Negri Electronics Blog

Over the last two years HTC has tremendous growth in the smartphone market but every line has its end. HTC two-year streak of continuous growth has been stopped by the holiday season. The Taiwanese company posted net profit of $364.26 million, which is a 25.5% decrease compared to the same period of last year.

And while the company already warned that it won’t be making its previously set targets, it even failed to meet the revisited goals. Obviously the company’s current portfolio is not faring particularly well, with the increased pressure from Samsung and Apple quoted as the main culprit.

HTC has lost its growth but it doesn’t mean that it is in loss. HTC is still going in profit but the company expects to see more of the same in the first quarter of 2012 with net profit expected to continue sliding. There’s still no reason to panic of course, as the company is still making cash rather than losing it and it’s probably just a hit product away from going back on the right road. Plus, the company was so successful recently that it saw its shares triple in just 14 months – there is no way it was going to maintain that kind of performance forever.

We are holding our breath for the new HTC announcements that should come at CES next week and then later, at the MWC in February. The company is expected to unveil the world’s first quad-core smart phone at one of these events and we can’t wait to get our hands on that beast.

This is what that was left this year! Yeah! Finally the iPad 2 is getting surfaced on 2 March. As I said in one of my earlier post that this will be the year of Tablets! It’s coming quite true already! Could anyone tell me how many tabs have already been surfaced this year? This is the question for you guys, who are reading this post! There are so many tablets to choose from, already! But Apple has always had a special place in people’s heart. The iPad was a blockbuster hit! And I have very little doubt on the iPad 2′s success!

Apple has invited all the enthusiasts to come to their 2^nd March event. I hope on the release ceremony the date for the launch would also be declared! Which I suppose won’t be very far from the 2^nd march. Besides its very hot there! Yeah I’m talking about the tablet market now!  As Samsung, Dell and Motorola have recently announced their tablets so Apple would also want to be the contender at this time! So I suppose that they would sell this in the open market near the middle of March. But irrespective of that time it’s already causing terror among other tab manufacturers. And why not it should cause terror? The launch of the iPad caused disaster for other products that were released at that time. Keep an eye on our store too; as we would be selling the unlocked version of the iPad 2 like the iPad!

An interesting leaked Tablet road map of Dell for the year, 2012 is seen recently. The credit for the leak goes to Android Central. The leak clearly shows the market plan of Dell for the rest of this year and the Q1 of year 2012! Though you can easily question about its legitimacy! As producing these things are not very difficult these days. But Android Central being a trusted place, rarely provides illegitimate leaks. If you take a close look in the Road map you will find that Dell have already planning for the Consumer Electronics Show in January of the next year. A tablet code named ‘Peju’ which is supposedly getting released in the first quarter of 2012. From this leak you will also find that this tab will come with the Microsoft’s Windows 8, which is also in the pipeline of getting released. Besides Microsoft have already confirmed several times that their operating systems onwards (Including the Windows 8 ) be created in such a way, so that they are suitable for the ARM processors. The ARM processors have gained popularity these days because of their being cost effective and consume far less power than any other processors ensuring better battery life. That’s why you will find the ARM processors powering the vast majority or Smartphones and tablets these days. You will also find about ‘Gallo’, Honeycomb powered tablet which Dell intends to release in April, and the ‘Sterling’ in October. If the news are not proven wrong then this year and the coming year is going to be the most exciting times for the tech lovers. You can follow us for the latest news and updates regarding the Smartphones and Tablets.

Dell did a fantastic job with the Dell Venue Pro that runs Windows Phone 7, so it’s no wonder that we had high hopes for the Android-powered Dell Venue. Once known as the Thunder, the Dell Venue is an Android 2.2 Froyo smartphone which inherits the same high build quality from its Windows Phone 7 counterpart. It’s also utilizing Dell’s proprietary Stage UI, made famous by the Dell Streak. Out of the box the Dell Venue is equipped to run on T-Mobile’s network and also European 3G networks, so it’s a highly versatile device. Do we have another winner on our hands?

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After first seeing the Windows Phone 7 Dell Venue Pro we immediately knew that this was going to be a hit and that Dell was also back in the game. It offered very high build quality, fantastic performance, and a great keyboard to boot. We’re quite sure that it’s the best Windows Phone 7 launch device to be released thus far.

When its was announced that Dell would be making a keyboardless version of the same phone with Android, we were quite excited, and now it’s finally here. The Dell Venue is an Android 2.2 smartphone that includes HSPA+ and benefit from 4G-like speeds where available. It’s packing a Qualcomm Snapdragon 1GHz CPU, 512MB of RAM, and it comes with a 16GB class 4 microSD card for storage.  So far we’re pretty impressed with the Venue, and it’s going to end up being a great option for T-Mobile subscribers that want a great Android smartphone.

