Tag Archives | Samsung

Hands on with Samsung's Galaxy Tab Tablet

Posted by Harry McCracken on September 2, 2010 at 8:16 pm

Thursday morning at the IFA show here in Berlin, I attended a Samsung press conference and watched one of the company’s executives brandish its new Galaxy Tab tablet. It was intriguing. But I had a much better time that evening at the Showstoppers press event, where I was able to spend some time exploring the Tab for myself.

The Galaxy Tab I tried clearly wasn’t a done deal: Its touch-screen froze for several minutes then began to work again, and its browser didn’t seem to want to load anything except Google. It’s too early to come to any firm conclusions, but I did discover aspects I liked (the basic form factor, some of the software) and problem areas (other software).

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Samsung's Galaxy Tab is Official

Posted by Harry McCracken on September 2, 2010 at 4:30 am

I’m in Berlin for IFA, Europe’s biggest consumer-electronics trade event. The show floor doesn’t open until tomorrow, but yesterday and today have been filled with press conferences by major tech companies–and Samsung’s conference this morning ended with the official introduction of its Galaxy Tab tablet, the biggest IFA news so far.

The Tab is certainly an iPad-like device, but there are some striking differences. Its screen is 7″, making the device a bit larger than a Kindle and substantially smaller than a 9.7″ iPad. (Samsung says it’s pocketable, and it is…if you’re wearing a jacket.) The Tab weighs 13.4 ounces–far less than the pound-and-a-half iPad. It has cameras on the front (for video chat) and back (for snapping photos and apps such as augmented reality). And like the 5″ Dell Streak, it’s not only a 3G data device but a 3G device that can make phone calls.

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Engadget Likes Sprint's Epic 4G

Posted by Harry McCracken on August 16, 2010 at 11:01 am

Engadget’s Chris Ziegler has reviewed Sprint’s Epic 4G, the second 4G phone, and the first with a physical keyboard. It’s based on Samsung’s Galaxy S platform, also available in various forms–but not with a keyboard–from other carriers. He pretty much raves about the thing. Engadget got close four hours of life using the Epic as a 4G hotspot, which sounds impressive; it hasn’t done traditional battery testing yet, though. (Iffy battery life is the biggest gotcha with Sprint’s EVO 4G, so it’s an important point.)

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Samsung is Really Serious About 3D TV

Posted by Jacqueline Emigh on August 13, 2010 at 9:48 am

With the vast bulk of the still very emerging 3D TV market in its veritable hands, Samsung plans to place 3D TVs in more people’s living rooms by bringing out more entertainment content and less costly equipment. At an event this week in New York City, the consumer electronics maker did just that.

Many who got the mysteriously worded invitation expected to see the rollout of Samsung’s rumored tablet. Samsung instead presented the world’s first portable Blu-ray player with 3D output, a gadget that looks a lot like a netbook except for the DVD slot on the right-hand side.

Samsung also rolled out three new plasma 3D TVs–including a 50-inch entry in the Plasma C490 Series, the first 3DTV from Samsung in the $1,100 bracket–along with an LED 3D TV, a far pricier 65-inch model in the LED C8000 Series which goes for around $6,000.

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Hands on With the Samsung Galaxy S

Posted by Dave Z on July 16, 2010 at 1:31 am

Samsung’s making a splash with their new, high-end line of Android ”Galaxy S” handsets. And while they’ve already launched overseas, the US variants with custom enclosures and functionality, started rolling out yesterday:

As part of the launch festivities, I was provided a stock Galaxy S to evaluate. Media outreach and spec sheet highlights have led with Samsung’s 4″ 800 x 480 Super AMOLED screen. And while I initially found it oversaturated, even garish (combined with Samsung’s Touchwiz skinning), I’ve landed somewhere else entirely. In fact, I’ve concluded that the Galaxy S utilizes the most pleasing mobile display I’ve encountered — striking an excellent balance of resolution, size, and vibrancy. The Galaxy S obviously isn’t as high res as Apple’s iPhone 4 pixel-dense “retina display” … but with uncorrected sub-20/20 vision, it’s not like I’ve been bothered by aliasing at 18″. So, ultimately, I find myself in the same camp as Harry:

if all other phone features were equal, I’d take more square inches over more pixels

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Samsung's Galaxy S Phone: Wireless Freedom of Choice

Posted by Jacqueline Emigh on July 5, 2010 at 9:47 am

Now that the proverbial dust is starting to settle around the Samsung Galaxy S and its six known variants for major US wireless networks, how does the latest smartphone stack up against its many Android rivals–and against Apple’s iPhone 4, for that matter?

