The next-generation iPad will feature a larger battery and a new camera, according to RepairLabs. The website obtained what it claims to be the rear shell of the upcoming iPad 3 from an industry insider in China. After examining the shell and comparing it to an iPad 2 case, RepairLabs noticed the mounts for the logic board were quite different, meaning the board itself will likely be a different shape. The rear case also apparently reveals that the iPad 3 will include a larger battery pack, in line with earlier rumors. The device is also expected to have a “different camera” as well, and the site suggests the front display will also be new. There has been speculation that the next-generation iPad would be slightly thicker, but the site claims that could be false after examining the rear case. Apple is expected to unveil the iPad 3 next month.

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Nokia said on Twitter Wednesday that a second software update will roll out to Lumia 800 devices over the next two weeks. It is largely expected that the update will help fix the poor battery life that has plagued some, but not all, Lumia 800 users. Nokia has already addressed the battery issue, which limits the capacity of the battery, and has even recommended that those with the problem send their devices in for replacement phones.

[Via The Verge]

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Samsung understands that battery life is a big problem when it comes to smartphones. The company is looking to fix that, however, promising that all Samsung smartphones coming out this year will last all day on a single charge with average to moderately heavy use. “When you wake up to when you go to bed, we don’t want you feeling anxiety about your battery life,” Samsung VP of product innovation Kevin Packingham said in an interview with CNET. Motorola recently announced the DROID RAZR MAXX, a variant of the DROID RAZR featuring a massive 3,300 mAh battery. Samsung will also move to larger batteries, though the company plans to focus on optimizing different aspects of the phone as well, according to Packingham. The changes will come from the way a phone acts when searching for Wi-Fi, to the way it connects to 4G LTE networks. Packingham acknowledged that Samsung “wasn’t quite there yet,” in regards to the company’s first 4G LTE smartphone, the DROID Charge. Despite these upcoming improvements, Packingham noted that power users will always face problems with battery life.

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Apple will launch a new high-end iPad model in early 2012 featuring a battery that includes more than twice the capacity of the current iPad 2 battery. Citing anonymous sources from within Apple’s supply chain, DigiTimes recently reported that Apple’s upcoming next-generation flagship iPad will feature a new 14,000 mAh battery, as will a new mid-range iPad model. The new power pack will feature more than twice the capacity of the 6,500 mAh battery currently used in Apple’s iPad 2. DigiTimes also reported late Wednesday that Apple’s 2012 iPad lineup will include three models: a low-end iPad 2, likely available at a discount compared to current pricing, a mid-range next-generation iPad and a high-end model. The new mid-range and high-end models will also reportedly feature an upgraded 2,048 x 1,536-pixel displays with dual-LED backlighting.

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Nokia’s European support team has issued an official statement to those who have a Lumia 800 with poor battery life. “We immediately started to investigate these reports and can now confirm that while the battery itself is fine, a software problem on certain variants is limiting the phone’s ability to access the full battery capacity,” a Nokia representative wrote on the support forums Monday. Michael explained that the battery life issues are only the result of a software flaw and, as such, Lumia 800 owners can expect a software patch that fixes the problem early next year. Lumia 800 users who do not want to wait that long can contact Nokia and request a replacement handset. Hit the break for Nokia’s explanation of how to find out whether or not your Lumia 800 is affected by the bug.

Anyone who wants to know if their phone is affected can run the battery status test from the diagnostics tool already installed on their phone. (The tool is designed for service use and only displays approximate values.) Dialling ##634# opens the diagnostics tool. By accepting the disclaimer and then selecting ‘Battery Status’ from the list of options, anyone will be able to see their available battery charge capacity.  If your full charge capacity reads less than 1000 mAh then your phone is affected with this specific issue and you may find it is necessary to charge your phone more frequently than normal.

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Fat battery pack accessories may soon be a thing of the past. Scientists at Northwestern University are tweaking lithium-ion batteries to last 10 times longer and charge 10 times faster than the battery technology used today, BBC reported recently. Better yet, the new tech could be on the market in just 5 years. Oddly enough, it appears that poking “millions of minuscule holes” that are just 20-40 nanometers wide, and changing the movement and density of lithium ion cells, helps to add battery life and speed up the charging process. A prototype phone battery in Northwestern’s labs can be fully charged in just 15 minutes and it lasts an entire week on a single charge, BBC said. Dr. Harold Kung, the lead scientist on the project, explained that the speed and density of lithium ions can be changed using different materials during the battery’s manufacturing process. “Even after 150 charges, which would be one year or more of operation, the battery is still five times more effective than lithium-ion batteries on the market today,” Dr. Kung said. Unfortunately, battery life begins to decline quickly after about 150 charges with the technology in its current state. 

