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Still trying to figure out if there’s any logic behind Microsoft’s Windows Phone endeavor? Well, today’s launch of the Samsung Focus 2 isn’t going to make things clearer to the masses. The Samsung Focus 2 Windows Phone handset is launching on AT&T’s network in the US later this month on May 20th for the relatively interesting price of $49.99 with the 2year contract. Nice, right? Unfortunately not very much given that the Focus 2 is nothing more than a Samsung Focus / Omnia 7 with 1.4GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon APQ8055 + MDM9200 LTE modem instead of the older QSD8250. That’s right folks…nothing interesting to see here especially when you take into account that the Nokia Lumia 900 with its better hardware is priced exactly the same on the same network and with double the amount of on-board storage (16Gb on Lumia 900 vs 8Gb on the Focus 2).
Once again this doesn’t make much sense at all in this day and age when Windows Phone 8 is getting close to release and may or probably may not be offered as an update to the current Windows Phone 7 handsets on the market. The only good thing to come out if this announcement is the fact that it squashes the ridiculous rumors that have been flying around about a the Samsung Focus 2 being the Windows Phone variant of the Samsung Galaxy S III. Nothing to see here folks….
Continue reading Samsung launches the Samsung Focus 2 Windows Phone with LTE support. World still wonders why →
It has been a while since I posted any Android related news here so there you have it: According to an official Samsung statement the hotly anticipated Samsung Galaxy SIII will be announced in the first half of 2012 closer to its retail launch and not during MWC later this month unlike it’s predecessor the Galaxy S III which was announced there and released nearly 6 months later.
“Samsung is looking forward to introducing and demonstrating exciting new mobile products at Mobile World Congress 2012. The successor to the Galaxy S2 smartphone will be unveiled at a separate Samsung-hosted event in the first half of the year, closer to commercial availability of the product.”
I would also like to point out that I unfortunately won’t be able to go to MWC this year because of my full time job (unless something changes between now and then..).
Continue reading Samsung Galaxy S III to be announced in first half of 2012 but not at MWC →
File this under the: Strange but possible tag. Buried in Imagination Technologies interim financial results today is the following information:
Licensing
Strong licensing activities
- Addition of several new key partners including MStar, Ricoh, Qualcomm, Rockchip
- Many new and extended agreements with existing partners including Sony, Intel, Mediatek, Renesas, Samsung, Sigma, Realtek
This is as far I know the first mention of Qualcomm as a PowerVR IP licensee ever and really interesting given that the San Diego chip manufacturer currently develops its own GPU and graphics IP after its acquisition of ATI’s mobile division a few years ago. The timing would suggest that Qualcomm may have licensed the Rogue GPU IP but until we have more detail we can only speculate at this point. If that was the case then I wouldn’t expect to see any PowerVR tech in QC’s SoC until after the Krait generation of chips (unless the licensing deal is nothing more that patents stuff after all).
Continue reading Qualcomm licenses Imagination Technologies PowerVR IP →
I just came across a post on Neowin today which must have been inspired by what I have been saying all along and especially this editorial I wrote back in February after I came back from Mobile World Congress. To put it simply: things haven’t changed since I originally posted what I did and people are now finding out that what I have been preaching all along may be somewhat true. Throwing endless numbers of processor into a device isn’t going to make the user experience any better especially the OS (hello Android) or app is bloated / badly coded or simply doesn’t take advantage of the hardware horsepower under the hood. Yes I everybody wants 1080P video encoding/recoding but nobody’s going to do this 90% of the time with his phone and that’s the point: if what I’m principally using isn’t perfectly smooth (OS, browser, apps) why should I care about one single great feature?
Continue reading I don’t care about what’s inside your phone as long as the user experience is great →
Samsung’s jump to ARM’s Mali GPUs didn’t last long and will surely make some people (at ARM) a wee bit disappointed. Imagination Technologies have just announced that the Korean mobile giant has licensed their PowerVR SGX MP GPU IP for integration in upcoming mobile and consumer products. As you probably already know Samsung’s latest SoC (Exynos 42XX) used in its high-end smartphones uses a Mali 400 GPU unlike its previous once (the Hummingbird for example) that packed the venerable Power VR SGX540. The MP core IP licensed today is similar to what the PlayStation Vita will have and what Apple is also using in the iPad 2 and iPhone 4S.
This move may be related to Samsung wish to be a Windows 8 SoC provider because as of right now ARM’s current crop of GPUs (Mali) aren’t DirectX 9.3 compliant and lack support for DXTC texture compression (their upcoming T604 core should fix that but its debut is still unknown). full press release after the break:
Continue reading Samsung licenses Imagination Technologies PowerVR SGX MP GPU for future Mobile SoC →
Microsoft has recently hired Gavin Kim who was formerly a VP at Samsung Mobile in charge of the company’s product portfolio and close collaborator of Samsung former Chief Technology Officer Omar Khan (the brain behind the Galaxy line of products). Kim was VP of Consumer & Enterprise Services and leading development of Samsung Mobile’s software and services offerings, incubating Samsung’s content and developer partnerships, and building Samsung Mobile’s Enterprise Business. Prior to working at Samsung Kim was Director of Product Operations at Motorola.
