White Galaxy S II landing on T-Mobile in time for holidays

Jordan Kahn

Samsung just let us know that the white Galaxy S II will be landing on T-Mobile just in time for the holidays sometime in the “coming weeks”. If you’re not familiar with T-Mobile’s current black Galaxy S II, you can expect a 1.5GHz dual core processor, 4.5-inch Super AMOLED display, 16 GB internal storage, and 1GB of RAM. As of right now that device is available for $229.00 on a two-year plan. The white model appears to only to be different in color, as pricing and hardware will likely stay the same.

“Samsung Mobile is excited to announce T-Mobile will launch a new white color option of the Samsung Galaxy S II in time for the holidays. We’ll have more information to share about when and where customers can pick up the white version in the coming weeks.”

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Verizon and Samsung release Illusion, an iPhone 3GS-killer

Jordan Kahn

Samsung and Verizon just sent out a press release announcing the Samsung Illusion, an Android 2.3-powered entry-level handset dropping online tomorrow and in stores in January. While it’s far from a competitor for high-end Android devices, when we start to take a look at the specs, sleek design, and price, it looks like a great option for anyone that might have been considering Apple’s iPhone 3GS.

As for specs, the Illusion doesn’t disappoint for a low-end Android and iPhone 3GS competitor. Included is a 1GHz Hummingbird processor, 3.0-megapixel camera, 6-axis accelerometer with compass, Bluetooth 3.0, built-in Wifi, and a microSD card for up to 32 GB. Perhaps most impressive is the design itself, which appears to be much nicer than your typical cheapo Android handset. We know the display will most likely the be the 3.5-inch 320×480 capacitive touchscreen spotted previously, but the press release only mentions a “curved glass display”.

It will officially become available for $79.99, but starting tomorrow you’ll be able to get it for free on a two-year contract as a special online-only promotion from November 24 to November 28. Full press release below, if you’re interested.  Read more

Quad-core Transformer Prime up for preorder on Amazon, Nvidia demos ICS update

Jordan Kahn

It looks like the first quad-core Tegra 3 tablet is getting one step closer to a final release with the Asus Eee Pad Transformer Prime officially going up for pre-order on Amazon today. We knew it would be landing for $499 sometime in December, but today it’s listed at a slight discount for $492.20 for the entry-level 32GB model ($584.22 for 64GB).

Asus also today officially listed the device on their website with full specs, however we don’t learn much more than we already found out last month. Some new pieces of information– ‘SonicMaster’ audio tech brings the “most precise processing protocols and codecs, superior speaker construction and large resonance chambers”, and a power saving mode which according to SlashGear lets you switch off three of the CPU’s four cores. Asus notes their battery life estimates are measured using the powering saving mode.

We also learn there will be a bunch of preloaded apps including the SuperNote note taking app, MyCloud for cloud storage and remote access, MyNet for streaming over home networks, and My Library which stores all downloaded publications in one convenient location. There will also be the Asus launcher, Asus sync app, and TegraZone, and a full list of accessories can be found here.

The page confirms an Ice Cream Sandwich update will be coming, while Nvidia (via TheVerge) gives us our first look at Android 4.0 ICS running on the Transformer Prime in the video above.
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Reuters: Samsung to make Google TVs

9to5 Staff


Samsung has been selling Smart TVs like the one above for years.

Samsung and other players have been selling high-definition television sets based on the Smart TV platform for years. The South Korean maker of consumer electronics sold just shy of 20 million units and announced in June that their Smart TVs topped two million app downloads. Samsung also announced a Blu-ray player and Google TV companion box back in January, but that product failed to materialize.

Reuters reports the company could be doubling down on the Google TV initiative. Their head of television division Yoon Boo-keun confirmed that his company “is in last-stage talks with Google to roll out Google TV”. Interestingly, the executive hinted Samsung’s Google TV offering “would differ” from those of competitors.

It makes sense. Samsung has had tremendous success with Android-driven smartphones and tablets. The company is keen on exploring future Android devices, including mobile devices with flexible displays. And because Google TV is basically a Honeycomb device with a big screen, Samsung can tap its experience and expertise building Honeycomb devices for the Google TV project.

As for the chips, Samsung could simply use Intel’s reference Atom platform found in other Smart TVs or use the rumored quad-core processor code-named Exynos 4412 said to debut in the Galaxy S III at Mobile World Congress in February 2012. Economies of scale would benefit Samsung if it were to use its own chips in a similar fashion Apple benefits from deploying its A-series of chips across the tens of millions of iOS devices they sell each quarter.
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Google begins advertising holiday Chromebook sale right inside of Chrome’s ‘New Tab’ page

Jake Smith

In an interesting move by Google, the company has begun advertising their new Chrome sale right inside of Chrome’s ‘New Tab’ page. The ad, as seen above, says, “Get a Chromebook for the holidays: the computer powered by Chrome.” This comes after Google announced this afternoon a $50 price slash on both their Chromebooks. Things must be really bad in the Chromebook department to push an ad like this..

Am I the only one seeing this?

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Chromebooks receive price drop to $299, just in time for the holidays

Jake Smith

Just in time for the holidays, Google has announced a price drop for both the Samsung Series 5 and Acer AC700 Chromebooks. Both are now being dropped to $299 from $349, which still seems a little steep for what you’re getting. So why the price drop? Most likely Google isn’t seeing the type of sales they were looking for with Chrome OS and hope sales will help boost that.

Shouldn’t Google be going a little lower in price with these?