Mobile & Technology

BlackBerry Messenger coming to Android and iOS in September

BlackBerry’s CEO "Thorsten Heins" announced that the popular BlackBerry Messenger will be available on Android and iOS back at the BlackBerry live 2013 conference. We then had a tweet from the BlackBerry Worldwide tweeter account stating that the app will be available on June 27. 

Blackberry Messenger

Unfortunately, the account didn’t turn out to be an official BlackkBerry affair and the BlackBerry Messenger for the Android and iOS did not make its appearance on the suggested date. However, the much-awaited BBM for the two of the most popular smartphone platforms will be available “this summer”, according to the BlackBerry India managing director. 

The BlackBerry executive clarified that what he meant is North American summer, which lasts until September. This basically means we are two months away from getting the trademark messenger service on non-BlackBerry smartphones now. 

Hmmm...can't wait!

Nokia Lumia 1020 off to a great start, already sold out at AT&T

Nokia Lumia 1020

Nokia's recently announced Lumia 1020 seems to be quite popular among AT&T customers. According to WMPoweruser, those trying to order a Lumia 1020 from AT&T are currently being told that the device is out of stock and on back-order.

Of course, this doesn't really say how many devices were ordered and the number could be really small for all we know. AT&T may have just ordered few devices and were caught off guard by the demand for the phone. We'll have to wait for official figures from Nokia to find out just how many units they have sold so far.

In case you missed it, the Lumia 1020 is Nokia's latest flagship device running Windows Phone 8. It features the second generation of the 41 megapixel PureView camera that we first saw on the 808 PureView. Couple that with a 720p display, dual-core Snapdragon S4 processor and 2GB RAM, the Lumia 1020 is easily the most exciting Windows Phone device released till date.

Nokia Lumia 520 claims top WP8 phone spot worldwide, Nokia dominance almost unchallenged

Which is the most popular, Windows Phone handset you ask? The Nokia Lumia 520 is after raising from fifth place a month ago according to numbers by AdDuplex. The entry-level handset holds 13.3% of the worldwide WP market, ahead of the flagship Lumia 920′s 11.8% (the 925, 928 and 1020 are too new to have made a dent).

Chart

The climb of the modest Lumia 520 was rapid – it gained percentage points by the week. Meanwhile Windows Phone 7 devices are on the way out, but still make up a significant portion of the install base.


Worldwide Nokia is the undeniable Windows Phone ruler – it owns over 85% of the market. Second is HTC with just over 11%, while Samsung and Huawei barely register. About 60% of devices run WP8, the remainder is on WP7 (those phones can’t be updated to WP8).

Chart 2

The Nokia Lumia 620, a slightly more advanced handset than the 520 ties with an outgoing mid-rangel phone, the Lumia 710, for third place. The first non-Nokia device on the scale is the HTC 8X.

The US market is ahead of the curve with a higher WP8 to WP7 ratio and showing a strong preference for the high-end models – the Lumia 822, 920, HTC 8X and Lumia 900 cover over half of the market. Things in the Netherlands are similar. 

Chart 3

In the UK, the picture is different though – it’s the WP7-powered Lumia 800 on top and low- to mid-range devices covering most of the market. Poland also likes its low- to mid-range phones with a noticeable WP7 presence and is the only country in the study that has HTC ahead of Nokia.

Chart 4

Russia and Africa show an even mix across the spectrum of devices, while India and Brazil are heavily skewed towards a single device. The Nokia Lumia 710 has a whopping 40% cut of the Windows Phone market in Brazil (it’s actually down from 57% in February). The world’s #1, Lumia 520, holds over 30% of the market in India (up from 20.8% last month).

Chart 5

 You can read more details about the stats here.

Samsung Galaxy S4 mini battery life test is over, check out the scores

We’ve already finished our in-depth review of the Samsung Galaxy S4 mini and it’s live on our homepage. And since we got to spend enough time with the Galaxy S4 mini, we also made it jump through the hoops of our traditional battery test routine.

The Galaxy S4 mini is powered by a 1900 MAh battery that should provide enough juice for the dual-core Snapdragon 400 chipset and the Super AMOLED qHD screen. 

