Hasta La Gadget!

Buying a Samsung Galaxy S sounded like a fantastic decision when Android 2.1 was hot stuff, but now that Gingerbread‘s out of the oven, Fascinate, Captivate, Vibrant and Epic 4G owners are starting to get a little tired of being stuck behind the curve. And while we can think of at least one fairly nasty reason why Samsung might be delaying, we’ve been hearing all sorts of conspiracy theories, ranging from holding back Froyo to sell more dedicated Gingerbread phones to making the cellular carriers foot the bill for Android updates for every handset sold or else not get the update at all.

Well, it seems that last rumor’s gained a little traction, because Samsung’s taken it upon itself to squash the story flat. The company gave Phone Scoop the following statement: “No. Samsung is not charging carriers for Froyo updates to Galaxy S. We hope to have more detail on status shortly. Promise!” At this rate, we’re wondering if Samsung should just skip Froyo and just start rolling out some Gingerbread men instead.

Samsung says it isn’t charging carriers for Android updates, promises Galaxy S status report originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 18 Jan 2011 22:41:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |  Phone Scoop  | Email this | Comments

Samsung did say it’s ready to supply all US carriers with 4G phones, not just Verizon, and we may already be looking at one of those devices before us. Billed as a T-Mobile exclusive, the Vibrant 4G looks to be a gentle refresh of the current Vibrant handset, with the notable upgrades being the inclusion of 21Mbps-capable HSPA+ connectivity — to speed your mobile broadband up into T-Mobile’s definition of 4G speeds — and a front-facing camera paired to Qik video chat software. The onboard version of Android is 2.2 and internal specs seem to generally match the earlier-released namesake. Speaking of the original Vibrant, these leaked docs also show it’s sold over one million units in its time in the US and is the nation’s best-selling Galaxy S variant. Great, now can someone please leak it to Samsung that Android 2.3 is already out?

[Thanks, Brian]

Samsung Vibrant 4G appears in leaked docs, touts 21Mbps HSPA+, front-facing camera originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 12 Jan 2011 04:26:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |  TmoNews  | Email this | Comments

Can’t say we’re surprised — after all, last time we checked in the tally was hovering around 9.3 million — but now Samsung has officially met its goal of 10 million Galaxy S phones sold around the globe. That’s less than seven months since the device first hit the market, which by Sammy’s fuzzy math averages to about one unit for every two seconds it’s been on sale. According to Samsung Tomorrow, North America contributed the most with 4 million in sales, followed by Europe at 2.5 million. Let there be cake, and once that’s over, let there be progress on those Froyo updates.

Samsung reaches goal: 10 million Galaxy S phones sold worldwide originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 03 Jan 2011 05:14:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink OLED-Display.net  |  Samsung Tomorrow (1), (2)  | Email this | Comments

A quick gander at Samsung’s Canadian support site for the Galaxy S line reveals that two Android 2.2 updates are currently available: one for the Vibrant — offered by Bell, Virgin Mobile, and SaskTel — and one for the Fascinate as sold be Telus. This all follows just a few days after Sammy had to pull the Vibrant’s Froyo update on word that it seemed be killing the internal microSD storage, so hopefully, this build will be just a little more drama-free. Oh, and Samsung had originally said that Telus Fascinate owners would be waiting until next year to upgrade their units, so it’s pretty neat that they were able to rein that in a bit and get it pushed at the tail end of ’10. So have fun, Canadians — you’ve beaten your friends with T-Mobile Vibrants and Verizon Fascinates to the punch on this one, and we encourage you to lord it over them at every opportunity.

[Thanks, Robert B.]

Samsung Vibrant and Fascinate get Froyo in Canada, hopefully with fewer bugs this time originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 27 Dec 2010 03:03:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |  Samsung  | Email this | Comments

We have no idea why Samsung’s having such a hard time delivering its overdue promised Froyo upgrades worldwide for the Galaxy S series, but it’s not looking any easier for them this weekend: the only Canadian Galaxy S to get upgraded so far, Bell’s Vibrant, has just had its update pulled. Seems a healthy number of users attempting the upgrade using Sammy’s Kies desktop software ended up with inaccessible internal storage, which sucks for a variety of obvious reasons — and that would be the apparent reason for the removal of the update. Here’s the official statement:

“There have been intermittent issues reported during the firmware upgrade process with Kies for the Samsung Galaxy S i9000M series of phones. Samsung’s development team is currently aware of this issue and working towards a solution. Accordingly, The firmware update feature, which affects the ability to upgrade to Android 2.2, is temporarily disabled until a solution is released. We apologize for the inconvenience.”

Maybe we can just go straight to Gingerbread or Honeycomb at this point?

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]

Samsung pulls Froyo update for Bell’s Vibrant after reports of fried internal storage originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 18 Dec 2010 19:47:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |  Samsung  | Email this | Comments