ASUS Transformer Pad TF300T launching “late May”

Asus has informed the world of its UK launch plans for the Transformer Pad TF300T tablet it announced earlier this year, with the cheaper, slightly fatter version of the Transformer Prime set to launch for £399 from the end of May.

It’s a temporary exclusive at the Dixons Group of stores, which will start selling the TF300T online from “early May,” with the tablet then becoming available later in the month within physical branches of the chain.

Asus-transformer-pad-TF300T

It’ll then be available through other tech retailers from the end of June, should you be boycotting the Dixons chain for any particular reason. Here’s the announcement via Giz UK:

Transform in Style with the New ASUS Transformer Pad

Incredible performance meets style and value

United Kingdom (April 23, 2012) — Announced at Mobile World Congress in February, the new ASUS Transformer Pad is a powerful, yet affordable, tablet with a host of features onboard. Available in three stylish colors, the ASUS Transformer Pad is aptly named thanks to the mobile dock that allows it to transform from a tablet into a notebook. When docked, total battery life is rated up to 15 hours, while also increasing productivity with a full QWERTY keyboard, multi-touch touchpad and USB/SD Card ports. Housed in the Transformer Pad is a powerful NVIDIA® Tegra® 3 Quad-core CPU, ASUS SonicMaster technology for an incredible audio experience and an 8MP auto-focus camera that shoots crystal clear photos. The Transformer Pad is running the Androidâ„¢ 4.0 operating system (Ice Cream Sandwich) that is upgradable and features exclusive software for added productivity.

Read the full article »

Samsung”s “Next Galaxy” teaser reveals a… new teaser

Samsung’s been running a little countdown over the weekend, which counted down to RIGHT ABOUT NOW. The result? The big reveal? The web site www.thenextgalaxy.com is now live (although getting hammered and a bit unreliable), which contains yet more cryptic clues about what we can expect from Samsung’s Galaxy S III.

In reality, we get a fairly useless teaser trailer that doesn’t tell us anything about the phone whatsoever. Here it is.

 

It’s technically impressive, we’ll give it that much.

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And it does at least say “galaxy” in there…

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…and Samsung makes its favourite rubbish joke about iPhone users. Just tell us about the bloody telephone :(

T-Mobile Vivacity down to £84.99 on PAYG

T-Mobile UK has reduced the price of its T-Mobile Vivacity, taking it down to £84.99 on PAYG SIMs. You have to pick up £15 of calling credit at the same time, mind, so you’ll end up handing over just shy of £100 for the budget smartphone.

The Vivacity is virtually the same phone as Orange San Francisco II, being that both phones are the ZTE Crescent stuck in a different chassis. Quite nice it is too, with Android 2.3 onboard and a 5megapixel camera, inside a slim case…

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…although we’re expecting the new Huawei Ascend G300 to storm to the #1 position in the sub-£100 Android phone league tables. And should Vodafone ever manage to send us the one we ordered a bloody week ago, we’ll have a review of that up soon.

Check out T-Mobile’s Vivacity deals here.

Ergo GOTAB – Android 4.0 on a 7″ screen for £107.99

If you fancy having a go on something running Google’s “Ice Cream Sandwich” software without breaking the bank, you could do worse than picking up the Ergo GOTAB. It’s being sold by Handtec for a ludicrously cheap £108, for which you get a tablet with a 7″ capacitive display, a 1.2GHz processor and 4GB of internal storage space.

As a cheap entry to Android, they don’t come much… cheaper.

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The only downer on the tech spec side of things is the 512MB of RAM the Ergo GOTAB has to run on, but for £108 that’s hardly a deal breaker. Check it out over at Handtec.

BEST DEALS: White Samsung Galaxy Note £399 at Amazon

Once again we hesitate to suggest that anything around the £400 mark should be considered any sort of a bargain in these austere times, but, if you’ve been after one of Samsung’s enormous Galaxy Notes for a while, this is the cheapest it’s been yet.

Amazon’s selling the rather flash white version for £399 including delivery, which is quite a big chunk less than the £500+ the white Note was fetching at launch a couple of months ago.

white-galaxy-note-399

The perfect late Easter present for anyone you know with unusually large hands. Amazon’s also stocking the black version of the Note for £390 but that’s fulfilled through a third-party so isn’t quite as reliable a deal.

Link via HUKD.

Motorola RAZR MAXX launching May 14th, for £425

Motorola’s deliberately fattened RAZR MAXX has been priced and dated by one of the SIM-free retailers, which says the chunkier RAZR should arrive in the UK on May 14th. It comes with at a price of £425 if you’re one of those people who buys your phones unlocked and upfront using money you actually have.

Tha RAZR MAXX is exactly the same phone as the Motorola RAZR we liked and reviewed earlier this year, only you get a fatter chassis containing a much larger battery for around twice the lasting power.

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So if you disagree with HTC and think phones should be built a little fatter and able to last for more than half a day of solid use, this is for you. Get your order in at Unlocked-Mobiles.

Samsung Galaxy S III sample photos?

Some images apparently coming from a new Samsung mobile have appeared on image sharing site Picasa, which identifies the phone taking them as the Samsung GT-I9300. Which is the internal model number we’re all expecting to launch in a couple of weeks time as the Galaxy S III.

Here are a couple of the photos, which have been uploaded to the site in their full 3264×2448 resolution:

galaxy s3-photo-sample-1

galaxy s3-photo-sample-2

The full supposed Galaxy S III sample gallery can be found on Picasa here, although those really are the only two that give us any indication of the GT-I9300′s actual photo quality.

Link via Sammy Hub

Microsoft’s bizarre ‘Star Wars’ Twitter and Facebook app

Microsoft has launched a new app for Android. It’s called Kinect Star Wars, although it’s not Kinect Star Wars at all. It takes your Twitter and Facebook feeds, then makes it so they scroll JUST LIKE IN STAR WARS, also letting you post status updates to Facebook and Twitter.

It’s basically an advert for Kinect Star Wars masquerading as a very poor Twitter and Facebook client. It’s rubbish. Completely rubbish. Even men who still like Star Wars will agree on that.

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star-wars-app-3 star-wars-app-5

How many more times are we going to see the “[thing you were looking for]” reference butchered for advertising purposes before we die? Try it out for yourself over on the Play Store.

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And look. It doesn’t even work properly when you ask it to do the MAIN THING it’s supposed to do. What a bizarre thing for Microsoft to make and release.

Photo sharing service 500px launches Android app

500px is something of a new upstart in the imaging world, giving photography experts a valid alternative to the often restrictive and nightmarish world of Flickr. It now has an official Android app to help it battle Yahoo’s photo service, complete with a very stylish tablet layout option for those doing their imaging business on a larger screen.

Here’s what it looks like:

500px android app 1

500px android app 2

Very nice, but you’ll need an account and will have to be a 500px enthusiast to get the most out of it, as it’s not really meant for casual browsers. 500px for Android is on the Play Store here.

Android Spotify app updated, preview available now

Spotify has finally decided to refresh its ancient Android app, giving it a much-needed refresh and completely overhauling the design. Android Spotify will finally include folder support, Android 4.0 design cues, high-res artist photos, Last.fm scrobbling and much more.

Here it is, looking very 2012 indeed:

spotify android update

The updated Android Spotify app isn’t live yet, but you can download a preview version direct from Spotify, if you’d like to give it a go before it hits the Play Store.

Link via Giz UK.

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