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All posts tagged "samsung"


Monday, January 16, 2012

Samsung's 2nd Gen Focus - the Focus S

Posted by Don Tolson in "Samsung Windows Phones" @ 08:00 AM

Product Category: Windows Phone 7 Smartphone
Manufacturer: Samsung
Where to Buy: Expansys [affiliate]
Price: $775 USD (unlocked, no contract)
System Requirements: Comes with Windows Phone 7 Mango (7720) installed.
Specifications: 1.4Ghz single core CPU, 16Gb internal storage, 1Gb RAM; 4.3in WVGA (480 x 800) Super AMOLED screen; Quad band (850/900/1800/1900) GPRS, Tri band UTMS (900/1700/2100), HSPA+; GPS; 8mp colour camera w/autofocus + LED flash, 720p HD video recording; BT 2.1 EDR & A2DP; 802.11b/g/n; 3.5mm stereo audio jack; microUSB 2.0; G-Sensor; 124mm (4.96in) x 66mm (2.6in) x 8.4mm (0.33in); 110g (3.9oz). Full specs are available at the Samsung site.

Pros:

  • Large, bright screen with amazing contrast;
  • Light weight, but solidly built;
  • All round, an amazing phone!

Cons:

  • Positioning of the power button makes it easy to 'accidentally' hit and turn it on/off when not intended;
  • A keyboard slider version of this phone would be a big bonus;
  • Sorry, it only comes in black :-).

Summary: The original Samsung Focus, despite some niggling flaws, multiple versions, and difficulties with upgrades, has been the Windows Phone 7 'phone to beat' almost from the day it arrived. While the HTC Titan and HD7 have been making inroads, the Focus still holds a significant portion of the Windows Phone 7 user community. Now, Samsung has issued the successor in two slightly different models - the Focus S with better specs and screen, and the more budget-minded Focus Flash. While not quite the massiveness of the HTC Titan, Samsung has again shown that it can 'lead the pack' in design and features with the Focus S. Read more...


Friday, November 18, 2011

Samsung Focus S Reviewed

Posted by Nurhisham Hussein in "Samsung Windows Phones" @ 02:00 AM

http://pocketnow.com/windows-phone/...-focus-s-review

"Last year the AT&T Samsung Focus ended up being the best new Windows Phone around as it shot to the top of the charts in satisfaction surveys. This year, Samsung has released two Focus successors and the Focus S is meant to be the high-end model...what's changed in this new flagship Windows Phone from Samsung? Read on to find out."

If you're curious about the latest edition to Samsung (and AT&T's) stable of Windows Phones, check out Pocketnow's review. It's mainly complimentary, with some minor niggles like how the back cover fits on, but apart from that the Focus S appears to be a worthy and hopefully less problematical successor to the Focus. Just about every hardware component has been upgraded, from the larger screen to the 8MP camera, and it comes with Mango out of the box.


Thursday, November 10, 2011

Samsung Focus Flash Reviewed

Posted by Nurhisham Hussein in "Samsung Windows Phones" @ 06:30 PM

http://www.laptopmag.com/review/sma...ocus-flash.aspx

"Besides the free--and ancient--iPhone 3GS, AT&T's budget smartphone selection is pretty slim. That's why Samsung's new $49.99 Focus Flash, one of the company's first devices to run the new Microsoft Windows Phone 7.5 (Mango), is a breath of fresh air. This affordable handset crams a Super AMOLED display and a fast 1.4-GHz processor inside a light and compact design."

Laptopmag.com reviews the Samsung Focus Flash and the bottom line is they like it. The price is nice too, but given the specs mandated by Microsoft, there's really not a whole lot of difference between this "budget" phone and higher end WP7 phones. The camera's minimum spec, 4G speeds are respectable, and the screen's on the small end - but balance that against a faster 1.4GHz Snapdragon, and you have a decent contender.


Monday, October 31, 2011

Samsung Bringing Flexible Displays in 2012

Posted by Adan Galvan in "Windows Phone News" @ 07:00 PM

http://www.digitaltrends.com/mobile...creens-in-2012/

“The flexible display we are looking to introduce sometime in 2012, hopefully the earlier part,” said Samsung’s vice president of investor relations, Robert Yi. “The application probably will start from the handset side.”

At Nokia World, a flexible display was being demonstrated as a method for interaction with onscreen content. Twist the screen to zoom in, twist in the opposite direction to zoom out. Not to be outdone, Samsung has announced that they too have been working on a flexible display. Only time will tell if this will end up as a gimmick, or if software developers will find novel and interesting uses for this technology.


