When the Galaxy S and the Galaxy S II made their respective journeys to the United States, they lost a little something that international customers have enjoyed since the beginning: the physical home button.
According to some new images obtained by The Verge though, that era may be drawing to a close, as T-Mobile’s GSIII variant may sport that home button after all.
It may seem like a minor thing to get worked up over (because it is), but it’s a considerable shift from the four-capacitive-button days of yore. Those design changes were mandated by carriers, and if true, these new images may mean that Samsung is flexing their muscle as the most prolific smartphone manufacturer in the world. → Read More
As if anyone needed any more proof that the Samsung’s Galaxy S III would sell like (slightly more expensive) hotcakes, a report from the Korea Economic Daily reveals that the long-awaited handset racked up over 9 million pre-orders from mobile carriers across the globe.
To put that number in a bit of perspective, the tremendously popular Galaxy S II was officially unveiled at MWC in February 2011, and managed to rack up 3 million global pre-orders by the end of April. Its successor, on the other hand, managed to garner triple the number of pre-orders in the three weeks since it was revealed in London. → Read More
The Galaxy S III is likely the most anticipated Android phone in existence. At least, today it is.
Samsung is the king of Android hardware, the Galaxy S II is its most successful phone to date, and a third iteration is only expected to follow in its predecessor’s footsteps.
Plus, we weren’t even comforted by the usual pre-announcement leakapalooza — Samsung reportedly kept early units locked in test boxes, which only made that glorious moment of unveiling all the more wonderful.
But we’re still waiting and wondering about a potential U.S. release date for what is sure to be Samsung’s most popular phone yet, meaning that getting a peek of the device in the wild is near to impossible until “later this summer”. But as is the case with almost any phone, someone has gotten their hands on a unit of the S III and set up the good ol’ handy cam for our viewing pleasure. → Read More
Samsung has been teasing Galaxy Note users with the promise of Ice Cream Sandwich for months, but now it seems like the consumer electronics giant has finally come through for their phablet fans.
Multiple reports from European Note owners confirm that the long-awaited software update is hitting devices, though how users actually install it seems to depend on their locale.
Dutch Galaxy Note owner Devin Balentina reported that his device received the update over-the-air for instance, while a report from SammyHub points out that German users can nab the update from Samsung’s Kies updater. → Read More
Well, this morning seems like it’s going to be all about sequels. Not only do we have a shiny new Droid Incredible to wait for, AT&T has just pulled back the curtains on a new device in their Focus series of Windows Phones: the LTE-friendly Focus 2, which will launch on May 20 for a mere $49.99 with a two-year contract.
The Focus 2 may lack the star power and the marketing muscle behind devices like the Lumia 900, but it has managed to turn a few heads in recent weeks back when it was still known as the Samsung Mandel.
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Horace Dediu at Asymco has run the numbers and it’s not looking good. Samsung and Apple now control an estimated 99% of vendor profits with HTC scraping in with 1%. BlackBerry and Nokia barely register and, in fact, form a loss.
First, I’d like to note why Dediu believes carriers are willing to cede so much of their profit to Apple and, presumably, Samsung. It’s mostly about lock-in, a sort of bear hug that encourages customers to stay put in the long run. He writes: → Read More
If we have reached the Death of the Spec, then what Samsung wanted to introduce us to today was nothing short of the birth of the human touch. In the presentation launching the Galaxy S III, the first full half hour was very light on specs, with mention of only one — the size of the screen (4.8″-huge).
Instead, what we got was long on references to intuitive design, with lots of non-tech buzzwords: “nature,” “organic,” and so on. The Galaxy S III is “really designed for humans” the company said today, again and again.
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Samsung has just officially unveiled the long-awaited Galaxy S III at their event in London, and instead of boring you by telling you how momentous a moment this is for the company, I’m just going to jump right into the nitty-gritty.
The Ice Cream Sandwich-powered Galaxy S III features a sizable 4.8-inch 720p HD Super AMOLED display along with a 1.9-megapixel front-facing camera mounted right above it. Inside its slim 8.6mm thick frame is the recently-revealed 1.4 GHz Exynos 4 Quad chipset, 1GB of RAM, 16 or 32GB of storage, a 2100 mAh battery, and radios for Bluetooth 4.0, WiFi, and NFC connectivity. Around the back of the device is an 8-megapixel camera pod (sorry, no crazy Nokia-esque hijinks here). → Read More
Sammy is now the big kahuna of cell phones. Today’s Juniper Research and comScore reports indicated that Samsung kicked Apple from the top spot in regards to smartphones. IDC also released a report today indicating the same thing while noting that Samsung kicked Nokia from the top of total phone shipments. This comes just days after another analyst firm questioned Nokia’s current title as reigning king. Samsung happened to be at the right place at the right time — but only because the company positioned itself properly. → Read More
In mobile world, bigger is not always better. That can be the case for specs, and it can also be the case for market share: and a report out today from Juniper Research highlights a case in point for the latter: Samsung was the biggest smartphone maker in terms of shipments in Q1 2012, but when it came to making money, Apple was still on top.
In Q1, Samsung is estimated to have shipped 46.9 million smartphones, compared to Apple’s 35.1 million iPhone devices. When considering revenues, however, the tables turn: Apple’s mobile revenues (which include the iPad) were $29.3 billion, while Samsung’s (which include all its mobile products, including feature phones) were just over half of that amount: $17 billion. → Read More
Samsung has been, for years, slowly approaching Nokia as the world’s biggest handset maker, and today looks like the day the crown has been passed: As of last quarter, Strategy Analytics noted that Samsung shipped the most mobile devices of any single manufacturer world-wide, also taking pole position in smartphones. At the same time, Nokia not only slipped in those rankings but it also got another slap in the face, as Standard & Poor’s, the credit-rating agency, downgraded Nokia to “junk” status.
