When I was a kid, I was obsessed with technology. Any product I could get my hands on, I would use. And when I had a chance to pick up a game console, you can bet I was rushing to the stores to get one. Technology ruled much of my childhood.
Still, I was able to handle the real world. I could converse with both kids and adults, and I was engaged enough in school to know that there was a time and place for my technology. I also understood that getting too obsessed with tech could make me socially awkward, which prompted me to question how much time I should be spending around it.
In other words, as tech-obsessed as I might have been, I think I had a healthy relationship with gadgets.
At a July 4 party, however, I came to realize that kids today have a much different experience with technology. When I was a kid, having a cell phone in high school was unheard of. At this recent party, which was attended by kids of all ages, even the 4-year-old was holding an iPod touch and texting her sister.
Every kid at the party was holding a smartphone or iPod rouch, and they were either playing games on it or texting their friends. At no point did they look up to see what was happening at the party, and when asked a question, they would wait to finish their text message before answering it. The adults in the room were understandably displeased by the behavior, but as the parents put it – “it’s their generation.”
If that’s the case, I’m worried about that generation. During dinner, we were all sitting at the table, having a nice discussion. I look over and see two of the older kids laughing with their phones in their hand. I asked what was up, and they promptly told me that they were texting each other from across the table. Rather than have a real conversation, they opted to type it from five feet apart.
“In the old days, if a kid was bullied, it wasn’t recorded”
Of course, it’s not just the kids who were at that party. A quick search on YouTube reveals countless videos of kids taking videos in school. An overwhelming number of those videos shows kids being ridiculed or bullied in some way. In the old days, if a kid was bullied, it wasn’t recorded. Now, the whole school sees what’s happening.
And since most devices today contain cameras and the ability to capture video, students are finding themselves in compromising positions when they send photos of themselves to others that are quickly sent around the school to fellow students.
Unfortunately, I think we’ve taken a hands-off approach to this growing, dangerous relationship between technology and kids. Most device makers realize that children are a key revenue generator, and parents are content today to placate their kids, rather than explain to them that having real conversations and acting like a human being is actually a better thing.
When I was a kid, the only time you saw a child with that zoned-out look on his or her face, they were playing a video game. And in many cases, parents were alarmed by it and told them it was time to go outside and play.
Nowadays, I see it wherever I go. And parents, shockingly enough, have the same look on their faces.
After all, if you want to talk to your kids nowadays, the best way is to text them, right?
If the signs of Motorola’s upcoming Droid refresh weren’t clear enough already, an in-the-flesh photo of what’s said to be the Droid Ultra XT1080 has surfaced on the XDA Developers forum, courtesy of xavierk75. Not only do an FCC filing and accompanying rumors peg the XT1080 as a Maxx variant with a beefier battery, but the picture lines up with the kevlar enclosure and trio of capacitive buttons shown in a press shot posted by @evleaks. Thanks to the device’s examination by Uncle Sam, we know that it carries radios for Verizon-friendly LTE, EV-DO Rev. A and WCDMA (850/900/1900/2100), in addition to NFC, Bluetooth 4.0 and WiFi 802.11ac, to boot. Once again, specs are still MIA, but they — or an official reveal — can’t be far off at this point.
BlackBerry needs a new smartphone for the mass market, and the BlackBerry Q5 is its attempt to deliver. Cheaper than the Q10, though offering another sturdy QWERTY keyboard for text-addicts, the Q5 pares back the specifications (and, it has to be said, the design) to boost the BlackBerry 10 line-up by 50-percent. Is it third time lucky for the plucky Canadian company, or three strikes and you’re out? Read on for the SlashGear review.
Hardware
We criticized the Z10 and Q10 before it as restrained and relatively uninspired in their design; the BlackBerry Q5 elevates those qualities to new levels of blandness. Where the Q10 had, at least, its curvaceous corners and sturdy, bracing struts delineating the QWERTY rows, the Q5 gets none of that. Blunt edged, the matte plastic errs on the bland side of sturdy, and there’s a little more creak to the casing than we’d like to see, given the back panel is non-removable. The color variants – which BlackBerry didn’t have for us to review – look better than the black.