Tuesday, September 13, 2011

Samsung's AT&T Mango Play

Posted by Richard Chao in "Windows Phone News" @ 10:22 PM

http://www.anandtech.com/show/4765/...o-att-this-fall

"Samsung is starting their roll out of Windows Phone 7.5 (Mango) devices."

Samsung's Focus Windows Phone 7 phone is among the top seller in the WP7 line. Now, Samsung is looking to continue that success with the release of the Focus S and Focus Flash. Both devices are destined for AT&T. The Focus S will be sporting a 4.3 inch display while the Focus Flash will be 3.7 inch. Both displays will be of the Super AMOLED variety and both will have front facing cameras. And, just so current Focus owners aren't left behind, AT&T has announced their customers will be among the first to be updated to Mango.

So, which Windows Phone will you get? Samsung, HTC, Nokia...?


Monday, September 12, 2011

Apple Comes Out #1 in Customer Satisfaction

Posted by Adan Galvan in "Windows Phone News" @ 05:00 AM

http://www.engadget.com/2011/09/09/...y-grim-reading/

Apple has once again been named number one by JD Power and Associates for customer satisfaction. HTC and Samsung also scored high on list. On the other end of the spectrum, Nokia, RIMM, and Palm ranked near the bottom of the pack. This is not surprising for Nokia, since have very few phones available in the US. It remains to be seen whether Nokia's partnership with Microsoft will improve their rankings, but at this point it can only help.


Monday, July 18, 2011

Update For AT&T Samsung Focus Roll Out

Posted by Nurhisham Hussein in "Samsung Windows Phones" @ 07:30 PM

http://www.wpcentral.com/microsoft-...-samsung-update

"The most recent Windows Phone update from Microsoft is indicating the Samsung Focus v1.4 update may happen sooner than later."

The looong wait is almost over for AT&T Samsung sufferers. The report indicates you should be seeing an update alert some time within the next day or so. With luck you'll be enjoying some of the benefits the rest of us have been using these last few months. It's no Mango, but it'll do until Mango arrives.


Tuesday, July 12, 2011

WPC 2011 Announcement: Four New WP7 Handsets Coming Soon And 22K Official App Count

Posted by Richard Chao in "Windows Phone News" @ 12:20 PM

http://www.neowin.net/news/microsof...owin+Main+News)

"Also announced at WPC are new hardware devices for the Windows Phone platform. The three devices shown above are a ZTE based device (far right), Acer (far left) and a waterproof Fujitsu in the middle in a waterproof case. Nothing else was revealed about the new devices."

Microsoft has just announced four new Windows Phone 7 handsets at their Worldwide Partner Conference. They will be manufactured by ZTE, Fujitsu, Acer and Samsung. Specs, pricing and availability were not part of the announcement. Although, there is speculation that the Samsung unit appeared to contain a front facing camera.

Also announced at the conference was the Marketplace is now home to over 22,000 applications according to Microsoft's metrics.


Tuesday, March 22, 2011

The Mobile Wallet: NFC Tech Coming To WP7?

Posted by Nurhisham Hussein in "Windows Phone News" @ 10:00 AM

http://www.wpcentral.com/microsoft-...windows-phone-7

"Near Field Communication (NFC), in our opinion, will be the big story of late 2011 as it finally becomes widely adopted in the marketplace. NFC is basically a small chipset component that can store vital information e.g. credit card data, making your phone a virtual payment system for use in stores--you simply swipe your phone near the reader, enter your pin and you're good to go."

Let's be honest here - this isn't exactly new technology, NFC is already in commercial use in Japan for instance. But like any promising tech, you've got to have a lot of things in place before you have mass acceptance like hardware, software, industry standards, and most of all, killer applications. But it looks like WP7 is already on the NFC bandwagon, with at least one WP7 OEM looking into it and Nokia already committed for their regular lineup (and hopefully for their WP7 phones as well). So that's one part of the equation that's holding up. Now, about the rest...


Friday, March 4, 2011

Re-released Update May Still Be Causing Problems On Samsung Devices

Posted by Richard Chao in "Windows Phone Software" @ 12:33 AM

http://www.wpcentral.com/wp7-suppor...te-issues-again

"Seems us Samsung folk (I'm really beginning to regret leaving HTC) are still experiencing issues with the pre-NoDO update (take 2). Pulling the original release, this second attempt was meant to have fixed the teething issues, but alas there are still problems being reported."

If you have a Samsung WP7 phone like me, you may want to wait a day or two before attempting the update as there appears to be some chatter on twitter regarding errors resulting from the newly released update.

