Galaxy Note

ASUS announced on its Facebook today that the Transformer Prime would receive a firmware over-the-air Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich update starting Jan. 12. Somehow this is even before the Motorola XOOM, Google’s reference tablet? Perhaps this will ignite a war among Tablet makers to get their devices up to Ice Cream Sandwich first. Bring it on!

“Eee Pad Transformer Prime received excellent reviews and great demand when it launched in December 2011,” said the company in a Jan. 3 Facebook post. “ASUS strives to create the best products and provide the best service for our customers, and will be releasing an FOTA update for the Transformer Prime shortly.”

The version 8.8.3.33 update will also improve the camera’s focus, the touch screen’s fluidity and experience, and the APK capabilities in Android Market. 
ASUS also used Facebook to address concerns related to GPS and bootloader on the Transformer Prime.

The consumer electronics and product manufacturer said the Transformer Prime is made from a metallic unibody design, so “the material may affect the performance of the GPS when receiving signals from satellites.” ASUS elaborated and claimed the device is “not a professional GPS device, and signal performance can be easily influenced by factors.” The factors listed by the company include weather, buildings, and surrounding environments.

Expand
Expanding
Close

Samsung announced on Flickr this evening that the company shipped 1 million Galaxy Note units. The Galaxy Note was announced at IFA 2011 and has seen explosion worldwide, despite not landing in the United States yet. In addition, as background, the Galaxy Note rocks a 5.3-inch form-factor that crosses between a phone and tablet. It is worth noting that Samsung is counting devices shipped to stores, as well as customers. The Galaxy Note should be landing in the U.S. sometime in 2012, and we may even hear more at CES. Check out Samsung’s official announcement after the break. (via The Verge)

Expand
Expanding
Close

We originally got our first look at “S Choice” apps running on the new 5.3-inch Galaxy Note when Samsung showed off a selection of apps designed specifically for the device’s S Pen stylus at the launch event in London. While they already had a handful of apps including OmniSketch and Soonr Workplace up and running, the S Pen SDK (version 1.0) is now available for developers interested in creating their own applications optimized for S Pen.

Available from the Samsung Dev Tools portal here, the S Pen SDK allows you to create backgrounds for drawing with a ‘CanvasView’ feature, create panels for adjusting settings like line color an opacity with the ‘Pen Setting Popup’ feature, create panels for adjusting eraser widget with the ‘Eraser Setting Popup’ tool, and enable undo and redo. Screenshots after the break.

Expand
Expanding
Close

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=fhuyJIj5ZBo]

We first got a look at the Samsung Galaxy Note at IFA in Berlin early last month. While they’ve teased a November release date since, we haven’t heard much from Samsung regarding their stylus-equipped, hybrid tablet/smartphone until today.  The advert above, which in our opinion is done quite well, proves Samsung’s marketing team might actually be headed in the right direction.

Focusing mainly on the 5.3-inch Super AMOLED display and “S Pen” stylus apps, the advert shows off the advantages of apps designed specifically for the stylus. The user in the ad starts with an image, uses the S Pen to draw, saves and crops an image, adds that the cropped image to the drawing, and finally sends it.

The ad ends with the tagline, “Phone? Tablet? Feel Free, It’s Galaxy Note”, an obvious hint at making your own decision as to whether you consider it a tablet or phone. Either way, as the gimmick and shock value of the stylus wears away, the Galaxy Note is starting to look more and more enticing. If you’re unfamiliar, the device sports a 1.4 GHz dual core processor, runs Gingerbread (ICS?), 5100 mAamp battery, native 720p video, and is 7 and half mm thin. We’re expecting to learn more when Samsung takes the stage at their Galaxy Note event in London tomorrow. Stay tuned for the latest.

Expand
Expanding
Close