One week away from Mobile World Congress in Barcelona more and more companies begin to struggle to launch new and new products.ZTE and NVIDIA have announced their first collaboration: a smartphone named Mimosa X.Mimosa X is the first phone that comes with both NVIDIA Tegra 2 dual core processor and the modem NVIDIA Icera 450 HSPA + with the operating system Ice Cream Sandwich.

Mimosa X has a 4.3-inch display qHD to 960 x 540 resolution, 5 megapixel main camera and a VGA secondary camera, 4GB of internal storage which can be expanded up to 32GB from the microSD slot. It also supports Bluetooth A2DP and DLNA, HD video recording, two microphones, and an integrated gyroscope.

For now it is unknown the date of the released or how much it will cost but according to NVIDIA, Mimosa X is oriented to “mainstream market”, which means that the phone will be quite cheap.

Samsung and Apple’s stunning figures serve to highlight the stark contrast with Motorola Mobility’s disappointing results, whose Q4 2011 financial results were published this week. Revenues flatlined at just £2.16 billion but profits slumped; across all divisions, the company lost £50.9 million and have already warned of slower smartphone sales in 2012.

Motorola’s Android smartphones such as the RAZR series have been a hit both in the UK and internationally, so the company will be hoping its latest more affordable models — such as the mid-range Motoluxe and budget Defy Mini+ — will help to revive its fortunes in the coming year. With Google’s acquisition of Motorola Mobility still incomplete, the company isn’t yet able to take advantage of more intimate access to and influence over Android. When the deal is finally approved by the regulators there should be substantial benefits for both companies, and it may provide Motorola greater success with its Android models in 2012.

How the mighty have fallen – Nokia posted a loss of around £950 million on Thursday, suggesting just how challenging it’s been to capture a slice of the smartphone market. The recent move to Windows Phone 7 and the launch of attractive new devices such as the Lumia 800 haven’t yet had the impact they hoped, but the company’s transformation into a leaner and more focused enterprise will surely be reflected in future earnings. The problem for Nokia is that just not enough buyers have tried a Lumia smartphone – those that do seem to enjoy the experience immensely…

Author : Simon Drew

Samsung’s mobile division fared well in 2011, led by two highly rated Android smartphones namely the 4.3-inch Galaxy SII and its larger sibling the 5.3-inch Galaxy Note. Both models have proved extremely popular with their UK phone contracts and received positive reviews, which has helped Samsung become one of the mobile industry’s most desirable brands. The forthcoming Galaxy SIII will keep momentum going, but needs to hold its own when the iPhone 5 is released later this year.

In 2012, Samsung expects entry-level Android smartphones and a wider choice of tablets to gain in popularity and help sales, led mainly by emerging Asian markets such as China. With more powerful versions of the Galaxy Tab planned for 2012, Samsung aims to make a serious dent in Apple’s sales next time around, but all eyes will be watching events at the Mobile World Congress (MWC) in February – the mobile industry’s biggest show where the major manufacturers unveil their very latest products.

Despite less impressive financial results than Apple, Samsung has a broad range of interests including smartphones, consumer electronics, flat panel displays and microchip fabrication (being one of the major chip and flash memory suppliers to Apple), with a multi-OS smartphone strategy that covers Android, Windows Phone 7 and its own home-brewed Bada OS. Samsung has been able to capitalise on Android’s growing popularity which enjoys a higher market share in the UK than Apple’s iOS. However, the explosive iPhone 4S sales over the festive season may have redressed the balance somewhat.

