The most recent flagship handset to come out of the Japanese firm was the Sony Xperia Z at the beginning of this year and while it's only be around for eight months it's apparently time for a new model, the Xperia i1.

We're hearing the Sony Xperia i1 is lined up for a special launch at IFA 2013 in Berlin, and there's been a whole host of rumours, leaks and speculation surrounding the smartphone.

Originally touted under the codename Sony Honami, the chatter on the internet now surrounds the rather peculiar i1 moniker - a name we're not particularly impressed with.

We've cast an eye over all the various reports on the web surrounding the Honami/Xperia i1 and pulled the best bits together below to give you an overview of the handset.

Sony Xperia i1 release date and price

Initially the Sony Xperia i1 release date was pegged for July, but that has been and gone, so all eyes are now firmly on IFA 2013.

Apparently the Honami will make its way to market in at least one country before the year is out - with South Korea supposedly in line for some Xperia i1 loving.

The Xperia i1 release date now appears to be pretty much set for September 4, the date of Sony's press conference at IFA 2013 in Berlin, after a teaser was leaked online.

In terms of price the trail is pretty cold, but considering the Xperia i1 is set to be the next flagship device from Sony we'd expect it to carry a lavish price tag putting it up against the Galaxy S4, HTC One and Lumia 925.

Sony Xpeira i1 display

Early reports pointed towards the Xperia i1 sporting a 5-inch, full HD display, very much like the screen found on the Xperia Z.

The 5-inch display has been reported in a number of other leaks as well, adding more fuel to fire and in the screen department at least it doesn't appear that Sony is going to advance anything. We just hope it doesn't suffer from the same washed-out appearance of its predecessor - but given the Sony Xperia Z Ultra packed Triluminous technology to improve it's appearance, fingers crossed the same will happen here.

Sony Xperia i1 camera

With no big surprises in screen spec the major upgrade the Xperia i1 looks to be getting is in the camera department.

The Xperia Z currently sports a pretty decent 13.1MP snapper, but the Xperia i1 is rumoured to go one better and pack a meaty 20MP Cyber-shot camera on its rear.

• Read our Sony Xperia Z review

A Carl Zeiss 1/2.3-inch sensor G lens will also reportedly be thrown into the mix, and an image that appeared online apparently pegged the camera at 20.65MP with a resolution of 3936 x 5248.

It's not just photos which may well turn out to be huge on the i1, with leaked slides from a Sony presentation hinting at a 4K (4000 x 2000) video recording capability - something which may find its way onto the Xperia i1.

If this turns out to be true than the Honami would be the first smartphone to capture film in the 4K format - although the full HD screen wouldn't be able to do your recordings justice.

Various screenshots claiming to be from the Xperia i1 camera app have also made their way online and apparently reveal updated camera software.

Some clever folks over at XDA Developers reckon they've managed to port the camera app from the Honami handset to over Xperia smartphones, bringing a raft of new features with it.

New features, which have been confirmed in a second report, include AR-effect (an augmented reality mode), info-eye for visual search and Timeshift Burst which allows users to choose the best photo out of a series of shots - so very similar to mode found on BlackBerry 10.

• Check out our BlackBerry 10 review

Another feature which could worm its way onto the Xperia i1 is Social Live, giving you the ability to live stream video to Facebook. This sounds like a pretty massive gimmick, but if Sony can pull it off it will be a very interesting feature.

Sony Xperia i1 power and storage

The Sony Xperia i1 seems to be suitably equipped in the power department with early reports of a 2.3GHz quad-core processor apparently pretty close to the mark, with later leaks pointing towards a 2.2GHz quad-core Snapdragon 800 chip.

Either way it will be an improvement on the 1.5GHz quad-core chip in the Xperia Z, and it would also make the Xperia i1 more powerful than the Galaxy S4 and HTC One.

2GB looks pretty much nailed on to be accompanying the quad-core processor in the Xperia i1, while an Adreno 330 GPU should give the handset enough grunt for the more graphically intense games.

Internal storage is a little disappointing with a number of leaks stating 16GB, although what's actually available will be less as the operating system will take up a fair whack.

At least there's some comfort in reports pointing towards a microSD slot, which makes the internal storage less of an issue.

