HTC One on more steroids than the MLB (credit: @evleaks)
If the 4.7-inch screen of the HTC One wasn't big enough for you and the HTC One Mini moved things in the wrong direction, you may want to wait for the rumored HTC One Max.
The Taiwanese company is said to be crafting a 5.9-inch phablet version of its well-received flagship smartphone, and all signs point to it launching before the end of the year.
The HTC One Max, also known as the HTC T6, is said to be pictured in a "non-final artwork" render leaked this week ahead of its expected September announcement. HTC has denied this particular photo leak is accurate.
To that point, HTC told TechRadar that "HTC does not comment on rumor or speculation" when asked about the HTC One Max.
Phablet in the fourth quarter?
While the render cannot be confirmed, the mere existence of the HTC One Max is partially backed up by comments reportedly made this week by HTC chief marketing officer Ben Ho.
"The company plans to unveil ... a variant of its flagship One series in the fourth quarter," he said according to Focus Taiwan.
Having already launched the HTC One Mini to compete with the Galaxy S4 Mini, the phone manufacturer is expected to go from big to small before the year's end.
HTC One Max specs speculated
There's a minimum amount of information available about the unconfirmed HTC One Max.
However, rumors suggest that it'll received bumped up specs in addition to the screen that's 1.2 inches larger.
It'll one-up the One's internals with a 2.3GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 processor and 3,200mAh battery, while sticking with 2GB of RAM and HTC UltraPixel camera, according to Phandroid.
Another move that makes sense is only offering the HTC One Max in 32GB and 64GB flavors of internal memory, dropping the puny 16GB version of the phone in the transition.
Finally, HTC One Max should cut to the chase and come loaded with Android 4.3 considering HTC launched its smartphone with 4.1.2 only to start upgrading it to Jelly Bean this month.
Normally, when a company is desperately trying to reinvent itself with a new 'with-the-times' image, it'll avoid the things that saw it fall so far behind everyone else. BlackBerry, it seems, has a different idea.
Today it launched the new BlackBerry 9720 smartphone, not running the BlackBerry 10 operating system it is desperately trying to establish, but the BB7 OS that stood guard during the company's fall from grace.
The device, which harkens back to the Curve handsets of previous years, brings the traditional qwerty keyboard, a 2.8-inch touchscreen, a video-capable 5-megapixel camera, W-Fi and an FM radio.
The new 9720 also arrives with BBM and the Multicast tool, enabling users to post statuses to multiple social platforms at once.
Questions
The company is planning to launch the BB7-running handset in selected markets in Europe, Asia, Africa and Latin America, but there are no specific country-by-country details as yet.
BlackBerry may be of the opinion it can still bring in some much-needed revenue in emerging areas, in much the same way Nokia was able to with its Symbian OS, long after deciding the software was passé.
However, with BlackBerry desperately attempting to shift the spectre of the last few years, the decision to continue with the dying platform will certainly be questioned in some quarters.
Concerns about the safety of third-party charges have been raised
Apple has extended its charger amnesty for iOS devices to the UK, allowing users to swap potentially dangerous, third-party adapters for an official accessory.
For a fee of £8, iPhone, iPad and iPod users can take any knock-off charger into an Apple Store or authorised Apple dealer and get a new USB charger.
Apple usually charges £15 for new iOS chargers, so users are getting an official one for nearly half price, while diminishing the risk of being electrocuted as an added bonus.
To quality for the offer, which will run from August 16 to October 18, users must bring their device with them in order for the serial number to be recorded.
Safety first
The trade-in scheme comes following concerns over an incident in China in which a woman died after reportedly being electrocuted by a third-party charger.
Earlier this year, trading standards officials in Essex also expressed concern over the safety of third-party chargers, with one in three chargers failing to meet European standards.
In its announcement Apple said: "Recent reports have suggested that some counterfeit and third party adapters may not be designed properly and could result in safety issues. While not all third party adapters have an issue, we are announcing a USB Power Adapter Takeback Program to enable customers to acquire properly designed adapters.
"Customer safety is a top priority at Apple. That's why all of our products - including USB power adapters for iPhone, iPad, and iPod - undergo rigorous testing for safety and reliability and are designed to meet government safety standards around the world."
There's a new baby in the ranks over at the South Korean firm as the LG Optimus L1 2 comes into view - even though we seemed to have completely missed the first incarnation of the dinky device.
We thought the Optimus L3 2 would be propping up LG's smartphone offering this year, and while it's been doing just that so far the Korean firm has decided the £90 handset is just too good to be called entry-level.
To say we were less than impressed with the L3 2 would be an understatement, so we're not holding out much hope for the Optimus L1 2 which sports a 3-inch QVGA (320x240) display, 1GHz single-core processor, 512MB of RAM, 4GB internal storage, 2MP camera and 1540mAh battery.
