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HTC's Desire series is about to grow with a new 4" smartphone featuring a Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 processor, coming this fall.




Every year it's the same: high tech brands worldwide decide to announce the imminent release of new-and-improved products at the IFA Berlin consumer electronics trade show. HTC continued the tradition by promoting one of its upcoming smartphones: the Desire X.

This new entry to the Desire range has a 4-inch LCD display with 800 x 480 resolution, a dual-core Snapdragon S4 processor clocked at 1 GHz and Android 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich). It will have a 5-Megapixel camera with a 28 mm wide-angle lens, the same Beats Audio that many of the brand's previous smartphones have featured, 4 GB of memory that can be expanded up to 32 GB via microSD and 768 MB of RAM.

The HTC Desire X will be in stores next month with 25 GB of free online storage for two years on Dropbox. HTC has not yet revealed the price.


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Asus has several laptops sitting at its stand at IFA. The Zenbook UX21 Touch stands out because of its touchscreen... its very glossy touchscreen.

The UX21 Touch is the same size as its 11.6" predecessor, the UX21E. The display is now a capacitive touchscreen and has lost its matte surface for a glossy one. Unfortunately. But at least the technology is the same: IPS, which offers wide-open viewing angles (contrary to the TN technology used in the X21E). It comes in a choice of two resolutions: Full HD or 1366 x 768.


The insides are fairly high-end, with an Intel Ivy Bridge processor and a solid-state drive. The price hasn't been announced, but it will be higher than the Asus Zenbook Prime (£870 at the lowest). The UX21 will come with Windows 8 pre-installed. The release has been announced for late-November/early-December.


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Samsung's Galaxy Ace 2 is an entry-level Galaxy mobile that's trying to make it big in an increasingly tough market. So is this pocket smartphone Ace by name and by nature? Time to find out.


The Galaxy Ace proved its worth as a popular pocket smartphone, and Samsung is hoping to prolong this success with a second version of its entry-level mobile. And, given the look of its spec sheet, this all-new Ace has been given a nice boost.

Indeed, the Galaxy Ace 2 has all it takes to succeed as a budget phone, with a 3.8" PLS screen (800 x 480 pixels), a 5-Megapixel camera, an NFC chip (Near Field Communication) and Android 2.3 (soon to be upgraded to Android 4.0) adorned with a lighter and less power-hungry version of Samsung's TouchWizz interface.

> Review: Samsung Galaxy Ace 2

> Phone Reviews: Mobiles and Smartphones

If there's one thing to remember from Dell's pre-IFA presentation, it's that the company's products are seeing a general trend towards touchscreens, whether on the new all-in-one XPS One 27, the XPS Duo 12 or the XPS 10.



To start with, the XPS One 27 has the same specs as its predecessor, which we saw at the Dell Technology Camp 2012, but has included a touchscreen, Windows 8 and an inclinable base.



The inclinable base is a good idea because a touchscreen monitor could get tiring on your arm. With this base you can move the screen closer to you and put it at an angle.



That way, instead of having your arms in the air all the time, you can set your elbow on the table, which will be less tiring. But don't forget, adding a Windows 8-compatible touchscreen will likely boost the cost quite a bit.



Now for the XPS Duo 12, which can be used as a notebook or as a tablet. The Full HD display has a Windows 8-compatible touchscreen that can be turned around when you aren't using the backlit keyboard. Connectivity-wise, we could see USB, a headphone and microphone jack and mini-DisplayPort. Dell has already tried to sell us this kind of product with the Inspiron Duo. Let's hope this new 12-incher is more successful.



Last but not least, the XPS 10 has an ARM-architecture processor by Qualcomm. On this one the display doesn't turn; instead, the 10" touchscreen can be detached from the keyboard to become a tablet. Both pieces have their own battery, and Dell says they have up to 20 hours' battery life. This is a concept that Asus has already explored with its Transformer Pad.



We're still lacking the full specs and prices, but we will definitely be getting back to these products once there's more to report on.


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The Samsung Galaxy Note 2 is 15.1 cm tall, nearly half-a-centimetre longer than the first Galaxy Note.

It's also:

• 1.5 cm bigger than the Galaxy S3
• 2.6 cm bigger than the Galaxy S2
• 3.6 cm bigger than the iPhone 4S

Here's how they all look side-by-side. Click on the image to enlarge it.




You can see a trend here: bigger screens, smaller borders.

In fact, if you based your calculations on a perfectly rectangular design, the screen on each respective device would make up:

• 54% of the facade of the iPhone 4S
• 63% of the facade of the Galaxy S2
• 72% of the facade of the Galaxy Note 2

It would be reasonable to assume that the next iPhone will continue the trend...




> Reviews: Mobiles & Smartphones

IFA 2012 officially opens its doors tomorrow in Berlin, but we're already there to take part in pre-show conferences.

It's all far from ready—most of the stands are being set up as we speak. Everybody's getting prepped for the big day. Schön!