The physical keyboard is clicky and easy to type on, the tiny keys themselves more separated than those on the Q10, but no less flex-free. Above is another 3.1-inch, 720 x 720 touchscreen, though here using an LCD TFT panel rather than the Q10′s Super AMOLED. It’s a solid panel, though, with the pixel density high enough to make it pleasingly detailed to the eye. Unlike on the Q10, meanwhile, the BlackBerry logo has been shifted in-between ‘board and display, meaning there’s more room for your finger to swipe up, starting off the bottom edge of the touchscreen, and dismiss apps. That was tricky to do on the Q10 at times, given the comparatively narrow gap on that phone.
The volume and mute keys run along the right edge, while the lock/power button – a lone lozenge of chrome – is on the top, by the 3.5mm headphones jack. The microUSB port is on the left edge, above a hatching hiding both SIM and microSD slots, the latter good for adding up to 64GB to the Q5′s 8GB of onboard storage, half what you’d get on a Q10 (and only half of which is actually free, once the OS has had its way). The processor is slower, too, a 1.2GHz dual-core, though still paired with 2GB of RAM. We had no issues with the speed the Q5 moves at in most tasks.
On the back, there’s a 5-megapixel autofocus camera with an f/2.4 lens and 1080p HD video recording. A 2-megapixel fixed-focus camera is above the display, good for up to 720p HD video, and by the traditional red notification LED. Inside, there’s quadband LTE and HSPA+ (up to 42Mbps), along with quadband GSM/EDGE, WiFi b/g/n (2.4GHz only), and Bluetooth 4.0. GPS and NFC are included, together with an accelerometer, digital compass, proximity sensor, gyroscope, and an ambient light sensor. No HDMI port, however, though there’s DLNA streaming if your TV is network-connected.
Software
BlackBerry 10.1 makes its second appearance on the Q5, the slightly modified version of BlackBerry’s QNX-based platform. For the most part, it’s unchanged from the platform we reviewed comprehensively back in our original Z10 review, which we’d recommend reading first. For the QWERTY devices, however, 10.1 throws in support for universal search and some other keyboard-centric tweaks.
For instance, start typing “Text XYZ” and you’ll have the option to send a text message to a contact of that name, as well as seeing any search results for the phrase. “Tweet XYZ” throws out a new Twitter message, and you can do the same with Facebook.
BlackBerry 10′s main conceit is the unified inbox and the way it pipes its notifications to you. Swipe all the way to the left and you’ll find an homogenized mailbox containing email, Twitter, and other messages, though it’s also possible to view them on a per-account basis. When the red light starts blinking, you can swipe up and across the display to “peek” at the notification bar, which shows how many new calls, messages, and other alerts you have; finish the swipe and you’ll rocket to the inbox itself to read them.
It works, though its charm is very much dependent on what device you were using before. BlackBerry 7 device owners will probably enjoy the greater detail as to what’s new, having been used to just the red LED before. Those coming from Android or iOS, however, will likely find the pull-down notification bars of each platform offer more in the way of information than BlackBerry 10′s system. In short, it works, but it doesn’t really work any better than anything else.
It’s a similar story in the camera app, which has the Time Shift photo system – allowing you to piece faces from multiple frames into a single shot, getting everybody’s expression right in the process – BlackBerry is so keen to talk about, but which we’ve seen on Nokia and HTC devices too. Story Maker is a neat way to package up several images with Instagram-style filters and a background track but, aside from the novelty of being able to pick your own music, HTC’s automatic Highlight reel on the One is arguably more gratifying.
BlackBerry Messenger has long been the company’s wildcard, the popular IM service which demanded a BlackBerry handset in order to participate in. BBM hasn’t been slow to see updates, however, too, including Screen Share to show your IM friends exactly what’s going on (though they can’t take control of the phone to, say, walk you through a presentation or game) and video chatting. In the coming months, though, BBM will be released for iOS and Android, and while the apps won’t have all the BlackBerry 10 features to begin with, that seems only a matter of time.
