The Samsung Galaxy S 2 is receiving a lot of attention right now, both from the media and from customers themselves. Quite rightfully so, the Galaxy S 2 is Samsung’s new flagship device and the rightful heir to the original Samsung Galaxy S throne. It’s currently the best-selling top-end Android device in the world but does it deserve to be? We take a look to see if the Galaxy S 2 really does live up to all the hype.
We’ve barely even become accustomed to the HTC Sensation and now HTC is bringing us the HTC Sensation XE. This dual-core 1.5GHz badboy is basically a slightly upgraded version of the HTC Sensation that focuses predominantly on music by making good use of HTC’s deal with Beats Audio (commonly known as Dr Dre’s Beats among other titles).
The HTC Bliss is an upcoming device by HTC that is supposedly designed to target a predominantly female audience. We’re not entirely sure exactly how HTC expects to go about this, as so far not too much “female friendly” info has cropped up about the device just yet. So far everything we’ve heard just makes the HTC Bliss sound like “a phone” with a few lighter curves.
The HTC Runnymede is a new high-profile smartphone that we’re expecting from HTC in the upcoming months. Hardware-wise it’s not quite up to specs with the dual-core market leaders right now, but it’ll still certainly pack a punch with a single-core 1.5GHz processor, 768 MB of RAM and 8MP camera.
Android users have been waiting a long time for Netlix support on Froyo and Gingerbread and now it seems they finally have it. When Netflix first launched its Android app back in May it was big news, but was only available on a handful of Android devices. Of course it was always possible to install Netflix via the .apk, but most users wouldn’t even know what that means, let alone have any idea of how to go about it.
There are a lot of devices that, when first announced, get a huge amount of hype. However, every once in a while one of those devices gets delayed, and delayed, and delayed, and delayed. A common reaction on the internet to such an incident is a spike in rumors and hype regarding said device. This causes a snowball effect that can often do more harm than good when the much awaited handset is finally released, causing phones like the Droid Bionic to seem like a let-down, despite being a quality product.
The mobile device industry is a fast moving place. With a new device either rumoured or announced every week, constant operating system (OS) updates and giant companies vying for dominance in what is quickly becoming the world’s most profitable business it can sometimes be difficult to sit back and see the big picture.
Eric Schmidt, former CEO of Google and now Executive Chairman seems to have accidentally let slip that we can expect the Android Ice Cream Sandwich update in either October or November. During an extremely long interview Eric said: “We have a new operating system, internally known as Ice Cream Sandwich for some reason, which is being released in October – November, which everyone’s really excited about.”
The Samsung Stratosphere has hit the FSS with some interesting specs. A 4 inch Super AMOLED display is always great to see from Samsung, the 5MP camera is pretty standard but we do like the inclusion of a 1.3MP front-facing camera. 2GB of internal storage is a bit disappointing but will be made up for with expandable memory. Although we’re as yet unsure if there will be a complimentary MicroSD card that comes with the phone or if it will be an additional cost. We’re also expecting to see it on nothing less than Android 2.3.4, so customers will be able to make good use of that front-facing camera with GTalk video support.
Google Talk (GTalk), if you haven’t heard of it, is an instant messaging (IM) service that supports text, voice and even video, depending on what harder and software you’re using. It comes stock standard on most Android devices and now, as long as nothing unforeseen happens, it’ll be making its debut appearance on the quickly growing Windows Phone platform.
Hundreds of cell phone plans unpacked. All the facts. No surprises.