Sony Xperia i1 operating system, battery and more

Rather surprisingly very little has been said about the operating system which will adorn the Xperia i1, but perhaps that's because it's obviously going to be sporting a recent incarnation of Android.

While Android 4.3 is the latest version of Google's platform on the market it's currently limited to Nexus devices, so the sensible money would be on the Sony Xperia i1 arriving with Android 4.2.2 on board.

• The full low-down on Google's OS: Android Jelly Bean review

Sony is reportedly stuffing a decent battery into the Xperia i1, with two reports pointing towards a 3000mAh power pack. Hopefully that will see it last a whole day with decent usage.

Connectivity wise you can apparently expect to see Wi-Fi and Bluetooth line up alongside 4G and NFC, but it doesn't look like the Xperia i1 will share the same dust and water resistance as the Xperia Z. This seems unlikely given the 'rugged' tag is one Sony is keen to push, so we'd expect this to be perfectly happy when accidentally dropped in your washing up.

For the audiophiles among you there's good news as the Xperia i1 is touted as having a Walkman audio chip stuffed inside it to enhance your tunes, although it's still worth investing in a decent set of headphones.

Sony Xperia i1 looks

There have been a number of photo leaks claiming to show off the Xperia i1 in all its glory, and if they are accurate it will look pretty similar to the Xperia Z.

At first glance it's not really possible to tell the two handsets apart, with the device in the images below keeping to that strong Sony design which has been implemented on the Z and Z Ultra.

Pretty early on we saw an image which claimed to show the Xperia i1 inbetween the super sized Xperia Z Ultra and the (smaller than the Z) Xperia ZL.

Images showing the side of the Xperia i1 appear to reveal a metal band running around the side of the handset, and shows a dedicated shutter key alongside the oversized power/lock button and volume rocker.

The rear of the Xperia i1 in this photo seems to have a matt, plastic finish which looks a little cheap, so we're hoping this is just an early prototype and not the finished design.

In the photo below the Honami was apparently spied next to an iPhone 5 and the Sony Xperia Z, both of which are smaller than the i1.

Source : techradar[dot]com

Some new holes cut into a leaked shell supposedly intended for the iPhone 5S suggest that the handset will feature a fingerprint scanner.

French site Nowhereelse.fr has some photos of what its sources tell it is the iPhone 5S shell, and it features a separate cut-out near the home button casing on the bottom of the handset.

The fingerprint scanner rumour is nothing new. We've heard word from various sources over the past few months - in fact, ever since Apple bought mobile security firm Authentec for a huge chunk of cash back in July last year, there has been talk of the iPhone 5S being the first iPhone to feature one.

Fingerprint scanners seem set to be the next big smartphone buzz-feature, as mobile payments see security becoming more and more important on our mobile devices.

Today's photos also have bigger holes on the top of the handset on the rear panel, which suggest that Apple may be planning a camera sensor upgrade and dual LED flash.

Too legit to quit

Whether the casings are legit or not is hard to tell, but Nowhereelse.fr doesn't have a bad track record when it comes to component leaks.

Either way, we'll find out the truth on September 10 when Apple is apparently set to unveil its new iPhone to the world.

• Before then, bone up on all the rumours with everything you need to know about the iPhone 5S

Source : techradar[dot]com

HTC could be about to lose a whole chunk of street cred as reports emerge that hip young headphone-maker Beats wants to sever ties with the smartphone maker.

The Wall Street Journal reports that Beats Electronics' (of Dr. Dre fame) is considering buying out HTC's 25% stake in the firm as it looks to expand its options in the market.

Beats Audio technology has proudly sat inside HTC's handsets ever since the Sensation XE, bringing improved audio performance - especially in the bass department - via headphones and then the internal speaker on later devices.

People "familiar with the matter" told the WSJ that Beats Electronics is looking to replace the Taiwanese firm with a new investor who can provide money for future growth, which would see HTC lose its tie-ins with the audio firm.

Windows drift

It's not the first time the Beats/HTC relationship has hit the rocks: last summer, Beats bought 25% of its shares back from HTC, prompting rumours that HTC would drop Beats integration from its phones, chatter that the company branded "categorically false".

