Hasta La Gadget!

The story of the Galaxy Tab has been quite a saga, to say the least. In fact, it was actually back in May that we first heard rumblings of Samsung’s plans to unleash a 7-inch Android tablet much like its Galaxy S phones, but it was only after months of painful teasing — including a cruel look at just its packaging on the Engadget Show — that Sammy finally unveiled the Galaxy Tab to the world at IFA. The Tab certainly packed the specs — a 1GHz processor, full Flash support thanks to Android 2.2, dual cameras, support for up to 32GB of storage and WiFi / 3G connectivity — to put other Android tablets to shame, and our initial hands-on with it only had us yearning for more. Without pricing and availability, however, the story was at a cliffhanger. Of course, those details trickled out over the next few months, and here in the US, Samsung finally announced that all four major US carriers would be getting Tabs to call their own. Verizon then finally took the lead in announcing pricing, and revealed that its Tab would hit contract-free for $600 — Sprint followed with the same no-contract pricing along with a $400 two-year contract option.

Indeed, it’s been quite a long journey, but even after all of that, some of the major questions are still left unanswered. Does the Tab provide a more complete and polished experience than all the other Android tablets out there? How are Samsung’s specially tailored apps? And ultimately, has a tablet finally hit the market that can rival Apple’s iPad? We think it’s about time we answer those questions and finally open what might be the most important chapter of the Galaxy Tab story — the official Engadget review. We knew you’d agree, so join us after the break.

Continue reading Samsung Galaxy Tab review

Samsung Galaxy Tab review originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 01 Nov 2010 13:15:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |   | Email this | Comments

Sprint and Clearwire have characterized LTE as complimentary to WiMAX time and again, but if that doesn’t allay your suspicions of turncoat tactics in the wireless data space, take it from Sprint CEO Dan Hesse’s lips. “Our 4G strategy is WiMAX, full stop!” he told GigaOM, adding that LTE isn’t necessarily on Sprint’s roadmap. Quizzed about WiMAX partner Clearwire’s LTE trials, however, he dropped a very intriguing hint about the possible shape of phones to come: “We have so much spectrum that we decided to do tests so in case we have multi-modal phones with other air interfaces, we can add LTE on top of WiMAX and run both networks,” he told the publication. Dual-mode WiMAX / LTE smartphone, anyone?

Sprint CEO claims WiMAX is here to stay, says Clear’s LTE trials were for potential multi-mode phones originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 30 Oct 2010 14:21:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |  GigaOM  | Email this | Comments

Sprint certainly isn’t out of the woods yet, but at least it’s picking up customers from somewhere. The company’s Q3 2010 earnings were ushered out today, and while its stock fell around ten percent on the news, a few silver linings were present. The carrier saw postpaid subscriber losses of 107,000, but that’s an 87 percent improvement compared to Q3 2009. The CDMA network added approximately 276,000 postpaid customers during the quarter, 471,000 (net) prepaid subscribers and 644,000 total wireless subscribers from a net perspective. It also landed its second best postpaid churn result ever, but the bottom line still looks battered — the operator announced a net loss of nearly a billion dollars ($911 million, if you’re scouting specifics). Of course, phasing out iDEN should probably help things in the long run, but even its 4G advantage could quickly fade if (or more likely, when) Verizon gets its LTE act together next year.

Sprint fails to impress Wall Street with Q3 2010 earnings, still notches 644k net adds originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 27 Oct 2010 19:43:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |  Sprint  | Email this | Comments

We were just getting used to HTC Knight when along comes more supposed details of the still-unconfirmed slider. Boy Genius Report has what it claims is a leaked accessories list from Sprint that reveals a case for the Knight is due on January 6th, 2011. Does that mean the phone itself is launching on the same date? Would that date have something to do with the start of CES? Oh, and BGR also claims from a source the Knight is getting a new title. What do you think about the HTC Speedy — descriptive, eh? As far as we can tell, there isn’t really much else to go by at this point, so our jump to conclusion will just have to stay under the bed for now.

HTC Speedy a Knight in Sprint armor coming January 6th? originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 26 Oct 2010 02:02:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink Electronista  |  Boy Genius Report  | Email this | Comments

We knew it was coming, now the WiFi only Galaxy Tab looks to have leaked with pricing in a Best Buy advertisement. According to some extracts obtained by Pocketables, a silver WiFi-only Tab will be available for $499.99 (a buck more than its WiFi-only iPad rival). Best Buy will also be selling a black 3G model (Verizon) and silver 3G model (Sprint) with contract or month-to-month plans. The “and up” verbiage is probably a hat tip to the $599.99 on-contract price that Verizon announced for the 3G Galaxy Tab it will begin selling on November 11th. Unfortunately, no date was revealed for the Best Buy offerings but a second rumor sourced from an inventory spreadsheet (pictured after the break) by the cats over at AndroidCentral has the Verizon Tab coming to Sprint on November 14th. In other words, it’s safe to expect Best Buy to start selling Samsung’s 7-inch Android tablet in November in the run-up to the holidays. See a screengrab of that after the break.

Update: As noted in the comments, the Galaxy Tab doesn’t ship with a 7-inch Super AMOLED display — it’s Super TFT LCD. We suspect that’s a printing error and not a hint of things to come.

Update 2: Sprint confirms

[Thanks, Chris]

Continue reading Galaxy Tab WiFi-only model hitting Best Buy for $499.99, Sprint 3G model on sale November 14th?

Galaxy Tab WiFi-only model hitting Best Buy for $499.99, Sprint 3G model on sale November 14th? originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 25 Oct 2010 02:22:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |  Pocketables, Android Central  | Email this | Comments