Android

Liveblog from the Samsung Premiere Galaxy event in London

Ben Lovejoy | Jun 20 2013 - 10:54 am PT

I’m here at the Earls Court Exhibition Centre in London for the Samsung Premiere 2013 event. Our best guess is that we’re likely to see three S4 products: the S4 mini, S4 Active and the S4 Zoom Galaxy (as well as one or more ATIV Windows 8 devices), but we shall see …

Hit the more link to read all about it, and refresh the page to see the latest update …

Animated pop-up children’s book – theme ‘Everything begins with you’.
Jason Bradbury, host of The Gadget Show, is on stage as MC.
DJ Lee, head of sales & marketing for mobile products, talking about the success of the S4 launch a month ago and lots of thank-yous.

As we predicted, showing the S4 mini, S4 Active and S4 Galaxy Zoom.
With these three devices, S4 range is complete.

Now talking about ATIV tablets.

ATIV tablet with dual-OS: Windows 8 and Android.

ATIV Book 9 in Lite and Plus versions – ultrabooks.

ATIV One Style 5 all-in-one desktop PC.

Jean Daniel Ayme, VP of European Telecoms on stage.

Five more colours for the S4 (photos to follow).

Now talking about the S4 mini. Focusing on 4.3-inch qHD Super AMOLED screen and style, with

S4 Active. IP67 water-protection, Jason Bradbury dropped it into a tank of water on stage and taking underwater photos (photo to follow). Fully protected for 1 metre of water for 30 minutes. Aqua mode. He’s just taken a photo of the press photographers after pulling it out of the water, and showed us the photo. Also glove-friendly and hardware buttons for active sports like skiing.

Moved on now to the S4 Galaxy Zoom. Low-light capability, and 10x optical zoom. Optical image stabilisers – much better experience in low light, better than digital stabilisation. 16MP CMOS sensor for low-light performance. Powerful flash too. Camera available in ‘white frost’ and ‘black mist’.

In-call photo share – take a photo and share it during a call.
Photo Suggest will look at where you are, and show you other photos taken in the same place to suggest other angles you might want to consider. Basically how to steal other people’s photos …
Twelve ‘smart modes’ where the camera looks at light conditions and what you are photographing to recommend a mode. For example, face-detection will suggest portrait mode.

Now showing Galaxy NX camera – this is a very fast-paced presentation, not spending much time on any one product …

“Taking the notion of a connected mirrorless camera to a whole new level”.
The world’s first interchangeable-lens Android camera with 4G. That really is an impressive concept!

30 lenses to choose from, including a 10mm fish-eye.
20.3MP CMOS sensor. Hybrid auto-focus – best AF features from both compact and DSLR cameras.
Comparable performance to a DSLR with a fastest shutter speed of 1/6000th.
Running Android 4.2.2 so you can share photos and full HD video anytime anywhere.
Very powerful camera, but simple, intuitive interface.
4.8-inch screen. 1.6Ghz quad-core. Even more smart modes – more than 30.

Moving on now to ATIV Windows 8 products.

Head of European ATIV marketing, Patrick Povel, introducing them.

Incorporated Galaxy technology into Windows devices. Redesigned and recreated ATIV range from scratch.

Video presentation: smartphones have changed the way people do things, old-style laptops not enough. Slightly cringeworthy video with baby as narrator.

Tab 3 = tablet. Book 9 = ultra book. One 5 = AIO desktop. Q convertible tablet/laptop.

Neat-looking flip format. Just looks like a slightly thicker tablet in tablet mode.
13.3-inch display. 3200×1800 qHD+. The world’s highest-resolution 13-inch screen: 275ppi. A lot of screen real-estate in a compact screen. Claims screen bright enough to be used in bright sunlight – not something I’ll be able to test in London weather today … Auto brightness adjustment. 178-degree viewing angle.

Demo’d switching instantly between Android & Windows. No need to reboot. Plus you can pin Android apps to the Windows start-screen. Using Android apps in Windows.

Haswell processor for 9-hour battery-life.

Very low-profile keyboard to keep the device slim.

Tablet mode, laptop mode, stand mode and weird in-between ‘float’ mode (photos later).

13.9mm thin, 1.29Kg – light and thin. Magnesium body for premium feel, durability and lightness.

S-pen included.

Now looking at ATIV Tab 3 – looks very much like Galaxy Tab 3.

Running full version of Windows 8, not the RT version, in an extremely portable device.

10.1-inch screen. 8.2mm thin, 550g. No bigger than an Android tablet yet run all your software.

8.5 hour battery life.

S-pen included. Includes Office 2013 as standard.

Now onto the ATIV 9 Book Plus ultra book.

13.6mm 1.39kg. 13-hour battery-life.