buy Co. and Amazon.com Inc. are now offering the phone under contract for $49. Without the contract, the Z10 sells for about $700.
The price cuts put the Z10 at a steep discount to competing high-end phones from Samsung Electronics Co. and Apple Inc. that sell for $199 with a contract.
Discounting is common in smartphone marketing. Samsung recently discounted its Galaxy S3 ahead of the launch of a newer version of the phone. But such an early move by carriers and retailers to discount the Z10, just months after its late-March launch, suggest the phone isn’t selling well.
A BlackBerry spokesman said in a statement that “now is the right time to adjust the price” of the Z10 as the company introduces newer models.
“It’s part of life cycle management to tier the pricing for current devices to make room for the next ones,” he wrote in an email. “This is just one element of our marketing strategy that will ensure we remain aggressive in a very competitive market landscape.”
Last year, U.S. carriers cut in half the price of the Lumia 900, the flagship brand of another struggling phone maker, Nokia Corp., only about three months after launch.
BlackBerry is banking on a turnaround on sales of its new line of phones, including the Z10 and the keyboard-equipped Q10, which went on sale in the U.S. in June. In its most recent earnings report last month, new BlackBerry phone sales came in well under most analysts’ estimates, though the company didn’t break out sales of the models.
Investors hammered BlackBerry shares after the earnings results came in, and pressure is mounting on chief executive Thorsten Heins to prove that his promises of a turnaround are bearing fruit.
On Friday, BlackBerry’s shares traded down about 1% to $9.24. The shares are down about 36% since the earnings report.
At the company’s annual shareholders meeting earlier this week, Mr. Heins was confronted by a shareholder who said the U.S. launch of the Z10 had been a “disaster.”
Mr. Heins admitted that the U.S. market is “ferocious” and that the company is having trouble there, but denied the launch was a disaster.
The Z10 discounting is reminiscent of another weak BlackBerry product launch: the company’s PlayBook tablet. A few months after the PlayBook was launched in 2011, when the company reported weak sales of the tablet, , when the company reported weak sales of the tablet,retailers slashed prices.
Later that year, BlackBerry wrote down nearly $500 million in unsold PlayBook inventory. Last month, Mr. Heins announced that the company would not be updating the PlayBook to its new BlackBerry 10 operating system, effectively pulling support for the device.
Corrections & Amplifications
A previous version of this article implied that AT&T Inc. is selling a new BlackBerry Z10 phone for $49. That is for a refurbished version. The carrier is offering a new Z10 for $99.
AT&T Inc. and Verizon Wireless, stung by slower sales of the all-touch-screen phone, have cut the price in half to $99 from $199 with a two-year contract. Best Buy Co. and Amazon.com Inc. are now offering the phone under contract for $49. Without the contract, the Z10 sells for about $700.
The price cuts put the Z10 at a steep discount to competing high-end phones from Samsung Electronics Co. and Apple Inc. that sell for $199 with a contract.
Discounting is common in smartphone marketing. Samsung recently discounted its Galaxy S3 ahead of the launch of a newer version of the phone. But such an early move by carriers and retailers to discount the Z10, just months after its late-March launch, suggest the phone isn’t selling well.
A BlackBerry spokesman said in a statement that “now is the right time to adjust the price” of the Z10 as the company introduces newer models.
“It’s part of life cycle management to tier the pricing for current devices to make room for the next ones,” he wrote in an email. “This is just one element of our marketing strategy that will ensure we remain aggressive in a very competitive market landscape.”
Last year, U.S. carriers cut in half the price of the Lumia 900, the flagship brand of another struggling phone maker, Nokia Corp., only about three months after launch.
BlackBerry is banking on a turnaround on sales of its new line of phones, including the Z10 and the keyboard-equipped Q10, which went on sale in the U.S. in June. In its most recent earnings report last month, new BlackBerry phone sales came in well under most analysts’ estimates, though the company didn’t break out sales of the models.
Investors hammered BlackBerry shares after the earnings results came in, and pressure is mounting on chief executive Thorsten Heins to prove that his promises of a turnaround are bearing fruit.
On Friday, BlackBerry’s shares traded down about 1% to $9.24. The shares are down about 36% since the earnings report.
At the company’s annual shareholders meeting earlier this week, Mr. Heins was confronted by a shareholder who said the U.S. launch of the Z10 had been a “disaster.”
Mr. Heins admitted that the U.S. market is “ferocious” and that the company is having trouble there, but denied the launch was a disaster.
The Z10 discounting is reminiscent of another weak BlackBerry product launch: the company’s PlayBook tablet. A few months after the PlayBook was launched in 2011, when the company reported weak sales of the tablet, , when the company reported weak sales of the tablet,retailers slashed prices.
Later that year, BlackBerry wrote down nearly $500 million in unsold PlayBook inventory. Last month, Mr. Heins announced that the company would not be updating the PlayBook to its new BlackBerry 10 operating system, effectively pulling support for the device.
Corrections & Amplifications
A previous version of this article implied that AT&T Inc. is selling a new BlackBerry Z10 phone for $49. That is for a refurbished version. The carrier is offering a new Z10 for $99.
