Look at what HTC decided to announce today – the HTC Butterfly S that has been sitting in the rumor mill for quite some time now. The original HTC Butterfly only manage to hit the spotlight for a short while before it was kicked off the stage by the company’s very own flagship smartphone, the HTC One so what is the company going to do about it? Bum up its specs and launch a Butterfly S.

The HTC Butterfly S was unveiled in an event in a Taiwan launch event. Sporting a similar design as the Butterfly, it has a 5” 1080p display and front-facing BoomSound stereo speakers on board. Running on Android 4.2 with Sense 5 on board, it should look almost identical to the HTC One in terms of interface. As for the inside, it’s powered by a 1.9GHz Qualcomm Snapdrabon 600 processor, making it faster than the HTC One. It has 16GB of internal storage that is thankfully expandable via microSD storage along side with 2GB of RAM.

What’s impressive about the Butterfly S is its humongous battery of 3,200mAh for, as advertised, up to 3.5days of continuous music playback. As with all the latest HTC smartphones announced after the One, it is equipped with the company’s very own UltraPixel camera with Zoe on board. Other specs includes a 2.1MP wide-angle front camera, Bluetooth 4.0, and infrared remote control.

The Butterfly S is scheduled to hit the Taiwan market starting July for NT$22,900 (approximately RM2,290). Check out the video below:

(Source: Engadget)

It looks like the ultra large phablet from Samsung – Galaxy Mega 6.3 – will be reaching our shores very soon, IMCC Network, an online store for mobile devices, has recently listed the Samsung Galaxy Mega 6.3 in it’s store, labelled as “Coming Soon”, with a retail price of RM1,599.

The Samsung Galaxy Mega series were announced back in April and has been available in other parts of the world since early last month – the rollout began in May in Europe and Russia, and it looks like it’s finally heading our shores. The device is not available in other local stores yet though, even the Samsung Malaysia official site made no mention of the Galaxy Mega, but don’t worry, according to IMCC Network’s official Facebook page, the Mega 6.3 that they will be bringing in will be original from Samsung Malaysia Enterprise.

More information about the device available in our previous post or check out IMCC to find out more.

(Source: IMCC Facebook Page)

Update: Just a little reminder, it’s Wednesday! eBay Deals will be offering five (5) 32GB Samsung Galaxy S4 LTE at RM1,999. Details below!

The LTE Samsung Galaxy S 4 has finally landed in our shore with a retail price of RM2,499 for the 32GB version but you don’t have to pay such a huge sum of money just to own the latest flagship smartphone from Samsung. Starting next week, eBay Malaysia will be offering up to 10 units of the LTE Samsung Galaxy S 4 for only RM1,999. Excited? You should be.

eBay Malaysia will be opening up the deal only at their eBay DEALS page (http://deals.ebay.com.my) and they have limited number of units for sale at RM1,999. The deals will be separated into two different days with different offerings on each day:

• On Monday, 17 June 2013 at exactly 12 noon, eBay DEALS will unlock the best launch deal on the Samsung Galaxy S4 LTE 32GB White version at RM1,999 each. You better hurry because the deal is only applicable for the first 5 units.
• On Wednesday, 19 June 2013 at 12 noon, eBay Deals will unlock the best launch deal on the Samsung Galaxy S4 LTE 32GB Black version at RM1,999 each. Also limited to the first 5 units only.

But don’t be too upset if you’re not quick enough to snag up the RM1,999 deals. After the best launch deal white units are sold out on Monday, the Samsung Galaxy S4 LTE 32GB will be sold on eBay Deals at a promotional rate of RM2,099 each – both black and white versions, available for a limited time only.

But wait, that’s not all. Special for Lowyat.NET readers only, eBay will be offering an additional 10 units of Samsung Galaxy S4 LTE up for grabs for RM1,999 – 5 black and 5 white. The deal will happen on Monday, 17 June 2013 at 12 noon via a link which we will reveal on Monday morning, so you know what to do.

Visit eBay Deals to start shopping now for other goods.

We have been hearing about this particular device for quite some time especially during the recent Malaysian launch of Huawei Ascend Mate and Ascend G510 last month. Just moments ago, Huawei have finally take the drape off their latest Android smartphone, the new Huawei Ascend P6.

While we have no idea why they jumped straight to P6 from Ascend P2 but nevertheless, Huawei claims that Ascend P6 is the slimmest smartphone in the world due to its 6.18mm profile  (around 0.27mm thinner than Alcatel One Touch Idol Ultra) and weights at around 120g. Powered by Huawei’s own K3V2 processor that features a 1.5GHz quad-core CPU, the new Huawei Ascend P6 is also equipped with 4.7-inch in-cell HD display and 2000mAh battery.