Author : Simon Drew

Windows ARM promises to deliver the same Box Experience for x86/x64 edition of Windows 8. ARM version will include the full Windows desktop with the same file explorer and office applications, including Word, Excel and PowerPoint. Will be present Metro-style Windows application store, being able to support Windows ARM  and Windows 8 for x86/64. Will also benefit from support HTML5 with Internet Explorer 10. A stable version would begin this month, but you must keep your enthusiasm because we are talking about a version for those who develop applications and not a final consumer. However, we assume that Microsoft will bring some copies for presentation of the Mobile World Congress (MWC) in Barcelona, which will take place between February 27 and March 1 this year. On the same ARM architecture developed: Qualcomm, Texas Instruments, Samsung, and NVIDIA. We will give details after the supposed presentation of the Barcelona MWC 2012.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Today we have the first details about the features of Windows Phone 8. Considered the next major version of Windows Phone platform, known as the Apollo or Windows Phone 8 was recently presented by WP manager Joe Belfiore from Microsoft. The presentation is intended Nokia partner, she somehow got the ear of the Pocketnow and now us. Windows Phone 8 – Apollo will arrive after updating Windows Phone Tango and bring support for 4 new resolutions options and multicore processors. Also, we will benefit long-awaited support for microSD cards, which shows that Microsoft is ready to compete on an equal with Android and IOS. The new Windows Phone 8 – Apollo will offer support NFC and WP manager at Microsoft stressed the importance of mobile payment system to be controlled by the operator or made ??using a secure card. It seems that Windows phone 8 – Apollo will give the Zune desktop integration experience, in favor of a new application dedicated synchronization. Next we will have support and the Xbox Live SkyDrive, a perfect synchronization of all Microsoft related services. Microsoft also said it expects 100,000 applications to be available in Marketplace at launch of Windows Phone 8. The last issues we want to mention is a collection of business functions for the new Windows Phone, which comes with BitLocker encryption type (128 bit, full disk) and will include a range of business applications and dedicated software. The time the release of Windows Phone 8 – Apollo could be the end of quarter 4 of this year.

SPARK tablet is ideal for programmers who want to work on the tablet and not necessarily from the office. The Plasma OS has been adapted to work on a variety of devices including netbooks and televisions. In addition, for those who are not happy with Linux, SPARK allows them to install any version of Android’s operating system.

Spark Tablet will be available for preorder starting this week and deliveries will start in May 2012; SPARK will have a price of $265 USD or E200.

Intel has launched 7 Sandy Bridge processors, among which 3 are for Core i5 desktop and 4 new Celeron models for laptops.

The most powerful processor of this range is i5-2550K which is a 3.4 GHz quad-core which will replace i5-2550 and cost $225 to $9 more than the current model. The 2 quad-core from the Core i5 series are i5-2450P of 3.2 GHz which will replace i5-2400 and the i5-2380P of 3.1 GHz, which will replace the i5-2320. There are rumors that the two P-series models have no graphics core. Also, all three Core i5 models for desktop features a 6MB L3 cache.

I5-2380P are sold at a price of $177 , with $7 less than i5-2400 and the i5-2450P has a price of $195, in other words it costs with $10 less than the i5-2500. The B815 model is a dual core processor, with 1.6 Ghz , the model B270 is a single core processor at 1.7 GHz, but both have 2MB L3 cache.

The last models are Celeron 867 Dual Core processor and Celeron 797 of 1.6GHz, a single core processor at 1.4 GHz, both with a TDP of 17W. B815 and B720 Celeron are sold for $86 and $70, while the Celeron 867 and Celeron 797 cost $107 and respectively $134.

Qualcomm is preparing a new generation of processors which we mention Qualcomm MSM8960 Snapdragon S4 processor. The benchmark “escaped on the net” and made ​​with NenaMark 2 you can see in the picture above the performance achieved. Architecture used is one with a 28nm dual-core processor at 1.5 GHz and the new generation GPU – Adreno 225. Device on which the test was made believe it was a tablet that display resolution is 1024 x 600 pixels, possibly HTC Flyer and the score achieved was 54.90 with NenaMark 2.

Currently the most powerful graphics accelerator market are:
1. PowerVR SGX543MP2;
2. Tegra 3;
3. Mali-400 MP;
4. Adreno 220;

Qualcomm MSM8960 Snapdragon S4 processor will debut this year, probably in few months.

For several days Dream Team hackers have released the Absinthe A5 first “untethered” jailbreak for iPhone 4S and iPad 2.

The jailbreak was first available for Mac OS and then followed the versions for Windows and Linux. All three versions of Absinthe A5 jailbreak can be downloaded here.

If you did not upgraded the iOS to 5.0.1 by now, here is the perfect time to do it because Apple going to release a new update that will block the jailbreak. Jailbreak for iPhone 4S and iPad 2 has drawn nearly one million users in the first three days of its release, as shown by statistics from the Cydia app store.