Search Results for: samsung

ALICANTE, Spain -- 3D TVs aren't ready for prime time, so to speak. They'll let you watch Avatar at home in all its epic Cameron-esque glory. But you gotta wear glasses, and there isn't much programming. As a result, TV makers have found themselves ahead -- way ahead -- of market demand. It's that old chicken and egg conundrum: Which comes first, the applications or devices/platform?

The 3D device/platform is there, from the likes of Samsung or Sony but where's the content where you really need it -- in the living room during prime time? Then there are those godawful glasses. Thankfully, no one needs see them in the comfort of your cozy chair, unlike the crowded theater.

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Attempting to put more competitive pressure on Apple's iPad, both Sprint and Verizon Wireless dropped the price of the Samsung Galaxy Tab tablet to $199.99 when signing a two-year contract. The price cut is the third this year, after the Tab debuted in October of last year.

Verizon initially offered the device unsubsidized at a cost of $599.99, while Sprint decided to subsidize the cost at $399.99. In January, Verizon dropped the cost by $100 as did Sprint, although Verizon would later decide to subsidize the cost and offer it for the same price as its competitor.

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Samsung was arguably the first company to deliver a compelling Android-based tablet with its 7" Galaxy Tab, which debuted in late 2010. The company is continuing its momentum by releasing two other Android tablets in 10.1" and 8.9" profiles. Today at CTIA in Orlando, Samsung took the wraps off of the new 8.9" for the first time.

In its first month of availability, Samsung sold some 600,000 units of the original 7" Galaxy Tab. A common complaint about the device, however, was that the screen is too small to be a competitor to the iPad, yet too big for it to be a truly pocketable smart device. In keeping with the public's demand for larger screens and flatter chassis, Samsung announced the 10.1" Tab at Mobile World Congress earlier this year.

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At an event in New York City today, Samsung announced its Galaxy Player portable media players will be available in the U.S. this Spring. The Android 2.2 devices come in 4" and 5" screen sizes and offer most of the same features of the high end Galaxy S smartphones or the Galaxy Tab, but lack the option for cellular connectivity.

Though Samsung has wide variety of portable media player styles this year, the Galaxy Players will fall alongside Archos' line of Android-powered "Internet tablets," in the MID (Mobile Internet Device) category; a sort of portable grey area that falls between traditional mp3 player design and the current mobile tablet/slate design trend.

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Likely aiming to attract those familiar with RIM's BlackBerry, Samsung on Monday debuted the Galaxy Pro, an Android smartphone that combines a full QWERTY keyboard and a 2.8" touch-screen display. The device will ship in the UK later this month and across Europe, the Middle East, and Southeast Asia shortly after.

The phone appears to be targeted to the lower end of the business segment as well as the everyday consumer. The Pro will have Flash support and an included 3-megapixel camera, but for the business-centric user it will include Exchange and tethering capabilities. It also would include Samsung's TouchWiz user interface.

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Wednesday's announcement of the iPad 2 has seemingly caught Apple's biggest competitor off guard, and Samsung is apparently reevaluating its next moves. In comments to Korea-based Yonhap News Agency, Samsung's mobile head Lee Don-joo said that the next iPad's sleek new design and competitive price are challenges.

The Korean electronics manufacturer's Galaxy Tab tablet is widely considered the biggest threat to the iPad's dominance in the sector. About two million have sold since its debut last September, making it the best selling tablet next to the iPad.

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The minor update to Windows Phone 7 that started rolling out on Monday has been problematic for Samsung devices running the OS, and Microsoft has stalled the update process.

The update, according to Michael Stroh in the Windows Phone Blog, was "designed to improve the software update process itself."

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OK, we've seen the best tablets now that the industry can offer.

At [Consumer Electronics Show] Motorola Xoom won best of show. Last week we saw the HP TouchPad, which looks even better. Finally, [Mobile World Congress], at the very end of its presentation, Samsung launched a 10-inch Tablet.

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Today at Mobile World Congress, Samsung confirmed the rumors, announcing the Galaxy S II smartphone and Galaxy Tab 10.1 tablet. Both mobile devices have dual-core processors, and, yes, Samsung-manufactured, Google-branded Nexus S owners like me have reason to gripe about the new smartphone series. So much for Google's reference-design model that suddenly feels oh-so dated.

