Apple may currently be prepping a huge display upgrade for its MacBook Pro line of notebook computers that would be on par with the bump from its iPhone 3GS display to the Retina Display on the iPhone 4. Citing sources from within Apple’s component supplier chain, DigiTimes on Wednesday reported that Apple will add new display panels to its MacBook Pro laptops in 2012 that pack a resolution of 2,880 x 1,800 pixels. The new displays would quadruple the resolution of the current 1,440 x 900-pixel screen on the 15-inch MacBook Pro, just as the 960 x 640-pixel Retina Display on the iPhone 4 quadrupled the iPhone 3GS’s 480 x 320-pixel panel. The report notes that both Acer and ASUS are planning high-end ultrabooks with upgraded 1920 x 1080-pixel displays next year as well, up from the 1,366 x 768-pixel displays used on early ultrabook models.

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The iPhone 5 display will be no larger than 4-inches according to panel suppliers speaking to DigiTimes, which also revealed that Apple will ditch the current glass case on the iPhone 4 for a metal-backed chassis on the next-generation iPhone 5. The iPhone 5 display is expected to be between 3.5 and 3.7 inches and the latest rumor is in line with earlier reports that suggested the phone will be thinner and lighter than the current iPhone 4. The iPhone 5 is also expected to offer an 8-megapixel camera. BGR recently reported that AT&T will launch the iPhone 5 in October according to statements made by a vice president with the carrier.

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Apple will turn to Samsung and Chimei Innolux to supply display panels for its iPad 2 after LG’s panels failed to meet Apple’s quality requirements. The quality issues with LG’s displays forced the company to miss its July monthly shipment goal by 1 million units, DigiTimes said. Reportedly, LG’s LCD backlight units failed during Apple’s drop tests. LG had hoped to ship 4 million LCD units per month during the third quarter, but only shipped an estimated 2.5-2.6 million units in July. Samsung, by comparison, provided the Cupertino-based firm with two million displays, or twice its monthly average. Chimei Innolux shipped 450,000 units during the month and the company has a new monthly shipment goal of 1 million – 1.5 million units. Despite quality issues, LG is expected to remain the top supplier of LCD displays, and rumor has it the Korea-based company is also working on new Retina screens for the next-generation iPad.

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Samsung has reportedly started to build a new high resolution version of its 7-inch Super AMOLED prototype displays. According to the Korean website etnews, Samsung is upping the resolution to 1024 x 768 pixels and will begin production of the new displays “soon.” Additionally, the sequel to the original 7-inch Galaxy Tab could land in North America as soon as this September, when it is largely expected that Apple will take the wraps off of its new iPad and iPhone products. We are definitely excited about redesigned Galaxy Tab with a Super AMOLED screen, we just hope Samsung packs it with Android Gingerbread this time around. Thankfully it sounds like we won’t have that long to wait until we find out.

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Listen up gaming fanatics. It looks like Nintendo’s Project Café, otherwise known as the Wii 2, has been caught on video thanks to a sneaky developer and their utter disregard of non-disclosure agreements. Aside from slides that showcase the “Screen Stream“ controllers, we see the Wii 2 console projected and lurking in the background as well. There appears to be a docking accessory — most likely for controller recharging — shown on the screen towards the end of the clip, although it is hard to tell as an audience member’s head obfuscates our view. The Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) is scheduled for next month from June 7th to 9th; don’t be surprised if the Wii 2 gets a lengthy preview from the folks at Nintendo. The video is waiting for you after the break.

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Apple is giving its Apple Stores a “Apple Store 2.0″ makeover, according to a rumor from 9to5 Mac. Reportedly, the stores — with design input from Steve Jobs himself — will feature new designated “startup session” areas where, presumably, new customers will be taught how to use and setup their new products. Similarly, Apple will replace signs in its stores with interactive iPad units, and will offer more interactive product bars. Cupertino isn’t skimping on multimedia, either, and is said to be outfitting its Apple Store 2.0 destinations with new audio systems and much larger displays. Rumor has it that Apple may also deploy a new Apple Store application for iOS devices that will allow users to schedule appointments as they walk into the store. Sounds like it could be a nice way to celebrate Apple’s 10th retail anniversary.

