Google I/O: A 'Google Edition' Samsung Galaxy S4 with unlocked bootloader and stock Android is on the way!

   Samsung's insanely popular Galaxy S4 is already on the market, but yesterday at Google I/O it was announced that the 'Google Edition' of the Galaxy S4 would come to America running stock Android!

   This phone will feature an unlocked bootloader, 16GB of internal storage as well as that SD card slot and there's LTE on board which Google say will work with T-Mobile and AT&T in the US. Otherwise though this is the same Galaxy S4 we know and love and you can see a full run down of the specs list here! 

   The particularly interesting thing about this phone is that Google have promised that it will receive 'prompt updates' with every new version of Android. The phone also is totally unlocked and that means that it is essentially a Nexus device. So far people seem to have been quite baffled by this device and why Google are even thinking about selling it. As far as we are concerned though this makes perfect sense.

   The way we think of it is as a device which helps manufacturers get software updates out faster. This is something which Google have been saying that they want to try to work on lately and if they have a quasi-Nexus device which they can push out stock Android to nice and quickly then your Samsung's, HTC's and whoever else makes a device with a Snapdragon 600 inside only need to re-skin the OS with their enhancements and then the software is ready to be released and theoretically this will make updates much quicker!

   If you're interested in one of these Nexus Galaxy S4's then you'll be able to get one on June the 26th if you live in the USA and you can order direct from Google Play. The device will set you back a lot more than the Nexus 4, but Samsung will obviously want to maintain their margins, so you'll be paying $649! At the moment there's no word on if or when this will come to Europe or Asia, we think it's likely, but we'll have to wait and see!

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More rugged Galaxy S4 details are discussed as Samsung extend warranties in Africa and they announce their Q1 earnings!

   This is a bit of a mish-mash this post because there's been a fair bit of news about Samsung and their devices today, but it's all about various different things and there's not really an obvious way to clump it all together!

   The best place to start is with a little update to the news we brought you yesterday that Samsung are rumoured to be working on a 'rugged' Galaxy S4. Well the Wall Street Journal have waded in with their opinion of the phone today and they have said that the rugged version of the phone is being tentatively labelled as the Glaxy S4 Active at the moment. According to their sources the device is looking good for a July release, but the WSJ didn't offer any details about possible carriers or countries of availability. 

   The WSJ also mention that there are a few more devices coming to the Galaxy line-up soon too! The paper explicitly mentioned a new 8" tablet is on the horizon, something which will be an intermediate device to the 7 and 10.1" tablets which will also be on offer. They also said that there is a Galaxy S4 Mini in the works and that will land in July with a 4.3" display! 

   The second part of today's news is that Samsung have announced some extended warranties for some African countries which we would love to see offered in our neck of the woods! Samsung have announced a new accidental damage warranty which gives you two free accidental repairs on anything! The offer is available in South Africa, Nigeria, Kenya, Ghana, Senegal, Sudan, Tanzania, Ethiopia, Namibia, Zambia, Mauritius, Uganda, Cote d’Ivorie, Angola, Botswana, and Mozambique. The deal is easy to take advantage of, all you need to do is make sure you register your Samsung device as soon as you buy it! Obviously after your two free accidental repairs you'll have to cough up the money to fix the phones yourself and there's a chance this warranty will be offered on a larger amount of Samsung's portfolio in the future!

   And finally, Samsung have announced their Q1 earnings results and it's looking pretty rosy overall for the Korean giants, but there's a little bit of a slow down. For example Sammy reported an nice big net profit increase of $6.4 billion, but that came with more of a slow down in growth, which is in part because of their competition on the mid and low-end phone markets. Let's not be under any illusions though, this is still a 42% growth year on year, if we compare it to the sales from Q1 2012.

    As you would probably have expected Samsung is building this growth from sales of their smartphones, with the only real competition coming from Apple at the moment. Samsung weren't prepared to offer up any exact numbers today, but people guess that Samsung shipped somewhere near 70 million devices in Q1 something which helped the company to a new high in earnings. They earnt 7.15 trillion won, which was up from 7.04 trillion Q4 2012! 

   Again the key area for Samsung was phones where they generated nearly three quarters of their profit from! The only bit of bad news for the company is possibly that they're struggling to get Galaxy S4's out of the factories at the moment, well at a rate which meets demand anyway, with . We expect Samsung to meet demand soon enough, but their fortunates are pinned heavily on the success of their mobile phones!

various carriers having delays on shipping times

Via TheVerge, GSMArena and Slashgear.

