Nokia close to selling Vertu for 200 million euro

At the end of last year, Nokia was reportedly looking into selling Vertu to raise funds and help focus the company, which is still in transition. Now, the Financial Times says that the deal is nearing completion.

The purported buyer is Permira, a British private equity group, who are reportedly willing to shell out €200 million ($265 million) for the luxury phone maker. Neither Vertu nor Permira have confirmed the deal.

Another equity group, EQT, are also said to have been interested in Vertu, but according to the Financial Times these negotiations aren't going anywhere.

If you were hoping for a WP-powered Vertu phone, this is probably not good news. But considering the precious metal plated phones mostly ran S40 (aside a couple of Symbians), the luxury niche of Vertu doesn't really mesh very уевв with Nokia's micro&soft strategy.

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Samsung I9100G Galaxy S II ICS update now available

The original I9100 Galaxy S II started getting its Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich update in March, but its TI OMAP-based I9100G cousin wasn't that lucky.

Until recently that is, as we started getting user reports that the I9100G ICS update is already seeding in several countries. It seems the rollout is only enjoying limited availability for now, but hopefully it will go global in the next days or weeks.

It's good to know that Samsung hasn't forgotten all about the less popular versions of the Galaxy S II and is delivering their due ICS servings.

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Samsung Russia starts a countdown to the next Galaxy

As we near the May 3 press event in London where the next Galaxy device will finally be unveiled, we saw a countdown timer on Samsung Russia website.

The timer currently has just over 6 days remaining and ends on May 5, which could be the date when Russians will get the Galaxy S III.

This isn't the first time a regional Samsung website has done some S III teasing - the Denmark branchposted a teaser on its Facebook page last week.

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Nokia N9 rumored to get PR1.3 update by the end of May

The PR1.2 update for the MeeGo-running Nokia N9 came out a couple of months ago, but Nokia was teasing the yet-to-come PR1.3 update by calling it "small but valuable".

Someone from a MeeGo fanblog was eager to find out more details on the next update, so they contacted Nokia - and Nokia answered. Reportedly, a Nokia representative said that the update will be out by the end of May and confirmed that the update is small, but it would contain many surprises.

The Nokia representative couldn't comment on whether the Skype app for the N9 will support video calling, like the Google Talk Video Call app already does.

It goes without saying that this info should be treated as just a rumor for now.

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SIM-free Sony Xperia P to hit the UK on May 7th

Clove now has the midrange Xperia P up for pre-order for £330, while Expansys will have it for slightly more at £339.

The aluminum body houses a dual-core 1 GHz processor, 1GB of RAM, 16 GB of storage space and a 4-inch, 540 x 960 pixel resolution screen. It also features NFC, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and an 8MP shooter capable of 1080p video recording.

If you live in the UK and know of other retailers getting ready to ship this phone, let our readers know in the comments below.

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AT&T expands its LTE network to 3 more cities

AT&T just added 3 new cities to the LTE-covered list. Those are Akron and Canton, Ohio and Lafayette, Indiana.

Since its launch in 2011 the AT&T's LTE network has been available in 15 cities - Athens, GA; Atlanta; Baltimore; Boston; Charlotte; Chicago; Dallas-Fort Worth; Houston; Indianapolis; Kansas City; Las Vegas; Oklahoma City; San Antonio; San Juan, Puerto Rico; and Washington, D.C. This January, 11 more cities joined the fun - New York City metro area, Austin, Chapel Hill, Los Angeles, Oakland, Orlando, Phoenix, Raleigh, San Diego, San Francisco and San Jose.

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Another picture of the Samsung I9300 prototype leaks

We have another picture of what is likely to be the next Galaxy phone. As usual, the phone is camouflaged by being placed within a case but we still get a glimpse of some of the important bits.

For starters, we see the arrangement of the buttons at the bottom of the display. For the first time, we are also seeing a Menu button there, along with the Back, Home and multitasking button. Samsung has changed the order of the keys again and placed it on the left unlike the Galaxy Nexus, which places it on the right. Also, unlike the Galaxy Nexus, the Menu button pushes the other three buttons on the right, so they are no longer in the center.

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Nokia 808 PureView and Samsung Galaxy Nexus get imaging awards

The Technical Image Press Association (TIPA), an association of magazine publishers that deals with photography and imaging, held an event in Cape Town, where it gave away its annual awards. This year two smartphones walked away with a trophy along the usual bunch of DSLRs and accessories.

Nokia's PureView technology was awarded the title Best Imaging Innovation. TIPA commended the big (in both size and resolution) image sensor and lossless digital zoom on the first PureView device, theNokia 808 PureView (which already has another award to its name).

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