Samsung Galaxy S3 May Look Like This

This could be the best Galaxy S3 leak to-date or simply a fake, but either way here’s the photo that’s claimed to be of Samsung’s upcoming flagship smartphone!

Does it look like the real thing to you?

A tipster send this image to the guys over at PhoneArena, and it’s said to be a press shot of the “final design” of the S3 handset.

There are a few things to note with this supposed snapshot of the next Galaxy S premium handset, including the fact there are no physical keys on the phone. Unlike on the original Galaxy S and the SII, there is no rectangular Home key on this device – although this doesn’t necessarily means it’s not real. Perhaps Samsung has decided to alter the design of its successor Galaxy S smartphone. After all, the upcoming iPhone 5 is expected to boast a different design to its predecessors.

If this is the S3 model, the screen certainly looks bigger, which fits with expectations. However, one thing that doesn’t is the photo of the display itself – the font doesn’t look quite right, it’s suspicious that the date is 22 March as this is when an announcement could be made, and the notifications section is a bit on the blurry side.

The rumours are coming thick and fast now, as we all eagerly await the official unveiling. Only yesterday, we heard from Russian tech blogger Eldar Murtazin that the S3 is coming with a ceramic finish, as well as reports of the next Galaxy S phone being waterproof.

All we do know is the Samsung Galaxy S3 is bound to be worth the wait and all the speculation.

Don’t forget to let us know your thoughts on whether you think this picture is of the Galaxy S3!

Via

HTC One X & S Phones 4U pre-order with freebie

Under: HTC
Date: March 16th, 2012

Two of the most anticipated upcoming smartphones are the HTC One X and the HTC One S. Both have been making big waves in the smartphone world, particularly the HTC One X with its quad-core processor action. Today we have news that you can now pre-order the HTC One X or S through Phones 4U and those that do will get a freebie, always a nice bonus.

Customers who pre-order either of these Android smartphones with Phones 4u will also receive a free HTC Media Link HD, normally worth £79.99. This useful device allows users to share their favourite content from their handsets, streaming it to an HDMI-equipped TV by plugging it into any HDMI port.
Because the Media Link HD also features Dual-Screening technology, at the same time as you’re streaming media to your TV you can still use thephone display for other things, such as emailing, Internet browsing and more. The HTC Media Link HD is also portable as it’s small and compact so to get one free one free of charge with pre-orders for the HTC One X or One S seems like a pretty good deal to us.
HTC One series phones run on the Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich operating system (the very latest) along with HTC Sense 4 and also feature Beats by Dr. Dre Audio. Phones 4u Chief Commercial Officer Scott Hooton said, “Not only does the HTC One series range bolster our existing range of high-end HTC smartphones, it offers our customers superior sound and image quality in the form of the HTC One X and HTC One S.”
The flagship HTC One X is a quad-core beast with 1.5GHZ quad-core chip, huge 4.7-inch display with resolution of 1280×720, an 8-megapixel rear camera, 1GB of RAM, 32GB of internal storage and also courtesy of Dropbox 25GB of Cloud storage. The HTC One S has a 1.5GHz dual-core processor, 4.3-inch AMOLED touchscreen, 8-megapixel camera, 1GB of RAM and internal storage of 16GB with another 25GB of Cloud storage from Dropbox.
The HTC One X will be available at Phones 4u stores and online from April 5. It will be free with a contract from £36 monthly while the HTC One S will also be free with a contract costing from £31 per month. A choice of networks is available for both. You can pre-order now from the Phones 4u website where you can also see hands on reviews of both. For the HTC One X headhere or for the HTC One S head here.
In case you want to find out more about how the HTC Media Link HD works we’ve embedded a video below this story to help you out. Are you waiting for either of these phones and if so will you be taking advantage of the freebie offer from Phones 4u?

Sony Xperia Sola brings floating touch navigation

Forget touch screens. You don’t even need to caress the screen of Sony’s “magical” smartphone to interact with it -- just hover your finger over the screen to navigate through the menus.

