Nokia joins Apple to secure injunction against Samsung

In a surprising move, Nokia will be supporting its market rival Apple to secure injunctions on several Samsung's product. The Finnish manufacturer will remain the only alien company to support the Cupertino giant in its appeal.

Nokia in its filling at the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in Washington argued that the court was wrong in denying the Apple's plead for the injunction.

Interestingly, Nokia had instituted legal proceedings against Apple three years ago, but now, the companies have joined hands to fight against the current market leaders.

Meanwhile, Apple had requested the Federal Circuit to speed up its appeal and schedule a hearing immediately. The court however has rejected Apple's plea and has a referred the case to a three member judge panel.

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Samsung, Apple to use wireless charging on their phones?

Wireless charging tech has been around for a few years now, but 2013 might be the year it finally goes mainstream. Industry sources say that Samsung and Apple are both working on wireless charging for their 2013 flagships smartphones.

Samsung is reportedly looking at Qi from the Wireless Power Consortium – it’s currently the most popular choice with members including Nokia, LG, HTC, Sony and Motorola. It’s worth noting that Samsung is currently a member of a competing standard run by the Alliance for Wireless Power (along with Qualcomm, TI, Broadcom and others).

Whichever standard it goes for, Samsung may not integrate the tech right into the Galaxy S IV, but put it in an optional back cover instead (like the Nokia Lumia 820). There are currently third-party Qi charging kits for the Galaxy S III as well, but not an official Samsung-made accessory.

Apple is also looking into enabling wireless charging on its products, but the company will reportedly go for a homegrown solution, which won’t be out of character for the Cupertino giant. According to insiders Apple is also investigating an implementation og the tech as an add-on rather than build it into the iPhone 5S.

In less than a week we’ll know if Samsung has put wireless charging tech in the Galaxy S IV and what kind. Apple’s announcement won’t be for some time, though.

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Samsung Galaxy S III vs. Note II: Sizing up

Introduction

The Galaxy S III and the Note II are both cut from the same cloth, but one is XL while the other is XXL. What can we say - someone at Samsung must be busy spinning and weaving.

Size matters as it always has but this isn't a choice between slim fit and loose fit. It's the Android experience and it must be the perfect fit - so another close-up look at both may be well worth it. And mind you, this isn't about which one is better - the phone or the phablet - it's about which one looks good on you.

It's hard not to look at the Note II as an oversized Galaxy S III, but a few minutes with the S Pen might convince you otherwise. The bigger screen (with a new Super AMOLED matrix to boot) and overclocked chipset are pretty sweet too.

On the other hand, 4.8" is plenty for a phone and the S III is a root away from the extra clock speed if you're a power-obsessed geek. Plus, while the screen uses a PenTile Super AMOLED matrix, it does handle sunlight better. And styli went out of fashion years ago, right?

We're about to delve into the details, but if we had 10 seconds to summarize the differences between the S III and Note II, here's what we'd tell you.

Samsung Galaxy S III over Note II

• More compact - 136.6 x 70.6 x 8.6 mm vs. 151.1 x 80.5 x 9.4 mm
• Lighter - 133g vs. 183g
• Same resolution on smaller screen, so higher pixel density - 306ppi vs. 267ppi
• Better sunlight legibility
• Not as expensive

Samsung Galaxy Note II over S III

• Bigger screen - 5.5" vs. 4.8"
• New display matrix with a full array of subpixels
• Slightly brighter screen
• S Pen and Wacom digitizer
• Faster CPU (1.6GHz vs. 1.4GHz) and faster GPU
• All models have 2GB of RAM, while the international S III has only 1GB (US and LTE versions have 2GB)
• Split-screen interface, other niceties like Page Buddy
• Longer battery life

While mobile devices are typically good at content consumption but not creation, Samsung is trying to break that barrier with the S Pen. The split-screen interface also promises improved productivity.

Still, the Galaxy S III is lighter on the pocket (in both the physical and monetary sense) and is pretty much the same device in terms of software and hardware (sans the S Pen).

