Even though the jury is still out on whether Samsung’s extra-large tablets are popular with consumers – the 12.2-inch Galaxy Note Pro 12.2 and Galaxy Tab Pro 12.2 models were unveiled only a few months ago, at CES 2014– the company is working on an even bigger model, GSM Arena reports.

Dubbed “Warhol” internally, the T910/T911 is supposed to be a 13.3-inch Android tablet that packs a 2560 x 1600 (WQHD) LCD display with 227 pixel per inch (PPI) pixel density. Other hardware details for the device aren’t available yet, and it’s not clear when the tablet will be released.

However, it looks like the 13.3-inch Samsung device will come both in Wi-Fi-only and 3G/4G options, considering the two different model numbers. It’s not clear when Samsung actually plans to launch such a bigger tablet version, or what other productivity-related features the device might offer buyers.

An image of this rumored 13.3-inch tablet isn’t available yet.

The publication also mentions two other Samsung tablets, the T701/T700 and the T801/T800, which are the 8.4-inch and 10.5-inch Galaxy Tab S models, respectively, or tablets that will each feature Super AMOLED WQHD displays.

A recent leak showed leaked images of these two tablets with OLED displays, a first for Samsung since 2011, revealing that the Galaxy Tab S models would still come with the same Magazine UX interface on top of Android, which Google doesn’t like, and with a Galaxy S5-like plastic back, which many users don’t appreciate.

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Category: Tablets, Samsung

People buy smartphones for all different reasons but it seems that having a strong battery has become the top reason for many buyers. IDC analyst Francisco Jeronimo has posted a chart from a recent IDC survey showing that 56% of Android buyers, 49% of iPhone buyers and 53% of Windows Phone buyers said that battery life was a key reason they bought their particular device. In this way, battery life trumped even ease of use, which 33% of Android users, 39% of iPhone users and 38% of Windows Phone users said was a key factor in choosing their smartphone. Interestingly, just 25% of Android users, 19% of iPhone users and 23% of Windows Phone users said that their device’s camera resolution was a major factor in their decision to buy their smartphone, which means that Nokia probably didn’t win over too many converts by heavily hyping the 41-megapixel camera on its Lumia 1020 last year. You can see IDC’s full chart below.

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Category: mobile, Smartphones

We’ve known for a while that tablet market growth has not been what people expected. Apple’s double digit sales decline of iPad units in the March quarter was one ill omen. Nevertheless, the new Morgan Stanley report is grim reading: Widely followed analyst Katy Huberty is slashing her 2014 tablet growth projection, all the way from 26% to 12%.

It is extremely rare for an important product category to see such a drastic projection cut without an onset of a recession. Back in 2008, handset sales projections were cut steeply as consumer moods from the United States to Asia blackened abruptly.

But tablet growth estimates are now coming down without a macroeconomic shock. The most likely reasons for this sudden decline include a lack of compelling new tablet innovation and competition from cheap phablets, or smartphones with large displays.

But if tablet sales growth is already stalling, what will happen when the iPhone 6 arrives in the autumn? As Canalys notes, phablet sales are exploding — shipment growth of smartphones with displays of 5 inches or larger is expected to top 360% in 2014. That means jumbo-screen smartphones will make up an incredible 34% of total smartphone sales this year.

And this is the bandwagon Apple is finally jumping on this autumn. The iPad’s design innovation may have stalled, but the iPhone 6 is widely expected to feature a totally new display size (likely 4.7 inches), a cool wraparound screen design and a new, rounded chassis. If the rise of phablets has already undermined the tablet market, then the iPhone 6′s arrival could spell big trouble for iPad sales next winter.

The biggest negative item of Apple’s March quarter was that iPad sales missed badly relative to expectations. Apple moved 16.4 million units, which was way below the notably cautious (and recently lowered) 19.2 million unit consensus expectation.

Apple’s belated entry in the phablet revolution may well deepen its tablet problems markedly. This category, which was expected to be Apple’s growth engine for years to come, is now likely to become the biggest headache Apple has in Christmas 2014. Then again, if iPhone 6 sales are massive enough, they could well offset the tablet sales decline.

