The increasingly less mysterious HTC phone, known for now as the M7, may have a release date that's just weeks away.
That's according to HTC Source, which on Wednesday reported that an unnamed source had divulged when consumers would see the phone.
The Taiwanese company's next flagship Android handset will be released on March 8, following a press conference on Feb. 19, according to this source.
HTC will officially unveil the M7 at that press event, said the source, a claim that falls in line with information from TechRadar's own sources.
M7 rumors
While we know that the M7 will be officially unveiled on Feb. 19, all we've got to go off are rumors and leaks when it comes to the phone's specs.
It's been said that the Android handset will feature a 4.7-inch 1080p display, a 13-megapixel camera, and Android 4.2: Jelly Bean.
These details are subject to change, of course.
M7 in white and silver?
In addition to the release date, HTC Source's tipster also reported that the M7 will come in a white and silver finish in addition to the black version that's already been spotted.
HTC Source speculated that there could be some aluminum involved on the M7's chassis, but we likely won't know for sure until that Feb. 19 HTC event.
Just to be sure, TechRadar asked HTC to find out whether any of these details can be confirmed.
The company responded simply that it does not comment on rumors or speculation.
BlackBerry 10 will arrive eventually on all PlayBook tablets, the company announced at the BB10 launch event on Wedneday.
And yes, it's just BlackBerry now - don't forget that Research in Motion is no more.
Wednesday's BlackBerry 10 event served to officially introduce the new OS and BB's new devices to the world, with simultaneous events going down in New York, Toronto, London, Johannesburg, New Delhi and Jakarta.
The BlackBerry PlayBook news was only one small part of a much bigger show, but no doubt there are some PlayBook users out there who are grateful they haven't been forgotten.
BlackBerry 10 on PlayBook
BB10's eventual arrival on PlayBooks is nothing new; Research in Motion (when it was still Research in Motion) confirmed as much last March, almost a year ago.
But it was great to hear on Wednesday that plan hadn't changed.
PCMag's Sascha Segan helped break the news on Twitter, and responses from other Twitter users ranged from the predictable "people still have/use those?" to outright beggin ("Please PLEASE! Make the BB Browser Fast!").
BlackBerry provided no time frame for the PlayBook's BB10 upgrade, and spokespeople for the company informed TechRadar that they have nothing more to share at this time.
BlackBerry 10 launch event
Wednesday was a day of revelations for BlackBerry fans, and the PlayBook BB10 reminder was probably least among them.
The newly-renamed company also launched BlackBerry 10 officially worldwide, finally unveiled the first BB10 handset, the BlackBerry Z10 (even confirming its UK release date as Jan. 31), and discussed the QWERTY-equipped BlackBerry Q10.
No doubt 2013 will prove an exciting year for BlackBerry and BlackBerry fans alike.
A Motorola job listing that requires experience is no surprise, but the same cannot be said if that ad includes another "X" word, the X Phone, Google's rumored Motorola smartphone.
Sure enough, someone from the company posted a LinkedIn ad looking for "Senior Director of Project Management, X Phone" candidates for its Sunnyvale, CA offices.
Google must have realized its mistake, as the job ad has been pulled and replaced with a simple message: "Sr Director Product Managment (sic), X-Phone at Motorola Mobility. The job you're looking for is no longer active."
A similar job ad, minus the revealing X Phone title, is still available via Motorola's official careers website.
Motorola X Phone rumored specs, announcement
The details of the LinkedIn version of the ad were captured by Phandroid. Sadly, compared to the blunt X Phone job title, the description remained vague, offering no hard specs or release date.
Be that as it may, this was the first, albeit unintended, admission from Google that the X Phone does exist. Previously, the codename for the Google-Motorola smartphone was only a rumor.
Conjecture has the X Phone's specs debuting the Android 5.0 Key Lime Pie OS update, and sporting a virtually bezel-less edge-to-edge 5-inch display.
With the Google I/O conference coming up in May, the mysterious X Phone could make an appearance along with Motorola's first tablet under Google, the X Tablet.
In the meantime, TechRadar will keep its eyes open for more X Phone or even X Tablet listings, and maybe even a Google human resources job listing, just in case this unintended reveal happens again.
