Samsung | Fone Arena

Samsung S-View Cover on the Galaxy S4 Google Play Edition, it works

The Samsung Galaxy S4 Google Play Edition was launched with much anticipation, as to how it will work and how the updates will roll out. While the immediate roll out of 4.3 inspired confidence there was always a worry that buying the S4 Google Play Edition will strip out all the important features of TouchWiz. While that still stands true, we found that one neat feature of the TouchWiz enabled S4 still works for the Google Play Edition, and that is the S4 View Cover functionality. We snapped the S4’s S-View Cover on to the S4 GPE and shot a quick demo of it for you –

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fVMK2JC7z5Y

Continue reading “Samsung S-View Cover on the Galaxy S4 Google Play Edition, it works”

Samsung Gear Manager screenshots leak ahead of Galaxy Gear smartwatch launch

It is no secret that Samsung plans to introduce a smartwatch at its upcoming event at IFA. Ahead of the launch, prolific leaker of upcoming devices ie evleaks has posted screenshots of the application that will interface with the watch.

The images confirm that the watch will be using NFC for pairing with smartphones but will also employ regular bluetooth based connectivity. The watch that is named SM-V700 will have a variety of apps including clock faces and several Samsung specific applications. A My Apps section can also be seen in the software but it remains to be seen what is included here. A find my watch function will presumably trigger an alarm and/or vibration feedback to help you locate your watch. We’ll be reporting live from IFA next week where we’ll have the complete low down on the Samsung Galaxy Gear, the Note III and all other devices announced. Excited about Samsung’s smartwatch? Let us know why in the comments below!

[Via – Evleaks]

Micromax and Karbonn take top positions as the Indian Smartphone market surges ahead with the Phablet revolution

You might have seen us reporting on various marketshare reports each month coming from a company called IDC. Usually, the company provides a wider perspective of the global market for mobile phones as well as smartphones, but this time, they have focused on the second fastest growing mobile phone market in the world, India. We saw in June that the overall shipments of Smartphones in India was at just 6.1 million devices, but in a quarter, it has risen to 9.3 million shipments, according to IDC. And over half of the shipments were from local players like Micromax, Karbonn and the others, with the former taking the no. 2 and 3 positions of the Top 5 Smartphone vendors in the Indian market respectively.

Continue reading “Micromax and Karbonn take top positions as the Indian Smartphone market surges ahead with the Phablet revolution”

Samsung Galaxy Tab 3 311 Benchmarks

Samsung launched the Galaxy Tab 311 last month in India. We’ve brought you the review and here are the complete benchmarks of the device. The tablet is powered by a 1.5Ghz dual core Exynos 4212 processor that is paired with 1.5GB of RAM. About 442 MB of free RAM is available at launch. Let’s check out how the tablet performs in various benchmark tests. Continue reading “Samsung Galaxy Tab 3 311 Benchmarks”

Samsung Galaxy Tab 3 311 Review

Samsung’s Galaxy Tab range of products have been immensely popular due to their successful marriage of price and specifications. While Samsung’s 7 inch tablet has been the highlight, 8 inches is fast becoming the sweet spot in terms of screen size. With that in mind, Samsung introduced their 8 inch tablet, the Galaxy Tab 3 311 in India sometime back. We’ve already brought you our first impressions. Check out the complete review of the Samsug Galaxy Tab 311, below. Continue reading “Samsung Galaxy Tab 3 311 Review”

Country wise distribution list for Samsung Galaxy Note III leaked

Curious to know whether you’ll be getting the Exynos Octa Core powered variant of Samsung’s next top of the range phablet or will you be using a Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 powered variant ? SamMobile claim to have got their hands on a country wise distribution list of said handset that will inform you exactly which variant you’ll be getting.

The report goes on to state that the LTE variant of the handset ie SM-N9005 will be powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 (MSM8974) processor clocked at 2.3Ghz and will be paired with an Adreno 330 GPU. It will feature 3GB of LPDDR3 RAM. While this will carry on in the 3G variant as well, the processor will be switched with the Samsung Exynos 5420 Octa Core CPU and will be paired with the Mali-T628 MP6 GPU. China will also be getting a dual SIM version of the handset that will also have the Exynos 5420 Octa Core CPU. We’ve embedded the entire distribution list below for your perusal. Continue reading “Country wise distribution list for Samsung Galaxy Note III leaked”

Samsung Galaxy Smartphones and Tablets to get support for 9 Indian languages

Samsung Galaxy Grand Indian Language support

Samsung today announced support for 9 Indian languages for their Galaxy smartphones and tablets. This would let the Samsung smartphone users to access the user interface and content in these languages. The 9 Indian languages include, Hindi, Punjabi, Bengali, Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, Malayalam, Marathi and Gujarati. These Indian languages will be supported on Galaxy Grand, Galaxy S4 and the Galaxy Tab 3 starting from today. Continue reading “Samsung Galaxy Smartphones and Tablets to get support for 9 Indian languages”

Apple loses marketshare as Android tablet sales surge – IDC

idc-tablet-marketshare

What started with Kindle Fire is now the leading form factor in the tablet space. Yes, thanks to the booming small tablet market, Android is surging ahead at no. 1 spot in the tablet space too, with Apple losing marketshare and not growing along with the market. IDC had released its Smartphone marketshare analysis recently, which saw Apple growing at a slower pace than the others and that seems to be the case in tablets too.

