Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 preview: First look

The Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 dispels any doubt about the return of the stylus - the S Pen transforms the tablet into something that will appeal to artist and business types alike. It's a very different experience, one that other tablets cannot match. It's not just the level of precision no finger can provide, the bundled software really extends the functionality.

   
Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 official pictures

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You can sign up for updates on US Galaxy S III (but not pre-order)

Yesterday, Samsung announced that its brand new flagship, the Galaxy S III, will hit Europe on May 29. Availability in the US will come some time in June - and you can now sign up for updates on the Samsung US web site.

The sign up page has a field where you can pick your carrier preference - there are the big players like AT&T, Verizon, Sprint and T-Mobile but also, Metro PCS, US Cellular and C Spire Wireless.

The "carrier preference" title is intentionally vague - it doesn’t necessarily mean that the Galaxy S III will be available on those carries, Samsung is just gauging people's interest.

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New WP-powered Samsung 'Mandel' images leak

We first heard about the Samsung Mandel at the end of last year, when it got out that both Samsung and HTC were planning on launching a pair of LTE-enabled Windows Phones sometime in 2012, most likely by the end of Q2.

Whether or not the Mandel will meet that deadline remains to be seen, but we now got a couple of leaked images, showing us what the eventual Samsung smartphone will look like.

The glossy pearl white paintjob looks a bit familiar, especially in light of yesterday's announcement of the Galaxy S III. Could this mean a WP variant of the new Galaxy flagship sometime in the future?

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Carphone Warehouse: pre-order Galaxy S III, get a free Tab 10.1

The Samsung Galaxy S III deals for the UK keep rolling in - Carphone Warehouse have it up for pre-order both on contract with several carriers and SIM free. Here's the kicker - if you go for the on-contract option, you'll be getting a free Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1.

Yes, that's the original Tegra 2-powered Galaxy Tab 10.1 with 16GB, though the differences between the Tab 10.1 and Tab 2 10.1 aren't that big. Carphone Warehouse currently offer the Tab 10.1 on its own for £400 (though it's cheaper in other places, £350 on Amazon UK, for example). Anyway, the offer is valid only for the first 1,000 pre-orders.

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Apple and Samsung get 99% of the total mobile phone profits

Looks like it's a grim time to be a mobile phone manufacturer if you are not Apple or Samsung. According to the latest report by Asymco, Apple and Samsung accounted for 99 percent of the total mobile phone profits, with HTC taking the remaining 1 percent.

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Samsung unwraps latest Galaxy rival to iPhone

Samsung Electronics (005930.KS) unveiled a new top-of-the-range Galaxy smartphone in London on Thursday, updating the most direct rival to Apple's (AAPL.O) iPhone with a larger touch screen and more powerful processor.

The South Korean technology group, which overtook Finnish company Nokia (NOK1V.HE) as the world's biggest cellphone maker earlier this year, said the new Galaxy SIII model would go on sale in some markets in late May and around the world from June.

Last week, Samsung reported a record $5.2 billion quarterly profit, boosted by Galaxy smartphone range whose sales outstripped the iPhone.

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LG announces Optimus LTE2 with 2GB of RAM

Not to be outdone by its Korean counterpart, LG announced its own flagship smartphone on the same day as the the Galaxy S III. The Optimus LTE2, as it is called, is no less when it comes to features and specifications and in some aspects even outdoes Samsung's offering.

For starters, the design seems to be a bit better. While Samsung has gone with an all plastic body, LG has opted for a bit of glass and metal, in other words, something befitting of a flagship device.

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Samsung Galaxy S III to hit the UK on May 30, already priced

Barely out the door, the Samsung Galaxy S III is already up for preorder in the UK. Samsung's newest Android flagship is slated for a May 29 launch in Europe, but the carriers that have so far confirmed they'll carry the S III point to May 30 as a UK launch date.

Phones4U have both the Pebble Blue and Marble White versions available for pre-order and you get a choice between Vodafone, Orange and O2 for an operator. Vodafone and Orange offer the Galaxy S III for free with a 2-year contract costing at least £38.50/month (for 800 minutes, 3000 texts) and £36/month respectively (for 600 minutes, 3000 texts).

O2 requires you to pay at least £99 upfront and sign a £37/month deal, but it does offer unlimited texting along with 600 minutes. All quoted prices are for the 16GB Galaxy S III version, but with a microSD card slot on board we doubt anyone will need anything else.

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The beast released: Samsung Galaxy S III is official

Samsung has just unveiled its new flagship smartphone - the Android-running Galaxy S III. The ICS-running device has some big shoes to fill, but judging by that specs sheet, it might just be up to it.

   
Samsung Galaxy SIII official shots

It features a robust quad-core 1.4 GHz Cortex A9 processor, operating on an Exynos 4212 Quad chipset. The display is a 4.8" HD (720 x 1280) Super AMOLED capacitive touchscreen covered by Gorilla Glass.

  

The camera turned out to be 8MP in the long run, which is capable of 1080p video recording at 30fps, and comes with a 1.9MP front-facing camera for video calls. There's 1GB of RAM, and the S III will be sold in 16/32/64GB internal storage variants.

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The impressive Samsung Galaxy S III benchmarks are here

The Samsung Unpacked event is over and the Galaxy S III is now official. The new leader of the Samsung Android gang is powered by the new Exynos 4 Quad chipset, featuring four cores clocked at 1.4GHz and 1GB of RAM.

