At the announcement of the Next Galaxy last week, Samsung made it a point to mention all of these wonderful accessories we would be receiving alongside the Galaxy SIII. An HDMI adapter, a battery charging stand and a few others were mentioned but the star of the show was the Wireless Charging Kit. This kit is apparently the first to use a new type of technology that will make it more reliable and faster than other technologies, but the problem is they didn’t mention when we would see it.

As many Galaxy Nexus owners will attest, Samsung hasn’t been too good at providing accessories for their phones. Word on the street is that there will be a four month delay from when the phone launches to when we can see the wireless charging accessory. In the long run that isn’t that much of a delay but with Samsung’s track record we are a little wary. Let us all hope for the SIII’s sake that they do better on the accessories this time around. What is so hard about making a dock that uses the G-Nex’s pogo pins?

Via: The Verge

Is the LG Optimus Vu the weirdest phone of the last year? Quite possibly. Once rumored to be LG’s knee-jerk reaction to the Samsung Galaxy Note, this thing is a monster. It’s being sold as a phone, but with its 5″ display, it’s much more. On the spec side, it has a 1.5GHz dual-core processor (probably the Snapdragon S4), LTE, 2080mAh battery, 8MP rear camera, and is only 8.5mm thick. Oh, it also still runs Gingerbread.

After playing with it, I can sort of see how it would be a nice coffee table device, maybe as a mini tablet. I’m still struggling to decide if I would ever want to carry around a device this big as my daily driver. You’ll see in the video below what I’m talking about. Aside from the size, it hums along nicely, has nifty screen capture tricks up its sleeves, takes decent pictures, and would be a joy to consume media on.

It has not been announced for the U.S. market yet. 

LG is one of the few big wigs that has a major presence here at CTIA this week, so we stopped by their booth to check out their newest line of Optimus phones. First up is the Optimus 4X HD which so far, has not been announced for the States. It’s currently an international phone with a 1.5GHz Tegra 3 processor, 4.7″ HD display, HSPA+, 1GB of RAM, 8MP camera, 2150mAh battery, NFC, and Ice Cream Sandwich.

After playing with it for a bit, I will give LG some credit for once – this phone is very nice. This version of their custom skin is their best yet. They also took things like their native video and camera apps and pumped them up with features that no one else is doing (to my knowledge). It may not be stock, however, this phone is still something to consider if/when it comes to our shores. 

A few interesting updates await you in the Play Store today if you head on over. First up is an update for arguably the best app of all time, Google Maps. The application will now show you Google Offers based on your location, so if you’re walking around downtown you can find where to go to lunch and save some money. The map view of this is particularly handy. Also tucked into this update is “360 degree panoramas inside restaurants and stores” and indoor walking directions for the US and Japan. Both of which can be pretty interesting once they become more widespread.

Shazam also has an update waiting for you, one that enables NFC if you have it. You can “swap tags and share your favorite music” through Android Beam just by tapping your two phones together (provided you both have NFC). Now you can really be that guy who shares the music with all of his friends.

Play Links: Maps | Shazam

You have to give it up for some tech-tinkerers out there. Someone over in China with too much time on their hands have found that if you pair certain Bluetooth headsets with the HTC One X, that you can remotely control the camera’s shutter. Seriously, that’s neat. Depending on which headset you have, it could be as easy as a single click or sometimes a variation of certain button presses to get it working properly. It’s a nifty video and thankfully, it comes with subtitles. 

If you have been searching the internet for that perfect deal, then look no further. The folks over at Best Buy are selling a refurbished Samsung Galaxy Tab 8.9 bundle, complete with keyboard dock, case, headset, and more for only $300. The 8.9 Tab is perfect for people who enjoy simplistic portability and don’t need a whole 10.1″ device for their mobile gaming and business. It’s not a bad deal, so definitely consider it if a tablet was in your purchasing future.

Buy

Cheers Bryan!

A new update for the HTC Thunderbolt has been approved by Verizon and is ready to be rolled out. The build number of  2.11.605.19 may look familiar since it leaked a few weeks back. The update itself isn’t major and appears to be focused on connectivity issues. It also has better VPN functionality and better handling of Yahoo Mail.

When these update docs arrive, we usually see an update within a week or two.

The update is 61MB in size. More info.