The teaser below showed up on LG’s Korean blog and the unique aspect about the phone is its rare 4:3 inch aspect ratio. LG Optimus Vu features a 5 inch 1024 x 768 IPS display, 1GB of RAM, 8 GB of internal storage and a dual core 1.5GHz Snapdragon S3 processor. The OS of choice is Android 2.3 Gingerbread and we also have among the specs NFC and an 8 megapixel camera. Another 4:3 aspect ratio device was the Pantech Rocket, that failed to take off in AT&T’s offer.

No idea if the LG Vu will ever leave Korea, but if it does, it could prove to be a Samsung Galaxy Note rival, since I’m expecting a very reasonable pricing here, considering the specs are underwhelming. A stylus wouldn’t hurt, either… Here’s the video teaser:

Ville is supposed to be unveiled on February 26th, together with another new model, the quad core Edge. As far as HTC Ville goes, this ultrathin handset is expected to have a profile of 8.9mm and while that may not be impressive compared to Samsung’s last year Galaxy S II and its 8.5mm waist, it’s still impressive for a HTC phone. This is a midrange phone with a qHD AMOLED display, that has a 4.3 inch diagonal. There’s also a dual core 1.5 GHz processor on board, Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich as the OS and Sense 4.0 as the UI of choice.

The chipset that powers this device hasn’t been mentioned yet, but it’s probably the MSM8260 Snapdragon, that was used on the Sensation XE. We’re only 20 days away from the big unveiling at MWC, so I guess that more leaks will follow in the next weeks. Maybe we’ll also get a clearer glimpse of the Ville and its interface and maybe this time we’ll have a more clear video of what’s going on…

What’s interesting is that the HTC Sensation is also on the list, being promised Android ICS + Sense 3.5 in March, while the Galaxy S II will get its Ice Cream Sandwich next month as well via OTA and Kies. Android 4.0.4 brought quite a bunch of interesting features, such as higher volume, better performance, better overall speed, it got rid of some bugs in the connectivity area, so it’s overall a good piece of software. Android 4.0.5 is not expected to be so revolutionary, other than the usual Google fixes.

With Samsung Galaxy S II spotted recently running the official ICS build, it’s no wonder we’re so close to the official update, at least in France. Hopefully, the rest of the world will be as fast as SFR when providing updates. It’s very probable that the Android 4.0.5 update will come to the GSM Galaxy Nexus first, since the Verizon model only got its copy of the 4.0.4 software this weekend, so there’s a certain priority for the GSM units.

They also made a video showing their experience, that you can check out below. The Galaxy S II runs Android 4.0.3, apparently with an improved TouchWiz, that to me looks exactly the same. Also, the handset is now more stable, it’s really fast, smooth and even the battery life improved. Android 4.0 has arrived on this phone before, via custom ROMs, so we know what to expect here. The Robot font looks nice on the crisp Super AMOLED Plus display and the Exynos dual core 1.2 GHz CPU seems to fit the experience like a glove.

Well, Gingerbread may have become sluggish if you had a ton of updating widgets enabled, but that’s in the past now, courtesy of ICS. The performance upgrades are also pretty clear, as shown by everyday use (Video below) and a couple of benchmarks, generating 6257 points in AnTuTu, 4225 in Quadrant and 2517 in SmartBench. I guess that it’s only a matter of time till all the Galaxy S II (tens of millions) units get the update to the latest Android, which Samsung promised for Q1 by the way.

You can watch the ad below and know that this 90 second piece of work cost Samsung $10 million. Well, I guess they’ll spend anything to get rid of the stigma of being Apple copycats, as they’ve been branded through the many lawsuits from last year. Frankly, this ad puts too little emphasis on the functions of the 5.3 inch dual core Exynos smartphone/tablet and too much on how much fun people can have (with or without this device). At least they show what the stylus can do…

And once again, a pretty good Samsung product reaches the USA too late, if you ask me. It’s already been available in Europe from last fall and only now it enters Apple-land. Will it sell well? Considering, it already moved some millions of units worldwide, I guess it will. What’s not to like about it? It has a good 8 megapixel camera, solid CPU, enough RAM, enough storage, great stylus, Android 2.3 works fine, ICS is coming… what more could you want?

