Samsung threats over the Galaxy S' plastic construction on the eve of a rumoured Galaxy Tab launch!

   Over the weekend the guys at SamMobile apparently spoke to one of their 'famous insiders' who supposedly said that Samsung is a little bit 'worried' about the all plastic construction of the Galaxy S4!

   We already know that Samsung typically chooses this sort of construction to make it nice and simple for people to swap out their batteries during a busy day at the office or on a day out where they're taking lots of snaps, but HTC's new One flagship has seemingly got the South Korean's a little concerned. Just today we heard about how Samsung were paying people to take shots at the aluminium-clad device and now we're hearing that Samsung may reconsider the outer shell of the Samsung Galaxy Note III! Obviously this is pure speculation at this point, but the HTC One does seem to be proving a popular device and it's hard to criticize the quality of the materials which HTC chose for the phone too!

   On a slightly different note, there's a few devices on the way which we definitely expect to keep Samsung's infamous plastic backings and they're the third generation Galaxy Tabs! There's set to be the Galaxy Tab 3 10.1 which will be 256.7 x 175.3 x 8.7mm, weighs in at a mere 533 grams, and there will be a 7,000 mAh battery. The rumours suggest that there won't be a 7" tablet this year, instead that will be forgone for the Tab 3 8.0 is set to arrive with a 4,500 mAh battery and with a tiny 209.6 x 112.1 x 6.95mm chassis. The two tablets are also set to share Android 4.1.2 Jelly Bean, a 1280 x 800p WXGA screen, a 1.5GHz dual-core processor, a 3MP rear-camera complemented by a 1.3MP front-facing camera and there will be a MicroSD card slot to supplement the internal storage which these devices are set to arrive with. These two tablets are rumoured to be shown off this week, with 3G versions going on sale in May and LTE variants in June or July.

   There's also rumours that later in the year, possibly at IFA, that Samsung will show off a Galaxy Tab 3 Plus. The rumours run that there will be a 10 inch 2560 x 1600p display, an LTE option, an Exynos 5410 Octa processor, an 8MP rear camera, a 2MP front-facing camera, 2GB of RAM, 32GB or 64GB of internal memory which is MicroSD card expandable and the whole thing is set to be rounded out with a 9,000 mAh battery and the latest version of Android. 

Via UnwiredView (1) and (2) and SamMobile.

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In Other News: 15/03/2013.

• Google's Larry Page has confirmed that 'Android is the most used mobile operating system in the world: we have a global partnership of over 60 manufacturers; more than 750 million devices have been activated globally; and 25 billion apps have now been downloaded from Google Play.' The LittleGreenRobot is still on to hit 1 billion device activations by the end of this year!
  Via AndroidCentral.

• Microsoft had a big Outlook and Hotmail outage yesterday which knocked SkyDrive, Hotmail, and Outlook offline temporarily. Microsoft tried to update its data centre firmware and the regular process "resulted in a rapid and substantial temperature spike in the data centre" for some unspecified reason! That is why your email was down for 16 hours yesterday!
  Via TheVerge.

• MoDaCo are reporting that HTC's brand new HTC One handset will have some trouble if you unlock your bootloader. There are apps like the Calculator, Flashlight, Ringtone Trimmer and Sound Recorder, all of which are installed after a factory reset from a pre-loaded directory. But, when when the bootloader is unlocked this directory gets wiped so these apps are permanently vanished! Just take that into account until HTC fix the issues!
  Via MoDaCo.

• Nintendo have been found guilty of infringing a 3D patent which lets you experience 3D without glasses, which is owned by Seijiro Tomita. The federal jury in New York fined Nintendo $30.2 million in compensatory damages.
  Via Reuters.

• Samsung announced a new 'GamePad' accessory yesterday for their smartphones which can support phones which have screens from 4 - 6.3". Many people have taken this specific 6.3" maximum to mean that the Galaxy Note III will be that size! Seems plausible to us!
  Via UnwiredView.

• Samsung is now also China's biggest smartphone manufacturer with 17.7% of the market, about 4% better off than Lenovo!
  Via Cellular-News.

• Nokia have confirmed updates will be rolling out to each of the Lumia 920's, 820's and the 620's. Theupdates are basically bug fixes and optimisations for everything from camera image quality through to touchscreen responsiveness! For more details check out Nokia's site here!
  Via UnwiredView.

• Verizon has approved update 9.16.6 for the Motorola Droid Razr HD and the Razr Maxx HD! The update fixes lots of bugs and you can find more details over on Android Police here!

And finally, if you're a UK resident and you're looking to stand out in the smartphone crowd then Asus' Padfone 2 is now available from CarphoneWarehouse. To be fair the deals aren't too unreasonable; for example you can snag a free Padfone and the tablet dock for as little as £33 a month, otherwise you can reduce the monthly outlay by paying upfront for the dockable device! Check out the website here for full details!
Via Eurodroid.

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