AndroRat

T-Mobile US announced that it will officially offer the Sony Xperia Z in the "coming weeks." The Big Magenta will be the only carrier in the United States to offer Sony's water-resistant Android flagship.


As far as specs go, the T-Mobile exclusive Sony Xperia Z will be no different than the international version which we extensively reviewed, save for support for the carrier's brand new LTE network. The highlights include a Qualcomm Snapdragon SoC with 1.5GHz quad-core CPU, 5" 1080p display, 13MP Exmor RS camera, and Android Jelly Bean.
The Sony Xperia Z for T-Mobile will be available with the carrier's Simple Choice plans. Exact pricing and availability are yet to be confirmed.

The Huawei Ascend P6 entered our rumor mill a while ago with full specs, official and live pictures coming since. Today Huawei finally is holding a press event in London where it promised to show the Ascend P6 officially.
Well, the event is still half an hour away but Huawei has just made the Ascend P6 official via a press release. It might have been a mistake by someone in the PR department as the page has been taken down since, but the info is already out.

   

Huawei Ascend P6 features a glove-friendly 4.7-inch 720p in-cell LCD and is powered by Huawei's home-brewed K3V2 chipset. The same SoC powers the Ascend Mate, Ascend P2 and Ascend D2 with its quad-core 1.5GHz Cortex-A9 processor and 2GB of RAM.
The key selling point of the Huawei Ascend P6 is its extremely slim profile - just 6.18mm. According to the company that's enough to guarantee it the world's slimmest smartphone title. The Ascend P6 is also quite light at 120 grams.
The rest of the Ascend P6 features include an 8MP primary camera (BSI, F2.0) with 1080p video recording, a 5MP front snapper for video chats and self-portraits, 8GB expandable internal storage, and a 2000 mAh battery.
The connectivity department of the Huawei Ascend P6 may lack LTE support, but has covered most other bases. The Ascend P6 comes with dual-SIM with dual stand-by support by default. Naturally HSPA, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and FM radio are supported.


Huawei Ascend P6 runs on Android 4.2.2 Jelly Bean with Huawei's Emotion UI on top of it. You'll get a chance to see the Emotion UI in action later today as part of our upcoming Huawei Ascend Mate review.
Huawei Ascend P6 will hit the shelves in China this month, while Western Europe will be getting it in July through a bunch of carriers and retailers. The partners already confirmed include Vodafone, Telefonica, Orange, H3G, O2, Carphone Warehouse, TalkTalk, Media Markt, Saturn, TIM as well as online retailers Amazon and CDiscount.
Other markets should follow soon after the Western Europe premiere.

We're still waiting for the first Tizen device – it will launch in August or September according to Samsung VP. In the meantime we get leaks that paint a picture of what the device will be like – a smartphone with 720p screen and an Exynos 4 chipset.
TechTastic looked through the Tizen repository for stuff committed by Samsung and there seems to be support for only two chipsets – the Exynos 4212 and Exynos 4412. The first is a revamped version of what went into the Galaxy S II (under the alias s5pc2xx) and the second is the Galaxy S III chipset.


The chipsets pack two and four Cortex-A9 cores respectively (at 1.4-1.6GHz clockspeed) and a Mali-400 GPU.
This means the Samsung I8805 Redwood, which is the first Tizen to launch according to rumors, won't match Android flagships like the Galaxy S4 in terms of raw power (actual performance is another story, of course). It's the higher-end of the two Tizens that have leaked so far – Redwod and the I8800 Melius.

The Samsung Galaxy S4 zoom has been put up for pre-order by German online retailer Cyberport.de for €499. This will most likely translate to roughly the same amount in USD for the US market, as typically mobile products heading overseas will enjoy a lower relative pricetag.


The Samsung Galaxy S4 zoom takes an unorthodox approach to cameraphones, by adding a proper digicam to the back of a smartphone. The device offers a dual-core 1.5 GHz processor with 8GB of internal storage, 1.5 GB of RAM and a 4.3-inch display of 540 x 960 pixels, all running on Android 4.2.2 Jelly Bean.
The headliner is, of course, the 16 MP camera with 10x optical zoom, OIS, and F/3.1-F/6.3 lens. At this price, the combination of dedicated camera and smartphone will likely find support in a niche market of users looking to save on both price and the number of devices they'll be carrying around.