Some leaked information suggests that the new flavour of Android, dubbed Key Lime Pie, will be coming our way between April and June 2013, with a new Nexus phone in tow.
This doesn't come as all that much of a surprise since - guess what - Google I/O takes place in May 2013, and we'd expect to see Android 5.0 unveiled at the conference.
The documents made mention of two new Snapdragon devices landing in the third quarter of the year and another arriving in the second.
Stop the presses
What makes this leak interesting is that a number of sites published screen grabs of a leaked Qualcomm roadmap that laid out the Key Lime Pie and next Nexus release timing; but the sites were all required to take the images down at Qualcomm's request.
Now, that doesn't technically mean anything but roadmap leaks happen fairly frequently and aren't often subject to mass takedowns; so it seems possible that the leak was legit and Qualcomm's info was on the money.
And that? That's the sound of the barn door slamming shut as the horse disappears over the horizon.
Still, it wasn't really anything we couldn't have surmised ourselves - Android 5.0 at Google I/O? Check. New Google Nexus phone and other Snapdragon handsets on their way? Not exactly a shocker.
The stylus should have died when then-Apple CEO Steve Jobs introduced the original iPhone at Macworld 2007, but thanks to the efforts of Samsung and others it's managed to cling to life.
And now Samsung has proved its dedication to stylus-based touch interfaces by making a $58.9 million (UK£37 million, AU$56.4 million) investment in Wacom, makers of styluses (styli?) and drawing and design tablets.
The investment, revealed on Thursday, earned Samsung a five percent stake in the Japanese stylus maker.
Samsung's stylus buy-in didn't come as a complete surprise, as Wacom's technology has already been used in the Galaxy Note, Galaxy Note 2 and other Samsung devices.
Samsung puts a ring on the stylus
What Samsung has demonstrated with its investment in the stylus technology company Wacom is a dedication to the stylus itself.
Where most smartphone owners are content to use their fingers or thumbs, some still prefer the more precise controls provided by a stylus.
That's where Samsung's S-Pen-equipped smartphones come in, not to mention newer devices like the Alcatel One Touch Scribe HD, just revealed at CES.
With this latest development in the saga of the stylus, it seems those options for precision-minded smartphone users aren't about to disappear.
What does it mean?
Still, it's not clear exactly what will come of the latest development in Samsung's quest to keep the stylus relevant, but you can probably bet on seeing S-Pens with more devices in the future.
Even the Samsung Galaxy S4 could come with an S-Pen stylus, according to one report.
TechRadar has reached out to Samsung to see if we can glean any more hints from the company, but so far we haven't heard back.
The stylus should have died when then-Apple CEO Steve Jobs introduced the original iPhone at Macworld 2007, but thanks to the efforts of Samsung and others it's managed to cling to life.
And now Samsung has proved its dedication to stylus-based touch interfaces by making a $58.9 million (UK£37 million, AU$56.4 million) investment in Wacom, makers of styluses (styli?) and drawing and design tablets.
The investment, revealed on Thursday, earned Samsung a five percent stake in the Japanese stylus maker.
Samsung's stylus buy-in didn't come as a complete surprise, as Wacom's technology has already been used in the Galaxy Note, Galaxy Note 2 and other Samsung devices.
Samsung puts a ring on the stylus
What Samsung has demonstrated with its investment in the stylus technology company Wacom is a dedication to the stylus itself.
Where most smartphone owners are content to use their fingers or thumbs, some still prefer the more precise controls provided by a stylus.
That's where Samsung's S-Pen-equipped smartphones come in, not to mention newer devices like the Alcatel One Touch Scribe HD, just revealed at CES.
With this latest development in the saga of the stylus, it seems those options for precision-minded smartphone users aren't about to disappear.
What does it mean?
Still, it's not clear exactly what will come of the latest development in Samsung's quest to keep the stylus relevant, but you can probably bet on seeing S-Pens with more devices in the future.
Even the Samsung Galaxy S4 could come with an S-Pen stylus, according to one report.
TechRadar has reached out to Samsung to see if we can glean any more hints from the company, but so far we haven't heard back.