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Oh, you haven’t heard? Having a display with 326 pixels per inch (ppi) was so last year. In 2011, 367ppi reigns supreme. At this week’s SID 2011 conference, Japanese company Toshiba showcased a 4-inch LCD display with a 720 x 1280 pixel resolution and an impressive pixel density of 367ppi. The screen, which will come to market sometime this year, has a contrast ratio of 1000:1 and is capable of displaying video in native 720p. Much has been made of screen pixel-density, thanks in part to Apple coining the term “Retina display” with its launch of the iPhone 4. Apple’s latest smartphone features 326 pixels per inch, making the new Toshiba offering — with 41 extra pixels for every inch — better (or at least denser). What handset will be knighted with the new, ultra-crisp screen? We’re not sure, but we can’t wait to find out.

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Chinese blog 911Sniper has uncovered evidence of a new, HTC tablet with a 10-inch form factor. Being called the HTC Puccini, the Android 3.0.1 slate boasts a 1.5GHz Qualcomm MSM8660 processor, 1280 x 800 pixel WXGA resolution, HTC’s Sense experience, and an AT&T compatible LTE radio. The Puccini, should it come to market, would be a larger version of the company’s Flyer offering — complete with Scribe pen support. HTCSniper has a good track record when it comes to unearthing HTC hardware through ROM leaks, so we wouldn’t be too surprised to see this one get official in the near future. 

[Via Engadget]

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Sure we’ve had some up close and personal time with the Nexus S 4G before, but now we can finally spend some quality one-on-one time with it as we compose our full review. So far we’re impressed with the speed at which we can zip around Android 2.3.4 (Gingerbread), and we still love the contoured glass display. We’ve definitely been spoiled using the Super AMOLED Plus screens on the Samsung DROID Charge and the Samsung Infuse 4G, but our Nexus S 4G unit’s AMOLED display has a noticeable yellow tint that would bother us even if we hadn’t been using Samsung’s newer screens. Some users reported yellow discoloration on the original Nexus S after applying the Gingerbread update, so we’re hoping this could be a software fix or something that’s only limited to our phone. We’ll be working on a review over the next few days, but in the meantime be sure to check out our hands-on photo gallery.

I’ve spent more than a week living and breathing alongside the Samsung DROID Charge, Verizon’s second 4G LTE smartphone, and and it had some pretty big shoes to fill following Verizon’s first 4G LTE smartphone, the HTC ThunderBolt. The DROID Charge is loaded with all the trimmings you could ask for, including a huge Super AMOLED Plus display with colors that will blow your mind, an 8-megapixel camera that can shoot HD video, and of course, support for Verizon’s 4G LTE network. But do all of these features make it worth the $299 you’ll have to drop in order to own one? Hit the break for my full review to find out.

Hardware / Display

Samsung told me that the “pet name” for the DROID Charge was the “Stealth,” and that’s certainly an accurate description of its industrial design. The area below the phone’s large 4.3-inch screen tapers down to a small chin, and its rounded edges, glossy mirror gray finish, and sharp accents around the camera lens definitely add to its fighter-jet style. Samsung’s Super AMOLED Plus display is one of the clearest, brightest, and sharpest screens I’ve ever seen on a smartphone. The display offers even deeper blacks than the Super AMOLED screen on Samsung’s Galaxy S phones, which is really saying a lot. Colors are stunning and you really just have to see it to understand the beauty, but a beautiful screen this size comes at a cost; the DROID Charge definitely has a bit of heft at just over 5 ounces, but at just 0.46-inches slim it easily slid into my pocket.

Unlike the Galaxy S devices before it, the DROID Charge has hardware keys below the screen instead of touch-sensitive buttons. The keys have nice bounce and each has a soft white backlight that illuminates while the screen is activated. Under the hood the DROID Charge runs on a 1GHz processor, which is a bit lower powered than the dual-core NVIDIA Tegra 2 devices that have started to infiltrate the market. Still, there’s 512MB of RAM that helps speed things up a bit, and our unit came with a 32GB microSD card so there’s more than enough space to store videos, music, and photos. A 32GB microSD card runs about $60 on Amazon, so I’m starting to see why the DROID Charge is priced as high as it is.

One feature that I really enjoyed using was HDMI-out. You can purchase movies from Media Hub for about $9.99 each, or move files over to the phone using your USB cable, and then output them to an HDTV using a mini-HDMI cable. There were a few hiccups in the frame rates, but otherwise the movie played without a hitch. I’ll revisit this a bit more in the camera section of the review.

Software

Here’s where things get a bit stale: The DROID Charge runs Android 2.2 (Froyo) with Samsung’s custom TouchWiz user interface on top. I’m not a big fan of TouchWiz — it’s too cartoony looking, the widgets are always larger than necessary, and they don’t use screen real estate efficiently. There are several useful features, like the ability to sync Twitter or Facebook with your address book, but generally TouchWiz turns me off. Thankfully, the DROID Charge’s processor hummed along just fine despite the UI, which can slow things down just a bit on other devices. There are  also other small issues that drive me mad about TouchWiz, though — like its black e-mail interface — and at times I just wish Samsung had stuck with a vanilla version of Android on the Charge.

