Couldn’t make it out to Berlin for Samsung’s Unpacked event? No worries — Sammy has re-packed its deluge of tablets, phones and Android-powered cameras for your viewing pleasure. Go ahead and relive Sammy’s self-proclaimed magic at the outfit’s Facebook page or with the embedded video after the break.
We had a busy day at IFA 2012, thanks in no small part to Samsung, which had a ton of announcements for its Unpacked presentation. In the weeks leading up to IFA 2012, we had a feeling that Samsung would reveal the Galaxy Note II, the follow-up to the successful Galaxy Note. Sure enough Samsung made the Galaxy Note II official during Unpacked, just as we were suspecting.
Samsung’s Galaxy Note II may have some slick new hardware, but it’s software where the company is making its most significant changes to everyday usability. Two of the biggest enhancements are Air View and Quick Command, using a combination of the S Pen digital stylus and gesture recognition, and taking advantage of Wacom’s active digitizer technology. Head on past the cut for a video demo.
Air View also works with contacts – showing phone number, email and other details when you hover over entries in your address book – and messages, along with calendar entries and content in other apps. When you’re playing back video, meanwhile, you can trace the nib across the timeline and see thumbnails of the coming scenes, which makes a big difference in finding a particular spot. Windows pen-enabled tablets have long used stylus hover to mimic hovering the mouse pointer over something without necessarily clicking, and it’s a welcome improvement to the Note II’s interface.
Galaxy Note II Air View and Quick Command hands-on:
Quick Command is a mashup of sketched shortcuts and quick launching: hold down the barrel button on the side of the S Pen, swipe up the screen, and the dialog loads. Samsung’s most proud of how it can be used to flick off a speedy email – handwrite “@ Simon” and a quick note, and a new mail opens up addressed to “Simon” and with the message pasted into the body; if you have more than one Simon in your contacts, you’re presented with a list of the options. Unfortunately it can’t be used with Google’s Gmail app, only Samsung’s customized Mail version, though other S Pen improvements will be opened up to third-party developers when v2.2 of the SDK is released on August 30.
Other features of Quick Command include settings toggling or loading other apps, such as drawing an equals sign to boot up the calculator, and you can create your own with your choice of shortcut sketches. What’s not clear is how much of the new S Pen functionality will be brought to the original Note, Samsung telling us that hardware differences will mean only select features will be ported back.
Sony took some time at IFA 2012 today to announce its latest home projector. Dubbed the VPL-HW50ES, this latest full HD 3D projector is the follow-up to the VPL-HW30ES, and as such, it makes a number of improvements over the older model. Because of these new improvements, Sony says that the VPL-HW50ES “sits at the forefront of advanced Home Cinema Projection,” so we’re expecting something pretty big with this latest projector.
One of the projector’s most noteworthy features is its utilization of Sony’s Reality Creation technology, which made its debut in the VPL-VW1000ES 4K home cinema projector. Reality Creation allows the projector to restore any information that was lost as the original video was copied to the disc the end users purchase, which means that users get a full HD picture without losing any color or image quality.
The VPL-HW50ES is capable of 1,700lm brightness, with Sony making improvements to bulb efficiency and utilizing a “Bright Cinema and TV” mode to be able to boast a 30% brightness increase over the VPL-HW30ES. The projector also boasts a 100,000:1 dynamic contrast ratio, thanks in part to Sony’s contrast enhancer technology, which changes the contrast on the fly depending on how dark or bright the scene on screen is. Sony is also offering a number of functionality upgrades with the VPL-HW50ES, including a built-in 3D transmitter, a V shift range of +- 71%, and a maximum output noise of 21db.
The VPL-HW50ES should launch across Europe by the end of October, and when it arrives, it will be available in the different colors – black and white – pictured above. We don’t have any pricing details just yet, but don’t expect it to be cheap, as this model’s predecessor, the VPL-HW30ES, came with an MSRP of $3,699. Keep an ear to SlashGear, because we’ll have that pricing information for you right here once Sony parts with more details.
Well folks, today marks the first major day of IFA 2012 over in Berlin, Germany, and we had tons of exciting and worthwhile news from Sony, Samsung and multiple others. For those that missed the bulk of the news in the early hours this morning we have a full breakdown of Sony’s IFA aspirations. From 84″ TV’s to Android tablets and more. Check it out below.
