Samsung announces the Galaxy Grand and SamMobile tip the Galaxy Young Duos for early 2013!
The image above is the latest in a very long line of Samsung phones which sport both Android and an elegant and seemingly popular design. Today's device is no different to many of its sister devices, but again the Galaxy Grand offers that little something different which may tempt consumers to buy it.
In this case we think this phone is a budget option for those of you interested in a Galaxy Note or Note 2! The phone has a mammoth 5 inch display, which runs at a rather disappointing 480x800p and it's a TFT screen rather than IPS or AMOLED which is a slight let down. There's also a dual-core 1.2GHz processor, 1GB of RAM, 8GB of internal storage, a microSD card slot which supports cards up to 64GBs, a 2,100 mAh battery, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and GPS! Other than that you do get a pair of good cameras; there's a 2 megapixel front-facing camera and an 8 megapixel rear camera. These may well be the same cameras that are in the Galaxy S2, so we expect them to be very capable indeed! Just in case you're interested this phone will be available in both dual and single-SIM varieties and their model numbers are the GT-I9082 and the GT-I9080 respectively.
Because this is Samsung you'll also get some of their software perks, on this particular device you get; Direct Call, Smart Alert, Popup Video, AllShare Play and S Video. Direct Call is one of our favourite features and we explained why we don't want to live in an Android world without this set of features over
here!
Depending on the price that comes with this device we would be very happy to recommend it, it's not often you come by a dual-sim device with specs like this and you even have a recent version of Android on board too (Android 4.1.2)! So who's interested?
Well if you're not then don't worry Samsung will reportedly have yet another option for you in the new year! SamMobile reports that the Galaxy Young Duos is a mid-end Android device and will also give you a dual-sim option. It's set to be available toward the end of February in in two different colours. We expect to see the Grayish Blue and White that we saw on Samsung's recent Galaxy devices and the phone will likely debut at MWC in Barcelona. Just for the sake of clarity, this will be a new device which is neither the GT-S5360 Galaxy Y or the GT-S6102 Galaxy Y DUOS. Instead it will be it's own unique device with the model number GT-S6312! If we manage to get our hands on a snap then we will update the post!
In other news:
- Nokia has reportedly cancelled their plans to showcase a set of new products at CES in January next year. The phone maker instead opted to delay until Mobile World Congress (MWC) which happens in February. Perhaps they needed to buy themselves a little bit more time to fine tune some new devices or work on their accessories a little more. Either way it seems Nokia wants to get it right so we'll have to wait an extra month to see their surprises!
Via WPCentral.
- A report from AdAge, has today suggested that Facebook is looking into the possibility of utilizing video ads in your news feed to generate some additional advertising revenue. There are no finalised details yet but the plan revolves are the idea of selling targeted video ads in your 'News Feed', something which would affect both mobile and desktop users. By the soudns of it these ads have the potential to be rather intrusive because they could start playing automatically and they could have the ability to widen out and encompass real estate in both the left and right-hand columns of your feed, we're not sure how prepared users would be to accept this though. Facebook has been known to be working on video ads at the moment so this is by no means a big shock. We're just not sure how much this would drive users away from the platform, there are after all plenty of alternatives! Any one remember MySpace?
Via TheVerge.
- More details have emerged on HTC's upcoming European flagship. Yesterday we confirmed it wasn't going to be a variant of the Droid DNA, instead it will be the 'M7'. The image from @EVLeaks, who are now working more closely with UnwiredView, explains the nitty gritty and if that battery size is true we'll be mighty relieved!
- Sprint has flicked the LTE switch in a few more places today and residents of the following areas will now have access to Sprint's finest mobile signal! The areas are Indianapolis/Carmel, Ind., Santa Rosa/Petaluma, Calif., Vallejo/Fairfield, Calif., Southern Puerto Rico (including Ponce, Coamo and Guayama), York/Hanover, Pa., Franklin County, Pa. and the Metro area of Chicage!
Sprint Via IntoMobile
- If you're into the Android Custom ROM scene you may well have noticed that there has been quite a few devices getting support for nightly releases over the past week! Well chalk the Samsung Galaxy S3 for both Verizon and Sprint as one of those devices now! Both devices are getting nightly releases along with Galaxy Nexus variants, 3G Nexus 7, Galaxy S, SII, and Galaxy Tab 2!
Via AndroidPolice.
- It was little over a year ago, in September of 2011, when Twitter proudly announced that they had 100 million active monthly users. So it's amazing to think that Twitter announced a year and four months later that they have just broken the 200 million active users per month figure! So warn your friends who are adverse to Twitter that they will probably need to have it sooner rather than later! You can see Twitter's Tweet embedded below and don't forget to follow us so you don't miss a thing!
Twitter Via Slashgear.
- Brazil, soon to be the hosts of both the next Football World Cup and the next Olympic games, but it's also the country where Apple doesn't own the naming rights to the 'iPhone'. Instead, the name is owned by the Brazilian company, Gradiente, who secured the name all the way back in 2000! That phone pictured below is the first phone to use the name in Brazil and it's a slightly disappointing rival to it's worldwide namesake. There's Android 2.3.4 and a host of other decided average specs on board including a 3.7" screen, a pair of cameras and dual sim card slots! If you happen to live in Brazil you can pick one up for $235 off-contract, hopefully there won't be too many people who pick one up and end up severely disappointed!
Via PhoneArena.
And finally, if this leaked slide is correct then we have our first hint at how powerful the next mobile processor from Nvidia will be and this is one little powerhouse! The chip is a 4-plus-1 configuration ARM Cortex A15 configuration, so it had twice the amount of cores as the Exynos processor in the Nexus 10 and comparable potency on an individual core basis! There is reportedly 72 graphics cores on this processor, that works out to six times as many GPU cores as the current Tegra 3 has. This added power means there is now support for displays with resolutions up to 2,560 x 1600 and the processor can manage 1080p output at 120Hz. There's a very brief mention of 4K, but we're not quite sure where they're going with that, we'll have to wait for more information from Nvidia to understand that fully. Tegra 4 will supposedly support USB 3.0 and dual-channel DDR3L memory! This made the prospect of CES and MWC even more exciting!
And finally, if you were interested in the naming of the device, then we heard some rumours that the device would simply be called the HTC One. This rumour has seemingly been reinforced by a UserAgent Profile, unfortunately these are often faked so this could just be a case of this again, but we'll have to wait and see! All of the important bits are included in the Profile embedded to the right! 