   
Samsung Galaxy S III and Galaxy Note II

Here's the roadmap for this comparison - we start off with the hardware, including the screen and battery life, then we move on to software and benchmarks, compare the cameras and finish off with the audio quality. Press next to begin.

HTC One X+ review: The complete package

There's no denying that the HTC One X was an amazingly solid smartphone. On the surface it even looked like as good a package as its main rival at the time, the Galaxy S III, and having a head-start to the market it was almost expected for it to become a huge success.

The devil turned out to be in the details though, and the One X never quite managed to get the same traction as its Samsung rival. There must have been so many if onlys around the HTC HQ for missing an opportunity like that, that the company didn’t even wait for the successor to come and fix the issues, but released a refreshed model.

  
HTC One X+ official photos

Enter the HTC One X+. It's faster than its predecessor, offers more storage and an ampler battery – quite nice upgrades. True, they don’t make too dramatic a difference, but as we said – the starting package was pretty great already and it's just the details that needed polishing.

Key features

• Quad-band GSM and 3G support
• 21 Mbps HSDPA and 5.76 Mbps HSUPA
• 4.7" 16M-color Super LCD 2 capacitive touchscreen of HD resolution (720 x 1280 pixels); Gorilla glass 2 protection
• Android 4.1 Jelly Bean with latest HTC Sense 4+
• 1.7 GHz quad-core Cortex-A9 CPUs, low-power companion core, ULP GeForce 2 GPU, Nvidia Tegra 3 chipset
• 1 GB of RAM
• 32/64 GB of storage
• 8 MP autofocus camera with LED flash; face detection and geotagging
• 1080p and 720p video recording @ 28fps with stereo sound
• 720p front-facing camera for video-chat
• Wi-Fi b/g/n and DLNA
• GPS with A-GPS; GLONASS
• Stereo FM radio with RDS
• Accelerometer, proximity sensor and auto-brightness sensor
• Standard 3.5 mm audio jack
• microUSB port (charging) and stereo Bluetooth v4.0
• MHL TV-out (requires MHL-to-HDMI adapter)
• Smart dialing, voice dialing
• DivX/XviD video support
• Office document editor
• Beats audio enhancements

Main disadvantages

• No microSD card slot
• No dedicated camera key
• Non-user-accessible battery
• No native video-calls
• Video framing is tricky

Despite taking a few punches in this year's flagship wars, HTC isn't ready to throw in the towel just yet. With the holiday shopping season just around the corner, the updated One X+ comes at the perfect time to turn things around.

  
HTC One X+ studio shots

And while the One X+ is certainly better prepared, the challenge has also become harder. During the One X facelift, a new contender emerged in the face of the LG Optimus G and its quad-core Krait CPU. The LG flagship smartphone is certainly the most powerful currently on the market, but the One X+ is the more mature device and has Jelly Bean on its side.

Grab the popcorn – this one is going to be a thriller.

battery test

Talk time

• Sort by Label
• Sort by Value
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• Motorola RAZR MAXX (ICS)21:18
• Google Nexus 414:17
• HTC One X+13:31
• Samsung Galaxy Grand Duos12:45
• Huawei Ascend P112:30
• HTC Butterfly12:18
• Pantech Burst4:46

The web browsing test saw the Samsung Galaxy Grand put in another solid performance, lasting for 7 hours and 9 minutes on a single charge. That puts it near the top of our chart – a commendable achievement for a smartphone with a 5″ screen, WVGA or not.

Web browsing

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• Apple iPhone 59:56
• Motorola DROID RAZR MAXX7:23
• HTC Radar7:17
• Samsung Galaxy Grand Duos7:09
• Samsung Galaxy Express7:09
• Motorola RAZR i7:06
• Samsung Galaxy Nexus3:01

When playing videos the Samsung Galaxy Grand did managed to last for a whole hour longer compared to web browsing. Enduring 8 hours and 11 minutes before 90% of the battery charge was gone (this test end earlier than the other two), was enough to secure a good mid-table position.

