Smartphone manufacturer, HTC has dismissed reports that its flagship smartphone, One X has any multitasking problems.

Earlier some users claimed that the HTC One X’s memory management system automatically kills any possible application running in the background if it is left unattended for more than 30 seconds. So if you are browsing and you get redirected to Google Play Store then after 30 seconds your browser will automatically shut down. Hence, you have to continue from the beginning and start the application again for re assuming the browsing.

But in a statement sent to The Verge, HTC stated that there is absolutely no problem with the One X or with its operating system. But it has all to do with the Sense User interface for which the memory control feature has been tweaked to provide a better user experience.

“HTC is aware of some questions in the enthusiast community about how the HTC One X handles multitasking and memory management for background apps. We value the community’s input and are always looking for ways to enhance customers experience with our devices. That said, right now multitasking is operating normally according to our custom memory management specifications which balance core ICS features with a consistent HTC Sense experience,” HTC said in its statement.

Motorola has launched Motosmart Mix XT550, an Android 2.3 based music phone, in China. The phone comes with a high quality earplug, Dolby mobile entertainment experience technology and SRS WOW HD high-end audio processing technology. Besides, it has access to various services that allow easy music download and better music management.

The stylish looking phone comes with Android 2.3 operating system, and 4-inch touch screen. The MOTO micro music phone XT550 is equipped with a 1735 mAh battery with support for up to 30 hours music playback.Moreover, the Motosmart micro music phone is equipped with resonated and symphonic versions of headset, along with independent external music player keys.The phone has Sina music application in built for easy music management and sharing. However, since it’s a China only application it is not likely to appear in any other.

The Motosmart XT550 is also equipped with a 3 megapixel rear camera and a front VGA camera. Motorola has also included social elements for music sharing.

However, the phone only has an 800 MHz processor and 512 MB of RAM. The phone is priced at Chinese equivalent of Rs 14,500. Motorola has not said anything about its international availability yet.

Samsung reportedly received over 9 million pre-orders for Galaxy S III smartphone world-wide. With Galaxy S III, Samsung must be hoping to break the record of its last two flagship devices – Galaxy Note and Galaxy S II. Recently, the company had unveiled its online eStore for India and now the same store has opened up pre-booking for the Galaxy S III smartphone. Pre-booking is available on products that have not be launched in the market and are expected to arrive very soon.

Customers who places a pre booking order for Galaxy S III will receive special coupon which will contain a code that can be used at the time of buying Galaxy S III from Samsung eStore to get the discount of Rs 2,000 and a surprise gift. At the time of launch, an email will be exclusively sent to customers who have pre-booked their Galaxy S III on the eStore, informing them of the availability of the Galaxy S III.

The Galaxy S III pre-booking coupon will be valid only for completing your purchase of the Galaxy S III and will not work with any other product.

This coupon will be valid for 15 days from the date of the product launch. You should use this coupon before the expiry date. The amount will not be refunded to the customer upon coupon expiry.

Samsung Galaxy S III smartphone comes with a quad-core Exynos mobile processor and Mali-400MP4 graphics chip. With Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich, the Galaxy S III uses new TouchWiz UI and comes with 1 GB RAM for smoother multitasking. Packing 8 megapixel camera, the smartphone is capable of recording full HD videos. Samsung has also added new S-Voice virtual assistant feature and also Smart Stay eye tracking feature that shuts down the screen when its user is not looking at it.

Samsung toppled Apple as the world’s biggest smartphone maker in the first quarter, helped by its line-up of Galaxy named devices running on Google’s free Android software.

The latest version of its flagship phone, unveiled this month, will first go on sale on May 29 in Germany before being rolled out to other countries.

The newspaper, which cited an unidentified Samsung official, also said the company’s smartphone factory in South Korea was running at its full capacity of 5 million units per month.

Samsung declined to comment.

It said late last month that the new Galaxy S smartphone would “substantially contribute” to its second-quarter earnings.

by:-Reuters

Samsung has overtaken Nokia as the world’s top selling phone brand. Nokia had held the No 1 spot since 1998, according to research firm Gartner.

Samsung’s mobile phone sales have reached 86.6 million units, a 25.9 per cent increase from last year.

