Smartphone

Two of the major US carriers today announced they would be pushing back availability of the Samsung Galaxy S4 citing inventory challenges on Samsung’s end. First, T-Mobile late last night informed customers that it would be delaying the launch of the device until Monday, April 29th. The carrier originally planned to have the device available through its online store today. T-Mobile’s statement cited delays with “inventory deliveries,” and a press release from Sprint shortly after confirmed carriers are experiencing “unexpected inventory challenges from Samsung.”

Sprint initially planned on making the device available on April 27, but now will only be taking orders online with supplies in brick and mortar stores “as inventory becomes available.”

Sprint is excited to launch the new Samsung Galaxy 4.  We had planned to launch this next generation of the award-winning Samsung Galaxy line-up on Saturday, April 27. Unfortunately, due to unexpected inventory challenges from Samsung, we will be slightly delayed with our full product launch.  Sprint is one of Samsung’s largest partners and we are working closely with them to launch in all Sprint channels as soon as possible. We expect to make Galaxy S 4 available at www.sprint.com and Telesales (1-800-SPRINT1) as planned on Saturday with Sprint retail stores and other channels receiving devices as inventory becomes available.

Earlier today the unlocked variant of the Galaxy S4 found its way to eBay at a cost of $739.

As for Verizon, it had originally quoted an online release date of April 30th with shipments sometime in May and is yet to make an announcement regarding delays. The nation’s other major carrier, AT&T, is planning on making the device available in-store on April 27. You can check out 9to5Google’s full review of the Galaxy S4 here and we’ll keep you posted if there are any further announcements regarding availability.

That’s the S4 sandwiched between the HTC One and the iPhone 5

I’ve been playing with Samsung’s Galaxy S4 (no, I won’t write S 4) for the better part of a week and, not to spoil the whole review: I love it.  It is better in every way than the S3 hardware-wise, and Samsung even has some good software on this phone, particularly in the camera field. I’ve never been a fan of Samsung’s software.

It is what is on the inside that counts, right?

This phone will do extremely well in the market and will keep up the fight against the almighty iPhone 5 and HTC One (which we reviewed earlier this month and loved). In the Apple world, this S4 is called an ‘S update’ – where the outward design is mostly the same but a lot of changes have taken place under the hood.

Below I’ll drill down exactly what that means.
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This morning, Sprint announced Samsung Galaxy S will be available beginning on Saturday, April 27 for $249.99 with a new line or eligible upgrade and two-year service agreement. New customers who switch their phone number to Sprint from another carrier will receive an additional $100 instant credit which yields a $150 superphone. Sprint Pre-order for Galaxy S 4 will open on tomorrow (Thursday, April 18), at www.sprint.com/galaxys4, while supplies last.

T-Mobile also announced a $149.99 down plan with their new device payment offers of $20/month on top of their simple service plans. T-Mobile will have the device a few days earlier on April 24th and offers HD voice options on top of their great pricing plans.

Full specs and press release follows:

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From 9to5Toys.com:

Tiger Direct slashes the price of the original 1080P smartphone, the Droid DNA. We reviewed the DNA and loved loved loved its amazing 5-inch 1080P display.

One of the benefits of having a removable back plate and battery is that you can do crazy things like add more than 3X the 2100mAh battery size for those extended outings.  It just so happens Amazon currently has this 7,000mAh add on for $34 in a variety of colors (Black, White, Blue).

This is the same amount of battery you’ll find in a Typical tablet and as you can see in the video above, pushes the S3 to 4+ days of battery life. On the downside, you now have a brick in your pocket.

Reddit Via AndroidPopo
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Since we first heard rumors that Microsoft was working on Office for iOS and Android as far back as 2011 and got a look at alleged leaked images of an iPad app that Microsoft later denied were real, every couple of months we’ve seen reports that say the app is coming soon. First it was November 2012, then early 2013, and others claimed “sometime after” March 2013. Along the way  The latest rumor: Microsoft has Office for iPhone and Android is scheduled for fall 2014.

Zdnet claims to have got its hands on Microsoft roadmap for next year and says on it is “iOS/Android support for Office”:
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Samsung was eyeing a display between 5.9-inches and 6.3-inches for its much rumored upcoming Galaxy Note III last we heard. SamMobile earlier this month said that device would appear at IFA in Berlin this August, but a new report from the Samsung-focused blog today claimed Samsung will introduce a new lineup of devices in the 5.8- to 6.3-inch display size.

While noting “Samsung changed the name of their expected Galaxy Fonblets,” SamMobile said Samsung would soon introduce a new lineup of smartphone and tablet hybrids dubbed “Galaxy Mega” in 5.8-inch (GT-I9152) and 6.3-inch (GT-I9200) variants.

The devices will reportedly launch between the end of May and be available by mid-June:

The Galaxy Mega 5.8 will come in the colour white and will be available around week 22. The Galaxy Mega 6.3 will come in the colours black and white these galaxy devices need to be available around week 25.

It’s unclear what exactly this means for Samsung’s Galaxy Note III. It would be surprising for Samsung to introduce both the Note III and new Galaxy Mega tablet with a 6.3-inch display. Perhaps the Note III becomes the 5.8-inch device, and the Mega branding is reserved for the larger 6.3-inch variant? It’s also possible Samsung keeps the Galaxy Note III at the same 5.5-inch size of the Note II and introduces the Mega line to bridge the gap and cover all bases between its Note lineup and 7-inch to 10-inch tablet lines. We’ll keep you posted when we learn more. 
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Q4 2012 estimates from Strategy Analytics

While Samsung has conveniently left specific smartphone sales numbers out of its Q4 earnings release yesterday (as usual), today we get a look at the latest estimates for the quarter coming from research firms Strategy Analytics and IDC.