Back to basics
It is at least running Android Jelly Bean, albeit only version 4.1.2, but that's better than nothing - although LG will slap its own overlay on top so don't expect a pure Google experience.
Sure it's not going to be dazzling anyone with specs, but we can at least expect the Optimus L1 II to rock up with a bargain basement price tag, as LG has confirmed it will be cheaper than the L3 2.
If you fancy getting hold of the cut price Optimus L1 2 then you'll need to hit up Three in the first week of September as the network has the black and white versions of the handset exclusively.
We're told the exclusivity will run out on the black L1 2, with other carriers picking it up at a later date, but details on that remain thin on the ground for now.
Life's not so good for 20 people who have just felt the brunt of a commercial stunt gone wrong.
LG had an idea to promote the LG G2 in Seoul - release helium balloons with smartphone vouchers attached, hoping people would would wait for them to come down before claiming their prize.
But LG also doesn't understand human nature, with many participants turning up with knives, spears and BB guns.
The whole thing ballooned out of control with 20 unfortunates getting injured as a result. No surprise that LG's cancelled a bunch of other commercial events for the phone.
As Android phones and tablets have increased in popularity, the number of apps available for the platform has rocketed.
And that means more free Android games. There's a lot of junk out there but, fortunately, there are gems among the junk.
We've worked our way through a whole load of Android games to reveal the ones you should download to your phone.
So without delay, here is our pick of the 80 best free Android games available.
1. Angry Birds
The amazingly popular iOS game moved to Android a while ago, earning over two million downloads during its first weekend of availability.
The Android version is free, unlike the Apple release, with maker Rovio opting to stick a few adverts on it rather than charge an upfront fee. The result is a massive and very challenging physics puzzler that's incredibly polished and professional. For free. It defies all the laws of modern retail.
Bebbled is your standard gem-shuffling thing, only presented in a professional style you wouldn't be surprised to see running on something featuring a Nintendo badge with an asking price of £19.99.
You only drop gems on other gems to nuke larger groups of the same colour, but with ever-tightening demands for score combos and scenes that require you to rotate your phone to flip the play field on its head, Bebbled soon morphs into an incredibly complex challenge.
3. Red Stone
There's an awful lot of square-shuffling games on Android and Red Stone is one of the best. And one of the hardest. You start off with a big fat 'King' square that's four times of the normal 'pawn' squares, then set about shuffling things so the fat King can get through to an exit at the top of the screen.
It's hard to accurately describe a puzzle game in the written word, but seriously, it's a good game.
4. Newton
Released in beta form, Newton is a maths/physics challenge that has you lining up shots at a target - but having to contend with the laws of nature, in the form of pushers, pullers, benders (no laughing), mirrors and traps, all deflecting your shot from its target.
The developer is still adding levels to it at the moment, so one day Newton might be finished and might cost money. But for now it's free and a great indie creation.
5. Angry Birds Star Wars
The Angry physics phenomenon took a turn for the weird late in 2012, with Rovio acquiring the rights to blend Star Wars characters with its popular Angry Birds play mechanics. Angry Birds Star Wars is actually pretty nice, with players using Star Wars weaponry to smash down scenery alongside the usual destructive physics action. Not the car crash IP clash we were expecting.
6. Drop
Some might call Drop a game, others might classify it as a tech demo that illustrates the accuracy of the Android platform's accelerometer, thanks to how playing it simply involves tilting your phone while making a little bouncy ball falls between gaps in the platforms. Either way it'll amuse you for a while and inform you of the accuracy of your accelerometer - a win-win situation.
7. Frozen Bubble
Another key theme of the independent Android gaming scene is (ports of) clones of popular titles. Like Frozen Bubble, which is based around the ancient and many-times-copied concept of firing gems up a screen to make little groups of similarly coloured clusters. That's what you do. You've probably done it a million times before, so if it's your thing get this downloaded.
8. Replica Island
Replica Island is an extremely polished platform game that pulls off the shock result of being very playable on an Android trackball. The heavy momentum of the character means you're only switching direction with the ball or d-pad, letting you whizz about the levels with ease. Then there's jumping, bottom-bouncing, collecting and all the other usual platform formalities.
9. Gem Miner
In Gem Miner you are a sort of mole character that likes to dig things out of the ground. But that's not important. The game itself has you micro-managing the raw materials you find, upgrading your digging powers and buying bigger and better tools and maps. Looks great, plays well on Android's limited button array. Go on, suck the very life out of the planet.
10. ConnecToo
Another coloured-square-based puzzle game, only ConnecToo has you joining them up. Link red to red, then blue to blue - then see if you've left a pathway through to link yellow to yellow. You probably haven't, so delete it all and try again.
