Hands On With The LG Optimus Vu VIDEO

LG Optimus VU, LG, CTIA 2012, Nibletz, Thedroidguy, Samsung Galaxy Note

LG Optimus Vu (left) next to Samsung Galaxy Note

Last year at IFA in Berlin Samsung introduced an entirely new device with an entirely new form factored. The device, dubbed the Samsung Galaxy Note, was a cross-breed of tablet and phone. Many are calling the device category “phablet” or “phoneblet”.

Samsung is having great success with the Galaxy Note. They recently announced that they’ve sold 5 million of the devices to date.

It didn’t take LG long to develop a device to compete head to head with their South Korean rival.  LG’s new 5 inch Optimus Vu looks to do just that.

The Optimus Vu features a 5.0 inch display with a 4:3 aspect ratio and a resolution of 1024×768. LG uses the IPS panel in the Optimus Vu that you can find in the LG Optimus LTE 2.

Like the Samsung device, LG’s Optimus Vu also features a stylus. Their stylus is a little more bulky, about the size of a #2 pencil. That may actually be a good thing as many have found the stylus that ships with the Galaxy Note to be a little too short and a little too thin. Samsung actually offers an accessory to make the stylus more of a pen size.  Unlike the Galaxy Note though the LG Optimus Vu doesn’t have a place on board to store the digital pen, which may result in costly accessory purchases.


The LG Optimus Vu runs on top of a 1.5ghz dual core processor. It has 1gb of RAM and supports 4G/LTE (as does the Galaxy Note). It features an 8mp camera on the rear which shoots 1080p HD video.

The LG Optimus Vu is available now in Europe and Asia. The LG Spokesperson in the video below wouldn’t mention anything about a U.S. release.

CTIA 2012: Video Intel Android Powered Orange “Santa Clara” Phone

Back in February at Mobile World Congress it was announced that Orange would be one of the first, if not the first, to bring an Intel powered Android device to market. Presently just Lenovo and Orange have Android phones with Intel’s Z2640 processor ready to go.

We saw the first Intel reference design in January at the International Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas and now we’re starting to see the phones emerging from that design.

Orange has been packaging phones under their own brand for years. Now they are looking to release a few smartphones under the Orange label. Orange has turned to Intel to power a new phone called the Orange “Santa Clara” smartphone.

More after the break
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Israeli Startup: “Pops” Makes Android Notifications Pop

Remember when downloading ringtones was the hottest thing on the planet? Then after that ringback tones became popular. Well at one time Ringtones was a $7 billion dollar industry world wide. Now, it’s less than a billion. They just went out of style I guess.

Israeli startups have been really good at harnessing the power of the mobile device. Recently we featured SellARing which is an Israeli company that is selling the ringback tone as advertising. Rather than listen to 10 seconds of ringing, you get to hear an ad, get a discount and engage.

This Israeli startup called “Pops” is making notifications more interesting by bringing all kinds of customizable content to notifications. Pops allows you to customize any kind of Android notification that you could possibly have and use content you like to pop up, wake your phone up and alert you of your new message, Gtalk, Text, email or a host of other notifications.

When we talked with the co-founder he told us in addition to major brands like Rovio Mobile’s “Angry Birds”, they are in negotiations with record companies to produce customized “Pops” from users favorite artists.

Pops is free in the Google Play store. Their monetization is through a customized app store where you pick your pops content. A lot of the “pops” are free but there are some premium “pops” available now.

Check out the video below:

 Linkage:

Find Pops in the Google Play Store here

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