In lieu of a formal review, Matt Burns and I sat down to take a look at the Samsung 700T AKA ATIV Smart PC Pro 700T, a convertible tablet that has a small button on the keyboard that pops out the Windows 8 tablet that forms the brains of the machine. The device is a bit chintzy – more pressed metal and injected plastic than I like to see on a laptop – but at about $1,000 retail it’s an acceptable… → Read More
Samsung’s Galaxy S4 has hit 10 million channel sales one month after its release. The company announced its latest milestone today just eight days after confirming that it had shipped over 6 million units of the S4 since its international launch on April 26. According to Samsung, this is the fastest ever sell rate for any of its smartphones. → Read More
Telefonica is today announcing a deal with Samsung that will see it make an even bigger move into the area of carrier billing. Samsung will integrate the carrier’s billing backend directly into its own mobile services, meaning that the Telefonica customers (it has 316 million worldwide) who use the Samsung Hub and Samsung Apps portals on Samsung smartphones will be able to buy apps, music, videos… → Read More
Samsung has confirmed via the Korean website Chosun Ilbo that it has shipped over 6 million units of the Galaxy S4 since its international release on April 26. According to the firm, this is the fastest ever sell rate for a Galaxy S smartphone, or any other Samsung smartphone for that matter. Specifically, the Galaxy S4 hit 4 million shipments between April 26 (release date) and April 30, and had… → Read More
Flipboard has just updated its iOS app to add a few more features for its 50 million+ readers. Back in March, Flipboard announced a new feature that would include user-created magazines, which seems to have excited Flippers.
In fact, the company announced that users have already created 500,000 curated magazines. Like our’s. → Read More
Samsung is moving quickly to diversify its phone line, with variants of the S4 popping out of the woodwork left and right, including the Galaxy S4 Zoom, which features a rumored 10x optical zoom on its rear camera. Today the Galaxy S4 Active, a ruggedized, smaller version of the flagship S4 has hit the Bluetooth Special Interest Group for certification, which means it could be coming along… → Read More
Samsung Electronics has developed core technology that will allow it to deliver high-speed 5G wireless data connections to consumers by 2020, the company announced today. The system allows data transmission up to several hundred times faster than current 4G networks. → Read More
Samsung is in a unique position among Android smartphone manufacturers, which allows it to create devices like the Galaxy S4 Zoom, a rumored S4 variant that showed up for certification at the Bluetooth SIG this week (via UnwiredView) as the “SM-C101.” The S4 Zoom is reportedly going to resemble the unreleased S4 Mini, but boast a 16 megapixel rear camera with optical zoom. → Read More
BlackBerry and Samsung devices have been given the go-ahead for use on Defense Department networks. The approved devices are BlackBerry 10 smartphones, BlackBerry PlayBook tablets using the Enterprise Service 10 system and Samsung’s Android Knox. The Pentagon said earlier this week that it also expects to clear Apple devices using iOS 6 in early May. → Read More
Expect Labs has already received funding from the likes of Google Ventures and Greylock Partners, but the San Francisco-based startup (and TechCrunch Disrupt alum) announced this morning that Intel Capital, Samsung Ventures, and Telefonica Digital have made their own strategic investments in the company. → Read More
Samsung introduced its latest tablet today, the Galaxy Tab 3, and it’s clear that the Tab line is destined to play a distinct second fiddle to the Galaxy Note brand. The Tab 3 sounds like it could’ve been released a year or two ago, with a 7-inch 1024×600 display at just 169 PPI, a 1.2GHz dual core processor and a 3 megapixel rear-facing camera. → Read More
Samsung is working on a dust-proof and water-proof Galaxy S4, which will essentially resemble the S4 but with environmental superpowers, says the Wall Street Journal. The paper also reported that Samsung is launching its next-generation Galaxy tablet in June, as well as a compact S4 at “just” 4.3-inches in size (this still seems large to me, but maybe I’m just old). Samsung has always been keen on… → Read More
The Galaxy S4 has an easy mode, and more importantly, the Galaxy S4 needs an easy mode. This necessity is a double-edged sword. It means that the technology built into Samsung’s latest generation smartphone does things you’ve never seen before, and maybe couldn’t even imagine. However, really using that technology isn’t as simple as you might think, and could be downright overwhelming to a novice… → Read More
This week on the TechCrunch Gadgets Podcast we talk about Google Glass, the Galaxy S4, and the magic of Ubuntu laptops. This time we’re joined by Matt Burns, Jordan Crook, Greg Kumparak, and a pair of underwear that vibrates in Australia. Enjoy! → Read More
Samsung Electronics may purchase mobile memory chips from South Korean rival SK Hynix for devices including the Galaxy S, said J.K. Shin, head of Samsung’s mobile business. If the deal goes through, it will be a boon for SK Hynix, which currently counts Apple as one of its top DRAM chip customers and saw it shares slip 2.8 percent on Thursday after another Apple chip supplier, Cirrus Logic, … → Read More
Google chairman Eric Schmidt today denied that there is any tension between his company and Samsung, the world’s biggest handset maker and the biggest OEM partner for Google’s Android mobile OS. “They have hundreds of millions of phones coming out on Android and I don’t think you will see much of a change there,” he said of the Korean handset maker, during an interview at the D:Dive Into Mobile… → Read More
Today’s the day. AT&T has officially put the Galaxy S 4 from Samsung up for pre-order on its website. For now, only the 16GB models in both black and white are available, and only in select areas.
