Articles about Samsung

The Taiwanese Fair Trade Commission is investigating allegations that Samsung representatives posted fake reviews of rival HTC’s products online. Allegations of dirty dealing come from whistle-blowing site taiwansamsungleaks.org, which posted documents it claims are from a third-party marketing agency employed by Samsung.

The documents reveal a raft of allegedly fake posts on popular Taiwanese gadget websites, prompting the leaks site to describe Samsung’s tactics as "evil". The company is accused of hiring students to post negative comments about HTC smartphones.

Continue reading →

Little under three weeks ago, AT&T revealed that it would be offering the Galaxy S4 for pre-order starting April 16. And today Samsung's latest Android flagship is indeed available at the US mobile operator for those who wish to purchase the smartphone before the official sales start.

What's the damage? Similar to its predecessor, on a two-year contract with "qualifying voice and data plans", the Galaxy S4 in 16 GB storage trim can be pre-ordered for $199.99. Should you choose to go with AT&T's one-year contract, the same smartphone runs for $449.99, again with "qualifying voice and data plans".

Continue reading →

Last week I asked if you would buy Samsung's newest smartphone, which goes on sale later this month. With a large enough sample size -- 1,700 responses so far -- time is come to share the results. Seventy percent say they will buy Galaxy S4, although not all immediately. Just 20 percent answer flat-out "No".

I should qualify the headline: "You likely will buy Samsung Galaxy S4, if you're not American". Over here, more people are bugaboo about iPhone. Apple had 38.9 percent smartphone subscriber share in February compared to 21.3 percent for its South Korean rival, according to comScore. Elsewhere, Samsung rules, selling more general handsets and smartphones than any other manufacturer, according to Gartner. (Woe to damn provincial Americans!)

Continue reading →

Be prepared to invest in some larger pants. Samsung announced two new smartphones today, part of the company's Android lineup. Both devices bear the Galaxy Mega moniker, but one comes with a fairly generous 6.3-inch display while the other features a smaller 5.8-inch screen.

There are other differences as well. The Galaxy Mega 6.3 (yes, that's its real name) comes with a 6.3-inch TFT display with a resolution of 720 by 1280, while the Galaxy Mega 5.8 sports a 5.8-inch TFT screen with a resolution of 540 by 960. Also, the former is powered by a 1.7 GHz dual-core "AP" processor while the latter is powered by a 1.4 GHz dual-core "AP" processor.

Continue reading →

What's wrong with Samsung? That's the question I asked in newsroom group chat today after seeing specs for Galaxy Note 8.0. Screen resolution diminishes the otherwise noteworthy feature list. Sorry, but 1280 by 800 is inadequate -- little more than matchup to Apple's iPad mini, which is similar size. For a company that makes such great-looking displays, lower-res is an endemic problem across Samsung's entire tablet line.

I really expected more from Galaxy Note 8.0, which as the same suggests has an 8-inch screen; iPad mini is 7.9. Samsung unveiled the tablet in February, and I wrote the news story. But in the rush of Mobile World Congress news didn't consider screen resolution, in part on possibility specs would change. The electronics giant has done it before, announcing one thing but shipping something slightly different months later.

Continue reading →

AdDuplex, which touts itself as the "largest cross-promotion network for Windows Phone and Windows 8 apps", released a new monthly report which shows the Nokia Lumia 920 as the most popular Windows Phone device currently available. The handset holds a 14 percent market share among devices running Microsoft's smartphone operating system.

According to the report, the Lumia 920 dethroned the Lumia 800, "by a very small margin", for the title of the most popular Windows Phone device. The 920 was released worldwide in November 2012. The latter made its way onto the market one year earlier and also holds approximately a 14 percent market share among Windows Phone handsets, albeit slightly lower when it comes down to actual numbers.

Continue reading →

That's the prediction Aapo Markkanen, ABI senior analyst, makes today. It's the right call, as Larry Page starts his third year returning as Google CEO. Page resumed duties on April 4, 2011, and the company's direction took a hard turn. Business is more aggressive, altruistic goals less and so-called openness a waning thing. As I asserted a year ago, "Google has lost control of Android". That Page and Company would try to wrestle back control is no surprise.

Facebook Home is good reason. The user interface debuting April 12 takes over the more app-centric Android homescreen, putting the social network first before anything else, including Google+. Facebook's OEM program could put Home on many more devices. HTC already is on board with the First smartphone. Then there is Samsung, which during fourth quarter accounted for 42.5 percent of all Android handset sales, according to Gartner. TouchWiz, which gets a big update with forthcoming Galaxy S4, is the user experience -- not that determined by stock Android. These are but two examples of many.

Continue reading →

Say, Google, do you feel a sharp burning sensation in your back? That's the knife Samsung just plunged in. Ouch! The twisting motion must really hurt.

