CyanogenMod 7.1 brings support for Xperias and 20 other handsets

All it took was a little love from Sony Ericsson and now CyanogenMod's latest official release includes support for a happy cohort of 2011 Xperias as well as the X8. The same goes for Samsung, which doled out a free GSII and some employment and now finds that the Galaxy smartphones are on version 7.1's list too. Wondering if your particular Droid, Optimus or Incredible can run the cyan shade of Gingerbread and its attendant perks? Then check the source link for the full roll-call of newly supported devices - but remember, despite the increasingly friendly overtures from manufacturers, installing a custom ROM comes with certain pitfalls and can void your warranty. Got that? Now go and play some juicy FLAC files on that Arc.

Acer Allegro with Windows Phone Mango to cost only €299

Acer has reportedly announced the Acer Allegro - a new smartphone which runs Windows Phone Mango and should be launched in Europe "before Christmas."

Telecompaper has it that the Allegro will cost only €299 - this would certainly make it one of the most affordable Mango handsets on the market.

Although Acer didn't confirm this, I assume the Allegro is the previously spotted Acer W4 (pictured below). If that's the case, the handset features a 3.6 inch WVGA display, HSPA, Wi-Fi, GPS, 1GHz single-core processor, and a 5MP rear camera.

Acer has also announced that the Liquid Mini Ferrari Edition (which we've already seen) would also cost €299. The Liquid Mini Ferrari Edition runs Android 2.3 Gingerbread, and features a 3.2 inch HVGA display, 5MP camera, 8GB of internal memory, and a 600MHz processor. It should be out before the end of the year.

Verizon Introduces Samsung Stratosphere

Verizon Wireless and Samsung Mobile have collaborated to launch the Samsung Stratosphere in the US market. The Samsung Stratosphere is a 4G LTE smartphone that provides customers a fast download speeds of 5 to 12 megabits per second (Mbps) and upload speeds of 2 to 5 Mbps in 4G LTE mobile broadband coverage areas. Powered by the Google Android 2.3 Gingerbread OS, the smartphone features a five-row QWERTY keyboard, a 4-inch (800×480) WVGA Super AMOLED display, a 1GHz Cortex A8 Hummingbird application processor, a 1.3-megapixel front-facing camera for video calls and a 5-megapixel rear-facing camera with autofocus and flash (720p HD playback and 480p DVD-quality recording). Additional specs include AllShare, Samsung Media Hub, Bluetooth 3.0 and Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n. Verizon will launch the Samsung Stratosphere on October 13, 2011.

Nokia C2-05 for the budget minded

Nokia seems to be working down the food chain instead of remaining at the top, but who can blame them considering the kind of position that they have placed themselves in? The Nokia C2-05 is clearly a budget centric smartphone that comes in a slider form-factor, where it is meant to be easily portable, residing in pockets and handbags without any issue while targeting those who are style-conscious and love their social networks a whole lot.

Apart from the Nokia Browser and the Nokia Store, you will also find dedicated Facebook and Twitter apps that delivers updates to you wherever you are – best to use it with a data connection though, and if you happen to rock to different social networking apps, you can always add them later. Strange to see China being one of the main markets that Nokia will ship this phone to – how the tables have turned!

You get the bare necessities with the Nokia C2-05, as it is equipped with a VGA camera with digital zoom and a full-screen viewfinder, MP3 playback support, an integrated FM radio, Bluetooth and microUSB connectivity, a 2″ QVGA resolution LCD display, and GSM dual band 900x1800 and 850x1900 receptions. Expect to see the Nokia C2-05 arrive at markets this Q4 for around 50 Euros prior to any local taxes or operator subsidies. [Press Release]

Samsung Transfix R730 with Android Gingerbread launched by Cricket

Cricket Wireless has introduced yet another new Android smartphone made by Samsung - the Samsung Transfix SCH-R730. Like the Samsung Vitality, released by the regional US carrier last month, the Transfix runs Android Gingerbread.

Other features include: sliding QWERTY keyboard, 3.2 inch HVGA display, Wi-Fi, 3.5mm headset jack, 3.2MP camera with video recording, 800MHz processor, MicroSD card support (up to 32GB), and a 1500 mAh battery.

The Samsung Transfix costs just $179.99 and is available starting today. If you buy it online at Cricket, you can get it for even less: $159.99.

Samsung Galaxy W Launched By Three UK

Three UK has just announced the availability of Samsung's latest Android smartphone ‘Galaxy W' on their network. The handset can be yours for free on pay monthly plans from 22 GBP (about $34) or for 249.99 GBP (about $389) on Pay As You Go. To refresh your memory, the Galaxy W offers a 3.7-inch 480 x 800 touchscreen display, a 1.4GHz single-core processor, a 512MB RAM, a 4GB of internal storage, a microSD card slot, a 5MP autofocus camera with LED flash and 720p HD video recording, 14.4 Mbps HSDPA, 5.76 Mbps HSUPA, GPS, WiFi, Bluetooth, a 1500mAh battery and runs on Android 2.3 Gingerbread OS. [Product Page]

Motorola Spyder and Xoom 2 turn up in more leaked shots

We've already seen Motorola's new Xoom 2 tablet(s) and Spyder smartphone (otherwise known as the Droid HD) turn up in a few leaked shots, and we've now received a handful more that are said to show both devices in their near final form. That includes a Verizon logo on both the front and back of the Spyder for the first time (though that's not exactly unexpected), and the Xoom 2 (the 8.2-inch version in this case) is said to be in "better shape" than the earlier prototypes, which had apparently been suffering from some rather serious bugs. As you can see above, the Spyder also has what appears to be a slightly more tactile back, which could well be the Kevlar coating that's been rumored for the phone. Interestingly, our tipster also says that the processor in this particular Spyder is clocked at 1.5GHz, although the final version will apparently indeed be 1.2GHz, as the earlier leaks have suggested.

Opera Mobile 11.5 update for Android

If you're rocking to an Android-powered smartphone and also love the Opera Mobile browser to bits, then you would be pleased to hear that there is a new update for the app – where Opera Mobile for Android has just been bumped to version 11.5, and it sports a spanking new mobile data monitor. This built-in support allows you to keep track of the amount of mobile data that you have consumed as the browser keeps a running count of traffic. This is perfect for those who are on a limited data plan, but I suspect most of us bite into unlimited data plans already on our devices.

Another function of this feature would be to work as an advert for its server-side compression tool, Opera Turbo. Opera has also "implemented adding bookmarks to Home Screen" that would most probably allow the user the option to send Web links to the Home screen as icons. If you're interested in the entire bunch of changes, then hit the source link that will lead to Opera Mobile's blog.

Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 preview

Qualcomm and their Snapdragon processors have certainly made quite a splash in the market for some time now, with many an Android-powered smartphone running on a Qualcomm processor inside. Well, one of their upcoming processors is known as the Snapdragon S4, where it is touted to be the world's first mobile system-on-a-chip (SoC) that was built on 28nm process technology while boasting a fully integrated LTE multimode modem. Sounds like quite a bundle on something relatively small, no?

With 28nm process technology, this makes it far smaller than it should be without sacrificing on performance while improving power consumption at the same time. It is also the first Mobile CPU that relies on the latest extensions to the ARM ISA. In addition, you will also find high performance programmable Adreno GPUs in action that is said to deliver quality video and console quality gaming on the go.

In a nutshell, the Snapdragon S4 MSM9860 will comprise of Qualcomm's custom Krait CPU core, Adreno 225 GPU, LTE world modem, and Hexagon DSPs. I wonder when will devices that feature the latest Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 hit the market.