Remember the AT&T branded so called Samsung Galaxy S II with a slide out keyboard? Well it’s not a Galaxy S II after all. According to BGR who received the images of the phone say that it’s a whole new phone, so basically AT&T is getting TWO slim and stylish Samsung phone soon.
A phone with the model number SGH-i927 went through the FCC a few weeks ago with AT&T bands but it seems that was another phone and Samsung has recycled the model number for this new phone. Another odd thing about this phone is the kernel version, 2.6.36.3 is suppose to be a kernel for Android Honeycomb not Gingerbread. More news about this as it develops.
Remember the Hercules? Yeah the T-Mobile phone with the 4.5-inch screen set to release sometime after the Galaxy S II’s release, well it looks like Telus a Canadian carrier is planning to launch the phone very soon.
This sounds legit since Telus is known for releasing T-Mobile specific phone in the past like for example the Galaxy S 4G. The picture was taken by MobileSyrup in a VIP event by Samsung yesterday in Toronto.
As far as specs are concerned it was reported to have a 4.5-inch display and the same internals of the Samsung Galaxy S II including a dual core 1.2GHz processor, 1GB of RAM, 8MP back camera with 1080p recording and a good quality front camera which seems to be a 2MP sensor. It’s also suppose to be Canada’s first dual carrier 42Mbps smartphone. The phone looks like a cross between a Nexus S and a Galaxy S II, which looks great indeed.
A European Court has banned all sales and advertisement of Samsung’s Galaxy Tab 10.1 Android powered tablet in most of the European Union countries.
The order was issued by a court in Dusseldorf after Apple filled in a complaint about the Galaxy Tab infringing many of Apple’s patents. Apple wins this round in a long battle with Samsung which started a couple of months ago. Apple is also in fisticuffs with Motorola, HTC and many other manufacturers. You have to admit, Apple has some pretty dandy lawyers.
Samsung just keeps upgrading the Galaxy S II again and again, after making the Galaxy S II LTE (below to the left) official at IFA a couple of weeks ago they’ve one upped it again. The Samsung Galaxy S II HD LTE (below to the right) announced today is one beast of a phone but it’s Korea only for now heading over to all three Korean carriers: SK Telecom, KT and LG U+.
The Galaxy S II HD LTE has a 4.65-inch Super AMOLED HD display with a resolution of 1280 x 720 resulting in a ppi of 315.56. All of the other features are the same as the Galaxy S II LTE which has a 1.5 GHz dual core processor, 1GB of RAM, 4G LTE connectivity, 8 Megapixel camera with dual LED flash and 1080p video recording along with a 2 Megapixel front facing camera. There’s also 16GB of on-board memory expandable with a microSD card slot, WiFi b/g/n, NFC, Bluetooth GPS and HDMI out via the MHL USB port. On the software side the phone runs Android 2.3 Gingerbread as expected with Samsung’s TouchWiz 4.0 UI on top.
Samsung has just made the long rumored Samsung Omnia 7 refresh the Omnia W official as one of Sammy’s first wave two Windows Phone handsets. The Omnia W is quite different from it’s predecessor with a slightly different design, small screen and comes with Windows Phone 7.5 Mango pre-installed.
The Omnia W features a 3.7-inch WVGA Super AMOLED screen (0.3 down from the Omnia 7), 1.4GHz single core processor (400 MHz increase), 512RAM, 8GB of on-board memory which is not expandable like the Omnia 7 and a 5 Megapixel back camera with 720p at 30fps video recording and a front VGA camera.
The phone also comes pre-installed with the standard Samsung applications like DLNA, Allshare and news reader among others. The phone is pretty thin, measuring at just around 10.9mm and weighing in at 115.3 grams.
Like almost every Samsung Galaxy S II owner who is running the stock ROM on their phone (like me) you’re probably waiting for Android 2.3.4 but it looks like we might get something even better. PocketNow reports that an Android 2.3.5 ROM for the Galaxy S II dated back to 15th September has been leaked and is now available for download.
