Microsoft Surface 2, Surface Pro 2 tablets now

Microsoft started accepting pre-orders for its latest tablets – the Surface 2 and the Surface Pro 2. Both models are now available from the company's online store, expected to ship on or around October 22.
Price-wise, all is as expected. The Windows 8.1 RT powered Microsoft Surface 2 with 32GB of storage is priced at $449, while the 64GB model costs $100 extra. As for the Windows 8.1 Pro variant, the Microsoft Surface Pro 2 starts at $899. That gets you 64GB of SSD storage and 4GB of RAM, but there's an option to get a 128GB SSD instead for an additional $100.
Currently, the top Surface Pro 2 model – the one with a 512GB SSD and 8GB of RAM – isn't available. Those who are interested in it and don't mind its $1799 price tag have the option to sign up for an email alert when the tablet is ready to be pre-ordered.

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New iOS 7 vulnerability lets you bypass lockscreen

The latest version of Apple's mobile operating system, iOS 7, is already avaiable to iPhone and iPad users and we now hear of the first (fairly significant) userland exploit. This one lets people bypass the phone's passcode lockscreen via the phone's new control center feature.

Many users have since confirmed the bug. To make use of the exploit, you swipe up from the lockscreen to access the new control center and open the alarm clock. You hold the power/lock button for while, which brings up the option to power it off. You cancel that but at this point you can double-tap the home button and open up the phone's multitasking screen, which gives you access to the camera and stored photos, as well any logged-in email and social networking accounts.
The trick requires a very specific double-tap on the home button, namely a short press followed by a long press.
An Apple spokesperson has since confirmed that the company is aware of the issue, and plans on fixing it by means of a software update.
This follows another reported leak which involves disabling the "Find my iPhone" feature, even if the device is locked. Potential thieves can disable the location feature by enabling airplane mode via the Siri virtual assistant - accessible even through the lockscreen.
While you're waiting for a hotfix from Apple, you can eliminate the vulnerability by disabling access to the control center from your lockscreen via the settings menu.

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AT&T outs year-old Samsung Galaxy S III mini

Almost an year after its release in October last year, the Samsung Galaxy S III mini is finally making its first appearance on AT&T's network. The device is going on pre-order tomorrow and it will be shipping on September 27 for the symbolic price of only 99 cents on a two-year service contract.
The Samsung Galaxy S III mini features LTE connectivity, a 4" WVGA (480 x 800) Super AMOLED display and a dual-core 1.2 GHz processor with 1 GB of RAM.
AT&T is launching the Galaxy S III mini for those looking for a smartphone on a budget and seeing as how the latest mini, the Galaxy S4 mini isn't yet available on the network we guess the S III mini was the second best choice.

You can pre-order the Samsung Galaxy S III mini starting tomorrow from here.

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Nokia Lumia 1520 phablet to be unveiled 3rd week

Those who were expecting Nokia's first phablet, the Lumia 1520, to be unveiled about a month from now, seem to be in for disappointment. Due to the Microsoft buyout offer, Nokia is restructuring some scheduled announcements, it seems, and has moved the Lumia 1520 unveiling to the end of next month.
Particularly, sources have learned that the top-shelf 6" Windows Phone 8 phablet will be uncovered in the week of October 21st, which is quite a bit of time from now. This would likely mean November release date for the Lumia 1520, and the event is rumored to be held in a place other than New York where the Lumia 1020 was announced earlier in the year. Given that the phone is expected to make a cameo on AT&T, we wouldn't be surprised if there are parallel launch events, though.

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Dual-SIM Nokia Lumia 720 allegedly in development

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The famous tipster evleaks says there is a chance Nokia is working on a dual-SIM Lumia 720. Unfortunately that's all we get at this point.