Samsung also regained the number one slot in smartphone space from Apple, selling 38 million smartphones worldwide. In addition, Samsung’s Android-based smartphone sales in the first quarter of 2012 represented more than 40 per cent of Android-based smartphone sales worldwide. Interestingly, no other vendor has more than 10 per cent share of the market.

Two major Chinese brands ZTE and Huawei also managed to almost double their market share and now account for 4.2 and 2.6 per cent of the total handsets sold in the world holding 4th and 6th place respectively.

LG which is at number five also lost market share just like Nokia and now stands 3.6 per cent compared to 5.6 per cent in the same period last year, added the Gartner report.

As far as Indian market is concerned Samsung is the number one smartphone brand. However, in terms of total phone sales Nokia remains the numero-uno brand.

According to Gartner, the Indian smartphone market grew by 17 per cent, although feature phones still dominated the 226 million Indian handset industry. This is the first time since 2009 that globally there has been a decline in sales of mobile phones, said Gartner. The overall market grew by 6 per cent and this means that smartphones overall market share went by a 1 per cent.

Other player like RIM (makers of BlackBerry), HTC and Motorola also lost their worldwide market share and now hold 2.4 per cent (down from 3.0 per cent), 1.8 per cent (down from 2.2 per cent) and 2.0 per cent (down from 2.1 per cent) market share respectively. Sony managed to hold on to its market share at 1.9 per cent.

Nokia’s mobile handset sales reached 83.2 million units, a 22.7 per cent decrease from the first quarter of 2011.

Both Android and iOS grew at the cost of Symbian with Android having 56.1 per cent while Symbian dropped from 27.7 per cent and now just retains 8.6 per cent of market.

RIM also lost market share and now controls 6.9 per cent down from 13 per cent in the same quarter last year. Bada, Samsung’s proprietary OS, gained market to reach 2.7 per cent up from last year’s 1.9 per cent.

Microsoft’s effort is not reaping any benefits and its market share declined from 2.6 per cent last year to 1.9 per cent this year. As its main partner ‘Nokia’ for the Windows Phone OS continues to lose market.

Spice has launched a new full touch screen handset in its Flo series. The phone, called Spice Flo Me M-6868n, is a dual-SIM touchscreen phone with 3.5 inch capacitive display and a new user interface.

The phone has GPRS, EDGE, Bluetooth, and WiFi connectivity. Spice Flo Me has 3.2 megapixel camera with video recording feature as well. Besides, it has features like Opera Mobile 10 browser, WAP, Java, 312 MHz processor, and 8 GB expandable memory.Kunal Ahooja, global head, devices, S Mobility said, “There has been a growing demand for affordable touch screen phones which can do so much ranging from multimedia to social networking to even your official work. Flo Me M-6868n is a result of our endeavour to provide the youth not only a good multimedia experience but a stylish and feature packed product at an affordable price.”

Spice Flo Me M6868n is priced at Rs 4,550 but is available for Rs 3,900 through online retailers.

The phone also has a 1.3 megapixel rear camera with features such as digital zoom, night vision, brightness level adjustment, and video recording. The phone also offers Bluetooth, GPRS, and USB connectivity for data transfer. It comes with Obigo browser and Java and WAP support for internet connectivity.

Other features include 1200 mAh battery, preloaded games, world clock, FM radio, music player, and 8 GB expandable memory. The phone is available for Rs 2200 from Spice’s online retail arm, Saholic, though it carries a price tag (MRP) of Rs 2,549.

Galaxy S III is the Samsung’s flagship smartphone and most anticipated device in the markets. In order to keep up with the demand and as part of their strategy, Samsung might be releasing two different versions of the same Galaxy S III smartphone.

4 different Galaxy S III models out:

GT-I9300:

The Samsung Mobile Phone GT-I9300 is GSM phone with Bluetooth wireless technology. The device has integrated Bluetooth Version 4.0 technology, which allows users to connect wirelessly to optional, compatible hands-free accessories such as Bluetooth technology enabled headsets and car kits. The bluetooth in this phone supports HSP, A2DP, AVRCP, GAVDP, HFP1.5, OPP, PBAP, HID, PAN, MAP, DID, HDP etc.

