Huawei Announces the Ascend P6 Smartphone

After multiple leaks and teases, Huawei has finally launched its Ascend P6 smartphone. The phone is crowned the title of the world’s slimmest smartphone with its 6 mm profile.

The design of the phone is a bit close to the iPhone so lawsuits may follow the release, but nonetheless looks really striking with its glass panels and aluminium sides. Dual-sim support is there too.

The display of the phone is of 720p HD resolution and is 4.7 inches big. The OS running is Android 4.2.2 Jelly Bean with Huawei’s Emotion UI on top of it. A 1.5Ghz quad-core Cortex A9 processor and 2 GB RAM should provide the phone enough horsepower. The back boasts am 8 megapixel camera with Full HD video recording. A pleasant surprise though is the 5 megpixel camera upfront.

Here are the full specs of the Ascend P6:

• Android 4.2.2 Jelly Bean with Emotion UI
• 4.7 inch display with 720p HD resolution
• Dual-sim support
• Weight: 120 grams
• World’s slimmest smartphone at just 6.9mm
• 1.5Ghz quad-core Cortex A9 processor with Huawei’s own K3V2 chipset
• 2 GB RAM with 8 GB expandable internal storage
• 8 megapixel rear-camera with Full HD 1080p at 30fps video recording
• HDR mode and LED Flash
• 5 megapixel 720p HD front-facing camera
• Bluetooth 3.0, microUSB 2.0, USB-OTG, Wifi Hotspot
• 2000 mAh battery
• Available in Black, White and Pink flavors

The phone will be available this month. Pricing is unknown as of now but shouldn’t be sky-high really given Huawei’s history. Even before its release, the phone already got a respectable 2 million pre-orders. Needless to say though, the phone looks much better than most Android flagships.

Samsung to Launch a New Galaxy S4 with Faster LTE

Samsung is planning to launch another variant of its Galaxy S4 flagship smartphone, this time with better connectivity options. The new S4 will be the first phone to use the advanced version of LTE (long term evolution) connectivity.

The revelation was made during an interview by the Samsung co-chief executive J.K. Shin.

The new LTE-Advanced 4G technology will be twice faster than the current LTE technology. It will be able to download a complete movie in just a bit over 1 minute compared to 3 minutes taken by the current technology. “As operators seek to provide more data-centric mobile services, I think this will become mainstream 4G technology globally in the coming years,” said Shin.

The advanced LTE chip will be made by Qualcomm. Shin was also optimistic because he thinks that it will further help the company stand out from the lot. “Such technology leadership will set the pace for the competition and help us become a major player in the network gear market”.

Shin did said that the new S4 will be more expensive than the current S4, expectedly. The price and availability details are unknown as of now but the phone might be launching as early as this month in Samsung’s native land, South Korea, where LTE-Advanced technology is said to be installed this year. International availability should follow soon too.

Needless to say though, a relatively few number of countries be able to receive it as LTE has only just managed to reach most markets. And in case you don’t know, the company has already demonstrated the 5G technology earlier this year so the new S4 really won’t be the limit for Samsung.

Microsoft Xbox One games to cost $60

As of now, perhaps the most important aspect of gaming, the price had been unknown. In recent days however, the official figures were released and now the price of game titles has been taken off the covers too. According to Microsoft, the price of the Xbox One game titles will be $60, for the most of the part at least. This means that if you are buying an Xbox One console along with a new game, you’ll be set aback by $559.

The price, however, isn’t too bad after all since most of the current Xbox 360 titles are also priced at the same price point.

The pricing of the PS4 titles however is still under the covers as of now so after consoles, Microsoft has beaten Sony to pricing of games too. But enough hints have already been given that the PS4 games will also be costing $60. Sony America CEO has already said that the price of the PS4 titles will top out at $60.

The real competition, though, will start after the consoles are released. It will be interesting to see how both of the consoles and their games will stack up against one another in real-life scenarios and which one will edge out the other to get the top-of-the-world honours among gamers.

HTC Announces the Budget Desire 200 Smartphone

HTC has outed yet another Android smartphone, this time in the starting range, the Desire 200. The phone is among the cheapest to ever come out from Taiwan and has a design inspired from the HTC flagship, the One.

The phone has a 3.5 inch display with resolution of 320 x 480 pixels. Under the screen is a 1Ghz single-core SnapDragon S1 processor and 512 MB RAM. The internal memory is 4 GB which is expandable via a memory card slot.

At the back is a 5 megapixel fixed-focus camera (which is a bit disappointing but its budget phone after all) with VGA video recording. There’s no front-facing camera on the Desire 200.

The battery capacity is 1230 mAh. Beats audio enhancement is in the mix too. Here are the full specs of the phone:

• (Unknown edition of) Android OS with HTC Sense UI
• 3.5 inch display with resolution of 320 x 480 pixels
• Weight: 100 grams
• 11.9mm thick
• 1Ghz single-core SnapDragon S1 processor
• 512 MB RAM with 4 GB internal expandable storage
• 5 megapixel fixed-focus back camera with VGA video recording
• Bluetooth 4.0, microUSB 2.0, Wifi Hotspot, GPS
• 1230 mAh battery

The pricing and availability details are under the covers right now but the phone should be getting the release date soon