Nokia Lumia 720T Approved in China with TD-SCDMA Connectivity

Finnish mobile phone maker Nokia is gearing up for the launch of more handsets in China before the end of this year, and Nokia Lumia 720 appears to be one of them.

Made official at the 2013 Mobile World Congress in Barcelona in February, the smartphone has received the necessary approvals in China as Lumia 720T, a post on CNMO reads, and is expected to hit shelves at China Mobile. Featuring support for the operator’s TD-SCDMA technology, the mobile phone will pack all the features and capabilities that the international Lumia 720 was announced with, UnwiredView reports.

Thus, the Windows Phone 8-based device will feature a 4.3-inch touchscreen, a 1GHz dual-core Qualcomm processor with Adreno 305 GPU, 512MB of RAM, 8GB of internal memory, microSD card slot, and NFC, as well as a 6.7-megapixel camera on the back, and a front camera for making video calls.

Nokia Lumia 720T for China Mobile
Image credits to CNMO

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Sony Xperia CyberShot is Codenamed Honami, Possible Specs Leak

Japanese mobile phone maker Sony Mobile might be set to revive its CyberShot series of mobile phones soon, with a new device set to be launched in the Xperia lineup with high-end imaging capabilities, and some more info on the matter appears to have emerged.

The handset hasn’t been officially confirmed as of now, but rumor has it that it would be known internally as Honami, and that it would land on shelves with a 5-inch full HD screen. Furthermore, new reports on the matter suggest that it would include a Snapdragon 800 CPU, 2GB of RAM, a 3000 mAh battery, and possibly a back camera of around 20 megapixels.

These are only rumored specs for the time being, and we’ll take them with a grain of salt. However, the handset was said before to pack hardware similar with that of Xperia Z, and the above might pan out in the end.

Xperia logo
Image credits to Sony

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ASUS P9X79-E WS, Motherboard with Seven PCI Express Slots

There are high-end PCs and then there are the truly ludicrous configurations that actually come close to the April Fools’ prank that Eurocom tried to play.

What we have here, though, is a motherboard for desktops, not a laptop. Called P9X79-E WS, it stands apart from most others because it has no fewer than seven PCI Express 3.0 slots. It is more than enough for 4-way NVIDIA SLI or AMD CrossFireX multi-GPU hardware setups.

The mainboard also has dual-server grade Ethernet, up to 91% power efficiency, enhanced heat removal and the ASUS Dr. Power technology, which monitors power supply health and notifies users accordingly, thus preventing sudden shutdowns. Onboard LED shows codes for power-related issues too, for when the system fails to boot.

ASUS P9X79-E WS Motherboard
Image credits to ASUS

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Intel Ivy Bridge-E HEDT CPU Lineup

The LGA 2011 socket, supported by the X79 chipset, was invented by Intel for its high-end collection of central processing units, higher than even the Core i7 line of CPUs. Those top-tier CPUs have now been detailed.

The marketing name of the next HEDT series of central processing units, where HEDT means high-end desktop, is called Ivy Bridge-E. Ivy Bridge-E will be to the Haswell collection of CPUs what Sandy Bridge-E/EP is for the Ivy Bridge collection. The HEDT line is one architecture behind the “normal” desktop chips, but nonetheless much stronger. The Ivy Bridge-E series will power computers based on LGA 2011 motherboards (X79 chipset) and will probably include models priced at $300-400 / 300-400 Euro, $500-600 / 500-600 Euro, and $1,000 / 1,000 Euro. VR-Zone actually has all the details on the processors, from the top-tier Core i7-4960X Extreme Edition to the Core i7-4820K. The Core i7-4960X Extreme Edition is, as one might guess, the strongest of the lot, with six 22nm cores, 15 MB cache, and an unlocked BClk multiplier that will allow enthusiasts to overclock it well beyond the base 3.6 GHz.

Speaking of overclocking, people who don't intend to do any tweaking will be glad to learn that the Turbo Boost technology will automatically do it, when appropriate. The top rate is 4 GHz. In case anyone has forgotten, this is the $1,000 / 1,000 Euro part. The “mid-range” chip, called Core i7-4930K, also has six cores and unlocked BClk multiplier, but speeds of 2.4 / 3.9 GHz and 12 MB L3 cache. Finally, the Core i7-4820K is a quad-core unit with 3.7 / 3.9 GHz speed and 10 MB L3 cache. All three processors will be released in November 2013 and will have TDP (thermal design power) of 130W. That's several months after the Haswell (June).

Intel Ivy Bridge-E HEDT roadmap
Image credits to VR-Zone

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Samsung to Unveil Galaxy S4 Mini This Week

Following the official launch of Galaxy S4 in mid-March, South Korean mobile phone maker Samsung Electronics could announce a smaller flavor of the device before the end of this week, new reports on the matter suggest.

The handset, supposedly called Galaxy S4 Mini, should pack a 4.3-inch touchscreen display, while being expected to arrive in Black Mist and White Frost color flavors, the same as its larger brother. According to SamMobile, the upcoming device will pack a quad-core processor inside, an 8-megapixel photo snapper on the back, and will be released in both single and dual-SIM flavors.

Additionally, the phone is said to run under Google’s Android 4.2.2 Jelly Bean platform, while also featuring Samsung’s new TouchWiz Nature UX on top. Galaxy S4 Mini should be released in May – June, it seems. With no official confirmation available on any of the above, we’ll take the info with a grain of salt for the time being.

Samsung Galaxy S4 Mini next to Galaxy S4
Image credits to Sammobile

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