Online retailer HS18 is back with its smartphone sale. This time the sale will last till midnight tomorrow, though we feel some products will be snapped up much before the deadline ends. First spotted by FoneArena, the retailer is offering some stupendous deals including the Samsung Galaxy S III for Rs 22,945 and the Galaxy Grand Duos for Rs 16,495.

Other interesting phones in the sale include the Sony Xperia Z for Rs 32,495 and the Lumia 820 for Rs 19,495. Other smartphones in the offer include the Galaxy Fame, Galaxy S Duos, Galaxy Y Duos and the Karbonn A12. Mind you, there are limited number of discount coupons associated with every phone and the offer is applicable till the last coupon is used. We have a hunch that the Galaxy S III and the Galaxy Grand Duos won’t last for long so if you were planning to buy them, you might do it right away.

Nokia today slashed the price of the Lumia 920 from approximately Rs 36,000 and is now available for Rs 31,999 with most online retailers. It is available for Rs 32,369 from Nokia’s own online store in India. What’s more, Nokia is also bundling the DT900 wireless charging plate with the phone under this offer.

The price cut comes at an interesting time, roughly a week after Nokia announced the Lumia 925, which would be priced around Rs 34,000 before taxes. Nokia’s executives maintain that both the Lumia 920 and Lumia 925 will coexist in the market as both target different user segments. Nevertheless, with this price cut, it is clear that the Lumia 925 will be the de facto flagship product.

Do you think that the Lumia 920 and wireless charging plate at this price is a compelling deal? Let us know in comments below.

Following the report about Samsung’s upcoming phones based on Tizen operating system, photos of one of these phones codenamed as the Redwood have been posted by the guys at TizenGreekCommunity (Tizen.GR). As seen in the pictures, the Redwood with model number GT-I8800 will not only run the Tizen 2.1 Magnolia but will also feature Samsung’s voice-recognition and voice-command feature S-Voice in it.

It has been a few months since Samsung announced plans to launch its phones based on Tizen, but ever since then Sammy chose to remain discreet about these phones. Though it was earlier expected that the phones will run Tizen 2.0, these images have cleared that Samsung has chosen to go with the latest version of the operating system.

So far the phone was expected to be launched sometime around August or September, but now it seems it could be launched sooner than later.

Broadcom has announced the first 5G Wi-Fi combo chips that are based on the 802.11ac band for low-end smartphones, tablets and PCs. Broadcom says that these chips will be unveiled at Computex that begins in Taipei in the first week of June.

The new 5G Wi-Fi chips are the BCM43162 and BCM4339. These new 5G combo chips integrate the complete front-end, power amplifier (PA) and Low Noise Amplifier (LNA) claims Broadcom.

Broadcom is very gung-ho about 5G Wi-Fi and claims devices like the Samsung Galaxy S 4 and the HTC One already come equipped with its 5G Wi-Fi solutions but now it aims to proliferate the technology to lower price points with these new chips.

Both the chips are being sampled by some early access OEMs and mass production of the chipset is expected by the second half of 2013.

Some of the additional features of the chipset include:

• Integrated 5G WiFi PA and LNA technology to allow small form factor designs and reduced total BOM
• Transmit beamforming and low-density parity-check (LDPC) codes for greater coverage and robust whole-house media and data applications
• 433Mbps Wireless Local Area Network (WLAN) PHY rate for superior speed
• Broadcom proprietary TurboQAM for 33 percent increase in 2.4GHz speed
• Broadcom proprietary Channel Smoothing WLAN PHY to increase receiver sensitivity by an average of 2 db across 802.11n and 802.11ac rates
• Specific to the BCM4339, Broadcom is the only vendor to offer Long Term Evolution (LTE) coexistence

Earlier this month, we spotted the Galaxy Star on Samsung India’s website. Today, the South Korean company officially launched the entry-level Android device for Rs 5,240.

The Galaxy Star, as we had reported earlier, sports a 3-inch QVGA TFT LCD display and is powered by a 1GHz Cortex A5 processor and 512MB RAM. Samsung is also offering features like a 2-megapixel rear camera, 4GB of internal storage that is expandable using the microSD card, and a 1,200mAH battery.

On the connectivity front, the Galaxy Star is 2G-enabled, and supports dual-SIM slots, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 4.0, while on the software side of things, the device runs on Android 4.1 Jelly Bean wrapped under Samsung’s TouchWiz UI. In addition, the device also has a string of pre-loaded apps like ChatOn, Google apps, and the Samsung App Store.

As an introductory offer, Samsung has also partnered with Vodafone India to offer Galaxy Star buyers with a Vodafone connection, free Internet data worth 250MB per month for 2 months.

