April 27, 2009 by Tap
We can finally put previous Samsung rumours to bed with official news that the company's OLED touchscreen I7500 and not the S8000 is going to be its first Android phone – and what a phone it should be. It's taken Samsung a little longer than HTC to come to the party but they've certainly come in guns blazing and will give HTC's G1 and Magic a good run for their money.
So in terms of specs, how does the I7500 stack up? Well firstly there's a 3.2 inch capacitive OLED touchscreen versus HTC's 3.2 inch TFT; a 5 megapixel camera versus 3.2 megapixel; 8GB of internal memory expandable via microSD and instead of the usual mini-USB connector there's a standard 3.5mm stereo headset connector.
Add to that package GPS, Bluetooth and WiFi, all using a similarly spec'd 528MHz Qualcomm processor and you've got a real contender for the number one Android phone spot. Physically the handset will be sleeker (almost 2mm thinner than the HTC Magic) and hopefully lighter. Battery life should also be better thanks to a larger 1500mAh battery together with the improved efficiency of the OLED screen.
Samsung's I7500 is expected to be released this June as an O2 exclusive in Germany so it's not certain that we'll ever see it outside of that country. Nevertheless, if the I7500 is an example of Samsung's commitment to Android, the future looks bright.
Via: the::unwired
March 2, 2009 by Tap
According to a recent post on UK's Mobile Today, T-Mobile is crediting the Google G1 as part of the reason why they incurred minimal losses in 2008. The G1, launched in October last year turned out to be the operator's top selling launch and now accounts for 20% of all contract sales. I think 20% is pretty good when you consider that the G1 is up against phones like the popular Nokia N96 and the Samsung Tocco, both of which are also available free on similarly priced plans, and this kind of uptake can only help to encourage further Android rollouts this year.
No doubt Vodafone is keeping a close eye on the G1's sales, hoping to emulate T-Mobile's success when the HTC Magic is released in April. Now I guess we just have to wait and see if/when Orange and O2 follow suit in the UK. If a post on Basic Thinking is anything to go by, O2 is the next operator to keep an eye on. According to the post, an O2 product manager at O2 Innovation Days 2009 in Munich was quoted as saying, "we want to get out 6 to 8 Android devices this year." If that is the case we really are going to be spoilt for choice.
Via: MobileToday | Basic Thinking