World Mobile News

Oppo has unveiled a new smartphone in China today. It's called Oppo 3000 and it's already up for grabs in the mainland, in an interesting twist. Unlike other Oppo handsets, this one can't claim the title of "world's thinnest smartphone", nor does it come with an innovative swiveling camera. The Oppo 3000 is just a midrange device, aiming to deliver a polished experience to those who aren't looking for top of the line specs. Oppo 3000 Speaking of those, the Oppo 3000 comes with a 4.7-inch 720p touchscreen, a 5 MP wide-angle front camera, and an 8 MP Sony IMX179 rear camera sensor, which boasts f/2.0 aperture and has a five-element lens. All of these things should add up to decent image quality produced by this phone. Running the show here is Qualcomm's 64-bit Snapdragon 410 SoC, with a 1.2 GHz quad-core CPU in tow and Adreno 306 GPU. The Oppo 3000 has 1GB of RAM, 8GB of built-in storage, a microSD card slot, dual-SIM functionality (dual-standby), 4G...

Lenovo has made a new smartphone available in China today. It's called P70, and it's a midranger with the battery capacity perhaps being its main claim to fame. The P70 comes powered by a whopping 4,000 mAh cell, which the Chinese company says may last you up to 34 days on standby. That's quite an achievement for a smartphone in this day and age, though the number does only refer to 2G standby. It goes down to 30.5 days on 4G, and 29 days on 3G. Still, respectable nevertheless. Aside from that, the Lenovo P70 boasts a 5-inch 720p IPS touchscreen, a 13 MP rear camera with LED flash, as well as a 5 MP front-facing unit. Running the show is MediaTek's MT6752 64-bit chipset, coming with a 1.7 GHz octa-core CPU and a 700 MHz MaliT760-MP2 GPU. The handset has 2GB of RAM and 16GB of internal storage, a microSD card slot, dual-SIM functionality, and 4G LTE support (Cat.4, up to 150Mbps download and 50Mbps upload). It's being offered in "midnight blue" only. It r...

Xiaomi’s wildly popular Hongmi smartphone is going beyond the boundaries of China. But users in other countries won’t see it selling with that name, which translates to Red Rice. Instead, the firm has opted for another (though rather similar) name – Redmi. Now, we don’t know Xiaomi’s expansion plans, but we do know they’re heading to Singapore, among other places. And for other markets, they’re best of having names local population understands better. That said, we’re not sure whether the Chinese firm’s renaming plans will also include their flagship offering, Mi3 and Mi4, which should be announced later this year. Anyhow, we’ll be on the lookout for any news coming from Xiaomi and get back to you as soon as we have something new to add. Meanwhile, expect to see the Xiaomi Redmi popping up at phone importers all around the web. [Via: GizChina] Dusan has been using smartphones since their introduction and is now following the latest trends in the industry. The "convergence"...

You got that right, the Nokia Lumia 929 is now available at TaoBao in China. And that’s apparently the same or at least very similar model to the one that will soon be available from Verizon Wireless. It even has Verizon’s logo all over it. Go figure. The price of the unlocked unit is set at 3,800 Yuan which translates into some $630. The Big Red carrier will subsidize the handset, most likely offering it for some $200 on a two-year contract. Yeah, we’re not sure why it takes so long for Verizon to launch this phone. It already got FCC’s seal of approval and has been even spotted at the carrier’s website. It should be out any day now, but then again – we thought the same thing back in December. Anyhow, for those of you who missed it, the Lumia 929 aka Lumia Icon is the Windows Phone to get. It comes with all the latest bells and whistles, including Qualcomm’s fast Snapdragon 800 quad-core chip, 2GB of RAM, PureView camera on the back, 5-inch full HD screen, 4G LTE connectivity suppor...

It seems there’s a subset of users in China who can’t imagine owning a non-clamshell smartphone. Samsung has thus far served this community best and now Phillips wants a bigger slice of the pie. The newly launched Xenium W9588 isn’t exactly an easy sell, quite the contrary. It’s a super-expensive mid-range smartphone with specs that include a pair of 3.5-inch 854×480 touchscreens, MediaTek’s MT6589 1.2GHz quad-core chip, 1GB of RAM, 8-megapixel camera on the back, and 4GB of expandable memory. All this is sold for whopping 4,999 Yuan, the amount that translates into some $823. Yeah, you should be able to get a much better phone for that money so we’re not really sure who in the world would want to get the Xenium W9588 over something much better; something like HTC One, Samsung Galaxy S4 or LG G2. You *really* need to love the clamshell form factor to get Philips’ baby instead of something else. And no, we’re not sure whether the W9588 will ever be released in the West… and honestly, w...

ZTE has launched ZTE N880E in China. It is the first smartphone to come with Android 4.1 (Jelly Bean) in China. It has 4.0-inch (480 x 80o pixels) capacitive touchscreen display and is powered by 1GHz Qualcomm processor. It has metallic finish and comes with 3.2MP Auto focus camera and is just 10.4mm thick. The ZTE N880E was originally launched in May 2012 with Android 2.3 (Gingerbread) and has sold more than 1 million units since then. It has 512 MB RAM, 4GB internal memory and 32GB expandable memory with microSD. The connectivity features include, Bluetooth 2.1 with A2DP, WiFi 802.11 b/g/n, 3G (CDMA / EVDO Rev.A), and GPS / aGPS. It has FM Radio and comes with 1650mAh battery. There are no details whether it would retail at the same price as it was launched in May. ZTE plans to launch more devices running on Android 4.1 soon. Srivatsan Sridhar is a Mobile Technology Enthusiast who is passionate about Mobile phones and Mobile apps. His current phone is Sony Ericsson Xperia X10. You...

Apple product launches in China are renowned for being chaotic and rowdy but today the company began selling its new iPad in the country under rather unusual circumstances. Instead of being greeted by massive queues and anxious customers — as has become the norm — the Retina display equipped device has enjoyed a more muted and organised opening. Yesterday, Apple laid the foundations for a more controlled launch day when it introduced a pre-sale reservation system that requires all customers to register their interest in the device — priced from RMB 3688 ($579) – in advance of buying the flagship tablet computer. As well as insuring against large queues, the system is designed to restrict the influence of scalpers, independent sellers that buy the device in bulk with the aim of reselling it for profit, whose large numbers have blighted previous launches. The introduction has avoided a repeat of the madness of March’s iPhone 4S launch and Apple’s flagship Chinese store — in Beijing’s Sa...