Hasta La Gadget!

Wondering just how well a tablet would do if picked up and marketed by all four major carriers in America? We’re still waiting for the breakdown within our borders, but there’s hardly a doubt that the unprecedented carrier arrangement has helped Samsung shatter its estimates on Galaxy Tab sales. Purportedly, the outfit has just passed the one million mark in global sales of the 7-inch Android tablet, but Information Week is quick to point out that Sammy’s not clear on whether that’s units in the sales channel or units in the hands of consumers. Either way, one million’s nothing to scoff at, particularly when you consider that only 600,000 had been sold as of November 22nd. The firm’s now hoping to move 1.5 million of ’em by the year’s end, and while that’s still well short of the estimated seven million iPads that have been sold to date, it’s a sales rate that we’re sure no one at Samsung is kvetching about.

Samsung sells one million Galaxy Tab units, throws an Android party to celebrate originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 03 Dec 2010 11:04:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The Samsung Galaxy Tab is selling better than expected. The company set a year-end goal of one million units for itself. Samsung hit that number with a full month left (which, just happens to be the one that Christmas falls in), and is pushing its prediction for 2010 up to 1.5 million.

It’s a big jump over Samsung’s previously announced numbers. Last week, the company announced that it had sold 600,000 units, worldwide. Part of that is, no doubt, due to the fact that the tablet was released in more countries–it’s now available in 64 countries, for a total of 120 carriers. The device has sold 100,000 units in tits first 60 days in the US.

How does all of this compare to the iPad? That device managed to sell more than two million units in its first two months. The Next Web points out that Apple’s tablet didn’t really have much competition when it was launch–though that was no doubt something of a mixed bag for the company which had the difficult job of convincing consumers and reporters that the world needed another screen.

All of that said, Samsung is not doubt quite happy with these numbers, having outpaced its own expectations and established the Galaxy as the number two device in what is sure to become a very, very crowded field in the near future.

If you read tech news today, expect to see a story making the rounds concerning a “consumer poll” rating the iPad versus the Galaxy Tab. According to the report, an “overwhelming majority” of consumers prefer Apple’s tablet over its nearest Android competitor — a whopping 85 percent of those queried felt the iPad had a higher perceived value than the Tab. Sounds shocking, right? Except there’s one small problem. The “survey” (and really, you have to use the term loosely here) consisted of 65 people. Let’s just say that again: 65 respondents. That’s problem number one.

Problem number two is that the survey was conducted by Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster, who is not only using a bizarre and somewhat useless metric like “perceived value” to judge these devices, but is also known for wildly miscalculating sales numbers and expectations for Apple products. In fact, Gene Munster should probably be close to the top of the most wanted list for irresponsible analysts. Some of his famous misses? Take the wildly speculative report that Apple would sell 5.6m iPads in 2010 (a baseless prediction which he quickly reassessed to more reasonable digits… the day after the device’s launch), or the prediction that Apple would build its own search engine (so far so good!), and of course, Gene’s news that Apple will have an HDTV on the market by 2011. Did we mention the $1,000 AAPL stock price call? No? Okay.

So this latest report, in which Gene apparently just polled the families living on his block, seems beyond disingenuous. The margin of error on a group of 65 people is so high that it makes the results of the iPad vs. Galaxy Tab study all but meaningless, and further demonstrates the insidious, dangerous power of some analysts and their fantasy football stock manipulations. The moral of the story? Next time you see the names Gene and Munster in the same sentence, don’t just take the news with a grain of salt — use the whole shaker.

Update: Piper Jaffray analyst Andrew Murphy (one of the other researchers on this report) got in touch and gave us some background on the sourcing and methodology for finding respondents. In his words:

The respondents were chosen randomly on their way in/out of a large national retail chain. After spending time with each device, they were asked which they’d prefer and what a reasonable price for each would be.

It’s worth noting that that information is found nowhere in the report itself, nor is any other detail provided (type of store, geographic location, age / socioeconomic background, etc.), though this charming section is included:

Research Disclosures

Piper Jaffray was making a market in the securities of Apple, Inc. at the time this research report was published. Piper Jaffray will buy and sell Apple, Inc. securities on a principal basis.

55 people think the iPad is more valuable than the Galaxy Tab (updated) originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 02 Dec 2010 10:40:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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If you were going to make a “mini” version of something else you’d probably want it to be significantly smaller. However, this “i9000 Mini” smartphone, cheekily adorned with both Samsung and Galaxy S branding, isn’t any more svelte than the phone it is most certainly trying to be. If our eyes don’t deceive us it’s even fatter, though the capacitive touchscreen is indeed a half-inch smaller, down to 3.5-inches, and rather than being wide VGA it is instead half VGA — doing with a measly 320 x 480 pixels. And no, it sure isn’t AMOLED. Other specs include a five megapixel camera, 512MB of ROM and RAM, and dual SIM support. Roll with this 1,480 yuan (about $200) phone and you’ll be rolling with Android 2.1, but the manufacturers promise it’ll be updated to 2.2 in just a few weeks. If you can’t trust a company that steals another company’s design, logo, and trademarks, who can you trust?

Keepin’ it real fake: Mini Galaxy S gazes meaningfully skyward next to a mini grand piano originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 01 Dec 2010 19:15:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Samsung, being the global leader in mobile displays that it is, was understandably a little unnerved by Apple’s IPS LCD-sporting iPhone 4, but now it’s back to the forefront with its brand spanking new Super PLS tech. PLS stands for Plane to Line Switching, which helps Samsung deliver some pretty spectacular viewing angles — even better than the already stellar ones you’ll find on IPS panels — while also improving screen brightness by a reported 10 percent. The target market for Super PLS displays will be smartphones and tablets, with a delicious WXGA resolution on offer for the top bidders. Mind you, Samsung also claims production costs are 15 percent lower than comparable IPS tech, meaning that the only thing standing between us and the next new hotness is time — Sammy expects to begin mass production early next year. Oh, and it’s working on securing a set of 30 patents relating to Super PLS, so don’t go holding out hope for direct competitors from LG or anyone else anytime soon.

Continue reading Samsung touts Super PLS display as the evolution of IPS on smartphones, plans production in early 2011

Samsung touts Super PLS display as the evolution of IPS on smartphones, plans production in early 2011 originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 01 Dec 2010 08:19:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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