World\'s thinnest smartphone

Pictures of the world’s possible thinnest smartphone has been leaked. Chinese phone maker Oppo plans to come out with a smartphone that’s just 6.65mm thick. Click to read Will Apple\'s iWatch be iPhone 5-compatible? Engadget has posted a picture of what it terms could be the world’s thinnest smartphone slimmer than the 6.68mm Ascent P1 S from another Chinese firm Huawei. The design looks simple and sleek with a full metal rim and an edgeless glass design. Huawei’s Ascend P1 S runs on a dual-core 1.5 GHz processor, a 4.3″ qHD AMOLED display at 960 x 540 resolution, adual-core TI OMAP 4460 Cortext-A9 CPU at 1.5 GHz and SGX 540 graphics, apart from 1GB RAM. Click to read iPhone 5 delayed until end of the year? The super slim phone also has an impressive 8 megapixel back camera and a 1.3mp front camera. The phone can currently be preordered on cellhut.com for $699.99. iPhone 5 vs Samsung S3: Which one is better Would you ditch your iPhone for Samsung? Both Apple and Samsung are scheduled to launch their next big models this year and the bets are already on as to who will win the race. Samsung is already planning to release its S3 next month, ahead of the iPhone 5’s possible launch in June, in an effort to beat the competition. According to CNet, the Korean giant might include a new human interaction feature in the S3. A feature similar to face recognition software being used on Android phones, it will use the front camera to keep track of the user’s eye movement and lock the screen accordingly. While preventing others from using the phone or accessing contents on the screen the feature could also help save battery power by keeping alive only the section where the eye contact is active. Reports also indicate that the new smartphone will feature a 4.7-inch display and have features that could almost match the Apple’s Retina Display. And with the Exynos Quad.-core 1.5GHz processing chip along with 1GB of RAM it would take some convincing for anyone to put the new S3 aside. The new iPhone 5, according to latest online reports may even include a new 3D feature when it is launched in June. In fact, what sparked the rumour is a job listing on Apple’s website for an iOS software engineer with skills, knowledge and experience in Computer Vision, Image Analysis and 3D geometry. Other features that Apple might incorporate in its new phone could be an increase in the screen size from its current 3.5 to 4 and do away with physical buttons. Samsung has already increased its market share with regard to the sale of its S2 and Galaxy Note. A sales staff at Sharaf DG told Emirates 24|7 that almost 20 units of Galaxy Notes and S2s are being sold every day, a number that is similar to that of the iPhone 4S. “In fact Samsung is actually doing well. At least in this market there is a growing appetite for Android phones,” he said. And with forthcoming new releases the gap with regard to technological advancement and features between Samsung and iPhone would get much closer, giving a clear edge to the former outside the United States The cost of iPhone 4S in the UAE has been steadily dropping over the last few weeks as users anticipate the announcement of a successor. In the latest price drop, a deal on a group buying website is offering the 16GB iPhone 4S for Dh2,629, a drop of 20 per cent to the product’s price in various electronic stores across the country. Some classified advertisements are promising to sell the 16GB 4S for as low as Dh2,000 in a special deal. Apple launched the iPhone 4S last October instead of the much awaited iPhone 5 along with its revolutionary voice recognition software Siri. The 16GB device was initially being sold in the UAE in the grey market for Dh5200. Within a month the prices dropped to Dh4250. In December, both Etisalat and du officially launched the 4S in the UAE with a price tag of Dh2,749 for the 16 GB device. The UAE prices are much lower to what Apple is charging for its new models elsewhere outside the United States and Europe. In India while the 16GB iPhone is priced at Rs44.500 (Dh3,325) in Indonesia, where Apple officially launched the 4S on Friday it is priced at $850 (Dh3,121). According to Nishanth Kamath one of the reasons for the drop in prices in the UAE is due to the anticipation of the next level model. “Apple funs now want to look forward to the new model. Yes, Siri has been amazing, but I am eagerly awaiting to find out what is new in the iPhone 5.” According to Bittu S who deals with mobile phones and other electronics at Dubai based outlet, the price may not drop further. “Initially the cost was artificially high because of the non availability. Today the situation has changed and the price has evened out. We may not see a further drop from here on,” he said. Meanwhile, according to latest figures, 4S dominated sales in the US market since October 2011. A recent survey by Consumer Intelligence Research Partners notes that about 89 per cent of all US iPhone sales can be attributed to apple’s new smartphone.