Hasta La Gadget!

When we first got word of a Samsung Moment successor, we were concerned it would be too little, too late… but this week a man headed off Sammy’s new Intercept at a Best Buy (for $100, reportedly), and there’s slightly more to this device than it originally seemed. While the form factor and features are familiar enough — a QWERTY slider with a 3.2 megapixel camera and 3.2-inch screen — that display apparently sports a 800 x 480 resolution now, the keyboard seems much improved, ports and buttons have been thoroughly revamped, and the whole unit’s been given a lovely sheen. No word on internal specs quite yet — and no Froyo, either — but you can judge how responsive it is for yourself in a video after the break.

[Thanks, Brad B.]

Continue reading Samsung Intercept ambushed in the wild, features higher res screen (video)

Samsung Intercept ambushed in the wild, features higher res screen (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 04 Jul 2010 16:02:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Samsung’s US team held a swanky event in NYC this evening to launch all four of its new US-spec Galaxy S phones in style. If you haven’t been brought up to speed on Samsung’s stateside Android invasion, the Captivate is headed to AT&T, the Fascinate to Verizon, the Epic 4G to Sprint and the Vibrant to T-Mobile. Each of the phones have 4-inch Super AMOLED screens, 1GHz Hummingbird Cortex A8 CPUs, and cams that can capture 720p video. We’ve already got detailed hands on impressions of the Captivate and Epic 4G, but stay tuned for Fascinate and Vibrant previews tonight. In the meantime, check out the family all together in the pictures in the gallery below.

Samsung’s American Galaxy S phones pose for family portrait originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 29 Jun 2010 19:18:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The HTC Evo has competition. Samsung has introduced its first 4G handset, called the Samsung Epic, on Sprint’s network. The Epic will be the second 4G smartphone on Sprint, following the Evo 4G’s debut earlier this month.

The Epic 4G will have a 4-inch Super AMOLED touchscreen and a slide-out keyboard. Inside, the device packs a 1-GHz Hummingbird processor from Samsung, and two cameras: a 5-megapixel camera to shoot movies and photos, and a front-facing VGA camera (0.3 megapixels) for video chat. The phone will run Google’s Android 2.1 operating system.

Samsung’s 4G phone is up against some strong rivals. The HTC Evo 4G has become the best-selling device on Sprint’s network. Meanwhile, Apple launched its latest iPhone, the iPhone 4, last week. Though the iPhone 4 runs on AT&T’s overloaded 3G network, the device has some features such as video chat and a luminous, high-resolution display that are drawing in customers. Apple sold 1.7 million iPhone 4s in the first three days of the device’s launch.

The Epic is part of a new family of Android smartphones called Galaxy S from Samsung. The Galaxy S phones feature 4-inch screens, run Android, and integrate social networking feeds from Twitter and Facebook — plus e-mail messages, calendars and contacts — into a single screen.

Sprint did not reveal pricing or availability for the Epic 4G.

When it comes to 4G services, Sprint is ahead of other wireless service providers in the United States.  Sprint’s 4G network is currently available in 36 cities. Sprint claims its 4G service can deliver up to 10 times higher speeds than existing 3G networks. Major areas such as San Francisco, New York, Los Angeles and Washington, D.C., will get 4G connectivity later this year, says Sprint.

Verizon is testing its 4G ‘LTE’ network this year and expects to start rolling it out next year. AT&T is likely to start trials of its 4G service next year.

Not surprisingly, Sprint is pressing its advantage with 4G handsets.

Samsung’s Epic is largely comparable to the HTC Evo in its hardware, but it lags behind in a few areas. The Evo has an 8-megapixel camera, compared to the Epic’s 5-megapixel. The Evo can provide wireless access for up to eight devices as part of its hot-spot capability, while the Epic an support only up to five Wi-Fi enabled devices simultaneously.

But Samsung hopes to offer content that will put the Epic ahead. For instance, over the next few months, Epic users will have access to the Samsung Media Hub, a video store with movies and TV available for purchase or rental, says Samsung. A 4G network should help make downloads much faster, says the company.

The phone will also have a service called ‘AllShare’ to wirelessly exchange music, pictures and video with other devices. For business users, the phone supports push e-mail, integrated calendar and Exchange ActiveSync.

Samsung and Sprint say the Epic will be upgraded to the latest flavor of Android, Android 2.2 Froyo.

As for other cellphone service providers, Samsung isn’t neglecting them. In the next few weeks, Samsung plans to offer Fascinate, a 3G phone running Android 2.1 OS on Verizon and Vibrant, and an Android smartphone on T-Mobile’s network.

Photo: Samsung Epic 4G/Samsung

See Also:

• Wired Video: HTC Evo 4G Dissected
• Oops! Sprint Says it Overstated HTC Evo Phone Sales
• Storage Bug Hits HTC Evo 4G Phone Just Before Launch
• Overclocked HTC Evo Runs Almost 30 Percent Faster
• Independent App Stores Take On Google’s Android Market

Uh oh. There’s been a tiny little hitch in the latest EVO 4G update, which has resulted in a number of people finding their superphones becoming unusable. Aside from rooted handsets having their predictable woes with new official software, some users have found that applying the update twice bricked their phones, stock OS and all. That’s pretty worrying, particularly when you consider that checking for updates after a successful install gives you the option to apply it all over again. Sprint and HTC have acted quickly to pull the OTA for the moment, and promise to restore it as soon as its lethal streak has been ironed out:

While the vast majority of consumers successfully downloaded and installed the most recent HTC EVO 4G software update, we have received a handful of reports from customers having some issues with the update. In light of this, HTC and Sprint have decided to temporarily halt distribution of this software release until we can investigate further. We expect to be able to resume software updates shortly.

In the mean time, let’s all just sit, wait, and hope the sky doesn’t fall on our heads.

Sprint halts EVO 4G update due to reports of it bricking phones originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 29 Jun 2010 05:59:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Sprint said Monday that it was currently pushing an over-the-air maintenance release to users of the Spring EVO 4G phone, with improvements to both Wi-Fi and Exchange.

The software version
1.47.651.1 can be either be manually downloaded by going to “Settings > System Updates > HTC
software update,” or it may be automatically pushed to the phone.

Below, Sprint lists what the update includes. Note that Sprint has also included an explicit warning about not trying this with a so-called “rooted” phone, as rendering it inoperable (bricking it) is a real concern. It also appears that two or three cycles may be common, before the phone boots back to the main OS desktop.

Update includes:

• Improvements to Wi-Fi
  performance
• Exchange Active Sync improvements, including fix to
  issues with new account setup, PIN policy usage and Exchange Calendar
  2010 Sync
• Addresses Facebook sync issue which can improve
  battery performance

Download
Timing:

• Customers will be notified that an update is
  available. The download will take a couple minutes (depending on the
  device connection) and the install will take a couple minutes which
  includes an automatic power cycle. Download will take a couple minutes
  if in 3g coverage.
• HTC servers will push the OTA update on a
  daily basis.
• FOTA server will check for old software version and
  prompt once a day on units without the latest firmware until customer
  accepts.