Best Buy and Walmart are slashing prices of Apple’s iPhone 5C in effort to encourage customers to buy this model, because analysts speculated that model 5C wouldn’t do as well as high-end Apple 5S (costs $200 with a contract). When iPhone 5C went on sale almost three weeks ago it cost $100. Best Buy is selling 5C for $50 only if you sign a two-year wireless contract and the deal lasts only through October 7^th. Continue reading »

BlackBerry asked for preliminary expressions of interest from potential strategic buyers. This buyers can buy the whole company or parts of it, which would be alternative to the preliminary agreement reached weeks ago with a group, led by Fairfax Financial Holdings (BlackBerry’s biggest shareholder), to take the company private for ca. $4,7 billion. Potential strategic buyers are Cisco, Google, Intel, LG, SAP and Samsung. The potential buyers have been especially interested in BlackBerry’s secure server network and patent portfolio. Analysts are saying that BlackBerry’s assets include well-regarded services business that powers its security-focues messaging system worth $3 bn – $4,5 bn; a collection of patents worth $2 bn – $3 bn and $3,1 bn in cash and investments. BlackBerry has a special committee with the assistance of independent financial and legal advisors, which is conducting review of strategic alternatives. Financial advice is providing JPMorgan Chase and RBC Capital Markets. Legal advice is providing Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP and Torys LLP. Continue reading »

Agawi’s 15 person team has introduced the first quantitative and objective benchmark of app response times: TouchMarks. They will try to bring more rigour to discussions around touchscreen response times, device lag, streaming latency and other topics related to how responsive an application feels on a mobile device. For TouchMarks I the team has measured and revealed the minimum response times of flagship smartphones from top manufacturers. They built simple, optimized apps to flash the full screen white*as quickly as possible in response to a touch. The apps contain minimal logic and use OpenGL/DirectX rendering to make sure the response is as quick as possible. The results were remarkable as you can see it in the chart. At MART (Minimum App Response Time) of 55ms, iPhone 5 is twice as responsive as any Android or WP8 phone tested. Continue reading »

BlackBerry is selling only in the U.S. unlocked and SIM free models Z10 and Q10. Both phones are compatible with networks belonging to AT&T and T-Mobile. BlackBerry Q10 has 16GB internal storage, 3.1-inch touch display, 8MP rear camera, 1080p HD video recording and 4G LTE Speed. BlackBerry Z10 has 16B internal storage, 4.2-inch touch display, 8MP rear camera, 1080p HD video recording and 4G LTE speed. The all-touch BlackBerry Z10 and QWERTY equipped Blackberry Q10 are available in black and white. They cost $449 (Z10) and $549 (Q10). Continue reading »

Nokia will introduce new models on October 22nd during Nokia World in Abu Dhabi. The Nokia Lumia 1520 (the first phablet for the Windows Phone) should see the light of day. The model Lumia 1520 will feature a 6 inch display with 1080 x 1920 resolution. They will probably unveil at the event the Nokia Lumia 2520 tablet code names »Sirius«. This would be the first Winds RT slate for Nokia. It will have a 10.1 inch screen and be powered by a 2.15GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon processor. The phablet and tablet will probably launch in November. There are also four other Nokia devices expected to be unwrapped at the event. One is supposedly »pretty special« and it will be probably something similar to the Microsoft Touch and Type Cover made available for the Nokia Lumia 2520. Continue reading »

The LG Vu 3 will be released in Korea on September 27th. It features 5.2-inch (1280×960 pixels) HD + IPS display at 4:3 aspect ratio, 2G RAM, 2.26 ghZ QUAD-CORE Snapdragon 800 processor with 480 MHz Adreno 330 GPU, 13 MP rear camera with LED Flash 1080p video recording at 30 fps and 2.1 MP front-facing camera, Bluetooth 4.0 with A2DP, GPS/Agps, and 4G LTE/3G HSPA+ 42Mbps. It runs on Android 4.2.2 Jelly Bean. Continue reading »