If it sounds like we’re being hard on BlackBerry 10, there’s a caveat. The OS isn’t bad, certainly – the multitasker interface, which shrinks apps down to thumbnails that can still show some key, live-updating information, is neat – but neither does it offer most users a compelling advantage over more established platforms from Google and Apple. Meanwhile, the BlackBerry World app store is still lacking the breadth of titles its rivals boast, and while the situation is improving, too many of them are juddering Android ports rather than native code. It’s a bind Microsoft finds itself in, to a similar extent, with Windows Phone, but we’d argue Windows Phone is more approachable for new smartphone users than BlackBerry 10 is.
Camera
BlackBerry had to cut some specifications somewhere on the Q5, and the camera is perhaps the most obvious place that has happened. 5-megapixels (versus the 8-megapixels of the Q10) puts it pretty much on a par with the mid-range smartphone norm, with an LED flash and 1080p video recording.
The Q5′s camera app loads quickly – unless you’re triggering it from the shortcut on the lockscreen, which demands you hold the icon down and then wait just long enough to usually miss your photo opportunity – and the touch-autofocus works swiftly too, as long as you remember to tap and hold (since just tapping takes the photo). The volume-down key also works as shutter-release, complete with a loud sound-effect that can’t be turned off.
In fact, the BlackBerry 10 camera app remains sparse in its settings: there’s the option of normal, digitally stabilized, burst, or HDR modes, whether the flash comes on or not, specific scenes for action, whiteboards, night, or “beach or snow” photography, and to flip between the front and rear cameras. However, beyond changing between 1:1, 4:3, and 16:9 aspect ratios, there’s no way to change the photo resolution.
The end result is unsurprisingly less detailed than the Q10, though solid as long as you give the Q5 sufficient light. Indoors, and in overcast conditions, the colors begin to get insipid and washed out; HDR mode can salvage things, but also has a tendency to over-brighten areas of the frame. There’s no mistaking the fuzziness and lacking detail, however, aspects we didn’t observe on the Q10.
As for video, there’s the option to use the LED flash as a camera light (though not toggle it on and off mid-filming), and the choice between 720p and 1080p recording. The same tap-and-hold focus system is present, though we found the Q5 sometimes struggled to keep a lock on faster-moving subjects.
BlackBerry Q5 1080p video sample:
Phone and Battery
Business users rejoice: it’s another loud BlackBerry that clings tenaciously to a signal. The Q5′s speaker isn’t the most poised we’ve heard – it’s more raucous than refined with music playback, for instance – but it cranks up loud enough for impromptu speakerphone duty and, since it’s on the bottom edge rather than the rear of the phone, is audible whether the handset is placed face up or down.
As for the 2,180 mAh battery, BlackBerry quotes up to 12.5hrs of 3G talk time or up to two weeks of 3G standby from a full charge. In practice, on a 3G network, we got through a full work day on a single charge, based on average mixed use – emails, messaging, some camera and GPS use, and some media playback. Video and media streaming took their toll, however, and despite the relatively small screen to power, the Q5 was demanding a recharge by early evening when we asked it to entertain us for longer periods.
Wrap-Up
There’s an over-aching sense, about the Q5, that it’s not for us; the common smartphone user at large. Instead, it’s more like BlackBerry’s play for the mainstream enterprise: the market that has sustained the Canadian company for so long. BlackBerry 10 is making slow inroads there – the company claims a large chunk of the Fortune 500 is at least trialling the OS, with a few firms signing up to a few thousand Z10 and Q10 sales – but what’s needed is a relatively affordable model, something big businesses can roll out to the legions of middle-management.
On that level, the Q5 does make some sense. BlackBerry’s attitude to pricing is likely to be mighty flexible – worn down by a challenger’s position in the segment – if you’re looking to outfit a couple of thousand people with the touch-and-type handset. For everyone else, though it’s a less compelling proposition.
What gives us most pause about the Q5 is its price. It may have half the name of the Q10, but it doesn’t have half the RRP: in fact, SIM-free in the UK where sales have already begun, the Q5 is £320 ($477) including tax, versus £480 ($715) for the Q10. Sign up to a contract, and you’ll spend just £8 ($12) per month more for the Q10 than the Q5. We’d argue not only that the Q10 is still too expensive for what you get – though we’d prefer it over the Q10 – but that the Q5 isn’t as cheap as it really needs to be. If you’re determined to get a BlackBerry and must have a keyboard, then the Q10 should be your choice; everybody else will likely find more rewarding devices running Android or iOS.
