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Mar

Still Waiting For Froyo On Samsung Epic 4G And Transform? Circle Monday, March 21st On Your Calendar (EB28, EC05)

Posted by Artem Russakovskii in Epic 4G, Froyo 2.2, News, Samsung, Sprint, Transform

According to one of our trusted tippers and backed up by a leak that surfaced earlier today at Android Central, Samsung Epic 4G and Transform owners will be finally getting a taste of Android 2.2 "Froyo" in 4 days - on Monday, March 21st.

It wouldn't be the first time Sprint tried to throw the delicious treat at Epic users - the long-awaited Froyo update began rolling out on February 21st but only lasted 3 days before getting shut down by Sprint due to multiple complications with SD cards and data connectivity. Froyo's most coveted features, such as push notifications, native apps2sd, and Adobe Flash support, plunged into an abyss of unknown depth yet again for those who didn't get a chance to upgrade.

Mar

[Update: Study Seriously Flawed] After 45,000 Page Loads, Extensive Study Determines Android's Browser Is 52% Faster Than iPhone's

Posted by Will Shanklin in Android OS, News, Nexus S (Crespo/Soju)

Last Updated: March 18th, 2011

Update: After getting a lot of initial press, experts are weighing in and crying foul with the methodology of this study. Apparently the custom app the researchers used relied on Apple's UIWebView, which doesn't utilize recent optimizations made to the actual Safari browser.

John Gruber of Daring Fireball says:

"That's not to say it isn't interesting that Android's WebView for apps is faster than iOS's UIWebView for apps, but it just isn't true that these results are indicative of anything regarding Mobile Safari's performance. It's easy to see that Mobile Safari is faster than UIWebView - just run something like the SunSpider benchmark twice, once in Mobile Safari and once in any app from the App Store with a web content view.

Mar

Samsung Set To Deliver Android's Answers To The iPod Touch - The Galaxy Player 4 And 5

Posted by Will Shanklin in News, Samsung

While it may not grab the headlines of the iPhone or iPad, Apple's iPod Touch has been a very successful "kid brother" of sorts to their touchscreen smartphone and tablet. I often wondered if we would ever see an Android-powered equivalent to the Wi-Fi-only media device. Today Samsung announced that they will be giving customers just that with their upcoming Galaxy Player 5. A smaller (by 1") version, the Galaxy Player 4, will be released simultaneously

The media player runs Android 2.2 'Froyo' with Samsung's Touchwiz UI, and 1GHz Hummingbird processor. The larger Galaxy Player 5 will have a 5" WVGA display, and the smaller Galaxy Player 4 will feature a 4" screen.

Mar

Samsung Teases 8.9" Galaxy Tab In Video, Thickness Estimated Again

Posted by Will Shanklin in Galaxy Tab, News

Samsung is doing all they can to release just enough information about the upcoming 8.9" Galaxy Tab to create some buzz ahead of its announcement next week at CTIA. After several promo images surfaced on their Facebook page, they have now released a short video.

As you can see below, the video consists mostly of people (I'm guessing Samsung employees), in micro-edited sound bites, talking about how great something is. Then for the last few seconds you get some nano-edited images flashed across the screen of the upcoming mid-sized slate:

After the last Facebook teaser, an overachieving tipster analyzed the image and estimated the measurements based on the headphone jack.

Mar

Get Your Thumbs Ready - T-Mobile's 3.5" Sidekick 4G Goes Official, Ships Later This Spring

Posted by Artem Russakovskii in News, Samsung, Sidekick 4G, T-Mobile

The reincarnation of the Sidekick brand didn't quite come as a complete surprise after T-Mobile teased its return back in January, followed by a nice photo leak that showed the latest thumb-killer, this time made by Samsung, in its full glory. However, it's always nice to get official confirmations and specs from the carrier itself, and that's exactly what T-Mobile is gracing us with today.

