Motorola’s Intel based Ice Cream sandwich phone has been leaked. The image, which depicts a slim Android smartphone running Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich. The handset is said to feature an updated version of MotoBlur as well as an impressive new camera. The Motorola smartphone is expected to debut at Mobile World Congress later this month.
With the Motorola and Google merger getting the yes, this could very well be the first Nexus device that Google manufacturers themselves. Specs should tout a quad core processor and a high res Amoled or equivalent display.
Google is preparing to launch a new cloud storage service that will compete directly with the likes of Dropbox, pogo plug, Rapidshare et all. The Wall Street Journal on Wednesday evening reported that Google is almost ready to announce the new service, which will be called Google Drive. Similar to Dropbox, which creates a virtual drive containing files that are mirrored on a user’s local hard drive and on cloud servers, Google Drive will allow users to store photos, videos, documents and other files in the cloud, and it will be accessible from computers as well as Android tablets and smartphones.
Expect at least 8 Gig of Free storage from the company and this number can be as high as 15 if you consider how generous Google is usually.
Samsung has released its Q4 results and it shows that the company is headed in the right direction to becoming bigger than ever before. The electronics mammoth company has posted a 5.3 trillion won ($4.7 billion) operating profit in Q4 2011, with a sales revenue of 47.3 trillion won ($42 billion). The major of the chunk of its income is thanks to the impressive smartphone sales by the company , with over 300 million phones sold in 2011.
The earnings also reported that the mobile division stood accountable for 40% in the total earnings, while other major contributors were Samsung Semiconductors and Display divisions with 2.3 trillion won ($2 billion) and 8.55 trillion won ($7.6 billion) in sales respectively.
Samsung reports that in 2012 the sales from mobile phones will account for 50% of its total revenue considering it has an impressive lineup coming. Shipments of Samsung’s smartphones jumped 30 percent compared to the previous quarter (holiday quarter). Looking forward, Samsung expects the demand for entry-level smartphones and LTE will grow the smartphone market by more than 30 percent over the year, and the company expects tablet demand to grow as well.
2011 was a year of Samsung, the company has taken the consumer electronics market by storm, grabbing attention one way or another. Samsung also led as India’s number one manufacturer for mobile phones in all categories. From basic feature phones to high end Smart phones, the company has managed to challenge all odds and gain the market respect.
But all this does not come cheap, Samsung employs a huge amount of its annual earning into marketing. In 2011 alone Samsung is estimated to have spent over US $ 2 Billion in advertising their products. Out of which a major 40% is targeted towards mobile devices and 6-7 % towards new phones. Samsung also deploys twice that amount into market research and development, so that its teams know what the next big thing from the company is going to be.
Galaxy S2
In 2011 Samsung took a huge stab at Apple’s dominant spot as the world leader in smartphone sales. By quarter 3 2011 Samsung had replaced Apple as the world most selling smartphone manufacturer ( if you consider number of handsets and not just one model of handset). Samsung Galaxy S2 was the phone that changed everything for Samsung, the new innovations in the field of mobility that challenged design and construction, and innovative softwares threw huge limelight on Samsung’s potential in this market space. Android loyalists were drawn by Samsung’s willingness to answer to their demands and stuffing their handsets with all features requested (and more) by the users.
Who ever imagined a device like the Galaxy Note, a fully capacitive screen that had massive scribbling promise, a handwriting recognizing monster with the capabilities of real time editing and project handling. Live annotations and screen captures were there in previous Samsung handsets, but the precision with with the Note is able to do these tasks is excellent. People want change and innovation and that what Samsung has started to give to its users.
The South Korean company is earning high praise for the design of its new line of OLED television sets, its oversized Galaxy Note smartphone and its
Galaxy Tab 750
new line of laptops, dubbed Series 9. Samsung has held the title of the top TV maker for the past six years, and recently surpassed Apple Inc. to become the world’s top smartphone manufacturer. Samsung posted a US$4.5-billion profit in the most recent quarter, one of the best in the company’s history.
The Company now has set its sights on the personal computer and tablet markets, hoping to replicate the success the company has had in its smartphone and television businesses. Targeting their efforts at Apple, Hewlett-Packard Co. and Dell Inc, companies which are current leaders in the domain. This won’t be easy for Samsung either especially because globally they don’t even fall in the top 5 PC manufacturers category.
nx System Camera
One of Samsung’s biggest strengths is its component manufacturing facilities. Samsung itself manufactures 75% of the components used in its TVs, PCs and smartphones, enabling the company to innovate and test new products quickly. Samsung is also emerging big in a category seldom seen with asian companies, Cameras. With a exciting range of digital point and shoot cameras from the company, including innovative flip lcd type cameras. The company also has pioneered the professional SLR segment with their range of NX cameras, that are getting appreciation from professional Photographers.
The future of the brand also seems bright, as people have less and less faith in Apple’s ability to give what the users want. The next revision of the iPad and the iPhone 5 no longer seem as exciting as the Samsung Galaxy S3 or the Galaxy Tab 3 headed our way in 2012.
Its been a long time since our last edit, this one was long over due. The smartphone industry is ever changing, with constant evolutions in a battlefield of major companies and small startups. In a world where companies become large in a matter of months and fall even faster, we can only guess what the future holds in the massive divide.
