Alleged Sony “Odin” specs spotted in forums, suggests 5″ 1080p display

A few days ago we reported that a certain Sony device with the codename “Odin” hinted at the possibility that this could be Sony’s flagship phone in 2013. However until today, only the name was known but thanks to the folks at Phone Arena, they have managed to stumble across a forum thread which was dedicated to Xperia rumors. While the post itself is a bit dated, what makes it somewhat credible is the fact that the poster referenced “Odin” a good few months before the tech publications (like ourselves) came across it.

Since these specs cannot be confirmed, they should be taken with a grain of salt but for the sake of discussion and entertaining possibilities, here’s what “Odin” could feature. For starters it seems that Sony will be taking their cue from Samsung and LG with a 5” display which sounds like a “phablet” to us. However Sony might be one-upping the competition with a 1080p Full HD display. It will pack 2GB of RAM and will be powered by a quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 Pro chipset, the same one powering the LG Optimus G. Apart from that, not much else was revealed.

However given that the thread is kind of old, there is a chance that some of these specs/features could be changed, especially since we’re not quite in 2013. It is not entirely impossible as Sony did state earlier this year at MWC 2012 that they will not be releasing quad-core phones until 2013, but what do you guys make of this? Do you think Sony is jumping aboard the “phablet” bandwagon, and would you get your hands on it if such a device did exist?

Source by: ubergizmo

MALACCA (MELAKA) YOU MUST VISIT THESE PLACES TO RELIVE THE HISTORY

YOU MUST VISIT THESE PLACES TO RELIVE THE HISTORY 

 

 

A BRIEF HISTORY

Malacca was founded by a fleeing prince from Sumatra in 14th century, it developed into a major trading port for ships from India and China. As the Melaka Sultanate flourished, the Portuguese conquered Malacca in 1511. Later the Dutch took over in 1641 until much later the British empire ruled Malacca. The state finally obtained independence with the then "Malaya states" in 1957. Today, one will find many remnants of the glorious past dated back more than 500 years ago.

HISTORICAL PLACES

A replica of the Melaka Sultanate palace was reconstructed at the foot of St. Paul's Hill. The design is based on the description of the palace from the sixteenth-century 'Malay Annals,' or 'Sejarah Melayu.' It is the only building of its kind in Malaysia, and it provides a rare glimpse of the ancient Malay kingdom that once flourished here. The palace houses the Malacca Cultural Museum, which includes many artifacts of that kingdom.

On top of St. Paul's Hill is the St. Paul's Church, once the prayer house of the Portuguese Catholics, then turned into burial ground for their noble dead by the Dutch. The tombstones have Latin and Portuguese inscriptions on them. St. Francis Xavier was buried here in 1553 before his body was moved to Goa in India.

 

After the Portuguese captured Melaka, they built a fortress to defend themselves. The fortress, called A'Famosa suffered severe destruction during the Dutch invasion. What's left today is just the entrance walls, still well preserved till today 

The Stadthuys (1650) was the official residence of the Dutch Governor. It now houses the Historic Museum and Ethnography Museum which has many traditional bridal costumes and relics on display. Nearby, one will also find the Christ Church built in 1753, another fine example of the Dutch architecture. 

 

During the peak of the Malacca Sultanate, the Sultan was gifted the Princess Hang Li Poh by the China Emperor. Her entourage settled in Bukit China (Chinese Hill). Today, Bukit China is believed to be the largest Chinese cemetery outside China, with many tombs dating back to the Ming Dynasty. Hang Li Poh's followers built a well in 1459 that is said to have never dried up. Today, the well is turned into a wishing well and many believe those who toss coins into the well will return again to Malacca. 

 

The Kampung Keling Mosque is one of the oldest in the country (17th century). It's a blend of Sumatran and Western architecture with a 3 tier pyramid roof, a touch of Hindu influence perhaps. The carved wooden ceiling is supported by elegant Corinthian-styled columns.

Another well preserved building, the Cheng Hoon Teng Temple was constructed in 1645 and is believed to be the oldest Chinese temple in the country. The eaves of the temple are decorated with Mythological figures and animation made from broken glass and porcelain. Besides the figures, the wood carvings and lacquer work are almost breath-taking.

 

There are many other places of historical value well worth a visit. What is mentioned above are just some of the "Not to be miss" sites. If you have more than a day's stay in Malacca, these places are worth visiting too. 

OTHER HISTORICAL AND INTERESTING SITES

Baba and Nyonya Heritage Museum. 'Straits Chinese' or the Baba and Nyonya , are Chinese of noble descendants that have adopted much of the Malay culture into theirs. The public can now review the heirloom unique to this heritage at private museum run by the Babas and Nyonyas of Malacca. Floral and pictorial motifs grace parts of the front of the house whilst the interior is adorned with intricately carved fittings finished in gold leaf.