Video playback

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• Motorola RAZR MAXX (ICS)16:35
• HTC Butterfly8:28
• Samsung Galaxy Note8:25
• Samsung Galaxy Grand Duos8:11
• HTC One X+8:11
• Motorola RAZR i8:11
• Nokia Lumia 7103:27

Given the solid good job in the individual challenges, it was no surprise that the Samsung Galaxy Grand got a great 56h overall endurance rating. Surprisingly, or rather not with a battery this big, even the dual stand-by didn’t affect its stand-by efficiency too greatly . This means you’ll need to charge the phone every 56 hours if you use it for an hour of 3G talks, video playback and web browser each day.

Samsung Galaxy Grand I9082 review: GrandisSIMo

Dual-SIM support is obviously not a universally sought-after feature but demand for smartphones that can operate two SIM cards has been consistently strong in certain markets. This fact should at least begin to explain why the Galaxy Grand is currently the second most popular handset in this website's database.

So, Samsung has been busy lately releasing phones styled after the outgoing flagship, the Galaxy S III. Think a particular screen size and level of equipment, and the Koreans most likely have it. Now, a massive screen and dual-SIM support doesn't sound like the combination on many people's minds but what do we know. It may've made all the sense in the world for Samsung to unleash a big fat five-incher in a niche that other smartphone makers like Sony, HTC and LG are very much interested in too.

Key features

• Quad-band GSM (SIM 1 & SIM 2) and 3G (SIM 1 only) support
• Dual SIM stand-by
• 21.1 Mbps HSDPA and 5.76 Mbps HSUPA support (SIM 1 only)
• 5.0" 16M-color TFT capacitive touchscreen of WVGA (480 x 800 pixel) resolution
• Android OS 4.1.2 Jelly Bean with Nature UX
• 1.2 GHz dual-core ARM Cortex-A9 CPU, Broadcom VideoCore IV GPU, 1GB of RAM
• 8MP autofocus camera with LED flash, face and smile detection, image stabilization
• 2MP secondary camera
• 1080p HD video recording at 30fps with stereo sound
• Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n support; DLNA and Wi-Fi hotspot
• GPS with A-GPS connectivity and GLONASS; digital compass
• 8GB of inbuilt storage, microSD slot
• Accelerometer, gyroscope and proximity sensor
• Standard 3.5 mm audio jack
• microUSB v2.0 port with MHL
• Stereo Bluetooth v4.0
• FM radio with RDS

Main disadvantages

• The five-inch diagonal stretches the WVGA resolution really thin
• Middling screen contrast and overall quality
• Poor low-light video recording
• No dedicated camera key

The dual-SIM Galaxy Grand is powered by the same dual-core chipset as the recently released Galaxy S II Plus. Switching from Exynos to Broadcom looks like a minor step down in terms of GPU, but as we saw on the S II Plus the superior power efficiency more than makes up for it. In fact, combined with the low (by today's standards) screen resolution this might turn the Galaxy Grand in one of the longest lasting smartphones on the market.

Oh well, that's at least one redeeming quality of a screen that has the pixel density of an entry-level HVGA unit - the Galaxy Mini II should be a proper reference. The huge 5" diagonal obviously stretches the resolution (480 x 800 pixels) thin.

Other than that though, there isn't much else that's seriously wrong with a handset that clearly positions itself in the midrange. The Galaxy Grand has some of the advanced features courtesy of Android Jelly Bean and the latest TouchWiz. The build quality is above average and the battery backup sounds promising - and that's an important asset for a dual-SIM phone. Let's see. We start with the design and build, as usua

Microsoft temporarily suspends Windows Phone 7.8 updates

Microsoft has stopped Windows Phone 7.8 updates for the aged Windows Phone smartphones like the Nokia Lumia 800, Lumia 900 and Lumia 610. The company is working to fix a software glitch in the release, but it's unclear how long the suspension will last.

The folks at CNET claim to have received a confirmation for the halt of the update from Nokia as well. According to a representative of the Finnish compnay, the glitch seems to be a minor issue in the Windows Phone 7.8 software and the roll out will resume shortly.

The latest Windows Phone 7.8 update comes with a refreshed home-screen and resizable live tiles. Unfortunately, this seems to be the last major update for the Windows Phone 7.x smartphones as Microsoft has already confirmed that these smartphones will not be getting to taste Windows Phone 8.x.

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