The USB Implementers Forum has confirmed at CES that tablets and smartphones will begin to get MicroUSB 3.0 ports end of 2012 and all throughout 2013. The port has raw speeds unto 5Gbps but portable devices will see maximum connectivity of 800 Megabits /sec. The new ports will not only increase data transfer speed but will also lead to faster charging times for such mobile devices.
HTC has updated their bootloader unlock utility to serve to the needs of the buyers of the latest HTC lineup. This includes all handsets released after September and follows the same principles as earlier bootloader unlock utilities. The complete list of supported devices will be available soon, hopefully the XL and XE join the pack of modders.
Unfortunate news for those who were hoping that Blackberry would step up to its game. The company’s new plans reveal that they will not be bringing the new Blackberry 10 phones until the end of 2012. Blackberry 10 formerly known as BBX is a new OS by the company that will dramatically change the user experience and add Android application integration.
RIM CEO in a earnings call said that due to a critical chipset that’s not expected to be available in production quantity until mid-next year, BlackBerry 10 devices will emerge late in 2012.
Boo-Hoo RIM we were literally hoping for some real effort to revive the strength Blackberry had few years ago.
Looks like fragmentation continues for Samsung on their global launch platforms. The Galaxy Note for the US At&t is said to sport a dual-core 1.5GHz MSM8660 Qualcomm chip. Everything else will remain the same, including the brilliant 5.3 inch screen, and smart pen features. The new radios will support 700MHz / 1700MHz bands to power up the LTE.
The court of MiddleSex has announced a Divorce b/w Sony and Ericsson and the latter has till the mid of 2012 to clear out their stuff and vamoose. Sony Ericsson will be renamed Sony in mid 2012 as apart of a merger break up decided earlier this year. Sony Vice President Kristian Tear said that the company will have a “‘fierce” advertising campaign to push the brand back into the eyes of the consumer.
The Motorola XT615 has been spotted getting FCC approvals and stickers. XT615 remains targeted solely at international markets with dual-band 2100 / 900MHz WCDMA and quad band GSM support. Powered by a modest 800MHz Qualcomm MSM7227A-0 CPU, the phone has sleek design addressing to younger consumers. A 4-inch touchscreen edge-to-edge display with FWVGA (854 x 480) resolution, Moto Switch UI 2.0, 512MB of RAM, a 1GB of ROM, Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n, Wi-Fi Direct, Bluetooth 3.0., an 8MP rear-facing camera with a LED flash, a VGA front-facing camera for video calls, and a MicroSD card slot supports up to 32GB expansion.
The the Motorola XT615 has a 1390mAh battery that is good for up to 300 minutes of talk time, 110 hours of standby. Price is expected to be lower than 15K.
Anandtech has been busy this weekend comparing the Samsung Galaxy Nexus against the iPhone 4S. The results are in the and Android powerhouse beats the iPhone 4S in some areas.
In the SunSpider Javascript Benchmark the iPhone scored a 2250 whereas the Galaxy nexus got a 1875 ( the lower the number the better in this test). Essentially that menas that Java performance is better on the G-Nexus. In the Rightware BrowserMark test the iPhone 4S scored a 87,841 whereas the Nexus S Scored a 98,272 ( the more the better in this test). This means that the overall web index scores and rendering of webpages should be much faster on the G-Nexus compared to the the iPhone 4s. The major improvements on the web experience are said to be blamed on the enhancements of software found in Ice Cream Sandwich.
The Graphics benchmarks revealed that the iDevices including the iPhone and the iPad performed better. In the OpenGL test the iPad and the iPhone 4S got 148.2 and 123.1 respectively, whereas the G-Nexus got a disappointing 45.2. Head on to the source link for full benchmarks and test results.
Oh dummy its just a dummy, QNX based Blackberry “london” just showed up on the inter webs and it does look like there is a future of the mobile smartphone company after all (the device is only a dummy). The device purportedly thinner yet taller than the iPhone 4/4s will feature a nice set of specs. The Verge ( proud owners of the story) were also informed that the device will feature a 1.5GHz dual-core TI OMAP processor with 1GB of RAM and 16GB of on-board storage. An 8-megapixel rear camera and a 2-megapixel front-facing one with a release set for June 2012.
Time to upgrade my Berry to London, well in 6 months anyway!
A new twist of development has taken place in porting Siri to other Apple devices. A new exploit found would allow users that already own a iPhone 4S to enjoy the exploits of Siri on other iDevices. Sure a unique identifier could be formed but Apple would easily find it and ban it for abuse.
The best thing here is that this may actually hold possibility for Siri to be ported over to Android and other platforms. But the situation will always remain same. You will need an identified for the software to work with Apple’s servers.
So, its time to really see if the friend with an iPhone 4S is actually a true friend.
Looks like we finally have confirmation that the Galaxy Nexus Prime and the Ice Cream Sandwich release, which were earlier to be released on the 11th of Oct will now be released on the 19th of Oct 2011. The event has been moved to the 19th and some are speculating that despite Google and Samsung used Steve Jobs’ passing as an excuse the real reason was their FCC clearance delays.
Either way we will have more on this shorty, and expect full coverage during launch time.
The Xperia Ray is yet to start shipping despite several websites claim to have it in stock. The device is a unique breed of Android candybar phone, which is not only slim but excellent to hold in the hand.