The “cheap” iPhone isn’t actually about being cheap at all: it’s about retiring the 3.5-inch screen. Apple has a long-running love of standardization, and with good reason. The company built the iPad mini around a display size, aspect, and most importantly resolution that allowed the greatest parity – and the fewest developer headaches – with the existing, full-sized iPad, after all. It’s not just in the name of control-freak tyranny, either: the iPad mini came out the gate with a full catalog of compatible apps, which is more than the Nexus 7 could claim.
Soon, Apple will announce a new iPhone, and the range of phones it has on sale will shift again. All signs point to it being the “iPhone 5S“, though no matter the name, we’re expecting the current iPhone 5 to slip down a tier and become the mid-range option. That would, if Apple was true to previous form, leave the iPhone 4S to take up the iPhone 4′s position as the “entry-level” handset, free-with-agreement.
Thing is, the iPhone 4S has a 3.5-inch screen – a leftover of the old design – while the iPhone 5 and 5S are going to use the newer 4-inch Retina. The 4S is also not the cheapest to make, and there’s a good reason Apple switched from the precarious glass casing of that generation to the sturdier metal of the iPhone 5.
“Full specifications are yet to leak, but a 4-inch display is a safe assumption”
Is there a better reason to ditch the iPhone 4S altogether, and introduce a new design completely: one which can cherry-pick the key elements of the iPhone 5 but wrap them up in a chassis that’s cheaper to make and thus cheaper to sell? Full specifications of the “low cost” iPhone are still yet to leak, but a 4-inch display is a safe assumption, meaning developers will be able to focus their efforts on a single, current resolution of 1136 x 640.
Price is important, of course. Apple figured that out back when it opted to keep the older iPhone around to create an instant tiered range, though not in the same way that Samsung or others might, by constantly developing multiple slightly differentiated models. Cheaper variations are also a mainstay of the iPod line-up: see, for instance, the cheaper iPod touch, which drops the camera and other elements to meet a price target.
It’s even more essential when you consider the next big battleground in smartphones: the so-called developing markets. Countries like China are the target for most of the big names in mobile – Samsung wants a piece of the pie, Nokia is counting on them to buoy up Windows Phone, and ZTE and Huawei are already staking their claim with budget Android phones – and the requirement for something affordable means keeping costs to a minimum is essential.
It’s a precarious line to walk. Apple has to deliver enough to make the new, affordable iPhone competitive with rivals, but also not so good as to eclipse any reason for users to upgrade to its more expensive versions. Still, the iPad mini has “cannibalized” full-sized iPad sales, but Apple is still sitting pretty in financial terms, and the entry-level iPhone is arguably more of a gateway drug for the premium models than the two tablets, which are relatively different propositions given their screen sizes.
Apple’s strategy involves more than just making the cheapest phone possible. If the new, “cheap” iPhone plays just as nicely with the App Store (which remains a key differentiator for the brand) as its more expensive siblings; if it’s as appealing to budget buyers in established markets as the iPhone 4 has been in this past generation, then it serves two purposes. Ticks the box for taking on developing markets as well as offering something different and – thanks to those candy colored shells we’re expecting – eye-catching for more saturated markets.
If you thought the Nokia Lumia 520 was good, boy are you going to have a great time with the Nokia Lumia 521. Essentially the same device as you’ll be getting internationally, this T-Mobile iteration of the entry-level Windows Phone 8 device brings the same package (with slightly different radio connections and a few extra apps) to the USA, here with the same bright white back cover as we saw across the sea (one of three, as it were).
Hardware
With the Nokia Lumia 521 you’re rolling with a 4-inch display (running at WVGA) which, if you’re using anything sharper at the moment, will be just a bit more pixely than you’ll want to live with. This machine is, instead, made for those users upgrading from feature phones – and it’ll do a fine job of it.
The handset measures in at 4.9 x 2.5 x 0.4 inches and weighs just 4.4 ounces – it’s lighter than it looks. You’ll connect to this machine with a microUSB cord (included in the box) and a microSIM for data, and both the back cover and the battery within are removable. There’s also a microSD card slot under the hood for an additional 32GB of space if you do so desire – you may want to pick up a microSD card when you purchase the smartphone since the 521 works with just 8GB of internal storage.