The announcement was made by SamFirmware a site popular for leaking Samsung ROMs and some of the guys behind DarkyROM on of the more popular Android ROMs. Do note guys this ROM is only for the international variant of the Galaxy S II and not of the recently announced US variants. So if you want to install it head over to the source link for instructions but make sure your phone is rooted before beginning, links to the Android 2.3.5 I9100XXKI3 firmware is below:
Although they don’t look good as the original Galaxy S II the American variants aren’t bad looking at all. Packaging similar specs to the original plus a few upgrade Samsung is set to reveal all the three variants in next week’s IFA event.
We’ve known quite a bit about both the Sprint Epic Touch 4G and T-Mobile Hercules but this is the first time we’ve seen the AT&T Galaxy S II variant which looks like a bigger Captivate.
So guys tell us, which carrier variant looks the best?
Frys has just announced that they will be selling the (older) Galaxy Tab for a shocking $350 with no clear release date yet. Don’t confused this with the newer Galaxy Tab though this one’s the old one. The tablet is Wi-Fi only as in is not packed with a 3G radio like all the other Galaxy Tabs. The Galaxy Tab features a 7 inch display, 16gb of onboard flash memory and Android 2.2 Froyo with full flash 10.1 support. We know that there are much better tablets on the market available for a much cheaper price but the Galaxy Tab is still one of the leading Android tablets, also note that Sprint will soon be releasing it for $200 on a two year contract which sounds like a much better deal.
Tablets are dominating the market nowadays and slowly replacing the desktop PC merging compact form factors with the ability to accomplish the most daunting of tasks. The only downside to a tablet is that they can be too big to carry around for people who like to travel light so manufacturers introduced a new form factor – 7″ but that still proved to be too big. Here’s where a a mix between a phone and a tablet (or Phablet as Samsung likes to call it) comes in. With the he screen measuring at 5.3-inches, the Samsung Galaxy Note is the perfect phone for someone who wants to carry a tablet in their pocket but how does it compare to the hunderds of other Android phones on the market? Check out the full lowdown in our review below.
Unboxing
Box
Being a huge phone the Samsung Galaxy Note comes in a shockingly small box which seems to be just big enough to fit the phone. Opening the box presents you the phone fit inside a tray; removing the tray reveals the S-Pen, wall charger with USB port, microUSB cable for charging and data access, pair of earphones with different sized buds, standard warranty information and instruction manuals. You may also receive a case with your phone depending on where you buy it. The battery with the Galaxy Note is a 2500 mAh unit which is roughly the same size as other Samsung batteries.
Specifications
Quad-band GSM and quad-band 3G support
21 Mbps HSDPA and 5.76 Mbps HSUPA
5.3″ 16M-color HD Super AMOLED capacitive touchscreen of WXGA resolution (800 x 1280 pixels)
8 MP wide-angle autofocus camera with LED flash, face, smile and blink detection
Video recording of up to 1080p@30fps
Dual-band Wi-Fi 802.11 b, g, n; Wi-Fi Direct and Wi-Fi hotspot
GPS with A-GPS connectivity; Digital compass
16/32GB internal storage and microSD slot
Accelerometer, gyroscope and proximity sensor
Standard 3.5 mm audio jack
Charging MHL microUSB port with USB host and TV-out (1080p through optional adapter) support and Bluetooth v3.0
2MP secondary video-call camera
2500 mAh battery
Hardware
The hybrid that is the Samsung Galaxy Note features some pretty awesome hardware, highlight of which is the glorious 5.3-inch Super AMOLED HD display which has impressed me a whole lot. The HD Super AMOLED is the first HD display in a smaller <7″ form factor by Samsung, it runs at 1280 x 800 or WXGA resolution which on a 5.3-inch display equals to 285.3 PPI or pixels per inch. The screen also fully supports the included S-Pen which uses the very same technology as Wacom Bamboo tablets. The S-Pen can also enable you to use gestures and the likes by pressing a button located on the pen.
The Galaxy Note measures in at 83.95 x 146.85 x 9.65 mm and weighs just 178 grams which is way less than you would expect such a huge phone to be. The 2500 mAh battery that comes with the Galaxy Note is covered later in the review.
