smartphones

The second BlackBerry 10 smartphone, the Q10, can be ordered from Clove and Negri Electronics.The former estimates shipping will start in April and has a pretty fair starting price point – £534.99, including VAT, or $813.Meanwhile, Negri is the only American retailer we know of that has the Q10 up for pre-orders at the moment for $879.50, that sounds pretty scary.

As we all know, T-Mobile delayed the official announcement until today, but it will still undercut Big Red by two days, making BB’s new flagship available on March 26.Sadly, but T-Mobile is still not accepting pre-orders from eager customers, with the same old registration page live on the carrier’s website.

Ordering the devices via Microsoft Store you’ll have to agree to a new two-year contract with AT&T, upgrade your device or add a line to an existing account.The black, red and yellow Lumia 920s accompanied with blue and lime HTC’s WP 8X are now available for free.Both devices have dual-core 1.5 GHz processors in common, as well as 1 GB of RAM and 8 MP cameras.The Lumia sports a 4.

Sony’s Xperia E is now available in the UK in a single-SIM flavor. The price tag of the variant with one SIM card slot is pretty much unbeatable – £129.99, including VAT, or $197.The device features a 1 GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon MSM7227A CPU, a display covered with scratch-resistant glass and a 480 x 320 pixels resolution, and the 512 MB of RAM, 3.15 MP camera and 4 GB of on-board storage.

Samsung is currently making another high-end smartphone available in Germany: the Galaxy Express, that's available for €489, or $630.The 4.5-inch Super AMOLED Plus panel comes with a mediocre 800 x 480 pixels resolution, the dual-core 1.5 GHz processor, a 5 MP rear camera and 8 GB of on-board storage, a 2,000 mAh battery and Android 4.1 Jelly Bean.

The Huawei Premia 4G, that's on its way to be launched by MetroPCS, has an unbelievably low price tag for what it has to offer ($149 plus tax without any carrier agreement).The device also has a bunch of other features that place it well inside the mid-range niche instead of the low-end sector that price could imply. There’s a 1.5 GHz dual-core processor, a 4-inch 800 x 480 pix res touchscreen with Gorilla Glass, and 1 GB of RAM.

The HTC 603e is now official and it's a mid-range smartphone tailored for the Chinese market, as we expected.Pricing is set at 1799 yuan, which equals to about $290. The device is ready for pre-orders starting today.It is a dual-SIM handset running Android 4.1 Jelly Bean with HTC's very own Sense custom interface, a dual-core 1.15GHz processor with the 4.3-inch LCD2 display.Further specs include a 5-megapixel main camera with f/2.

Sprint is preparing to add another ZTE-made smartphone to its portfolio: as we have been informed, the upcoming ZTE Quantum (N8910) is being tested by the Now Network.It is a solid mid-ranger with specs that include a 5-inch 720p HD screen, 1.5GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 dual-core processor, 1GB of RAM, 13-megapixel rear camera, NFC, DLNA and 4G LTE connectivity support.Release date is unknown and the same goes for price.

The Optimus 4X HD and Optimus L7, both released in the summer of 2012 with on-board Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich are to be bumped to the next software level by the end of March.The 4.1 updating will start with the unlocked versions of the two mid-rangers, but you can hope to get Jelly Bean on carrier-locked models soon too.The changelog includes all customary JB treats, like Google Now integration and Project Butter performance enhancements, as well as a few LG-specific goodies and bug fixes.

It seems AT&T and LG are rolling out an official Android 4.0 ICS software bump for the Thrill 4G.Finally, the device initially released with Android 2.2 Froyo back in the summer of 2011, got a 2.3 Gingebread update about a year ago and now joins the happy Ice Cream Sandwich club.Even if 4.0 ICS is itself a pretty dated version of Android, the upgrade will mean the world for Thrill 4G users, as it’ll bring numerous performance enhancements, much needed bug fixes, a redesigned smoother interface and a bunch of new features, widgets, apps and so on.