The Galaxy Star will join the likes of the Galaxy Pocket, Galaxy Y Pro Duos, Galaxy Music Duos, Galaxy Fame and the more recently launched Galaxy Y Plus and Galaxy Young in Samsung’s portfolio of entry-level Android phones.

Microsoft has announced two new Windows 8 compliant mice, the Sculpt comfort and Sculpt mobile mouse. The Sculpt comfort mouse costs $39.95 (approx Rs 2,220), while the Sculpt mobile mouse costs $29.95 (approx Rs 1,163). Both mice have been design specifically keeping Windows 8 in mind and both feature dedicated Windows keys.

The Sculpt comfort mouse is an extension of the Sculpt comfort keyboard that Microsoft had announced last year. It has a blue strip on its left hand side that has a ‘Windows’ button integrated in it. But interestingly, the blue strip is touch sensitive and when one swipes up, it will cycle through all the Windows apps and if one swipes down it will cycle through all the open apps. It also uses bluetrack technology, which means it can be used on any surface. It integrates a bluetooth module and hence does not come with a separate USB receiver.

The Sculpt mobile mouse on the other hand has a four way scroller, which can be used to not only navigate up and down but also sideways, which makes it ideal for the modern UI. It also integrates a ‘Windows’ home button and comes with a small wireless transceiver for a Bluetooth connection, and it also utilises bluetrack technology.

The Sculpt comfort will be available in June, while the Sculpt mobile will be available in May. Though Microsoft has not revealed its Indian release.

After launching the likes of the Smart Ivory Flo Mi-450 and the Stellar Horizon Pro Mi 505 recently, Spice it seems is readying another device for launch in the coming weeks. The Spice Smart Flo Pace Mi-422 has been listed on e-commerce sites under a ‘Coming Soon’.

Talking of specifications, the Smart Flo Pace Mi-422 sports a 4-inch (480×800 pixels) TFT display and is powered by a 1GHz MediaTek MT6515 processor and 512MB of RAM. Spice is also offering features like a 3.2-megapixel rear camera with LED flash, 1.3-megapixel front camera, 512MB of internal memory that can be expanded up to 32GB using a microSD card and a 1,300mAH battery.

On the connectivity front, the phone misses out on 3G, but supports 2G, dual-SIM card slots, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, USB port and FM Radio. In terms of software, the device runs on Android 4.0.4 Ice Cream Sandwich. Though there is no mention of a price at the moment, given the specifications listed, we would expect the device to be priced between Rs 5,000 to Rs 6,000.

The latest out of the rumor mills is a report on Japanese website Macotakara, which claims that Apple will begin testing the entry-level iPhone sometime next month. In addition, the report also claims that the Cupertino-based company will launch the fifth-generation iPad with certain changes after it releases the iPhone 5S in September.

Macotakara claims that Apple will start field testing the low-cost iPhone sometime in June and then start mass producing the device in July or September. It is also believed that this iPhone will be available in a variety of colors like Gold-Orange, White, Gray, Pink, Green, Blue and Yellow-Orange. From what we know of the cheaper iPhone, it is said to sport a body made of materials similar to the glossy polycarbonate body seen on the company’s entry-level MacBook. Rumored specs also claim that the phone will feature a 3.5-inch display, an A5 chip and a 5-megapixel camera at the back.

The report on Macotakara also reveals new information on the forthcoming fifth-generation iPad, saying that the tab will feature a rear mic, which will be located directly next to the rear camera. This will be similar to the placing seen on the iPhone 5. Previous reports have claimed that the new iPad will sport a form and design factor quite similar to the iPad mini, with a very narrow bezel and similar chamfered edges.

Image Credit: Anostyle

Shazam was one of the original music identification apps, and now it has launched a new redesigned iPad app which not only brings a new cleaner design, but also add a ton of new features to the service. The redesign on the iPad involves a new stream that allows the user to see what people are listening to in real time. In the US the stream also supports the TV shows people are watching.

Some of the new features include a new auto tagging feature so that people never miss discovering music or television content playing in the background. There is a new home screen that encourages exploration of what content people are viewing or listening to. The app is able to tag so fast because, it’s always running in the background, hence the user never misses out on a song or a TV show.

The app also brings full screen LyricPlay lyrics that displays lyrics in real time as the song is playing in the background.

One of the more interesting features is the inclusion of a map enabling users to zoom in to any city in the world to discover, buy and share popular music people are listening to in that location. This starts at the continent level, then drilling down into the country, state/region, city and even to the town level, in some cases. We are yet to test this feature in India.

