Samsung Galaxy S III Coming to Verizon July 10

 
Verizon Wireless has finally put into specifics when the Samsung Galaxy S III will arrive in its stores. The flagship device will be available both online and physical stores beginning July 10th.

There is a catch, though: only the 16GB model will be available in retail stores at first, while the 32GB can only be ordered online for now and will arrive in your local Verizon store in the “coming weeks.” The smartphone will come in white and blue color options.

The 16GB edition will cost you $200, while the 32GB will be $250.

The Samsung Galaxy S III enables you to share real-time video broadcasts with your Facebook friends, aside from the 4.8-inch HD Super AMOLED screen, Android Ice Cream Sandwich, 1.5GHz dual-core processor, 2GB RAM, mobile hotspot capability, 8-megapixel camera, and microSD card slot among others.

Motorola ATRIX HD for AT&T becomes official

We have seen the Motorola ATRIX HD in the past, back when it was known as ‘Dinara’. Now suddenly we find the product page live on Motorola's website even before the company made any official announcements.

Looking at the ATRIX HD you can see a strong resemblance to the RAZR. The phone has a similar sleek profile and a Kevlar covered back that curves upwards near the camera. And the specs of the phone match its good looks. On the front we have a 4.5-inch HD LCD with ColorBoost technology and a 1.3 megapixel front facing camera. On the back is a 8 megapixel shooter that can also capture 1080p videos. Inside there is a 1.5GHz dual-core processor, 1GB RAM, 8GB memory (expandable) and a 1,780mAh battery.

The phone runs on Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich and you can even see that it uses on-screen navigation controls like the Galaxy Nexus. The phone will be available on AT&T's LTE network. Pricing and release dates should be available when Motorola makes the official announcement.

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LG Prada 3.0 receives Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich update in Germany and Italy

 
Italy, the losing finalists in the recently concluded Euro 2012 championships, as well as Germany who lost to Italy in the semi-finals, have at least something to cheer about – both countries will have owners of the LG Prada 3.0 receive the Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich update. This is definitely a jump up from the Android 2.3.7 version when it rolled out via T-Mobile UK in February earlier this year.

This is not a simple Over The Air (OTA) update, so you will need to be extra careful. First of all, you will need to plug your LG Prada 3.0 smartphone into a Windows-powered computer, and then fire up the LG Mobile Phone Support tool which works only in a Windows environment. For folks who are rocking to the Mac platform, that means you will still need to find someone else who owns a Windows PC. The entire updating process on the LG Prada 3.0 will require just a few minutes of your life, but as usual, a backup of all your data comes across highly recommended before you start anything. After all, you can never quite tell just when Murphy and his law will strike.

Goophone X1 is a HTC One S clone

 
The HTC One S can be said to be one of the better looking smartphones out there, although there has been issues with the micro arc oxidization process in the past which HTC already said they have fixed. Well, here we are with what looks like a clone of the HTC One S – the Goophone X1. In fact, we received an email from it, who claimed that it is a pretty good clone of the HTC One S, and proud of it, too. Let us take a closer look at how the specs measure up to the real deal. For starters, the Goophone X1 comes with a body that measures 7.8mm slim, a 4.3″ qHD display, as well as an 8-megapixel camera right at the back, not to mention 1GB RAM and 16GB of internal memory. All of it is backed up by a 1GHz processor, although you know what they say – the proof of the pudding is in the eating. How does the Goophone X1 work then – it lacks the finesse of HTC Sense, so chances are, it probably will be unable to measure up to the real deal. Hopefully it will not have the crazy software glitch in the original HTC One S…

Nokia N9 updated to MeeGo PR1.3, boasts 1,000 improvements

MeeGo isn't quite dead, and Nokia N9 users are getting another update pushed to their phone to prove it. PR1.3, a firmware refresh that's been in the works at least since 1.2 was released a few months ago, has finally been made official. But this is no simple bug fix — the latest version of MeeGo offers an impressive 1,000 “quality improvements, including mail, Facebook and Twitter.” Some of the actual boosts involve camera feature enhancements, higher volume, NFC fixes, better video decoding and more precise copy and paste.

According to Nokia's official support page, the update will also provide several network and connectivity enhancements. The 203MB OTA download is now beginning to roll out, starting with unbranded devices and branching out from there. Continue past the break for the full statement from Nokia.

As you might have noted already, we have now started rolling out a new update for N9 to 40.2012.21-3. This software release brings you over 1000 quality improvements, including Mail, Facebook, and Twitter, as well as several small network and connectivity improvements. For more information on the update, you can check out http://swipe.nokia.com/.

UK judge rules HTC doesn't violate Apple's patents, invalidates Cupertino's claims

 Well, Apple had a few legal victories over the last couple of weeks, but it's just been handed a significant defeat by Judge Christopher Floyd. The UK court handed down a ruling that HTC does not violate four Apple patents, including the infamous slide-to-unlock claim. What's more, the judge ruled that three of the four patents in question were not valid, among them the aforementioned unlocking design. The only one of the four patents that stood at the end of the day was related to scrolling through images in the photo management app, but HTC did not infringe upon the claim. This follows the ITC refusing an emergency ban on HTC products in the US. Don't think you've heard the last of slide-to-unlock, however. As HTC, Apple and Samsung have repeatedly shown, they're just as interested in competing in the court room as they are on store shelves (if not more so).

Samsung Galaxy Chat brings Nature UX to the messaging crowd

We didn't have to wait long to find out what Samsung would do with the GT-B5330 we saw just a day ago: meet the much more elegantly-titled Galaxy Chat. The finished product is Samsung's first phone outside of the Galaxy S III to carry the Nature UX layer, but takes it in a very message-happy direction with a QWERTY keyboard, a bundled copy of Quick Office and a dedicated key for ChatON that reminds us of the BlackBerry Curve 9320′s BBM shortcut. Not that you'd confuse the two otherwise, as the Galaxy Chat's 3-inch, 480 x 320 touchscreen and 4GB of built-in storage (plus a microSD slot) are decided steps up. About our only letdowns relative to the category are the 2-megapixel, flashless camera at the back and the difficulty some will have in getting their hands on Samsung's first keyboard-touting Android 4.0 phone. Unlike the global blitz we saw with the Galaxy S III, the Chat is launching in Spain this month and will exclude some large swaths of the Earth when it goes worldwide later on, leaving out Africa, North America and Russia.

Dual-core Huawei Ascend D1 launching tomorrow in China

While its Ascend D Quad will not be out until August, or maybe even September, Huawei has another high-end Ascend D smartphone that's ready to hit the shelves: the Huawei Ascend D1.

The D1 isn't too different from the D quad, the only major change being that it comes with a dual-core processor (1.5GHz TI OMAP 4460) instead of a quad-core one. Other than that, it features Android 4.0 ICS, a 4.5 inch IPS+ HD display (made by Toshiba), Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n, DLNA, HSPA, GPS, Dolby Digital Plus sound, 8MP rear camera with dual LED flash and 1080p video recording, 1.3MP front-facing camera, 1GB of RAM, 8GB of internal memory, MicroSD card support, and an 8.9mm thin body.