Now obviously Sony has tons of products on display for IFA 2012, so we’re just going to round up and mention a few of the important product launches that stood out the most this morning. That all starts with their new 84″ 4K Bavia HDTV. Yup they just launched their first 4K TV and it comes in at a massively impressive 84″ with a resolution of 3,840 x 2,160. It upscales everything into 4K and even has some passive 3D features for that crowd too. It’ll be expensive and hit stores sometime early September. Who’s buying?
Next up we wanted to talk mobile considering Sony’s been slowly but surely getting more popular in the smartphone market. Today Sony rebranded their tablet line into the XPERIA name and launched a new and improved Sony Xperia Tablet S. It rocks a quad-core Tegra 3 processor and Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich all for $399. Next up was smartphone and Sony had a new range of three smartphones. The top-tier Xperia T, then they also launched an Xperia V and a budget friendly J.
That was then followed by a brand new Microsoft Surface competitor with their new Windows 8 convertible PC called the Sony VAIO Duo 11 tablet. The picture above should explain plenty otherwise hit the link for Sony’s take on a Surface-like Windows 8 tablet PC. It rocks a Core i7 processor, 4GB of RAM and up to 256GB SSD options. Not bad right?
Then to round off a few more interesting aspects of Sony’s day we have a personalized 3D headset called the Sony HMZ-T2 Personal 3D viewer. This unit is designed to give users a personal, private, and unique perspective of 3D content and looks rather interesting. We’ll be hearing more on that soon I’m sure. Lastly they showed off a few NFC-capable Bluetooth wireless speaker systems that will work with the above Xperia tablet and smartphones. Simply tap the device to the speaker and NFC will enable music playback and start right off from your last played favorite track. This is music enjoyment in its simplest form. Last but not least they announced a micro action cam to take on the GoPro called the Sony Action Cam.
We will have plenty more coverage from Sony, and everything else at this years IFA 2012 event so stay tuned and don’t forget to stop by our IFA 2012 Hub.
Samsung‘s cheapest new Windows tablet for IFA is arguably its most interesting: no removable keyboard, but Windows RT on an incredibly lightweight form factor. Strongly reminiscent of Samsung’s Android tablets – no great surprise there, really – it’s a well-made and impressively slim slate with a tactile brushed aluminum rear panel that feels great in the hands.
Inside there’s a Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 processor speeding at 1.5GHz, paired with 2GB of RAM; no sign of a Windows RT slate running Samsung’s own Exynos chips yet. As with the ATIV Smart PC and Smart PC Pro there’s both rear and front-facing cameras, though the quality on the latter was very poor.
The biggest drawback we could see was the absence of a stylus. Samsung is including its S Pen with the Note II, Note 10.1, and the two Windows 8 tablets, with note sync across all of them, but the ATIV Tab makes do with 10-point multitouch. True, for many tableteers that won’t be an issue, but it’s a disappointing omission in what was shaping up to be an impressively cohesive range.
Still, as Windows slates shape up, the ATIV Tab is looking to be a solid contender. Screen quality is on a par with the rich, bright and color-saturated Android models in Samsung’s range, and we can’t argue with the speed at which the Snapdragon runs. We like Samsung’s array of ports, too: the micro-HDMI output is a useful addition, as is the USB for plugging in a keyboard and mouse.
Price will be the deciding factor, and that’s still to be announced. If Samsung can match – or preferably undercut – the new iPad then it stands a chance of swaying users who might have bypassed Android for its patchy tablet app support and unfamiliarity with the standard PC desktop.
Samsung‘s second ATIV Smart PC hybrid, the Smart PC Pro, is the more serious of the Windows 8 docking pair, packing a more powerful processor but giving up battery life along the way. Under the hoot is an Intel Core i5 CPU with 4GB of RAM and up to a 256GB SSD, while runtimes are up to 8hrs. Read on for our first-impressions.
At first glance it would be easy to mistake the Smart PC and Smart PC Pro, though the latter is slightly thicker and – when you snap the slate out of the keyboard dock – noticeably heavier in the hand. It still has an S Pen for digital handwriting and sketching (Samsung unfortunately didn’t leave a stylus to hand to actually test) but you now get a 1080p display, which is bright and colorful (though still falls short of the resolution on, say, the new iPad).
The power under the hood pays dividends, though. Apps loaded quickly and we were able to flick between them with no lag, though the software isn’t final; we couldn’t get screen rotation to work, and we couldn’t write S Note memos with our fingertip.