Furthermore, the device will come standard with Android 4.2.2 that is draped with the company’s own Emotion UI which is similar to Ascend Mate. In terms of photography, the new Huawei Ascend P6 is equipped with an 8-megapixel f/2.0 rear camera together with 5-megapixel front-facing camera.

Available in black, white and pink, no pricing has been mentioned for it at the moment. So far, only China as well as Western Europe have been confirmed release period which said to be later this month and July respectively.

UPDATE (833pm): Woops, looks like Huawei has jumped the gun and retract the press release. Guess it will be up again once the Ascend P6 global launch in London is done.

[Source: Huawei ]

After being leaked over and over again, HTC has finally taken the curtains off its latest low-end Android device, the HTC Desire 200. Available on HTC’s official website, the device features a 3.5” display, looking like a typical low-end Android smartphone. It’s powered by a 1GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon S1 processor with 512MB of RAM on board and 4GB of internal storage expandable via microSD slot.

The Desire 200 is packed with a 5MP F2.8 aperture camera that supports VGA video recording, and on top of all the typical features found on an Android device such as GPS, Bluetooth connectivity, and such, it also packs Beats Audio for the best audio experience. Dimension wise, the Desire 200 measures at 107.7mm x 60.8mm x 11.9mm with a weight of only 100grams.

No further information has been revealed though, even the exact operation system version it’s running on is a hush hush, for now. Pricing and availability has not been announced either but given its specs, it better be very affordable.

(Source: Engadget, HTC)

It appears that the “Galaxy S4 Plus” rumour that surfaced yesterday held more water than many expected. Samsung CEO JK Shin has revealed that his company are ready to announced its latest Galaxy S4 variant as early as this month in South Korea, and are in talks with several overseas carriers as well.

The main difference between the two Galaxy S4 devices is in the support for LTE-Advanced 4G, which is able to double the data transmission speeds of “standard” 4G speeds today – theoretical speed rates cap it at around 3Gbps down and 1.5Gbps upload speeds. According to The Verge, LTE-Advanced is also referred to as “true 4G”, as current 4G speeds aren’t up to par with the original requirements.

Reuters further adds that the new Galaxy S4 variant will solely be powered by Qualcomm chipsets, which further adds credence that it will sport a Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 chipset.

Interestingly, very few carriers actually have infrastructure support for the new LTE-Advanced standard – even in the US, where only AT&T and Verizon have firm plans to roll them out. It remains to be seen exactly where – or even when – the new variant of the Galaxy S4 will make its way out of Korea.

(Sources: Reuters, The Verge)

Wish to get the latest smartphones in the market but do not wish to sign up for a contract with a telco and get tied up for 12 months up to 24 months? No worries, DiGi is offering 4 of the hottest devices in the markets without a contract – LG Nexus 4, Samsung Galaxy S4, HTC One and Sony Xperia Z.

In case you were wondering, yes, they do provide a subsidy on the devices albeit minimum. As a value added service, subscribers will also enjoy an additional 2-months fee waiver with the DG SmartPlan 58 (worth RM116) for the first two months. Do note that an advance payment is applicable upon sugn-up (one-month monthly fee for DG SmartPlan subscription).

More information available at DiGi’s product page – LG Nexus 4, Sony Xperia Z, HTC One and Samsung Galaxy S4. Coincidentally, did you notice that the promotion is on all Google devices since the Xperia Z, HTC One and Galaxy S4 are all receiving stock Google Android experience options scheduled for the near future?

(Source: DiGi Facebook Page)

The Samsung Galaxy S4, the Korean giant’s latest flagship smartphone, comes with a unique feature called Group Play that allows users to enable real-time sharing of information between devices. At the product launch, Group Play was demoed to play music between several surrounding Galaxy S4 devices.

However, Group Play isn’t just a social sharing of music app. The SDK behind it, called Samsung Chord, allows for much more. With the Samsung Chord SDK, developers can enable:

• Easy discovery and connection with nearby devices
• Real-time experiences between multiple devices
• Fast peer-to-peer connection, without the need of a server
• Decentralized networks where peers can come and go at any time
  (source: Samsung Developer)

These features, in turn, allow for:

• Interaction between devices
• Synchronized content sharing
• Broadcast of messages to nearby devices
• Data transfer between devices
• Multi-player games
  (Source: Samsung Developer)

To promote greater developer participation to create apps using the Samsung Chord SDK, the company has announced the Samsung App Challenge 2013, which will run from 20th June to 31st August this year. Interestingly, Samsung will only accept app entries that utilize the Chord SDK – and is offering lucrative incentives for your Chord apps.

Ten winners will receive a total of $800,000 in cash prizes, with the break down as follows:

The judging period will be held over October and November, before the winners are announced sometime in December this year. Find out more about the Samsung App Challenge 2013 via its official page here, or find out more about how the Chord SDK works via the Samsung Developer page here.