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U.S Cellular comes through with promise for first 4G LTE device to be a tablet
U.S Cellular, Chicago-based regional carrier can claim their glory to have beaten Sprint and LTE to deploying its first LTE device and as they promised in February, the firsts device they will be releasing capable of LTE will indeed be a tablet and a very fine one they have chosen at that. U.S Cellular will kick off their LTE franchise after (AT&T, Verizon and MetroPCS) other carriers had already started theirs with the Galaxy 10.1 tablet.
They will offer the Android Honeycomb OS tablet with a 10.1” WXGA touch screen which contains a HD resolution of 1280 x 800, with a 1 GHz dual-core Nvidia Tegra 2 processor, 32GB of memory and a set of cameras. The carrier will be selling the LTE version of the tablet $499.99 after a $100 mail-in rebate but for a “limited time”. Customers in current and LTE markets will be able to purchase the device for $399.99 after the same rebate.
After announcing that it would sell their first LTE tablet they also announced their first LTE smartphone, the Samsung Galaxy S Aviator which is set to run Android Gingerbread on a 4.3” WVGA Super AMOLED Plus touch screen. The device will also have an 8MP rear-facing camera and a front camera for video chats. While it is a good beginning for U.S Cellular, it is nevertheless just that; a beginning. They will have a long way to go to make the transition its profile from 3G to 4G for its 6.1million customers across 26 states.
The Fairphone 2 was first unveiled in June earlier this year, where this particular handset carried a modular design while featuring majority of its components that have been sourced from conflict-free mines. It seems that this particular handset that you can purchase with a clear conscience has begun to ship to those who happen to live across Europe.
Fairphone announced in a blog post, “It’s been almost two years in the making, and some of the earliest buyers have been patiently waiting since July to receive their new phones. As community manager, I want to personally welcome the new batch of Fairphone owners to our community.” The initial 1,000 units are tipped to ship this month, before the other pre-orders follow in January 2016.
In terms of hardware specifications, the Fairphone 2 will run on a Snapdragon 801 chipset, has a 5″ 1080p screen with Gorilla Glass 3 protection, 2GB of RAM, an 8MP camera, with Android 5.1 Lollipop in tow. It will be a dual SIM capable handset with a microSD memory card slot and plays nice with 4G LTE networks, retailing for approximately €525 a pop.
It looks like the upcoming flagship model from Xiaomi will feature NFC support, at least based on a document that was released by China UnionPay. Just in case you are scratching your head and wondering who China UnionPay is, they happen to be the only domestic payment gateway supplier and card organization, and hence, to see them offer detailed support concerning the newly released NFC-based payment system points to the very real possibility of the upcoming Xiaomi Mi 5 featuring NFC capability.
After all, the Xiaomi Mi 3 was also mentioned on the list, which so happens to feature NFC, and there is no mention of the Xiaomi Mi 4 which does not come with NFC. Still, such a new payment system would be the ideal tool to see the reintroduction of NFC to the flagship model.
OnePlus did make an announcement in the previous month that the Ceramic variant of the OnePlus X will be released on November 24. True to their word, they did exactly that – although only a pitiful number of units were made available, and not only that, this was through a charity auction. Thankfully for the rest of the masses who are on the lookout for this device, it has gone on sale officially already.
Needless to say, this particular variant is available only by an invitation, although do bear in mind that standard OnePlus X invites are not good here – you will still need to snag yourself a specific Ceramic variant invite before you make a purchase. OnePlus is also on the lookout to offer additional methods of picking up this smartphone, although no further details were revealed.
The OnePlus X Ceramic will be available only in select markets, where among them include Europe, India, and Hong Kong. To date, we do know that OnePlus had made only 10,000 units of the handset available. A case of the early bird getting the proverbial worm here?