Inside you’ve got a Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 dual-core processor at 1GHz paired with 512MB of RAM. Again, this is meant to be an upgrade for the feature phone crowd and not a battle-ready beast for the top-tier entrants in the Windows Phone 8 world. That said, this machine is swift as much of the Windows Phone 8 crowd simply because the processor paired with this screen – small and low-res as it is – makes for hot-tapping and access to the basic collection of apps available to the whole Windows Phone 8 smartphone collection.*
You won’t be set up for future implementation of T-Mobile’s LTE network, instead kicking it up to today’s fastest data speeds from the network at HSPA+ 21. We’ll be bringing you “top speed” results as soon as we can kick out speeds above the general average – for now you’ll take comfort in knowing we’ve not have a dropped signal anywhere inside the metro area in Minneapolis / Saint Paul, Minnesota.
The back of this machine is replaceable – compatible with the international edition of the handset as well, so finding even 3rd-party offerings in the wild-and-wacky case-making environment will work. Or SHOULD work – always be cautions if you’re buying 3rd party gear. Nokia brings the heat with this machine in white (seen here) as well as yellow, blue, and red.
Software
It should be made clear that this device brings Nokia’s unique collection of Windows Phone apps to the show – the same as each other Lumia both here in the USA and overseas. While you’ll get a limited number of these on the device right out of the box, you’ll have Nokia’s app portals to keep you busy.
*At this point in history it’s difficult to find a smartphone running Windows Phone (Windows Phone 8 and forward, that is), that isn’t able to work with every app in Microsoft’s official app store. Nokia also provides such unique offerings (available to Lumia devices only) as Nokia Music, HERE Maps, HERE Drive, and HERE Transit. It’s all HERE, you could say.
All except – notably – app abilities such as the augmented reality bits of City Lens (as seen with the Nokia Lumia 920 demo we got all the way back in September of 2012, courtesy of Nokia) inside HERE Maps. This doesn’t exist on this machine due to the lack of a digital compass in the 521. With A-GPS and Glonass you’ve still got turn-by-turn navigation throughout the USA
Camera
While there’s no front-facing camera on this machine, the back-facing 5-megapixel shooter is more than enough for the standard social networking sharing and general photo-taking activities you’ll be inevitably taking part in. While Nokia’s real industry-leading efforts in the camera world rest with devices like the Lumia 925 (internationally) and the Lumia 928 (here in the USA with Verizon), the Lumia 521 brings a decent “that’ll do” sort of setup – which you’ll see in example photos and video here.
Battery
While Nokia rates this device at 7.5 hours talk time with standby at 12.5 days, we’ve found the 1430mAh battery to be standing up to a full days’ standard use without issue. If you’re a heavy user, on the other hand, expect to knock this battery out in a matter of hours – especially if you’re streaming video from something like T-Mobile TV (also built in to the device, courtesy of the carrier.)
Wrap-Up
The Nokia Lumia 521 isn’t the nicest Windows Phone 8 device on the market – and it’s certainly not the hottest Nokia machine out today – but it’s not meant to be. Working to be the cost-cutting entry level to the Windows Phone 8 universe with the good ship Nokia – that’s the aim. That’s what this machine will do, too – expect quite a few upgrades to higher-powered Lumia devices once the 521 is paid for in full by users on T-Mobile.
HTC has begun rolling out its Android 4.2.2 update for the HTC One, with owners in Europe, Taiwan, and other locations receiving the much-anticipated firmware upgrade. The software, which takes Android to 4.2.2 but also makes significant changes to HTC’s own Sense interface, in particular addresses one of our lingering issues with the One: the ugly triple-dot “Menu” softkey which robs users of all-important screen real-estate.
That, happily, is gone, replaced with the option to trigger the context menu with a long-press of the touch-sensitive Home key, HTCSource reports. As that would usually summon Google Now, that has been remapped to the more common swipe-up from Home, as Google uses on the Nexus 4.
