Android dominates CES 2014 awards

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CES awards were flying off the shelves and into the laps of various companies. Samsung, Sony and Nokia were honored with awards in several categories for their mobile and imaging products.

The winners in the Wireless Handsets category were the LG G2 and the SpareOne Plus.

Best Innovation category was won by the Sony’s lens-style cameras, the QX10 an QX100, and the Vaio Flip PC. Sony’s QX cameras also grabbed a Digital Imaging award.

So did the Nokia Lumia 1020 and the Android-powered Samsung Galaxy NX EVIL camera, along with Sony’s Action Cam.

On the tablet front, Samsung grabbed three awards – for the Galaxy Note 10.1 (2014 edition), Galaxy Note 8.0 and the Galaxy Tab 3 8.0. Sony was also recognized for the Xperia Tablet Z and Flip PC, Lenovo for the S5000 and OLPC for the XO Tablet.

Of wearable tech, the Samsung Galaxy Gear got the nod along with a handful of other smartwatches.

The Android-powered game consoles Ouya and the Madcatz M.O.J.O. scored awards.

For embedded tech, Qualcomm went home with an award for the Snapdragon 800 chipsets and Broadcom grad one for the UltraHD chipsets. Intel also scored awards for the Atom Z3000 and the 4th generation Core processors (Haswell). Samsung won an award for its 3GB LPDDR3 RAM for mobile devices.

Various laptops, hybrids also won awards including HP’s Elitepad, Envy Recline 23 TouchSmart and Slatebook X2, Lenovo’s Flex 20 and Yoga 2 Pro, Acer’s Aspire S7 ultrabook and Razer’s Blade. Sony’s 65″ 4K Bravia and Samsung’s Curved OLED TV got an award as well.

There were many more awards handed out, hit the source link to view them all.

The Motorola Moto G is now available in the UK, starts at £135

Announcing the Moto G earlier today, the Motorola guys on stage were a bit vague about regional availability - especially when it comes to Europe. We are happy to confirm that the affordable smartphone is now available online and will hit brick-and-mortar stores by the end of the week.

Phones4U officially announced that they already have the Moto G for pre-order online and that their street stores should be fully stocked by Friday, November 15, 2013.

The SIM free smartphone will cost £135 for the 8GB version and £159 for the 16GB one. There is also a slightly subsidized PAYG option, which will go for £119.95 when purchased with £10 airtime.

Currently you can only buy the device on contract with Vodafone, T-Mobile, and Orange at their online stores.

Phone4U are giving away a white back cover with every purchase (stock due to arrive later), but according to UnlockedMobiles.com, who have the phone on pre-order as well, the covers will cost about £10 on their own.

Clove.co.uk also have the handset on pre-order for about the same price as the rest.

Apple iPad mini with Retina display goes on sale

The Apple iPad mini 2, which flaunts a spanking new 324 ppi Retina display has gone on sale across Apple's online stores.

The device comes in Space Gray and Silver and is available from 16 GB through to 128 GB versions in Wi-Fi and Wi-Fi + Cellular flavors. The slate ships in 1 to 3 business days for the 16 GB and 32 GB Wi-Fi models and 5 to 10 business days for the rest of the line.

 
Apple iPad 2 in the US and German stores

As is usually the case with electronics the slate is more expensive in Europe, Japan and elsewhere compared to in the US and by a lot.

Here's what the prices converted from local currency to US dollars look like. In Japan the only available Wi-Fi version costs around $422, compared to the $399 in the US store. Germany, Netherlands and Italy have the slate for the equivalent of around $522 for the Wi-Fi iPad mini 2 and $682 for the Cellular one compared to $399/$529 in the US. France seems to get it the worst with a pricing of $536/$695 respectively. All above-mentioned prices are for the 16 GB version of the iPad mini 2.

Xiaomi sells 220,000 smartphones in 3 minutes

It wasn't long ago that we reported that Xiaomi sold its 100,000 HongMi smartphones in about two minutes. The Chinese manufacturer has done it again, and this time the company has managed to sell its flagship smartphone, the Xiaomi MI3 at a similarly brisk pace.

Xiaomi has sold 110,000 units of HongMi and MI-2s in a few minutes in a sale done to celebrate "Single's Day", which is basically the opposite of Valentine's Day, according to Hugo Barra.

On Singles Day, Xiaomi had 380,000 devices on sale, out of which, the company had 110,000 units of each of its three smartphones - MI3, Hongmi and MI-2S. Apart from the cellular devices, Xiaomi also had 50,000 units of set-top boxes.

According to the report, Xiaomi managed to sell all the Mi3 stock in three minutes. The Chinese manufacture was able to generate RMB 107 million (about $17 million). And, by the end of the day, the company had managed to pile up RMB300 million (about $49 million).

The impressive sales once again confirm that Xiaomi has a huge potential, so we are hoping the company switches to more conventional sales practices soon and more people get access to its products.