There was time when things were simple: phones were supposed to be small, and the smaller they were, the more we wanted them.
Then smartphones taught us to tolerate a heftier handful, tablets raised our expectations of screen size, and now a new genre of device - the awkwardly named phablet - has emerged to fill the space between, putting pocket stitches to task and starting a conversation about the ideal display size.
"It's not a huge market, but it's doing pretty damn good," said Scott Steinberg, a tech analyst who runs TechSavvy Global, a strategic market and research firm.
But what's behind the great screen expansion, and just how far are consumers willing to stretch for these handsets?
Big and beautiful
Many of the plusses larger screen phones bring are inherent in the design: more real estate to view media, watch movies, take notes and read.
Chinese telecom company Huawei stormed CES 2013 with a bevy of large screened phones, the biggest among them the Ascend Mate, an Android that's home to a whopping 6.1-inch screen.
While some commentators were baffled by the Mate's expansiveness, Huawei Device, the company's electronic communications branch, said it had solid evidence that there is a market for the monster machine.
"Based on our extensive consumer research, we have found that a 6.1-inch smartphone display is the sweet spot for the moment," Huawei Device told TechRadar via email, explaining that this is "the optimal size" to provide "the functionality of a tablet with the portability and convenience of a smartphone." (However, this doesn't mean Huawei is abandoning other screen sizes.)
Those screens keep pushing further out
The Ascend Mate hasn't gone on sale yet - that won't happen until next month and only in China to start with - but its reception will set the pace and decide whether more manufacturers make a push towards voluminous screens.
Although the Mate is a bulky outlier, Steinberg sees that there's a perceptible trend for screen sizes to inch upward. "We're definitely seeing manufacturers push [towards larger screens]," he said. "The 5-to-6-inch range is where manufacturers want to play. It's only natural for a market that is maturing to develop into this space."
Birth of the Galaxy
Often referred to as "phablets", there's no formal definition of these phone-tablet hybrids, though it tends to mean "anything big enough to make you stare when someone pulls it out their pocket".
Joshua Flood, Senior Analyst for Devices, Applications and Content at tech research firm ABI Research, offered a definition in a January 22 post on the firm's website: phablets, he wrote, are phones with screens measuring between 4.6 inches and 6.5 inches diagonally across.
The first Galaxy Note is considered by many to have reignited interest in a phone with a palm-sized screen, measuring 5.3 inches. The Galaxy Note II followed, with a display that advanced on its predecessor's by 0.2 inches.
"The Note was really one of the first phablets to grab a toehold in the space," Steinberg said.
Others have since come along - the HTC Droid DNA's screen stretches to 5 inches, the Optimus G by LG comes in at 4.7 inches diagonally, and HTC's upcoming M7 looks to have the same screen size.
Sony's CES-revealed Xperia Z owns a 5-inch Full HD Reality Display, while the HTC Butterfly - China's version of the DNA - is massive enough to warrant its own NFC-connected helper handset, the HTC Mini.
The HTC Butterfly is so big it gets this helper handset
Meanwhile, the Galaxy S4, when it launches, should come with a 4.99-inch screen, a step up from its predecessor.
To put that in perspective, the first Galaxy S screen measured 4 inches, a size now commanded almost defiantly by Apple's iPhone 5.
According to ABI projections published by Flood, close to 83 million phablets were shipped in 2012, up by 4,504 per cent from 2011.
The 4.8-inch screened Galaxy S3, which (by Samsung's estimates) sold over 40 million between May 2012 and January 14, 2013, is credited with making up a large portion of that 83 million figure.
Phablet sales haven't gone meteoric, Steinberg noted, but consumers are buying enough to keep the market afloat if not growing.
Because we can, should we?
"It's sort of like science friction - just because we can do things, doesn't actually mean it adds benefit," Steinberg mused about screen size. "We're experimenting right now. There's not really a rhyme or reason as to why a phone has to be a certain size, why it goes from 4 inches to 5.5 to 6.1.
"It's largely a manufacturer consideration, but you are seeing a category do well for itself and emerge."
