Lumia 920 on AT&T price drop to $49.99

From this Friday AT&T will be offering the Lumia 920 at any of its company owned retail stores for $49.99. Of course you’ll need to sign a contract for two years with voice and data, but at least the carrier will be matching both Amazon and Walmart.

This Friday will see plenty of ‘crazy deals’ but this defiantly some compelling pricing from AT&T who are already selling the device for $99.99.  The deal is available from this Friday 23^rd to the 25^th for those of you who are keen to grab one.

The Lumia 920 is a premium quality phone with a set of features and specifications that puts it above some other flagship devices. AT&T is already offering the device at a seriously good price of $99.99 on a contract basis so when they offer up the unit for $49.99 will folks be able to resist?

Here in the UK pricing of handsets has been something of a token consideration almost since the explosion in retail mobile phones kicked off. In the US devices have been kept at rates which in some ways help to differentiate a higher quality nature of the handset.

A quick look at the deal shows that the HTC One X is going for $199.99 as a black Friday deal, but will the new Lumia 920 pricing make it look slightly on the cheap side?

This is of course a black Friday deal and if you have been waiting for the best possible moment to pick up this superb handset we’d urge you not to miss out.

Source: AT&T

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Rogers Samsung ATIV S listed on Future Shop

Despite being one of the first Windows Phone 8 devices we saw unveiled the ATIV S has still managed to arrive the late to the Windows Phone 8 launch line up.

The device has plenty of people interested in its 4.8” AMOLED screen, slender body and expandable base memory but where can one be ordered from? Future Shop seem like they might be able to offer some help to lucky Canadians who don’t mind signing up for a three year contract to nab a device for $50.

Here in the UK we’re not advanced or hip enough to be favouring three year agreements but we understand it’s all the rage in Canada. If you’re not too keen on signing up to a three year deal we understand they can hook you up in store with some other less fashionable airtime arrangements.

Here is what they have say:

"This unit is not available for sale online. New in-store activation required on a three year plan with eligible packages in order to purchase this unit at the listed price. 2 year, 1 year and month to month pricing is available in-store. Some conditions apply. See in store for details. This is a listing for the product WebID 10230120.**Please Note: The service provider may charge activation and other fees. Contact the service provider for more details."

Good news that the ATIV S is finally making more appearances for pre-orders and retailers globally are stocking them. For a while there we were starting to think that Samsung didn’t have much interest in making their next generation Windows Phone 8 handsets available to the public.

Windows Phone 8 looks absolutely stunning when running on this 4.8” screen and we’re sure there will be plenty of takers.  Now if only Samsung and its partners would hurry up and get them into the channel we’d be all the happier.

Source: Future Shop; thanks to Shane for the tip!

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Samsung Offers Galaxy S3 Olympic Edition

Samsung has launched an Olympic edition of its Galaxy S3 smartphone.

The news coincides with the London 2012 Olympic Games opening ceremony. Keen supporters of Team GB can get their hands on the Galaxy S3 Olympic edition exclusively from The Carphone Warehouse starting August 1.

“As a Worldwide Olympic Partner, we at Samsung want everyone to get behind Team GB and offer them support during the Olympic Games.” said Simon Stanford, vice president of telecommunications and networks at Samsung. “We are delighted to be able to offer Carphone Warehouse customers the chance to own this exclusive London 2012 Samsung Galaxy SIII handset, combining the chance to support Team GB with owning a piece of cutting-edge Samsung technology.”

The smartphone will be available at prices starting at £28 per month on the Vodafone, Orange, T-Mobile, Talk Mobile, and Three networks, only in the UK. It comes with a Team GB cover as well as the original cover.

The pebble blue model features a union jack design while the marble white version sports a blue and red lion’s head logo.

Source : PCWorld

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Android 4.1 OTA update available for manual download for a few Galaxy Nexus devices

Google saw fit to distribute the Samsung Galaxy Nexus, Nexus 7, and the Nexus Q to all of the developer’s at today’s Google I/O event, but the Galaxy Nexus wasn’t running Android 4.1 out of the box. Instead, it was made available as an over-the-air update (ours just hit) — and with every OTA update comes a directdownload. The ROM, which clocks in at 156MB, will technically only work with a certain variant of the Galaxy Nexus, the “Takju” US GSM version — and more specifically it may only work on the devices given out at I/O.

The fine folks at XDA-Developers are already trying it out on that and other variants, of course, so there may yet be hope for those of you who can’t wait for an official relaase. So if you’re a Galaxy Nexus owner who is savvy with ROM flashing and the subtle distinctions between Nexus hardware versions, you just might want to give it a shot.

Source : TheVerge

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Get Google Now on your Android 4.0 phone

If you’re running an Ice Cream Sandwich ROM, here’s how to load Google’s Siri competitor onto your smartphone.

Google Now is the Mountain View, Calif.-based monolith’s apparent answer to Apple’s Siri — a voice assistant that responds to requests for information and other commands, while also trying to anticipate what bits of data you might want by digging into your search history and otherinteractions with the Googleverse. It’s a buzz-worthy feature available only on Android 4.1 Jelly Bean, which is only on Google’s new Nexus 7 tablet and some lucky updatedGalaxy Nexus phones.

At least, that was the only way to get it a week ago.

It didn’t take long for the community on the XDA developers forum to come up with a port to bring Google Now to Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich devices, with one caveat — you need to have a rooted device running an Android 4.0 AOSP ROM like CyanagenMod. In other words, if you’re running Ice Cream Sandwich on an unrooted phone from the one of the carriers, it’s not going to work for you.

But if you have or are willing to take the risk of rooting your phone and loading such a ROM (Read Only Memory) onto it, you could run one of the most intriguing new Android features in a while that seems to put Google one step closer to becoming Skynet.

You can download the APK file to load onto your rooted phone, and the always helpful folks at Lifehacker have also drafted some step-by-step instructions for the port.

Let us know in the comments if you’ve managed to get Google Now onto your phone and what you think so far. I’d be especially curious to know from all you obsessive schedulers out there if the application provides you with a surgeon general’s warning when an alert pops up to remind you of the smoke break you programmed into your Google Calendar: “Jerry, it’s time for your smoke break, but you should know that Menthols cause lung cancer, too…”

Source : CNet

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