Via

Samsung Galaxy Beam about to Hit the Store Shelves!

The South Korean mobile phone maker Samsung has announced the arrival of the Samsung Galaxy Beam smartphone handset. Now, the Galaxy Beam is not just another run of the mill smartphone device. It is one smartphone comes fitted with an ultra bright 15 lumens built-in projector which Samsung claims can function to full effect even outdoors.

Needless to mention, the Samsung Galaxy Beam may prove to be the ideal handset for those who are always on the move and need to make those presentations every now and then. Samsung though has not mentioned any launch date.

Here, let us take a closer look at the likely technical specifications that the Samsung Galaxy Beam will come equipped with. The Galaxy Beam packs a four inch wide 480 x 800 WVGA TFT touch sensitive display screen and a 2000 mAh battery.

You also have the dual core 1 GHz processor alongside the 8 GB of RAM. The Android 2.3 Gingerbread version of the operating system will run the show. The five mega pixel camera attached on the rear of the phone device is accompanied by the 1.3 pixels front video telephony camera. The snappers will be able to deliver 720p high definition video recordings and playback and that too at 30 fps.

The e on board memory of the Samsung Galaxy Beam is 8 GB and this storage capacity can be enhanced to another 32 GB by using the microSD memory card.

HTC One X competes with better photo features

It's becoming very hard to choose between Android phones -- and the manufacturers know it. As a result, many of them are now concentrating on try to differentiate their devices, either by making them more stylish (such as the ultra-thin Motorola Droid Razr) or more like a tablet, such as the recently introduced (to the U.S., anyway) Samsung Galaxy Note or more attractive to music lovers, such as the HTC Rezound.

Cameras have also become popular with smartphone buyers, to the point where they're no longer considered modest add-ons, but important features. The ability to create higher-quality photos and video will certainly be a large part of the marketing push for HTC's latest line of smartphones: HTC One.

Announced yesterday at the Mobile World Congress, the HTC One thus far consists of three phones (none of which will ship for at least a couple of months): the HTC One X, which has a 4.7-in. screen and will be sold by AT&T; the HTC One S, which has a 4.3-in. display and will be sold by T-Mobile, and the HTC One V, which will have a 3.7-in. display and will be sold in the pre-pay market (and about which, so far, there is not much information).

Both HTC One X and One S will come with the same Beat Audio sound enhancement as their Rezound predecessor, but they will also offer HTC's new ImageSense technology: a suite of features designed to try to convince consumers that having a separate camera is a thing of the past. According to HTC, they've give the One X an 8 megapixel camera, an f2.0 lens, backsensor illumination, and an HTC ImageChip to speed up the graphic processing.

Giving it a try 

I had a chance to try out the HTC One X this morning at an HTC press event here in NYC (see video below), and the camera interface was certainly nice. You can access the camera directly from the Android lock screen (the One X will come with Android 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich) overlaid by HTC's Sense environment). Once in the camera app, two large icons give you the choice between still photos and video -- click on the video icon and you're immediately recording.

There are a number of interesting features, such as the ability to take up to 99 continuous photos by pressing and holding the shutter button (and then easily choose the best of the group. While recording a video, you can capture a frame without stopping the shoot, essentially creating a video and a still photo simultaneously. There are also a number of special effects and setups (for group shots or panoramic shots) which you can access via menus.

I only played with the HTC One X for a short time, but from what I could see, the photo and video-taking ability of the camera seemed to have the a lot of potential -- it could, at the very least, satisfy casual photographers who would like to be able to grab a photo or throw a video up on YouTube quickly, cleanly and with some extras added.

HTC isn't the only phone vendor looking to making itself more visible by making the phone's camera more useful. Nokia has just announced that it is launching a phone called the Nokia 808 PureView which will be capable of 5-megapixel, 8-megapixel and 38-megapixel photos. (Unfortunately and, rather strangely, it will also be one of the last Nokia phones running Symbian and not Windows Phone.)