Growing awareness of larger phones is helping move sales upward, he explained, while at the same time manufacturers are taking an experimental approach, throwing phones of varying sizes on the market to see what sticks.
Combine that with a perfect storm of chipmakers piling on CPUs with greater graphics performance for phones - chips that were once only imaginable in tablets - and the move to bigger screens starts to make sense.
Carving out a niche is a major driving factor in creating new screen dimensions, as well, though Steinberg doesn't see size as the primary growth driver for phones.
"You're going to see phones in the current range do well," he said. "But what you are going to see grow are screen sizes as an aggregate start to creep up."
There is, however, that whole awkward factor with larger phones.
"Five inches is still a little awkward," Steinberg said. "If you have a Note, you still get stares from people when you pull it out, but phones like the S3 have started to train people to get used to the phones."
The Google Nexus 7 shrank the tablet and blurred definitions further
Smaller tablets are also helping with the acceptance if not adoption of larger phones.
"Tablets are shrinking - we have the iPad mini, Nexus 7 - so those are coming down in size," Steinberg said.
"The idea of being an outlier with large screen phones is voided by the fact that you have the Note, the Nexus 7 and the mini. It's not such a crazy idea after all."
Too big to swallow
But 5 inches (or even just above 4 inches) can be a hard display size to swallow for many people.
"I haven't met a single consumer who said, 'Man, I wish my phone was bulkier,'" Steinberg said.
Whatever the upsides of a larger screen can be wiped out by sacrificed portability, particularly for consumers who tend to favor practicality (can it fit comfortably in my back jeans pocket?) over most other physical factors.
Price can be another negative consideration - with more phone, the cost of materials has to go somewhere.
Developers are beginning to consider optimising apps for phablets
From an app and user experience perspective, phablets present an relatively uncharted world of issues.
"Some people may design differently for a phablet than they would a smaller phone," said Josh Ellinger, a software engineer who specializes in user experience.
"Your buttons are going to be bigger, there's more area so you start playing with more content on a single page, and developing a different interface perhaps."
Responsive web design - which, simply put, can target multiple devices thanks to a single HTML code base - has helped developers and engineers who want to design for phablets do so without creating an entirely new set of code.
The process is by no means universal, Ellinger noted, but it does provide the ability to design for an increasingly fragmented mobile market.
However, development for phablet is still tentative.
"A lot of people are still catching up with mobile in general, so I haven't seen much development for a phablet yet, aside from the fact that you could see responsive design add a break point for it," he said.
"I just don't see the wider web community targeting phablets yet. It's still too early."
What is the ideal screen size?
Whatever the drawbacks , consumers are buying phablets, though Steinberg sees the form grabbing more "enthusiast" users than casual ones, Asian markets aside.
But phablets present at least one definite benefit for a consumer looking to cut the clutter out their life - a phone and tablet in one that eliminates the need for both.
For its part, Huawei said that as global economic pressures mount, it's found consumers are receptive to the benefits of one device combining the functions of several.
Though display size is largely a question of user preference, Steinberg sees the industry trying to hit on the "magic silver bullet" device that gives those users just what they want - all the function of a phone with the size benefits of a tablet.
So, how big would that silver bullet be? Not above half a foot, as far as Steinberg's concerned.
"Above 6 inches gets awkward - you get into a no mans land," he said.
The right screen size for the larger phone set, in Steinberg's estimation, lies between 5.5 inches and 5.8 inches.
It may take manufacturers several years to hammer out the optimal big display, but until then the space should continue to grow.
ABI estimated that more than 150 million phablets will ship this year, making up 18 per cent of all smartphones sold. The majority of those phones, Flood wrote in his post, will house screens between 4.6 inches and 5 inches, with four out of every five phablets shipped landing in this area.
What's more, Flood wrote that "we will probably see all major mobile OEMs introducing a phablet model" in 2013.
After this initial expansion, Flood predicts that growth will slow gradually from 2014 onward, and expects phablets to comprise around 25 per cent of smartphone shipments in 2018.
Steady, not breakneck, adoption could simply be the nature of these beastly machines.
"Phablets turn heads," Steinberg said, "but whether they wins hearts and minds, that's the question."