    Dual-SIM Lumia 720 may be on the way.
    — @evleaks (@evleaks) September 11, 2013

If this turns out to be indeed the truth, then this will be the first dual-SIM Windows Phone ever released.
Nokia Lumia 720 was launched in April. It's a sleek device available in five different colors and running on a 1GHz dual-core Krait processor. The rest of the specs include a 4.3" IPS Clear Black WVGA display, a 6.1MP Carl Zeiss camera with 720p video recording, 512MB RAM, optional wireless charging support, and various connectivity options sans LTE.
Currently the Lumia 720 costs about €250 and but the dual-SIM model availability and pricing is yet to be confirmed.

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Major US carriers announce Note 3 pre-order, shipping in October

The Samsung Galaxy Note 3 is all over the news today in the US as AT&T has opened its pre-order page for the phablet, Verizon has said it will do so today as well, while T-Mobile says it will open up pre-orders soon.
AT&T expects to ship the Galaxy Note 3 around October 1 and it will cost $299.99 on a two-year deal or $35 a month with AT&T Next program. T-Mobile has the Note 3 on their Simple Choice Plan for $199 up front and consequently $21 a month for two years and expects to ship October 2.
Verizon hasn't specified its prices yet but we expect the biggest US carrier to do so today. The Samsung Galaxy Gear smart watch will go on sale "in the coming weeks" for $299 but you can get it for free as a set with the Galaxy Note 3 if you sign up for this T-Mobile page (the page will notify you when the Note 3 becomes available for pre-order and shipping)

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Alcatel One Touch Idol S Hands-on

The Alcatel One Touch Idol S has this red color that pops immediately when you glance at it, though it is available in a more mainstream black as well. The polycarb shell is matte and doesn't attract fingerprint smudges as the glossy ones. The 4.7" 720x1280 screen is of average quality, without off-coloring, with decent viewing angles, and sufficient brightness for indoor use, though we couldn't test it outside.
A dual-core 1.2 GHz chipset is powering the handset, which as you can imagine is no speed king, so things tend to happen slower than what we are accustomed to with more powerful handsets. The 4 GB of storage can be expanded with a microSD slot, however, and it is an LTE device, with what seem to be European/Asian bands. Powered by the same 2000 mAh as the Alpha, the Idol S is listed as good for 8.5 hours of talk time in 3G mode, which is somewhat below average.
We liked how thin and manageable the handset feels in your palm, so we are waiting for price and availability info from Alcatel, which shouldn't be far behind, and shouldn't be breaking the bank, judging from the other members of the One Touch family so far.

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ASUS New Transformer Pad TF701T hands-on

Asus made its New Transformer Pad TF701T official at IFA 2013, the first slate announced with a 1.9 GHz Tegra 4 processor, and we managed to get a brief hands-on time with the device.

Specs

Tegra 4 is touted it as the world's fastest quad-core Cortex-A15 processor with 72-core GPU. In addition, you get 2 GB of RAM and 32GB or 64GB onboard storage with microSD (tablet), and SD (dock) card slots for memory expansion. hat is not the only high-end component of the tablet, though - it has a luminant 10.1" 2560x1600 pixels (300ppi) display of Sharp's IGZO variety, and we can attest this panel tech is everything it's touted to be - bright screen with wide viewing angles, allowing ultra high resolutions with very low power consumption.

Design

Despite the premium metallic chassis, the tablet sports just 585g of weight, though the load on your wrist becomes more significant with the keyboard dock attached, while the 263 x 180.8 x 8.9 mm dimensions are a bit on the thicker side this day and age of sub-8mm slates. The dock sports a separate battery pack, with which the tablet can last up to 17 hours overall, a very good achievement, and a testament to the frugality of the IGZO display tech. he key travel is a bit shallow and mushy as is very often the case with these docks, but the touchpad is rather responsive, and this time you get a fast USB 3.0 port, plus the powerful processor allows for a cool 4K video output via the HDMI port, so no complaints. A 5 MP camera is etched pretty in the metallic back and the whole New Transformer Pad exudes a cool, premium feeling when you hold it in your hands. The tablet is scheduled to arrive this quarter, at around a $399 price tag, and the keyboard dock will run you a Benjamin extra if you want it, which is a pretty reasonable pricing scheme for the top-shelf components of this Android 4.2 slate