The first release of the update was pulled due to problems when applied to Samsung phones. Earlier today, Microsoft announced they had found and corrected the glitches and updates would resume soon after. But, it appears that once again, some Samsung users are getting error codes during the update. To make matters worse, some have claimed that attempts to restore the phone from backup fails during the restore process, leaving the user with no choice but to bring the phone back to its factory state.

Hopefully these cases are isolated incidents. However, as a precaution, I strongly suggest Samsung users hold off for now.


Thursday, March 3, 2011

WP7 Update Is Back On Track

Posted by Nurhisham Hussein in "Windows Phone News" @ 07:30 PM

http://windowsteamblog.com/windows_...are-update.aspx

"Starting today, we plan to resume rolling out the February update to Samsung phones. Meanwhile, we're continuing to dispatch the update to other Windows Phone models. As has been the case, the software patch is being sent out on a rolling schedule. You'll see a message on your phone when it's available."

Microsoft has apparently found the glitch that affected the update process for certain Samsung models, and are now pushing out the first WP7 update to everybody (eventually). This rollout has obviously not been pain free and MS testing procedures probably not as comprehensive as it should have been, but better now than later when the more important NoDo update comes due this month. If you've got a Samsung, let us know how your update experience went.


Tuesday, February 22, 2011

Microsoft Suspends Update?

Posted by Nurhisham Hussein in "Windows Phone News" @ 07:00 PM

http://www.wpcentral.com/microsoft-...ys-fix-bricking

"Looks like our initial assessment of the first Windows Phone update was a little rosy for some users, specifically those of Samsung phones (even a few Focus users are having problems). For a handful of unlucky folks, the Windows Phone update is actually "bricking" their phone after Step 6 of the update...from our perspective (here in the States) Microsoft has either yet to or has indeed put a halt to rolling out the update (both my Quantum and HD7 have yet to be flagged for an update, even when force-checked in Zune desktop."

I've done the update and had zero problems, but it appears for some, the update has brought on a whole lot of trouble. The problem appears to be confined to Samsung WP7 owners (and then, only for particular firmware versions), so you might want to hold off until Microsoft issues a fixed update at the end of this week.

Update:

Mary-Jo Foley of ZDNet has managed to pry some answers from Microsoft:

"We have identified a technical issue with the Windows Phone update process that impacts a small number of Samsung phones. This software update remains available to customers with the exception of Samsung as we are in the process of temporarily taking down the update for those phones in order to correct the issue as soon as possible."

So the update should still be going through for non-Samsung WP7 phones. You might want to read what else Mary-Jo has to say about it, though I think she's over-reacting a little.


Wednesday, November 24, 2010

AT&T Offering A Two For One Holiday Deal

Posted by Nurhisham Hussein in "Windows Phone Mobile Operators" @ 06:00 PM

http://windowsteamblog.com/windows_...deal-alert.aspx

"AT&T just sweetened the pot a bit for the holiday shopping season with the announcement of a buy one get one free deal for the HTC Surround, LG Quantum and Samsung Focus. To take advantage of this offer head down to your local AT&T retail store, sign up for a two-year contract and you and a friend will have a couple of the coolest phones of the season."

I've got mixed feelings about this - on the one hand this sounds like a great deal, but on the other hand, AT&T is trying to clear stock already? Really? But if you're interested, dropping by an AT&T store and have a look.


Thursday, November 18, 2010

Samsung To Focus On Windows Phone 7 Over Android in 2011

Posted by Jon Westfall in "Android News" @ 05:00 AM

http://news.asiaone.com/News/Latest...117-247679.html

"Next year, Samsung will introduce 15 to 20 new smart-phone models using Android, Windows, and Brada operating systems. For every 50 smart phones using Windows, it will make 24 using Android and five using Brada."

While Samsung has put together a pretty impressive lineup of Android devices, it's Windows Phone 7 that they appear to be targeting in 2011, with approximately 50% more WP7 devices than Android coming out in 2011. So is it that they see WP7 as a superior platform, or just one they want to be as heavily invested in as they are already with Android?


Wednesday, October 20, 2010

AT&T & Microsoft Talk About their Windows Phone 7 Collaboration

Posted by Jason Dunn in "Windows Phone Articles & Resources" @ 09:47 AM

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VEsh...player_embedded

"Steve Conn, Associate Director of Windows Phone Product Portfolio at AT&T, and Beth Goza, Sr. Community Manager of Windows Phone for Microsoft, discuss collaboration to bring the newest Windows Phones to market."

This is mostly a marketing fluff piece, but if you're an AT&T customer and you want to see what they're offering in terms of Windows Phone 7 devices, here it is...


Monday, October 11, 2010

Some Windows Phone 7 Devices Will Have Removable Storage?