If you also fell in love with this device, come over to Negri Electronics (one of the few places you can get an unlocked Venue right now).

Great news for the cheerers of Dell as it gets its Wi-Fi certification form the Wi-Fi Alliance. They are the body who ensures proper Wi-Fi support in devices. They have granted Dell certification for a ‘mobile internet device’ under the category of Smartphone, dual-mode having both Wi-Fi and cellular. Controversial tough as it is too large for a phone and too small for a tablet! Still, because of its new features it can be a new market superstar!  It’s thought to be a sequel for the earlier Dell Streak as the earlier had model number of M01M and it has M02M and so named the Dell Streak 2.

Not much is known about it though but it includes support for Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n which is a huge upgrade as the current Streak only supports Wi-Fi b and g. The rest is a mystery for the time being, though new info will be soon in the air as the Dell Streak 2 release date is rumored to be January 6th at CES 2011. It is also heard that this device could be  larger and most probably be a 7 inch Looking Glass and it is expected to have much better performance than its predecessor.

It’s a little weird though to place the Dell Streak 2 in the category of as ‘mobile internet device sports’. It’s more of a tablet, but since it packs 3G support so maybe it really is a smartphone. Whether it is tablet or smartphone battery power has always been a big issue. Though little known but it is heard that  Once charged, the battery of Dell Streak 2 will be far better than the original Streak and will take us right through the whole day, even with Wi-Fi and 3G running all the time.

The current streak is 5 inches, with a 1GB processor and has been pretty popular but we all expect the upcoming model to up the CPU a bit and go with a 7-inch screen. The Dell Streak is a pretty good smartphone/tablet although the sales weren’t as high as expected. The problem was that Dell didn’t advertise the Streak as good as it should have been. Hopefully, things will be different with the Dell Streak 2 as Dell is taking the marketing pretty seriously.

We have all heard people refer to their Blackberry as their “Crackberry”, indicating a level of addiction to the device, but how addicted or loyal are we really to our smartphones? The numbers might surprise you as “Crackberry” users remain loyal to their phones just 35% of the time.

Reuters recently completed a brand loyalty study on smartphone users to determine how loyal people truly are to their phones, and the results may surprise you.  The study shows 56% of current smartphone owners say they are keeping an open mind about their next purchase.

This is not surprising news with the sheer number of smartphones on the market currently, all with similar specs. Most smartphones on the market have a high resolution camera, HD touchscreen, Wifi, 3G, and Bluetooth. In fact the iPhones,

Galaxys, HTCs, LGs and DELLs all have these qualities and similar other specs. In fact Lead Analyst for Reuters, Ryan Garner believes that “Loyalty with a handset is a lot more complicated these days in that people buy into experiences at the high-end level.”

The study found that the real loyalty is in the operating system and not the device maker,  which makes sense as app selection depends on your OS choice. Apple iPhone users are the most loyal to the iOS operating system, with a 59% loyalty rate, by far the highest on the survey. Google Android users are 28% loyal, and Nokia Symbian users 24% loyal.

Of the 2,653 mobile phone users surveyed around the world, 37% of them are planning on upgrading to a smartphone on their next cellular phone purchase, which is inline with Gartner’s predictions of smartphones of at least 30% this year.

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A WMPowerUser member by the name of Justin has posted an unboxing video for the Dell Venue Pro. Besides speciality websites, the Venue Pro is only being sold on Dell’s website or through one of the 8 Microsoft Retail Stores across the United States.

According to the post and video, a number of batteries still say “engineering sample” on them. My guess would be Dell might have had to rush some of these devices to the shelves to make the ship date, or maybe it was just a printing error. Other than this observation, Justin’s says the device seems to function well and the hardware keyboard is a nice addition to the phone.

According to a Wall Street Journal Article, Dell will be getting rid of 25,000 blackberries and giving their employees the new Dell Venue Pro. The Dell Venue Pro runs Microsoft’s Windows Phone 7 software. Devices for WP7 are set to release in the coming weeks.

Dell claims they will save 25% in mobile communication costs. They are also talking with T-Mobile aobut purchasing large amounts of minutes and data in bulk to offset some aditional costs.

This is a huge set across Blackberry’s brow. Dell is a huge company and if they’re putting their trust in the WP7 platform, why can’t yours?

A YouTube video from a user who goes by 0TheRain0 has modded a SNES controller to be compatible with the Dell Streak. The controller, which plugs into the Dell Streak’s 30 pin connector, is being detected as a keyboard, according to Gizmodo. 0TheRain0 hacked the connector with a small usb microcontroller board to make this all possible.

Someone should sell this as an accessory. All of a sudden you’ll have a portable SNES!