The Galaxy S4 mini showed excellent endurance for 3G calls. The smartphone lasted 13 hours and 10 minutes, which is quite impressive considering the relatively modest battery – all the flagships around it have more than 2,000 mAh juice packs. And since screen is off in this test and the chipset has nothing to do, we’d attribute the great performance to the very efficient modem that Qualcomm has designed.

Talk time

• Huawei Ascend Mate 25:12
• Oppo Find 5 14:17
• Google Nexus 4 14:17
• HTC One 13:38
• HTC One X+ 13:31
• Nokia Lumia 520 13:33
• Samsung Galaxy S4 mini 13:10
• Samsung Galaxy Grand Duos 12:45
• Samsung Galaxy S4 GPE 12:37
• Huawei Ascend P1 12:30
• Sony Xperia L 12:30
• HTC Butterfly 12:18
• Pantech Burst 4:46

The web browsing result was impressive, the Galaxy S4 mini occupied the third spot in our chart just eleven minutes short of our all-time champ – the HTC One. The lower qHD resolution and the relatively modest size of the Super AMOLED (which isn’t terribly efficient with the predominantly white web-pages) helped the S4 mini to the great score here.

Web browsing

• HTC One 9:58
• Apple iPhone 5 9:56
• Samsung Galaxy S4 mini 9:47
• Motorola RAZR MAXX (ICS) 9:12
• Apple iPad mini 9:05
• Samsung Galaxy Note II N7100 8:48
• BlackBerry Q10 8:42
• Nokia Lumia 810 8:20
• Samsung Galaxy Nexus 3:01

Now video playback is where Super AMOLED really gets to shine and the Samsung Galaxy S4 mini lasted over 13 hours playing videos before its battery drained down to 10%. That’s the best results we’ve seen for quite a while here.

Video playback

• Motorola RAZR MAXX (ICS) 16:35
• Motorola DROID RAZR MAXX 14:17
• Samsung Galaxy S4 mini 13:12
• Apple iPad mini 12:51
• Samsung Galaxy Premier 12:51
• Samsung Galaxy S4 GPE 12:32
• Samsung Galaxy S4 (S600) 12:30
• Huawei Ascend Mate 12:18
• Nokia Lumia 710 3:27

Unfortunately the higher than average battery drain in stand-by mode prevented the Samsung Galaxy S4 mini from getting an impressive overall endurance rating. Even so it did more than well and if Samsung improves the stand-by time with future firmware updates, it might be one of the longest-lasting smartphones on the market.

Samsung Galaxy S4

A 54h rating means you can expect the phone to typically last this amount of time on a single charge if you stick to our test regiment of using the phone for an hour of calling, an hour of video watching and an hour of web browsing a day and then leaving it on stand-by during the rest of the time. Of course, your mileage will vary depending on your usage pattern and network environment but still, it’s our standardized way of producing comparable results across smartphones by different manufacturers

HTC giving away $25 Play Store credit with HTC One purchase

In a bid to attract even more buyers, HTC has announced that it will be giving away $25 worth of Google Play Store credit along with the purchase of every HTC One in the US

HTC One

In order to redeem this offer, you will have to purchase the HTC One on or before July 15, 2013. Once you do that, you will have to register the device with HTC and then you can redeem your $25 credit from the Play Store. This will let you download all the content available on the store, including apps, games, movies and TV shows, music, books and magazines.

Best part is that the offer is also available to those who have already purchased the HTC One. You just have to go to the HTC website and redeem your $25 credit.
You will find more details and link to redeem your credit in the link below.

Go to link HTC for more info

Jay-Z’s upcoming ‘Magna Carta Holy Grail’ album will be a free download for the first million Samsung Galaxy owners

Samsung has signed a deal with rapper Jay-Z to give away the artist’s upcoming album – Magna Carta Holy Grail – for free for the owners of Samsung Galaxy device.



The offer is available only for owners of the Galaxy S III, Galaxy S4 and the Galaxy Note II. You will have to download the free app that will be available on the Play Store on June 24, which other than giving you access to the free songs also provides an inside look into the album. The offer is only available for the first one million download.

Samsung is said to have paid the big bucks to secure this deal, with an amount of $20 million dollars to have been paid to gain early access to the tracks, which will be available to Samsung customers on July 4, 72 hours before the album goes on sale worldwide.