Erik Pineda

Apple snatched back its smartphone crown from Samsung and would want to remain on top this year by unleashing the iPhone Mini as early as April 2013 with starting price tag of $US330.

The March 14 market entry of Samsung Galaxy S4 is a heartbeat away and sellers are rushing to push out their stocks of the Galaxy S3 by offering it for one cent like in Amazon Wireless.

A dedicated Android camera is what the Samsung Galaxy Camera is all about and the snapper has become more attractive, that is affordable because the new version is doing away with the cellular signal.

Reports of Nexus 5 arriving this year gained more traction as one Google official hinted that indeed the company has lined up handsets bearing the brand with ‘insanely great’ camera features.

More clues are emerging that Apple is cooking up the next generation iPad Mini with Retina display as reports emerged that suppliers of the tech giant have commenced work on the small tablet’s second serving, this time with a brighter screen display.

Samsung has reportedly scrapped the use of Exynos 5 Octa CPU for its upcoming Galaxy S4 because the new chip proved ‘too hot’ to handle, literally.

HTC One lands in Australia this week and the question pops: Is it worth going for or you’ll hold off a bit more for Samsung’s next flagship, the Galaxy S4, which is set to hit store shelves by early April?

Global consumers will get the 7.9-inch iPad Mini at a potentially higher price because fitting Retina display technology to the popular device means higher production cost for Apple.

Edge-to-edge screen seems to be the norm these days and the upcoming Samsung Galaxy S4 was not spared being the subject of oversized anticipation and limitless imagination for those with too much time on their hands.

Looking at the published specs, the HTC One has the chops that represent bumps up of the smartphone features we’ve seen before. Nothing new in terms of innovation?

The cloak has been peeled off and HTC One did not disappoint – it is sexy and powerful handset that its Taiwanese manufacturer has touted it to be, packing a 1.7GHz Snapdragon 600 CPU that is teamed up with a 2GB of RAM.

The HTC M7 will circulate after all with Europe as its prime destination, new reports said, complementing the HTC One release that will attempt to break new grounds in the United States.

Project Butter and JellyBean 4.1.2 are all geared up to inhabit your still trusty Galaxy Note from Samsung as the company announced the gradual deployment of the official Android jump for the device that set off the phablet fever.

Aside from being mostly in scarce supply, no major complaints have been aired about the LG Nexus 4. Additionally though, the camera shooter of the Google smartphone is much left to be desired, experts said.

It’s being lined up as the strongest rival to date of Apple’s iPad Mini and true enough the Galaxy Note 8.0 from Samsung will retail at about the same pricey level of its chief competitor, at least $US300 for the basic configuration.

A ‘Mini’ war is unfolding between Apple and Samsung even as reports suggest that the two titans will wage a scaled-down version of their increasingly fierce product competition this year.

Unwrapping of the Galaxy S4 is on March 14, reports said, and what the world will get from Samsung is a far different handset from the rumours that have been circulating for months.

There is no let up in the rampaging Samsung juggernaut as the company aims to strengthen its grip on the feature phone market via its REX series handsets, powered by a Java-inspired mobile platform.

Conflicting reports on the actual specs that Samsung would unleash with the upcoming Galaxy S4 suggest two versions of the handset are geared to hit the market – one for international buyers and the other for the North American region.

Samsung plans to upend its bitter rival, Apple, by setting an initial production target of 100 million Galaxy S4s, with a goal of shipping out 10 million units to international markets in the immediate months of its market debut, analysts said.

A 7-inch Surface tablet or something like Samsung’s Galaxy Note 2 are strong possibilities, according to a top Microsoft executive, also pointing out that the Windows 8 kernel is hardwired to support applications running on different device screen sizes – big and small.

The One, that is the HTC One or formerly HTC M7, will hit the United States on March 22 at a starting price of $US200, according to new reports.

Samsung teased its followers and revealed momentarily how exactly the Galaxy Note 8.0 looks like while trying to promote the garnet red Galaxy Note 10.1.

Nexus devices are gradually absorbing the JellyBean 4.2.2 patch recently let out by Google but the usual excitement is somewhat clouded by what appeared as tempered OS jump afforded by the Android update.

HTC’s official site has commenced the countdown for its next flagship smartphone and to lend more hype to the upcoming unveiling of the HTC M7 or HTC One, a new image of the handset was leaked online.

Australia is among the sites chosen for the reported ‘game-changing’ innovation that is the Motorola X-Phone, which giant telco Telstra will start selling on July 2013.

Competition is heating up in the phablet arena as South Korea’s LG issued another challenger to current leader Samsung, revealing via Facebook the quad-core Galaxy Note 2 look-alike Optimus G Pro.

Apple’s iPhone 5S will reportedly hit global stores between June and July this year, a new report said, indicating too that production of the hotly-anticipated smartphone will commence in full swing by March.

March 15 or March 22 only suggest that Samsung's Galaxy S4 is coming to town a few weeks from now, and many are rreviewing the list if the latest rumours about the flagship device would tally with the ones set for unwrapping next month.