Hasta La Gadget!

Samsung has revealed its financial results for Q2 2012, and as expected it’s been a barnstorming quarter, with the Galaxy S III and Galaxy Note helping push operating profit up 79-percent to $5.9bn. Sales for the three month period rose 21-percent year-on-year to $42bn, with mobile specifically up 75-percent alone, though Samsung’s semiconductor business was a blot on the balance sheet with a 6-percent fall versus last year.

Samsung blamed that dip on a weak market with low seasonal demand for PCs, though said demand in mobile and servers was “relatively solid.” The company is looking to double-down on high value-added product sales, as well as accelerate sub-30nm migration in production processes.

As for the display panel business, panel demand was lower than Samsung had expected, but strong demand for LCD tablet panels helped drive market growth. OLED use increased as more smartphones adopted the technology, and the display business overall rose 16-percent year-on-year. Samsung’s TV division saw mid-single-digit year-on-year growth, the same as Q1 2012, but earnings increased from region-specific models including premium sets for the developed market and a broader range of cheaper options for those still emerging.

Mobile was the star, though, with smartphone demand increasing by low-single-digit quarter-on-quarter (though featurephone sales dipped in the same period). Shipments weren’t specified in exact numbers – though that hasn’t stopped analyst estimates – but smartphones grew and average selling price also rose. Samsung expects stronger performance in Q3 2012 with new products in both phone and tablet lines.

Full details in Samsung’s Q2 2012 presentation [pdf link].

Samsung records $5.9bn Q2 boosted by strong Galaxy S III sales is written by Chris Davies & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

The folks at Samsung have sent our invites to the press for a “major” Galaxy-line announcement on the 15th of August, fueling rumors that a second-generation Galaxy Note device is in the works. As Samsung has already announced and released their king of smartphones, the Galaxy S III, it’s time for their queen, if you might call it that, of devices in either the Galaxy Tab or the Galaxy Note line to appear. One might also hypothesize that it could be a combination of the two.

On the other hand, Samsung has just pushed forward their USA version of the Samsung Music Hub which might mean they’re getting ready for more in-device content delivery. Generally the word “major” in a press announcement from a hardware company, though, means a brand new device.

Have a peek at our portals for the following to see if you can track down what Samsung is getting at:

• Samsung Galaxy Tab
• Samsung Galaxy S III
• Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1
• Samsung Galaxy Note

Or perhaps it’s something we’ve never seen before at all! Stick around here with SlashGear to follow this epic event as it unfolds!

Samsung sets Major Galaxy announcement for August 15th is written by Chris Burns & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Sky has extended support for its Sky Go on-demand and streaming TV Android app to a further three Samsung smartphones, including the latest flagship Galaxy S III. The new update brings Sky Go – a free service to existing Sky subscribers – to the Galaxy Nexus and the Galaxy Note as well, joining the existing support for a clutch of HTC phones.

One proviso is that your handset must be running Ice Cream Sandwich, Sky says. If you’ve been holding off on the upgrade to your Galaxy Note, now might be a good time to load up Kies and install it.

Sky Go allows subscribers to register two devices to their account, and in addition to Android phones there’s support for PC, Mac, iPad, iPhone and iPod touch access. The service includes access to the five Sky Sports channels, Sky Sports F1, EUROSPORT and ESPN, 11 Sky Movies channels, Sky News and Sky entertainment channels.

Meanwhile, on-demand access to movies and other content is also bundled. You can download the Android app here.

Full list of supported handsets:

• HTC Desire
• HTC Desire S
• HTC Desire HD
• HTC Incredible S
• HTC Sensation
• HTC Sensation XE
• Samsung Galaxy S
• Samsung Galaxy S2
• Samsung Galaxy S3
• Samsung Galaxy Note
• Galaxy Nexus

Sky Go hits Galaxy S III, Galaxy Nexus and Galaxy Note is written by Chris Davies & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

This week the T-Mobile Samsung Galaxy Note has been revealed with a bow on it, showing off its own unique selection of carrier-added apps and the same fabulous S-Pen as the original. This device has been released internationally as well as on AT&T’s 4G LTE network, while this newest release, set for later this summer, will be coming with T-Mobile’s 4G – that being HSPA+, not quite LTE. T-Mobile has announced that this device will be popping up with Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich right out of the box in “the coming weeks” with a specific date showing its face much sooner than that.

This device will be coming with a surprise engine: the Qualcomm Snapdragon S3 dual-core processor at 1.5GHz. While we may have expected Samsung to have upgraded to the same Snapdragon S4 that their Galaxy S III lineup is coming fresh with this season, it’s also quite clear that the Galaxy Note is running swift as it needs to with only the pre-S4 under the hood.

T-Mobile’s own lineup of apps includes everything they’d normally drop inside as far as data and content handlers plus gems such as Square, Dropbox, Evernote, and CamScanner. The last app on that list, CamScanner, is an app quick uses your device’s camera to snap photos that are then converted into PDFs. This can be extremely useful with the Galaxy Note’s newfound ability to interact with PDFs in its “Premium Suite” upgrade which we got our hands on just this past week.

Have a peek below at the video of the Premium Suite working on the AT&T version of this device:

And get pumped for the T-Mobile version with such fabulous carrier additions as Wi-fi phone calls for this device coming up quick!

T-Mobile Galaxy Note to add Dropbox and Wi-fi calls is written by Chris Burns & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Due to numerous marketing materials, FCC documents and other leaks, T-Mobile hasn’t exactly made it a secret that the Samsung Galaxy Note would be coming to its network sometime soon. We’ve been begging the company to just come clean about it and confirm the inevitable, and a spokesperson has finally pulled the trigger, announcing on Twitter that it indeed is going to be coming to the lineup. This is unfortunately all the carrier is willing to divulge at this time, however, as we were told in a separate email that it will have “more details to share in the coming weeks.” We’re now strongly considering a pool on whether or not it’ll arrive before a rumored sequel is announced.

Update: We’ve now received official PR, it’s after the break. It promises an out of the box experience that includes Android 4.0 ICS, HSPA+ 42, 1.5GHz dual-core Snapdragon S3 CPU and the Premium Suite software upgrades — pretty much what you’d expect, although there’s still nothing in the way of a release date or pricing.

[Thanks, Ramon]

Continue reading T-Mobile officially confirms Samsung Galaxy Note, more details in coming weeks (Update: Official PR!)

Filed under: Cellphones, Wireless

T-Mobile officially confirms Samsung Galaxy Note, more details in coming weeks (Update: Official PR!) originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 16 Jul 2012 13:38:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |  Twitter  | Email this | Comments