There was time when things were simple: phones were supposed to be small, and the smaller they were, the more we wanted them.
Then smartphones taught us to tolerate a heftier handful, tablets raised our expectations of screen size, and now a new genre of device - the awkwardly named phablet - has emerged to fill the space between, putting pocket stitches to task and starting a conversation about the ideal display size.
"It's not a huge market, but it's doing pretty damn good," said Scott Steinberg, a tech analyst who runs TechSavvy Global, a strategic market and research firm.
But what's behind the great screen expansion, and just how far are consumers willing to stretch for these handsets?
Big and beautiful
Many of the plusses larger screen phones bring are inherent in the design: more real estate to view media, watch movies, take notes and read.
Chinese telecom company Huawei stormed CES 2013 with a bevy of large screened phones, the biggest among them the Ascend Mate, an Android that's home to a whopping 6.1-inch screen.
While some commentators were baffled by the Mate's expansiveness, Huawei Device, the company's electronic communications branch, said it had solid evidence that there is a market for the monster machine.
"Based on our extensive consumer research, we have found that a 6.1-inch smartphone display is the sweet spot for the moment," Huawei Device told TechRadar via email, explaining that this is "the optimal size" to provide "the functionality of a tablet with the portability and convenience of a smartphone." (However, this doesn't mean Huawei is abandoning other screen sizes.)
Those screens keep pushing further out
The Ascend Mate hasn't gone on sale yet - that won't happen until next month and only in China to start with - but its reception will set the pace and decide whether more manufacturers make a push towards voluminous screens.
Although the Mate is a bulky outlier, Steinberg sees that there's a perceptible trend for screen sizes to inch upward. "We're definitely seeing manufacturers push [towards larger screens]," he said. "The 5-to-6-inch range is where manufacturers want to play. It's only natural for a market that is maturing to develop into this space."
Birth of the Galaxy
Often referred to as "phablets", there's no formal definition of these phone-tablet hybrids, though it tends to mean "anything big enough to make you stare when someone pulls it out their pocket".
Joshua Flood, Senior Analyst for Devices, Applications and Content at tech research firm ABI Research, offered a definition in a January 22 post on the firm's website: phablets, he wrote, are phones with screens measuring between 4.6 inches and 6.5 inches diagonally across.
The first Galaxy Note is considered by many to have reignited interest in a phone with a palm-sized screen, measuring 5.3 inches. The Galaxy Note II followed, with a display that advanced on its predecessor's by 0.2 inches.
"The Note was really one of the first phablets to grab a toehold in the space," Steinberg said.
Others have since come along - the HTC Droid DNA's screen stretches to 5 inches, the Optimus G by LG comes in at 4.7 inches diagonally, and HTC's upcoming M7 looks to have the same screen size.
Sony's CES-revealed Xperia Z owns a 5-inch Full HD Reality Display, while the HTC Butterfly - China's version of the DNA - is massive enough to warrant its own NFC-connected helper handset, the HTC Mini.
The HTC Butterfly is so big it gets this helper handset
Meanwhile, the Galaxy S4, when it launches, should come with a 4.99-inch screen, a step up from its predecessor.
To put that in perspective, the first Galaxy S screen measured 4 inches, a size now commanded almost defiantly by Apple's iPhone 5.
According to ABI projections published by Flood, close to 83 million phablets were shipped in 2012, up by 4,504 per cent from 2011.
The 4.8-inch screened Galaxy S3, which (by Samsung's estimates) sold over 40 million between May 2012 and January 14, 2013, is credited with making up a large portion of that 83 million figure.
Phablet sales haven't gone meteoric, Steinberg noted, but consumers are buying enough to keep the market afloat if not growing.
Because we can, should we?
"It's sort of like science friction - just because we can do things, doesn't actually mean it adds benefit," Steinberg mused about screen size. "We're experimenting right now. There's not really a rhyme or reason as to why a phone has to be a certain size, why it goes from 4 inches to 5.5 to 6.1.
"It's largely a manufacturer consideration, but you are seeing a category do well for itself and emerge."
Growing awareness of larger phones is helping move sales upward, he explained, while at the same time manufacturers are taking an experimental approach, throwing phones of varying sizes on the market to see what sticks.
