21
Oct
Screen shot 2010-10-21 at 7.39.06 PM

Samsung Promises FroYo Update For All Galaxy S Versions In November [Update: UK Only]

Posted by in AT&T, Captivate, Epic 4G, Fascinate, Froyo 2.2, Galaxy S, Mesmerize, Samsung, Sprint, T-Mobile, US Cellular, Verizon Wireless, Vibrant

All together now: finally! After several broken promises and recalled updates, Samsung's just announced that Android 2.2 FroYo will be available through a "brand new version of Kies" (that's Samsung's software upgrade system) early in November for Galaxy S owners in the UK, while "all operator versions" are "expected" to be available by the end of November (hopefully that includes the "operator versions" of the Galaxy S that Verizon, AT&T, Sprint, and T-Mobile are currently carrying here in the States). One could complain that it's about four months late, and that's likely due to the evils of custom UIs - but then again, it's better late than never, right?

15
Oct
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Android 2.2 (Froyo) Update Begins Rolling Out For Samsung Galaxy S - In The Nordic Region

Posted by in Android OS, Captivate, Epic 4G, Fascinate, Froyo 2.2, Galaxy S, News, Samsung, Vibrant

We have good news and bad news for Samsung Galaxy S owners. The good: the Froyo update source code released a few days ago is now officially being rolled out by Samsung. The bad news: they're starting with the Nordic countries... then "gradually" moving across Europe, Asia, North America, Africa, and everyone else.

galaxy-s-froyo-image4

The word "gradually" isn't exactly encouraging, and neither is the fact that North America is towards the end of the list. Still, the news alone should be enough to brighten the day of a whole bunch of people.

[Source: Samsung via Engadget]

Full press release:

Samsung GALAXY S Offers New Android 2.2 Upgrade

New platform upgrade provides enhanced experience on the go

SEOUL, Korea – October 18, 2010 – Samsung Electronics Co.

10
Oct
SoC

Meet SuperOneClick: Easily Root Nearly Any Android Device, Including Froyo-Rockin' Samsung Captivate

Posted by in Applications, AT&T, Captivate, Development, Devices By Manufacturer, Epic 4G, Froyo 2.2, Galaxy S, News, Samsung, Vibrant

This article deals with a couple of advanced topics. If you’re unfamiliar with some of the terms, hit up our primers here:

A few days ago, a new version of Universal Androot was released with support for Froyo, but a number of devices were still incompatible.

30
Sep
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Front-Facing Camera Hacked Into T-Mobile Vibrant

Posted by in Galaxy S, News, Samsung, Vibrant

All of Samsung's Galaxy S family have the same 4.0" Super-AMOLED screen, share a common iPhone-esque UI, and ... well, that's about it. The disparity between features in the SGS line has certainly caused some frustration with users; two have a flash, one has a keyboard and 4G, one has Bing (not really a feature worth crowing about), and two have front-facing cameras. Those two are the appropriately-named Epic 4G and the mothership, the Galaxy S i9000, which is mainly sold in Europe and Korea.

Considering the striking similarity in the appearance of the i9000 and the Vibrant, it's forgivable that users would confuse the two models, questioning the absence of a front-facing camera on their own devices.

30
Sep
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Samsung Vibrant GPS Fix Through Kies Has Known Issues, T-Mobile Urges Customers To Avoid It

Posted by in News, T-Mobile, Vibrant

 

If you just can't wait one more day for a GPS fix for your Samsung Vibrant... you're out of luck, because the recent update through Samsung's sync app Kies, which was supposed to fix all GPS issues, is raising problems of its own, according to T-Mobile.

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No word on what the new issues actually are, but hopefully T-Mobile delivers an OTA update "soon" like they've promised. Of course, if they don't, there's always the simpler solution of hacking.

Source: Twitter via Talk Android

30
Sep
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Eldar Murtazin Speculates On The Future Of The Samsung Galaxy S: RIP Super-AMOLED Phones?

Posted by in Captivate, Devices By Manufacturer, Epic 4G, Fascinate, Galaxy S, News, Samsung, Vibrant

If there's one man with an inside line in the mobile industry, it's mobile-review.com's  Editor-in-Chief Eldar Murtazin. This guy has a network of informants rivalling any national security agency you'd care to name.