We know that Apple sold 47.8 million iPhones during the quarter, and today both research firms put Samsung just over 63 million units for Q4 2012. That means Samsung was able to capture 29 percent of the market last quarter (up from 36.2 million units and 22.5-percent of the market in the year ago quarter). Apple is of course a close second among the top five smartphone vendors with 21.8-percent—down slightly from the 23 percent it held in the same quarter last year. In Q4 2011, Apple and Samsung were neck and neck at about 23 percent of the market each.

The increasing market share for Apple, and especially Samsung, over the past year comes at the expense of Nokia. It experienced a drop from 16 percent to 5 percent of the market during the past year. 
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AT&T just announced its fourth quarter results highlighting record smartphones sales and a record 8.6 million iPhone activations. In its results, the company said it had its best quarter ever for Android sales, but didn’t highlight specific numbers like it did for iPhone. It all added up to record sales, the most ever among any U.S. carrier, with 10.2 million units sold during the quarter:

In the quarter, the company activated a record 8.6 million iPhones, with 16 percent new to AT&T. The company also had its best-ever sales quarter for Android smartphones.

AT&T also reported its largest increase in three years for subscribers with 780,000 wireless postpaid net adds and a total increase in total net wireless subscribers of  1.1 million. As for LTE, the company said 55 percent of postpaid smartphone customers were 4G-capable devices while LTE should be rolled out to 250 million or more people by the end of 2013:
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HTC’s rumored upcoming flagship device, the 4.7-inch ‘M7’, was looking quite iPhone-like in the last set of alleged leaked renders. Today, we get images of the device from a couple of other sources that show HTC might be experimenting with various designs ahead of the product’s launch.

The first set of images, above, come from AndroidPolice, and they show off Sense 5.0 with rearranged home and multitasking buttons. We also get a look at the backside of the device that oddly shows a different Beats audio logo and flash position than the rendered images (below) posted by HTCSource yesterday. It’s of course possible that we’re looking at a prototype of the device in the photos above, and perhaps the renders are closer to what the finished device will look like. Hopefully we actually get eyes on the device next month a Mobile World Congress in Barcelona.
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Samsung today announced a new 5-inch, Android 4.1.2 Jelly Bean-powered smartphone known as the “Galaxy Grand”. We don’t get any details on pricing or availability, and specs and design add up to your typical low to mid-range Galaxy variant, but the device is packing a 1.2 GHz dual for processor, 5-inch WVGA TFT LCD, 8-megapixel camera (2 megapixel front cam), Bluetooth 4.0, and 1 GB of RAM. Perhaps the most interesting part of the Grand is that initially Samsung will ship a dual SIM version (GT-I9082) only that will allow users to manage two numbers on one device:

For the dual SIM version, its innovative dual SIM feature provides total communication flexibility, allowing users to manage two phone numbers from a single phone. It is possible to receive calls on one SIM number while taking a call from the other, ensuring efficient management of personal and work commitments without ever missing a call. Dual SIM also offers the flexibility of selecting different billing plans for either SIM, switching between them to make the most of cheaper call and data plans.
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IDC is out with its latest report that covers the top six smartphone operating systems by shipments and market share during Q3 2012. In the study, IDC found Android on nearly 75 percent of all smartphones shipped during the quarter, giving Android 136 million units of the 181.1 million total smartphones shipped during Q3 2012. That accounts for 91.5-percent year-over-year growth, beating out 57.3- percent year-over-year growth for Apple, and an average market growth of 46.4-percent. Apple shipped 26.9 million iPhones, in comparison, giving the company 14.9-percent of the market in the third quarter. Samsung is once again the top Android vendor:

Android, having topped the 100 million unit mark last quarter, reached a new record level in a single quarter. By comparison, Android’s total volumes for the quarter were greater than the total number of smartphones shipped in 2007, the year that Android was officially announced. Samsung once again led all vendors in this space, but saw its market share decline as numerous smaller vendors increased their production.

iOS was a distant second place to Android, but was the only other mobile operating system to amass double-digit market share for the quarter. The late quarter launch of the iPhone 5 and lower prices on older models prevented total shipment volumes from slipping to 3Q11 levels. But without a splashy new OS-driven feature like Siri in 2011 and FaceTime in 2010, the iPhone 5 relied on its larger, but not wider, screen and LTE connectivity to drive growth.

As promised yesterday, Samsung just unveiled the Galaxy S III mini in Frankfurt, Germany.

The Jelly Bean-powered handset features many of the same specs as the original Galaxy S, but the most noteworthy include a 4-inch WVGA Super AMOLED display, dual core 1GHz chipset, support for Wi-Fi, NFC, and Bluetooth 4.0, and a 1,500 mAh battery. It also features a 5-megapixel VGA front-facing camera with LED flash, 720p video recording and playback, 8GB RAM, and MicroSD up to 32 GB.

The S III mini essentially packs the S III experience into a 4-inch screen at a presumably more pocket-friendly cost; however, Samsung did not announce details on pricing and availability. Check out the presser and gallery below for more information on this practical smartphone.

The press release is below.

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Not a bad looking phone, but the specs are middle of the road. Although LG has not hit home runs in last two years, its latest models show it is not giving up.