“I will be responsible to help set the future direction for the Windows Phone platform and to accelerate Microsoft’s trajectory to win the hearts and minds of consumers, carriers, device manufacturers, developers and partners,”[...]“In my experience, there is an already fervent base of Windows Phone supporters out there and they all get it. They are passionate, and already very vocal about it … so, it is really my new job to make sure we reflect that message clearly in our product and marketing collaborations with all of our partners to create more Windows Phone believers.”
Kim is going to be a great asset added to the Windows Phone team thanks to the close relationship with Samsung who is now supposedly going to be more involved in the development and marketing of the platform. Here’s what the Korean mobile company had to say:
“Gavin Kim has departed Samsung Mobile and we look forward to working with him in the future,” [...] “In his new capacity, he will continue to be part of the larger Samsung family through our partnership with Microsoft.”
Continue reading Microsoft hires Samsung VP to head Windows Phone product management →
If you still haven’t managed to flash your Samsung Omnia 7 with the latest I8700XXKI4 firmware I posted a few days ago there’s seems to be a even easier way to enable Internet Sharing / Tethering on your device and the Samsung Focus too as long as it is developer unlocked courtesy of voluptuary:
1) First install the WP Dev Tools and unlock your Samsung phone.
2) Use the Application Deployment tool to send THIS to your phone. You do not need to run it and you can delete it after it has been deployed.
3) Install the Diagnosis app by typing ##634#
4) After the Diagnosis app starts type *#9908# and select ‘System Tweaks’ press ‘Save’ then ‘Close’ and restart your phone.
5) Your phone now has Internet sharing and as a bonus is interop unlocked!
Please try it out and let me know if it worked for you.
..if you pay for this option in your data plan. In line with what was always communicated by Microsoft, Internet Sharing will be made available on the AT&T Samsung Focus S and Samsung Focus Flash as long as you have this payed option enabled on your monthly data plan. I’ve noticed a lot of confused people in the past few days because of the lack of tethering on the Nokia Lumia 800 review samples and would lik to remind them that it’s up to the carrier (and OEM if you by your phone unlocked) to enable the Wifi Hotspot / internet sharing feature in Windows Phone 7.5 Mango. T-Mobile just did this in Germany for the Samsung Omnia 7 (you can download the firmware from here) and HTC has it available on its unlocked HTC Radar and HTC Titan handsets in Europe.
Continue reading AT&T to allow Intrenet Sharing on Samsung Focus S and Focus Flash →
Want that fancy WiFi Hotspot internet sharing Tethering feature on you Windows Phone 7 device? If you are a Samsung Omnia 7 owner today is your lucky day. T-Mobile Germany pushed out a new firmware last night version I8700XXKI4 with the tethering / Internet Sharing feature enabled (thanks for the tip guys!). I’m a nice guy so I grabbed the firmware file and uploaded it so you can manually install it on your handset. Follow the instructions below (same a before and I’m not responsible if it doesn’t work for you):
- Download the firmware here (remember that’s not the OS but only the firmware bits) then download the WPupdate tools from here.
- Unzip the Tools in a folder then unzip the firmware in the same folder as the tools.
- Plug in your device, wait until the Zune client starts and then close it.
- Run the the Updater and press S or B (depending on the size of your balls..)
- your phone will then reboot in download mode and update (don’t unplug it or do stupid things with your PC during the whole process..)
Please note that this won’t work if you are running the latest I8700XXKI3 firmware from SFR (there’s a conflict with the 5.9.1.4 bootloader and maybe others too) so you will have to painfully revert back to an older firmware like the T-Mobile RC1 here (I8700XXKH2).
Continue reading New Samsung Omnia 7 firmware with internet sharing available: I8700XXKI4 →
Time to show you how the gigantic HTC Titan performance compared to a first generation QSD8250 powered Windows Phone 7 handsets. As you will see in the video embedded after the break, the Titan is simply perfectly smooth at all times unlike the Samsung Omnia 7 which has a hard time rendering the live tiles when scrolling fast, the Webbrower controls embedded in third-party Silverlight applications and also panorama controls are now perfectly smooth in all applications. The Titan also often loads big games faster than the Omnia 7 and simply destroys the Samsung devices in HW accelerated HTML5 rendering (watch the video until the end..). This is really a combination of the 1.5Ghz Scorpion CPU in the MSM8255 and also the more powerful Adreno205 GPU.