The latest subject of his (occasionally spurious) tweeting is Samsung's family of Super-AMOLED phones, namely the Wave and Galaxy S. Eldar seems to have some insight into the production and stock of S-AMOLED panels, leading him to think that neither of the two aforementioned phones are in production anymore because of S-AMOLED scarcity.

Murtazin goes on to indicate that the Galaxy S line does not have an immediate replacement in the pipeline (dash our hopes), and that all current stock of Samsung's stunning new screen tech has been sold to Apple for a product release in 2011.

24
Sep
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Battery Lives Of 8 Flagship Android Phones Tested And Compared - LCD Wins, AMOLED Loses, Droid X Takes Home The Crown

Posted by in Captivate, Devices By Manufacturer, Droid 2, Droid X (Shadow), Epic 4G, EVO 4G (Supersonic), Incredible, News, Streak, Vibrant

Here’s something to get your teeth into. Over at LaptopMag, a whole host of Androids have been put through their paces in a grueling battery life endurance test. The goal was to keep the phones’ screens on while doing a moderate amount of processing, namely cyclically browsing a collection of web pages. Despite the supposed power savings afforded by AMOLED screens, the phones employing that screen technology fell quite a ways behind in comparison to the traditional LCD phones.

Why is that? AMOLED is supposed to only use up power on non-black pixels, right? Well, as LaptopMag points out, the majority of webpages are actually dark text on a light background, a scenario in which AMOLED actually uses more power than an equivalent backlit LCD.

20
Sep
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CyanogenMod Looks To Continue Its Reign, Expand To Acer Liquid, HTC Wildfire, Samsung Vibrant, and HTC G2

Posted by in Captivate, Development, Devices By Manufacturer, Fascinate, G2 (Vision), Galaxy S, Liquid A1, News, Vibrant, Wildfire (Buzz)

Good news for what's likely to be a whole crapton of users: CyanogenMod, Android's most popular ROM, will be coming to a handful of new devices with CM6.1. Namely:

There will also be support for a few new devices- Acer Liquid, HTC Wildfire and Samsung Vibrant. My eye is also on the new HTC phones that are about to get released like the G2.

cyanogen-mod

It looks like their doors are still open to new devs and currently unsupported devices, as well - to quote Cyanogen once more:

A lot of people ask me about adding support for their phone, but we can only support phones that we actually own.

01
Sep

Back To School With Android: The Budget Phones And Awesome Apps That Will Help You Get Through The Year

Posted by in Ally (Aloha), Applications, Aria (Liberty), AT&T, Backflip, Captivate, CHARM, Devour, Droid (Sholes), Hero (Sprint, HeroC), Intercept, Moment, myTouch Slide (Espresso), Sprint, T-Mobile, Verizon Wireless, Vibrant
Last Updated: July 3rd, 2011

Phones

Not everyone needs a new phone at this time of year, especially as you probably got your last one some time around Christmas, but if you’re in the market for a decent Android phone on your college-sized budget, here’s the what you’re looking at if you’re one of the four major carriers:

Verizon

  • Motorola Droid - Affordable doesn’t necessarily have to mean cheap, and such is the case with the original Motorola Droid. While Verizon itself no longer carries the original, (it’s been dropped in favor of the Droid 2) it can be had for the price of $0.00 (or, at most, $0.01) at third-party retailers like WireFly, Amazon, and LetsTalk.com.

29
Aug
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Samsung Hits A Milestone: Over 1 Million Galaxy S Devices Shipped In US

Posted by in AT&T, Captivate, Epic 4G, Fascinate, News, Sprint, T-Mobile, Verizon Wireless, Vibrant

 

Samsung just sent out a press release that should help dampen the dullness today: according to Samsung, they've shipped over 1 million Galaxy S devices in the US. Not bad, especially considering they've only launched on 2 of the 6 carriers that will be getting the device. With such a hotly-anticipated and well-received line of devices, it's likely sales are really just getting started - after all, the Vibrant and Captivate only launched just over a month ago.

Samsung's Epic 4G will be launching on Sprint in just a few days (August 31), and rumor has it that Verizon's Fascinate won't be far behind.

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