There it is folks, in all of its e-ink keypad glory: the Samsung Alias 2. Rumors indicated that this guy was set for release on May 11th, and the fact that shots of it have started to trickle out lead us to believe that the retail spots have begun to receive their units. Expect to see this guy hit shelves next week.
PhoneArena has a few more shots, along with a couple blurry cam shots (one of them after the jump) of the Motorola Rival A445. Otherwise known as “Rush 2″, this QWERTY-slider is headed for VZW and is jampacked full of mediocrity – but if you’re looking for a basic texter on the ol’ veezeedub, it might fit the bill.
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Built to meet military specifications for dust, shock, vibration, and extreme temperatures, the Samsung SGH-A657 is one beast of a phone. Sure, it’s probably not going to win any beauty contests – but if a gun fight were to break out during the beauty contest, the A657 would probably be the last one standing and win by default. What it lacks in beauty it makes up for in the fact that it could probably beat you up.
When Samsung offered us a review unit, we only had one question for them: “Can we beat it up?” “Of course,” they said. So, we’ve come to you, dear readers, for ideas. See, we’re so used to treating these review units with respect that the meanest thing we can think of is to call it names when it’s out of the room. We want to find out just how rugged this thing is, and we want to capture it all on video.
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Good news and bad news, folks. Good news: If you’re anxiously awaiting the debut of the Samsung Alias 2, you may only have another couple of weeks to wait. Bad news: As far as anyone can tell, it’s still sporting that absolutely horrid elementary schoolroom theme.
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Samsung finally went ahead and did what we’ve expected them to do today with the announcement of their first Android powered handset, the I7500. Better late than ever, I say. The I7500 is no slouch in the feature department with a 3.2-inch AMOLED touch-screen, GPS, Wi-Fi, and 8GB of internal memory. It’s also an HSDPA capable device with a 5-megapixel AF camera with Power LED (no clue what that is but I assume it’s flash), Bluetooth 2.0, USB 2.0, MicroSD (up to 32GB support) and a 3.5mm earphone jack. It’s also pretty thin at 0.47 inches.
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As of last Tuesday (04/14/2009, for you number people), AT&T released its Samsung Propel Pro WinMo 6.1-based slider phone to the masses. Having received my tester unit a bit earlier, I’ve been putting the device through its paces for just about a week now.
My initial gut reaction after charging and powering the ‘Pro on was “ok, I’ve got to ignore the unholiness that is WinMo 6.1 Standard OS and focus on the device itself.” In that regard, this thing ain’t half bad.
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Samsung just unleashed the powerhouse that is the Mondi. This massive handset comes packing with speedy WiMAX support in a big daddy slider form factor. Winmo 6.1 powers the device and it seems that Samsung has big hopes for the huge device as it’s got just about everything possible in a mobile computing platform. Check it: MS Office, WiFi, BT 2.1, GPS with preloaded maps, 4 GB of internal memory, support for push email, instant messaging support, 3.0 MP camera and camcorder, Opera 9.5 browser, HDMI out, and a huge range of supported video and audio player formats.
Good morning and welcome to AT&T’s omnibus launch of multiple phones, including the Nokia E71x and the Samsung Propel Pro. The E71x, essentially one of Nokia’s best QWERTY phones, costs $99 with contract and the QWERTY Propel Pro costs $149.99.
The Impression is also coming out with an AMOLED screen for $199 and two LG lumps, the Xenon and Neon, will be popping off the periodic table and into your pocket for about $99. Fun fact: “The Xenon is also featured in MTV’s upcoming series “The Phone”, executive produced by Justin Timberlake.”
Full release after the jump.
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The Samsung SWD-M100 Mondi is the first Wimax device in the U.S. and hopes to pick up where Nokia’s Wimax tablet, now discontinued in the U.S., left off.
It’s been almost a year since we first got our hands on Samsung’s updated (u740) Alias, and whadoyaknow, Samsung is getting ready to launch the Alias2 on the Verizon Wireless network any time now. Funny how that tends to work. Just as you get comfortable with yesteryear’s technology…BAM, the next generation hits the scene.
Samsung Mobile has launched “a dedicated [online] movie store for Samsung customers” aptly named, Samsung Movies.
