GT-I9300 possible service manual leaked

With May 3 just around the corner, we are going to see more leaks of the upcoming Galaxy SIII, one of the most anticipated mobile phone that more likely will have a big demand. Just a couple days ago, a service manual was leaked out with some specs of the GT-I9300 (Galaxy SIII) which has some conflicting reports compared to the previous specs we had seen.

Could this just be a decoy? maybe Samsung will introduce a completely different Galaxy S series phone along with the SIII? One thing for sure, we will know May 3 if indeed this is the Galaxy SIII, no matter how many leaks we see.

What is more eye catching, is that the service manual states a faster processor 1.5GHz Quad Core, bigger display than previously rumored and lower 8MP camera vs the 12MP camera rumored from earlier.

So what can we expect to see May 3 from London? For now, hopefully the service manual is correct and expect to see the Galaxy SIII sport the following:

• Android OS ICS
• HSPA+ 21Mbps /HSUPA 5.76Mbps
• 8MP AF with LED Flash
• 4.8 Super AMOLED MIPI (C-TYPE)
• A-GPS / BT v4.0
• USB v2.0
• WiFi 802.11 b/g/n/a
• 1080p Recording / 1080p Playback
• Sensors: Acceleration, Electromagnetic, Gyro, RGB, Proximity, Barometer
• 1.5GHz Quad-Core Processor
• 1GB RAM
• MicroSD Slot
• Internal Storage 16GB

Samsung Introduces the SE-218BB worlds thinnest external DVD for Android

Samsung has introduced the worlds slimmest external DVD, measuring just 14mm thick. The SE-218BB will allowyou to record and with the ability to power from a USB port, this will make the best portable DVD you can get your hands on.

What makes this optical DVD drive so special is, you will be able to use it with Android 3.1 and above. If your tablet has a full size USB port, you will be good to use the SE-218BB and access files. Since the SE-218BB comes with a buffer under run, you will be able to use with any Windows OS and Mac OS.

The MSRP for the SE-218BB is $59, not bad when most external drives are in the $79 and $69 range without Android OS support.

Acer Iconia Tab A510 now available at Best Buy

The Acer Iconia Tab A510 is now available at Best Buy for $449.99. You won't find it at the store for now, but you can place the order and it will be shipped to the store which in my past experience gets shipped very quickly. Sometimes I had orders ready for pickup the next day after 2pm.

The Acer Iconia Tab A510 will be competing with the Asus Transformer Pad 300 that will be available in 3 different colors, and the upcoming Galaxy Tab 2 10.1 that will be available very soon. Acer is counting on that the Iconia Tab A510 will get your hard earn cash, and is hoping the you are willing to pay an extra $50 for that Olympic symbol on the back.

The Acer Iconia Tab A510 has some decent specs, like a full gigabyte of RAM, 32GB storage, MicroSD slot, front and rear cameras at 5MP and 1MP, 10-inch display with 1280 x 800, Ice Cream Sandwich 4.0, Tegra 3 quad-core processor for most power hungry apps and 9800 mAh battery that Acer is claiming that will give you 13 hours of battery life.

If your in the market for a new 10-inch Android tablet, you might want to give the Acer Iconia Tab A510 a test drive. Who knows, the Iconia Tab A510 might just be a contender with the big boys.

Update: Now looks like Best Buy has sold out of the Acer Iconia Tab A510. As you can see you were able to add to your cart, but as of this moment it is sold out.

Asus Transformer Prime first look at the GPS Extension Kit

Asus has officially started shipping out the GPS Extension Kit to users that have requested one. You can head on over to Asus VIP website to apply for your GPS Extesion Kit. The offer will expire July 31, 2012 so you do have a bit of time to claim your kit. Since the Transformer Prime was released back in December, you might recall many users reported having GPS issues all over the internet. Asus released several Firmware updates and none of these addressed the GPS issue. The GPS issue is more releated to design flaw because of the all metal back cover. Maybe Asus figured that it would cost less to design the GPS Extension Kit, then rather recall and replace all the Transformer Prime back metal cover with something that would have a plastic insert at the top similar like the Transformer Pad Infinity. In either case, Asus has done a great job in providing a work around to the GPS issue, I would rather have the internal GPS working, againg that's just me.

Asus releases official Transformer Pad 300 video

Asus Transformer Pad 300 will be hitting the market late April and in some countries mid May. With that, we should start to see more advertising for the Transformer Pad 300 as well. Again, this is similar design to the Transformer Prime but has more plastic materials to compete with lower cost tablets.

Amazon is showing delivery of April 22nd for the 32GB Transformer Pad 300, so if your interested in placing your order, you might want to head on over and claim your Transformer Pad 300.

