News – Mar 2nd

The 10.0.10.85 update weighs in at 150MB and boosts the smartphone performance, battery life, low-light camera capabilities, etc…
Acer is working on a quad-core Liquid S phablet
– gsmarena.com

HTC One preview: Take two
– gsmarena.com

Expert Spotlight – Anthony Domanico – 3-1-13
– phonedog.com
Only a few days away from us celebrating the one year anniversary of the Official Smartphone Rankings! The first year was very exciting with highlights that include an Android smartphone ending #1 each month for the People’s Choice side of the charts and Apple winning the hearts of the Experts during a couple of those months…
Just a little over a week after Verizon’s flavor of the HTC Windows Phone 8X began receiving its Portico update, that device’s Windows Phone 8 stablemate on Verizon has started getting its own helping of Portico. WPCentral reports that the Nokia Lumia 822’s Portico update has started rolling out over the air, bringing with it improvements to Wi-Fi and Bluetooth performance, support for more microSD card manufacturers and the ability to select an MP3 file and use it as a ringtone…
Big news concerning the ongoing legal battle between Apple and Samsung this afternoon, as Judge Lucy Koh has reduced the amount of damages that will be awarded to Apple as part of the verdict handed down by a jury in August 2012. Apple was originally awarded $1.049 billion in damages, but The Wall Street Journal reports that Judge Koh today ordered that that amount be slashed to $598…
We already know that T-Mobile has some big changes up its sleeve for this year, including its intent to ditch subsidies and make a full-on switch to Value plans . Some of the details of this change are still up in the air, but a new report from our friends at TmoNews claim to have some more information on the matter…
Earlier this year Sprint announced that they would indeed begin carrying Windows 8 devices this year, which will hopefully pan out for them as their only attempt at a Windows Phone 7 device, the HTC Arrive, could hardly be considered successful. After hearing the news I wondered if it was too late for Windows Phone 8 to do very well with Sprint …
LG Intuition to receive sizable maintenance update, not quite as large as phone itself
– phonedog.com
Today may officially just be March 1, but I think it’s about time that we also declare it Día de la Actualización, aka Day of the Update. Verizon today revealed that the LG Intuition is due to receive a software update in the near future, making it the fourth update that’s been announced today…
Apple gets reduced damages in the mega trial vs. Samsung
– gsmarena.com

The new trial will involve 14 Samsung devices whose per-product damages from the first trial were found to be…

And the most overlooked company of the year goes to… Sony
– phonedog.com
Today I was doing some research on the new Sony Xperia Z and ZL that are coming out this year, and I came across one of their advertisements for the devices. The advertisement actually brings some valid points without using many words, but instead images of familiar Sony products throughout time…
Death of the contract: A T-Mobile exclusive
– phonedog.com
Earlier today, our counterparts at TmoNews broke a rumor from a trusted source that the Magenta network could be dropping the word “contract” from their vocabulary. That’s right, there may not be any such thing as a 2-year commitment at T-Mobile. The same goes for Early Termination Fees. Rumor has it that this could go into effect later this month…
Looks like this fine Friday afternoon just got quite a bit better for Samsung Galaxy Stellar owners on Verizon. The big red carrier has revealed that the Galaxy Stellar will soon be receiving an update to Android 4.1, complete with the usual Jelly Bean goodies like Google Now and actionable notifications…