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Fire up the r-mill. An anonymous tipster has it that AT&T will launch the (dragon-scale green) Samsung A877 on March 29, 2009. According to PhoneDog, said A877 (possibly codenamed “Jackfrost”) is quite the non-smartphone (like the Samsung Memoir, it runs the smartphone-esque TouchWiz OS), and could be a solid replacement for the recently deadpooled Quickfire.
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Is it coming to this? Are touchscreen phones going to be the new default, the way clamshells have been for years and candybars were before that? If the specs and pricing get much lower, it’ll be easier to get Grandma some low-end Touchmaster than a basic Moto flip phone. In any case, Samsung’s newest touchscreen offerings are pretty much what you’d expect.
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What could this be? Spy shots of the new Instinct? It seems that brave forum-goer Phonetec got his hands on Samsung’s latest and took a few snaps with his Blackberry. He says it’s smaller, more lightweight, and that the interface is the same. Well! How exciting!
I certainly like the new look a lot more. We’ll have more info and/or pictures as soon as we get ‘em. Here’s the forum link.
Update: Instinct Mini? Probably.
Samsung wants to make waves in the high-end mobile market that’s filled with dreams of extreme mark-up and high profits. Burried deep in an interview with the president of Samsung Electronics’ Taiwin, there is a brief mention of a Giorgio Armani phone powered by Windows Mobile which is enough to get our imagination crank’n.
Samsung unleashed a three great looking phones at MWC09. Still no Android, but we’ll get over it. Pics and specs after the jump.
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If you were holding your breath until MWC to see if Samsung would drop its promised Android-based phone, you can exhale. It seems that the Samdroid will have to wait, as they’re still in negotiations with carriers and no hardware has been put forth. Shucks!
It’s bad news for Samsung lovers, but there’s still a chance that HTC will give us a glimpse of the G2 (not this thing, which is totally fake). Hey, I like my G1, but believe me I’d be down like a clown if they put out something sexier.
With good ol Sammie Samsung’s pipes being all kinds of leaky this year, it’s not too surprising that Samsung is going ahead and announcing somethings right before Mobile World Congress. Might as well make sure word gets out properly, right?
This morning, Samsung announced that they have revamped the TouchWiz UI that graces a number of its handsets, and will be demoing it in Barcelona next week. Our translate-o-bot is chorking on the Korean press release a bit, but here’s what we gather:
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Hey, you. Get off the couch. Samsung’s S8300 TouchWiz slider with 8-megapixel camera is coming out tomorrow. Pricing and carrier are unknown at this time, but if you’re into sexy sliders with big touchscreens and Samsung’s pretty nice Croix interface, you, friend, are in luck.
This thing comes packed tight with a 2.8″ WQVGA AMOLED touchscreen, 8 megapixel camera with autoflash, GPS, microSD support, FM radio (with RDS), Bluetooth 2.1, and 7.2 Mbps HSDPA. It’s nothing we haven’t seen before in brickphones, but in a 12.8mm thick (just a millimeter thicker than the Samsung-made Helio Mysto, and one thinner than the Samsung Soul) slider? We’re impressed.
The Mobile World Conference is almost here and the pre-show leaks are flowing nicely. The Acme i8910 Samsung phone will hopefully make a MWC debut and if the leaked specs are correct, it’s going to make a huge splash.
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Are cell phones no longer a growth business? At least in the fourth quarter, cell phone shipments actually declined. According to Deutsche Bank analyst Brian Modoff, shipments from the top five cell phone manufacturers (Nokia, Samsung, LG, Sony Ericsson, and Motorola) dropped 13 percent year-over-year in the fourth quarter of 2008. Unit shipments decelerated from 14 percent growth in the second quarter to 2 percent growth in the third quarter, and then finally went into negative territory in the fourth quarter.
Shipments for the top five started decelerating sequentially (quarter-over-quarter) in the third quarter, when they were down 2 percent, and then were down 4 percent sequentially in the fourth quarter. The deceleration is likely to continue through 2009.
Even Apple saw a 36 percent quarterly decline in sales of iPhones (4.4 million in the December quarter versus 6.9 million in the September quarter). And RIM’s Blackberry Storm sold only 500,000 units its first month, despite a $100 million marketing campaign.
As a result, Apple and RIM have about 3 percent market share between them, down from 4 percent in the third quarter, estimates Modoff. Still, that’s half of Motorola’s 6 percent share.