The Transformer Pad 300 will have under its hood, the Tegra 3 1.2GHz which should be   enough power for your daily tasks, all with Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich. And if your up to getting a dock, well Asus has designed the Transformer Pad 300 to be able to be used with an optional keyboard dock just like its bigger bother Transformer Prime. In my opinion, this has to be the best design in a tablet. Not only you have the dock, the keyboard dock has a built in battery that charges your tablet to give you all day productive use of the tablet.

Samsung Galaxy Note quick view of S-Pen Notes

We already known that ICS 4.0 will be coming to the Samsung Galaxy Note, but some of you my not have known that with ICS 4.0, Samsung is including the new S-Pen Notes application. This is part of the Premium software upgrade that Samsung is including. This just might be one of the best software features for the Galaxy Note. If you thought the current S-Memo application was great, wait till you give the S-Pen Notes application a try. You just might not want to go back to another mobile phone.

Samsung had promised that the Galaxy Note was going to be one of the first in line to receive ICS 4.0, but got pushed back for 2Q release. Well now seems that it is very close to getting pushed out, there is several forums showing ICS 4.0 on the Galaxy Note, that is unofficially of course. You don't get the Premium software that Samsung will providing if download and install a leaked version, but you will be able to get a taste for ICS 4.0 if you feel brave enough.

Acer Iconia Tab A510 available now

If you head on over to Amazon you can now order the Acer Iconia Tab A510 10.1-Inch Tablet (Olympic Edition-Black) and have it by Thursday. This is of course for the black one, if you want to be among the first with bragging rights, just add it to your shopping cart and check out. After that, the waiting is the real killer.

The Acer Iconia Tab A510 starts at $450, which is a good sign that we should start to see even lower starting price for other tablets. The Tab A510 comes loaded with some great specifications.

Product Features
Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich
1 GB SDRAM
10.1-inch screen
13 hour battery life
802.11bgn wireless

Processor, Memory, and Motherboard
Hardware Platform: PC
Processor: 1.3 GHz Tegra 3.0
Number of Processors: 1
RAM: 1 GB
RAM Type: SDRAM

Hard Drive
Size: 32 GB
Type: Serial ATA

Sound
Speakers: Stereo Speakers

Ports and Connectivity
USB 2.0 Ports: 1

Cases and Expandability
Size (LWH): 10.2 inches, 0.43 inches, 6.9 inches
Weight: 1.54 pounds

Power
Battery Type: Lithium ion
Rated Charge (normal use): 13 hours

Wireless
Wireless Type: 802.11bgn

Will Upcoming Samsung's Galaxy Tab 2 10.1 Dethrone the Asus Transformer Prime?

Recently Samsung was set full force to release the upcoming Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 10.1 tablet to compete among some of the big boys, but now, looks like Samsung has ceased production of the Galaxy Tab 2 10.1. Rumor out of Samsung in Korea is, Galaxy Tab 2 10.1 will be receiving a quad-core processor. This could be Samsung feeling the heat from some of its rivals, like the 3rd Generation iPad and the Asus Transformer Prime. It didn't make sense for Samsung to release the Galaxy Tab 2 with a slower dual-core processor compared to Asus's upcoming Infinity TF700T tablet. Asus's Transformer Prime launched with its shares of problems, and up to now, many users are still reporting GPS and WiFi issues. Asus has announced they will be releasing a GPS dongle to fix the GPS issues, but how many will jump to the Galaxy Tab 2 10.1 running quad-core processor?

At this point, no word if the Galaxy Tab 2 10.1 will actually receive the Exynos 4412, or maybe some step down form of the 4412 at lower clock speed. Either way, this will be a welcome in the competition and hopefully the starting price will remain at $399.

I am more interested in the Galaxy Note Tab 10.1, but sure would be nice if Samsung could design a keyboard dock like the Asus Transformer Prime. If Asus had released the Transformer Prime with Wacom digitizer, this would have been the best tablet for me!

First look at the Asus Transformer Prime GPS dongle

After hearing from many Transformer Prime users with GPS isuses and not working, Asus developed a GPS dongle that will fix the GPS problem everyone is having. Asus will be sending the GPS dongle to all register Transformer Prime owners free of charge. Over at Land Of Droid, they have posted up some pictures of the GPS dongle. Looks like Asus has done a good job in the GPS dongle design, but I don't see this having some kind of dock pass through. I would have like to seen that you would be able to have the GPS dongle and be able to charge your Transformer Prime at the same time. Well I guess you can't be to picky, at least Asus did try to correct the issues with the GPS. Maybe Asus should have saved its development in the GPS dongle and just designed a new back plate with a plastic strip at top, and recalled all Transformer Prime's.

