News & Reviews:   smartphone

After Samsung's very interesting video on flexible screens we often forget that other manufacturers such as LG are also working on similar flexible screen technology. While this was shown off by LG at this year's CES 2013 with their curved Flexible OLED panel HDTV and e-paper solutions, recently LG Vice President of Mobile, Yoon Bu-hyun was noted as saying that they are working with LG's Display department to create a smartphone with a flexible OLED screen by the end of the year.

Smartphones have come a long way in so little time, so much so that their design are also influencing devices completely outside of their scope. One of these devices is the HP Prime, a scientific graphing calculator which looks alarmingly similar to a smartphone and even packs in a 3.5-inch colour touchscreen with brushed metal chassis and removable li-ion battery.

Apps for more functionality
While it definitely looks good, the HP Prime also packs in various apps for quick and easy access to problem solving solutions that would have normally taken a slide rule and quite a few pieces of paper to go through. The HP Prime still has all the standard buttons you'd normally find on a scientific calculator but the apps add on a whole new level of functionality while the colour touchscreen makes it look good doing so.

While there are all sorts of gesture controls for the touchscreen devices of today, how about a screen where you can actually pinch, pull and push? This is the question that was asked by Dhairya Dand and Rob Hemsley of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Using an elastic interactive display with depth cameras, the screen allows for a third axis of motion, which means you can actually push and pull on the display.

Overall, it is good to see HTC on the up and up, as it gives them the time to come up with patents such as this dual-screen slider smartphone patent. Rather than have a side-sliding QWERTY keyboard, the patent shows a device where a second screen slides out to fit with the existing screen and form one unified display.

Previously Apple was quite reliant on Samsung for a number of components not least of which being their iPad and iPhone screens as well as their processor chips. Since Samsung is now their biggest competitor, both in the smartphone as well as the tablet market, it seems prudent that Apple distance themselves and they have apparently done so. Recently Apple decided to use screens from Innolux Corp for its iPad mini touchscreens. While Samsung was originally the one to sever this contract with Apple, it is a telling sign of things to come.

When Samsung's Galaxy S III smartphone first came out, the goal was nothing less than world domination and the result was an awesome final quarter for Samsung in 2012. Based on this and other factors, analyst are now predicting that Samsung will reach a record breaking high of about 70+ million sales for Q1 2013. These analysts have noted that Samsung sold an estimated 25 million phones each month for 2013, which is also one of the factors predicting the 70+ million sales estimate.

While not having much of hardware pedigree behind it Amazon has done some amazing things with mobile devices, introducing their Kindle Fire tablets and ebook readers. Now, rumour has it that they're working on a 4.7" smartphone (much along the same lines and design as the Samsung Galaxy S III). Like so many other rumours of this kind, this one was sparked from component makers, in this case those dealing with smartphone specific components. So far other specifications are few and far in between and the only concrete news that we have is that the Amazon smartphone will probably feature the aforementioned 4.7" screen.

Apple has always been about patents but this is probably one of the more useful sounding ones so far. Instead of a patent for a rounded edges, this patent is about a "Protective Mechanism for an Electronic Device" that allows an electronic device to shift the weight of a falling device in such a way that it would always fall on it's back. This means if your smartphone had this feature and it fell, you wouldn't have to deal with a cracked screen (Corning Gorilla Glass still cracks due to falls).

The way it works is that when the device is falling the phone detects free fall using position sensors, imaging sensors and accelerometers. Then it sends a signal to the protective mechanism, allowing it to land on the strongest part of the chassis (usually the back part), minimizing the possibility of cracks or damage to the device and the screen of the device.

Recently, Microsoft announced that it will stop support for Windows Phone 8 and Windows Phone 7.5 by the year 2014. According to them, Windows Phone 8 support will stop on 8 July 2014 while Windows Phone 7.5 support will stop on 9 September 2014. For users who have already purchased a Windows Phone 8 or Windows Phone 7.5 smartphone that leaves Microsoft support of just another 18 months.

Samsung has been rumored to be readying flexible, high-resolution displays for its smartphones, and this week at CES 2013 the South Korean tech giant somewhat confirmed those rumors by showing off several prototypes. Please see the video below.

At its keynote the company announced Youm, a new line of flexible OLED displays. OLED technology allows companies to create thinner and lighter displays that also provide even more vivid images than other HD technologies.