The new smartphone features a 4.27-inch Super AMOLED display with 800 x 480 resolution; dual-core Samsung processor; 8-megapixel rear-facing and 2-megapixel front-facing cameras; Android 2.3 (Gingerbread); 1080p video recording; Bluetooth 3.0+HS; and HSPA+ network support, among others.

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I'm in a contrary mood. While everyone else is obsessing about iPhone and Research in Motion smartphone shipments, I'm singling out HTC and Samsung, which combined fourth-quarter performance foreshadows changes coming to the global smartphone market. Earlier today, IDC released Q4 and full-year 2010 smartphone shipments. Sidebar: For those folks still obsessing about Strategy Analytics tablet data, IDC likewise measures shipments into the channel. For actual sales -- that is to  customers -- Gartner will soon deliver them.

As others have reported, Apple nudged out RIM for second place in global smartphone share for fourth quarter, but not the year. While Apple shipments rose 86.2 percent, market share was a flat 16.1 percent in Q4 and the year-ago quarter. This trend I have repeatedly observed: ComScore smartphone shipment data released today and in January; Nielsen data released last week and early January; Canalys data released eight days ago and mid January. Apple is shipping a heck of a lot of phones, but the big growth and share gains belong to Android OS and its supporting manufacturers.

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Kyocera Communications and Sprint on Monday unveiled a new dual-screen Android smartphone called the Echo, which uses two discrete touchscreens, unlike the other "dual screen" Android phone, Samsung's Galaxy S Continuum which is just a single touch panel broken into three independent sections.

When closed, the Echo looks like a regular touchphone, but when opened, its two 3.5" touchscreens can be used to run two full screen applications pseudo-simultaneously, one on each screen. Sprint has given this the name "Simultasking," since it's a task that has heretofore not been done on Android phones. Echo can also be used in "tablet mode" and have a single application blown up to 4.7" to take up the combined screen real estate, or apps can be optimized to use each screen individually. In "optimized mode," the Echo looks quite a bit like a Nintendo DS, dividing an app's functionality into two useful parts.

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There's a reason why Betanews didn't report the ridiculous research report claiming that the return rate on Samsung Galaxy Tab tablets was overly high: It wasn't believable. Finally, Samsung has stepped up with its formal denial.

Samsung posted the statement yesterday (yeah, I missed it; I was celebrating the Lunar New Year on Seoul time): "The return rate of the Galaxy Tab in the US as claimed by an North American market research firm is incorrect. According to Samsung Electronics Mobile Communications Business the return rate is below 2 percent." Now how's that for terse and to the point?

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Must everything be partisan? In the US Congress, Democrats and Republicans spilt over nearly every issue. Today's strangest debate isn't political, but analytical -- sides supporting or opposing Apple and bloggers and journalists parlaying games of oneupmanship. It's all about how much tablet market share Samsung snatched from Apple during calendar fourth quarter, if any. The debate is simply pointless.

Earlier today, Bloomberg reported on data from Strategy Analytics stating that Android tablets captured 22 percent market share in Q4, based on 2.1 million shipments, essentially punching market leader iPad smack in the touchscreen. By Strategy Analytics' reckoning, iPad's market share dropped from 95 percent to 75 percent in a single quarter.

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Samsung and ZTE were big winners selling mobile phones in 2010, based on new data released by IDC. Apple fell from fourth to fifth place. Smartphone shipments drove year-over-year growth to a new quarterly high -- 17.9 percent -- in fourth quarter. Unit shipments rose from 340.5 million units to 401.4 million. IDC measures shipments into the channel, which means unsold handsets are counted. Gartner should soon release actual sales data, for which the numbers will be lower.

For the year, manufacturers shipped 1.39 billion cell phones, up 18.5 percent from 1.17 billion units a year earlier. The United Nations estimates there are 5 billion cellular subscribers worldwide. IDC predicts that smartphones will be the major sales growth driver through 2014. This year, smartphone shipments are projected to rise by nearly 44 percent year over year.

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Today, semiconductor manufacturers IBM and Samsung announced they will begin research and development on a new process technology that will be utilized in "a broad range of applications," in the general area of mobile telecommunications.

IBM, Samsung, and Global Foundries are partnered in what is known as the Common Platform technology alliance, where each company provides resources and expertise for the development of new bulk CMOS process technologies. IBM and Samsung have already established a joint development agreement to nodes starting at 20nm and beyond.

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