There’s a 2MP camera on the front and an 8MP autofocus camera with a single LED flash on the back which supports face, smile and blink detection along with numerous other features. The shooter on the back can capture 1080p video running at 30fps while the front cam records in standard VGA. The camera is very good and can match similar point and shoot cameras present in the market. Connectivity options include quad band GSM, quad band UMTS with HSPA+ support, WiFi a/b/g/n, FM tuner, Bluetooth 3.0, microUSB and a 3.5mm headphone jack. The Galaxy Note also packs the standard sensors including proximity, gyroscope, accelerometer and barometer.
The build quality as you may have already guessed is plastic, but not some cheap plastic which would develop cracks after a few weeks. All of Samsung’s products are extremely reliable and strong, anybody remember this drop test?
Design
The front of the phone houses the huge 5.3-inch HD Super AMOLED display with a single home button below with two capacitive menu and back buttons on either side. Above the screen and logo is the earpiece and left to that is the proximity center and the 2MP camera. Below the phone is the microphone right next to the microUSB port and S-PEN slot. On the very top we have the secondary microphone and 3.5mm headphone jack.
On the left side of the phone we have the volume rocker which is pretty hard to reach for if you’re using the phone with one hand unless you have huge hands. Right side of the phone houses the power button. On the back we have the 8MP 1080p video recording camera next to which is the LED flash and finally the loudspeaker which is in the bottom left corner. The S-Pen slot as we mentioned before is pretty sturdy and during our testing the S-Pen never fell out, it’s actually pretty hard to get the pen out but it’s better this way than it getting out in untimely situations.
Camera Sample
Software
The Samsung Galaxy Note runs a modified version of TouchWiz 4.0 on top of Android 2.3.5 specifically made for the higher resolution screen and support for the Note exclusive S-Pen. TouchWiz 4.0 includes features which make the Galaxy Note operate like both a smartphone and a tablet, you can really notice the difference when you tilt the phone into landscape mode. The Galaxy Note includes standard TouchWiz apps like AllShare, Polaris, Samsung Hubs, etc along with some exclusives ones like S Memo and S Planner.
The Galaxy Note’s highlight is clearly the bundled S-Pen accompanied by the aforementioned S Memo and S Planner softwares. The S-Pen works just like the graphic tablets designers use which is expected since the technology present in the Galaxy Note is produced by Wacom who are the makers of the popular Bamboo line of graphic tablets.
Performance
The Galaxy Note comes with the 1.4-GHz Exynos processor which is the best performing dual core mobile CPU in the market right now. The Note performed exceptionally well in both benchmarks and real life tests. It scored 4123 in Quadrant, 4108 in Smartbench 2011 for productivity and 2212 for Games on average.
We expected the battery life on the Note to be very poor, powering the huge 5.3-inch display and super fast Exynos chip while running the battery hungry Android OS is no easy task but thanks to Samsung’s super light TouchWiz UI and the huge 2500 mAh battery, the phone lasted me over a day on a single charge with heavy use.
Overall
The Galaxy Note may be a bit impractical for most users but can prove to be a blessing in disguise for others. The Phablet is perfect for people who don’t want to carry around or own both a tablet and smartphone, which lets be honest are pretty much the same thing except for their screen sizes. The Galaxy Note is the best of both worlds and Samsung deserves a standing O for getting it right.
TechDeville gives the Samsung Galaxy Note N7000 4/5 stars.
You can get the best prices for this phone from Homeshopping.pk
Apple products are usually expensive. That’s the main reason why we protect them by applying screen protectors and cases.
You must have thought that how to protect your device from water? Don’t worry now there is also a solution for this problem. Liquipel is the latest invention with an invisible microscopic coating that prevents your device from water damage.
Several attempts were made to invent a water proof case for a device but either it is bulky or unattractive for example Drycase. Liquipe” is a solution to all of these queries as it’s not a bulky or unattractive case but it’s only an invisible coating that keeps your device safe from water.
Liquipel is not available locally but you have to send your device into the company along with $59 to let them apply it on your device.
Liquipel is available for these devices:
iPhone 3G/ 3GS
iPhone 4/4S
Htc Evo 4G
Htc Evo Shift 4G
Htc MyTouch 4G
Htc Thunderbolt.
Motorola Droid X/X2
Samsung Charge.
However this invention is revolutionary and if you want to save your device from water then you must have it.