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Alcatel One Touch Hero phablet and Idol Alpha are official

Alcatel has unveiled a second wave of its Android smartphones today. Following the announcement of the One Touch Idol S and Idol Mini, the phone maker has today presented the One Touch Hero phablet and the Idol Alpha Android smartphones. Alcatel One Touch Hero The Alcatel One Touch Hero is the company's first Android smartphone to pack a 6" display. It boasts a resolution of 1080p and uses IPS technology. Under the hood, there's a 1.5GHz quad-core CPU coupled by 2GB of RAM. Sadly, the company hasn't disclosed its make yet.
At the back of the Hero, Alcatel has opted for a 13 MP shooter capable of full HD video recording and backed by an LED flash. A 2MP snapper takes care of video chatting at the front.
Under the back cover, there's a 3400mAh battery and a microSD card slot for expanding the built-in storage, which is either 16GB of 32GB.
However, the Alcatel One Touch Hero is much more than your regular hard-to-wield smartphone thanks to its accessories. Firstly, the company has developed a desk stand that doubles as a pico-projector. It's capable of outputting 12 lumens worth of light output and projects an image larger than 70 inches.  Then, there's the E-Ink cover, which adds an intriguing extra E-ink layer on top of the Hero's display. Just like the pico-projector accessory, the E-Ink cover connects to the Hero via the pins on the back of the phablet. Alcatel has announced a second cover dubbed MagicFlip, which only adds LED lights to notify you of new notifications.
Finally, the last Hero accessory worth mentioning is the Bluetooth-enabled feature phone. Yes, the Hero enjoys a feature phone as an accessory (think HTC Mini). It's capable of not only placing and receiving phone calls, but also receive texts and sync the Hero's phonebook and calendar entries.
Alcatel is yet to announce the One Touch Hero's pricing and availability.
Alcatel One Idol Alpha As for the Alcatel One Touch Idol Alpha, it's aimed towards the mid-range smartphone spectrum with its 4.7" IPS display of 720p resolution. Thanks to the 1.2GHz quad-core CPU, the Idol Alpha will probably offer some respectable performance as well.
Alcatel is quite proud of the Idol Alpha's design, which mixes a metal case with quite curvy, translucent edges. It's reasonably thin as well with a waistline of only 7.5mm. Those translucent edges also light up when there are new notifications or the phone is charging and playing video (much like Sony's Ambilight LED).  The company hasn't shared much more regarding the Idol Alpha's specifications. Among the unknowns are its price and date of availability, but we'll keep our ears pointed when new information pops up.

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BlackBerry Q10 cited to be a commercial failure by retailers

Phones with QWERTY keyboards have always been the strong suite of BlackBerry. Which is why when the company revamped their product portfolio with BB10 and the Z10, they decided to not forgo QWERTY phones altogether and launched the Q10 (and consequently the Q5). Well, it seems that strategy isn't working out so well. According to The Wall Street Journal, who talked to retailers in the US and Canada, the Q10 is an unmitigated failure. There is no demand for the device and the retailers have had to return their stock.

One Canadian retailer even went as far as saying "I think we'd all say that the Q10, the one we all thought was going to be the savior, just hit the ground and died." And this is BlackBerry's home country we are talking about. While this doesn't mean the all-touch Z10 are flying off the shelves things are looking particularly bleak for the keyboard based BlackBerries. Clearly the market for these devices has dwindled in the past and few would now want to waste precious space for a physical keyboard when they could have a large display instead. BlackBerry now needs to rethink their strategy and assess if people really want to buy QWERTY BlackBerries anymore. Or simply BlackBerries, for that matter.