GT-I9300X 

The Samsung Mobile Phone GT-I9300X is GSM phone with Bluetooth wireless technology. The device has integrated Bluetooth Version 4.0 technology, which allows users to connect wirelessly to optional, compatible hands-free accessories such as Bluetooth technology enabled headsets and car kits. The bluetooth in this phone supports HSP, A2DP, AVRCP, GAVDP, HFP1.5, OPP, PBAP, HID, PAN, MAP, DID, HDP etc.

GT-I9300T 

The Samsung Mobile Phone GT-I9300T is GSM phone with Bluetooth wireless technology. The device has integrated Bluetooth Version 4.0 technology, which allows users to connect wirelessly to optional, compatible hands-free accessories such as Bluetooth technology enabled headsets and car kits. The bluetooth in this phone supports HSP, A2DP, AVRCP, GAVDP, HFP1.5, OPP, PBAP, HID, PAN, MAP, DID, HDP etc.

The Galaxy S III with generic model number GT-I9300 is expected to be available in first week of June in India. As of now, the best buy price of this smartphone is expected to be around Rs 35,000 but that is not the final price.

GT-I9300 will come with previously stated specifications – Quad-core Exynos 4412 and Mali-400MP4 graphics. This version will be made available in Europe and Asian markets. The GT-I9300T might be the operator locked or co-branded version for Australia and several other countries including the US.

Finally, the GT-I9300X will be made available in the Asian Markets. Now the Galaxy S III for South East Asian markets will carry a totally different model name. So that makes it obvious that Samsung will introduce generic GT-I9300 and GT-I9300X models for Asian markets. As of now, the specifications of the GT-I9300X model are unknown.

Looking in the past, Samsung has always released several different versions of same Galaxy smartphone models – GT-I9000, GT-I9100, and GT-I9250. Last we spotted that the Galaxy S II smartphone was made available in India in two different versions GT-I9100 and GT-I9100G. The latter had different chipset housed. The difference in the performance of two different versions was also fairly noticeable.

Releasing two different versions of the same smartphone model also hinders the software update release timeframe. Here’s our piece of suggestion for the Indian smartphone buyers – please do check the model-number of the Galaxy S III on its official packaging before buying it. You can save yourself from weeks of wait time.

“We plan to launch three new smartphone with Android 2.3 operating system but will be upgradable to Android 4.0 shortly after the launch. All these will come with free security software like antivirus and anti-theft,” the spokesperson told.

The first device will be launched within next two weeks while the rest will follow soon after, he further added.

The antivirus, which will feature on Spice’s upcoming phones, will provide real time protection from malicious Internet threats and also offer flexibility for the user to set a schedule for regular scans of data in the device as well as of the SD card. Also in the security stable is a Network Manager that will help users set monthly data transfer limit. Other features include anti-theft and vault- privacy lock for following apps like, photos, videos, SMSes, call logs and secret contacts.

Kunal Ahooja, global head, devices, S Mobility said, “Only a fraction of smartphones and tablets are protected by security software, despite a rise in the amount of malware targeted at mobile devices. With a visible upward trend in mobile payments and m-commerce in India we at Spice are sensitive to the situation and hence are offering security solutions to all our users. In the future we hope to constantly innovate and offer value added solutions to all our users.”

Kunal also spoke about it being their top of the line range and therefore pointing out to better specs than what is currently available with Spice, and also a higher price than the current range.

Currently Spice sells handset like Mi 270, Mi350n and Mi280 which are entry level handsets priced starting at Rs 3,400 to Rs 7,500.

The new user interface promises to allow users to take notes quickly with a feature called Quick Memo and be easier to unlock. The user interface also brings smart camera features.The Quick Memo feature allows the user to write messages using a finger. The photographs seem to indicate that you can write those notes on several different screens without having to open a dedicated app. The easier unlock allows the user to unlock the phone by moving in a specific direction from the unlock screen and go directly into a specific feature like the Internet or camera.

The smart camera modes include a Time Machine Camera function that helps you select the best pictures. The UI also has voice recording and gives the user the ability to customize icons. The new user interface looks interesting, what do you think?