It all depends on who you ask. With smartphones getting announced in such rapid-fire succession, it seems to take less time than ever for opinions to start flying. Samsung only officially launched the Galaxy last week, at a press event I attended in New York City. Granted, a lot of details had already leaked out even before the launch. Already, though, the phone is getting analyzed and compared across every conceivable dimension.

In a presentation at the start of the launch on Wednesday, J.K. Shin, president of Samsung’s Mobile Communications Business, tried to keep things simple by citing three key differentiators for Samsung’s phone: screen, speed, and content. If onlookers were asked to put together the same list, they’d undoubtedly come up with all kinds of answers.

Personally, I’d keep the three factors Shin mentioned on my list, because the Galaxy S does have merits in all of these areas. But I’d also add two other factors–freedom of choice in wireless networks and smartphone form factors–and I’d place these two way above the other three.

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AT&T Announces the Samsung Captivate

Posted by Harry McCracken on June 17, 2010 at 1:18 pm

AT&T kept saying it was going to release a bunch of Android handsets in 2010, and it’s finally starting to feel that way. On Monday it announced the HTC Aria. And today, it’s revealed plans to start selling Samsung’s Captivate, with an oversized 4-inch AMOLED screen, a 1-GHz Samsung CPU, a 5-megapixel camera that can shoot 720p video, and something called the “Samsung Social Hub.” It’s the first AT&T Android phone that sounds like it might be a flagship of sorts, and it’ll go on sale same sometime in “the coming months.”

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Hey, My TV Just Crashed!

Posted by David Worthington on April 21, 2010 at 8:22 pm

There’s a little-known fact: you don’t need to buy set-top boxes or gaming consoles to enjoy digital media on your TV. Unfortunately, buying more hardware is oftentimes the easier–although more limited–option at the moment.

I just got a great deal on a nicely equipped Samsung LCD television. It comes equipped with DLNA (Digital Living Network Alliance) client software. DLNA is an industry specification that allows devices to share content over a home network.

DLNA servers share content that is played and viewed on clients like televisions. Samsung provides free software to turn your PC into a home media server.

Easy, you might think. Wrong. Samsung’s DLNA server software only works on Windows, and the application’s interface is hardly intuitive. Weaker yet, the client can only play a limited volume of codecs, and has no support for copy-protected media. The average non-geek would be in over his or her head.

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The War Against Netbooks Continues?

Posted by Harry McCracken on July 6, 2009 at 7:28 am

No NetbooksAccording to DigiTimes–a Taiwanese publication that’s always interesting, if not always completely reliable–Samsung is planning to release a netbook with an 11.6-inch screen and an Intel Atom CPU. Sounds cool–it’s a popular form factor with a roomier-than-usual display. But DigiTimes also says that Intel has responded by canceling Samsung’s deal for discount pricing on Atom chips, and similarly punished Lenovo when it introduced a 12.1-inch netbook. Samsung may also run into trouble with Microsoft, whose Windows 7 licensing agreements reportedly discourage netbooks with screens that are larger than 10.1 inches.

Netbooks make Intel and Microsoft nervous, since their low prices and high popularity threaten the market for costlier laptops that preserve a more generous profit margin for processors and operating systems. If I worked for either company, I’d be nervous, too. But trying to stifle netbook growth by making it tough for PC manufacturers to release appealing new models puts the companies on a collision course with consumers.

It’s a lousy development for anyone who’d like to buy a netbook with a sizable screen. I think it’s also self-defeating for the companies playing the pricing games, since the history of the PC business shows that consumers nearly always get what they want, even when pricing pressure makes it miserable for companies that make computers, components, and software.

Bottom line: If people want big-screen netbooks–and many surely do–they’re going to happen. I’d love to see the industry admit that and embrace it. Wouldn’t it be a more efficient way to do business than trying to prevent the inevitable?

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