11
Feb
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[Update: Extended Through Sunday] T-Mobile Planning Valentine's Sale – All Phones (And Some Tablets) Free

Posted by in Android OS, Deals, News, T-Mobile, Videos

T-Mobile is evidently planning a huge sale in celebration of Valentine's day, offering all phones (plus the Springboard tablet and G-Slate) free for one day only this Saturday, February 11th. The deal will apply to current and new customers with Value or Classic Plans. Customers looking to take advantage of the sale will need to pay the 2-year subsidy, and will receive a full reimbursement via mail-in rebate card.

Update: The sale was apparently extended by an extra day through end of Sunday due to downed systems and busy stores that couldn't handle demand.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fW24eHQg5JY

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It sounds like those looking to pick up certain devices (including the Galaxy SII and HTC Amaze 4G) may need to have a 5GB data plan to be eligible for the sale.

23
Dec
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[Updated: Here Are The Winners!] Mega-Holiday Giveaway #9: Santa's Samsung Grab Bag: Win A Verizon Galaxy Nexus, T-Mobile Galaxy S II, Galaxy Tab 10.1 And More

Posted by in AT&T, Captivate Glide, Contests / Giveaways, Galaxy Exhibit 4G, Galaxy Nexus, Galaxy S II, Galaxy Tab 10.1, Samsung, T-Mobile, Verizon Wireless
Last Updated: January 23rd, 2012

In our biggest giveaway yet, we're handing out a whole boatload of awesome Samsung Android products - including the Verizon Galaxy Nexus, T-Mobile Galaxy Tab 10.1, and the T-Mobile Galaxy S II. Also included are the Captivate Glide and the Exhibit II 4G, all courtesy of our friends at Samsung's Mobile US division. This contest is open to US entrants only (they're US-only devices and Samsung USA is sponsoring, sorry guys).

This contest is now over. Here are our winners, selected at random:
  • Galaxy Nexus: Jason Kennedy
  • T-Mobile Galaxy Tab 10.1: Daniel James
  • T-Mobile SGS II: Neal Gompa
  • T-Mobile Exhibit II 4G: Joshua Holt
  • AT&T Captivate Glide: Rob Lightner

Congratulations, guys - all of you will be contacted for your information in the near future!

20
Dec
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Samsung: Galaxy S II, Galaxy Note, Galaxy R, Tab 7.0 Plus, 7.7, 8.9, 10.1 All To Get Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich

Posted by in Ice Cream Sandwich 4.0, Samsung

Samsung has finally made an official statement regarding its plans to upgrade current handsets to Ice Cream Sandwich (Android version 4.0), and the short list is indeed quite short:

  • Galaxy S II (including AT&T LTE version)
  • Galaxy Note
  • Galaxy R
  • Tab 7.0 Plus
  • Tab 7.7
  • Tab 8.9
  • Tab 10.1

Updates will start with the Galaxy S II and Note in Q1 2012, but that time frame likely applies to world versions of the phone, so those with American carrier-branded versions of the GSII will probably be waiting a little longer. The rest of the devices listed will "soon follow."

There are no mentions of any other possible candidates, so if your phone isn't listed, you can rest pretty well assured it won't be getting an upgrade to Android 4.0 from Samsung.

03
Sep
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Wirefly Launches Samsung Galaxy S II Epic 4G Touch Pre-Order - Reserve Yours For $50 Less Than At Sprint ($149.99)

Posted by in Epic 4G Touch, News, Samsung, Sprint
Last Updated: September 13th, 2011

The freshly announced Samsung Galaxy S II Epic 4G Touch, or as I like to call it, Get-In-My-Belly, is my next Sprint device, replacing the now senile EVO 4G with its state-of-the-art gorgeous 4.52" screen and blazing fast Exynos dual cores sprinting at 1.2GHz each. Sure, the Prime may be on the horizon, but who knows when or if it will be announced on Sprint at all? In the meantime, the Epic 4G Touch is almost here to tower over all competition.

The September 16th launch date is fast approaching, and today Wirefly, one of the top online mobile retailers, launched the Epic 4G Touch pre-orders for those who want to claim these beats ASAP.

30
Aug
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Galaxy SII Variants For Sprint, AT&T, And T-Mobile Officially Announced - Coming Mid-September

Posted by in Epic 4G Touch, Galaxy S II, News, Samsung

The official Galaxy S II press conference has only just begun (it's streaming live now), but all 3 carriers we've been expecting to see the S II on - Sprint, AT&T, and T-Mobile - have already sent out their press releases.

