smartphones

LG Electronics ships record 10.3 million smartphones

LG Electronics achieved a record number of smartphone shipments for the first quarter of 2013.

The mobile phone maker shipped 10.3 million smartphones for the quarter ended in March, its highest level since jumping onto the smartphone bandwagon. Revenues in LG's mobile business reached 3.21 trillion won ($2.96 billion), a rise of 28.5 percent from the year-ago quarter.

The company attributed the gain in smartphone shipments to healthy sales of its Optimus G and Optimus G Pro phones as well as 3G smartphones such as the Optimus L Series and Nexus 4. LG expects further … Read more

Samsung Galaxy S4 has the fastest gaming graphics of any phone

Mobile devices like smartphones and tablets are on a collision course of high graphical performance. We're not at "console quality" just yet, but every few months or so performance seems to take a giant leap forward.

The Samsung Galaxy S4 is the latest mobile graphics prodigy, and while our full review will answer whether it's ultimately worth your money, I'm personally more interested in just how adept its highly advanced internals are. Namely at producing real-time, polygonal, video-game graphics. (Spoiler alert: as smartphones go, it's currently the best at doing this.)

To determine this, … Read more

A measure of Apple's success: Oppenheimer cites Japan

Apple Chief Financial Officer Peter Oppenheimer took a minute during Tuesday's earnings conference call to cite Apple's success in Japan -- an important metric in a country where national brands were once invincible.

"In Japan, IDC Japan announced that iPhone gained the number one position for all of calendar year 2012, as well as for calendar Q4 2012 in both handsets and smartphones," Oppenheimer said.

He continued. "This is also the first time a non-Japanese company has achieved the No. 1 spot for an entire year...In addition, Apple was ranked No. 1 in Nikkei'… Read more

Customize BlinkFeed for HTC One

For the HTC One, HTC designed a news feed widget called BlinkFeed that pulls in top stories from around the Web, as well as social feeds, such as Twitter and Facebook. It's a good-looking piece of software, and for better or worse, HTC makes it your default home screen on the HTC One.

But if you're less than thrilled by BlinkFeed, I'll show you how to better customize the stories that it pulls in, or even remove it from your home screen.

First off, tap the home button to make sure you're at the top of … Read more

Verizon outguns AT&T in Q1 smartphones

In the battle between wireless giants over consumers, Verizon Wireless toppled rival AT&T in the first quarter.

Growth in the traditional contract subscriber business -- seen as the bread and butter of the wireless carriers -- has been slowing for over the last several quarters. But Verizon appears to be weathering the slowdown better than most.

It wasn't much of a contest. Verizon added a net 677,000 new contract customers, compared with 296,000 net new contract subscribers at AT&T.

"The difference between subscriber trends at AT&T and Verizon is pretty … Read more

First-ever Braille smartphone could hit stores this year

An interaction designer who makes sci-fi short films has spent the past three years developing what he says is the world's first Braille-enabled smartphone. He said that if testing goes well, the phones could hit stores by the end of this year.

Thanks in part to award money from Rolex, India-based designer Sumit Dagar has been collaborating with the Indian Institute of Technology Delhi and L V Prasad Eye Institute in Hyderabad to develop a prototype. The smartphone employs a haptic touch screen that elevates and depresses the content it receives, thereby transforming the data into touchable patterns.

Yes, this phone is essentially a shapeshifter.… Read more

Verizon calls up entry-level Pantech Perception

Verizon announced on Tuesday the Pantech Perception, an entry-level Android with a wallet-friendly price tag.

The Pantech Perception is an Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich handset with yesterday's top hardware. Specifications include a 4.8-inch HD (720p) Super AMOLED display, 16GB internal storage, an 8-megapixel rear camera, and a front-facing 2-megapixel camera.

In addition, the Perception also boasts "global ready" capabilities and 4G LTE connectivity. The hardware details dovetail with early rumors and suggest this is, in fact, a Verizon-branded take on the Pantech Discover.

In terms of software, the smartphone features a modified UI with … Read more

Firefox OS developer phones sold out

Firefox OS app developers hoping to snag one of the new Firefox OS phones seem to be out of luck.

The Keon and the Peak popped up for sale today courtesy of manufacturer/seller Geeksphone. But the two phones already appear on the company's Web site as "out of stock." The page for each phone simply says "this product is no longer in stock" with no further explanation.

A spokeswoman for Geeksphone told CNET at around 6:15 a.m. PT that the phones are currently out of stock due to great demand. But the … Read more

Nokia granted temporary ban on microphone sales for HTC One

The HTC One now faces a setback over its supply of microphones.

Nokia yesterday won an injunction from an Amsterdam District Court preventing sales of the current microphone for HTC's new flagship phone. Manufactured by STMicroelectronics NV for the HTC One, the microphone uses components allegedly invented by Nokia and made exclusively for Nokia phones, Reuters reported today.

Nokia said that it dissassembled an HTC One phone to find that the "dual membrane HDR" microphone, which can record high-quality audio, is the same type used on its own phones.

"HTC has no license or authorization from … Read more