The Charge’s virtual keyboard mirrors those on Samsung’s Galaxy S devices, and I’m not a fan. The space bar is too small and seems to be positioned too far to the left; half the time I try to type a space I end up hitting the period button instead. This, of course, is where third-party developers come in, and I definite;y recommend installing your third-party keyboard of choice on the Charge.

There’s a fair amount of bloatware on the phone including VerizonApps, a Guided Tour, VZ Navigator, TuneWiki, City ID, Bitbop, and more. Thankfully, though, Verizon chose to use Google as the default search option on the DROID Charge, which is a welcome change from the Fascinate.

Calling / Data

The call quality on the DROID Charge was clear during my tests and I had no issue with dropped calls in New York City or during a trip to Orlando for BlackBerry World. Friends and family on the other end of the line said I sounded good, and the ear speaker was loud enough even while walking on busy streets. The speakerphone had adequate volume as well, but voices were distorted at higher levels. Callers said I sounded fine on speakerphone and they couldn’t tell I wasn’t directly talking into the handset.

The DROID Charge is Verizon’s second phone capable of placing phone calls while surfing the Internet, and this feature worked perfectly during my tests. I looked up a quick place to eat lunch while I had a friend on speakerphone, and I didn’t notice any drop in call quality or data speeds. BGR Editor in Chief Jonathan Geller, in his ThunderBolt review, wondered if perhaps the poor voice quality on that phone was related to the talk / surf feature, and I’m glad to report that’s not the case with the Charge.

Data speeds on Verizon’s 4G LTE network regularly exceeded 20Mbps on the downlink in New York City, and I typically saw upload speeds around 4Mbps. The download speeds are faster than you’ll find on any other U.S. carrier hands-down and are even on a par with home network connections.

There are drawbacks to being an early adopter, however. During my first week of testing Verizon’s 4G LTE network, it went down for just over 24 hours. Users weren’t compensated for the downtime, and I couldn’t even access a 3G network during the outage. That’s a big deal, especially for business users or those of us who rely on our smartphones throughout most of the day. Similarly, while tethered to a laptop, I noticed that the signal dropped a number of times, and there are reports from some websites claiming the same issue — hopefully this is something that will be fixed in a future software update. I’m not dinging Verizon, though; it’s the first to roll-out such a high-speed network and there are bound to be small hiccups along the way.

Battery Life

The DROID Charge moniker is quite fitting as I found the 1,600mAh needed frequent charging under heavy 4G use. The phone offered up better battery life than the 4.5 hours Jonathan saw with the HTC ThunderBolt, but it still wasn’t great. Generally, I was able to go from about 7:00 a.m. until 2:30 p.m. with moderate usage on 4G.

If you need to save battery life, there’s an option under wireless network settings to use a CDMA network only. This let me place voice calls and use Verizon’s slower 3G EV-DO network for surfing the Web. It’s definitely a welcome change over the HTC ThunderBolt, which didn’t ship with that option, although an app is now available. With 3G enabled, I was able to get through a full work day with moderate usage. Unfortunately there isn’t a widget to quickly switch networks out of the box; that would certainly be a welcome addition, but I’m sure Android enthusiasts will whip something up to fix that.

Camera

There’s an 8-megapixel camera on the DROID Charge, and I used it to shoot a bunch of photos during a trip to Florida. Images were crisp and colors looked true in daylight. Photos look amazing on the Super AMOLED Plus screen, and they just had a little distortion when I pushed them out to my 32-inch TV using HDMI-out. Pictures snapped under incandescent lights had a decidedly orange hue to them, but were otherwise perfectly acceptable.

A night shot taken of a neon sign, without the flash, had brighter colors bleeding into the darker areas of the screen, even with the camera’s anti-shake feature activated. In lower light conditions, the single-LED  flash did a decent job grabbing our subject, too, but I prefer the dual-LED option on phones like the HTC ThunderBolt.

I shot several HD video clips in 720p, but the DROID Charge defaults to a 720 x 480 resolution, so you’ll want to be sure to activate the HD option for better video. The frame rates were fluid when I played the video back on the Charge’s display, and I was just as blown away when I watched the same clip on my TV using HDMI-out. The video and audio were both crisp and I didn’t notice any pixelation, even when panning the video around. One issue I did run into, though, is that the phone required a reboot when I unplugged the HDMI cable and then tried to plug it back in again to resume playback.