Naturally, we were eager to check out if the SoC has the performance to cash the checks written by its specs. We ran several benchmarks on the Samsung Galaxy S III and we are now about to share its results with you.

Quadrant

Higher is better

• Sort by Label
• Sort by Value

• Samsung Galaxy S III5642
• HTC One X4842
• HTC One S5047
• Samsung Galaxy S II3053
• Samsung Galaxy Nexus2316
• Sony Xperia S3173
• Samsung Galaxy Note3531

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Watch the Samsung Unpacked 2012 event live here

Samsung is holding an Unpacked event in London and we're on site to bring you the latest news as the event unfolds. The event promises to reveal the "dawn of the new GALAXY" and we're thinking what you're thinking - the Galaxy S 3 is minutes away from going official. There's a chance we'll see more than the new flagship too.

And here's the live video stream from the event:

Samsung managed to keep a really tight lid on things and we were unable to see the final design of their upcoming smartphone in advance. You can take a peek at our rumor roundup to see what we know so far about its specs, though.

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Canalys: China is now a bigger smartphone market than the US

It's a time of change in the smartphone world and we've seen various analysts chime in. Now Canalys released its report and it contains an interesting detail - the US is no longer the biggest smartphone market in the world, as China overtook it.

During the first quarter of this year, there were 146 million smartphones shipped (up 45% compared to last year's Q1). The growth isn't even among the various countries though - the US saw only a 5% year-on-year increase, while shipments in the Asia Pacific soared 81%.

China saw the number of smartphone shipments double over last year's and the country gobbled up 22% of global smartphone shipments. In comparison, the US took just 16% of all shipments.

Samsung is the leading vendor of smartphones in China with 22% in Q1, while Apple takes second place with 19%. Nokia is in third place and analysts expect it to regain traction with their new Lumia lineup. Local makers like ZTE, Huawei and Lenovo are on the rise as well.

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Samsung Galaxy S III rumor roundup: what to expect

It seems like years of waiting, but finally the almost historic (or at least that's what the hype might make you believe) London event is closing in. Just a couple of hours before we finally see what the next Galaxy flagship is all about, we will try to sum up rumors and give a better idea of what to expect.

The event itself is said to bring us the next Galaxy smartphone, which will most probably be called Galaxy S III(or Galaxy S3), a name we've seen several times, including the Kies software.

At the event tonight we might see a new tablet and a new cloud storage by Samsung.

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Pantech Vega Racer 2 now shipping in South Korea

Pantech unveiled the Vega Racer 2 last month and now South Koreans will actually be able to see it in flesh. Pantech just announced the device has started making its way from the factories to retailers around the country.

The Vega Racer 2 is based on the Qualcomm MSM8960 Snapdragon SoC with a 1.5GHz dual-core Krait processor and Adreno 225 GPU. It has a 4.8-inch 720p display, a 2020mAh battery, LTE connectivity and runs on Android ICS.

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Samsung Galaxy S III leaks again hours before the announcement

This is becoming the iPhone all over again. Yet another Galaxy S III unit has escaped the Samsung R&D center and posed for some pictures. There aren't any specs to go with the photos, but those should be finally confirmed in a few hours.

 
The Samsung Galaxy S III

The device is running on Android 4.0.4 ICS, the ROM version is from April and the build is specifically for Brazil.

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LG Optimus L7 goes on sale in Europe and Asia today

LG has officially released their mid-range Optimus L7 that they announced back at MWC 2012. The phone has gone on sale in Europe and certain regions in Asia.

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Nokia files patent claims against HTC, RIM and Viewsonic

With Lumia sales still unable to fill the coffers, Nokia has turned to its rich patent portfolio as an extra source of income.

Nokia is suing HTC, RIM and Viewsonic for patent infringement in the USA and Germany. To be more specific, Nokia filed a complaint against HTC with the US International Trade Commission and another one against HTC and Viewsonic with the Federal District Court of Delaware. In Germany Nokia is suing HTC and RIM in Dusseldorf and all three companies in Munich and Mannheim.

According to Nokia the total number of infringed patents is 45. Here is the official statement about what patents are actually in question.

"Nokia proprietary innovations protected by these patents are being used by the companies to enable hardware capabilities such as dual function antennas, power management and multimode radios, as well as to enhance software features including application stores, multitasking, navigation, conversational message display, dynamic menus, data encryption and retrieval of email attachments on a mobile device."

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Android in April: ICS gets 4.9%, Gingerbread still king

Google just updated the Android version distribution charts. In April the growth of Android Gingerbread finally started to slow down, while the ICS market share nearly doubled.

The latest version of the Android OS - Ice Cream Sandwich now has a 4.9% share, up from 2.9% a month ago. We do wonder if it will manage to become the most widely adopted version before Jelly Beanbecomes available.

Version	Market Share, April	Market Share, March	Change
1.5 Cupcake	0.3%	0.3%	0.0
1.6 Donut	0.7%	0.7%	0.0
2.1 Eclair	5.5%	6.0%	▼0.5
2.2 Froyo	20.9%	23.1%	▼2.2
2.3 Gingerbread	0.5%	0.5%	0.0
2.3.3-2.3.7 Gingerbread	63.9%	63.2%	▲0.7
3.0 Honeycomb	0.1%	0.1%	0.0
3.1 Honeycomb	1.0%	1.0%	0.0
3.2 Honeycomb	2.2%	2.2%	0.0
4.0-4.0.2 Ice Cream Sandwich	0.5%	0.5%	0.0
4.0.3 Ice Cream Sandwich	4.4%	2.4%	▲2.0

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