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Apple has already released two beta versions of its iOS 5.0.1 software to developers, but now it is beginning to seed the software update to several end users through AppleSeed as well. The update is expected to offer improvements to the Siri voice engine and should address issues many users have been having with battery life. Participants who choose to test the new iOS build will not be able to revert to an earlier version after upgrading, but they will be able to upgrade to the final patch when Apple releases it in the next few weeks. Read on for more.

In addition, 9to5Mac published a memo on Tuesday that reportedly advises Apple Store employees on how to deal with customers who are complaining about battery issues. The memo, captured in a screenshot, says: “A small number of customers have reported lower than expected battery life on iOS 5 devices. If you are helping one of these customers, follow standard procedure to rule out any hardware issues with the device. If no hardware issues are found, let the customer know that Apple has found a few bugs in iOS 5 affecting battery life and Apple will release a software update to address those in a few weeks.” A screenshot of the employee memo follows below.

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We have seen a number of reports suggesting that the Apple iPhone 4S has a software bug that has resulted in poor battery life. iDownloadBlog says that adjusting the time zone settings on the iPhone might help alleviate the issue. Reportedly, a bug within iOS 5 forces the phone’s location tracking feature to remain active far more than it should, which in turn drains the phone’s battery too quickly. Users can manually turn off the automatic time zone setting by navigating to Settings > General > Date & Time and toggling “Set Automatically” to “Off.” Other users, however, have suggested that the time zone function has nothing to do with the poor battery life, which has left some people fighting to squeeze more than just a few hours of battery life from their iPhone. Apple has yet to release an official patch to address those with poor battery performance, but we suggest adjusting your time zone settings to see if that helps in the meantime. In our independent tests, we’ve found that disabling the setting does improve battery life to some degree, though none of our units were as bad as many users are reporting even with the setting enabled.

[Via PCMag]

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The crew at iFixit has given the iPhone 4S its proper tear-down, revealing the phone’s inner workings and hardware. iFixit noticed that the battery offers an extra 0.5 WHrs over the one found in the iPhone 4, which is likely the reason Apple is able to advertise an additional 1-hour of 3G talk time on the iPhone 4S compared to its predecessor. The phone is equipped with a Qualcomm RTR8605 radio, an Avago ACPM-7181 power amplifier and of course a dual-core 1GHz Apple A5 processor, which has been downclocked to 800MHz. Be sure to hit the jump for a few more images of the iPhone 4S teardown. Deliveries of Apple’s new smartphone begin on Friday, and in the meantime be sure to check out our hands-on with the iPhone 4S.

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Apple has secured Simplo Technology Co. and Dynapack International Technology Corp. to supply battery packs for the vendor’s upcoming iPad 3 tablet, Taiwan Economic News reported on Tuesday. According to the report, the new batteries will be thinner and lighter than the modules used in Apple’s current iPad 2 models, and Apple’s cost for the power packs will apparently jump by between 20% and 30% as a result. The report also states that Apple’s new iPad 3 batteries will feature a longer service life than the previous-generation packs used in the iPad 2. A thinner, lighter battery could mean Apple is conserving space for a new beefier Retina Display, or it could mean Apple is slimming down the iPad 3 case from the iPad 2′s already-svelte 0.34-inch-thick profile. Apple is expected to launch the iPad 3 early next year.