There's more bad news for HTC: Digitimes claims that the firm may drift away from Windows Phone 8 as its share of the already-fairly-small Windows Phone market has dipped.

HTC has apparently seen its global Windows Phone market share drop below 5%, with Samsung taking second place after Nokia, and thus is mulling the decision to focus more on its Android outfit.

Handsets such as the HTC 8X and 8S failed to make much of a splash in the market, while the Android based HTC One has received a strong reception and managed to put the manufacturer back on the mobile map.

We have spoken to HTC regarding both reports, but a spokesperson for the company told us "HTC doesn't comment on rumour or speculation" - so no real shock there.

• It might have forgotten about Dre, but HTC still has the world's best phone on its books - check out our HTC One review

Source : techradar[dot]com

It looks like Samsung's idea of creating "mini" versions of top phones is rubbing off on others with HTC launching the One Mini and new reports suggesting Sony is planning a similar onslaught with the Honami Mini.

Over recent months there's been a lot of talk surrounding the Sony Xperia i1, previously known as the Sony Honami, so it was only a matter of time before the rumour mill kicked into action on a pint sized version.

Information on the Honami Mini popped up on the Esato forum, with the details posted by "randomuser" apparently revealing a 4.3-inch 720p display, 2.2GHz processor, 2GB of RAM, 16GB of internal storage, microSD slot, 20.7MP camera and 2400mAh battery.

If these reports are true - and we can't verify that - then Sony could well be planning the mini version we've been waiting for. The power of a top end smartphone in a smaller, pocket friendly design.

It would smash the likes of the Samsung Galaxy S4 Mini and One Mini, which both suffered a major downgrade in features from their bigger brothers.

Identity crisis

There appears to be some confusion over the name of the cut down mobile though, with the forum member noting it currently sports the codename Ray 3.

This reminds us of the Sony Ericsson Xperia Ray, but apparently there's no relation between the two - though there's still the issue of the Honami name which appears to be a codename in itself. Could it finally arrive as the Xperia i1 Mini?

The Sony Xperia i1 is expected to break cover at IFA 2013, but if you're hoping to get a look at the Honami Mini you may be out of luck, as randomuser claims it will arrive "only by December or January next year."

• Has this whet your appetite for some mini mobiles? Then why not check out our Samsung Galaxy S4 Mini and HTC One Mini reviews.

Source : techradar[dot]com

At CES this year, we were writing about "monster" 20-inch touchscreens. But by this Christmas, 23-inch and 27-inch touchscreens will be available on the high street, ready to fold down and use for painting or family board games.

Touch is undeniably going big, but it's still held back by the high prices of adding the touch layer to the screen. There is an answer, though - and tech companies are going for silver to find it.

Touchscreens are made up of multiple layers: the top layer of glass with anti-scratch coating, a layer of clear adhesive and then two or even three layers of indium tin oxide (ITO) either side of more layers of glass comprising the touch sensor, then another clear adhesive layer to hold the touch sensor down onto the LCD underneath.

ITO is the critical ingredient. It's a good conductor and it's transparent, but it's also expensive. It also requires both fragile materials and expensive multi-stage manufacturing processes, and although it can be recycled when supplies are limited, its mostly mined in China in conditions that are far from green.

• The PC rare metals crisis - how soon will ITO run out?

The ITO powder is "sputtered" over the glass in multiple layers in a vapour deposition chamber, baked onto the glass and then etched into a sensor circuit. Sometimes the glass layer is chemically hardened first, but either way, the layers have to be carefully lined up to work.

The silver solution

But there is a cheaper and less environmentally harmful alternative, developed by MIT biochemist Dr Angela Belcher and inspired by the multi-layered formation of abalone shells. It uses silver nanowires scattered over a sheet of plastic.

Take two layers of plastic coated with very long, very thin silver strands (or even one sheet coated on both sides) and you have a capacitive touch sensor that's thinner, lighter, more flexible and much easier to manufacture than the ITO sensors.

You can't see through silver, but you don't need very much of it either. Silver is the same price as ITO, but it's a hundred times more conductive - it's even more conductive than gold (so remember that next time someone tries to upsell you on gold-coated connectors).