A brilliantly simple concept. ConnecToo used to be a paid-for game, but was recently switched to an ad-supported model - meaning it now costs you £0.00.
11. Titres
Once you're successfully rewired your brain's 25 years of playing Tetris in a certain way with certain buttons and got used to tapping the screen to rotate your blocks, it's... Tetris.
It hinges on how much you enjoy placing things with your phone's trackball or pad. If you're good at it, it's a superb Tetris clone. Let's hope it doesn't get sued out of existence.
UPDATE: While Titres seems to have been removed from Google Play, there's now an official Tetris app available to download.
12. Trap!
Not the best-looking game you'll ever play, with its shabby brown backgrounds and rudimentary text making it look like something you'd find running on a PC in the year 1985. But Trap! is good.
You draw lines to box in moving spheres, gaining points for cordoning off chunks of the screen. That sounds rubbish, so please invest two minutes of your time having a go on it so you don't think we're talking nonsense.
13. Jewels
Coloured gems again, and this time your job is to switch pairs to make larger groups which then disappear. That might also sound quite familiar. The good thing about Jewels is its size and presentation, managing to look professional while packing in more levels than should really be given away for free.
14. OpenSudoku
We had to put one Sudoku game in here, so we'll go with OpenSudoku - which lives up to its open tag thanks to letting users install packs of new puzzles generated by Sudoku makers. It's entirely possible you could use this to play new Sudoku puzzles for the rest of your life, if that's not too terrifying a thought.
15. Abduction!
Abduction! is a sweet little platform jumping game, presented in a similarly quirky and hand-drawn style as the super-fashionable Doodle Jump. You can't argue with cute cows and penguins with parachutes, or a game that's easy to play with one hand thanks to its super accessible accelerometer controls.
16. The Great Land Grab
A cross between a map tool and Foursquare, The Great Land Grab sorts your local area into small rectangular packets of land - which you take ownership of by travelling through them in real-time and buying them up.
Then someone else nicks them off you the next day, a bit like real-world Risk. A great idea, as long as you don't mind nuking your battery by leaving your phone sitting there on the train with its GPS radio on.
17. Brain Genius Deluxe
Our basic legal training tells us it's better to use the word "homage" than to label something a "rip-off", so we'll recommend this as a simple "homage" to the famed Nintendo Brain Training franchise.
Clearly Brain Genius Deluxe is not going to be as slick, but there's enough content in here to keep you "brain training" (yes, it even uses that phrase) until your battery dies. The presentation's painfully slow, but then again that might be the game teaching you patience.
18. Coloroid
Coloroid is aery, very simple and has the look of the aftermath of an explosion in a Tetris factory, but it works. All you do is expand coloured areas, trying to fill them in with colours in as few moves as possible - like using Photoshop's fill tool at a competitive level.
19. Cestos
Cestos is sort of a futuristic recreation of curling, where players chuck marbles at each other to try and smash everyone else's balls/gems down the drain and out of the zone. The best part is this all happens online against real humans, so as long as there's a few other bored people out there at the same time you'll have a real, devious, cheating, quitting person to play against. Great.
20. Air Control
One of the other common themes on the Android gaming scene is clones of games based around pretending to be an air traffic controller, where you guide planes to landing strips with a swish of your finger. There are loads of them, all pretty much the same thing - we've chosen Air Control as it's an ad-supported release, so is technically free.
Check out Samsung's Your Mobile Life to discover loads more about the infinite possibilities of the GALAXY Note II
The Alcatel One Touch Idol X is unlikely to find itself draped across billboards nationwide, but it's looking to take on the big guns in the mobile market.
The handset sports a sizeable 5-inch FHD IPS display with a full HD, 1920 x 1080 resolution, 1.5GHz quad-core processor, 2GB of RAM, and 13.1MP rear camera meaning it stacks up pretty well against the likes of the HTC One, Samsung Galaxy S4 and Sony Xperia Z.
There's a rather paltry 8GB of internal storage included, but there is at least a microSD slot in the One Touch Idol X allowing you to expand on that offering - and with a 2MP front camera and Android 4.2 Jelly Bean there's more good news than bad.
Size zero
A slightly worrying aspect of the One Touch Idol X is the battery, as in a bid to reach a svelte 6.9mm chassis Alcatel has only been able to squeeze a 2000mAh power pack inside the handset.
At least at 120g it's not going to weigh you down: the slender body should slide effortlessly into the skinniest of jeans, but if your pockets aren't deep the 140.4mm height may see it peek out the top.
However, the lack of bezel - Alcatel describes it as 'zero bezel' but there is a sliver there - either side of the screen means it's not as wide as the competition, which will hopefully lead to a decent grip in the hand.
The Alcatel One Touch Idol X will be arriving in the UK soon, but price and exact release date are yet to be announced.