The new Sidekick comes with a 3.5" touchscreen display, a 1GHz Cortex A8 Hummingbird processor, HSPA+21 4G capabilities, a front-facing VGA camera, and, of course, a signature "pop-tilt" 5-row QWERTY keyboard.

Mar

Samsung Galaxy Line Of Devices Loaded With Goofy Silicon Art

Posted by Aaron Gingrich in Galaxy S, Galaxy Tab, Off-Topic, Samsung

Off topic? Sure. Amusing? Quite. ChipWorks has cracked open a Samsung Galaxy Tab and Samsung Captivate (a Galaxy S device) to take a look at the chips inside, and found a surprising number of visual goodies packed within. Using some scanning electronic microscopy, they saw a message that reads "If you can read this, you are much too close." Much too close, indeed: the letter "o" in the message is less than 1/10th the thickness of a human hair.

But that was just the tip of the iceberg. They also found four other images in the chips, including "a fairly simple smiley face...

Mar

The XOOM's Rival Approaches - Galaxy Tab 10.1 Profiled In 11 Minute Video

Posted by Will Shanklin in Galaxy Tab 10.1, News

Have you been salivating over the Motorola XOOM, but holding back from taking the plunge until you have seen what Samsung, LG, and others have to offer in the 10" tab department? You can cross one of those off of the list as Samsung's upcoming slate has been thoroughly taken through the wringers in a full 11 minute video.

There isn't necessarily any groundbreaking information revealed, but seeing the tablet in action for such a lengthy period gave me a much clearer sense of what the tablet will look and feel like. It certainly looks very similar to the XOOM (as we knew it would).

Mar

Flyer Surfaces Showing Wifi Galaxy Tab Launching April 4 For $399

Posted by Will Shanklin in Galaxy Tab, News, Rumors

Take it as you wish, but a flyer that (according to Droid Life) was passed out by Samsung representatives at a technology fair today clearly shows that a Wifi-only version of the original 7" Galaxy Tab is set to hit store shelves on April 4 at $399.

If this turns out to be legit, it may be viewed as a mixed bag by Android users. On the one hand, it's a quality tablet from a major manufacturer offered for $100 less than the iPad, but on the other hand, this isn't November and the original Tab's specs are easily dwarfed by the current generation of Tegra 2 slates that are becoming available.

Mar

Samsung's Photoshop Deception: The Real Thickness Of The 8.9" Galaxy Tab

Posted by Will Shanklin in Galaxy Tab, News

If you saw our post the other day about Samsung's teaser image for their rumored 8.9" Galaxy Tab (expected to be announced at CTIA later this month), you may have seen what appeared to be an extremely thin tablet. At a casual glance, it looks svelte enough to give the .34" thick iPad 2 a run for its money in its lack of girth. Then a diligent tipster shared his homework with us and, well, it looks like Samsung has been using some Photoshop lighting effects to create a bit of an illusion.

First, see the image as presented by Samsung and posted on Android Police this week:

Unless you are viewing it from the perfect angle on your screen, it looks, as we described it, "razor-thin," does it not?

Mar

[Updated: Now With EVO View 4G Trademark Filing] Sprint's Own Website All But Confirms The Rumored Nexus S 4G, EVO 3D, And EVO View Devices

Posted by Artem Russakovskii in EVO 3D (Shooter), EVO View 4G, HTC, News, Nexus S 4G (Crespo4g), Rumors, Samsung, Sprint

Sprint has been mum about its 2011 lineup throughout this whole year until yesterday, when we finally got a break and caught wind of not 1 but 3 upcoming Sprint Android devices - the Nexus S 4G, the EVO 3D, and the EVO View tablet. The rumors were dropped to both Engadget and AndroidAndMe by an anonymous tipster, but both sites seemed confident in their sources, meaning it wasn't the first time the same credible tipster provided reliable information.

If you are sensitive to unconfirmed rumors and have trouble believing anonymous tipsters, even you will be pleased with what these pretty darn good hints planted around Sprint's own website.