New Samsung, LG, Oppo and Nokia phones in 2014: This Week's Headlines

[#1]

Howdy folks! A nice short week of news this week, with some cool new stuff on the way from Android vendors in 2014, an update on the iOS 7 jailbreak situation and two new upcoming Nokia phones. Let's get started, shall we?

LG G3 features and specifications rumoured

This year the LG G2 proved quite a capable phone with an interesting design, although it didn't seem to really challenge the Galaxy S4 for sales. Now, LG are preparing a followup. According to the Korea Herald, a prototype has been spotted that incudes a swipe-style fingerprint sensor, a 2K (2560 x 1440) display and an octa-core CPU. The phone may be announced as early as the Mobile World Congress in February.

Oppo confirm 5.5-inch 2560 x 1440 display for Find 7

The Oppo Find 5 was the first phone to be released with a 1080p display, and now the Find 7 looks like it'll be one of the first to hit the next milestone: 1440p. Oppo confirmed in a tweet that the Find 7 phablet will include a 5.5-inch screen at a resolution of 2560 x 1440, sometimes known as 2K. Super slim bezels are also expected, as Oppo have stated the phone will have "the feel of a 5" screen device." It's not known what version of Android will ship on the device - the company's N1 ships with a choice of Oppo's ColorROM or the popular 3rd party CyanogenMod ROM, so it's possible the same choice will be made available for the Find 7. The phone will be released in early 2014.

Samsung preparing new Exynos processor for CES

Samsung have become one of the first big companies to tease their presence at CES in the new year. They tweeted the image above, which mentions their Exynos line of processors and the slogan 'Flying even higher in 2014'. What's on the agenda? It could be 64 bit processors, but it could also be a new way of using ARM's big.LITTLE architecture, where both of the two quad-core processors are used simultaneously instead of switching between them. I guess we'll learn more on January 7th!

Jailbreak for iOS 7 by evasi0n removes Chinese app store Taig after controversy

While many users were thrilled to receive the latest jailbreak from team evasi0n, users in China and elsewhere noticed that the Taig app store had been bundled in place of Cydia for users with the Chinese language set on their phones. The app store featured pirated apps and generally seemed quite sketchy, so after the initial burst of feedback evasi0n have now removed the app store from their jailbreak. The team plan to continue to develop the jailbreak now that the primary complaint has been dealt with.

Nokia Lumia 630 leaked with dual-SIM support, software buttons

We've heard that support for software buttons would be added in the next version of Windows Phone, and this week we may have seen shots of the first phone to launch with this version - codenamed Moneypenny. The phone is made by Nokia and may be called the Lumia 630. The screenshot above shows a pair of signal strength indicators - a clear sign of dual SIM slots - as well as virtual buttons. The phone isn't expected to be revealed for some time, though.

Additional colours appear for Nokia Normandy Android phone

The Nokia phone codenamed Normany is an oddity; an apparent mix of an Asha body and hardware with the Android operating system - hardly what you'd expect to come from a company being acquired by Microsoft. Yet the phone exists and apparently is still due for release. @evleaks provide the latest photo of the phone, showing a range of colour options.

And that's it! Told you it was a short one. Thanks for checking out the article, and I hope you've had a great Christmas and you're looking forward to a brilliant new year!

[#2]

Thanks mate

[#3]

Thanks for blog - I wonder when the screen res race will run out of steam. We must be getting close surely. 2k res on a 5" screen seems a bit OTT.

Nokia Dual SIM slots is an interesting development - would like to see this in more devices as an option.

[#4]

cheers mate very interesting

[#5]

Thanks. I hope dual sim phones become the standard before long.

[#6]

Thanks for the overview.  The dual sim caught my attention as well (shame I don't like Windows).  Let's hope other manufacturers start considering them as well.

[#7]

Thanks for interesting blog

[#8]

Thanks for blogging!

Hoping that Oppo puts CyanogenMod OS option on all its further phones! My dream is that more phones come with CyanogenMod pre-installed, so users don't have to do any 3rd party ROM installation themselves. 

LG G3 - it'll be interesting to see what LG do with their flagship mobile! Especially the location of the volume button that was on the back on the G2. The Nexus 4 and Nexus 5 have shown that LG are still in the smartphone game...

[#9]

Thanks for the great review blog. Looking forward to what LG have to offer next, not to mention Samsung next year. Hopefully some previews for the next in the galaxy range too in January, hopefully better battery life? Don't care about features as much these days as much as battery life now. :-)

[#10]

Oh, forget to say, Happy New Year! ;-)

[#11]

great blog thanks! very interested in what samsung will have to say!