Hang Jebat and Hang Kasturi's mausoleum. Two of the Malacca Sultanate's well-known warriors and champion of justice. Hang Jebat was unceremoniously killed by Hang Tuah in a duel of honour that lasted 3 days and 3 nights. He was killed in the name of justice to avenge the sultan's hasty punishment against Hang Tuah for a crime he didn't commit.

Hang Tuah's well is located in Kampung Duyong where Hang Tuah was born and spent his childhood among four of his good friends who would later become the famous warriors of Malacca Sultanate. The well is said to be the abode of his soul which takes the apparition of a white crocodile. For a commoner to catch the glimpse of Hang Tuah is hardly likely. It is said that the holy among us can ever hope to see the apparition.

Jonker's Street, once the richman's street is now a living proof of Malacca's rich baba-nyonya heritage. The buildings are immaculately constructed with elaborate carvings on its pillars and walls. The street is also famous for its antique shops.

Maritime Museum is constructed after 'Flora De La Mar', the Portuguese ship that sank off the Coast of Malacca on its way to Portugal. With its hull laden with invaluable treasures seized from Malacca, the ship was doomed from existence had it not for the efforts to Malacca's heritage. At the museum, visitor can get a closer look at Malacca from the famed Malay Sultanate of the 14th century to the Portuguese era, the Dutch era and the British era. There are exhibits of foreign ships that had once called at the port of Malacca during the height of its maritime hegemony.

Memorial hall (1912), the landmark where the nation's first prime minister announce proclamation of independence from the British empire. It has been preserved with archive pictures of the country's struggle to attain independence.

Portuguese Square has a mild affinity to Portugal and known to be 'Mini Lisbon' in Malacca. Located within the Portuguese Settlement, the square is the culmination of Portuguese culture in its full splendour and colours. One will also find authentic Portuguese restaurants at the square.

Sam Po Kong Temple was constructed in dedication to Admiral Cheng Ho. The temple was named after a fish that miraculously saved the admiral's ship from sinking after it had been hit by a storm enroute to Malacca from China. The fish mysteriously placed itself against a damaged hull preventing the ship from taking on water.

Sri Poyyatha Vinayagar Moorthi Temple is one of the first Hindu temple built in the country at the turn of the century. It was built on the plot given by the Dutch.

St. Francis Xavier's Church was built in 1849 by a frenchman, Reverend Farve. The Gothic towered church is dedicated to St. Francis Xavier, well-remembered for his missionary work spreading Catholicism to South East Asia in the 16th century.

St. John's Fort was rebuilt by the Dutch during the third quarter of the 18 th century, the fort was once a private Portuguese chapel dedicated to St. John the Baptist. The fort has an interesting feature in that its gun embrasures face inland as during that time, attacks on Malacca came mainly from the land instead of from the sea.

St. Peter's Church was built in 1710 by the Portuguese descendants and comprising an architectural mix of the Oriental and Occidental.

Is this the Sony Nexus X?

by XB on 15/10/2012

in Rumours

A couple of pictures have popped up on Picasa supposedly showing a new Nexus smartphone from Sony dubbed the “Sony Nexus X”. It could be real but it also could be an elaborate fake. There is no Xperia branding on this at all.

There have been rumours of multiple Nexus smartphones this year, but we have seen no hard evidence of such a phone up until this post. For that reason, we find it hard to believe that these images are real, but you never know. What do you think – real or fake?

Thanks Jonny!
Source by: Xperiablog

Benchmark confirms 1080p display for Sony C660X ‘Yuga’

by XB on 14/10/2012

in Rumours

We are slowly piecing together a jigsaw of some awesome hardware for Sony Mobile’s 2013 flagship device(s). What we know so far is that there will be two sibling flagships – the Sony C650X ‘Odin’ (C6502, C6503, C6506) and Sony C660X ‘Yuga’ (C6603). They will be armed with a 1.5GHz quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 chipset (APQ8064 & Adreno 320 graphics) and MDM9615 baseband chip with LTE support. These phones are currently being tested with Android 4.1.1 Jelly Bean and 10.1.A.0.XXX firmware.


Now we can confirm that the Sony C660X ‘Yuga’ will have a 1080p (1920 x 1080) display following an appearance in the NenaMark2 benchmark. The benchmark actually points to a resolution of 1794 x 1080, but 126 pixels are likely being used for the on-screen buttons introduced in Android Ice Cream Sandwich. The entry has already been removed from the NenaMark website, but still appears in Google Cache results.