Continue reading HTC Titan performance compared to 1st Generation Windows Phone 7 handsets →
It’s now a well known fact that the HTC Titan‘s 4.7″ SLCD screen is gigantic but what I really wanted to test was its outdoor visibility compared to the Super AMOLED displays from Samsung which are currently the best in this lighting situation. The first thing you will notice on the HTC Titan and HTC Radar is that unlike all of HTC’s previous handsets there’s no air gap at all between the glass (Gorilla Glass here) and the display panel. The result is that contrast, viewing angles and outdoor visibility are greatly improve because there’s less light refraction and dispersion messing things up. As you will see in the pictures below outdoors visibility is nearly identical on the HTC Titan and Samsung Omnia 7.
Continue reading HTC Titan’s screen outdoor visibility →
One of the main differentiating feature of the HTC Titan is its new 8 megapixel camera with F2.2 lens, dual LED flash, and BSI sensor. Thanks to the MSM8255 SoC the device is now capable of shooting 720P videos at 30fps (25fps for the 1st gen Windows Phone 7 handsets).
So how do the videos look like ? Well, I shot two of them on the Titan and the Samsung Omnia 7 both at the same time so you can directly compare them. The first thing you will notice is the higher frame of the Titan video and its higher level of motion blur which seems to be caused by a slower shutter speed. This results in a steadier video shoot compared to the Omnia 7′s jerky mess. The only downside of the Titan is th super slow auto-exposure control which can be really annoying in some situations(the Omnia 7 colors are more natural). Both camera also have continuous auto-focus (it’s a hit-or-miss feature as you can see sometimes both devices have a hard time focusing depending on the lighting situtation.). As of right now the HTC Titan features the best camera that HTC has ever packed in a one of their handsets. The 720P videos shots on the HTC Titan are btter than the 1080P ones shot on the HTC Sensation. For you information the the First HTC Titan is 75MB while the Omnia 7 is 45MB (the Titan encodes at 10Mbs and has 5 more fps while the Omnia 7 encodes at 6Mbs). Check out both videos after the break and tell me what you think and if you want me to show you anything else.
Continue reading HTC Titan HD video recording hands on and compared to the Omnia 7 →
Want to know what’s really inside the latest and greatest Android handsets? Engadget, with the help of Android developer Francois Simond compiled the full list of all the hardware found inside the Samsung Galaxy Nexus :
Silicon
- CPU: Texas Instruments OMAP4460 (same as the Droid RAZR), 2047.7 BogoMIPS
- GPU: Imagination Technologies PowerVR SGX 540 (highler clocked version than the one in the HummingBird SoC)
- WiFi / Bluetooth module: Broadcom BCM4330 (same as in the Galaxy S II)
- Audio codec: Texas Instruments TWL6040
- HDMI: Silicon Image MHD SiI9234 transmitter over MHL (same as Infuse 4G and GSII)
- USB Switch: Fairchild semiconductors fsa9480
- Framebuffer controller: Samsung S6E8AA0 MIPI LCD with Gamma correction driver
Sensors
- Geomagnetic sensor: Brand new tri-axial Yamaha YAS530
- TouchScreen sensor: Melfas MMSxxx touchscreen
- Optical / proximity sensor: GP2A (same as Galaxy S and Nexus S)
- Barometric pressure sensor: BOSCH BMP180
- Triaxial acceleration sensor: BOSCH BMA250
- Triple Axis MEMS Gyroscope: InvenSense MPU3050
- Fuel Gauge (algorithm to track battery’s state of charge): MAXIM MAX17040
Misc. internals
- Facial recognition elements (Face Unlock): left eye, right eye, nose base, head, face
- Available resolution for standard apps: 720 x 1184px
- Refresh rate: 60Hz
- LCD Density: 320
- Default display color depth: 32bit
- Camera uses OMAP Ducati Subsystem, on-screen preview size is 768 x 576
- Linux kernel: 3.0.1 compiled for SMP with voluntary kernel preemption for best interactivity
- Android ROM: version 4.0.1, built October 13, 2011
- Device name: Maguro
- Main input/output type supported: Headphone, Speaker, Microphone, Bluetooth, Voice, FM, S/PDIF over HDMI; USB Audio DAC (digital-to-audio converter with USB input and stereo outputs) should also be supported
Continue reading What’s inside the Samsung Galaxy Nexus →
Good day folks! The Samsung Galaxy Nexus has now been made official a few hours ago alongside Android 4.0 aka Ice Cream Sandwich. In terms of hardware specifications there’s nothing we didn’t already know yesterday so please refer to this post for the full comprehensive list of the device’s internals and externals. Does it look sexy ? Well that 4.67″ HD Super AMOLED screen is definitely a winner even though the overall design looks relatively close to last year’s Google Nexus S. Inside the beast is a TI OMAP 4460 SoC which includes the well regarded PowerVR SGX540 GPU (clocked higher than the original version) similar to what is powering the just announced Motorola Droid RaZR (early benchmark results here). As we have seen in the full specification yesterday there’s also going to be an LTE version of it which will launch later and bit a tiny bit thicker that the regular GSM variant launching in Asia, Europe and North America in November. The only thing missing is the internal MicroSD slot which isn’t mentioned in the official press release.
