Introduction:

Back at CES 2012, we got the chance to check out this mid-range Android smartphone known by the name of Motorola MOTOLUXE. After getting up close and personal with it for a few minutes, we walked away with a generally positive impression as the handset was sleek and felt nicely made.

Today, the Motorola MOTOLUXE is once again in our hands, but this time we are giving it a full-blown review treatment. A 4-inch display, 800MHz processor, and an 8-megapixel camera contained within a slim, solid body are among the features that the smartphone has to justify its $380 off-contract price with. Care to know how it stood after we put it through its paces? Read along to find out...


Design:

Well, what do you know: the Motorola MOTOLUXE is actually one pretty good looking handset despite its relatively low price point. To start, it exhibits a slim profile, and although it is no RAZR, its waistline of under 10 millimeters is commendable. What makes the smartphone look even cooler is that it sports a soft touch finish, and the metallic elements that have been used in its construction add a dose of premium feel to the otherwise mid-range device. On top of that, the smartphone feels nice and solid, and its dimensions make it easy to operate with a single hand.



You can compare the Motorola MOTOLUXE with many other phones using our Size Visualization Tool.

Our fingers have no troubles locating the lock key or the volume rocker, which resides on the smartphone's top and right sides respectively. The capacitive buttons located underneath the device's display are also well positioned and accidental presses are pretty much absent.

It may sound silly at first, but the Motorola MOTOLUXE has a lanyard groove located at its bottom left-hand side. In all honesty, we don't think that many people would actually use it, but we don't mind its presence anyway as it does not spoil the design of the device in any way. However, the groove itself is not as neat as the notification light, which is hidden inside of it. Each time you receive a text message or miss a call, a pulsing light will bring the event to your attention.



Display:

Before we proceed any further, we have to give Motorola two thumbs up for managing to fit a 4-inch display on a smartphone with such a small footprint. It sports a resolution of 480 by 854 pixels (245ppi), which translates into clear, detailed images and sharp looking text. Unfortunately, the screen itself is nothing but your plain LCD type, so although colors may look pretty accurate when the display is viewed directly, they do get washed out after a slight tilt of the device. Also, its outdoor visibility is quite poor even when the brightness is set to the maximum.  

Source

The shareholders have been clamoring for a while that Apple ought to do something with all that cash, and reward those who have been investing in its shares. Not that it hasn't been rewarding them with the share price ramping up exponentially to get to the most valuable company status, but a dividend is a dividend.

That's exactly what Apple will start doling out each quarter, starting with the July one, to the tune of $2.65 a share. Not too shabby, but to soothe the inevitable stock price drop with the size of the dividend, Apple will also start buying back its own shares in the September quarter, and has set aside $10 billion for that. 

The share buyback will be spread over three years, and aimed to minimize stock dilution from Apple employees exercising their option grants. As per Tim Cook:

Peter Oppenheimer, Apple’s CFO, calculated that "Combining dividends, share repurchases, and cash used to net-share-settle vesting RSUs, we anticipate utilizing approximately $45 billion of domestic cash in the first three years of our programs".

Well, it seems that someone in the market has "anticipated" those $45 billion coming the shareholders way over the next 3 years, since Apple's shares have gained an almost unthinkable amount for a large market cap in the last weeks. The first dividend program for Apple since 1995 also shows that its explosive growth period might be stepping aside for a more balanced approach, while still maintaining high margins.

Source

The Nokia Lumia 900 is the first Nokia Windows Phone device designed specifically with the North American customer in mind meaning it packs a relatively large 4.3-inch display and offers 4G LTE connectivity. While Nokia’s main goal is to make itself known in the USA, the Lumia 900 is first coming to Canada.

Just as Canadian carrier Rogers promised, the Lumia 900 went up for pre-order today for a price of only $99.99 on contract. In Canada, Rogers requires you to sign up for a three-year contract in order for you to fully benefit from the carrier subsidy. Additionally, the first ones to pre-order may qualify for a Nokia prize pack which could be a Batman-styled handset and other bundles.

Rumor has it that AT&T stateside will launch the Nokia Lumia 900 with the same sweet price of only $99.99 on a 2-year contract.

The handset features a 4.3” WVGA screen, 1.4GHz single-core processor, 16 gigs of non-expandable internal memory, an 8-megapixel camera and an 1830mAh battery.

source: Rogers via NokiaPowerUser