Thursday, June 13, 2013

Nokia to Stop Shipping Symbian Phones After this Summer

Nokia to stop shipping Symbian phones after this summer Nokia to Stop Shipping Symbian Phones After this SummerEarlier this year when Nokia announced its quarterly earnings report, it made this clear that the lifespan of its Symbian devices is coming to an end in favor of Microsoft’s Windows Phones.
Now Nokia has said that it all will finally come to an end this summer. The support of the devices will continue till 2016 at least though, so software updates will most-likely be rolled out until then.
The news of the ditching of Symbian smartphones comes as no surprise because Nokia’s Windows Phones sales finally caught up with the miserable sales of the the aging products, which were mainly pushed because of ground-breaking camera phones the N8, the later Belle devices and 808 Pureview.
According to the last quarterly report, only 0.5 million Symbian devices were sold compared to 5.6 million Lumia and 5 million Asha devices. After the discarding of the OS, Nokia has got only a single way to go: Windows Phones. Even if that fails then all is not over as the company has been hinting Android-running devices, saying that the doors are not completely being closed on them.
But even if you’re not a fan of the Symbian OS, you can’t help but be misty-eyed at the sight of the news. After all, its such an old OS and a vital part of our tech lives.

Alienware Announces Three New Gaming Laptops

Alienware Alienware Announces Three New Gaming Laptops
Alienware, the gaming-laptop manufacturing giant owned by Dell has announced 3 new and striking gaming laptops. The Alienware 14, 17 and 18 are welcome additions to company’s line-up for this year and feature new designs.
The striking 10 LED lights found on each laptop can be lit in 20 colors and change their color accordingly with the game state. Apart from that, the design is almost 60% aluminium and magnesium alloy. Under the hood, the machines are powered by Intel’s 4th generation Haswell chips.

Alienware 14

The Alienware 14 comes with a 14 inch display with resolution of 1366 x 768 pixels for the base model which can be upped to 1920 x 1080 pixels.
The amount of RAM can be a maximum of 16 GBs (8 GB comes with the base model) while the hard drive memory can be increased to 512 GBs. It also has the ability to have up to 3 hard drives.
  • 4th Gen Intel® Core™ i7 processors
  • Windows® 7 Home Premium (64bit)
  • Up to NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 765M with 2GB GDDR5
  • Incredible Balance of Power and Mobility
  • Starting at $1,199

Alienware 17

The Alienware 17 comes with a 17.3 inch display with resolution of 1600 x 900 pixels but you can have a 3D display with resolution of 1920 x 1080 pixels as well. It can have up to 32 GBs of RAM and a 1TB hard drive. The Alienware 17 can hold up to 4 hard drives.
  • 4th Gen Intel® Core™ i7 processors
  • Windows® 7 Home Premium (64bit)
  • Up to 32GB* 1600MHz memory performance boost
  • Optional 3D display for an immersive experience anywhere
  • Starting at $1,499

Alienware 18

The Alienware 18 is the best laptop of the trio. Packed with a 18.4 inch display with resolution of 1920 x 1080 pixels, it can have up to 32 GBs of RAM and a giant 1.5TB hard drive. It can also have up to 4 hard drives.
  • 4th Gen Intel® Core™ i7 processors
  • Windows® 7 Home Premium (64bit)
  • Optional Dual NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 780Ms with 4GB GDDR5
  • Enthusiast desktop-class gaming performance from an 18.4-inch laptop
  • Starting at $2,099
Intel Core i7 processor powers up the three systems but the Alienware 14 will have a Core i5 version too. Buyers can select either go with Windows 7 or 8 as their choice of OS. All the laptops come with optical drives but you can have Blu-ray readers too. They all use Bluetooth 4.0. The Alienware 17 and 18 also have the new Wifi 802.11ac. The new Nvidia GeForce 700 series GPU is used by the three laptops.
The trio is available for buying right now but should be available in Pakistani market later in the year.

Samsung Announces Yet Another S4 Variant: the S4 Zoom

image Samsung Announces Yet Another S4 Variant: the S4 Zoom
The list of phones in the Galaxy S4 range is mind-boggling in itself. Following from the original international Galaxy S4 and the quad-core SnapDragon versions, we got theS4 mini and then the water-proof S Active and now, for the cameraphone fans, the S4 Zoom with a 16-megapixel sensor, a 10x optical zoom, and a Xenon flash.
Galaxy S4 Zoom is targeted specifically towards people who use their phone cameras as their primary photo-taking tools.
Weighing at 208g, Samsung Galaxy S4 Zoom sports a 4.3-inch Super AMOLED qHD super AMOLED display with a resolution of 540×960 pixels covered with a sheet of Corning Gorilla Glass 3.
Running on the Android 4.2 Jelly Bean operating system, the phone is powered by a 1.5GHz dual core processor (which will vary to markets according to Samsung) along with 8GB of internal storage and 1.5GB of RAM that’s expandable via microSD card slot.
Connectivity options include WiFi a/b/g/n as well as Bluetooth 4.0 and NFC along with A-GPS and GLONASS, an accelerometer, digital compass, proximity sensor, gyroscope, and light sensor. The battery is a 2,330 mAh pack, even though Samsung is not saying how long it will last.
At back, there is a full-fledged camera of 16-megapixel CMOS sensor with optical image stabilization, 24-240mm 10x optical zoom, with an F3.1-F6.3 lens along with 1.9-megapixel camera for video calls.
The smartphone camera hybrid comes with a fanatical shutter button .There’s a Xenon flash, rather than the usual LED, allowing up to 4fps burst photography with autofocus and support for recording up to 1080p30 HD video.
On the software front, as well as TouchWiz on top of Android 4.2 Jelly Bean, Samsung has added quite a few new camera-specific features including up to 25 smart mode options. These smart modes are namely Beauty face, Best photo, Continuous shot, Best face, Kids shot, Landscape, Dawn, Snow, Macro, Food, Party/Indoor, Action freeze, Rich tone (HDR), Panorama, Waterfall, Animated photo, Drama, Eraser, Sound & Shot, Silhouette, Sunset, Night, Fireworks, Light trace and Smart mode suggest.
Another novel feature embedded in this device is Samsung Zoom Ring, which, if twisted when in a call, automatically kicks into camera mode allowing you snap a photo as well as sending it via MMS to whoever you are talking to.
However, the Samsung Galaxy S4 Zoom will go on sale this summer in United Kingdom and then will move to other regions, though the company is yet to confirm pricing.
Samsung Galaxy S4 Zoom key specifications
  • Android 4.2.2 with Samsung’s Nature UX
  • 15.4mm thick
  • Weight: 208g
  • Voice calling capability and 4G LTE supported
  • 24mm wide lens with 10X Optical Zoom
  • 16 megapixel camera with Xenon Flash
  • Full HD 1080p video recording at 30fps
  • HDR mode and Optical Image Stabilization
  • 1.9 megapixel front camera
  • 4.3 inch Super AMOLED display with qHD resolution
  • Gorilla Glass 3 protection
  • 1.5 Ghz dual-core processor
  • 1.5 GB RAM with 8 GB internal expandable storage
  • microUSB 2.0, Bluetooth 4.0, NFC, Infrared, GPS, Wifi Hotspot
  • 2330 mAh battery
The S4 Zoom will be available in Q3 of 2013. The price is unknown right now though.