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How’s this for an undocumented feature? Apple’s newer MacBook, MacBook Air and MacBook Pro notebooks have a security flaw that can allow hackers to remotely prevent the batteries from charging. Better yet, hackers can exploit the same flaw and remotely cause batteries to explode. Apple laptops’ new “smart” battery technology is intended to provide added control over power management, and it does just that. Unfortunately, it also gives hackers added control because the microcontroller chip that ships in recent Apple laptops can be accessed remotely using a default password shared by each and every notebook. Charlie Miller, the security expert who discovered the vulnerability, plans to showcase the flaw next month at the Black Hat security conference. There, Miller will show that he is able to access the battery controller remotely and cause it to refuse a charge, or even heat up until it catches fire and explodes. “These batteries just aren’t designed with the idea that people will mess with them,” Miller told Forbes last week. “What I’m showing is that it’s possible to use them to do something really bad.” Thankfully, the security expert also intends to showcase a fix for the flaw, which Apple will hopefully implement as soon as possible.

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According to a report from CIO, BlackBerry users who installed RIM’s latest update for the tablet’s QNX operating system are now experiencing weakened battery life. The recent 1.0.3 software update introduced BlackBerry Messenger (BBM) and video chat to the device, but it also appears to have had a substantial impact on battery life, possibly reducing it by 11% or more. RIM addressed the issue by suggesting that users accept the new license agreement for video chat, which may drain the battery if left unchecked, and the company also suggested that users fully charge and discharge the PlayBook battery several times in order to restore full function. Many users report that neither proposed solution has has an impact on the weakened battery life, however.

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Samsung Russia has confirmed that it will launch a new version of the popular Galaxy S Android smartphone next month. The Galaxy S 2011 edition will ship with Android 2.3 and also feature a new metal back cover. The phone packs a faster 1.4GHz Qualcomm MSM8255T Snapdragon processor — as opposed to the 1GHz Samsung Hummingbird CPU in the original — as well as a 14.4Mbps HSPA+ radio and a larger 1,650mAh battery. The rest of the hardware remains identical to the original; that includes a 4-inch Super AMOLED display, 8GB of internal storage, Bluetooth 3.0, 5 megapixel camera capable of recording 720p HD video, and more. The Galaxy S 2011 edition is expected to hit Russia next month for 24,000 rubles ($846 USD). There’s no word if the 2011 edition will ever be available in other countries. Hit the jump for Samsung Russia’s blog post.

[Via Engadget]

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Software version 4.1.57 for the Motorola ATRIX 4G is now available. The 17MB file, issued by Motorola, adds a number of improvements but is not the expected AT&T update that includes HSUPA support. After downloading the update, Motorola says users should notice the following changes:

• Bluetooth: Improved multimedia experience with Bluetooth devices as well as the ability to use phone with additional headsets.
• Fingerprint reader: Improved fingerprint reader performance.
• Battery: Improved battery performance for longer battery life.
• Screen: Display will turn off automatically now while charging directly on wall charger.
• Phone stability: Improved stability resulting in fewer occurrences of touch unresponsiveness and/of programs quitting unexpectedly.
• Car dock: Improved performance of car dock and 3.5mm jack.

It’s been reported that the update may cause some issues with those who have rooted their phones. AT&T has said that the upcoming HSUPA software update, which should ratchet up upload speeds on the ATRIX 4G and Inspire 4G, will land in April. Hit the jump for instructions on installing software version 4.1.57 on your ATRIX 4G.

[Via Engadget]

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With the ThunderBolt, HTC has delivered yet another “first 4G smartphone” following its EVO 4G for Sprint (and the often forgotten MAX 4G introduced in 2008). It’s the first handset to run on Verizon’s brand new 4G LTE network, and it’s an Android smartphone powerhouse that is easily the fastest smartphone on the planet in terms of data speeds. That’s not to say the device is perfect, however. The release of Verizon’s first 4G handset was pushed back several times, spanning almost two months, and I’m not so sure all of the wrinkles were ironed out even after all of the delays. But the ThunderBolt is finally here and I’ve spent some quality time with it over the past week or so. Read on to see if this is not only the fastest smartphone on the planet, but one of the best as well.

Hardware / Build quality

The HTC ThunderBolt packs a punch in the specifications department. In addition to being the first Verizon handset to be released with 4G LTE compatibility, the ThunderBolt stays at the top of the smartphone pack with competitive specs like a 1GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon processor, a 4.3-inch Super LCD display, an 8-megapixel camera with dual-LED flash, and more.

As far as the build quality of the HTC ThunderBolt is concerned, it’s a tank — but I’ll get to that part in a moment. The ThunderBolt seems to be very well manufactured in typical HTC style; it feels very sturdy, durable, and solid. There are no creaks, no parts wiggling, and nothing I could conceivably see being an issue down the road with normal use and wear and tear.

