Samsung - 143/173 - Android Police - Android News, Apps, Games, Phones, Tablets

Mar

Samsung Announces The 2.8" Galaxy Pro With A Candybar QWERTY Keyboard

Posted by Abhiroop Basu in Froyo 2.2, Galaxy Pro, News, Samsung

Today at the SEA Forum in Singapore, Samsung launched the Galaxy Pro Android 2.2 smartphone featuring a QWERTY keyboard.

Shortly thereafter, UK mobile operator Three confirmed in the video below that the device will be carried by their network.

The video also revealed that the phone will have a modest 800 MHz processor, a 2.8-inch capacitive touchscreen display, a 3MP rear camera, and Wi-Fi. The phone will also come with Samsung's proprietary Social Hub software, allowing you to connect to your email, IM, and social networks through one interface. So, if you are like Brendan and always like to be connected, "this is the perfect phone for you".

Mar

[Rumor] EVO 3D, EVO View Tablet, And Nexus S 4G To Be Revealed By Sprint At CTIA?

Posted by Zak Stinson in Flyer, HTC, News, Nexus S (Crespo/Soju), Rumors, Samsung, Sprint

Earlier this week, Sprint sent out an invitation to a special release event at the CTIA WIRELESS 2011 conference later this month. After a less than amazing showing at CES, and the "innovative" move they made with the Echo, Sprint is due for a highly anticipated device to come to their users. Thanks to an anonymous tip received by Engadget (though in no way confirmed or proved credible), you may now start anticipating.

Nexus S 4G

Last year, after flirting with the idea of carrying the first "Google phone", Sprint dumped the Nexus One and went with the EVO 4G.

Mar

Samsung Reconsidering Galaxy Tab 10.1 Details In Light Of iPad 2

Posted by Aaron Gingrich in Galaxy Tab 10.1, News

You'll find no Apple lovers around the Android Police offices, but even we have to admit that there's no excuse for Apple showing up the Android tablet scene's pricing. Unfortunately, that's exactly what's happened. With that in mind, it's perhaps not so surprising to hear that Samsung is re-evaluating their upcoming Galaxy Tab 10.1.

Aside from the likely price drop we'll see, they're also taking a critical eye to the physical characteristics of their tablet - specifically, they don't think it's thin enough to compete with the 8.8mm-thick iPad 2.

We've said it many, many times before: Apple products aren't for us, but that doesn't mean they don't manage to do some things right.

Mar

NVIDIA's Tegra 2 Dual-Core CPU Confirmed To Be Powering Some Galaxy S II Handsets

Posted by Zak Stinson in Galaxy S II, News

On Wednesday night, NVIDIA confirmed a rumour that had been swirling around for the last few days. According to a presentation they gave and attended by the folks at ITProPortal, NVIDIA's dual core Tegra 2 chipset is powering three major handsets right now: the Motorola Atrix, the LG Optimus 2X, and the upcoming Samsung Galaxy S II.

When first announced, the Galaxy S II was said to be packing the Exynos, Samsung's own SoC. Now it is clear that they will be releasing two versions of the new device, either with their Exynos Chipset or NVIDIA's. ITProPortal speculates that Samsung is doing this to boost the number of handsets that can be moved to market, as production of the Exynos is still ramping up.

Feb

Root No Longer Required For Taking Screenshots In Android 2.3.3

Posted by Jaroslav Stekl in Gingerbread 2.3, Nexus One (Passion), Nexus S (Crespo/Soju)

While rooted Android users have been taking screenshots on their phones for a while now, stock, non-rooted owners have been left out of the fun (there are some notable exceptions to this rule, like the EVO 4G). No longer, according to Paul O'Brien, one of the visionaries in the Android community, who posted the following in reply to Cyanogen (aka Android god):

We haven't been able to confirm what exactly changed in 2.3.3, but according to Android Central, screenshots are now possible without root "because of some changes in the way the SurfaceFlinger service handles what it captures from the framebuffer."

This newly uncovered fact means that all phones running Android 2.3.3 and above should be able to take screenshots regardless of whether they're rooted or not.

Feb

MORE Tablets Coming? Yes - From Motorola, Samsung

Posted by Will Shanklin in Galaxy Tab 10.1, Galaxy Tab 2 7.0, Motorola, News, Samsung

If you thought Android powerhouse manufacturers Samsung and Motorola were going to rest on their accomplishments with the Galaxy Tab and XOOM (respectively), think again. In separate announcements today, it was revealed that both companies are already working on tablet sequels.

In a Facebook PR post for the upcoming "Samsung Mobile Unpacked" event on March 22, the Galaxy Tab maker posted an image of an unknown Honeycomb-running tablet with the numbers "78910" on the screen, accompanied by the question "What's your Tab life?" Whether these numbers refer to display sizes or not is still up for debate (let's just hope the figures aren't the price, shall we?).

Feb

Official Gingerbread ROM Leaked For European And Asian Samsung Galaxy S i9000 Phones

Posted by David Ruddock in Development, Galaxy S, Gingerbread 2.3, News, Samsung

The XDA forums are on fire this afternoon after a user posted a thread linking to a Polish Android forum, claiming to contain a download for an official Gingerbread build for the Samsung Galaxy S i9000. Before you get too excited, let me reiterate: this is not for US devices, and I would not recommend trying it on your Captivate/Vibrant/Fascinate/Epic.

That said, the handy development community will get their paws on this and have a field day, so you may be seeing unofficial Gingerbread ROMs for US phones (aside from CyanogenMod 7) start floating around on XDA in the next week or so.

Feb

Thumb Keyboard Is An Epic Win For Tablet Typing [Hands-On]

Posted by Will Shanklin in App Reviews, Applications, Galaxy Tab, NOOKcolor (Encore), Reviews, Tips & Tutorials, XOOM

Last Updated: July 24th, 2011

If you caught our review of Thumb Keyboard last month, you'll know the gist of this clever keyboard app that aims to make two-thumbed typing a breeze. It's a novel (and potentially very useful) tool for a phone, but with recent updates that have accentuated the tablet layouts, this has now become my keyboard of choice on large tablet screens, and is a potential game-changer in the new slate arena.

On phones, trace keyboards like Swype and SlideIt are extremely hard to beat in the speed department (world texting records seem to be broken on a regular basis with Swype), but on the wider tablet screen, tracing suddenly becomes much less convenient.

Feb

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

Posted by Aaron Gingrich 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.

Feb

Froyo Update For Samsung Epic 4G Halted After Reports Of SD Card Access and Data Connection Problems

Posted by Zak Stinson in Android OS, Epic 4G, Froyo 2.2, News, Samsung, Sprint

Samsung has a reputation for not being the greatest at updating their devices, but this week has been especially rough for them. First, Microsoft had to halt an update to the Samsung Omnia 7 due to reports of bricked devices. Today, Sprint has just stopped pushing the Android 2.2 update for the Epic as users have found hardware problems after applying it.

According to Sprint's support forum, there have been an increased number of calls into their Care Centre about issues with wireless data connectivity and the ability to access the SD card. While it's a relief that no one has reported a bricked phone, I can imagine the long wait for Froyo would be made that much worse by having it break some core functionalities of your device.