Pocketables

Samsung Galaxy III to be announced at Mobile World Congress, released in April?

Last Wednesday, one of Samsung's keynote videos was shown off. In it, this device was spotted; a lot of people seem to think that it's the next Galaxy S device, simply named the Galaxy S III. It's a claim that's probably not that far off, as analyst Eldar Murtazin predicted today that the S III will be announced next month at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain, and will be released in Europe in April. 

If you'll recall, last year's MWC is where the Galaxy S II was announced. And a couple of months after that, in April, the device was released in Europe; so if Samsung is planning on keeping a similar pattern, Murtazin's claim doesn't seem outrageous. 

Like we said last week, the phone should include a 2GHz dual-core Exynos processor, a 720p HD display, and 1.5 to 2GB of RAM. I have been a fan of Samsung's Galaxy S line of phones for a long time, and I cannot wait for the new series to be released.

[PhoneArena]

AT&T Samsung Galaxy Note passes through FCC, again

Hey, what has no thumbs, a stylus, and has made two separate appearances at the FCC already? This phoneblet!

Now, I don't know if Samsung is just trying to taunt everybody who wants one of these by continuously showing it off, but I think three FCC filings is a little much for any device. The first one was even way back in September, and the second one in December!

Anyway, this new filing confirms that the Note will connect to AT&T's LTE network, thanks to LTE bands, and it will also come with UMTS/HSPA+ and GSM/EDGE bands, as well. All of these radios have passed FCC's tough tests, so it looks like Samsung can release this to AT&T customers across the nation whenever the company is ready.

There still isn't any pricing, or even a release date, but I think that after its third FCC pitstop, those things and the device itself should be officially official sooner rather than later.

[Engadget]

Samsung Galaxy S II makes up a quarter of phones owned by South Koreans

While we all had some suspicions of Samsung's Galaxy S II line being very successful, this release of information from Samsung pretty much confirms it. Samsung today announced that the Galaxy S II phones have been sold to over five million customers, or a staggering one-fourth of the phone-carrying South Korean population.

The company is calling the GS II series of phones the "national phone" for South Korea, which actually makes sense, considering Samsung is located in Seoul, South Korea, and has had an incredible impact on the country. It's one of the largest phone manufacturers in the world, obviously, and has seen success after success in the rest of the world. 

Keep in mind that the five million phones that we're talking about here are the ones that were sold in South Korea alone; the rest of the world's numbers will come at a later time. I expect to see some even more staggering numbers when they come out. 

[Samsung (Translated)]

Samsung shows video of what may be the Galaxy S III

The Samsung Galaxy S II series contains some of the most popular and best devices of 2011, and the smartphones are still among the best devices currently available. So, it is not surprising that when a mysterious device was spotted in one of Samsung's keynote videos, people began to speculate that it was a teaser for the Galaxy S III.

What you see above is the image that has caused all this speculation. While it does look a lot like the Galaxy S II, it does have a few noticeable style differences. It appears thinner, the screen looks bigger, and the bezel is definitely smaller. However, this is almost certainly a render, as the corners of the display appear rounded and not angular. 

Still, it could be Samsung's concept for the Galaxy S III that slipped in by accident, or even a purposeful plant to get us talking about the device. A more interesting prospect for me is that it is a new Galaxy Note, something else that has been rumored to be coming soon.

Whatever model it is, chances are it will have some impressive specs. Some are projecting a Tegra 3 for Samsung's new smartphones, but the company's own 2GHz dual-core Exynos seems to be a more probably choice. As far as the display, an HD 720p resolution seems probable, as well as the inclusion of some type of Super AMOLED technology. Rounding out the spec sheet would likely be 1.5 or 2GB of RAM, and a high-resolution 10 or 12MP camera. 

Hopefully this image is a deliberate sign that an awesome new device is coming soon, but even if it's not Samsung is sure to have something big to announce this year, whether it is the Galaxy S III, Note II, or even something else.

To see the video in question for yourself, head on past the break.

Samsung aims for all day battery life in future devices

If you are an Android user like me, chances are that you have experienced worries about battery life. While other smartphones have battery problems as well, Android devices are notorious for making users do various things to extend their battery life, and even then they will often die in the middle of the day.

Because of this trend, I wrote just last week about how it would be totally fine with me if manufacturers traded some of their smartphone's thinness for battery life. If Samsung gets their way, however, you won't have to worry about charging your smartphone even if it is thin. According to a company spokesperson spokesperson, "When you wake up to when you go to bed, we don't want you feeling anxiety about your battery life."

Presumably, this would mean at least 12 hour all day battery life, which would be quite a boon for the moderate users who find their brand new smartphone's battery dead a few hours after getting to work. Bigger batteries will be a part of this improvement, but considering how hard Samsung has worked for the thinnest smartphone title, a physically large battery seems unlikely. Instead, Samsung also plans to optimize WiFi scanning, LTE use, and make other software improvements. 

