Hasta La Gadget!

A picture of Samsung's first generation Vibrant, released during the Summer of 2010

Pictures of what look to be leaked press promotional materials of a new Samsung Android-based smartphone have been circulating the web this morning. If they’re the real deal, it could mean that last year’s Samsung Vibrant will soon have a 4G brother.

The mystery device highlighted in the leaked materials is aptly named the Samsung Vibrant 4G, according to pictures acquired by mobile blog TmoNews. From the looks of it, the hardware specs line up with the first-generation, 3G Vibrant (shown above): 1GHz processor, 4-inch super AMOLED screen, 16GB SD card storage (upgradable to 32GB), all the bells and whistles of the non-4G predecessor.

To keep it from being a complete rehash of last year’s model with 4G tacked on to the end, the new Vibrant does seem to have a few new upgrades. First, there’s the addition of a front-facing camera (pixel resolution not yet specified), a feature that seems to be about par for the course in the coming generation of smartphones we saw at CES last week. While it’s playing catch-up with the iPhone 4, we think it’ll soon be a standard for higher-end smartphones in the industry.

Another perk: The new Vibrant will supposedly run an upgraded version of Android, version 2.2 ‘Froyo,’ rather than the 2.1 ‘Eclair’ of last year’s model. (Though it’s still no version 2.3 ‘Gingerbread,’ the most recent release.)

What T-Mobile really seems to be hyping, according to TmoNews’ photos, is the phone’s claimed increase in speed. The Vibram 4G would run on T-Mobile’s HSPA+ network, which T-Mobile spokesperson Erica Gordon says is capable of “theoretical peak download speeds of up to 21 Mbps.” Depending on the city you live in, what you’ll probably get is something closer to what independent test groups have found, somewhere in the area of 4 to 5.5 Mbps down and 1 to 2Mbps up.

T-Mobile offered no comment to specific questions about the rumored device, and Samsung followed suit.

If the phone does indeed exist, T-Mobile and Samsung are most likely betting it will do as well as its predecessors in the Galaxy S series of smartphones. We’ll continue to report on news of the Vibrant 4G as it breaks.

See Also:

• Samsung Vibrant Looks Like an iPhone, Has Battery Life to Match
• First Look: Samsung Vibrant Rips Off iPhone 3G Design
• Samung
• First Look
• T-Mobile, Garmin Announce New Android Phone

Photo: Samsung Vibrant (Stefan Armijo/Wired.com)

What now, Verizon? Just a few days after Big Red lowered the price of Samsung’s Galaxy Tab to $500 off-contract, Sprint’s version has shed $100 — which means you can now score it for $300 on a two-year deal. As long as you’re willing to put your name on the dotted line, that now means that Sprint can put you into a Tab for less money than anyone but regional carrier US Cellular, which offers it for a bargain-basement $200. Interestingly, Sprint’s shift comes on the heels of an LTE-tweaked version of the Tab for Verizon with a faster processor and better camera, suggesting that a WiMAX model could definitely be in the works these guys — which might be what this “industry first” event is all about early next month. Pure speculation on our part, but it’d make some sense.

Update: US Cellular wrote in to let us know that the $200 promotion on its version of the Tab has actually expired — now, you get two for the price of one at $399 after a $100 mail-in rebate. In other words, if you just want a single Tab, Sprint’s the best deal in town right now.

Sprint drops Galaxy Tab down to $300, undercuts everyone but US Cellular originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 12 Jan 2011 16:36:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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It’s been nearly a week and we’re still trying to figure out exactly what was going on during Samsung’s wild CES 2011 keynote – even though we liveblogged it, talked about it on the showcast, and named it best presser of CES, we’re not sure you can fully understand the insanity of the dancers, the random moments, and a futureboy named Zoll unless you’ve seen it yourself. Samsung’s put the whole thing up on YouTube in six segments (you can find the first below) but we cut together a little highlight reel you can watch above. Trust us — it’s worth it.

Continue reading Samsung’s crazy CES 2011 keynote — the highlight reel

Samsung’s crazy CES 2011 keynote — the highlight reel originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 12 Jan 2011 11:37:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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LTE’s great… but only if it’s got phones and modems that can take advantage of it. Though MetroPCS beat Verizon to become the first American carrier to launch the technology, it’s been scraping by so far with nothing other than the Samsung Craft, a middling dumbphone without the chops to attract the powerusers that would normally want to be involved with a 4G network anyway. Looks like that’s finally about to change, though, because BGR‘s scored a shot of a so-called SCH-R910 — also from Samsung — that’s running Android 2.2. It’ll allegedly have backward compatibility with MetroPCS’ CDMA network (naturally) along with a 1GHz Hummingbird core and 5 megapixel camera — not a blockbuster by any stretch, but still on a whole new plane than the Craft. Rumor has it we’ll see this before the end of March for somewhere between $330 and $400 contract-free; question is, will it beat Big Red’s first LTE phones to market?

MetroPCS finally prepping Android smartphone with LTE from Samsung? originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 11 Jan 2011 22:56:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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You’ve got to hand it to the Nexus S. In spite of being a souped-up smartphone, it’s still unpretentious enough to accept power from a BlackBerry microUSB cable and easy enough to hack that it’s just received not one, but two OS ports. MeeGo, in its very raw and unfinished form, has been dropped onto the phone’s internal memory without the need for any flashing, and the method has also been successfully used to install Ubuntu on the current Google flagship. There’s very little that’s actually functional about the MeeGo install at the moment, but the ball has begun rolling and there’s a resulting question that’s occupying our minds right now — will the Nexus S have a perfectly hacked copy of MeeGo before or after Nokia releases its device for the platform? Answers on a postcard.

[Thanks, Michelle and Brad]

Continue reading Nexus S receives MeeGo and Ubuntu ports, makes our nerd senses tingle (video)

Nexus S receives MeeGo and Ubuntu ports, makes our nerd senses tingle (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 11 Jan 2011 04:16:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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