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Samsung Galaxy S4 press conference called for March the 14th!

   So it seems Samsung are busy little bees at the moment, what with their presence at MWC where they've already shown off their Homesync and announced that they're merging Bada and Tizen. Now though is we've got details on what you've really been waiting for!

   Samsung have confirmed that their 'Unpacked' announcement will happen on March the 14th this year over in New York!

   As you can see from the invite above Samsung will be introducing 'the next Galaxy' and for those of you who missed it there is the number 4 posted up in plain sight, so that should help alleviate the debate about what the Galaxy S4 will be called! 

   Thankfully for those of us who can't make the day there will be a livestream at www.youtube.com/SamsungMobile!

Via Twitter.

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19/07/2012

Nokia news!

   So it's been a while since Nokia and Microsoft tied the business knot and things haven't really changed that much when all things are told. Nokia is still hemorrhagging money and Microsoft's mobile share has stayed safely around the 4% of the smartphone market.

    But, that's not all that's been happening; we've seen Nokia's first set of handsets essentially passed into obsolescence with the introduction of Windows Phone 8. And all in all the picture isn't looking too rosy for the Finns.

   This morning, during the Nokia Q2 2012 financial results call, Nokia reported an operating loss of   a $1bn! And the company expects Q3 to be the same, plus or minus 4% depending on how well Windows Phone 7 holds up between now and Windows Phone 8 launching! There was also confirmation that Microsoft's 'platform support payments' continue to come in, giving Nokia slightly more than the royalties they pay Microsoft back. Microsoft's incentive is said to be €250m ($307m) per quarter, which at the very least keeps the cash flow going!

    Elop has, however, pledged to make everything better when the next Windows Phone version rolls around. He promised that, “As you see the next wave and the wave after that of Lumia products you’ll seen an increase in differentiations”. However, he also made a point of mentioning that not every new Nokia will be available through every carrier out there and we'll see how that pans out; the company only managed to ship 600,000 Lumia devices in North America and 4 million in total worldwide.

    He said that the small range of devices we've seen so far has only been because of the limited time period the company has had since their departure from Symbian and Meego and things will change in the future. Although, we can't help but feeling he's looking at this the wrong way and instead should aim for a flagship device and then fill in the mid-range with a cluster of devices!

In other news:

• RIM has confirmed that their BB10 Gold SDK will be finished for November for the developers to get their hands on a final version!
• Android devices out-sold the iPhone on Verizon again this quarter 2.9million to 2.7million. Android's growth in the US continues!
• Again it's been reported that Samsung and Apple have been sitting down for patent talks but there won't be anything agreed amicably.
• Huawei has announced UK availability and pricing of the slimline Ascend P1, the company's 7.69mm-thick Ice Cream Sandwich smartphone. The Ascend P1 will drop on Vodafone in early August, priced at free on a new, two-year agreement of £26 ($41) per month.
• Apple have, unsurprisingly, chosen to appeal the decision of the UK courts that would require them to place “an advertisement” for Samsung on their website which explicitly highlights the result of Apple's suing attempts. The appeal will bring the case to the court of appeal and will be heard by the same Judge, Judge Birss, that presided over the current case. If Samsung can make the ruling stick, which seems likely, then Apple will have to pay for sections in the Daily Mail, Financial Times, Guardian Mobile magazine, and T3 as well as displaying a notice on Apple.com that the Samsung tablet does not infringe on Apple’s registered designs. The news obviously didn't go down well in Cupertino!
• Windows 8 will officially be available on October 26, 2012.
• Qualcomm has admitted that they still have trouble providing enough S4 chips for smartphones, but the company is doing all they can to get that right in future!
• HTC is busily preparing a Jelly Bean update for the HTC Sensation XL and the HTC One S, so obviously we can expect all phones of both generations to be receiving similar updates!

   And finally, have you ever wondered why the Nexus 7 did without a rear camera? Here's your answer straight from Asus:

“Why is there no rear camera?

To make this device accessible to the widest possible market, price is very important. ASUS believes that for this device a good rear camera is important. Adding a high quality rear facing camera will increase the price point and many users would not have a use for it. Adding a lower quality rear facing camera would compromise on the overall user experience so the decision was made not to include a front facing camera therefore keeping the price down and user experience extremely high.” – ASUS

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