Continue reading “Apple loses marketshare as Android tablet sales surge – IDC”

Samsung to offer BBM in Samsung App Store on Galaxy devices in Africa

Samsung today announced its plans to offer BBM on its self branded application store that comes pre-installed on its Galaxy range of Android devices. The move will start off first in Africa which is still a heavy user of BBM services. We expect the application to be available on their app store in other territories as well.

Continue reading “Samsung to offer BBM in Samsung App Store on Galaxy devices in Africa”

Obama administration vetoes Apple iPhones/iPads import ban, South Korea concerned

samsung-galaxy-note-510-8-vs-apple-ipad-mini-22

In a turn of events for the Samsung-Apple patent controversy, US president Barack Obama’s administration has vetoed an import and sales ban on some Apple iPhones and iPads, upending a legal upper hand for Samsung. This is reportedly the first time since 1987 that a presidential administration has vetoed a ban by the country’s own International Trade Commission. This has raised a few eyebrows in the far east, in South Korea, where the media criticized the USA for protecting Apple.

Continue reading “Obama administration vetoes Apple iPhones/iPads import ban, South Korea concerned”

Samsung offers heavy discount as part of Friendship Day offer

To cash in on the popularity of Friendship Day amongst the youth, Samsung is offering a heavy discount on some of its most popular handsets. Starting from August 1st to 31st, the smartphone manufacturer will subsidize the Galaxy S4, Galaxy S Duos, Galaxy Core and Galaxy Mega 5.8 handsets. The discounts are on some of the most popular devices across categories.

Continue reading “Samsung offers heavy discount as part of Friendship Day offer”

Samsung Galaxy S4 Zoom Review

samsung-galaxy-s4-zoom-review-8

Samsung has been recently having an obsession to provide solutions of convergence in weird form factors. We saw that with the Mega 6.3 and the Galaxy Note 510, both being devices with a certain feature, unknown to that specific form factor, hacked in, and the S4 Zoom falls in that same category. It is basically a Smartphone with a camera slapped on its back, or a point and shoot with a smartphone slapped on its back, you get the idea. Samsung started this trend with the Galaxy Camera, a high end point and shoot running Android, which is basically a connected camera, with 3G. Expectedly, Samsung has taken it further with the S4 Zoom adding phone functionality. Priced at Rs. 29,990, is the S4 Zoom a hack job or is it actually a good enough cameraphone? Lets find out.

Video Review

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jfz1vMhBbIk

Continue reading “Samsung Galaxy S4 Zoom Review”

ZTE ships 11.5 million smartphones in Q2 2013, at 5% of the total smartphone marketshare

ZTE Grand S-4

Amongst a number of highly competitive Chinese smartphone makers is ZTE. This company was recently revealed as one of the Top 5 Smartphone makers in the world, by IDC, pegging it at the fifth position. However, contrary to IDC’s claims, ZTE has posted its Q2 results with a total of 11.5 million(up from 10.1 in the report) shipments, pegging the company at an even more impressive fourth position. With this number, the company now owns a healthy 5% of the total smartphone marketshare. Several Android OEMs are finally starting to make substantial inroads into the market, is the Apple-Samsung duopoly fading fast?

Continue reading “ZTE ships 11.5 million smartphones in Q2 2013, at 5% of the total smartphone marketshare”

Samsung boasts the world’s first TDD-FDD LTE seamless handover technology with new Galaxy S4 and S4 mini devices

Samsung Galaxy S4 LTE-A

Samsung has just announced that it has the world’s first commercially available devices(new Galaxy S4s and S4 minis) that can seamlessly do handover between two different LTE networks(based on TDD and FDD). This news comes at a time when most companies and their multimode LTE chipsets are gearing up for LTE Advanced support. Qualcomm had announced last year that they will bringing a truly global LTE chipset with support for both TDD and FDD LTE variants, with the MDM9x25 series of modems, but Samsung seems to have one-upped them, not for a dual mode TDD-FDD LTE chipset, but for this “seamless handover” technology.

Continue reading “Samsung boasts the world’s first TDD-FDD LTE seamless handover technology with new Galaxy S4 and S4 mini devices”

Samsung denies benchmark boosting allegations, says it’s normal for most fullscreen apps

SamsungLogo

Just hours ago, we had seen how Samsung had boosted its benchmark scores for a favourable result in comparison to the competition. After all the brouhaha surrounding this issue, Samsung has spoken up, denying the allegations by saying that most full screen apps have the access to full GPU clock speed. That said, the vague response on the company’s Korean website doesn’t seem to explain what “Benchmark booster” actually means.

Continue reading “Samsung denies benchmark boosting allegations, says it’s normal for most fullscreen apps”