China’s Gionee has said that it will launch a new smartphone, the Elife E8, in June. The phone will be launched worldwide on the 10th. Most specs are simply rumours at this point, including a 4.6″ AMOLED display with 2560 x 1440 resolution and a 2GHz octa-core Mediatek processor. Android 5.0 will be the OS, and the handset will support 4G.
The Torque G02 is Kyocera‘s first smartphone featuring not just water resistance, but seawater resistance. Available only in Japan, the phone complies with the MIL-STD-810G standards in 19 categories. Kyocera has built in a 4.7″ IGZO display (described as HD), Asahi’s Dragontrail X glass, 2GB of RAM and 16GB of storage.
The price of Motorola‘s Moto 360 smartwatch has been cut at Best Buy in the USA. The watch is now available for $150 – $100 off of its original price.
The Pebble Time – Pebble‘s first colour E Ink smartwatch – is now on sale, for $200. The Pebble Time Steel watch will be shipped in July, for $300.
When it launched its newest flagship, the Xperia Z4, Sony confined the phone to Japan. Now the handset has been launched worldwide as the Xperia Z3+. It is identical to the Z4 in every way; only the name has changed. Sony will launch the Z3+ in June.
A successor to Sharp‘s narrow-bezel Aquos Crystal smartphone (Display Monitor Vol 21 No 33) is to be introduced in Japan. The Aquos Crystal 2 has a larger (5.2″) IGZO display and waterproofing, but retains the 1280 x 720 resolution of the original. The processor is now a quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 400 with LTE support, running Android 5.0. RAM is 2GB, up from 1.5GB, and storage has been doubled to 16GB.
Two new phones have joined Sharp‘s Aquos Zeta (MDM Product Roundup – Vol 22 No 21): the Aquos Xx and Aquos Serie, both for the Japanese market. All three use a form of frame interpolation to play back videos at – according to Sharp – 2,100fps (by generating interpolated frames at 10:1 compared to the capture frame rate). The image sensors in the phones are capable of recording at 210fps (854 x 480) or 120fps (1920 x 1080). They will be released in the coming weeks.
Vaio, the unit spun off from Sony last year (Display Monitor Vol 21 No 27), has launched its Vaio Z Canvas hybrid device in Japan. The product will also be the first Vaio device launched in the USA, marking the company’s return to the market this autumn.
Russia’s Yota Devices is using Indiegogo (http://tinyurl.com/k45ajyj) to fund the YotaPhone 2’s (Yota Upgrades From LCD to AMOLED) arrival in the North American market. At the time of writing the $50,000 target had been smashed, with donations standing just shy of $200,000. The phones are listed as shipping in August this year to backers donating $500 or more ($100 less than the phone will cost at retail).
ZTE has launched the Q519T in the Chinese market – it is yet to announce whether the handset will be launched outside of the country. The phone is an entry-level device, with a 5″ display (IPS panel, 1280 x 720), a 1GHz quad-core Mediatek processor, 1GB of RAM, 8GB of storage and Android 5.0. It is a dual-SIM model supporting 4G, and has a large 4,000mAh battery.
