Sony's 20MP Xperia i1 rumoured to pack quad-core, 1080p

Is a top-notch photo-blower the new must-have for every aspiring phone-maker? It certainly seems like it. Pics and other purported details have appeared online for Sony's rumoured Xperia i1 camera phone, and as well as its whopping 20-megapixel camera, it looks to take on the likes of the Nokia Lumia 1020 and Samsung Galaxy S4 Zoom with some serious speccage.
These rumoured specs and the leaked pic above come courtesy of Taiwanese site ePrice, so let's not treat them as gospel, but they're not beyond the realms of possibility and paint an intriguing picture.
Let's start with the camera. Its 20.7 megapixels are spread across a 1/2.3-inch sensor, which is the same size as you'll find in many compact cameras. By comparison, the iPhone 5 (which is one of the best phones for photos at the moment) uses a tiny 1/3.2-inch image sensor, whereas the Lumia 1020 boasts an impressive 1/1.5 inch effort.
Its screen is similar to the one on the Xperia Z, a 5-inch 1080p display with some of Sony's proprietary tech. 'Triluminos' and 'X-Reality' are the buzzwords attached to this one, although in reality that'll mean very little.
Inside, we're looking at a top of the range Snapdragon 800 quad-core chip, a real beast of a thing that so far has only appeared in the massive Sony Xperia Z Ultra, LG Optimus G2 and the Korea-only LTE-Advanced version of the Galaxy S4.
That's backed up by 2GB of RAM and 16GB of storage, expandable via microSD. There's supposedly a fairly hefty 3,000mAh battery and a decent 2-megapixel camera for Full HD video calls. 4G and NFC are a given.
ePrice reckons we'll get our hands on this epic gadget at IFA, an annual tech show in Berlin at the start of September. I'll be even more interested to see how the Xperia i1 measures up against the S4 Zoom and Lumia 1020 in camera tests.

LG Display shows off world's slimmest1080p LCD for smartphones

As smartphones continue to get thinner and thinner, LG Display is continually doing its part to shave off a few millimeters. Its latest introduction is this "world's slimmest full HD panel for smartphones", measuring at 5.2-inches diagonally, it's just 2.2mm thick and has a 2.3mm bezel. To get there, LG's display arm has pioneered new technology including "Advanced One-Glass-Solution" that puts dual flexible circuits between the panel and touch film, with 30 percent fewer lines on the panel. It also points out that every one of its pixels consists of RGB subpixels --more shots fired at pentile screens -- and that it's capable of 535 nits of brightness, more than all current 1080p mobile LCDs. That should be an improvement over the Zerogap Touch technology it was so proud of in the original Optimus G and hey, look at that -- it's arriving just in time for the Optimus G2.