The device is, however, extremely large and heavy. It’s one of the widest, thickest, and heaviest smartphones on the market. It absolutely dwarfs an iPhone 4, for instance, and it could pretty easily could swallow a T-Mobile myTouch 4G in a couple bites. It doesn’t necessarily feel as thick as it looks thanks to the heavily tapered edges, but some slick tapering can’t do anything to mask the phone’s heft. Another thing that just might be a personal niggle is the kickstand… I mean, I just can’t honestly ever see myself using it in any scenario. As heavy as the ThunderBolt is, I would like to have seen HTC strip out as much as possible, and the kickstand definitely could have been stripped.

The design identity of the ThunderBolt is typical HTC — literally, aside from little changes here and there, one HTC device could pass for another most of the time these days. The ThunderBolt specifically doesn’t seem to offer much in the way of differentiation beyond its bulk, at least, and its design seems dated. Compared to, say, the aluminum unibody HTC Inspire 4G, the ThunderBolt just feels kind of last year. That, coupled with the viciously thick and heavy body makes it hard to swallow from a hardware perspective alone. Thankfully that’s not all a smartphone is nowadays.

Display

The 4.3-inch display on the HTC ThunderBolt is beautiful. The viewing angles are here are straight up incredible — noticeably better than the HTC EVO’s screen. Colors are very rich, whites are bright, and text is pretty crisp. With such a big display, however, the 800 x 480-pixel WVGA resolution shows its shortcomings. This is a common issue among devices with larger displays: since they spread the same number of pixels over a larger surface compared to modern sub-4-inch displays, the result is a less impressive picture. The ThunderBolt’s display is still great, but I would have loved to see one of HTC’s qHD displays on here.

Software

The ThunderBolt runs the latest version of HTC’s Sense UI and for all intents and purposes, this is about the same experience as any other HTC Android handset released in the past year or so. There’s really no need to get into this for the millionth time — it’s Froyo with HTC Sense. We should all know it very well by now. If you’re a fan of HTC’s customized UI, you’ll be pleased to know that the experience is still tip top, and coupled with LTE data, a 1GHz processor and 768MB of RAM, it’s speedy and responsive as well. If you’re an Android purist on the other hand, you’re going to have some major issues.

Noticeably absent from the ThunderBolt is the much-touted Skype app with support for video calling. We’re not sure why it wasn’t included on the ThunderBolt, though there are most certainly other video calling apps available for download in the Android Market. It would have been great to have some clarification on why Skype didn’t make it on here though, considering how popular the service is compared to other video chat solutions.

4G LTE

In a word? Wow. As soon as I picked up my review unit from Verizon’s headquarters in Basking Ridge, NJ, I was in 4G LTE heaven. Heading back toward New York City, I was cruising along at download speeds of around 15Mbps. As I set the device up, all of my Android apps reappeared on the ThunderBolt almost immediately with no effort from my end. Web pages load at desktop-like speeds in the Android browser and apps that move data seemed to breathe sighs of relief compared to how they run on other Android devices. I really hope Verizon’s LTE network can maintain this level of performance once it actually has a fair amount of traffic on it, but since 4G is a much different beast than 3G, I’m confident Verizon’s 4G network will maintain a high level of performance.

Things look great over the ThunderBolt’s Wi-Fi hotspot feature as well, with no speed degradation that I could see. In fact, I was continually hitting speeds above 20Mbps with my MacBook Air connected to the ThunderBolt. It is pretty incredible to think that this is over a cellular connection, especially for any of us who remember using tedious WAP pages on a tiny black and white cell phone display in years past. Verizon’s 4G LTE service is truly the next generation of fast — it’s easily the fastest cellular network I’ve ever tested.

Phone calls / Speakerphone

Voice quaily is decent on the ThunderBolt, but not great. As far as the ear speaker is concerned, I’m not a fan of what HTC delivered on its handsets in this regard recently, and that includes the EVO 4G. These phones are always uncomfortable to talk with, and some even sound like you’re talking on a tin can. Unfortunately, the ThunderBolt falls into that category for me. I would have loved the ear speaker to be a tad lounder in certain environments, and additionally, calls just didn’t sound that clear to me. Callers on the other end weren’t overly impressed with the quality of voice calls either, and some went as far as to use particularly colorful language to describe the audio quality. I’ll spare you the details.