The Galaxy SII is already available in Europe and Korea, debuting as Samsung's fastest selling smartphone to date. The 3 variants in the U.S. will share many of the same specs, but some aspects, such as the screen sizes, battery capacities, and mobile radios, will be different.

Here are some of the common specs:

  • Blazing fast 1.2GHz dual-core Exynos processor
  • Super AMOLED Plus display
  • 8MP camera capable of 1080p video - the S II takes some of the best video we've seen on any phone
  • 2MP front-facing camera
  • 16GB built-in storage
  • microSD card slot with support for 32GB
  • HDMI out at 1080p
  • Android 2.3 (most likely 2.3.4)
  • 4G of some kind (HSPA+ on T-Mobile and AT&T, WiMax on Sprint)
  • 802.11 a/b/g/n Wi-Fi
  • On-device encryption of user data
  • Voice Talk voice commands (this is not the same as Google Voice Search)
  • Screen Capture built right in (press the Power+Home keys simultaneously)

One specific spec worth highlighting is Samsung's Exynos processor, which should be quite a bit faster than the Tegra 2 that most dual-core phones have been using so far (with the exception of the TI OMAP on a few models).

28
Aug
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Samsung Officially Announces The Tab 8.9 LTE And The Upgraded 1.5GHz 4.5" Galaxy S II LTE. Could The US S II Variants Have These Upgrades At Launch?

Posted by in 4G, Galaxy S II, Galaxy Tab 8.9, News, Samsung, Tablets

Whoosh - looks like we can take the report of upgrades to the already impressive Galaxy S II and the upcoming Tab 8.9 from the rumor bucket and place it carefully on top of the confirmed stack. In fact, the rumor was not only spot-on regarding everything Samsung just officially announced, it even had more information that Samsung didn't cover, which means some details will keep the rumor tag until we find out more.

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Galaxy S II LTE

First up, the Galaxy S II LTE (hilariously misspelled as LITE in the official blog post in one place - it's anything but lite) is not only gaining an LTE radio, it's indeed getting bumped from 1.2GHz to 1.5GHz - still dual-core, of course.

24
Aug
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The Stars Have Aligned - The First Samsung Galaxy S II In The U.S. To Arrive September 9th, 2011?

Posted by in Epic 4G Touch, Galaxy S II, Rumors, Samsung, Sprint
Last Updated: August 30th, 2011

After months of anticipation, we are now finally on the verge of the Galaxy S II launch in the U.S. Yesterday's events now have us strongly convinced that the first variant of the Galaxy S II, most likely on Sprint (as the recently approved by the FCC Epic Touch 4G, if you remember), will be launching Friday, September 9th, 2011.

Clue #1

First, today we received a tip from a trusted source inside Sprint, putting the 9/9/11 date on the radar with a very high probability. The source has always been reliable in the past, and the only way I see the scenario not playing out would be if between now and the 9th Sprint cancelled the launch and pushed off the release date.

12
May
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Samsung Galaxy S II Overclocked To A Stable 1.5GHz, Instructions & Kernel Provided For World To Share

Posted by in Development, Galaxy S II, News

XDA member and SetCPU developer coolbho3000 has managed to take an already great (and quick) device, and made it a little better by overclocking it to 1.5GHz. It may not be the fastest overclock we've seen in raw hertz, but it is the fastest we've seen in terms of actual computing power. Remember when the XOOM was overclocked to 1.5GHz? It snagged a 2854 in Quadrant. The SGSII: 4062.

SGS2_4k_quadrant SGS2_linpack

Yes, they're synthetic benchmarks. We know. They still serve a purpose, people.

He even managed to push it as high as 2GHz, though in his testing 1.5GHz was as high as he could go without sacrificing stability.

25
Feb
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Samsung Galaxy S II i9100 Pre-Orders Are Live, Shipping In March?

Posted by in Galaxy S II, News

Could the ship date for Samsung's Galaxy S II i9100 be moved up to March? So says UK eTailer Clove, who has apparently had pre-orders open for some time now, with prices at £510 and £590 for the 16GB and 32GB versions. Surprisingly, it turns out they're not the only one with open doors - Mobile City Online is taking pre-orders for the i1900 as well, charging $700 with free shipping, with a ship date of Q1 2011 (which would be by the end of March). While Mobile City doesn't say whether that's the 16GB or 32GB version, Clove's prices would suggest that it's likely the 16GB.