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Oppo's next smartphone due in March with Quad HD and 1080p display options
You may cringe at this "Find 7 [are] coming" line, but it's actually an intentional typo, as Oppo's releasing its Find 5 follow-up with two screen resolutions. You see, back in December, the Chinese company teased that its next flagship phone will be using JDI's (not LG's) 5.5-inch 2,560 x 1,440 (538 ppi) panel, which is even sharper than the 6-inch counterpart on the Vivo Xplay 3S. Then to confuse us, earlier this week a Find 7 benchmark showed up on GFXBench with a 1080p display instead, along with a Snapdragon 800 SoC and Android 4.3. We've since checked with our own sources, and we can now confirm that said device will indeed be offered with more than one display option to please everyone: 2K aka Quad HD for the spec chasers, and 1080p for the humble users. We also understand that other specs may differ between the two versions, so if all goes well, we'll take a closer look at the Find 7 variants in Beijing's 798 Art Zone on March 19th.
Sharp's AQUOS Serie mini phone has a Full HD IGZO display, bright colors, unlikely stateside availability
With phone specifications often reaching a terminal velocity before the next new technology or trend, giving your hardware a differentiator can be hard. Sharp's new AQUOS Serie mini SHL24, however, is having a stab at a couple. Firstly, the TV maker is leveraging its IGZO screen tech, and spicing it up by cramming a full (1080p) HD display into the 4.5-inch panel -- that's almost 490 PPI. Secondly, in what it's calling an EDGEST design, the AQUOS Serie mini SHL24 seems to have some of the thinnest bezels we've seen for some time (bar the bottom one where the buttons are) making that screen really take pride of place. Thirdly? Colors of course! As for the rest of the specification, well it's not too shabby either. First up, it's running Android Jelly Bean (4.2), sports a 13-megapixel camera, 16GB of storage (with an SD card slot) and a Snapdragon (MSM8974) quad-core processor -- clocked at around 2.2GHz. Oh, and it's even waterproofed to IPX57 standards. Those are quite a few boxes ticked. But, sadly there's one biggie that currently remains empty -- as far as we can see right now, this is a Japan-only device. Sorry.
ASUS PadFone Infinity with Snapdragon 800 could simply be 'The new PadFone Infinity'
Following the original ASUS PadFone Infinity (A80) with Snapdragon 600 SoC, rumors of a new "PadFone Infinity A86" (or "PadFone T004") go as far back as July 20th, with benchmark evidence showing a more powerful Snapdragon 800 enabling this mysterious device. While details are still light, several eagle-eyed PadFone fans have started noticing a new name on ASUS' tech support page: "The new PadFone Infinity." Assuming this is more of an official name and less of a placeholder, it looks like we'll be seeing an identical-looking device sporting Qualcomm's latest piece of silicon; and perhaps a launch is imminent -- maybe at IFA next week? But ASUS, it really wouldn't hurt if you guys can throw in a microSD slot plus a dedicated keyboard dock as well this time. Remember the original PadFone? Good times.
Lenovo's first Snapdragon 800 phone leaked as the K6 or X910
Despite the fact that Lenovo hasn't yet embraced the Snapdragon 600 SoC, it looks like the Chinese company's finally giving Qualcomm a proper chance with the latter's more powerful Snapdragon 800. Starting yesterday, several cheeky images of an unannounced dual-SIM Android phone -- codenamed K6 or X910 -- popped up in Lenovo's official Chinese forum. The photo after the break shows AnTuTu indicating the presence of the relatively new MSM8974 chip (with Adreno 330 GPU) plus a 1,920 x 1,080 display (which looks like a 5-inch panel to us); so unless the app made a mistake, what we have here could be Lenovo's upcoming flagship device. While not much else has been said about the phone, one of the leaksters described it as thin and light, and that it felt good in hand. But to be honest, we're not too thrilled with the design ID here, especially with that K860-inspired back. What's interesting, though, is that according to a source of ours, the "X" in X910 may be a wildcard that depends on the kind of deal Lenovo made with Qualcomm. At this point, we've been told to assume it'll eventually become the K910, which would, sadly, make this phone an uglier successor to the Intel-powered K900. Either way, chances are we won't be seeing many of these outside China, anyway.
Samsung user manual confirms Galaxy S 4 variant with Snapdragon 800 chip
Welcome to Samsung Day, 2013. While we wait on some big (and little) product launches this afternoon, here's a quick bite to keep us going: an interesting processor spec mentioned in the user manual for the SHV-E330S, which we think will be the new LTE-Advanced variant of the Galaxy S 4 intended for South Korea. How the folks at RBmen spotted it we have no idea, but one of the pages (shown after the break) confirms the presence of a Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 (MSM8974), which not only supports the new double-speed LTE standard but is also something of a beast when it comes to general performance. This isn't especially relevant to a Western audience, perhaps, except that it marginally increases the probability that we'll see this same powerhouse inside the rumored Galaxy Note III, since Samsung evidently feels comfortable with Qualcomm's flagship silicon -- and it can't have failed to notice that LG's engineers are fond of it too.
Mobile Miscellany: week of March 25th, 2013
If you didn't get enough mobile news during the week, not to worry, because we've opened the firehose for the truly hardcore. This week, an unknown T-Mobile handset with Snapdragon 800 internals lit up the benchmarks, Sony was foiled at the lock screen and Rogers made 44 new promises without saying much at all. These stories and more await after the break. So buy the ticket and take the ride as we explore all that's happening in the mobile world for this week of March 25th, 2013.