Mozilla and Samsung are collaborating on a new mobile web browsing engine, Servo, which success would offer huge benefits to both companies. Apple and Google dominate mobile devices with their respective WebKit browsers, largely shutting out Firefox from the most important device category since the PC. Incumbency is an advantage, with browsers preinstalled on Android and iOS. Users must download rival products, and many don't. Meanwhile the South Korean electronics giant accounted for nearly 43 percent of all Android smarthphone sales in fourth quarter, according to Gartner. The company controls the broader user experience via TouchWiz UI, but Google controls the browser.

Continue reading →

Jelly Bean may be the newest sweet in the family, but it is steadily gaining ground against its older brothers. Combined, Android 4.1 and Android 4.2 reached a 25 percent distribution level in the green droid realm, based on the number of devices accessing Google Play during the 14 days ending April 2.

Starting this month, Google has decided to alter how the data is collected. Google says: "Beginning in April, 2013, these charts are now built using data collected from each device when the user visits the Google Play Store. Previously, the data was collected when the device simply checked-in to Google servers". Why? Because the company considers the new collection method to be more accurate and that it best represents "users who are most engaged in the Android and Google Play ecosystem".

Continue reading →

Now that some carriers have started taking preorders, time is to ask whether or not you will buy Samsung's new flagship smartphone. The South Korean consumer electronics giant will offer the handset from 327 carriers in 155 countries, later this month.

Ian Fogg, IHS Screen Digest principal analyst, predicts that Galaxy S4 will be huge -- extending Samsung's "market lead from 4 to 11 percentage points over the next largest handset maker. Globally, Samsung will ship 29 percent of all mobile phones in 2013".

Continue reading →

On Tuesday, U.S. mobile operators AT&T and Sprint revealed important details concerning the availability of the HTC One. Starting Thursday, April 4, the device is offered for pre-order on AT&T, while Sprint subscribers have to wait another day. At both carriers sales start April 19.

Pricing is conservative, as on a two-year contract the HTC One in 32GB trim runs for $199.99 at both AT&T and Sprint, similar to the BlackBerry Z10 (on AT&T) or the 16GB Apple iPhone 5 -- both of which come with half the storage capacity. Available colors for the HTC One include black and silver. On AT&T, customers that pre-order the device also get an HTC Media Link HD wireless HDMI adaptor for free.

Continue reading →

Only T-Mobile can save iPhone now. Apple's U.S. market share, as measured by smartphone operating system, retreated in February, according to data Kantar Worldpanel ComTech released today. With the iPhone 5 initial release sales glow gone, and a rapidly saturating market for a product feature set now three models old, share isn't sustainable. Meanwhile, Android gains -- as does Windows Phone.

iPhone share, based on sales, fell to 43.5 percent for the three months ended in February. That's down from 45.9 percent in January and from 47 percent a year earlier. By comparison Android is up -- to 51.2 percent from 49.4 percent sequentially and 45.4 percent annually. By the same reckoning, Windows Phone rose to 4.1 percent from 3.2 percent and 2.7 percent share.

Continue reading →

One month after Android 4.2.2 started to roll out into the wild for Nexus devices, the latest treat in the candy jar has also arrived on the Verizon-branded Samsung Galaxy Nexus. To complete the cycle, Google also updated the factory images for the handset to the latest green droid iteration.

The factory images can be used by Galaxy Nexus users to update their handsets to Android 4.2.2 Jelly Bean, restore the software to the factory default settings, return to the stock green droid flavor after running a custom distribution, or update the radios, among other purposes.

Continue reading →

Samsung Galaxy S4 fans, be prepared to use your credit cards because it's pre-order season. A number of UK carriers, including Vodafone, EE and O2 have the new Android smartphone flagship on pre-order today, while in the United States AT&T announced that prospective buyers will have to wait until next month to get their hands on a new Galaxy S4 before it hits online and brick-and-mortar stores.

AT&T revealed that the Galaxy S4 will be available for pre-order starting with April 16 for $249.99 on a two-year contract. The carrier does not specify which model will be offered, but the 32GB Galaxy S4 is a good guess judging by the price of its predecessor at launch, during pre-orders. If 16GB, the price would be $50 higher than Galaxy S3 at launch and what iPhone 5 sells for today.

Continue reading →

I was wrong about the Galaxy S 4. Last week, I asserted that brand sentiments had changed enough here -- given Samsung's rising popularity, Apple's image problems and high-profile iPhone-to-Android switchers -- that the South Korean electronics giant could launch the S 4 in the United States. Nope. Reception among bloggers, journalists and the Technorati is largely ice cold. Most first-takes I see call the handset a S 3s and no better than iPhone 5. Idiots.

If Steve Jobs was still alive and introduced a Star Trek-like universal translator for iPhone, there would be cries: "Apple does it again". Tell me what's not innovative about translation from, say, English to Chinese or Japanese to French. In real time. On your phone. Or text-to-speech and speech-to-text translation capabilities? Imagine Jobs demonstrating the "Eraser" feature by taking a photo and jokingly removing marketing executive Phil Schiller from the photo. He could demonstrate dual-mode video by initiating a call with Schiller that includes members of the audience, which I promise would roar and clap.

Continue reading →