As someone who used to always carry a small point-and-shoot in my bag in order to be able to take photos or videos whenever the opportunity might arise (and living in a large city, the opportunity arises frequently), I count myself among those who would welcome better, faster and higher-quality cameras as part of my smartphone. However, even if Nokia's new smartphones fulfill their photographic promise, there may be a slight hitch in HTC's specs.

How well will the battery hold up? 

The battery for the One X will be a reasonable but not impressive 1800mAh -- and will not be user-replaceable. (The HTC One S, which will also feature the same photo/video enhancements, will have a 1600mAh battery.) As the owner of a Samsung Galaxy Nexus, which came with an 1850mAh battery, I know how power-hungry these smartphones can be, especially when using them as video cameras or viewers.

Many of the Nexus owners I know have opted to purchase the 2100mAh extended battery; when I first purchased my phone and couldn't get the extended battery in time for a business trip, I opted for a second 1850mAh battery so that I could switch off when I needed to. If the HTC One X turns out to be as power-hungry as many of the other feature-heavy smartphones out there, there's a good possibility that its owners will need to either be very careful about power use or get used to carrying around mobile power devices.

Or not. When the new HTC phones ship (they are expected to be available in two or three months), we expect to be able to provide a more thorough review.

 Via: blogs.computerworld

Samsung: 'We're not doing very well in the tablet market'

BARCELONA, Spain--Samsung Electronics admitted that its attempt to breach the tablet market has largely been a flop, with one executive offering a sobering summary of its performance. "Honestly, we're not doing very well in the tablet market," Hankil Yoon, a product strategy executive for Samsung, said today during a media roundtable here. 

That's about as frank a statement as it gets from any executive at the Mobile World Congress trade show this week. 

That Samsung hasn't met expectations in its tablet business isn't a huge surprise; the company lags well behind Apple's iPad and even Amazon's Kindle Fire in the US market. But for an executive to acknowledge the weakness is refreshing at a time when corporate-speak and jargon dominate conversations--particularly ones of a sensitive nature. 

Unlike Apple and other tablet vendors, Samsung has tried a shotgun approach at pushing its Galaxy Tab line of tablets. Initially offering a 7-inch version, it moved up to 10 inches and filled in the rest of the portfolio with sizes in between. Samsung, for the most part, was experimenting with the sizes and using the market as a testbed for what resonates with consumers. 

Samsung, however, appears to remain confident that the Galaxy Note will take off. The 5-inch version, which is already out in the market, has been hit by a string of criticism, largely due to its a size. While it acts as a phone, it looks more like a tweener product in between a smartphone and tablet, calling some to label it a "phablet." 

Yoon said he expects to ship 10 million units of the 5-inch Galaxy Note, lofty expectations for a company still smarting in the tablet business. He believes the S-Pen--the stylus that comes with the device--allows users to more easily create content, rather than consume it. 

Samsung earlier this week announced a 10.1-inch version of the Galaxy Note. When asked about the threat of redundant products, Yoon said he hoped the Note cannibalized sales of the original 10.1-inch Tab "The best thing to survive in the market is to kill your products," Yoon said. "We want to stay competitive in the market." 

That's why Samsung has been focused on pushing the Note and its S-Pen. Having struggled in the traditional tablet market, Samsung wanted to do something different in the category, Yoon said. He added that he no longer carries a physical notepad or papers, and does all of his note-taking on the 5-inch Note. 

"Even if the design is similar, how you use the (Note) is totally different," he said. Yoon dismissed the early criticism of the device, saying it would take some education for consumers to get comfortable with the larger size. He noted that three years ago, the largest phone in its line up had a 3.7-inch display, while the Galaxy S II has a 4.3-inch screen. It's just a matter of adapting to a larger screen. 

"Once I used this, the Galaxy S II looks too small," he said. "I don't go back to any other smartphone or tablet." 

Via CNET
Source asia.cnet