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New iPhone 5S and 5C photos leak from China

As the anticipated early fall announcement nears, the leaks of the (still rumored) iPhone 5C and iPhone 5S devices from Apple continue to pop up. The latest from China's variant of Twitter - Weibo - shows the two new models next to the iPhone 5. The devices in question are obviously dummy devices without a working display, but it gives us a good idea of their general dimensions.
It's been speculated that the new budget 5C model and the 5S will feature larger displays to appease customer demands, but judging by these images the screen will remain at the same size. Hopefully we'll find out for certain soon enough as less than a month remains until the expected September 10 announcement date. However, it may be longer still until actual device shipment, as some sources say we might see the new devices as late as October.

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HTC launches Android 4.2.2 with Sense 5 update for the One X

HTC has just launched an Android 4.2.2 Jelly Bean update with its Sense 5 user interface for the HTC One X. For now, only the unlocked European version of the smartphone can benefit from the update, but the rest of the One X owners should get it in the coming weeks. With Android 4.2.2 and Sense 5 UI, the HTC One X gets features like Blinkfeed, Lockscreen widgets, as well as the Quick settings panel. The latter brings access to 12 different settings with a single swipe. Another user interface enhancement, albeit minor, is the battery level percent indicator next to the battery icon in the status bar.
The gallery app has been also overhauled with video highlights, which come with 12 different themes. There's also auto exposure and autofocus lock available in the camera app. Lastly, the music app enjoys the got visualization with live lyrics. The Android 4.2.2 update for the HTC One X weighs at 380 megabytes and brings the software version of the device to 4.18.401.2.
HTC has been launching quite a lot of updates for its Android smartphones this summer. Just the week before, the company issued the very same update for the HTC One X+. In July, the company started seeding Android 4.2.2 for its flagship HTC One, and just a day after that the Butterfly got the Android 4.2.2 treatment.

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Sony Xperia Z Ultra gets its first update

Sony recently announced its Xperia Z Ultra phablet and the 6.4-inch beast with its Snapdragon 800 chipset is by far the most powerful device in the current market. Sony is yet to launch its monstrous phablet outside of Asia, but the company has already rolled out a firmware update for it. The latest firmware for the Sony Xperia Z Ultra has a July 19 build date and is pretty minor. There is no change log available, so it appears it was all about squashing some of the bugs that were spotted after the market release.
The firmware update is currently available on the PC companion and is not seeding over-the-air (OTA). Sony has officially announced that the Xperia Z Ultra will be getting the latest Android 4.3 Jelly Bean update, but that's going to come later on with another update.
By the way, we have already got our hands on the gigantic Sony Xperia Z Ultra and you can check out hands-on impressions here.

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Samsung Galaxy S4 Active with Snapdragon 800 seemingly confirmed by benchmarks

Several weeks ago, an upgraded variant of the Samsung Galaxy S4 was announced officially. It is currently on sale on the South Korean market, packing a speedy Snapdragon 800 chip and offering blazing-fast LTE-Advanced connectivity. This, however, won't be the only handset by Samsung to get a refresh. If the clues contained in this benchmark result spotted on GFXbench are to be trusted, the Samsung Galaxy S4 Active, which happens to be a water-resistant sibling of the S4, is next in line for the treatment. The presence of an MSM8974 chip is clearly stated in the listing, while the model name is mentioned in both the "fingerprint" and "device" strings.  Sadly, this upgraded Samsung Galaxy S4 Active model we're dealing with isn't meant to launch globally, as far as we can tell.

It appears that this is a handset made for SK Telecom – the very same mobile operator that is now selling the aforementioned LTE-A Galaxy S4 smartphone in South Korea. Nevertheless, we've been hearing rumors about a possible worldwide release of the latter, so who knows, perhaps the Snapdragon 800 variant of the S4 Active might get a broader rollout as well one day. We'll keep you informed as we learn more on the matter. If this smartphone is meant to see the light of day, its official announcement might be right around the corner.