This leak matches the one from a couple of days ago, that reached Sprint’s Nexus S 4G. being the same software version. Users at XDA Developers are working on an unofficial changelog as we speak and it appears that the main function of this update is easing the switch between 4G and 3G and increasing efficiency. A new radio firmware is rumored here and we also get a brand new power menu, that has been available to those with a 4.0.3 ROM. Multitouch works better and speed is greater, according to the guys who tested the software.

You might be wary of installing this leaked ROM, as it’s not something that everyone is comfortable with, especially those who usually rely on official software. The source link below have all the details on this update and information on how to get the ROM. Here’s a short list of some of the improvements found by XDA Developers: better signal strength, faster boot up time, better auto brightness functionality, faster autorotate, better browser performance, increased volume (!!!), keyboard fixes.

Also, courtesy of the source article for this piece, the one belonging to Phone Arena I’ve actually remembered that at some point Sony Ericsson and Microsoft worked together. I had totally forgot about the Xperia X1, that was released in late September 2008, as the first Sony Ericsson model powered by Windows Mobile with a nifty panel UI. So, if this was possible back then, why wouldn’t it happen now, with Windows Phone? Some say that it would be weird to sell the usually PlayStation-certified Sony phones with Xbox Live services on them…

Anyway, as far as the Xperia Sola goes, odds are that it will be an Android unit, so there’s no point in worrying about Windows Phone and the likes. If you want details, know that the Sony Xperia Sola was trademark through filed applications with the USPTO and OHIM for the US and Europe respectively. I don’t quite like this name, but it’s certainly better than initials…

The original Droid had a pretty bad keyboard, but the latest generations were a big improvement, including the Droid 4, that brings a comfortable 5 row keyboard with a number row at the top. The keys seem to be made out of high quality plastic, so that’s another bonus point for Motorola. Backlighting is also present and you must know that this new Motorola Droid unit comes with 16 GB of internal memory, an 8 megapixel camera, 1 GB of RAM, a front 1.3 megapixel camera and a 1785 mAh battery.

The battery here should provide a talk time of about 12.5 hours before you need a recharge. The Droid 4 is compatible with most of the Motorola accessories, including all sorts of workstations, keyboards, headphones and dongles. And finally, the 4G LTE connectivity aspect and a thinner profile are extras you get compared to the Droid 3, that’s very similar to the Droid 4 as far as the rest of the specs are concerned. An Android Ice Cream Sandwich update will be coming soon.

The thing here is that this is a new iOS, released in November and many app developers didn’t manage to update their apps for compatibility with it just yet. The tests involved 23 different versions of iOS and 33 versions of Android, with iOS 4.2.1 being responsible for 12% of crashes, iOS 4.3.3 for 10.66% and iOS 4.1 for 8.24%. Crittercism used data from 214 million apps and it appears that Android 2.3.4 and 2.3.3 are most likely to generate crashes from the Google mobile OS world.

This result points towards the fact that Apple takes its time when responding to iOS flaws and developers are also to blame sometimes. Meanwhile, we all know the usual stories about Android and malware attacks, but at least now Android Market has a bouncer in place checking out the software. Will this percentage change in the future?

The design of the Galaxy S Advance looks like a combo between the Galaxy S II and Galaxy Nexus, including a curved display. The handset comes with a 4 inch Super AMOLED display, a 1GHZ dual core processor and 768MB of RAM. There’s also 2GB of internal storage, a 5 megapixel camera and a case that measures 9.7mm in waistline. The phone has a solid feel, weighs 120 grams and you’ll see it in Vietnamese stores from the end of this month with a price tag of around $450, without subsidies.

This price is very reasonable, considering these specs, that unless some other phone maker will surprise us at MWC with an even more appealing phone. With the Galaxy S II Plus being rumored over the past days, as a CPU upgrade for the original Galaxy S II, it’s harder and harder to tell Samsung smartphones apart and decide which one actually suits one’s needs. I’ll tell you what suits my needs: the Galaxy S III and its quad core CPU, but that’s an entirely different story.