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Top Ten Mobile Phone News Stories of the Week

Published September 21, 2012 by Andrew BoxallFeatured, News, Weekly Round-ups

Enjoy our round-up of ten mobile phone related news stories you may have missed including Android 4.1 Jelly Bean for the HTC One X, Acer’s worryingly high Windows 8 tablet prices and a way to get Google Maps back on iOS 6.

1. Android Jelly Bean Coming to the HTC One X

Good news for all you HTC One X owners, Android 4.1 Jelly Bean should be headed your way very soon, with unlocked phones potentially seeing the update in October. Those with a network-locked phone should still get Android 4.1 before Christmas, provided everything is approved beforehand.

2. Acer Announces the Tab A110

Acer has announced an updated version of the Tab A110 7-inch tablet, this time with Android 4.1 Jelly Bean onboard and a Tegra 3 processor inside. Other features include a 2 megapixel video call camera, Wi-Fi, 8GB of internal memory and a microSD card slot. Only the screen resolution lets it down, as it’s a lowly 1024 x 600, otherwise at around £180 it’s a decent competitor to the Nexus 7 and Kindle Fire HD.

3. Acer Also Talks Windows 8 Tablet Pricing

The final, retail pricing of Windows 8 tablets is something of a mystery, with many manufacturers refusing to let the public know at this stage. Acer, however, has let slip the cost of its Iconia range, but only in New Zealand. Converting the local costs over, the basic Iconia Tab W510 will be £620, and the top-end W700 as much as £900.

4. Amazon Cloud Player Available in the UK

Amazon continues to launch more of its services in the UK, this time with the announcement that its Cloud Player is now available. Cloud Player is an online music locker with space for 250 songs for free, or 250,000 songs if you’re willing to pay £22 a year. In addition to those purchased through Amazon, you can match songs stored locally with Amazon’s catalogue too, all ready to be streamed to the desktop or your mobile device.

5. Sony to Launch PlayStation Mobile Platform

Sony’s PlayStation Mobile platform will launch in the UK next month, when it will offer games for both the PlayStation Vita and PlayStation certified mobile phones. There will be 30 games available from October 3, although the titles have yet to be announced, and PlayStation Mobile certified phones include the Xperia Play, Xperia S and the new Xperia Tablet S.

6. ZTE’s Warp Sequent Announced

Yes, ZTE really has named its new phone the Warp Sequent, and no, it doesn’t mean anything to us either. It’s not coming to the UK yet though, and is instead going to the Boost Mobile MVNO in the USA. Features include a 4.3-inch screen, a 1.4GHz processor and a 5 megapixel camera.

7. ZTE Also Announces the Anthem 4G

ZTE has been busy this week, with the aforementioned Warp Sequent and the Blade III all being announced, along with the Anthem 4G for the US network MetroPCS. It’ll cost $219 without a contract, has a 4.3-inch touchscreen, a dual-core 1.2GHz Snapdragon processor and sadly, Android 2.3 Gingerbread. It’ll be released in the next few weeks.

8. EE’s Network Identifier Spotted

With the formation of EE came the news that the old Orange and T-Mobile network identifiers – that’s the name next to the signal strength on your phone – would be replaced with that of EE. TechRadar has spotted the identifier in the wild, on an iPhone running iOS 6. There’s still no news on the launch of EE’s 4G network though.

9. Get Google Maps Back on iOS 6

Apple Maps isn’t a big success in the UK, and many iPhone owners with iOS 6 are missing Google Maps already, but help is at hand as it’s not difficult to access. Using Safari, visit maps.google.com, then use Share button and pick Add to Home Screen. It may not be quite as fast as the old app, but it has almost all the same features.

10. German Court Sides with Motorola

Motorola has been deemed to have infringed on a series of Microsoft patents, all to do with the keyboard and how it interacts with other applications, by a German court this week. There’s still lots of legal wrangling to come, but Microsoft could apply for a ban on the relevant, Android-based, hardware, unless a more reasonable solution is reached in the meantime.

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