John Paczkowski

Recent Posts by John Paczkowski

The Droid DNA: It’s Not a Phablet, It’s a Smartphone

Verizon and HTC on Tuesday rolled out one last Android smartphone ahead of the holiday rush, the latest hero device of the pair’s successful Droid franchise.

At an invitation-only event in New York City, the two companies pulled the tarp off the HTC Droid DNA, a handset that HTC President Jason Mackenzie described as “the ultimate Droid.” And, given its specs, that’s an accurate label. The DNA features a five-inch Super LCD3 Gorilla Glass 2 display with full HD 1080p resolution and a 440ppi pixel density that should make it one of the best-looking mobile device screens around. With a five-inch display, the DNA would seem to be more tablet than phone, but labeling it as one of those tweener devices would be a misnomer.

“Don’t call it a phablet,” HTC design director Jonah Becker said this morning. “It’s a smartphone.”

Behind that SLCD 3 display: A 1.5GHz quad-core Snapdragon S4 Pro, two gigabytes of RAM, and one of Qualcomm’s integrated LTE chips. The DNA runs Android 4.1 Jelly Bean, the latest version of Google’s mobile OS. HTC has layered its Sense 4+ skin atop of it, bringing Beats Audio sound processing to the device, as well as camera face detection. It has also tricked the device out with wireless charging and an 8-megapixel camera with a f/2.0 28mm wide-angle lens. All those innards are crammed into a device that’s 9.73mm thick and weighs 4.86 ounces.

Price? $199. The DNA arrives at market on Nov. 21, but Verizon is accepting preorders today.

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December 30, 2013 at 6:49 am PT

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December 29, 2013 at 2:12 pm PT

BlackBerry Pulls Latest Twitter for BB10 Update

December 29, 2013 at 5:58 am PT

Apple CEO Tim Cook Made $4.25 Million This Year

December 28, 2013 at 12:05 pm PT

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I think the NSA has a job to do and we need the NSA. But as (physicist) Robert Oppenheimer said, “When you see something that is technically sweet, you go ahead and do it and argue about what to do about it only after you’ve had your technical success. That is the way it was with the atomic bomb.”

— Phil Zimmerman, PGP inventor and Silent Circle co-founder, in an interview with Om Malik