The keyboard is perhaps the weakest point. Key travel is unsurprisingly shallow, which isn’t a deal-breaker, but the light weight of the ‘board means the Smart PC Pro is prone to rocking back from the weight of the top section. Add to that the somewhat plasticky feel, which is less tactile than the slate part.
Of course, “more serious” also means “more expensive” and the ATIV Smart PC Pro carries a heavy premium over its more humble sibling. Samsung will be asking $1,119 for the tablet with a 128GB SSD when it hits shelves on October 26 in the US.
We’ve seen the ins and outs of Samsung’s first Android-based digital camera, but how about an outer shell? You likely won’t be transporting this junbo point-and-shoot in your pocket, making a variety of protective options a necessity. First up is the Flip Cover — a camera-friendly variant of the Galaxy original, with a slide-in design and a large protective flap to cover up the LCD. There’s also a full-on carrying case, which slips open to reveal the lens while offering a bit more protection. And, if you’re going au naturel, you’ll want to suit up with a wrist strap at the very least, offering a bit of insurance against potential slips and spills. We don’t have pricing and availability info to share, but like the camera itself, it looks like there’s a bunch of color configurations to choose from, all pictured in the gallery below.
Samsung’s Windows 8 range was a surprise addition to the IFA 2012 line-up, kicking off with the ATIV smart PC. A hybrid tablet/notebook following in ASUS’ Transformer footsteps by pairing a slate “brains” section with a detachable keyboard dock, the ATIV Smart PC runs Windows 8 and impressively promises up to 13.5hrs of battery life. We grabbed some hands-on time.
The similarities with Samsung’s Android range is clear, though the ATIV Smart PC is a little heavier than the Android slate norm. The touchscreen – which recognizes up to 10-point multitouch – was swift and responsive, though, whipping through the Metro-style Windows 8 homescreen neatly, and revealing a section of new Samsung apps including S Note.
That works with the Samsung S Pen – just as with the Note II, Samsung has used an active digitizer and a special stylus, which docks into a silo on the side of the slate – for handwritten notes and annotations. Unfortunately that pen wasn’t present in Samsung’s demo unit, but the concept is the same as we’ve seen on the Android phablet, and notes will actually synchronize between the two despite the different platforms.
Detached – something of a struggle on these prototype units, but an aspect Samsung promises will be made easier in retail versions – the slate section supports portrait and landscape orientation use, flipping automatically between the two. There was some lag noticeable in actually using apps, though it’s unclear if that’s down to the Intel Atom processor or the pre-final software.
Still, that processor helps keep runtime so long, which is essential if the ATIV Smart PC is to compete with Apple’s iPad. Samsung is betting that enough users will want to do content creation with their tablet to make the extra bulk worthwhile (and ignore what’s a plasticky and fingerprint-prone casing). Whether that will hold true with a $649 starting price (or from $749 with the keyboard dock) when it lands in the US on October 26 remains to be seen.
While up on stage for their Unpacked event Samsung hasn’t wasted any time announcing a slew of new devices. What you’ll see next is their new Smart PC. With an 11.6-inch HD display tablet that combines into a very Transformer-like keyboard dock this PC offers both a portable and a full keyboard typing experience.
Let’s forget a minute that Samsung just got sued by Apple and look at just how extremely similar that picture above is to the ASUS Transformer and Transformer Prime Android tablets. Moving on! The Samsung ATIV Smart PC and Smart PC PRO are similar to the earlier announced ARM Windows RT model — only will offer the full experience.
With a fully detachable keyboard, S-Pen stylus input and more these tablets that double as laptops will be compatible with both the upcoming Windows 8, as well as the older and still extremely popular Windows 7. The 11.6-inch display only comes with a 1366 x 768 resolution but the rest of the specs are quite nice.
The Smart PC comes with a lower Intel ATOM processor, 3G/4G capabilities, 2GB of RAM, HDMI-out, 128GB storage, and an 8 megapixel camera all running for about 13 hours according to Samsung. The beefier ATIV Smart PC Pro however comes with a much improved Intel Core i5 processor, 4GB of RAM, 256 GB SSD, 1080p HD display, USB 2.0 and 3.0 as well as HDMI-out. It does suffer in battery life and a smaller 5 megapixel camera though.
Samsung hasn’t unveiled any official pricing or release date details but surely they’ll be coming along here shortly. With Windows 8 not arriving til the tail end of October we are hopeful for a mid September launch. Stay tuned for our hands-on coming up momentarily.
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