It is odd to think that the tablet market could in fact become a low-margin, low-growth business faster than the far older smartphone market. But the new, 12% tablet growth estimate of Morgan Stanley will likely be lower than smartphones’ growth rate in 2014.

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Category: Tablets, Apple, iPhone 6

If at first you don’t succeed… buy, buy again. According to a report from Bloomberg on Monday afternoon, AT&T is in advanced talks to acquire pay TV giant DirecTV. Multiple unnamed sources tell the news organization that the deal could cost AT&T about $100 per share, or a total of roughly $50 billion.

“Under the plan being discussed, DirecTV management will continue to run the company as a unit of AT&T and DirecTV Chief Executive Officer Mike White plans to retire after 2015, said the people, asking not to be named because the information is private,” Bloomberg’s Alex Sherman and Jeffrey McCracken reported.

As noted in an earlier report on the possible deal, a successful acquisition would make AT&T the top pay TV provider in the United States with nearly 26 million subscribers.

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Category: Business, AT&T, DirecTV

After Apple announced its earnings for the second quarter of 2014, analysts began to question the future growth potential of the iPad. Sales were undoubtedly strong, but in an industry that expects constant improvement, the year-over-year decline was troublesome. Unfortunately, based on a recent research report shared by Business Insider from Morgan Stanley’s Katy Huberty, the relatively poor performance of the iPad is just one indicator signaling significantly slowed growth for the tablet market as a whole in the coming months.

“We lower our 2014 tablet growth forecast to 12% from 26% on the back of increasing penetration rates and the lack of new, differentiated products,” writes Huberty. “Although slower tablet growth should help PC demand, our global PC model remains largely unchanged at -5% in 2014 and 2015.”

Countless reports have predicted the impending domination of tablets as the primary platform for computing over the past several years, but this report is one of the first to stray from that narrative. Over time, tablets are still expected to replace notebooks, but it will be a slower process than many had assumed.

Speaking to suppliers in Asia, Huberty commented that the lack of “meaningful innovation” in the market is to blame for the stunted growth in sales. Looking at the latest tablets from the most popular brands in the world, it’s hard to argue with her analysis.

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Category: Tablets, iPad

Users who aren’t happy with something they purchased from Apple’s online store should be pleased to hear that Apple has significantly improved refund times in the U.S. to under a week, from the previous 10-day schedule. Reuters reports that, in a bid to convince even more buyers to purchase products directly from its online store rather than from Amazon or Best Buy, Apple is willing to pay more for expedited shipping, in order to return money to customers faster.

Apple is apparently using FedEx 2-day service to receive the returned goods from customers in three days. Apple has been using FedEx 2-day in its busy Christmas shopping season, StellaService noted, but it appears the company has now permanently moved to the quicker shipping method.

Customers who seek refunds don’t pay a dime to ship products back to Apple, as the company handles all shipping costs for refunds. A source familiar with the procedure confirmed that customers still won’t be charged for their returns moving forward.

“This is the first time we’re seeing an investment like this on the returns side,” StellaService’s vice president of research Kevon Hills told the publication.

“Speed is becoming a significant competitive weapon,” logistics and supply chain consulting firm MWPVL International president Marc Wulfraat said. “Returns are viewed as a hidden cost, so many e-commerce companies make the process very difficult. Returns are the first place to cut corners.”

Amazon offers in some cases instant refunds, although that procedure opens the door to fraud schemes, as some customers may end up not actually returning the item. Apple is apparently trying to refund unhappy customers as fast as possible, while preventing any fraud schemes in the process.

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Category: mobile, Apple, iPhone, Mac

Every leak we’ve seen about the LG G3 makes us think it will be a very impressive new device, even in a year that has already seen the release of three heavily hyped Android phones with the Galaxy S5, the HTC One (M8) and the OnePlus One. PhoneArena has received yet another set of leaked LG G3 pictures that show two versions of the device, one with rear casing that’s white and one with a rear casing that’s black. Apparently, the rear casing for the devices will be plastic but LG has given them a brushed effect that will make them look more metallic like HTC’s latest flagship smartphone.

