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Aug

Chitika: Verizon Losing Android Market Share, AT&T And Budget Carriers On The Rise

Posted by David Ruddock in Android OS, AT&T, MetroPCS, News, US Cellular, Verizon Wireless, Virgin Mobile

Chitika released new Android market share figures today by carrier, and the results are somewhat interesting. Verizon, who previously controlled over 50% of the market for Android smartphones, has dropped to almost 40% over the last five months. Who's to blame? AT&T and small budget carriers, apparently (US Cellular, MetroPCS, Virgin Mobile).

August 2011

AT&T now makes up nearly 9% of all Android phones in the US - having more than doubled its share back in March, when it was a mere 3.5% of the pie. Smaller carriers control around 8.5%, up from around 3%. Here's the chart from March:

March 2011

It seems likely that low-end Android devices are having a big effect on these numbers.

Apr

Honeycomb On A Budget: 7 and 10" Acer Aspire ICONIA TAB A100/A500 Pre-Order On Amazon UK

Posted by David Ruddock in Acer, Deals, Honeycomb 3.0/3.1/3.2, Iconia Tab A500, News

Last Updated: April 29th, 2011

Update: The 10.1-inch big brother of the A100, the A500, is also available for pre-order and ships on April 20, though it will cost you the substantially larger sum of £449. Why? It's packing an LED-backlit display (as opposed to LCD), 32GB of HDD space, and 1GB of RAM.

This one only applies to our friends across the pond for the moment, but Acer's first attempt at an Android 3.0 tablet has just gone up for pre-order on Amazon UK. It will ship on April 20, and it'll set you back a paltry £299.

With 512KB of RAM, my printer is giving the A100 a run for its money (Amazon typo much?)

This is without a doubt the most competitively priced piece of Honeycomb hardware we've seen to date, but its specs appear markedly different from the 7" prototype Android tablet we saw at one of Acer's press conferences last year.

Jan

Four New Phones Join Samsung's Galaxy Family: The Ace, Fit, Gio, And mini

Posted by Brian O'Toole in Devices By Manufacturer, Galaxy Ace, Galaxy Fit, Galaxy Gio, Galaxy Mini (Tass), News, Samsung

Last Updated: May 14th, 2012

Samsung is well-known for its ubiquity in the feature-phone market, and it's starting to look like they'll be employing the same assault-on-all-sides approach with Android phones too. As if they aren't struggling already to keep their phones up to date, Sammy is now digging a deeper hole with today's announcement of four budget-oriented devices set to prop up the rather premium Galaxy S.

Galaxy mini

Starting from the bottom, we have the Galaxy mini, intended to be a "first smartphone" for those crazy, hip youths you keep reading about. Not quite sure where the fun springs from in a 3.14-inch QVGA device, but Samsung is betting heavily on the "flashy color stripe along the side" to shift units.

Dec

LG Apex Review: Because LG "Pretty Good" Didn't Have The Same Ring

Posted by Ian G. Clifton in Apex, LG, Phone Reviews, Reviews, US Cellular

Last Updated: July 24th, 2011

Introduction

One of Android's greatest strengths is the sheer number of devices it is available on. That gives customers the opportunity to choose a desired carrier and handset with the most important features for a them. It's easy to forget that not everyone is willing to spend $200 on a new phone, and people transitioning from a feature phone to their first smartphone are often less likely to be looking at those high-end handsets. Fortunately, there are a lot of relatively inexpensive Android devices available, although many of them are clunky and frustrating to use. With the LG Apex coming in at just $50 after rebate at US Cellular, it is clearly targeted at people who do not want to spend much, but is it any good?