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Xiaomi unveils quad-core Red Rice droid as Hongmi

Xiaomi has announced the long rumored Red Rice smartphone. Its official name is Hongmi which is Chinese for... well, red rice. Xiaomi Hongmi packs a 4.7-inch 720p IPS display with 312ppi density, protected by a Gorilla Glass 2. The Hongmi is powered by Mediatek's MT6589 chipset featuring a quad-core 1.5GHz Cortex-A7 processor, PowerVR SGX544 graphics and 1GB of RAM. Other notable features are the 4GB storage plus a microSD card slot, and a 2000 mAh battery. The phone comes with an 8MP BSI Samsung-made rear camera with 1.4ųm pixels for improved low-light performance and 28mm wide five-element lens. The Hongmi is capable of shooting 1080p videos. There is also a 1.3MP front snapper for video chats. Xiaomi Hongmi is dual-SIM handset with support for GSM/3G and TD-SCDMA networks on both SIM slots. The Hongmi is running on the proprietary MIUI V5 launcher on top of Android 4.2 Jelly Bean. Here comes the best part of the news - the Xiaomi Hongmi costs only CNY799 which equals a few cents less than €99.

The phone is already available on pre-order in China at QZone and is going to start shipping on August 12.  There are three flavors you can choose between - Black, Chinese Red and Metallic Gray. The battery cover is exchangeable and you can opt for additional blue, green and yellow panels. Unfortunately the Xiaomi Hongmi is highly unlikely to leave China. We'll keep you updated if we hear something about international availability, though.


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Nokia Lumia 1020 gets internals revealed in first teardown

Nokia and Windows Phone have certainly received their fair share of flak lately. Still, one can't help but marvel at the very impressive hardware package Nokia was able to squeeze into the modest frame of its latest Lumia 1020 flagship. The Nokia Lumia 1020 is a marked improvement over its predecessor, the Lumia 920, in almost every aspect. Most importantly the new smartphone features the impressive 41MP Pureview camera sensor, double the RAM, and retains all of the connectivity features, while actually reducing the measurements and shedding nearly 30 grams off its waistline.

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BlackBerry officially issues the BB10.1 OS Maintenance release

Today, BlackBerry starts seeding a new Maintenance release to its BB 10.1 OS. The update has a version number of v10.1.0.4537 and it’s a bug-and-fixes update that only adds a handful of truly new features.
Back in May, we saw BlackBerry announce the official availability of the BlackBerry 10.1 update to the BlackBerry Z10 smartphone (the Q10 already had it at launch). Now, the company has a second go at this one, refining the user experience and adding some minor new features.
Both the BlackBerry Z10 and Q10 are able to receive the new update over Wi-Fi. Interestingly, the BlackBerry Q5 smartphone is not mentioned in the changelog.
Of course, availability is region-specific and the 10.1 Maintenance release will initially be available only to customers in the Asia Pacific, Canada, and EMEA.
Latin America users will be able to update in 2-3 weeks, while customers in the US will have to wait even longer, until the end of summer.

The most notable new features include:
A new next/previous message navigation gesture;
Two factor authentication for Twitter and LinkedIn;
A search field in BlackBerry Remember; Support for unlock with simple (numeric) passwords such as a PIN;
A new IT policy allows work and personal accounts in the BlackBerry Hub to be separated;
Input support for Simplified and Traditional Chinese;
Input and UI translation for Korean;
BlackBerry World app gets several UI enhancements, including a Wishlist;
Latest versions of the Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn apps.

You can read the full changelog over at BlackBerry’s website as well. Also our fellow tech journalists from CrackBerry.com already have a nice walkthrough of the new stuff on video.

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iOS 7 beta 4 links surface, Gold Master to come in September?

If you're a developer (or have registered your iDevice as a developer device) then you could be getting iOS 7 beta 4 (build number 11a4435d) today as the links have surfaced on Apple's Dev site. The links have been since pulled but are expected to return soon. Also according to sources Apple could be releasing just two more betas before an eligible Gold Master version arrives to devs this September with Apple about to start testing a GM release internally.
It's likely the rumors are true as we expect a new iPhone device (or devices, perhaps?) to arrive in the second half of September, and that one will certainly sport a ready version of iOS 7.

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