News – Mar 2nd

BlackBerry has just released the first update for its latest BlackBerry 10 operating system. The only available smartphone powered by the BB10 – the BlackBerry Z10 can get the update over-the-air.

The 10.0.10.85 update weighs in at 150MB and boosts the smartphone performance, battery life, low-light camera capabilities, etc…

Acer had a modest showing at the MWC – the Liquid E1 was there, but it was announced a month earlier. In fact, the company didn’t announce anything new, though the president of Acer's Smartphone Business left some clues about a new device – a phablet – in an interview for the official MWC paper…

The HTC One is the masterpiece of the Taiwanese company, hence the name. It combines HTC’s traditions in making aluminum unibody phones with the absolute latest tech available – some of which exclusive – to make what is perhaps one of the…

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 …

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…

Samsung got a reduction on the $1.05 billion of damages it was ordered to pay Apple last year. Judge Lucy Koh, who presided over the mega trial ordered a reevaluation of $450.5 million of the initial damages awarded to Apple to take place in a new trial with a different jury.

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

Like Hz0 which we saw last year, P2i protects your phone on a molecular level making liquid substances bounce off the motherboard and various other internals. The advantage of this type of protection is that it doesn't involve the vacuum caps and lids, which some devices feature (the Xperia Z comes to mind) and the phone has all the usual open spots like a headphone jack, micro USB port,…

 
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…

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…