CES 2012: The Big Leaks And Reveals So Far.

The craziness into CES unofficially officially begins tonight with CES unveiled. But so much has already trickeld out that it’s worth highlighting some of the big things we’re now expecting to see. Hop past the break for the early leaks of CES 2012…

LG Prepping Android Phone With 1280 x 720 Resolution.

The current crop of high-end Android phones are nice and all, but one things bugs us to no end — the continuing use of 800 x 480 as the standard display resolution. A few handsets such as the Motorola Atrix have graduated to qHD displays with 540 x 960 resolution. A notable, though still unfulfilling number. But then we heard news of a new Toshiba panel being prepped for mobile devices coming in at 4″ with 1500:1 contrast ratio and featuring Super AMOLED Plus technology and we got excited. Very excited.

So consider us completely tickled by a new LG device currently only known as “P930″ as told by the leaked XML file above. This phone will possibly be the first 4-5″ device to sport 1280 x 720 resolution and launch with the latest GSM “4G” technologies.

With that said, how do we know it’s not just another tablet? Simple — LG uses a “V” prefix for tablets and a “P” prefix for phones. The “P930″ certainly fits the mold of phone if we assume LG is continuing their internal naming scheme. With that said, hop inside for the full-length XML file that originally spilled the beans…

Will Toshiba Produce The iPhone 5′s 720p Display?

Among the many things Toshiba will be showing off this year in their booth at SID 2011, a possible future iPhone display will make an appearance boasting 720p resolution, 1500:1 contrast ratio, and Super AMOLED clarity in a 4″ form factor. Thus far, the two most widely speculated features on the upcoming 5th generation iPhone include the processor — Will it get the newer dual-core CPU found in the iPad 2? — and display. As for the latter, most rumors have pointed to a 4″ screen size as it would technically fit in the iPhone 4 body allowing Apple to keep the iPhone 5 the same size as the current 4th generation iPhone.

As it stands right now, the jury is still out on what exactly Apple will change on the new iPhone as well as how major the upcoming refresh will be. Many believe that the 5th generation iPhone will be a small refresh much like the iPhone 3G –> 3GS. Others, however, make claims about the screen, processor, and other internal hardware being upgraded which signals a more major upgrade to us. At the very least, a 720p iPhone display will require developers to redo their apps to support the added resolution, potentially aggravating some.

Coming from a consumer perspective, we say go for it — bring us 720p 4″ displays!

Toshiba Announces “Write Once” SD Cards.

Business looking for the ultimate security in digital media (and needlessly wasting planetary resources) should take a look at Toshiba’s recently announced “Write-once” SD cards. The cards (as the name suggests) can only be written to once. After the card is filled you can neither erase/re-write or reformat it. Pricing is said to be “open”.

Toshiba hopes the new uber secure card will appeal to governmental and other security-minded corporations. We on the other hand see this as an unnecessary waste of resources. To each his own…

Toshiba Denies Apple Ties to New Plant. #toshiba #apple

On Monday, we heard news that Toshiba was building a new plant specifically for high resolution, small LCD displays. There was also news that Apple is/was helping invest in the new plant so that they could have a large production backing behind their next generation of iPhone’s and Retina Displays. Today however, Toshiba has come forward denying any involvement by Apple, DigiTimes reports. Toshiba’s response was plain, short, and to the point — it’s not happening. But seeing as how the new plant will specialize in the same type and size of displays that Apple currently uses, it’s not hard to connect a few dots…

Apple, Toshiba Investing in New Display Manufacturing Plant. #apple #toshiba

Toshiba Mobile Display Co is reported to be working on a new mobile LCD plant, specifically for retina display-type displays, according to Japanese newspaper Nikkei. The new plant will come at a cost of over $100 billion Yen ($1.19 billion USD) and allow Toshiba to more than double their current high resolution mobile LCD production. The build location is said to be located in the Ishikawa prefecture, with production slated for the 2nd half of 2009.

More interesting however, is news that american-based Apple Inc. will be investing quite heavily in the new LCD production plant. This can be attributed mainly to the fact that this new plant will allow Toshiba to pump out more high resolution retina displays for Apple’s iPhone, iPod Touch, and upcoming re-designed iPads — the latter of which is rumored to receiving a new retina display in the upcoming hardware refresh.

A pairing between Toshiba and Apple makes sense given the high profile Apple’s gadgets demand. With that said, the co-op should help reduce or outright eliminate any supply shortages as has been seen in recent years, most recently by Samsung-sourced displays and the this past summer’s HTC portfolio.

Toshiba-Made MacBook Air SSD Hardware Now Available to All.

If you were wanting to get your hands on some of the Toshiba-made SSD hardware that found its way into the latest MacBook Airs, you’re in luck. Toshiba has announced that their Blade X-gale SSDs are now available for the masses. Offering up speeds of 220MB/s read and 180MB/s write, the X-gale hardware will certainly add some pep to your computer’s step. Though not the fastest SSD on the market, they are certainly faster than your standard platter-based drives.

The X-gale SSD drives will come in 64GB, 128GB, and 256GB capacities. Pricing is not yet available.

Toshiba puts OLED mass production plans on ice.

The joint venture between Toshiba and Panasonic, Toshiba Mobile Display, appears to have a $191.6 million failure on their hands. According to statements made by Toshiba Mobile Display spokesperson Masahiro Kume:

“The plan (for mass-production) is currently frozen. We’ll review the production plan again from scratch.”

The mass production he’s speaking of concerns the $191.6 million investment in OLED mass production the company was gearing up for. Looks like all of those videos we’ve seen of AMOLED displays not really being all that different (read: better) than LCD and Super LCD screens is starting to hurt interest in OLED technology. It’s quite a shame really, because in certain conditions AMOLED does provide a noticeable improvement over traditional LCD counterparts.

With that said, it’ll be some time before we see AMOLED jumping ahead of LCD in terms of usage numbers as Tohisba Mobile Display is redirecting resources to current higher demand LCD screens. Maybe it just wasn’t meant to be…

World Cup folly: Toshiba backs out of free hardware promise to citizens of Spain.

My my my. When will companies learn to keep their mouths shut if they don’t intend on backing up their claims? The folly of the week goes Toshiba and their World Cup blunder. You see, leading up to the World Cup, Toshiba ran a number of ads in Germany, England, Portugal, Italy and Spain that flat out stated that Toshiba would refund any computer or TV purchases to people residing in the World Cup winners’ home land. Free Toshiba goodies all around!!!

If only it were true. You see, the fine print has struck again. In this case, it mentioned (among other things) that in order to take up Toshiba’s promise, customers had to register their recently purchased hardware by June 17th. Hmmm, funny. I’m pretty sure those commercials ran after the fact in plenty of households. Nothing sounds like outright duck and cover more than Toshiba’s feeble attempt to turn away scores of angry customers. I smell a lawsuit…

Toshiba: Don’t make promises you have no intention of keeping. It just makes you look like a bunch of assholes.