Galaxy S II finally lands on American shores for Sprint, T-Mobile and AT&T
Well, its been a long time coming, but you fine folks living in the good ol U-S-of-A are finally getting blessed with Galaxy S IIs to call your own. Conspicuously missing from the party is Verizon, but Sprint, T-Mobile and AT&T are all getting in on the Super AMOLED Plus action under the guise of the Epic 4G Touch on Sprint and just plain old Galaxy S II on AT&T and T-Mo. As we had heard earlier the Epic 4G Touch is sporting a slightly larger 4.52-inch screen as will the T-Mobile variant, while AT&T is sticking with the 4.3-inch panel found on the international model. Sprint customers will be first to get their shot at owning one on September 16th for $200, with AT&T and T-Mobile a little further down the road. Otherwise there are very few surprises here, with a 1.2GHz Exynos pushing Gingerbread and TouchWiz to each gorgeous screen. All are packing 16GB of internal storage and being pitched as 4G handsets — with WiMax on board the Sprint model and HSPA+ for T-Mo and AT&T. Ma Bells is specifically championing its variant as the “thinnest 4G smartphone,” which might have something to do with the smaller 1650 mAh battery inside the Epic 4G Touch is sporting an 1800 mAh pack.
via Galaxy S II finally lands on American shores for Sprint, T-Mobile and AT&T – Engadget.
Apple now the world’s largest smartphone manufacturer, Samsung checks in at number two
We make our own truth. That’s how IDC can come up with roughly the same numbers as fellow research firm Canalys and crown Apple the king, when its rival called Android top dog — it’s all about how you slice it. See, where as Canalys bundled all Android handset makers together, IDC has broken them up, which leads to a rather interesting twist — the largest smartphone maker in the world is now Apple. Cupertino’s growth of 141.7-percent in shipments year over year was enough to push it past Nokia (which slipped to number three) and Samsung (which climbed two spots to take the silver medal), while RIM and HTC rounded out the top five. That being said, no one is running away with the lead here, and Sammy’s continued stratospheric rise should keep Apple on guard. Check out the full report after the break.
via Apple now the world’s largest smartphone manufacturer, Samsung checks in at number two — Engadget.
TouchWiz UX Update Now Available For Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 WiFi
Did Samsung just release an update on time? Yep. The TouchWiz UX update is available for all you lucky Galaxy Tab 10.1 WiFi owners out there. Just grab your Tab, hit Settings > About Tablet > System Updates and voila. What will you be trading your stock Honeycomb experience for?
- Live Panel: Magazine-like widget view for immediate access to weather, social updates, email, news, photo gallery, all on the home screen. The visual layout of Live Panel is completely customizable for one-touch entry into each user’s most important information.
- Mini Mode Tray: One-touch access to commonly used applications–Task Manager, Calendar, World Clock, Pen Memo, Calculator, Music–which overlay in a pop-up window on display screen for powerful multi-tasking.
- Clipboard: Advanced copy & paste functionality allows Galaxy Tab 10.1 users to store photos, Web pages, YouTube links, etc., on the clipboard for easy sharing via email and social network sites.
- Indicator Quick Panel: Quickly toggle on/off Wi-Fi, notifications, sound, brightness and settings in lower right hand corner of the Galaxy Tab 10.1 display.
- Photo Editor: Rotate, crop and adjust colors on high quality digital images
For more on what you’ll be getting with this latest update I’ll refer you to the presser from the other day. Enjoy!
viaAndroidGuys ›TouchWiz UX Update Now Available For Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 WiFi
Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 Keyboard Dock
The Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 (mark 2) goes on general release in the UK tomorrow (4 August – read our review here) and along with the tablet device itself, there are several accessories hitting the stores at the same time.
One of those is the Keyboard Dock, a sturdy, reasonably weighty keypad that has a slot and connector just begging to be coupled with the new Tab. It’s excellently built, has a full QWERTY key layout (naturally), but also carries some proprietary buttons to make navigation on the touchscreen device that bit easier.
via Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 Keyboard Dock hands-on – Pocket-lint.
‘Official-looking’ pic of white Galaxy S II leaks, unicorns right around the corner
Albino Nexus S, meet your better specced, bleached out, dual-core nemesis — the mythical white Samsung Galaxy S II. The leaked snap is certainly timely, coming in only one day after a UK retailer promised the colorless beast would go on sale August 15th. We can’t vouch for that, but we do know US peeps can now sign-up for “more info” on Sammy’s website, so stateside GSII fans should be hearing more from the company soon. Will word come of the LTE-toting, ivory dream phone we’ve been lusting after? Probably not, but getting the baddest black Android on the planet is still pretty darn good.
via ‘Official-looking’ pic of white Galaxy S II leaks, unicorns right around the corner — Engadget.
Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 Limited Edition review
It may be a bit difficult to pay attention to the spate of Honeycomb tablets that seem to be popping up left, right and center — you know, now that Ice Cream Sandwich has been officially promised — but what’s not easy to overlook is an 8.6mm slate. Checking in at a sliver of a pinch thinner than the illustrious iPad 2, Samsung’s rethought-out, redesigned and definitely-not-renamed Galaxy Tab 10.1 is the first Android tablet to date that seriously goes toe-to-toe with Apple in both specifications and design. Granted, the consumer models aren’t slated to ship out until June 8th, but given that Google handed us one last week during its annual I/O conference, we figured we’d spend the following weekend wisely. You know, photographing, benchmarking and testing this thing to the hilt. (Of note, the unit tested here was the Limited Edition model, devoid of TouchWiz, 3G and a microSD card slot, but is otherwise identical to shipping units aside from the design on the rear.)
The Tab 10.1 — not to be confused with the older, since-relabeled Tab 10.1v — weighs just 1.31 pounds (marginally besting the iPad 2’s 1.33 pound chassis), and if looks could kill, few people would’ve made it out of Moscone West with all organs functional. But as you well know, style only gets you in the door — it’s the guts, the software, and the marriage of it all that makes or breaks the tablet experience. Hop on past the jump to find out why we think Samsung truly delivered on the promise of a Google-powered tablet, and why you should all seriously consider socking away funds as early June approaches.
Read More Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 Limited Edition review — Engadget.
Official: Samsung Galaxy S and Galaxy Tab getting Gingerbread update in mid-May
After encountering a little hitch with its mid-April Gingerbread delivery, Samsung is now ready to boot up Kies for another try. The company has this morning released word that it intends to update its entire Galaxy S family line, starting with models in the UK and Nordic countries from the middle of this month. The rest of the globe, including North America, will follow suit “according to the regional plan.” Also benefiting from a Gingerbread upgrade will be the 7-inch Galaxy Tab, which already got a taste of Android 2.3 in Italy, and the company’s bevy of budget Galaxy devices, the Ace, Gio, Fit and mini. Read the full PR after the break.
via Official: Samsung Galaxy S and Galaxy Tab getting Gingerbread update in mid-May — Engadget.
Samsung Galaxy S2 review
Pick up the phone and the first thing you notice is how light it is – it’s just 116g. Measuring 8.49mm, it’s incredibly slim in comparison to 9.9mm for the original Galaxy S; 9.3mm for theApple iPhone 4 and 8.7mm for the Sony Ericsson Xperia Arc.
While the Galaxy S2 will certainly fit into the tightest jeans pocket, the compromise is build quality – the body just feels cheap and uninspiring. Things don’t improve when you remove the wafer thin back to insert a sim – we’d be seriously worried about snapping it.
Controls are limited to volume on one side, power on the other, MHL port, which serves a dual purpose of charging via USB and outputting to HDMI, and a 3.5mm jack on the top, Samsung includes a range of streaming options including DLNA. Read more 
Netflix releases Android app for select HTC phones, Samsung Nexus S
Well, it looks like the LG Revolution won’t be the first Android phone to get Netflix after all. The app has just hit the Android Market and is currently available for the HTC Incredible, Nexus One, Evo 4G, and G2, plus the Samsung Nexus S. As you might expect, there’s not a lot of surprises in terms of functionality — you can resume watching where you left off on your TV or computer, and the app will allow you to manage your instant queue in addition to letting you simply browse movies. On its official blog, Netflix explains that while the app is currently limited to phones with “requisite playback support,” it anticipates that many of the “technical challenges will be resolved in the coming months,” and that it will be able to “provide a Netflix application that will work on a large majority of Android phones.” That’s some curious wording, to be sure, and a notable change from earlier talk that suggested only certain Qualcomm processors would support the necessary DRM for Netflix. Also not supported at the moment: Canada. If none of that precludes you, however, you can hit up the Android Market link below to try it out for yourself.
Samsung Galaxy Player: Pre-order now for £150
Amazon has opened its pre-order doors for the Samsung Galaxy Player, the Android 2.2 device that we first laid eyes on at IFA last year.
And with Sammy hoping that the Player will take on Apple’s touch screen PMP king, the iPod touch, the price point signals its intent.
Coming in at £40 cheaper than the 8GB iPod touch, the 8GB Samsung Galaxy Player may not have the retina display of its Cupertino rival but it does boast DNLA compatibility, a 3.2-inch TFT-LCD display, expandable SD card memory, and access to the Android market.
Basically, it’s a Samsung Galaxy S without the phone capabilities (in the same way that the iPod touch is a phone-less iPhone).
It’s got Wi-Fi on board and you’ll get 30 hours of audio playback or 5 hours of video from the 1000 mAh, replaceable battery.
It can handle an array of file types and video codecs including MP3, AAC, WAV, FLAC (lossless), WMA, OGG, AMR, MPEG4, H.264, H.263, WMV, DivX and Xvid.
There’s also a 16GB version available for £30 more, so if you’re thinking about video on the go, then you may want to fork out the extra.
The models from Amazon are white, and will be shipped when the Samsung Galaxy Player is released on 7 January.
VIA : pocket-lint
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