The news comes on the same day that Samsung presented its Q1 earnings, in which the Korean company reported revenues of 45 trillion won ($40 billion) for the three months that ended March 31 — citing strong results in the division that includes mobile devices, with especially “brisk sales” of its GALAXY S II smartphone and newer Galaxy Note device. → Read More
Even though I think it’s way too big for the average human, Samsung’s Galaxy Note is doing quite well since its debut in January at CES. In fact, Samsung has sold 5 million units of the Galaxy Note thus far, which comes out to about 1 million Notes sold per month. But could it be selling better?
Possibly.
The phablet is only available at AT&T with a rather steep $299 price tag, but that may be changing soon according to TmoNews. → Read More
For those of you who love the Olympic Games, the 2012 London Olympics are just under 100 days away. The International Olympic Committee just launched an awesome Olympic Athletes’ Hub which connects Olympic fans to their favorite Olympic athletes. It’s a searchable directory of both past and present Olympians that collects and displays posts from their Facebook and Twitter accounts. It strings in photos, videos, training tips and tons more from verified athletes’ popular social media accounts. Already, over 1,000 Olympians have joined and as you can imagine the number is continuing to grow. As the summer games in London begin, people can also live-chat with athletes directly from the Olympic Village and see real-time results from the competitions.
With special thanks to the International Olympic Committee, we have two Samsung Galaxy Tabs to give away, along with one autographed t-shirt from Michael Phelps, and one from Usian Bolt. We will pick two winners. → Read More
With only a few weeks left to go until Samsung’s big London reveal, the leaks are just flying out of the woodwork now.
If that recent Brazilian leak didn’t quite fill you with much confidence, this one just may — the team at Tinhte.vn recently posted an extensive hands-on with what claims to be the Samsung i9300, perhaps better known as the Galaxy S III. → Read More
After months of waiting (not to mention plenty of conflicting reports), Samsung may have finally revealed when they plan to unveil their long-awaited Galaxy S III.
According to a press invitation that has been making the rounds since early this morning, the Korean company will be pulling back the curtains on a new Galaxy handset in London on May 3.
Samsung is as vague as usual here — they make it a point not to name the device specifically, referring to it simply as the “next Galaxy.” That hasn’t stopped we members of the tech press from attempting to dissect the invitation anyway (my goodness, there are three paint slotches on the invitation!). → Read More
In light of the recent layoffs by Sony to the tune of 10,000 employees, I think it’s important to see where Sony currently resides in the tech ecosystem and why the company, once the darling of the CE and PC set, went so far off track.
As background, I recommend you read Joel Johnson’s excellent series on Sony. He wrote it two years ago on Gizmodo and it is one of the most thorough and enjoyable examinations of what was then a sputtering juggernaut. One of the funniest pieces is this man-on-the-street video that asks people what they think of Sony. The kindest praise? One lad called the company “Decent” and another said he owned a Sony TV. The last guy in the video takes a moment to compose his thoughts and says “Sony: fast, cheap, and Japanese.”
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Another “Galaxy S III leak” hit the blogosphere this morning. A picture. An entirely fake, completely unconfirmed, and obviously tampered with photo.
Just like the rest of them.
Truth of the matter is, we haven’t seen anything legit on the Galaxy S III yet, at least in terms of imagery. I trust that the specs we saw leak out during Mobile World Congress are solid, if not spot on.
The release date rumors, on the other hand, seem to be a tango I’m not capable of. April! No, not April! May! Maybe April!
WTF?!
But far and away, the leaked images are the worst. There’s only one that even comes close to looking legitimate, and even that seems forged. Let’s have a look, yes? → Read More
Samsung teased the masses this past February when they revealed that one of their first Ice Cream Sandwich-powered tablets would be the Galaxy Tab 2 7.0, a decidedly mid-range device that seemed lacking in the style department. At the time, Samsung made it known that the Tab would arrive in the U.K. Before trickling down to the rest of the world, a plan that didn’t really pan out.
These days, Samsung has been a bit more forthcoming with details for the U.S. market, and the company has just recently given me what I’ve been waiting for: a price and a release date. The Galaxy Tab 2 7.0 will officially launch in the United States on April 22 with a pretty enticing $249 price tag attached to it.
I’ll be posting a more comprehensive review of the Galaxy Tab 2 7.0 after I’ve gotten the chance to play with it for more than a day, but here are a few of a my first impressions. → Read More
Of all the peculiar gimmicks a smartphone manufacturer could lean on to make a device stand out, 3D always seemed like one of the most pointless. Sure, it sounds great in theory — who doesn’t want fully immersive video and apps — but actually using it on-the-go can be a completely different story.
As it turns out, Samsung is right there with me. In an effort to combat some of the more fanciful Galaxy S III rumors floating around, the company told Engadget today that they have no intention to release a 3D smartphone any time soon. → Read More
What happens when you put some of the biggest names in the Japanese wireless industry in the same room to work up a plan to develop some home-grown mobile chipsets? The answer is, apparently, not much.
Just over three months after NTT DoCoMo, Samsung, Fujitsu, NEC, and Panasonic Mobile Communications announced the creation of a mobile joint venture to do just that, DoCoMo has recently announced that the deal has unceremoniously fallen apart.
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