Combine that with a perfect storm of chipmakers piling on CPUs with greater graphics performance for phones - chips that were once only imaginable in tablets - and the move to bigger screens starts to make sense.
Carving out a niche is a major driving factor in creating new screen dimensions, as well, though Steinberg doesn't see size as the primary growth driver for phones.
"You're going to see phones in the current range do well," he said. "But what you are going to see grow are screen sizes as an aggregate start to creep up."
There is, however, that whole awkward factor with larger phones.
"Five inches is still a little awkward," Steinberg said. "If you have a Note, you still get stares from people when you pull it out, but phones like the S3 have started to train people to get used to the phones."
The Google Nexus 7 shrank the tablet and blurred definitions further
Smaller tablets are also helping with the acceptance if not adoption of larger phones.
"Tablets are shrinking - we have the iPad mini, Nexus 7 - so those are coming down in size," Steinberg said.
"The idea of being an outlier with large screen phones is voided by the fact that you have the Note, the Nexus 7 and the mini. It's not such a crazy idea after all."
Too big to swallow
But 5 inches (or even just above 4 inches) can be a hard display size to swallow for many people.
"I haven't met a single consumer who said, 'Man, I wish my phone was bulkier,'" Steinberg said.
Whatever the upsides of a larger screen can be wiped out by sacrificed portability, particularly for North American consumers who tend to favor practicality (can it fit comfortably in my back jeans pocket?) over most other physical factors.
Price can be another negative consideration - with more phone, the cost of materials has to go somewhere.
Developers are beginning to consider optimising apps for phablets
From an app and user experience perspective, phablets present an relatively uncharted world of issues.
"Some people may design differently for a phablet than they would a smaller phone," said Josh Ellinger, a software engineer who specializes in user experience.
"Your buttons are going to be bigger, there's more area so you start playing with more content on a single page, and developing a different interface perhaps."
Responsive web design - which, simply put, can target multiple devices thanks to a single HTML code base - has helped developers and engineers who want to design for phablets do so without creating an entirely new set of code.
The process is by no means universal, Ellinger noted, but it does provide the ability to design for an increasingly fragmented mobile market.
However, development for phablet is still tentative.
"A lot of people are still catching up with mobile in general, so I haven't seen much development for a phablet yet, aside from the fact that you could see responsive design add a break point for it," he said.
"I just don't see the wider web community targeting phablets yet. It's still too early."
What is the ideal screen size?
Whatever the drawbacks , consumers are buying phablets, though Steinberg sees the form grabbing more "enthusiast" users than casual ones, Asian markets aside.
But phablets present at least one definite benefit for a consumer looking to cut the clutter out their life - a phone and tablet in one that eliminates the need for both.
For its part, Huawei said that as global economic pressures mount, it's found consumers are receptive to the benefits of one device combining the functions of several.
Though display size is largely a question of user preference, Steinberg sees the industry trying to hit on the "magic silver bullet" device that gives those users just what they want - all the function of a phone with the size benefits of a tablet.
So, how big would that silver bullet be? Not above half a foot, as far as Steinberg's concerned.
"Above 6 inches gets awkward - you get into a no mans land," he said.
The right screen size for the larger phone set, in Steinberg's estimation, lies between 5.5 inches and 5.8 inches.
It may take manufacturers several years to hammer out the optimal big display, but until then the space should continue to grow.
ABI estimated that more than 150 million phablets will ship this year, making up 18 per cent of all smartphones sold. The majority of those phones, Flood wrote in his post, will house screens between 4.6 inches and 5 inches, with four out of every five phablets shipped landing in this area.
What's more, Flood wrote that "we will probably see all major mobile OEMs introducing a phablet model" in 2013.
After this initial expansion, Flood predicts that growth will slow gradually from 2014 onward, and expects phablets to comprise around 25 per cent of smartphone shipments in 2018.
Steady, not breakneck, adoption could simply be the nature of these beastly machines.
"Phablets turn heads," Steinberg said, "but whether they wins hearts and minds, that's the question."
The Nokia Lumia 620 has hit stores today offering up Windows Phone 8 at a price which won't break the bank.