LG is planning to launch the G3 on May 27th, which means the company has wisely timed the device to drop in between Samsung’s Galaxy S5 launch earlier this spring and the expected launch of the iPhone 6 this fall. Reported specs for the device include a 5.5-inch quad-HD display with a resolution of 1440 x 2560 pixels, 2GB of RAM, 32GB of internal storage, and a 16-megapixel camera.

You can check out PhoneArena’s leaked LG G3 pictures below.

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Category: mobile, G3, LG

It’s official: big phones are in. As Android phone makers have continued to pump up the size of their devices in recent years, the response of consumers has been resoundingly positive. According to research firm Canalys, over one-third, or 34%, of smartphones shipped in the first quarter of 2014 featured displays of 5 inches or larger. These figures represent a 369% increase in shipments — an even greater rate of growth than the smartphone market as a whole.

“This is still a market segment led by Samsung, but the trend is unmistakably toward larger-screen handsets at the high end of the market,” said Canalys Analyst Jessica Kwee. “It held a 44% share of devices with displays of 5″ and above, and 53% if the view is narrowed to look at 5.5″-plus displays.”

Considering the unmistakable shift in market trends, rumors of Apple’s upcoming 4.7-inch and 5.5-inch smartphones are more justifiable than ever before. Consumers at the high end of the market want larger devices with powerful specifications — in order to compete in the long run, Apple needs to keep up with Samsung, HTC and other Android phone makers that have already begun testing the limits of display size.

“Consumers now expect high-end devices to have large displays, and Apple’s absence in this market will clearly not last long,” Kwee continued. “It is notable that 5″ and above displays featured on almost half (47%) of smart phones with an unlocked retail price of US$500 or more. Of the remaining 53% of high-end smart phones, 87% were iPhones. Apple plainly needs a larger-screen smart phone to remain competitive, and it will look to address this in the coming months.”

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Category: mobile, Apple, Samsung

We’ve been hearing about the potential of graphene in the electronics industry for years. Just last month, Samsung announced that it had discovered a new production method that could bring graphene to commercial products even sooner. Taking advantage of the material’s flexibility, Samsung believes that flexible displays will be much more than a gimmick in the coming years.

Sadly, we haven’t yet had the chance to see that potential in action as manufacturers continue to research ways to implement the recently discovered material into phones, tablets and other devices. As graphene hasn’t yet been used in commercial applications, most of us are entirely unaware of what the “miracle material” actually consists of, and why so many companies are spending time and resources on the production of graphene.

The Loop’s Dave Mark has pointed us in the direction of a video from The One Show on the BBC, which explains graphene in terms that anyone should be able to comprehend. As the show’s host explains it, graphene is “stronger than diamond, more conductive than copper, more flexible than rubber and it’s so thin you can barely see it with the naked eye.”

If you’re at all interested in what could be one of the landmark discoveries of the 21st century, it’s worth your time to understand some of the basics of graphene.

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Category: science, graphene

Google Now is one of Android’s best features and now Android Police has shown us a way to make it even more useful by setting it to remind us to cancel subscriptions to services that we no longer use.

So let’s say that you’ve just realized that you want to cancel Netflix the minute you’ve finished watching up every available House of Cards episode but you just keep forgetting to actually go online and do it once you’ve watched the season finale. You can solve this by telling Google Now to “cancel Netflix” and it will give you a card that contains a direct link to the webpage you need to visit to cancel the service. If you don’t want to cancel it right away, you can have it set up reminders for you so you’ll remember to do it in the future.

Android Police so far has found that the feature will work with Netflix, Hulu Plus, Comcast, Amazon Prime and, yes, even Google’s own Google Play All Access music streaming service. Now, if only there were some way to get Google Now to tell Google to stop trying to force us to use Google+, then it might be the single most useful service ever created.

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Category: mobile, google, Google Now