Shazam has integrated with popular streaming services like Rdio and Spotify, but as these services don’t work in India, this feature is redundant for the Indian audience. There is no integration with local services like Saavan.

The Shazam friends feature has received an upgrade and it allows users to listen to the music ones friends are listening to. It even displays previews and users can also comment on their friends tags. Automatic resubmission as been added for durations when the network connectivity is not ideal.

The new app is an iOS universal app, unlike the previous one hence works across the iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad and iPad mini.

Huawei’s long time rumored thin, metallic phone, the Ascend P6, has been spotted in official renderings. According to the Engadget Chinese, the photos were posted by @evleaks on Sina Weibo along with a confirmation note from the Richard Yu, device chairman, Huawei for a short while before the comments were pulled down. The phone is also expected to be unveiled at a press event on June 18 in London.

The Ascend P6 could possibly be the rumored Huawei Edge which had earlier been spotted donning an all metallic chassis in its leaked images, though there are some modifications noticed in the phone featured in the new images. Apart from this, the phone in the image looks highly inspired by the iPhone 5, especially with the brushed metallic back, positioning of the camera and flash, and the built of the side frames. In terms of specifications, it is expected to be merely 6.2mm thick and feature the Emotion UI layer as seen on the Ascend Mate. It will come in pink, silver and black colors.

Yesterday Amazon announced preorders for the Kindle Fire HD in 170 countries but we were a bit disappointed as the online retailer won’t let us preorder one with an Indian shipping address. Today, an Amazon spokesperson has confirmed to BGR India that India is not in the list of the 170 countries but asked us to stay tuned.

Amazon has tied up with Redington for distributing its hardware products in India. The deal, we are told, also includes the Kindle Fire HD tablets. The world’s largest online retailer rarely ever does pre-orders for hardware in India and it could be a case where it is currently looking at a simultaneous online and brick-and-mortar store launch in India.

Everything said and done, it is more likely than not that Amazon would launch the Kindle Fire HD in India around the same timeline of June 13 when the rest of the world is getting it.

Indian handset vendor Maxx Mobile has launched two new mid-range Android devices called the AX8 Race and the AX9Z Race. Both the devices are available on e-commerce sites for Rs 8,875 and Rs 12,375 respectively.

The AX8 Race sports a 5-inch WVGA (480×800 pixels) display and is powered by 1GHz Mediatek MT6575 chipset, which is surprising as other phones in the same segment come with a dual-core processor by default. Other features included on the phone are 512MB of RAM, 8-megapixel rear camera, 2-megapixel camera at the front, 4GB of internal memory that can be expanded using a microSD card and a 2,300mAH battery that the company claims will survive up to 230 hours of standby time. On the software front, the device runs on the dated Android Ice Cream Sandwich.

The more expensive AX9Z Race, on the other hand, flaunts a 5.3-inch qHD (960×540 pixels) display and features a 1.2GHz dual-core Mediatek MT6577 processor, which again kind of lags behind as phones in this segment are being powered by quad-core processors. In addition, you will also get 512MB of RAM, 8-megapixel rear camera, 2-megapixel camera at the front, 4GB of internal memory that can be expanded using a microSD card and is bundled with a similar 2,300mAH battery. Unlike the AX8 Race, the AX9Z runs on Android 4.1 Jelly Bean.

On the connectivity front, both the phones have dual-SIM support, are 3G-enabled and feature Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and microUSB ports.

After announcing the Xbox One with a brand new Kinect sensor, Microsoft has announced that it will deliver the new Kinect sensor for Windows in 2014 and has hinted that it will release the SDK at its Build developer conference starting in June.

Some of the new capabilities of the new Kinect sensor include a higher fidelity camera, an expanded field of view, improved skeletal tracking, and new infrared capabilities. Microsoft has made a big bet on the technology and it plans to unlock the capabilities for not only PC games but it envisions other new possibilities.

Only earlier in the year, Microsoft had announced the current generation Kinect sensor for Windows, and by 2014 Windows users will have access to more possibilities.

Popular note-taking app Evernote got an important update earlier today and the company has finally paid heed to the user’s requests and added a Reminders feature. This feature is currently available on iOS, Mac and the web, and lets users add date or time to notes and receive in-app or email notifications.

To add a reminder, one has to click on an ‘alarm clock’ button located at the top on Mac and Web, and at the bottom on the iPhone and iPad. Once you set a date and time, you will get an in-app alarm and also an email.

Evernote has also integrated the Reminders feature with its notebook layout, which will allow users to share reminders and also allow others who are connected to it, to subscribe to that particular reminder.

Evernote also allows you to sync the reminders across all your devices which have the latest version of the app.

You can watch a small demo of the new feature in action in the video below.