HTC has just officially announced its latest budget offering dubbed Desire 200. It's running HTC's own Sense UI skin on top of currently unspecified version Android and packs Beats Audio music enhancement.
Built around a 3.5" LCD display of 320 x 480 pixels resolution, the HC Desire 200 packs a Qualcomm Snapdragon S1 chipset with single-core 1GHz CPU and 512MB of RAM. The internal memory is just 4GB, but thankfully it is expandable via the on-board microSD card slot.

At the back, the Desire 200 has a 5MP, f/2.8 fixed focus camera with 34mm lens that supports VGA video recording. The battery has a capacity of 1230mAh and is user-removable. According to HTC, it'll be able to provide you with 7 hours and 30 minutes of 3G talk time and 812 hours of stand-by.
Connectivity options include Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n, Bluetooth 4.0, microUSB and GPS. There's a trio of sensors, too - accelerometer, proximity and ambient light.
Pricing and availability are unknown at this point, but it's just a matter of time until major retailers and carriers are ready to share this info.

The GSM variant of the Samsung Galaxy Tab 8.0 will soon be hitting the American shores. AT&T will begin selling the tablet starting June 21 for $399 along with a two-year contract.
If, however, you also choose to purchase either of the Samsung S4, S4 Active or the Galaxy Note II from AT&T, then the tablet will only cost you $199.

TCL Idol X has made its way to retail availability in China. The sleek-looking, bright-colored Android smartphone offers a quad-core SoC and 5" 1080p display, tucked into a 6.99mm thin body for only 1,699 yuan ($277; €207).


The TCL smartphone is essentially a rebranded copy of the Alcatel One Touch Idol X which we've encountered before. Alcatel is a subsidiary of TCL.
The TCL Idol X specs include a 1.5GHz quad-core MediaTek MT6589T CPU, 2GB of RAM, 16GB of expandable internal storage, and a 13.1MP camera. The OS on tap is Android 4.2 Jelly Bean.

What will iOS 7 for iPad look like? We’ve only been treated to a beta version for the iPhone for now, but several screenshots for the new operating system on the iPad have leaked.

We can see that it has a lot of similarities: the new redesigned icons are intact, as is the quick settings shade that raises up from the bottom with a swipe. The layout of the controls are different, however, to take advantage of the larger screen on an iPad. Music controls are to the left of the settings for Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, AirDrop and more, and the flashlight and screen brightness controls are on the left side. The weird thing? The iPad doesn’t yet have a flash, so it’s weird that the controls are there. Perhaps Apple’s next-generation iPad will add that feature.

The shots are from an iOS 7 iPad emulator that runs Xcode 5, a reader told 9to5Mac. In order to test it out, developer can try copying:

Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/Developer/
Platforms/iPhoneSimulator.platform/Developer/
Applications/iPhone Simulator.app/Contents/
Resources/Devices/iPad (Retina).deviceinfo

To the following folder:

/Applications/Xcode5-DP.app/Contents/Developer/
Platforms/iPhoneSimulator.platform/Developer/
Library/PrivateFrameworks/SimulatorHost.framework/
Versions/A/Resources/Devices

As always you should do this at your own risk.









What will iOS 7 for iPad look like? We’ve only been treated to a beta version for the iPhone for now, but several screenshots for the new operating system on the iPad have leaked.

We can see that it has a lot of similarities: the new redesigned icons are intact, as is the quick settings shade that raises up from the bottom with a swipe. The layout of the controls are different, however, to take advantage of the larger screen on an iPad. Music controls are to the left of the settings for Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, AirDrop and more, and the flashlight and screen brightness controls are on the left side. The weird thing? The iPad doesn’t yet have a flash, so it’s weird that the controls are there. Perhaps Apple’s next-generation iPad will add that feature.

The shots are from an iOS 7 iPad emulator that runs Xcode 5, a reader told 9to5Mac. In order to test it out, developer can try copying:

Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/Developer/
Platforms/iPhoneSimulator.platform/Developer/
Applications/iPhone Simulator.app/Contents/
Resources/Devices/iPad (Retina).deviceinfo

To the following folder:

/Applications/Xcode5-DP.app/Contents/Developer/
Platforms/iPhoneSimulator.platform/Developer/
Library/PrivateFrameworks/SimulatorHost.framework/
Versions/A/Resources/Devices

As always you should do this at your own risk.