CalDAV assistance but overall the adjustments are extremely
Microsoft published specifics of its upcoming Windows Telephone 8 update on
Thursday, revealing the minor adjustments which can be because of roll out
shortly. Identified as Basic Distribution Release two (GDR2), the update
involves fixes to Xbox Music to provide correct metadata windows 7 ultimate activation key, the restoration from
the FM radio function, a Data Sense app that's not exclusive to specific
carriers, and also a new alternative to set a Lens app as the default camera.
You'll find some HTML5 updates in World wide web Explorer, improved Skype and
Lync stability, and Gmail CardDAV / CalDAV assistance, but overall the
adjustments are extremely minor for an update eight months just after the
original Windows Phone eight release.
In accordance with sources familiar with Microsoft's Windows Phone plans, the firm is in a "shut up and ship" mode. We're told that the lack of substantial adjustments is resulting from the focus on Windows Phone's "Blue" update. The future update, expected in early 2014, looks set to include things like a notification center, improved multitasking, and adjustments to built-in apps. We understand that Microsoft is thinking of back porting a number of the "Blue" functions, including a rotation lock alternative, to a GDR3 update due later this year. Any ported capabilities are stated to help future hardware arriving later this year, and occasionally in the request of certain telephone makers like Nokia. In comparison, Windows 8.1 contains a whole host of changes and feature additions designed for tablets and PCs that is certainly expected to be delivered in late August ?a just ten months after the original Windows eight release.
We've learned that Microsoft had planned to roll out several Windows Telephone updates a lot more regularly, but delays in testing new chipsets and bugs in a number of the GDR updates have slowed down function additions. 1 particular bug with unbranded devices not sold by carriers is mentioned to possess impacted the way a handset is identified on a network. We're told that Microsoft had a challenging time fixing this specific problem, resulting in delays to other planned function.
We're told that a lot of the concentrate for Windows Phone computer software improvements is related to hardware release and refreshes. The future GDR3 update will contain help for 5- and 6-inch Windows Phones with 1080p resolutions, and quad-core chipsets. These devices will debut later this year, and Microsoft has been operating closely with OEMs to make sure Windows Telephone involves the hardware support needed. Microsoft revealed on Thursday that with each other with Nokia it "shared early builds of software and hardware" to ready the Lumia 1020. "I wrote greater than 10 pages of feedback myself around the Nokia Pro Camera app as it was becoming developed," says Microsoft's Joe Belfiore.
The message from Microsoft on Windows Phone updates is mixed. Even though the corporation promised a year ago that it was developing an enthusiasts program to provide early access to updates, Microsoft has however to detail when it plans to deliver it. The plan was said to "keep your phone fresher than ever prior to." For now although, all update signs point to early 2014. Microsoft confirmed it really is arranging a "feature pack" update inside the initial half of subsequent year that will incorporate some enterprise improvements and VPN assistance. Unfortunately, it isn't sharing further information about any other additions. It leaves Nokia along with other telephone makers having to depend on hardware selling points, knowing full well that the Windows Phone application and ecosystem nevertheless lags the competition.
In accordance with sources familiar with Microsoft's Windows Phone plans, the firm is in a "shut up and ship" mode. We're told that the lack of substantial adjustments is resulting from the focus on Windows Phone's "Blue" update. The future update, expected in early 2014, looks set to include things like a notification center, improved multitasking, and adjustments to built-in apps. We understand that Microsoft is thinking of back porting a number of the "Blue" functions, including a rotation lock alternative, to a GDR3 update due later this year. Any ported capabilities are stated to help future hardware arriving later this year, and occasionally in the request of certain telephone makers like Nokia. In comparison, Windows 8.1 contains a whole host of changes and feature additions designed for tablets and PCs that is certainly expected to be delivered in late August ?a just ten months after the original Windows eight release.
We've learned that Microsoft had planned to roll out several Windows Telephone updates a lot more regularly, but delays in testing new chipsets and bugs in a number of the GDR updates have slowed down function additions. 1 particular bug with unbranded devices not sold by carriers is mentioned to possess impacted the way a handset is identified on a network. We're told that Microsoft had a challenging time fixing this specific problem, resulting in delays to other planned function.
We're told that a lot of the concentrate for Windows Phone computer software improvements is related to hardware release and refreshes. The future GDR3 update will contain help for 5- and 6-inch Windows Phones with 1080p resolutions, and quad-core chipsets. These devices will debut later this year, and Microsoft has been operating closely with OEMs to make sure Windows Telephone involves the hardware support needed. Microsoft revealed on Thursday that with each other with Nokia it "shared early builds of software and hardware" to ready the Lumia 1020. "I wrote greater than 10 pages of feedback myself around the Nokia Pro Camera app as it was becoming developed," says Microsoft's Joe Belfiore.
The message from Microsoft on Windows Phone updates is mixed. Even though the corporation promised a year ago that it was developing an enthusiasts program to provide early access to updates, Microsoft has however to detail when it plans to deliver it. The plan was said to "keep your phone fresher than ever prior to." For now although, all update signs point to early 2014. Microsoft confirmed it really is arranging a "feature pack" update inside the initial half of subsequent year that will incorporate some enterprise improvements and VPN assistance. Unfortunately, it isn't sharing further information about any other additions. It leaves Nokia along with other telephone makers having to depend on hardware selling points, knowing full well that the Windows Phone application and ecosystem nevertheless lags the competition.
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