Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 7.0 gets special Garnet Red Edition, costs $220 with a bonus book cover

Samsung must really love the Garnet Red color – first the Galaxy S III got that color option, then the Note II and the Galaxy S III mini followed suit and now it’s turn for the Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 7.0. It’s a special edition that will arrive just in time for a Valentine’s day gift.

The Galaxy Tab 2 7.0 Garnet Red Edition comes with Android 4.1 Jelly Bean out of box (the base model got it as an update) and Samsung is throwing in a matching Garnet Red book cover (those go for $50 if bought separately).
Other than that the device is unchanged – you still get a 7” 1024 x 600 PLS LCD screen (170ppi), dual-core Cortex-A9 CPU and PowerVR SGX540 GPU, microSD card slot and built-in IR remote.
The Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 7.0 Garnet Red Edition will be available at Amazon.com, Walmart, Office Depot, Fry’s, Tiger Direct, Toys”R”Us and other retailers for $220 (keep in mind the $50 cover that comes with it). It’s a limited edition, so it will be available while supplies last. The black and white versions are available as usual ($200, a red book cover is available for $50).
The hardware is a bit old, so before you decide to get one, you should take a look at the Nexus 7 ($200, 216ppi screen, quad-core CPU, no microSD card slot) and the Barnes & Noble Nook HD ($200, 243ppi screen, heavily customized UI). Neither of them is available in red though.

ZTE announces the 8-inch V81 slate with a 4:3 display

ZTE has unveiled the V81 slate featuring an 8-inch 4:3 display with a resolution of 1024×768 pixels, which is ready to take on the Apple’s iPad mini and Samsung’s upcoming Galaxy Note 8.0.

The ZTE V81 is powered by a dual-core 1.4GHz processor and comes with 1GB RAM.
The rest of the specs include 4GB of internal storage expandable via a microSD card slot, a 2MP rear and a 0.3MP front snappers, a 3.5mm audio jack, an HDMI port and a 3700 mAh battery. The connectivity package has 3G with HSPA, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, GPS and USB. There is no info on GSM connectivity and NFC, so we have to assume they won’t be available on the V81. Update: According to the official specs sheet, it will support GSM connectivity and most probably GSM telephony too.
ZTE V81 stands at 200x156x11.07 mm and runs on Android 4.1 Jelly Bean.
There is no info on the pricing and availability though. I guess the slate will debut at the MWC next month in Barcelona as ZTE usually brings plenty of new devices to the capital of Catalonia .
Source

NVIDIA allegedly to manufacture low-cost Android devices for other companies

Following the rather modest success of the Tegra platform in the smartphone and tablet segment, it seems NVIDIA is now gunning for a bigger share of the pie, so far dominated by the likes of Qualcomm and Mediatek.

According to Eldar Murtazin of Mobile-review.com, NVIDIA is planning on manufacturing smartphones and tablets of its own and will be selling them to companies to be rebranded and sold under their brand.
The plan is to manufacture reference designs for smartphones and tablets, the way they do it for their computer graphic cards (or Intel does for their phones). Then, instead of selling these designs under their own brand name, NVIDIA will license it to companies, who will then rebrand them and sell it in markets around the world. We already see this happening a lot in markets such as Russia and India, where several companies are selling what are essentially cheap, China-made devices under their own brand name.
What this will do is help increase the penetration of the Tegra platform, especially into the budget handset market, which undeniably forms the major portion of all the Android device sales.
This plan is expected to go into action by May-June this year, with both budget as well as premium tablets being released under various brand names that may or may not have the NVIDIA logo on them.
Via • Source

Sarkar (S.A.W.W)

808 Pureview Turns Out to be The Last Symbian Phone from Nokia

This is a bad news for the Symbian fans among us. After decades of working with the OS — which lead the mobile phone race by distance — Nokia has finally announced that it’s ditching Symbian for Windows Phone OS.
Needless to say, the decision was expected given the success of Lumia and Asha series of phones.
Although the decision, I think, came quicker than it should’ve as the company still sold 2.2 million of Symbian devices in the last quarter, Nokia has finally decided to call it a day on the OS.
Compared to those 2.2M phones, 4.4 million phones of the lumia series were sold and an even more astonishing 9.3 million phones of the Asha series. The devices which contributed to those 2.2 million phones were unarguably the Nokia 808 Pureview and the N8.

The Nokia 808 PureView, a device which showcases our imaging capabilities and which came to market in mid-2012, was the last Symbian device from Nokia.

The last Symbian device, the 808 Pureview boasted the best camera among all its competitors with a 41 megapixel sensor with Carl Zeiss lens and Pureview camera technology, not to mention the special ‘looseless zoom’ feature. Most of this technology was built by Nokia themselves in house.
This cuts the race down to 2 OS in the Nokia team and the smartphone race to 1. With no Symbian phones left, Nokia can now fully concentrate on the phones which sell the most. In case you don’t know, a Windows Phone with a better Pureview camera is expected to be released this year.
The Lumia 920, Nokia’s current flagship also boasts a Pureview camera but doesn’t yields quite nearly as good results.
So this is the end of Symbian. So long old fella. We hope you rest in peace. Long Live Lumia.