 
Screen size still remains a mystery for now, but we can make some educated guesses. It is very unlikely to be sub 5-inches given the 1080p display resolution. We know that LG and Sharp have announced their own 5-inch 1080p displays. However, the biggest hint comes from a recent announcement from Japan Display Inc (JDI). For those that don’t know, JDI is a new company for small and medium-sized displays formed in April 2012 through the integration of Sony Mobile Display, Toshiba Mobile Display and Hitachi Displays. It recently announced that it has started to mass produce a 5.0-inch TFT-LCD IPS display module with 1080 x 1920 pixel resolution and 443 PPI.


We do wonder if a smartphone display with pixel density over 400 PPI is a bit overkill though and whether we’d even be able to tell the difference from a 300 PPI device. We’re also not sure what kind of demands this would have on battery life, but it sounds superb nonetheless and all evidence suggests it will come to the next Sony Xperia flagship.

Via Rbmen.
Thanks @musumappa!

Source by: Xperiablog
 

Xperia AX gets vague Nov/Dec launch date; promo videos released

by XB on 11/10/2012

in Videos, Xperia - Japan Models, Xperia V

Japan’s NTT DoCoMo announced its winter handset line-up earlier today. It officially confirmed that the Sony Xperia AX (SO-01E) would be headed to the network and announced plans to release the handset between November and December this year. This is a pretty vague launch date. It is already the middle of October, so we thought that by now Sony would be able to refine the release date down to one month rather than two.


However, what it suggests to us is that it will launch towards the end of November or early December, in line with what Swedish retailers are showing for the Sony Xperia V. If Sony Japan was confident of launching the Xperia AX in November it wouldn’t even mention December. Consumers are fickle and don’t like waiting. It appears that Sony will do its darnedest to get the handset out by the end of November, but as the deadline is tight they are using December as a fall-back.

To celebrate the official launch of the handset, Soy Mobile has released a number of promo videos for the handset (see below). If you want to see some hands-on photos of the Xperia AX in different colours then check out the IT Media and Watch Impress reports. The official Sony Xperia AX product page can be found here.

The water and dust-resistant Sony Xperia AX is the Japanese variant of the Xperia V. It has a 1.5GHz dual-core MSM8960 chipset, 1GB RAM, 16GB internal storage, a 4.3-inch (720 x 1280) display, 13MP camera, VGA front camera, LTE, Bluetooth 4.0, NFC, MHL, 1700mAh battery and microSD memory card support. It will also come with some Japanese-specific features such as an infrared port, 1-Seg TV tuner and FeliCia NFC. The Xperia AX will have dimensions of 129 x 65 x 10.8mm and will weigh 120g. The phone will be available in four colours (black, pink, turquoise and white).









Via Sony.
 Source by: Xperiablog

Android 4.2 being tested on the Xperia arc S?

by XB on 11/10/2012

in Android, Xperia arc

There have been a number of reports over the last few days of an Android 4.2 build being detected in website server logs. Whether this is a completely new build of Android (Key Lime Pie) or a new version of Jelly Bean is an unknown right now. We first saw the report from Android Police, but what piqued our interest is when Android Authority talked about finding reports of a Sony Ericsson Xperia arc S running the software.  

AA went on to say that “in our logs it’s the Xperia Arc S that showed up the most. In fact it was more frequent than the Nexus 7 or the Galaxy Nexus.” Engadget this morning has also this morning reported that it has seen several instances of an Xperia arc S running Android 4.2. However, they go on to say that “upon further investigation it seems more likely that this is a beta of Jelly Bean 4.1 currently being tested by Sony”. We’re not really sure why a Android 4.1 Jelly Bean beta would be flagged as Android 4.2, but as this data can be manipulated we need to be careful in assuming any of this as a fact. 

If true though it shows there is a very good chance that Sony and Google are working much closer on future Android builds. This doesn’t automatically mean there is an Xperia Nexus in the works, even if it is, we imagine this is a future rather than current project. It hopefully does mean that the 2011 Xperia devices will be updated to Jelly Bean. We still await official word on this regard from Sony Mobile, but hopefully it will confirm one way or the other very soon.

Thanks adsada and Paul!

 Source by: Xperiablog

  

Xperia V’s new camera filters demoed on video

by XB on 09/10/2012

in Imaging, Videos, Xperia V

The Sony Xperia V (LT25i) has been given a thorough hands-on by the Sony Mobile Russian team. They have posted a 16-minute video of the handset, all of it in Russian. We couldn’t catch the gist of most of it due to the language barrier but did spot some new camera UI features towards the end of the video. 

It shows a number of camera filters that will now be enabled when taking pictures. There is also some kind of slider on the right which turns the brightness up and down. If there is anyone that speaks Russian and can give more details on this we’d love to hear about it in the comments below. 

Source by: Xperiablog