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GEAK unveils Eye and Mars smartphones with 13MP cameras, budget prices
GEAK may be focusing its attention on wearable tech like the Ring and Watch, but it still has a pair of new offerings for those who like old-fashioned smartphones: meet the 5-inch Eye and 5.8-inch Mars. Both are tailored to photo junkies with 13MP, backside-illuminated rear cameras as well as strong front cameras that shoot at 8MP (Eye) and 2MP (Mars). Differences between the handsets revolve mostly around performance and screen size. The Eye keeps things modest with a 720p IPS display, a quad-core MediaTek MT6589, HSPA+ data, 1GB of RAM and 16GB of storage. Spring for the extra-large Mars and you'll upgrade to a 1080p IPS LCD, a Snapdragon 600 and 2GB of RAM. Either way, you won't be paying a lot for the imaging prowess -- when pre-orders start on June 25th, GEAK will ask ¥1,999 ($326) off-contract for the Eye and ¥2,999 ($490) for the Mars. Just don't expect either to leave China when there's no word of international plans.
GEAK Ring puts NFC on your finger, unlocks phones and shares your contact card
Some say NFC is dead, but GEAK from Shanghai wants to prove them wrong. Announced alongside the GEAK Watch earlier today was this GEAK Ring, a tiny NFC-enabled wearable device that stores your identity. The ring's pitched as an intuitive way to unlock your phone -- just hold it with the hand that's wearing the ring, and it'll unlock without having to type in the password; plus it'll stay awake as long as it's held in the same hand. Another feature is that since the ring has your contact details stored (presumably rewritable), you can also use it to share your contact card with other NFC-enabled devices. But of course, given the risk of NFC cloning, you should treat GEAK's solution as a convenience rather than a more secure method. At launch, this ring will only be compatible with the GEAK Eye and GEAK Mars quad-core phones that were also announced today, but it'll support other devices from the likes of Samsung, Xiaomi and Oppo starting in November. GEAK will be taking pre-orders from August 8th, and it'll cost Chinese buyers ¥199 or about $30 each. It'll sure go nicely alongside that Google ring.
GEAK Watch packs Android, WiFi and a plethora of sensors, claims to be 'world's first true smartwatch'
Nowadays, we can't help but be skeptical of products that claim to be a smartwatch. In fact, what is a smartwatch, anyway? Perhaps GEAK, a Shanghai-based subsidiary of content giant Shanda, has a somewhat convincing answer. Simply dubbed the GEAK Watch, this wearable device packs a surprising number of components, with the most notable one being the 802.11b/g/n WiFi module -- a feature that Motorola's MOTOACTV already boasts. This lets the Android 4.1 system download apps directly or even receive OTA updates, but you can also create a wireless ad hoc network to do instant messaging with fellow users nearby -- the watch can apparently do voice-to-text input. There's also Bluetooth 4.0 and NFC for device pairing, along with GPS and FM radio -- yes, there's a headphone jack, too. In terms of sensory features, the GEAK Watch offers to monitor the user's sleeping pattern, pulse, blood pressure, body temperature, mood and number of steps walked (some of these require additional accessories). The components that take care of all these are somehow tucked into the 8mm-thick body of the watch, with the brain being the rare 1GHz Ingenic JZ4774 that's based on MIPS architecture. The chip's accompanied by 512MB of RAM, 4GB of storage and a suspiciously minuscule 500mAh lithium polymer cell -- no word on the battery life just yet, though. There's a 1.55-inch, 240 x 240 multi-touch OGS display to seal the device, and overall the watch is certified for a reasonable IPX3 water resistance. Honestly, this smartwatch sounds too good to be true, and it's only priced at just ¥1,999 or about $330. It'll be up for pre-ordering in China from July 3rd, so it shouldn't be long before we find out if the GEAK Watch is worthy of the "world's first true smartwatch" title.