The menu option isn’t the only space-stealing change to the UI. HTC has shifted the “Power Saving” mode checkbox from the drop-down notification pane, freeing up more space for alerts, and there are new quick-settings toggles for easily controlling wireless and other features.
Other changes include the addition of lockscreen widgets and Daydream mode, which puts photo slideshows, news headlines, or other content on the One’s lockscreen when it’s not in use.
HTC BlinkFeed can now pull in Instagram photos, and HTC has also enhanced its Zoe camera feature. There are six new Highlight video themes to choose from – though still not the option to create your own – with a carousel of icons to flip between them, rather than the previous drop-down menu.
A much-needed tweak to the camera is how the One presents its Zoe media clusters. Previously, as we complained about in the past, you’d get all twenty of the stills along with the 3.6s video clip showing up in the gallery and, as a result, synchronizing online with services like Dropbox and Google+ Instant Upload. Now, though, you see just one photo and the video clip; the rest of the stills can be optionally pulled out of the video footage, but they’re not saved separately as standard.
Software update 2.24.709.1 for the HTC One is rolling out progressively now; it’s a 465.24MB update, so best to download it over WiFi rather than your cellular data connection.
Could this be the much-rumored budget iPhone Apple aims to battle Android at the low-end with? That’s the claim by Techdy, which managed to grab some hands-on time with a plastic-shelled smartphone bearing Apple’s logo and a whole lot of speculation. According to the leak, you’re looking at the white version of the upcoming budget iPhone set to launch alongside the iPhone 5S later this year.
Exactly where the phone came from, is unclear. Techdy has links with M.I.C. Gadget, a site we’ve seen leak pre-announcement gadgets often from manufacturing sources in the past, though if the handset is legitimate then this is certainly one of the biggest to spill out prior to an OEM’s intentions.
Suspending the usual disbelief, if only for a moment, the site claims that the handset as a whole feels far from cheap, despite how it has been billed. Made of polycarbonate – just as Nokia uses for its Lumia Windows Phones – it will have a 4-inch screen like the iPhone 5, going by the display assembly – but is thicker and blunter than the current Apple flagship.
On the bottom there’s a Lightning port and four speaker holes, along with the headphone jack and a hole for a microphone. The display itself has narrower side bezels than we’ve seen on an iPhone so far.
However, it’s also worth noting that Techdy has seized the opportunity to throw together an Android-powered clone (which looks quite a bit like HTC’s ill-fated First, in fact) of the supposed leaked iPhone, and will be selling it as the “Basic Bear”. That could well make this claimed preview of the new iPhone more like a thinly-veiled piece of rumor-mill marketing, but we’ll likely have to wait closer to the official budget iPhone reveal to find out for sure.
Though Samsung’s financial quarter announcements this week showed the company to be kicking up a storm (metaphorically, of course), with the Galaxy S 4 family of devices on the market today, shares fell internationally at word that analysis projections were not met. This sort of thing isn’t unheard of, but to the lay person, it’s not the easiest thing to make simple sense of. Why, if Samsung’s quarterly profits are up 47% compared to this quarter last year, are investors spooked enough to kick down shares 4% in the Seoul stock market?
You’ll find The Guardian quoting analyst CW Chung from Nomura Financial Investment in Seoul speaking on how “because of the marketing costs, the telecommunications business was probably weaker than expected.” Meanwhile Bloomberg quotes analyst Neil Mawston, executive director of Strategy Analytics saying “Apple is suffering from iPhone fatigue, while Samsung is suffering from Galaxy fatigue.”
The latter quote was issued before earnings were sent out publicly by Samsung while the same source has Byun Han Joon, a Seoul-based analyst at KB Investment & Securities Co., speaking after the fact:
“It sharply missed the market expectation, and that worries me. The market was initially concerned about the third- and fourth-quarter results, but today’s news raises questions if the earnings are already in bad shape.” – Byun Han Joon
This analyst speaks on the idea that what Bloomberg quotes as a “58.6 trillion-won average of 38 estimates” as concerning when compared to Samsung’s actual sales at 57 trillion won in this most recent quarterly results report. Estimates appear more important right this minute than the fact that sales ramped up from 47.6 trillion won this same quarter a year earlier – that’s no bump to scoff at.
