Sony Xperia S heading to Canada [unlocked]

Sony’s Xperia S made a splash a CES in January, but as with most high-profile phones, it took a while for Canadian carriers to get on the trolley. That trends may or may not continue, but it looks like either way Canadians will get a crack at the company’s new flagship. Earlier today MobileSyrup reported that Sony’s official Facebook page posted the new that the Xperia S was headed to Canadian carrier Rogers. Hours later the Facebook update had vanished, and Rogers contacted the blog to deny the news.

It looks like Sony will instead be selling the phone unlocked, as it does with most of its smartphones. “I can confirm that while this device will work on the Rogers network, we will not be selling it directly,” A Rogers representative told MobileSyrup. Sounds like an unlocked phone to me. That’s a shame for Canadians who want the high-end phone with a subsidy, since the unlocked version will surely be in the $500-600 range. On the plus side, it’ll mean that Canadians (and maybe even Americans!) will have easy access to a carrier-agnostic version of the Xperia S. There was no mention of a price or date on Sony’s Facebook page.

The S is the largest and most advanced phone that Sony’s produced to date, with a 4.3-inch 720p screen (an impressive 341 PPI) a dual-core 1.5Ghz processor, NFC capability with an included set of tags, and a jaw-dropping 12.1 megapixel camera. Unfortunately it’s running Android 2.3, but Sony has (say it with me, kids) promised an Ice Cream Sandwich update some time in the future. The phone has already made its way to the UK and greater Europe, and will be making it here to the US at AT&T’s Xperia Ion, minus the swanky transparent menu buttons. For a review of the British version, check out SlashGear for more info.

Rumor: Galaxy S III coming in April with NFC

Another day, another fleeting rumor of the ever-elusive Galaxy S III. After skipping out on Mobile World Congress tro throw its own party Apple-style, Samsung still hasn’t mentioned when it intends to bring the Galaxy S III to market. The CHEIL Worldwide Marketing company thinks they know, according to ZD Net Korea: they say that Samsung is planning a huge promotion for April, when they expect the phone to launch in multiple markets worldwide. The 2012 Summer Olympics will reportedly play a large part in the initial promotion.

The reasoning for the Olympic tie-in is a deal between Samsung, credit card company Visa and the IOC, launching a new NFC-based payment system with the Galaxy S III as the flagship device. NFC certainly makes sense – Samsung has been including it with most of the high-end phones it’s announced in the last few months. The April release seems a little dubious, to be honest: there’s already a Samsung event scheduled for later this month in France, so they’d need to get the product finalized, announced and delivered in a span of just a few weeks.

There’s very little information about the Galaxy S III that can be verified. A large screen, fast processor and Samsung’s TouchWiz version of Ice Cream Sandwich seem like a given, but every analyst and insider between here and South Korea seems intent on getting a word in edgewise. At the moment about the only thing we can say for sure is that a successor to the incredibly popular Galaxy S III is on its way – some time, somewhere.

First impressions of Dell’s XPS 13 – A defining piece of hardware for the Ultrabook segment

Every time that a new laptop lands on my doorstep, I’m faced with the fact that I’m going to have to give up my beloved MacBook Pro for a testing period with the new device. Generally speaking this is a slight feeling of dread, but Dell’s promises with the XPS 13 had me excited. The flagship Ultrabook from the Texas-based manufacturer has been on our radar for a while, so I was excited to get my hands onto it. FedEx made the delivery this morning, and I’m going to do a full review later, but here are my initial thoughts about Dell’s answer to the MacBook Air.

First off, that’s exactly what this is — A MacBook Air competitor. In fact, that’s the entire line of Ultrabooks, no matter the maker. Intel put rigorous walls around what could be called an Ultrabook, and almost everything about them is set up in line to make sure that Apple doesn’t continue to own the market for the form factor.

Dell’s XPS 13 is a piece of technological art. That much is for sure. It’s just a ouch over 3 pounds, as mine is configured (the higher end version is what Dell sent to me, with a Core i7 processor, 4 GB of RAM and a 256 GB SSD). It’s not as thin as the Air, but it’s still plenty svelte. You could easily stick the 13 into a briefcase or bag and carry it around without really noticing.

The top of the device, as you’ve likely seen, is finished in machined aluminum. Underneath is carbon fiber. The keyboard feels great, but decidedly different than most. It’s a chiclet-style, but has a slight concave to the buttons, making it feel a bit more resolute to your touch. It’s nicely back-lit, and you can adjust the brightness as you desire. I like Dell’s choice to have the F-keys remain F-keys, and for them to require a secondary push of the Function button in order to act otherwise.

The trackpad is…actually good. In fact, it’s probably the best one that I’ve used on a Windows-based machine yet. Like the Apple, it features a single surface that acts as a button, so you can click anywhere to get response. A two-finger click acts as a right-click. A four-finger swipe down minimizes everything to your desktop, swiping back up displays an alt-tab type window where you can select from running programs.

I’ll examine each of these areas a bit more in-depth when the full review comes, but for now I’ll say that my first impressions are good. I can comfortably touch-type on the keyboard, even though the 13-inch Ultrabook has nearly the same form factor of an 11-inch device.

Dell’s done a very nice job with the display, as well. Though it’s glosssy, and I’d prefer matte, its 13-inch size goes edge to edge, with only a small aluminum bezel left over from the lid. The resolution is fantastic, at 1366×768, which is nice to see since many manufacturers try for something much higher, leaving smaller screens such as this unusable.

I was told, in no uncertain terms, that the XPS 13 was not intended to be a media or gaming machine. But being the type of person I am, I had to play around a bit to find out. Fortunately I was pleasantly surprised. The XPS 13 turns out a solid 40-60 FPS in lighter games like League of Legends. Stepping up to higher-demanding games, however, would be ill-advised as the device lacks a dedicated GPU.

Dell claims that nearly 9 hours of battery life is possible with the XPS 13. In more real-world scenarios, I’m reading that people are seeing between 4 and 5 hours with this configuration. I’ll be running that test as well, to let you know what we find. Yes, you can min/max a battery test, but I prefer to look at numbers that reflect what you’ll actually be doing with a device, instead of tweaking every setting to get the highest possible number.

That’s where I’ll leave my first impressions, for now. Anything more and we’ll end up getting into a full review, which simply wouldn’t be fair just yet. To give you the summary, Dell has done a great job with the XPS 13. It’s thin, light, capable and…actually fun to use. In all of my testing, it’s the first time that I’m not counting down the minutes to be able to move back to my Mac. From a long-time Windows user who made the switch, that’s saying quite a lot.