Continue reading Samsung Galaxy Nexus is officially official →
That’s it folks, we finally have the full hardware specifications of the Samsung Galaxy Nexus formerly known as the Nexus Prime. As previously guessed the SoC powering the handset is a Texas Instrument OMAP4460 Dua-Core CPU clocked at 1.2Ghz coupled with a PowerVR SGX540 GPU (clocked higher than the one initially found in the Hummingbird SoC of the Original Samsung Galaxy. The Galaxy Nexus also sport a gigantic 4.7inch Super AMOLED HD screen (1280×720 but only 1196×720 usable throughout the OS because of the onscreen hardware buttons). It also packs 1GB or RAM, 32GB of internal Storage and a MicroSD expansion slot. On the imaging front the The Galaxy Nexus has a 5MPx camera on the back which can shoot 1080P videos plus a 1.3MP camera on the front. Check out the full specs after the break:
Continue reading Samsung Galaxy Nexus Hardware Specifications →
Someone using a prototype or developer version of the soon to be announced Samsung Galaxy Nexus (or Nexus Prime) has submitted GLBenchmark scores indicating that the handset is powered by a TI OMAP 4460 Dual-Core SoC clocked at 1.2Ghz. This may be disappointment to some but unfortunately the way it is because TI is the development partner for Android 4.0 aka Ice Cream Sandwich (similar to how NVIDIA’s Tegra was Android 3.0‘s primary platform etc.) You can also note that the screen resolution is reported to be 1196 x 720 instead of 1280×720 because of the on-screen “hardware buttons”.
Continue reading First Samsung Galaxy Nexus Prime benchmarks →
Here’s my little gift for you this weekend. I just managed to download the latest Samsung Omnia 7 I8700XXKI3 Firmware package wish was pushed out by SFR yesterday and I’m giving it back to you so you can manually update your device following the same instructions I posted a few days ago when the latest Samsung Mango firmware was pushed. Please remember that if something goes wrong you will be on your own. Words of advise before attempting to update your handset: If it doesn’t work you will most probably get two different error:
- 800705B4 : Time out error which happens on many Omnia 7 depending on how much free storage you have left. Solution: hard reset you handsets.
- 8018001E: There’s a conflict with the current bootloader on your handsets (happened to me with the latest Mango firmware): Solution: you are screwed. Roll back to a previous bootloader/firmware
Here are the instructions:
- Download the firmware here (remember that’s not the OS but only the firmware bits) then download the WPupdate tools from here.
- Unzip the Tools in a folder then unzip the firmware in the same folder as the tools.
- Plug in your device, wait until the Zune client starts and then close it.
- Run the the Updater and press S or B (depending on the size of your balls..)
- your phone will then reboot in download mode and update (don’t unplug it or do stupid things with your PC during the whole process..)
Report back if it works for you. If not then please take a look at all the messages in the previous post before posting.
Continue reading Update your Samsung Omnia 7 to the latest I8700XXKI3 firmware now →
Google and Samsung have re-scheduled the canceled October 11th launch event of Android 4.0 aka Ice Cream Sandwich and the Samsung Google Nexus Prime (or Galaxy Prime aka Samsung i9250 ) to October 19th in Hong Kong at around 10PM EST. Inserting times ahead… I’m really eager to see how the Honeycomb UI has be shrunk down to work on smartphone. The early look we had last week didn’t really seem exciting to me but let’s wait until we have more info before passing judgment.
A new Samsung Omnia 7 firmware has been rolled-out today by french carrier SFR along side it’s Mango update push. I unfortunately don’t have the update (because I unbranded my SFR Omnia 7 handset) and don’t have the firmware bites either yet. As you can see below it’s newer than the previous I8700XXKH5 firmware released during the initial Mango roll out phase and most probably based on the engineering SFR firmware leaked a few weeks ago:
OS Version: 7.10.7720.68
Firmware revision number: 2424.11.9.3
Hardware revision number: 3.15.0.4
Radio software version: 2424.11.9.1
Radio hardware version: 0.0.0.800
Bootloader version: 5.9.1.4
Chip SOC version: 0.36.2.0
It would be awesome if If a brave soul is willing to send me the firmware bits so we can manually flashed it.
Thanks to everybody who sent this in.
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