And know this – final results haven’t even been announced yet in full. Today’s report from Samsung is only a preliminary report on their full financial Q2 2013 results which will be announced on July 26th. It would seem instead that the company is only preparing the world for their full report which will appear on July 26th.
You’ll find more information on what Samsung spent is money on this newest quarter in SlashGear’s first story on the company’s day, there speaking more on the stock drop when it was just 3% where here final numbers for the day set stock at 4% lower than at the beginning of the day.
There is indeed a supposed “slow down” that could be attributed to smartphone fatigue. Samsung’s mobile business continues to grow, but down to 4-percent above the quarter before this one rather than the 8-percent of that quarter compared to the one before it.
Samsung will be kicking out somewhere around 20 million Galaxy S 4 unit sales with 100 million units being eyed for the all-time unit sales record – eventually, that is. And it’s Jung Sang-jin, a fund manager at Dongbu Asset Management, (owner of Samsung shares) quoted by Reuters, that puts the situation in a rather clear light:
“Is Samsung’s smartphone story now over? Not quite yet. It’s growth is indeed slowing due largely to disappointing sales of the S4. Yet I think Samsung has some exciting stuff up its sleeves. The problem is no one is sure whether these products can really wow investors and consumers.” – Jung Sang-jin
Encouraging enough for you? We’ll see how the market reacts when Samsung actually truly does announce their real final numbers later this month.
The next iteration of Samsung’s Galaxy Note series has been one of the hottest topics in brand-specific forums over the past couple of weeks, with fans of the brand doubling up interest after a device-filled event held by the manufacturer brought on everything but. What we saw back then was glimpses of the machine – an implementation of the S-Pen here, another version of the Galaxy S 4 there, but the Galaxy Note III itself remained a mystery in a large way. Here several weeks before said device is tipped to premiere, rumors of specifications begin to flow.
The illustration above comes straight from Samsung’s Facebook page, linked in that case to “An inspirational talk from blogger & RSA Chief Executive, Matthew Taylor”, found here: (YouTube Link). Tips for the future!
The images you’re seeing below have been shared by microblogger (and several-times proven inside source-connection) TechKiddy, who suggests the photos depict a “prototype” still in testing. While the common guess thus far has been that the machine is an early edition of the Samsung Galaxy Note III, it’s a bit more likely that we’re still looking at Galaxy S 4 ware – perhaps even the Samsung Galaxy S 4 Mini in photos taken in the weeks leading up to its first market-ready edition.
As for the Galaxy Note III, analysis seems to converge on several key specifications, starting with a 5.7-inch display. This would put the display at another .2 inches above the previous model, where the Galaxy Note II was .2 inches larger than the original. The original Samsung Galaxy Note came in at a size that now seems slightly less hand-dominatingly large than it was back at its initial reveal with a cool 5.3-inches of screen real-estate.
Another key piece of this puzzle seems to center on an industry first: 3GB of RAM. While the Samsung Galaxy Note III does not seem to be headed toward a processor any more powerful than the Samsung Galaxy S 4 or the Samsung Galaxy S 4 LTE-A, an extra 1GB of RAM should be well and above what’s needed to keep this machine swift and active. Inside we’ll likely find a Samsung Exynos 5 Octa SoC (as in the international edition of the GS4) or a Snapdragon 800 SoC (as in the LTE-A).
The launch date for the next Note has been tipped as September 4th, just before the international technology convention known as IFA. The original Galaxy Note made its debut at IFA in Berlin – the Galaxy Note III may warrant a Samsung “Unpacked” event of its own.
We’ve known for a while that a MetroPCS-friendly version of Samsung’s Galaxy S 4 was in the cards, but the carrier hasn’t been very forthcoming with its plans. At least, until now — the company just posted a teaser on Twitter for a Samsung-based launch next week. While the text is slightly cryptic, the mention of a Galaxy S III “+1” makes it quite clear that the 2013 Galaxy flagship is what’s on deck. This variant won’t have HSPA for the T-Mobile network, at least if it’s anything like what we saw at the FCC, but it should include LTE support. Let’s just hope that the phone ships quickly — MetroPCS customers have been waiting long enough.
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