Users sounded off through out many forums expressing the same issues, and some also had WiFi issues. Asus was good in responding in trying to fix the GPS issue by releasing several Firmware upgrades, but no matter how many Firmwares are released, nothing can fix faulty design. Again, the trouble was that the Transformer Prime back plate is all metal causing GPS not to work properly. Over time, Asus did release other versions of the Transformer Prime which Asus never admitted to changing anything on the Transformer Prime, but seemed that some of the Prime's with c3OK serial number, would actually some what work good. Maybe Asus modified the antenna, and some users went as far as trying to add antenna's inside the Transformer Prime to improve the GPS and WiFi, which it did, but as soon as the antenna was put inside and the back metal plate was placed back the signal dropped just as bad.


Here you can see the bottom of the GPS dongle that will snap into the Transformer Prime. The GPS dongle seems to be well designed.

Here is another view of the GPS dongle, and on the right you can see the unlock switch that will release the GPS dongle when you are ready to remove it from your Transformer Prime. Asus will be announcing the GPS dongle in the next day, so you will be able to find out more details on how you can claim your GPS dongle.

Asus Transformer Pad 300 Tablet hitting stores April 22

Asus is getting ready to release the much awaited Transformer Pad 300 Tablet April 22 and Asus has also corrected the design on the Transformer Pad 300, by having the back cover made out of plastic, which the Transformer Prime has a metal back cover causing a lot of GPS and WiFi issues because of the metal back.


The Transformer Pad 300 Tablet will be available in red, white and blue which Office Depot is showing the blue Transformer Pad 300 on its website. You can add it to your cart, but you will have to wait for the the Pad 300 to ship and hope that it does ship out before April 22 so that you can be among the first to receive the Pad 300.

Asus has done a great job with its tablets by designing an optional keyboard dock that also has a battery to charge the tablet at the same time. This makes the best tablet option for those that really want to be able to use the Transformer Pad 300 as a Ultra-Notebook or as Netbook. The dock also comes with a full size USB and full size SD card reader to give you more options to get documents, pictures, and other information on your tablet. Then when your ready to just use the Transformer Pad 300 as a tablet, just undock and your ready to use without having to pull out of any type of case or some other slip on keyboard type of case.

The Transformer Pad 300 will include the Tegra 3 quad-core processor to give the user a great experience with the tablet. It won't be as powerful as its big brother the Transformer Prime, but should be able to keep with no problem.

Transformer Pad 300 Specs:

Device Info

Device Name : Transformer Pad 300

Manufactuer : Asus

Carrier : NA

Announced Date : February 27, 2012

Release Date : TBA

Also Known As :

Display

• Screen Size : 10.1 Inch
• Resolution : 1280x800
• Screen Type : IPS LCD

Dimension & Weight

• Height : 10.35 Inch
• Width : 7.12 Inch
• Depth : 0.39 Inch
• Weight : 635 Grams

Battery & Power

Battery Type:
• Lithium Polymer

• Battery Capacity : mAh
• Talk Time : NA
• Stand By Time : NA

Software

Android OS:
• 4.0.x

Audio Playback:
• AAC
• AAC+
• MID
• MP3
• WMA

Video Playback:
• h.263
• h.264 / AVC
• MPEG-4 (MP4)

Messaging:
• SMS
• MMS

Hardware

CPU : Tegra 3

CPU Clock Speed : Mhz

Core : 4

Ram : 1024 MB

Internal Storage : 16 GB

Front Facing Camera :

Camera Resolution : 8 MP

Camera Features:
• Auto focus
• 1080p Video Recording

Sensors:
• Accelerometer
• Ambient light

QWERTY :

Cellular Network

Network Technology:
• GSM

GSM Band:
• 850
• 900
• 1800
• 1900

Device Connectivity

Wi-Fi:
• 802.11b
• 802.11g
• 802.11n

Bluetooth:
• Bluetooth 3.0

Location Features:
• GPS
• Cellular location
• Wi-Fi location

FM Radio :

NFC :

Nokia Lumia 900 gets data fixed and get your $100 credit

Nokia started out the gate with a bug that was causing some users to have data issues on the Lumia 900. Nokia announced that anyone that picked up the Lumia 900 would receive $100 credit back to their AT&T Account. This would make the Lumia 900 free, but if you pick up the Lumia 900 at Fry's you will make out with some extra cash, as you would qualify for the $100 credit till April 21st and get the Lumia 900 for $44.99. You can also head on over to Amazon, which also offering the Lumia 900 for $44.99. This of course is with the 2-year commitment.

If you had been thinking of getting the Nokia Lumia 900, now would be the best time to get one. As Nokia has officially announced the software update to fix the data connectivity issues 3 days early, which you can apply either by downloading through Zune PC software or Windows Phone 7 connector for the Mac.