Google adds Sony Z Ultra to Google Play Edition stock Android Portfolio
No sooner do we post on the LG GPad 8.3 GPE, then we discover the Sony Z Ultra is also playing ball.
Yup, we now have a proper phablet offering for those who want a true-blue stock Android experience on a larger screened phone. Offering up a 6.4″ 1080p display, it’s also the first GPE device to rock Qualcomm’s screamer Snapdragon 800 quad core. 16GB of storage on board with a MicroSD card slot, and the Z Ultra is also water resistant. A nice little touch there, helping the survivability of a somewhat pricey gadget.
Speaking of price, you’ll drop $649 for a Z Ultra of your very own. Not a bad price at all for a proper phablet, and it looks like handsets should be shipping out in 1-2 days. Get at it folks!
AT&T selling Nokia Lumia 2520 tablet for $399 on contract
Well lookee here. You might be able to score a deal on the tablet I named best of the year for Windows 8.
Just like the post title says, you can pick up a Nokia Lumia 2520 on Big Blue for $399 with a two year agreement. That’s about $100 off the regular price. Not a bad deal if you were looking to save a little green this holiday season. The deal gets better however, if you were looking to pick up a Lumia smartphone too. Grabbing a Lumia 1520, 1020, or 925 will drop the price of the 2520 down to $199. That’s a pretty decent chunk of change if you were looking at shopping both.
You can check out our hands on video of the Lumia 1520 and 2520, or hit the jump for more details on AT&T promotion.
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HTC One Max coming to Sprint $249 on contract November 15
Are you on Sprint? Do you want a phone with a big BIG screen? Well now you have options.
Along side the Galaxy Note 3, it’s now official that Lil’Yellow will carry the HTC One Max phablet for $249.99 on a two year contract ($749 off contract). It stands as the main opposition to Samsung’s offering at this tier, and might be a nice alternative for folks looking at a bold multi-media device. We covered the One Max following its unveiling, if you want more details on the phone.
Sprint is only taking “pre-registers” at the moment, but it’s expected to have a proper launch this Friday November 15. I’d also expect to see units in Best Buys around that date as well.
(via Sprint)
Hands on with Nokia’s Lumia 2520 Tablet, 1520 & 1320 Phablets
Nokia is looking really hot right now. I think we’re hitting a Windows Phone tipping point where Live Tiles are starting to be taken seriously as a third place alternative to iOS and Android. This has been built pretty much solely on Nokia’s back as they’ve been making the most compelling hardware for the ecosystem.
Taking that up a notch, we’ve got some footage to share of the up coming Lumia 2520 tablet, and two large screened phones, the Lumia 1520 and 1320. Enjoy!
Nokia Finally Officially Unveils the Lumia 1520 For Real, Lumia 2520 Windows RT 8.1 Tablet Unveiled at $499
I’m a little exhausted by Lumia 1520 leaks and rumor posts. Thankfully Nokia has made this thing real, so now we can talk about it again.
Soon-to-be-Microsoft-Employee (CEO perhaps?) Stephen Elop took the stage at Nokia World this morning in Abu Dhabi to show off Nokia’s new wares. The worst kept secret in tech made it’s appearance, and we all finally got to confirm what the rumors and leaks have been feeding us for a couple months now. Nokia is making a phablet, and the Lumia 1520 looks like it’ll be a formidable piece of gear.
The 1520 will sport a 1080p six inch display, the highest resolution screen ever put into a Nokia or a Windows Phone. The Qualcomm 800 is unsurprisingly confirmed as well, boosting Windows Phone into more current quad-core processors. Along with the GDR3 software update (now called Nokia Black), the screen size has allowed Nokia to add a third column of Live Tiles to the home screen. 
It’ll have 32GB of storage on board and will be the first premier Lumia to finally include a MicroSD card slot for expanded storage (up to 64GB). Nothing like walking around with almost 100GB of flash storage in your pocket to make you feel powerful. The purchase of a 1520 will also include an additional 7GB of Skydrive storage free.
The Lumia 1520 sports a new 20MP Pureview camera, something of a halfway point between the Lumia 9xx series and the monster 41MP Lumia 1020. It’ll sport optical image stabilization and oversampling software tech, which means we’ll probably get some of the zoom and crop capability from the 1020, and photos downsampled to 5MP for uploading online should look pretty good. Also of note, the camera app is getting a refresh. Dubbed ‘Nokia Camera’, most of the features from the separate Nokia Pro Camera, Smart Camera, and Video camera apps are getting rolled into one interface. I would expect the horsepower of the Qualcomm 800 to improve on the auto-focus and white balance speed of the sometimes pokey dual-core in the Lumia 1020.
AT&T Locks Exclusive on Nokia Lumia 1520, Will Sell Lumia 2520 Tablet too!
AT&T and Nokia have been pretty tight since the first Lumia 900 hit the USA. It seems whenever Nokia drops cutting edge hardware, it’s likely that AT&T will have first crack at it.
It’s now been officially announced that Nokia’s newest handset, the Lumia 1520 phablet, is destined to be on Big Blue’s LTE network. This will also give AT&T the most robust collection of Phablets on the market with the Lumia standing along side the Galaxy Note 3, the LG Optimus G Pro, and the HTC One Max.
It was also announced that AT&T will be carrying the Lumia 2520 Windows 8.1 RT tablet, which will be one of the more affordable tablets to include LTE when it’s released later this year.
No pricing or availability as of yet, but at least now you know so you can plan for your holiday phone and tablet shopping.
(via AT&T)
I Ask You: Does Carrier Branding On Your Phone Bother You?
Quick show of hands, who here knows what carrier their smartphone is on? Pretty much as I figured. If you’re savvy enough to use a web browser to find my site, chances are pretty good you know what carrier you send money to each month for your phone. Good.
Welp, new press images have surfaced courtesy of @EVLeaks, showing the HTC One Max not only for Verizon, but also for AT&T. It looks like there might not be CDMA exclusivity for HTC’s up coming phablet. Neat. Of course, this wouldn’t be internet news without something to complain about, and many HTC faithful checking the renders out are somewhat upset by the fact that on both the Verizon and AT&T shots, HTC’s branding between the home and back buttons has been shoved out of the way for AT&T’s globe and Verizon’s awkward off center check mark thing. I’m serious, for a mutli-billion dollar company, that logo never looks like it’s on straight, but I digress…
This got me wondering, why does this bother people? Is it aesthetics? Brand loyalty? Are you ashamed to be doing business with your carrier? I’d be curious to hear people’s thoughts on the matter. Living in an age where everything is branded, clothes, cars, technology, what is it about the carrier logo which might upset folks?