Update: The original press release for this announcement was in Korean only, and the translation left some room for debate over whether or not Samsung was talking about actual sales or shipments. But, we’ve received confirmation from Samsung that the 5 million figure is referencing actual sales to human beings and not shipments to retail channels.
As much as I love Samsung hardware, I’ve felt for a long while now that the Galaxy Note was a bit of a mistake. The screen size is just too big for me to wield the device comfortably, and I see no real value in the S-Pen other than having a little fun during bored moments.
But a good chunk of people out there in the world apparently disagree with me, as Samsung has just announced that the South Korea-based company has shipped sold 5 million units of the Galaxy Note phablet. At the start of this month, Samsung had sold 2 million Galaxy Notes globally — a solid stat albeit not equal to Galaxy S II or iPhone 4S sales.
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Those of you dutifully carrying around your HTC Vivids have probably already heard AT&T has officially started pushing out the handset’s Ice Cream Sandwich update. For all you other AT&T customers, fear not — the nation’s second largest wireless carrier has also announced which of their other Android handsets will be getting the Ice Cream Sandwich treatment.
There aren’t many surprises on the list (which can be found below if you’d rather not wait), but a few fairly recent devices have been don’t seem to have made the cut yet. → Read More
The still-popular Galaxy S II just recently got its first official taste of Ice Cream Sandwich, but Galaxy Note owners hoping to experience the same before the end of the quarter are bound to be disappointed by a new announcement from the Korean electronics giant.
Despite a proclamation from the company stating that the update would be available in Q1 2012, Samsung has officially pushed the release of the Note’s ICS update until some time next quarter.
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This Galaxy S III release date business is getting to be pretty ridiculous — first, all signs pointed to Samsung’s newest flagship launching this April, but then company representatives killed that notion just a few days later. Now, according to a handful of new reports, it looks like an April launch window may actually be in the cards after all.
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2011 was huge for Samsung. 2012 needs to be even bigger. Last year, Samsung showed the mobile world that they could produce world-class handsets and a proper ecosystem within the confines of Android. But now, in 2012, Samsung needs to demonstrate that they have staying power. And if several recent Samsung Galaxy S III leaks are believed, the Korean company should not have any problem standing tall against Apple and the rest. This phone looks hot. → Read More
According to an internal Sprint source that spoke with S4GRU, the Galaxy Nexus will show up on Sprint shelves on April 15. You know, just over three months since the Verizon version launched and mere months away from the launch of Samsung’s next flagship: the Galaxy S III.
Talk about good timing.
Still, Sprint could use this phone on its network, even if the Nexus heyday has already come and gone. The Nexus line is like the Galaxy line, or the Droid line, or even the iPhone line. It’s a brand people trust, and will offer a super solid option to power users bumbling into Sprint stores. → Read More
When Samsung (among others) was called out for taking part in a mobile price-fixing scheme last week I expected the company to pony up the 14.2 billion won and keep their collective heads down for a while. That would’ve been the smart move: pay up, show remorse, move on, etc.
A few Samsung execs had a different idea though. According to the Korea JoongAng Daily, they instead obstructed an official investigation by the country’s Fair Trade Commission shortly thereafter, which netted the company another 400 million won ($356,000) in fines.
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How does that old saying go again? “Everything old is new again?” That exactly how I feel about the RIM rumors that have been making the rounds today.
According to a bit of analyst chatter, Samsung has their eyes on Waterloo-based RIM, and more specifically the new mobile operating system they’ve got cooking in the oven right now. If these reports hold true, then Samsung is ultimately after a minority stake in RIM and access to BB10, which they will load onto some of their forthcoming handsets.
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What happens when Korea’s biggest wireless carriers and Korea’s biggest phone manufacturers get caught offering bogus wireless phone deals to their customers? Well, according to the Yonhap News Agency, Korea’s Fair Trade Commission gets pissed off and slaps those companies with a huge fine — 45.3 billion won ($40.2 million) — for “price fixing and consumer fraud.”
If the fines are any indication, then carrier SK Telecom and Samsung Electronics were the biggest offenders here — they netted themselves a 20.2 billion won ($17.9 million) and 14.2 billion won ($12.6 million) penalty respectively. → Read More
Know what I love about Android hackers? They’ve got moxie. Take a look at these folks on the XDA-developer forums: a user named itsjusttime put up a bounty post offering cold hard cash to whoever could get AT&T’s Galaxy Note I717 up and running on T-Mobile’s HSPA+ network.
Now, just over two weeks later, a solution has been found, and it’s surprisingly easy to pull off if you’re willing to get your hands dirty. → Read More
Well, after a bit of a false start, Samsung finally seems to have done it. According to a new blog post on the official Samsung Tomorrow blog, the Korean consumer electronics giant has finally begun to push their Ice Cream Sandwich update out to the Galaxy S IIs of the world.