Posted by Jason Dunn in "Windows Phone News" @ 03:33 PM

http://www.wpcentral.com/removable-...7-samsung-focus

"Okay, lets get some of this confusing stuff out of the way: the Samsung Focus has "only" 8GB of storage available. In talking with Samsung, their position was basically so much of this phone is "cloud based" that 8GB may be sufficient for most people. However, they're more than glad to suggest that 16GB and higher are probably on the horizon."

Hmm. This article states that the Samsung Focus has a removable storage slot and that you can take out the 8 GB microSD card, put in a 16 GB microSD card, hard reset the phone, and the card will be usable. The contents of the card are digitally encrypted for performance and security reasons, so you can't take it out and pop it into another device, but this painful-but-doable method of upgrading the storage on your phone is quite interesting, and quite surprising. I wonder how many other Windows Phone 7 devices will be able to do this? Fingers crossed that HTC is enabling the same type of thing on their phones...(in fact, let me email HTC about that right now).


Windows Phone 7 Profile: the Samsung Focus

Posted by Jason Dunn in "Samsung Windows Phones" @ 01:17 PM

http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/...one/glance.aspx

"Thin and light, the Samsung Focus offers a 4.0" Super AMOLED display and a 5mp camera with enhanced photo options such as panorama, smile detector, Lomo mode, Add Me, and BeautyShot."

One of the few devices with am AMOLED screen, the Samsung Focus has a sizeable (4 inch) screen, a slender 10.9mm profile, and fairly standard specs otherwise. As I profile each of these phones, I find myself increasingly disappointed that so many of them are only coming with 8 GB of storage. That's worthy of a separate post I think...stand by!

  • 4.0", 480x800 Super AMOLED screen
  • 4.82" x 2.53" x 0.43" 110g
  • 512MB RAM/1GB Flash/8GB internal storage
  • Processor: Qualcomm Snapdragon QSD 8250 1 GHz
  • Battery life - Talk time: 3 hrs/Standby: 250 hrs
  • 5MP camera/720p HD video

More photos after the break. Read more...


Tuesday, October 5, 2010

AT&T To Have an Exclusive on Certain Windows Phone 7 Phones?

Posted by Jason Dunn in "Windows Phone Mobile Operators" @ 03:00 PM

http://www.infosyncworld.com/review...ne-7/11410.html

"The Wall Street Journal reports that AT&T will be the exclusive launch carrier for Windows Phone 7 in the U.S. According to the newspaper, the carrier will start selling three smartphones of the kind on November 8. These smartphones are said to be manufactured by HTC, Samsung and LG, so we guess they'll turn out to be the HTC Mondrian, Samsung Cetus and LG Optimus 7. Exact model names and official specifications will be announced during a Microsoft event to be held on October 11."

Seems pretty reasonable to me - Microsoft would have had to have promised more than a few party favours to AT&T in order to get them on board with Windows Phone 7. I suspect though that this exclusivity will only be for a short time; HTC, Samsung, and LG won't want to lose out on sales if certain devices really start to take off.


Friday, October 1, 2010

Samsung Reveals Commitment to Windows Phone 7

Posted by Brad Wasson in "Windows Phone Talk" @ 03:30 PM

http://gizmodo.com/5651858/samsung-.../full+(Gizmodo)

"Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd, a global leader in mobile technology, today announced an agreement to use the Windows Phone 7 platform and related application software as a key component of the Samsung smartphone portfolio."

It seems that almost every day now we are hearing about another vendor's plans for Windows Phone 7. Gizmodo has posted a Samsung-issued press release describing their intention to make the Windows Phone 7 platform a "key component of the Samsung smartphone portfolio". They highlight their long-standing commitment to the new platform, and reveal that several phones will be released in Europe, the US, and Asia in 2010.

It's been hard not to miss the big play Samsung has made in the last few months with their Android-based phones and their upcoming tablet. Perhaps this is the start of a build up to more visible support for Windows Phone 7. If we see three or more phones before the end of the year, that is indeed a significant start.


Saturday, August 28, 2010

Verizon Clearing The Deck

Posted by Nurhisham Hussein in "Windows Phone News" @ 01:00 PM

http://www.wmexperts.com/verizons-w...e-end-life-list

Every Windows Mobile device that Verizon is currently offering, including the HTC Touch Pro 2 and the Samsung Omnia 2, will be off the shelf by the first quarter of next year according to a leaked end-of-life document. You can take this one of two ways - either Verizon is completely fed up with Microsoft after the Kin debacle, or they're placing a big bet on Windows Phone 7. I wouldn't lay odds either way. Hit the link for the details.


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