Even though Samsung devices are often considered to have the better battery life than other manufacturer's Android phones, the company still says they aren't where they want to be. Hopefully, this means things will only get better from here.

[CBS News]

RIM to sell itself, looking directly at Samsung to do so? [Updated]

Oh, man! If this new report is true, we're likely to see RIM and its products, arguably a company and mobile devices that wrote the playbook on what an enterprise-centric device is, disappear into thin air. It seems that RIM wants to sell itself, and it's in talks with Samsung to make that sale happen.

However, as much as RIM's portfolio of stuff is worth, it might be a tough sell. The Waterloo, Ontario, company is allegedly seeking a massive buyout price of at the very least $10 billion, but it's asking even more from Samsung: $12 to $15 billion. For you business folk, that turns out to be between $22.90 and $28.60 per share.

Currently, RIM's market capitalization is way under those previous numbers, at roughly $8.5 billion; therefore, analysts expect the actual deal, if both RIM and [insert name of interested smartphone manufacturer here] can agree, to be even less than that. 

I hate to see a company go, but given RIM's performance in terms of compelling devices and technologies over the past few years, I can't say I didn't see it coming. For the company's sake, I hope it has a few more tricks up its sleeve that it can pull out and dazzle consumers with.

Update: Well, it's not going to be Samsung that is the purchaser, although there a possibility that RIM is still for sale.

[BGR | The Verge]

Samsung is merging Bada with Tizen, putting two dead OSs together at last

Chances are, you have never heard of Bada, and even if you have there is almost no chance that you know of Tizen. However, Bada actually has more feature phone market share than Windows Phone 7, and Tizen grew out of Intel's once awesome MeeGo OS project. As such, I have just a bit of a soft spot for any news involving Tizen, and Bada is still a pretty big deal.

So, while it is certainly odd, Samsung's recent announcement that they plan to merge their Bada OS with Tizen has given me the slightest hope that Tizen might survive. In this merge, Samsung will be porting some of Bada's features into Tizen, as well as preparing some low-end feature phones that will run the mashup OS.

A slightly less tangible aspect of the partnership is that Samsung will now be supporting the open source development going on around Tizen, which should also serve to give the OS a second chance at popularity and spur new development.

Of course, the new Bada customized Tizen won't become Samsung's main smartphone OS, they have plenty to worry about with Android and Windows Phone 7. Still, I think its really nice to see MeeGo still alive and kicking, and a truly open Linux based alternative OS in the mobile market is something that is always great to have. 

[Pocket-Lint]

AT&T variant of Samsung Galaxy Note promo picture leaks

Samsung certainly has built up a ton of hype around its 5.3-inch Galaxy Note phoneblet since its announcement on September 1 of last year. Aside from the Sprint-compatible Note that we heard about just two days ago, there have been countless rumors and bits of news about AT&T's version, like the two FCC filings and the one promotional picture that leaked just Monday. 

Now, the hype is just growing even more, kind of like a rather annoying weed that keeps tickling your gadget wants with a flower (the Galaxy Note) that you just can't reach. What you see above is yet another promotional image of the Galaxy Note, this time showing the entire device in all its beauty. 

If you can hardly stand to wait for the massive smartphone any longer, I'd like to point you towards the date on the Note's screen, which sounds like a very reachable date for this flower to bloom. 

[Pocketnow]

Ice Cream Sandwich now loaded on .6% of Android devices

Ice Cream Sandwich is the best version of Android yet, with features that can bring what the platform was falling behind in back up to speed with the rest of the competition. 

However, a new graph directly from Android's developer website states that only .6% of Android users are being able to utilize those features. To put that in perspective, the same amount of Android phones are still running 1.5.

The state of Android's install base isn't as bad as it once was, though; just under 55% of Android devices are, in fact, using the second-latest phone version of Android, which is 2.3.

In related news, it seems that the Galaxy Nexus (which is running Ice Cream Sandwich) has reached about 700,000 sales already. That falls in line with a few holiday numbers that Google had released, so hopefully that dismal .6% will become higher in a short amount of time if more customers keep following the same purchasing pattern.

[The Verge | Android Developers]

Samsung denies Ice Cream Sandwich update rumors for original Galaxy devices

If you're an owner of Samsung's original Galaxy S series of phones, or even the original Galaxy Tab, you've been subjected to a really rocky week. Were you actually getting an official Ice Cream Sandwich update to your device, or weren't you? 

Well, I really hate to be the editor to bring you such bad news all the time, but I'm afraid Samsung's going down the road with the latter option. The company is still using the line about hardware restrictions due to TouchWiz, so it seems like Sammy is completely against the idea for its 'old' hardware. 

Don't feel bad, though: there's a lovely developer community around Android and these specific devices that will deliver a delicious Ice Cream Sandwich to you in a timely manner. Still, I can't help but feel that Samsung doesn't know about customer service as well as HTC or other manufacturers do, and that could certainly bite it in the Gingerbread butt sooner than it thinks.

[The Next Web]