O2 is offering the handset for just £150 on PAYG, and if you plump for a contract you'll be able to snap up the Lumia 620 for free from £18.50 per month.
In terms of specs the Nokia Lumia 620 is quite similar to the HTC 8S, packing a 3.8-inch 480x800 display, 1GHz dual-core processor, 512MB of RAM, 8GB of internal storage, 5MP rear camera, VGA front facing snapper, NFC and microSD slot.
One for the kids?
As well as the reasonable price tag, which may attract some parents to the Lumia 620 for their children, in true Windows Phone fashion the handset is also available in a number of brightly coloured hues.
The colourful covers can be swapped around, in the same way you could change the facias on the Nokia 3310, with a choice of seven shades to choose from.
We were impressed with this entry-level Windows Phone 8 device in our hands on Nokia Lumia 620 review, but we'll reserve proper judgement until our full review which should go live next week.
Some amazing chemistry that protects phones from water, makes impact-proof cases and enables you to fix your gadgets is emerging from the UK, but how does it work?
Motorola's splash-proof Motorola Droid Razr HD and Motorola Droid Razr Maxx HD shrug off rain or getting dropped in a puddle thanks to a nanoscale coating that's applied to the phone during manufacturing.
It's similar to the way Microsoft puts the VaporMg coating onto the Surface; racks of phones are put in a vacuum chamber and the air is pumped out and replaced with a plasma of fluorinated acrylates (think very high temperature chemical steam) that coats every part of the phone with between 10 and 40 nanometers of protection.
UK company P2i started out treating military clothing. You can't just waterproof cloth, because sewing needles make tiny holes and the zips and seams weren't protected, and that's a problem if the liquid you're keeping out is something toxic. That means the company had to find a way of coating entire products.
P2i went from weather-proofing uniforms, to hearing aids, to tablets, to phones. First it treated phones with Motorola and now with two Chinese and one European phone manufacturer that P2i chief technical officer Stephen Coulson can't yet name publicly.
Bath-proof phones
Splash-proof phone coatings and cases can't cope with a real downpour; the biggest problem is water getting in through the audio jack, although splash-proof coatings give your phone some protection.
Currently in the labs is what Coulson calls a 'dunkable' coating that would keep your phone working even if you drop it into the bath. To demonstrate, he had a coated Samsung Galaxy S3 running in a fish tank full of water; when we saw it, it had been soaking for 1 hour 40 minutes and was still running happily.
He also showed us the inside of a phone that had been treated and dropped in water, with none of the corrosion in an untreated phone after soaking.
We also saw that in action on two circuit boards. When we dripped water on an untreated board, it spread out over the surface and after a few seconds we could clearly see corrosion on the components.
On the treated board, however, the water formed a bead and rolled off instead of spreading out - and there was no corrosion where it had been.
Nokia has been working with Cambridge University on similar hydrophobic nanoscale coatings, but P2i is protecting phones already.
Hit your phone harder
Another great British invention making an impact is a peculiar material that's officially called D3O Impact Material (but orange goo is just as good a name), used to protect phones in conjunction with Tech21.
If you've ever mixed corn flour with a little water and then hit it with the back of the spoon and seen it turn solid and shatter, you've seen non-Newtonian chemistry in action. That's behaviour that's so odd, it doesn't follow the normal rules.
Materials that turn hard and shatter on impact are called thixotropic. The molecules in D3O Impact Material are also non-Newtonian; most of the time they flow around like normal molecules, but under impact they lock together and absorb the impact, spreading the shock between all the molecules and protecting your phone.
This also works for a soldier hit by a bullet (several armies use D3O in military equipment). Or as CEO Jason Roberts proved to us at CES, your hand. He grabbed a handful of D3O from the tank, wrapped it around his hand in a squidgy ring, and then hit it with a hammer. The goo went solid and he didn't end up bruised.
D3O is used to make phone cases under Tech21's Impactology brand. The latest cases fit the iPhone 5 and iPad mini.
Bullet-proof phones
You can add even more protection with the new Impact Shield screen protectors, made from another polymer which is normally used in military-grade bullet-proof glass and the cockpits of fighter jets. Roberts says it will protect your phone from up to a 10ft (3 metre) drop.
