Tag Archives: DigiTimes

Asus Nexus 8 with Intel Chipset Possibly Coming in 2014

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Asus Nexus 8 with Intel Chipset

An Intel-powered Nexus 8 made by Asus is rumored to be launched later this year, sign that Google might be ready to leave the 7″ tablet market behind.

Google’s 7-inch Nexus tablets are reportedly not selling that well, mainly due to the low priced devices made by competitors. Objectively speaking, no one offers a quality-price ratio that matches Google’s products, but on the other hand, some may thing that they don’t typically need all that power for day to day tasks. The launch of an 8-inch tablet would allow this search giant to enter a new market that is not that crowded.

According to DigiTimes (which I am going to call “the tabloid of IT news,” due to its bombastic headlines), Google gave the green light to Asus to build an 8″ tablet powered by the Intel Bay Trail chipset. This would be a radical change, since most manufacturers of devices running Android opt for Qualcomm, not to mention that all the members of the Nexus family are powered by Snapdragon chipsets. To make things more credible, DigiTimes claims that the source of this information is part of the supply chain, and while this should be taken with a grain of salt, rumors of an 8″ Nexus tablet have been around for a while.

The problem with an 8-inch Nexus tablet is that it would compete against LG G Pad 8. You guessed it, an 8″ tablet made by LG, the South Korean company that made Nexus 4 and 5, thus proving that it has quite a strong partnership with Google. Indeed, the G Pad 8 is not without problems, but making LG and Asus compete over who makes the best 8-inch tablet wouldn’t be very fair.

Had Google had only the Nexus 7 in its offer, going bigger would have made a lot of sense. However, there’s also the Nexus 10, so sticking another product in-between would be unnatural. In my opinion, 7″ tablets are highly portable, so adding an inch to the whole deal would make them less so.

Google typically launches its smaller Nexus tablets in the summer, so we have a few months left to see if the above rumors turn out to be true or not. Either way, such a hint should get Chinese manufacturers of accessories for mobile devices going, since they always have cases ready days after a product launches.

If you liked this post, please check Google Nexus 4′s price cut from last year and the visit Nexus 5 made at FCC.

Nokia reportedly ‘in talks’ to build 10-inch Windows RT slate with Qualcomm and Compal

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Nokia reportedly 'in talks' to build 10inch Windows RT slate with help from Compal and Qualcomm

There's been no shortage of chin-wagging about a Nokia slate in the past, but needless to say it's never amounted to much. In fact, the murmurs and patent applications largely died away prior to the coming of Windows RT, leading us to conclude that the Finnish manufacturer had decided to step back from the tablet tussle rather than wade in. That said, Digitimes is now reporting that Nokia is once again "talking" to hardware partners -- namely Qualcomm and Compal -- about developing a Windows RT device. Mobilegeeks and our own sources have stepped up to support the gist of this report, although they didn't go nearly as far as Digitimes in claiming that a 10-inch product would be done and dusted in time for MWC, which means we're left with nothing concrete. One thing does seem likely: Surface may not be selling well enough, despite its merits, which potentially creates room for another Microsoft-aligned manufacturer to carry the RT baton forward.

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Source: Digitimes, Mobilegeeks (German)

Rumored HTC Verizon phablet may land soon, with 1080p screen and 1.5GHz Snapdragon

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Rumored HTC Verizon phablet may land soon with 1080p screen, 15GHz Snapdragon S4

Samsung and LG have already embraced the tiny-tablet form factor. It only makes sense that HTC would want to carve out a niche of this niche for themselves. Rumors of a five-inch HTC device have been circulating for some time, but now a report from DigiTimes is lending some credence to those murmurings, and a mysterious handset from the Taiwanese manufacturer has popped up over at GLBenchmark. According to unnamed sources the company has been working on a flagship level (One XXL?) device with a stunning 1,794 x 1,080 display, due to be released in either September or October. If you're taking that claim with a grain of salt, we don't blame you. But, an entry for the HTC 6435LVW that just popped up at GLBenchmark.com seems to fit the bill pretty nicely. It has the same listed resolution, which we assume is actually a 1,920 x 1,080 panel with room set aside for Android's soft keys. The device info has it running ICS, version 4.0.4 to be specific, on a 1.5GHz Snapdragon S4 -- which should make it quite the powerful piece of hardware. The software build also singles it out as a Verizon handset, which means it'll be packing an LTE radio as well. Whether the rumored stylus is included, a la the Flyer, remains to be seen, but, we shouldn't have to wait much longer to find out for sure.

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Rumored HTC Verizon phablet may land soon, with 1080p screen and 1.5GHz Snapdragon originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 06 Aug 2012 17:09:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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