Another problem comes into play when speakerphone is enabled, and this is an area where HTC typically shines so I was disappointed. When the loudspeaker is used while the kickstand is closed, the audio becomes slightly muffled. It’s not severe, but it is something to take note of and something that definitely annoyed me. It’s clear enough in most cases, but in noisy environments I found myself wishing I could eke a little more out of it. Callers also told me that I sounded a little “staticky” while on speakerphone, but I was still audible and I was never asked to speak up or repeat something I said.

Talk and Surf

Uh oh. AT&T has really focused on the remarkable capability its phones possess that allows them to make voice calls and move data simultaneously. Verizon Wireless phones have historically not had this ability. I would argue that “talk and surf” capability is hardly as important as a vocal minority makes it seem to be, but that’s neither here nor there. The bottom line is that AT&T’s advertising firm now has its work cut out for it.

The HTC ThunderBolt is able to send and receive data and carry voice calls simultaneously. It the first of many Verizon Wireless smartphones that will be able to carry voice calls while moving data, and it can do so over Verizon’s new 4G LTE network as well as its older 3G EVDO network. I tested this capability a great deal over the past week, and it has worked flawlessly for me. Whether connected to 3G or 4G, apps and web pages on the ThunderBolt continue to hustle along while voice calls are being made. I’m not sure if this new technology plays a role in the noticeably degraded audio quality I noted above, but the functionality is there so and many users will be elated.

Battery

The ThunderBolt’s battery is obviously a major point of discussion. How does the Verizon Wireless’ first 4G LTE smartphone do in the real world? Well, not that great to be honest — especially with a 1400 mAh battery. Over 3G, the ThunderBolt can easily power through a normal workday. On 4G, however, I couldn’t get more than around 4.5 hours of usage at best… a figure that is not at all acceptable to me.

What makes matters worse is the fact that 4G can’t be switched on and off by the user. There is no widget to disable LTE and there’s not even a menu setting you can check on and off to enable or disable 4G. While there is a method floating around to do this by entering into the phone’s field test mode, this doesn’t even come close to cutting it. While enthusiasts might be comfortable with a “hack” like this, the average consumer will never even know the option exists. Other 4G smartphones like the HTC EVO 4G and the Google Nexus S 4G have a simple widget that disables 4G, and it really helps with battery life. When users don’t have a need for speed, they should definitely have an easy way to turn LTE off and stretch out that puny battery.

Verizon has an extended 2750mAh battery that will effectively double the battery life of the ThunderBolt. To be honest, the extended battery adds so much extra thickness and weight to a phone that’s already way too thick and too heavy, there’s no way I would even consider using it regularly. Most people will likely feel the same way and a widget to disable 4G would have been a much cheaper and more user-friendly way to fix the battery life problem. I get that Verizon wants to deliver a consistant user experience that showcases its beastly new 4G network, but I don’t think a 4G widget would have detracted from that experience or confused anyone.

Conclusion

The HTC ThunderBolt is a phone from the future in many ways. It delivers the fastest internet speeds of any device I have ever tested (at least 2-3 times faster than anything else, in fact), and it runs on a very fast (and customized) version of Android to deliver great performance. In many ways, however, the ThunderBolt resembles phones from a year or two ago — in styling and in thickness and heft.

I’m not a fan of any smartphone that features a display beyond 4-inches, and the sheer thickness and weight of the ThunderBolt makes it a non-starter for a role as my daily driver. In addition, the poor battery performance makes it a tough sell. It’s awesome that I can use the ThunderBolt to email presentations, download files and and stream video at ridiculous cellular data speeds, but all that means nothing if my battery dies after just a few hours of usage. That doesn’t necessarily mean that the HTC ThunderBolt isn’t the right device for you, however.

My advice is to definitely play with one in person at a Verizon Wireless store to see if the device is your perfect Android match. If you can look past the poor battery life — or if you don’t mind reinforcing your pants pockets so that the added weight and size of the extended battery doesn’t rip right through them — then you’ll find yourself with an amazingly fast smartphone packed with all the bells and whistles you need.