Hasta La Gadget!

Yes, that fateful day is upon us, the Samsung Fascinate has made its debut on Verizon’s online store pages, and it’s arrived with a quite unusual (for a top tier handset) sweetener. When buying one Fascinate, you’re given the option to obtain a second one for free. Well, the hardware would be free, you’d need two-year commitments on both phones with a minimum monthly data plan of $29.99 a piece, but it’s still the nicest thing Verizon’s done for us since it started throwing out free Pixi Pluses with purchases of Palm’s webOS handsets. You should also bear in mind your initial outlay here is a quite lofty $400, with two separate $100 mail-in rebates bringing the cost down. So it’s free in pecuniary terms, but probably not free of headaches.

[Thanks, Mike]

Verizon sweetens Samsung Fascinate deal with Buy One Get One Free offer originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 08 Sep 2010 02:31:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |  Verizon  | Email this | Comments

By now you’ve probably seen the reviews of the other Galaxy S phones — the Epic 4G, Captivate, or Vibrant — or at least gotten an idea of what Samsung’s push into the Android market is all about in 2010. After hitting every other major US carrier with like-minded devices, the company has finally seen fit to unleash the Fascinate on Verizon. Up until this point, the Android offerings on Big Red’s network have been varied, but not all particularly attractive beyond the Droid lineup. The Fascinate is arguably the first handset that gives something like the Droid X or the Incredible a proper run for its money. Of course, those are pretty high stakes in game that changes on an almost daily basis, and Samsung’s options are not without their… idiosyncrasies. That truth is nowhere more pronounced than on its latest handset. So is the company poised to hit the market where it hurts with this final puzzle piece, or is this an incomplete picture? Read on to find out in our full review of the Samsung Fascinate!

Continue reading Samsung Fascinate review

Samsung Fascinate review originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 07 Sep 2010 15:27:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |   | Email this | Comments

The Samsung Galaxy Tab certainly looks like it’s going to be a pretty sweet little tablet, but man — Samsung really needs to hire some better Korean-to-English translators. Hot on the heels of the charmingly obtuse T-Mobile Vibrant (“A Twitter approaches to synchronising data to allow access to your status”), Sammy’s new Galaxy Tab promo site is a virtual treasure trove of almost-but-not-quite English, starting with a launch animation that offers you “More relief on the go” straight through to a video call demo that suggests you and a co-worker share a “cosy time.” Uh, no thanks. Greatest hits in the gallery below.

The Samsung Galaxy Tab: more relief on the go originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 02 Sep 2010 13:23:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |  Samsung Galaxy Tab  | Email this | Comments

We told you it was coming, now the Samsung Epic 4G is on sale at Sprint for a cool $249.99 plus two year life commitment. In other words, it’s time to let Sprint know whether this Galaxy S variant (with — gasp — working GPS) is worth the $50 premium over HTC’s EVO 4G. Well, is it?

Update: As usual, Amazon’s offering a discount showing a $199.99 listing for new contracts. It still shows a pre-order status (with 2-3 weeks ship time) but that’s likely to change any minute now.

[Thanks, Jonathan P. and Jason J.]

Samsung Epic 4G now on sale at Sprint (update: save $50 at Amazon) originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 31 Aug 2010 04:15:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |  Sprint  | Email this | Comments

Samsung’s bet on Android seems to have paid off big for the company. Samsung has shipped more than one million Galaxy S phones in the U.S. since the devices were launched in mid-July.

The news makes the Galaxy S devices one of the hottest Android phones available today, though the smartphones haven’t reached iPhone-like popularity yet. Apple sold 1.7 million iPhone 4 devices in just the first three days of sales in June. Though official numbers for the Droid weren’t released, analytics firm Flurry estimates 1.05 million Droid phones were sold in 74 days.

So far, Samsung has two models of the Galaxy S phones, Samsung Vibrant and Samsung Captivate, available on T-Mobile and AT&T respectively. But two more Galaxy S devices are expected to debut soon–Samsung Epic 4G on Sprint and Samsung Fascinate on Verizon Wireless.

Common to all these devices are features such as AMOLED display, a 1GHz processor called ‘Hummingbird’ and entertainment apps. Samsung says all Galaxy S devices will be upgraded to Android 2.2 Froyo operating system.

It will be interesting to see if the Galaxy S phones can topple Motorola Droid as the best-selling Android phone. Motorola recently launched Droid 2 on Verizon Wireless. Though HTC’s Evo has been a big hit on Sprint and Sprint has called a best-seller on the network, the two companies have never disclosed exactly how many Evos have been sold till date. The Evo has also suffered from shortages and a recent estimate suggests that only 300,000 Evo phones had been sold as of mid-July.

Samsung’s Epic 4G, which is scheduled to be available on Sprint starting August 31, could give the Evo some real competition, though it remains to be seen if the device can do better than the Evo.

Meanwhile, Samsung is gearing up to launch a 7-inch tablet in September called the ‘Galaxy Tab’. The tablet will run Android 2.2 Froyo OS, include video-calling capability and full web browsing—which likely means support for Flash, according to a teaser video that Samsung posted last week.

See Also:

• Motorola Droid Rules Android
• Samsung Android Phone Captivates AT&T
• Bloatware Creeps Into Android Phones
• Why You Should Avoid Phones With Android Skins

Photo: Samsung Vibrant (Stefan Armijo/Wired.com)