Wrap-up

If you’re looking for 4G speeds, the Samsung DROID Charge is the phone to beat — but you’ll need deep pockets. Sure, I’d take HTC’s Sense user interface over TouchWiz any day, but the DROID Charge offers a few things HTC’s ThunderBolt doesn’t, namely a gorgeous Super AMOLED Plus display and an out-of-the-box option to turn off 4G to save on battery life, which meant I was able to get through a full day with moderate usage when I didn’t need to surf the Web at blazing fast speeds.

The DROID Charge is priced at $299, which is $50 more expensive than its only 4G LTE competitor, the ThunderBolt. That’s for good reason, however. It offers better battery life, a killer display, clearer phone calls, and a much less bulky design — easily worth the $50 difference. Sure, Verizon has a number of new 4G LTE smartphones coming down the pipeline, but if you want in on the carrier’s blazing fast data now, the DROID Charge is your best bet, hands-down.

Here are a couple of leaks to kick off your Friday morning: the HTC Kingdom (left) and the HTC Rider (right) were both spotted and photographed recently by 911Sniper. Specs for the Rider and the Kingdom are slim, so we can only report on what’s apparent in the images. Both phones clearly run Android and appear to have 4.3-inch 960 x 540 qHD displays, although even that’s not confirmed. The circles around the main icons on the Rider remind us of an EVO device (perhaps this is Sprint bound?), and we definitely dig the red exterior. We doubt this is the last we’ll see of both phones, so we’re looking forward to clearer shots and more spec leaks in the coming weeks and months.

[Via Engadget]

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Is the image above the DROID 3? An OEM parts retailer named Global Redirects Parts seems to think so, but it also refers to the device as “Targa.” As we understand it, “Targa” is actually the name for Motorola’s DROID Bionic, due out later this summer, so it’s unclear if this is just a snafu on the retailer’s part. Still, the image does appear to be on a par with other DROID 3 leaked photos we’ve seen. There’s little we can tell from the image other than that the device has a front-facing camera on the top right of the phone, and that it seems to have a slightly larger screen than the DROID and DROID 2. Neither Motorola nor Verizon Wireless have confirmed the existence of this phone, so the DROID 3 remains pure speculation for now. Hit the jump for a few more images.

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iPhone 4GS and iPhone 5 rumors are so played out. Might as well move on to the iPhone 6, right? Blog AppleInsider is reporting that Apple, Inc. has selected Sharp Electronics as the display supplier for its next, next smartphone — being called the iPhone 6. The information comes courtesy of Japanese newspaper Nikkan, who writes that the purported agreement will have Sharp producing p-Si LCD displays for the iPhone maker — not OLED as previous rumors have suggested. The benefits of p-Si LCD displays include higher aperture ratios, better durability, and fewer connecting pins — the screens are also said to be thinner and lighter than the current LCD screen employed by the iPhone 4. The report states that the new screens will be made at Sharp’s “Kameyama Plant No. 1.” No word on the size or pixel density of the new screens, but just give it time… it is iPhone rumor season after all.  

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It looks like PC manufacturer Lenovo is planning to throw its hat into the tablet ring, and a detailed report filed by This is my next explains what the Chinese OEM may have up its sleeve. According to the blog, Lenovo is working on a 10.1-inch, NVIDIA Tegra 2 powered slate that packs quite a punch. The device, which will run Google’s Honeycomb operating system, will come in one of three now-standard tablet storage configurations: 16GB, 32GB, and 64GB and has a target release date of July. The aforementioned 10.1-inch IPS window will boast as 1280 x 800 pixel resolution which will facilitate control of the tablet’s hardware features: 3G and 4G cellular connectivity, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, full-sized SD card slot, HDMI-out, and a laptop-like docking station. The tablet, like much of Lenovo’s hardware, seems to be geared towards the corporate buyer — there are slides dedicated to Cisco, McAfee and Symantec integration and security. But if we know our readers (and we think we do), there will be a few of you adding this tablet to your technology war chest upon its release.

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Samsung is starting to advertise its new flagship Android smartphone, the Galaxy S II. In its first commercial spot, the Galaxy S II’s screen is portrayed as being so realistic, you are compelled to drown it in a tank of water… or something like that. The twenty-one second spot pimps the phone’s Super AMOLED Plus prowess, albeit in a rather boring fashion. Regardless, if you’re interested in seeing the G-rated commercial it’s waiting for you after the break.

[Via Android Central]