Mobile Phone Blog:

Okay, now I’m excited. I’ve been going on about Sailfish OS for absolutely ages, now, ever since it was first unveiled. Today, though, we’ve seen our first glimpse of the actual proper phone that’ll be the first phone to officially run the Sailfish OS. Say hello to the phone that’s simply called the Jolla…

I’m not entirely sure what I was expecting, but I definitely wasn’t expecting them to bring us the future, next-generation, hyper-advanced version of the XpressOn covers that Nokia made famous, that’s for sure. That’s damnably intriguing, that is… (more…)

Well, that’s the bank holiday over with, so it’s time to get back into the action! Let’s start with an Engadget video I watched earlier (of a new phone you’ve never heard of, and neither have I, called the Vivo Xplay), with a particularly nifty new feature called Free Touch…

Yes, it’s a one-handed mode, and that’s rather cool, that is. As the blokie in the video said, Samsung has made it socially acceptable for people to have massive phones (consider the gargantuan Samsung Galaxy Mega 6.3, a phone that truly lives up to its name), so this one-handed feature could well be rather useful indeed. But how does it work? (more…)

This here blog, right, is dedicated to mobile phones, and most of the time, I waffle on about new, innovative smartphones, powerful beasties like the Sony Xperia Z, that manage to grab my attention. While I’m there getting all excited about everything I see, like a deranged six year old, it’s easy to forget that there’s a group of people who really can’t use a smartphone, and the simple reason they can’t use one is because said people are, in fact, blind.

That situation is going to change, because according to The Times Of India, the world is soon going to be getting its very first smartphone designed exclusively for blind people.

So, what’s the crack? (more…)

[The opinions expressed in the blog post are entirely those of the author, and do not necessarily reflect the views of Mobileshop.com.]

Y’know, I’m quite sure that I’ve had a good old mither about companies deciding to market themselves by slagging off the competition. You see it all the time, and it gets right up my nose, so it does; every time I see it, I can’t help but think that the parents of whoever’s doing the slagging off didn’t raise their kids properly. Apple does it all the time, even HTC has done it, and now, apparently, it’s time for Microsoft to have another pop at their arch-nemesis.

The guy’s name is Terry Myerson, he’s the Microsoft VP in charge of Windows Phone, and he’s been interviewed by AllThingsD.

So, what’s he been saying? (more…)

Right then, do ye remember how the Samsung Galaxy Camera was a thing last year? It’s one of a small handful of devices known as “connected cameras”, and in the case of this particular beastie, it’s a camera that runs on Android. Quite a few people, at the time, wondered how well Android, an operating system designed for mobile phones, would run on a camera, or even what the point was.

Here’s the thing, though. According to a new article by PC World, Android wasn’t designed to run on smartphones, originally. It turns out that the Galaxy Camera’s actually closer to the original vision because the truth of it, according to Android co-founder Andy Rubin, is that Android was originally designed to run on, well, cameras… (more…)

[The opinions expressed in the blog post are entirely those of the author, and do not necessarily reflect the views of Mobileshop.com.]

Right then, the biggest news of the last couple of weeks has been the unveiling of Facebook Home (which also included the launch of the HTC First, the first phone designed with Facebook Home in mind), a brand new app that’s sort of more than an app, because it’s basically a new homescreen replacement for your Android phone. Essentially, it’s a launcher, similar in concept to SPB Shell or Nova Launcher, although it’s nothing like any other launcher in terms of design and functionality.

I made my thoughts about Facebook Home perfectly clear in my blog post on the topic, so there’s no need to dredge them up again here. Instead, let’s take a look at one of the main features that Mark Zuckerberg bigged up: Chat Heads… (more…)

Right then, we’ve all seen the sheer spectacle of the new Samsung Galaxy Mega, the phone that’ll be available in two variants, the bigger of which will have a chuffing enormous 6.3 inch screen. Thanks to Samsung, yesterday turned into “enormous-and-possibly-slightly-too-enormous phones day” here on MobileShop, so to redress the balance, let’s today look at another phone that Samsung’s unveiled, one which falls right down the other end of the size chart.

It’s called the Samsung Galaxy Pocket Neo (and thus, its name’s probably bigger than it is), and as you can see, it’s smaller than the screen on the Samsung Galaxy S4. But is it a pint-sized powerhouse, or is it cute but brainless? (more…)

A while back, right, I did a post about the upcoming Asus FonePad, a sort of phone/tablet hybrid that edges more towards the tablet end of the spectrum, ‘cos it’s got a 7 inch screen (and as a side note, it also looks ridiculous). I also pondered the possibility that there may be a point where phablet-y type phones would get too big.

Well, it seems like Samsung is intent on testing out that hypothesis, ‘cos they’ve just announced a new phone called the Samsung Galaxy Mega’. That last bit of the name is not a misnomer, either, ‘cos there’s actually two versions of the new phone, and the smaller of the two has a 5.8 inch screen.

And the big one? 6.3 inches… (more…)

Hmm, now there’s a thing. Y’know how the iPhone range has consistently been cited as being simpler to use than Android phones? And y’know how even Android fans sometimes admit that there’s some truth to that statement? Even I, the inveterate Android fan and loather of all things Apple, have had to admit many times that iOS is an intuitive interface, and also, that it probably has less of a learning curve for first time smartphone buyers than an Android phone would.

Well apparently, that’s not the case any more, ‘cos a new survey’s been done by Siegel+Gale (pdf link), and it states that the Galaxy range of phones, made by Samsung, is in fact simpler than the iPhone. So yeah, what’s the crack? (more…)

Now then, this is a very interesting rumour, because it looks as though it’s completely on the level, even though it was posted on April Fool’s Day (so if it’s not on the level, we’re all being massively trolled); Android Police has managed to procure (love that word) a system dump of the oft-rumoured HTC Facebook phone, that’s said to be getting unveiled soon! So, if the rumour’s true (and it really does look to be… plus, of course, there’s a Facebook event soon, to unveil something to do with mobile), then we know what the Facebook phone will be like.

Oh, and we also know what the Facebook Home app will be like, ‘cos Facebook’s plans extend beyond just one phone, it seems. So, what’s occurring? Read on and let’s find out… (more…)