Impact Shield looks and feels like glass rather than an unattractive layer of plastic on your phone, and you don't have to worry about getting it on without bubbles or letting it cure for 12 hours. It settles onto the screen pretty easily and again absorbs impact.
It's also self healing; it's hard to scratch, but if you do get a scratch then the polymer will gradually spread back out to fill in the scratch. When it's available in spring 2013, we plan to attack it with hammers and knives to see just how much protection you get.
Another nifty example of UK material science is available to buy already. Sugru is a cross between modelling clay and duct tape; it's silicon rubber you can mould in your hand that sticks to almost anything and cures in 24 hours to give you a flexible, heat-proof, waterproof seal.
Developed and manufactured in Hackney, east London, it's more DIY than nanoscale coating and non-Newtonian molecules. You can use it to replace the missing foot on your laptop or to safely repair a power cable, to put a heat-proof grip on a mug, to get a comfortable custom grip on tools, mend your favourite boots - or actually make Apple earbuds comfortable. Now that is clever.
Facebook's fourth quarter financial statement revealed some intriguing new stats for the social network.
For the first time in the company's history, the number of mobile daily active users surpassed the number of users checking Facebook on the web.
With the smartphone and tablet markets seeing their numbers increase dramatically during 2012, it shouldn't come as much of a surprise to learn more people are using mobile devices to stay connected to Facebook.
Considering in September only 126 million people used Facebook on mobile devices, and on average, 618 million people used the website daily in December, you can see why the network is so happy with the mobile growth.
"In 2012, we connected over a billion people and became a mobile company," said Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook founder and CEO, in a statement.
"We enter 2013 with good momentum and will continue to invest to achieve our mission and become a stronger, more valuable company."
Mo' mobile, mo' money
For its part, there were still 1.06 billion monthly active users on the web, which was a 25 percent increase year-over-year.
Though the monthly users on mobile were barely able to reach half of the web's total, the 680 million mobile users were still a 57 percent increase when compared to last December.
That dramatic increase in mobile visits paid some impressive dividends for the advertising revenue, as Facebook's app was responsible for 23 percent of the total, up from 14 percent in Q3.
Overall, the ad revenue for Facebook hit $1.33 billion (UK£844 million, AU$1.28 billion) during Q4, which was a 41 percent increase over 2011, and accounted for 84 percent of the total revenue.
In October, Zuckerberg promised Facebook would "monetise better per amount of time spent on mobile than desktop."
It looks like that decision is already working to great benefit, and should continue to do so into 2013.
A trio of Samsung tablet User Agent Profiles (UAProf) point to the Galaxy Tab 3 making its debut in three different models.
The files were uncovered by colorfully-named Japanese tech blog Blue Ringer Men, with UAProfs for tablet model numbers GT-P3200, GT-P5200, and GT-P8200.
The GT-P3200 is listed with a 1024 x 600 resolution display, which is consistent with what looks to be the Galaxy Tab 3 7.0. Meanwhile, the GT-P5200 is believed to be the Galaxy Tab 3 10.1, with a listed display resolution of 1280 x 800.
The GT-P8200 is the most interesting of the bunch though with a listed 2560 x 1600 resolution display, putting it on par with the Nexus 10 as a new tier to Samsung's tablet hierarchy.
The high-end tablet was first suggested under the codename Roma, with more recent rumors referring to it as the Galaxy Tab 3 Plus.
Rumor has it
Other rumors have suggested that the Galaxy Tab 3 7.0 has been dropped, and Samsung will instead favor an 8-inch Galaxy Tab 3 model.
Completely skipping the release of a new 7-inch tablet seems an odd choice though, especially with the 8-inch Galaxy Note 8.0 already filling that size category.
Of course, Samsung is keeping its lips sealed on what these potential Galaxy Tab 3 variants could be, forcing us to wait until MWC 2013 rolls as the most likely time for announcements.
TechRadar will be descending on Barcelona to bring you all the news from MWC, and hopefully will clear up what exactly is going on with Samsung's next line of tablets once and for all.
