Photos Taken with KDDI’s Xperia SOL22 Emerge Online

Japanese wireless carrier KDDI might soon make available for purchase on its network a new smartphone coming from Sony, one that has been spotted online as model SOL22.

Camera samples from the phone have emerged on Picasa recently, showing that the device is running under firmware 10.2.F.1.77_3_f600, and that it sports a photo snapper of at least 8.6 megapixels. According to a recent post on rbmen, the device should prove to be none other than KDDI’s flavor of Xperia Z, which is known as “Gaga” SOL22, and which should arrive on shelves sometime in summer.

The handset is said to feature looks similar to those of Xperia ZL, while packing a 5-inch full HD screen, along with a quad-core processor. If so, it should also feature all the capabilities announced for Xperia Z and Xperia ZL in January, while running under Android Jelly Bean.

Xperia SOL22 camera sample
Image credits to Picasa via rbmen

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Huawei Ascend Mate Priced in China at 2,688 Yuan

Chinese mobile phone maker Huawei has officially announced plans to make its Ascend Mate phablet available for purchase in the local market with a price tag of 2,688 Yuan attached to it ($430 / 335 Euro).

The smartphone is set to hit shelves in the country on March 26, the mobile phone maker said, adding that it would be released through Huawei's Vmall online store, Engadget reports. The Huawei Ascend Mate was made official at CES in January with a 6.1-inch touchscreen display, a 1.5GHz quad-core HiSilicon K3V2 processor, and 2GB of RAM.

Furthermore, the mobile phone sports 4GB of internal memory, a microSD memory card slot, and an 8-megapixel photo snapper on the back, while being powered by a large 4050 mAh battery. Huawei Ascend Mate runs under Google’s Android 4.1 Jelly Bean operating system and will arrive on shelves in China with support for WCDMA 850/900/1700/1900/2100 frequencies.

Huawei Ascend Mate
Image credits to Huawei

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Windows Blue to Include a Server Version Too

A few months ago, when the first sign of Windows Blue emerged, we could hardly believe that Microsoft planned to release such a major upgrade to Windows 8 so soon, not to mention the goodies that are very likely to be included in the project.

According to previous reports, Windows Blue is expected to come with major improvements for Internet Explorer, SkyDrive, Windows Phone and other Windows-related products, but now it appears that a Server upgrade is also in the works. The same MSFTKitchen post we’ve told you about a few hours ago points to the online resume of a former Windows Server employee who confirms work on “design and user experience delivery of Windows Server and System Center Datacenter Management Portals for Windows Blue.”

Just like Mary Jo Foley of ZDNet notes, Windows Server Blue is likely to be focused a lot more on cloud services, especially because this seems to be the new direction of the Microsoft empire. As usual, no confirmation coming from Redmond, but if all rumors are true, a beta version of Blue should be here by June.

Windows Blue is expected to ship this summer
Image credits to tgbuzz.com

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Lenovo P780 Emerges with 5-Inch Screen, 4000 mAh Battery

Chinese mobile phone maker Lenovo is reportedly getting ready for the launch of a new Android-based smartphone, and it might pack it with a 5-inch screen, the latest reports on the matter suggest.

According to a recent post on Ameblo, the upcoming device will sport a quad-core MediaTek MT6589 processor inside, while being able to deliver a 720 x 1280 pixels resolution on that 5-inch screen. The specs list of this device is also said to include an 8-megapixel photo snapper, 1GB of RAM, 8GB of internal memory, and a huge battery with a capacity of 4000 mAh.

The smartphone is said to sport W-CDMA/GSM connectivity inside, to run under Google’s Android 4.2 Jelly Bean, and to have been slated for launch in China in May, with a price tag of around 1,999 Yuan ($320 / €248) attached.

Lenovo logo
Image credits to Lenovo

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