AT&T will likely make more models available in the next few days as pre-orders ramp up. The 16GB model starts at $199 with a two-year contract. According to AT&T, the phone will ship on… → Read More
Taiwan’s Fair Trade Commission is investigating charges that Samsung paid students to attack rival HTC’s smartphones online. The South Korean tech giant could potentially face a fine of up to NTD $25 million ($835,000 USD) if the charges of false advertising are upheld. Samsung’s Taiwanese agent allegedly hired students to write online articles attacking HTC and recommending… → Read More
After showing off the international version of its pint-sized Galaxy Note 8.0 back at Mobile World Congress, Samsung is gearing up to launch its newest Note tablet in the U.S. in just a few days. Just days after the device went on sale in the UK, Samsung has announced that the 16GB Galaxy Note 8.0 will officially hit U.S. store shelves on April 11 complete with a $399 price tag. → Read More
Apple’s trajectory in the U.S. smartphone market over the past little while has been an upwards one, with the company gaining more and more iPhone subscribers every month. During the three month period covering November 2012 to February 2013, Apple added 8.9 million new iPhone subscribers, while Android as a platform in total added only 2.9 million. That means Apple’s share of the total smartphone… → Read More
Samsung said that it expects to post first quarter operating profit of about 8.7 trillion won ($7.7 billion USD), up 53 percent from the 5.7 trillion won operating profit it earned a year earlier. The South Korean tech giant also said that its sales likely rose to between 51 trillion won and 53 trillion won from 45.3 trillion won a year earlier. Sales of its more than 30 smartphones models helped… → Read More
Samsung has thrown down another gauntlet in its battle with Apple. This time, the Korean electronics giant is going head-to-head with Apple stores by opening retail boutiques, called ‘Samsung Experience Shops,’ in 1,400 Best Buy locations by the beginning of June. Stores will start operating in all of Best Buy’s big-box stores by May 1 and at smaller stores by June 1, around the… → Read More
AT&T has issued a clarification on its Galaxy S4 pricing via the unique method of a small statement in a footnote to an earlier post. Previously, AT&T had announced via its consumer blog on March 28 that it would be offering the Galaxy S4 starting at $249.99 with pre-orders beginning April 16. Now, it has amended that post to add that that’s for the 32GB model, with the 16GB version priced… → Read More
At first glance, this looks like an odd partnership: Mozilla just announced that it has recently begun collaborating with Samsung on Servo, its next generation browser engine. Mozilla Research started working on Servo as a research project in 2012. The new browser engine, which is still far away from being available in any commercial project, is written in Rust, a relatively new programming… → Read More
When Samsung revealed its new Galaxy S4 flagship smartphone, it literally did a lot of song and dance about its own unique software features, with nary a peep on the built-in Google Android improvements and features brought by the use Jelly Bean 4.2 on board. I argued that it could be a signal that Samsung is looking to move towards an Amazon-style approach to building its own version of Android… → Read More
AT&T has just posted an update to its Consumer Blog revealing pre-order details of the Samsung Galaxy S4. The phone will be available for order beginning April 16, for $249.99 with a two-year commitment. Samsung had previously announced that the Galaxy S4 would be coming to the U.S. sometime in Q2 2013, and didn’t reveal launch pricing at its event earlier in March. → Read More
Samsung will reportedly be launching Samsung Stores in select Best Buy locations ahead of the Galaxy S4′s U.S. launch, a new report from Geek.com claims. The new sections, which will occupy spots close to the mobile department, will feature Samsung branding throughout and highlight a number of Samsung products, not just the upcoming Galaxy S4, though that flagship device will be the core focus. → Read More
Strong growth in tablet sales is helping to drive overall growth in the global smart connected device market, according to analyst IDC. The analyst notes that market expansion last year was “largely driven” by 78.4% year-over-year growth in tablet shipments — which exceeded 128 million units. It expects tablet shipments to surpass desktop PCs in 2013, and portable PCs in 2014. → Read More
Remember that nasty little iOS 6 lockscreen bug that let hackers access apps on any iPhone with a few smooth moves? Well, fresh on the heels of yesterday’s iOS update that squashed the problem, another security researcher has found a similar issue on Samsung’s Android smartphones.
Terence Eden claims to have found a flaw that lets hackers access a phone’s apps, dialer and widgets even if it’s… → Read More
Samsung is indeed working on a smart watch, the company’s Executive Vice President of Mobile told Bloomberg in an interview today. “We are preparing products for the future, and the watch is definitely one of them,,” Hee told the publication in no uncertain terms, adding that between itself and Apple, the “issue here is who will first commercialize it so consumers can use it meaningfully.” → Read More
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