Displaying items by tag: Galaxy

Today Samsung announced some great news. Their new 5.5-inch device, the Note II, will be coming to all major US carriers soon. The new Note will be available in November, and will launch on pretty much same the carriers as its smaller brother the Galaxy S3 did. So far there have been leaks about Verizon's Note II and also some screenshots have confirmed that it will be available on T-Mobile too. That is big turnaround, since the first Note was available exclusively on AT&T in the US. Samsung officially confirmed that it will be available on Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile, The Now Network and US Cellular by mid-November.

As the Apple vs Samsung clash rages on with the release of the new iPhone 5, plenty of rumors have started to circulate. One of these is that Samsung will be releasing a new device, the Galaxy S4 in February 2013. The first thing that comes to mind is, “Why would they even need a new device when the “old” S3 beats the iPhone 5 any day“. Of course Samsung has stated that these rumors are simply not true. If the rumors were true, the S4 would just stomp the new iPhone and there would be no decent competition on the horizon.

Today Apple had their big press conference and it was really big. They announced almost all they could, we will get a new iPhone, new iPod Touch, new iPod nano, new connector and new earphones. In this article we will focus on the main star, the iPhone 5. Even though there were many rumors that Samsung will sue them over LTE patents they have released it with LTE support and also a new A6 chipset, previous iPhone used the A5. The back panel is replaced with sheet of anodized aluminum, and the whole device is the slimmest so far, the width stayed the same but it did gain some length.

Although Samsung and Apple are waging a global patent war against each other most eyes are fixed on the US where a group of nine people will decide who gets to file for appeal. However, while we all wait for that exciting moment in history to happen there is another case that is going on in South Korea between these two competitors. The case covers the same basic patents between the two companies and the same phones so the details are a little boring. What was interesting is that the South Korean courts decided to wait on a verdict while the US trial was underway. Many thought they were going to wait until a US verdict was reach and then hand down a judgment that matched. However, it just seems they may have wanted to hear all of the facts in the US case before making a decision.

The fate of Samsung and Apple are in the hands of the jury now… not really. You see no matter the outcome of this particular part of the greater drama the losing side will appeal. This is both a good and a bad thing for both companies. In the case of Samsung losing verdict allows them to be able to bring more witnesses and to also find some of Apple’s patent invalid. For Apple a loss would be a little more damaging, but they are already working on improving their reputation with improvements in their partner Foxconn’s factories. This is the problem that we face right now with the US legal system. It is sort of backwards and in many cases does not understand the items that it is supposed to govern and rule on.

Yesterday we covered Samsung's achievement, selling 10 million Galaxy Note phones and posted rumors about new model that is about to come. Today we found out that photos of new Galaxy Note II have been leaked to the internet. After there was leak of front panel pictures a few days ago now we get to see the whole device. It is very similar to Samsung Galaxy S3, and it may be a sign of authenticity since Galaxy Note was very similar to Galaxy S2.

Samsung's experiment, as they called it before launch because of its huge 5.3 inch display, has celebrated 10 million units sold. Samsung managed to sell 5 million in March and since then sales have been going pretty solid for the Note. One of the biggest concerns about the device was how users will accept its size, since most of smartphones are 4.3-inches and smaller. Although we recently had 4.7 (HTC Titan and Sensation XL), and new Galaxy Nexus is 4.65, 5.3-inches is still quite big and we can consider it a mini tablet instead of solely smartphone.

From the beginning of the Samsung V Apple case we have likened the situation to a battle field.  We have seen ambushes, feints, counters and now landmines. Landmines are one of the worst things that you can find in a battle field. It seems that Samsung laid one down for Apple to step on and the Apple team obligingly did just that. This was in the form of their expert financial testimony about the damages that were due to Apple. Simply put the claims that Apple made were flawed in their core premise that if someone had not opted to by a Samsung phone they would automatically have bought one from Apple.

Although Samsung’s Galaxy Note 10.1 has just hit the market the device has already been rooted by the team at RootGalaxynote.com. This actually should come as no surprise when you consider that the Note 10.1 is probably very similar internally to the original note and other Samsung products currently on the market (and also the fact that it comes with Ice Cream Sandwich). As of right now the root only works for the European and Saudi Arabia/UAE versions and we have no word on when the US or other Firmware versions will be rooted, but we except it to happen very soon.

If there is one thing I really cannot stand, it is blatant spin (well, two things since you can also throw in FUD). These two items are becoming rather rampant in the technical media (almost as bad as in the TV news). There are some who have claimed it is because the technical press has become a big business now and is no longer concerned with the facts or anything close to them. What they want is entertainment.  There is another factor to this that many might be missing; technical sites are capable of spreading FUD and spin on a massive scale. If a company wants to get the word out they can “leak” information to a few chosen sources and it will spread faster than bad news.