 

 


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Last month Google released its Nexus 7 tablet, and now Archos has just announced its own 7" Android slate—except this one is a gaming version.


The Archos GamePad has a 1.5 GHz dual-core processor and a Mali 400MP GPU, which gives similar performances to the Tegra 3.

This portable gaming console has a similar look to the Wii U Gamepad, except that Nintendo's version only works along with a classic Wii console. The Archos Gamepad, like any tablet, functions independently from a console and can work anywhere.

To provide handling worthy of a portable gaming console, the Archos GamePad has two analogue sticks, four buttons on each side of the screen and two triggers on top. To make the console adaptable to most available video games and games not made for physical buttons, Archos has developed a technology that allows you to assign any action to any button.

And the best part of all is the price: £130. This puts it in a similar price range to the Nintendo 3DS/3DS XL, lower than the PlayStation Vita. We'll just have to wait and see if there will be enough games to fill the GamePad's catalogue, although it will have all the games available on Android 4.

The Archos GamePad is set for release this coming October.

> Reviews: Game Controllers
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Panasonic has just announced the largest glasses-free 3D plasma screen ever. The full presentation will come later today, 30 August.

This 103" TV supposedly will offer a much more enjoyable 3D experience than its rivals. Panasonic claims it has halved the moiré interference and ghosting found on other glasses-free 3D screens.

Interesting tidbit: the statement released by Panasonic states that, as usual, the giant TV will be made of multiple juxtaposed plasma screens.

We'll have answers to this and more later in the day. Stay tuned...

> Review: Panasonic TX-P50ST50E

> Reviews: HD TVs (32" and Above)

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Sony has presented three new smartphones to add to the firm's Xperia range, with the flagship Xperia T, the water-resistant Xperia V and the budget Xperia J.



The Sony Xperia T is a new top-of-the-range handset with a 4.6" 1280 x 720 pixel display. It has a 13-Megapixel camera with a "Sleep-to-Snap" function that takes pictures quickly from sleep mode so you won't miss out on the action. This phone runs on a 1.5 GHz dual-core Qualcomm MSM8260A Snapdragon S4 processor. Plus, it has NFC connectivity with one-touch functionality, which means it can connect to a compatible Sony product by simply tapping the devices together. You can, for example, tap it onto a compatible Sony speaker or headphones to play your music (see below) or onto another mobile to share files.
The Sony Xperia V, on the other hand, has a 4.3" screen and a 13-Megapixel camera but is water-resistant.



Finally, the Xperia J is a stylish smartphone with a 4" screen and a 5-Megapixel camera that puts a large-screen mobile within the reach of users on a budget.


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In the run up to IFA 2012, Sony unveiled its updated version of the Sony Bravia HX920, the HX953 (or HX950 in the US). It will come in two sizes: 55" (Bravia KDL-55HX953) and 65" (Bravia KDL-65HX953).


Like its predecessor, the HX953 will have Full LED backlighting, dubbed 'Intelligent Peak LED'. This differs from Edge LED in which the diodes are located along the edges of the display, in that here the diodes are uniformly distributed behind the screen. This provides both better distributed light and darker blacks.


Of course, it will also have all the other functions that are popular right now: active 3D compatibility, Motionflow XR960 motion interpolation (actual frequency: 200 Hz) and online services (web browsing, apps...) accessible via the integrated Ethernet port and Wi-Fi.

Based on first impressions, the Bravia HX953 doesn't look like it will revolutionise the TV world. Let's just hope the engineers have improved the 3D mode that was such a problem on the HX920.

The HX953 will begin to release in early November.

> Reviews: HD TVs (32" and Above)
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Two giant smartphones. Two Android heavyweights. Two platforms. Eight cores. The Galaxy S III and the One X duke it out in today's 5-star product duel.

On either side of the ring, two champions of the mobile arena: Samsung and HTC. This battle is between the Exynos 4412 and the Tegra 3: two quad-cores clocked at 1.5 GHz running Android 4 ICS on HD touchscreens.

But that's not all they have in common. Both feature their own in-house interface overlays (HTC Sense and Samsung TouchWiz), an 8-Megapixel 1080p camera sensor, a multimedia player and a love for flexing their mobile muscles.

Who will come out on top?

> Duel: Samsung Galaxy S III vs HTC One X


> Reviews: Mobiles & Smartphones

As well as announcing the Galaxy Note 2 and the Galaxy Camera, Samsung revealed a range of tablets, computers and smartphones on Windows 8 at yesterday's pre-IFA press event. The star model has got to be the ATIV Smart PC, followed by the Atriv S mobile, the Ativ Tab tablet and a new version of the Series 9 laptop.

Ativ Smart PC

This device weighs 1.4 kg. Battery life is announced at over 13 hours and the processor promises to be a "next-generation Intel Atom".

Samsung Ativ Tab

This tablet has an 8200 mAh battery, as well as a mini-HDMI port for connection to a TV or a projector.

Samsung Ativ S

Series 9 Notebook on Windows 8

And here's one final photo that sums up Samsung's event pretty well.



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