And with that, Galaxy S II owners began once again to feel the love. Or at least, most of them did. The update in question is meant for international spec Galaxy S II (the GT-I9100), so State-side owners of a AT&T/T-Mobile Galaxy S II or a Sprint Epic 4G Touch won’t be joining in the official fun just yet. → Read More
Word of the Samsung Galaxy S Blaze 4G first broke around the time Team TechCrunch was roaming the cavernous halls of the Las Vegas Convention Center at CES, but at the time T-Mobile wasn’t feeling very talkative about release dates.
The mangenta-hued carrier seems to have opened up a bit during the intervening months though, as they’ve taken to Twitter earlier today to announce that their latest Samsung handset will hit their sales channels on March 28. If you’re really lucky (or willing to hop in a car and take some chances), you could snag a Blaze 4G even earlier than that, as some stores will be selling the device a week early.
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Oh, how Galaxy S II owners’ hearts must have swelled last night! Samsung’s Filipino arm let slip on their news portal late yesterday that the long-awaited Ice Cream Sandwich update would be made available to owners of the international Galaxy S II on March 10. Sure, it would be all TouchWiz-ified, but users of Samsung’s one-time flagship handset would finally have access to Google’s latest OS update and all the goodies it entails.
It all sounds great, and it would be if it were actually true. → Read More
Just hours before Apple is due to unveil what many think will be a new version of its best-selling iPad tablet, Samsung has tried to steal a little thunder by filing a lawsuit against the Cupertino company over patent violations in the newest models that Apple has on the market as of this morning, the iPhone 4S and the iPad 2. The suit was filed in Samsung’s home market of Korea.
Given how these patent suits have come to represent almost as much in public mindshare as they have in terms of actual licensing deals (and, more loftily, questions of originality in device design), this could be seen as a well-timed and key move by Samsung. But it also appears to be a reversal of strategy… → Read More
And the saga of the Samsung Galaxy S III continues. Late last week a pair of dueling reports surfaced with one stating that Samsung would announce (and ship shortly thereafter) their much-anticipated Android handset in April and another shooting the claim down.
Normally, this isn’t a big deal — who doesn’t enjoy a little back-and-forth every once in a while? — but Samsung Korea has taken to Twitter to officially put the kibosh on an April unveiling. → Read More
While not launching the next Samsung flagship at MWC in Barcelona was probably the right choice for Samsung, that doesn’t change the fact that we’re itching with anticipation over when the Galaxy S III will show its pretty little edge-to-edge face.
We know most of the specs (well, rumored ones at least), which means we know we’ll see a 4.8-inch Super AMOLED Plus display, a quad-core Samsung Exynos CPU running at 1.5GHz, and a little 4G LTE icon. What we don’t know, however, is when we’ll see any of this.
But reports are now leaking out of Korea, citing Samsung’s global marketing and advertising agency Cheil Worldwide, claiming that the phone we hate to wait for should show up in April. → Read More
Samsung says it has sold over 2 million Galaxy Note superphones globally.
Now, it’s only fair to remember that this number includes international sales, so even though the Note only became available on February 19 here in the States, it’s been on Asian shelves since October and U.K. shelves since November. → Read More
The Galaxy Note from Samsung has been a tough one for us to figure out. Is it a phone? Is it a tablet? Wait! Is that a stylus?
There was plenty to wonder about. But after spending quite a bit of time with the superphone, which you can relive with me here, John and I decided to chat out what all the fuss is about.
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Samsung, or rather Samsung’s Advanced Institute of Technology, has created what they claim is the first CMOS sensor that can collect both visible light data (which you’d use for a normal digital image) and depth data (like a Kinect). It’s accomplished by mixing in depth-sensing pixels with the RGB photosites normally found on such sensors. It was presented at ISSCC 2012 and reported by Tech-On.
The technology could be extremely influential: a small sensor that is able, with one lens, to determine the distance and size of objects it sees — the applications are extremely diverse. It could power autofocus, track gestures or individuals, or help determine the device’s position. → Read More
For those of you who feel that the Galaxy Tab 8.9 is too big and the Galaxy Tab 7.0 Plus is too small, the LTE-packing Galaxy Tab 7.7 should feel just right. And according to Verizon, the little 7-incher should be available March 1 on the big red network, just as we expected.
The GalTab 7.7 was announced way back in September alongside the international Galaxy Note, and as my controversial review proves, we’re already playing around with the Note here in the States. That said, a little memory refresh seems to be in order. → Read More
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