Because the nanowires connect in a mesh, you can get a full-screen sensor and still have 99% of the screen area clear. That lets through more light than an ITO sensor, so the LCD doesn't need to be as bright. And given that powering the screen takes 60% of the battery life in most devices, what you get is a thinner, cheaper screen and longer battery life.

The random structure of the nanowire also is harder to see than the regular patterns of other metal meshes, and you don't have to match it up to the pixel pattern of the LCD to avoid a distracting moiré effect. And because the sensor is thinner, you don't get as much parallax distortion - what you see on screen is closer to where the pixels are physically placed, so you can touch things more accurately.

Antique technology

Making silver nanowires starts with silver nitrate. Chemists (and alchemists) have been making this since the 13th century and silver has been used in photography since the 1800s. There are plenty of factories with the machinery to deposit silver onto large rolls of paper which can be re-used for depositing silver nanowires onto plastic sheets.

Sri Peruvemba of silver nanowire producer Cambrios told TechRadar that, after it's been made in a cleanroom, the silver nanowire solution (called ClearOhm) ships to the factory in a bucket.

It's then sprayed onto the touchscreen glass like ink. "Enough silver nanowire 'ink' to fill a water bottle is enough to make a couple of hundred thousand phone screens," say Peruvemba.

There are half a dozen other touch sensor replacements being developed, using graphene, carbon nanobuds and other exotic materials. But few of them let through as much light as silver nanowire, or conduct as effectively.

And silver nanowire doesn't just work for touch in the lab: it's already in several shipping products, and we couldn't spot the nanowire mesh at all with the naked eye.

Cambrios' nanowires power the touchscreen in NEC's high-end Media X N-07D smartphone on the Japanese Docomo network, and the much cheaper Huawei Ascend phone on the US Sprint network. It's used in Gvision's 15-inch touchscreens that are designed to be used as paypoints on petrol pumps - which suggests it's pretty hardwearing.

LG used it for the 23-inch touchscreen V325 all-in-one that launched with Windows 8, as well as two touchscreen monitors. Intel has also used it in its 13.3-inch reference design for OEMs, which should introduce Cambrios to a wider market.

Wired for speed

LG also discovered that silver nanowires allowed it to cut out several of the usual manufacturing stages for assembling touchscreens. John LeMoncheck, CEO of Cambrios, explains that initially LG was etching the rolls of coated film as it would with an ITO sensor. However, once it realised the the nanowire solution could be sprayed on in the right pattern to start with, it was possible to reduce costs even further.

The manufacturing cost of silver nanowire touch sensor is already less than $4 per inch. With scale and shortcuts like that, LeMoncheck hopes it will drop to $3.50 or even $3 an inch next year.

Saving $1 an inch on a 5-inch smartphone screen might not make much difference to the ultimate retail price, but it could take $30-50 off bigger displays. LeMoncheck is hoping giant touchscreens like Microsoft's Perceptive Pixel monster will get much more affordable - and that they'll all be made with his silver nanowires.

But there other things you could do with silver nanowires. You could coat a layer of plastic or Lucite and use that as the top layer of a really cheap screen. You can't do that with ITO because the heat needed to bake it in place would melt the plastic, but the drying oven used to fix the silver nanowires in place doesn't need to be nearly as hot (a mere 120 degrees rather than 600-plus).

It will work on an e-ink screen too. It needn't be limited to flat surfaces: you could coat a curved object like a car dashboard. You could even use silver nanowires on a flexible display, where brittle ITO would crack. Japanese touch sensor manufacturer Nissha will have 3D touch sensors this year and the company has been testing how well silver nanowire touch will work on a flexible screen.

"The coating changes in resistance. As you stretch and bend it, it goes up - but then it goes back down and comes back to normal," explained Peruvemba. So touch wouldn't work while you're bending a flexible screen, but then you probably wouldn't be trying to tap or scroll when you're folding it back up to put in your pocket.

Nissha tested a 3mm thick silver nanowire touch sensor. After bending it around a 180-degree angle 100,000 times, it was still worked every time. Add that to something like AUO's flexible e-ink screen and we're one step closer to a tablet you can roll up and put in your pocket. Bigger, slimmer and bendier: that's why the future could well be silver.

• When your phone will become your flexible friend? We investigate the future of fold-up screens

Source : techradar[dot]com