Report says Samsung planning 4.3-inch Galaxy S4 Zoom with 16 megapixel camera

Samsung Galaxy Phone

Samsung must have received a good response with its Galaxy Camera that we first got a look at last year during IFA in Berlin, as new reports suggest the company is getting ready to introduce a new camera/smartphone hybrid dubbed the “Galaxy S4 Zoom”. The report comes from the often reliable SamMobile, and suggests that Samsung is preparing to introduce the device as its first “camera phone” with a 16 megapixel camera similar to that included in the Galaxy Camera:

SamMobile says the Galaxy S4 Zoom will include a slightly smaller 4.3” qHD SAMOLED display, 8GB of onboard storage, Bluetooth 4.0 LE, Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n, A-GPS, and the latest version of Jelly Bean alongside Samsung’s Touch Wiz UI. The report also claims the device will run dual or quad-core processor but CPU and RAM specs aren’t yet finalized.

According to the report Samsung is hoping to launch its new Galaxy S4 Zoom camera smartphone sometime in June and July in both while and black variants.

Acer Iconia A1 takes the iPad Mini’s display specs and puts it on a budget Android

Acer-Iconia-A1

At a press event today in New York City Acer has officially taken the wraps off its new 7.9-inch Iconia A1 tablet. While the display specs put the device somewhere slightly under the Nexus 7 and iPad mini, Acer has managed to offer a quad-core tablet well under the $199+ price point that most competitive tablets currently sell for.

Acer today unveiled the Acer Iconia A1, the company’s first full-featured 7.9-inch tablet targeted at modern day explorers, adventurers, digital freaks and mobile executives requiring an all-day mobile companion. Thanks to a sleek and light-weight design that is comfortable to hold in one hand, it also easily fits into a purse or bag. The new Acer Iconia A1 keeps people entertained and connected with smooth and speedy navigation, browsing and media playback powered by a fast quad-core processor.

The Iconia A1 runs the latest Android 4.2 Jelly Bean, packs in a 1.2GHz quad-core CPU, roughly 7-hour battery life, and an LED-backlit IPS display with 1024×768 resolution and aspect ration of 4:3. Other specs include Bluetooth, built-in 3G, GPS, microSD, and a 5MP rear camera.

The device will be hitting retail in June starting at $169 for an 8GB variant and $199 for the 16GB model.   Read more

Pentagon approves Samsung Knox and BlackBerry 10 for government use ahead of iOS 6

Samsung KnoxEarlier this week we told you that the Defense Department was nearing a decision on approving the three major mobile platforms through new security approvals that would allow widespread use of devices by government agencies and the DoD networks. While the department is yet to grant approval to Apple’s iOS 6 for for nonclassified communications by military agencies, today the Wall Street Journal provides an update noting that both Samsung’s Knox security software and BlackBerry 10 have now received the approvals ahead of Apple:

RIM announced late Thursday that the Department of Defense approved smartphones and tablets running on BlackBerry 10, the company’s new operating system, for use throughout DOD networks…Samsung devices outfitted with Knox, the company’s new security software offering, also received Pentagon approval Thursday, according to a DOD spokesman. Apple’s approval is still expected in the “next few weeks,” according to the spokesman.

As of February, BlackBerry made up the majority of the 600,000 devices on the DoD’s networks. Currently the networks consist of around 470,000 BlackBerrys, 41,000 Apple products, and 8,700 Android devices, although that could quickly change thanks to the new security approvals allowing more government agencies to adopt Samsung and Apple devices.

Nook HD and HD+ get Google Play after Barnes & Noble U-turn

Photo: slashgear.com

Photo: slashgear.com

Nook HD and HD+ owners will now be able to download content from Google Play after Barnes & Noble reversed its previous position of limiting app downloads to its own service (via Engadget).

Barnes & Noble had previous justified its locked-down approach on the basis of quality-control. The new policy allows Nook owners to download not just apps but also books, magazines and movies from Google Play … Read more

What we know about the Motorola X Fon (ghost): 25+ color options, all US carriers, early July ship, more

Update: We’ve been asked to remove the picture.

We’ve been sitting on some good Motorola X Fon information for awhile but weren’t able to confirm it until the most recent leaks which seem to corroborate what we have.  It turns out that the leaked images by Tinhte and @Evleaks appear to be legitimate Motorola X prototypes according to our source.  The phone above is a drawing the X FON which now appears to be the same phone pictured below:

The information we’ve heard from our source who has seen it a LTE version was that it will be released on all 4 US carriers and come in over 25 different color options.  The bottom bezel is remarkably small as you can see from the drawing above and the Tinhte.vn images. Like the other ones pictured, this one was 32GB storage, 2GB of RAM, and no SDCard.  Like the others, it was still running Android 4.2 recently and was codenamed ‘ghost’.

Both volume and power buttons are on the right side. Headphones jack is on top center, charging port was on bottom center.

The display was estimated to be 4.7 inches but with the very slim bezel on the bottom it felt very small. Perhaps as small as a 4.3-inch phone.

What we’re thinking at this point is that this phone looks like the successor to the Droid RAZR or RAZR M – small bezels, 4.3-4.7-ish display, extremely long battery life. But what about all of those colors and protection we’ve heard so much about?

Here’s what we’re thinking: Motorola is going to offer protective plates/skins in 25 colors from the point of ordering. 80-90% of people buy protection for the phones so perhaps Motorola is owning this aspect of the device from the order and can provide almost an almost indestructible, perhaps water-resistant customization.

Well, that’s our current thinking. We’ll likely hear what’s on offer at Google I/O in a few weeks.