LG Puts 55" OLED TV Up For Pre-Order In South Korea For 11 Million KRW (Rs 5,43,000)

In the ever-crowded market of LCD and LED-backlit LCD televisions, LG has put up its new 55" WRGB OLED TV (Model 55EM9700): Its first in the market for the New Year. For perfecting the colour output, this television uses LG’s Four-Colour Pixel system that has a white sub-pixel. This works in collaboration with TV behemoth, which is claimed to maintain appropriate contrast levels irrespective of ambient brightness or viewing angle.

The question that now arises is how many takers will warm up to this new innovation It is known that OLED panels provide crisper images than conventional LCD panels, although this picture quality comes at a premium. Considering its high price, business analysts have predicted that these TVs won't be making their way to the masses any time soon, after they arrive globally in the next few months. Starting 3rd January, LG stores across South Korea will be accepting orders for 11 Million KRW (Rs 5,43,000 approx). While Samsung has been dominating the smaller screen market by using these kind of displays in mobile devices, LG has now taken a step further by commercialising OLED TVs. It would be interesting to watch the Korean electronics giants battle it out for the top spot in this segment.

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Spotted: iPhone 6 And iOS 7 In App Usage Logs

App developer usage logs are already showing the first signs of iPhone 6 and iOS 7; the iPhone 5 was launched only as recently as September 2012.  The Next Web, quoting unnamed sources, reports that the new hardware currently being tested by Apple appears in the app usage logs with the "iPhone 6,1" identifier. Earlier, the iPhone 5 had an identifier of "iPhone 5,1" and "iPhone 5,2" in similar such logs. The platform on which the device is being tested is marked as iOS 7.

The developer logs show that the app requests originate from Apple's Cupertino campus, hinting that Apple's software development team is testing existing apps for compatibility issues on the new hardware and mobile OS. The report also mentions that while the logs can be faked, the unique IP footprint means that they are probably genuine.

Apple generally launches a new version of iOS every year at its WWDC event in San Francisco and is likely to repeat the same this year with the iOS 7. The iPhone 6 is likely to be launched in the third quarter of 2013, keeping in sync with Apple's yearly production cycle for a new version of the device. Nothing is known about hardware specifics of the new devices as of now.

The iPhone 3GS appeared identical to the iPhone 3G, while the iPhone 4S looked very much the same as the iPhone 4, thus retaining the same design, but changing the hardware within. If Apple is indeed going to bring out the iPhone 6 instead of the iPhone 5S, then looking at the historical trend, this will indicate a major design change as compared to the iPhone 5.

Could Apple be heading towards a phablet with a larger iPhone? It seems very unlikely at this stage. With the iOS 7 Apple would attempt to set right where it erred with iOS 6: The infamous Apple Maps, privacy issues related to targeted ads, and a unexpectedly large data usage that may be related to ads. Of course, these are all just speculations, so take them with a pinch of salt.

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Sony Xperia Z And ZL With 5" Screen Goes Official

Amidst speculations and rumours about it 5" phablet handsets, Sony has put up press shots of two of its smaprtphones, which will probably be up at CES 2012. The similar-looking devices are said to be powered by Snapdragon S4 chipset with a 1.5 GHz quad-core processor, Adreno 320 GPU, and 2 GB of RAM. The handsets will feature a 5" 1080p display, 13 megapixel main Exmor RS camera, and a front-facing camera to make voice calls. The front camera on the ZL seems to be oddly placed on the base of screen though. Although nothing is mentioned about the OS version it'll feature, it should probably run Android 4.1 (Jelly Bean) out of the box.

While these are official press shots confirming the existence to the two handset variants, rumours of the Xperia X launch at CES with a rather similar spec sheet is also making rounds. The Xperia X is speculated to be a dual-SIM variant of the ZL (looking at the placement of the front-facing camera). Sony launching three similar handsets and a single event seems a bit strange, but since CES is just round the corner, we won't have to wait too long to figure out the company's plans.

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