Hasta La Gadget!

Things aren’t all Champagne and caviar over at American Airlines, not that you’d know it from the company’s latest press release. The Dallas-based air carrier just shared a plan to outfit all of its flight attendants with Samsung Galaxy Notes beginning later this year. The rollout will continue through the middle of 2013, at which point each of the airline’s 17,000 cabin crew members will have their very own “tablet,” which they’ll use to manage flight manifests, track premium passenger meal preferences and monitor weather and gate information in real-time, on WiFi-equipped flights. Eventually, the handsets will also include the flight attendant manual, along with additional features, such as processing for in-flight meal and drink purchases (pending FAA approval).

Though the Galaxy Note II will likely be available by the time the program begins, the press release references a 5.3-inch display, which would imply the previous-gen handset. Sadly, this Note of excitement comes alongside news that some 11,000 American mechanics and ground workers could get a pink slip come November — as frequent air travelers ourselves, we’re genuinely sorry to hear that, and we don’t want any gadget to overshadow the airline’s ongoing troubles and the unfortunate fate of hardworking employees. You can catch that angle at the coverage link below, then read all about the Note program just after the break.

Continue reading American Airlines to hand out Galaxy Note ‘tablets’ to 17,000 flight attendants (video)

Filed under: Cellphones, Transportation

American Airlines to hand out Galaxy Note ‘tablets’ to 17,000 flight attendants (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 19 Sep 2012 12:40:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Samsung has just announced some excellent news folks. We had a feeling this was coming but this morning Samsung’s confirmed their new and impressive Galaxy Note II smartphone phablet will be arriving on all major US carriers, starting in November. The Galaxy Note II will launch nationwide on all carriers just like the smaller Galaxy S III.

Possibly even bigger news is the fact that the Samsung’s own Exynos quad-core processor will be included. Samsung won’t be switching to the dual-core Qualcomm S4 like the Galaxy S III, and all Note II’s will launch in the US with the quad-core processor, 2GB of RAM, and 4G LTE/HSPA+ speeds. We had a feeling Samsung would be taking this route, and now that they’ve confirmed it I’m sure there’s plenty of happy customers.

We’ve seen the Note II leak for Verizon, and some recent screenshots seemingly confirmed it was headed to T-Mobile too. Many that wanted the original Note couldn’t simply because it launched exclusively to AT&T here in the US, but this time around almost everyone will get a chance to own this massive 5.5-inch HD Super AMOLED packing phablet.

Samsung has confirmed the Galaxy Note II will be arriving for Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile, The Now Network, and US Cellular all by mid November. They say the devices will launch by mid November, so that means we very well could see it arrive in October for some if the carriers get them ready to rock in time. Just like the original Galaxy Note II announced last month at IFA 2012, the US models will come with the exact same specs. Those include that vibrant 5.5-inch HD Super AMOLED display (1280x720p), Samsung’s 1.6 GHz quad-core processor, 2GB of RAM, 8 megapixel rear and 1.9 MP front cameras, 16GB storage, the awesome S-Pen stylus and a massive 3,100 mAh battery.

The Galaxy Note II will be Samsung’s first smartphone to ship with Android 4.1 Jelly Bean out of the gate, and they stated carriers will be announcing exact dates and pricing details soon, so stay tuned! Oh and since they’ll be the same hardware wise, take a peek at our international model hands-on video below.

Samsung Galaxy Note II announced for all major US carriers is written by Cory Gunther & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Each week Ross Rubin contributes Switched On, a column about consumer technology.

For many products — TVs and the iPod, for example — the leap to color displays represented an evolutionary change. But color was just part of the big leap that Amazon made with the Kindle Fire, moving from a reading appliance to a converged device. There was no couching it as “a reader’s tablet”, the positioning Barnes & Noble had sought with the Nook, even though Amazon now claims that it has the “best content ecosystem.” Still, as discussed two weeks ago in Switched On, Amazon still managed to fly well under Apple’s radar with an inexpensive, smaller tablet, one that broke a “magic” price point of $200.

Continue reading Switched On: Low flame

Filed under: Tablets

Switched On: Low flame originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 10 Sep 2012 17:01:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Now that the second-gen Note is finally out of Samsung’s precious (and teasing) bag, we’re learning more and more about the exorbitant device — not to say we weren’t expecting this to be the case, however. Still, we were rather intrigued by the distinct Galaxy Note II pictured above, which, by the looks it, comes pre-loaded with dual-SIM capabilities, and thus makes this particular unit slightly different than that one unit we played with back at IFA. Although details are still very scarce at the moment, rumor has it the dual-SIM Note will only be available in China and, aside from the slot additions, all other features the famed phablet offers appear to be exactly the same. Feel free to check out the source below for more pics, but don’t expect anything too exciting or out of the ordinary — unless, of course, extra SIM slots are your thing.

Filed under: Cellphones, Mobile

Samsung Galaxy Note II with dual-SIM capabilities gets spotted in the wild originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 08 Sep 2012 00:48:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Your smartphone and / or tablet is just begging for an update. From time to time, these mobile devices are blessed with maintenance refreshes, bug fixes, custom ROMs and anything in between, and so many of them are floating around that it’s easy for a sizable chunk to get lost in the mix. To make sure they don’t escape without notice, we’ve gathered every possible update, hack, and other miscellaneous tomfoolery we could find during the last week and crammed them into one convenient roundup. If you find something available for your device, please give us a shout at tips at engadget dawt com and let us know. Enjoy!

Continue reading Refresh Roundup: week of August 27th, 2012

Filed under: Cellphones, Tablets, Software, Mobile

Refresh Roundup: week of August 27th, 2012 originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 02 Sep 2012 21:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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