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

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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.

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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.

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Samsung Galaxy S4 Zoom Review

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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

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

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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?

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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.

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

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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.

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LG reveals Quick Window accessory for the G2 ahead of launch

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The LG G2 had been officially confirmed as the upcoming flagship phone from LG, but hasn’t seen a proper unveiling yet. But that hasn’t stopped the company from releasing an accessory called “Quick Window” for the phone, which is launching in New York on August 7th. The accessory, which works just like the Samsung S-View cover for the Galaxy S4, literally offers a quick window into some basic functions and lets you access some mini apps. Sporting various colours, as noted from the image above, the cover will presumably launch to retail along with the device itself.

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Samsung rumored to launch 12.2-inch and 10-inch tablets with 2560×1600 displays

Samsung has been mainly targeting the mid-range tablet market and now according to @evleaks, the company plans to launch a couple of high resolution tablets that could mark the company’s direct entry into the high-end tablet market.

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Samsung Galaxy Note 510 Review

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Samsung has been enabling its tablets with calling functionality ever since the first ever non-Apple tablet released, the company’s own Galaxy Tab. While the original Galaxy Tab didn’t have an ear piece to enable phone-like calling, it did have the support. Tab 2 310, its successor on the other hand had an ear piece to let people use it like a phone. Various other manufacturers then warmed up to this idea and released their own calling tablet much to the critics’ ridicule, but a market was definitely there. On that note, Samsung launched the Note 8.0 at the Mobile World Congress this year, and introduced a WiFi as well as a cellular version with calling.

We had reviewed the WiFi version earlier and now we are going to see how the cellular version is different and what its extra features are. Is the calling version really that useful on a 8 inch tablet? Lets find out.

Note: The Galaxy Note 510 is the cellular version of the Note 8.0, literally everything except the below discussed text is same. Do read the complete review of the Galaxy Note 8.0 WiFi version here before proceeding to the review.

Video

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=13QF2E7zLnY

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Apple and Samsung lose marketshare as LG, Lenovo and others soar

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IDC has yet again released a marketshare analysis of all the smartphone vendors for the period of Q2 2013. Interestingly, the action is slowly shifting away from the top two, Apple and Samsung. In the event of stiff and challenging competition from other smartphone vendors such as LG and Lenovo, Apple and Samsung have lost a chunk of their smartphone and haven’t been able to keep up with the rapidly expanding smartphone market. The overall smartphone market has seen a 52.3% YoY change and Apple has lagged with only 20% growth while Samsung has almost kept up, with 43.9% growth rate. Samsung is not in a bad position though, going by their recently revealed numbers.

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Samsung Galaxy Mega 6.3 Review

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Ever since the original Galaxy Note, Samsung has continuously shocked us with screen sizes on their smartphones. Predictably, that has continued with the Galaxy Mega 5.8 and its bigger brother, the Mega 6.3 with the world’s biggest screen, on a smartphone that is. We initially thought it was ridiculous that Huawei launched a 6.1 inch device at CES, but Samsung has one-upped them, actually 0.2-upped them with a more monstrous 6.3 inch screen. After a good amount of ridicule and plenty of surprises, we have finally tested this Smartphone-Tablet hybrid in whole and here are our complete thoughts on the Samsung Galaxy Mega 6.3. Retailing at Rs 32,990, is this the large screen phablet you are waiting for? Lets find out.

Video Review

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ec2mdHaJg6I

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Galaxy Note 3 sketches reveal Xenon flash while Samsung teases an updated Exynos 5 Octa

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With the announcement of the next version of Galaxy Note getting closer and closer, rumors continue to spread across the Internet. In the latest turn of events, Samsung has teased an updated Exynos 5 Octa SoC through their Twitter account. This updated Exynos 5 Octa is expected to feature in one of the variants of the Galaxy Note 3. The image posted by Samsung suggests an evolved SoC from the previous generation. According to the image, the already powerful Exynos 5 Octa is getting even more powerful and enhanced.

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Samsung Galaxy Tab 3 311 Hands on

Alongside the Samsung Galaxy Tab 3 211, the Korean manufacturer also introduced a larger 8 inch tablet dubbed the Galaxy Tab 3 310 and 311 depending on the variant. The Galaxy Tab 3 311 aims to provide a potent mix of power and focus on multimedia consumption capabilities. Does it succeed in doing this ? Read on to find out our first impressions of the product. Continue reading “Samsung Galaxy Tab 3 311 Hands on”

Samsung Galaxy Tab 3 211 (7.0) Hands on

Samsung’s Galaxy Tab range of tablets have been wildly popular in the Indian market and has helped the Korean manufacturer reach a 62% market share in the country in terms of tablet sales. The latest 7 inch offering from the company is more of an update to the winning formula than an all out new product. Here are our first impressions of the Samsung Galaxy Tab 3 211. Continue reading “Samsung Galaxy Tab 3 211 (7.0) Hands on”

Samsung Galaxy Tab 3 7.0 and 8.0 likely to launch tomorrow in India

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The Samsung Galaxy Tab 3 7.0 and 8.0 inch devices were launched separately, with one device announced in April and the other on the 3rd of June, with not that much of a fanfare. In less than two months, it has been teased as “coming to India” on Samsung’s Facebook page and is also being displayed as “coming soon” in the Samsung India eStore for the both the models. The Galaxy Tab 3 devices are an evolution of the Galaxy Tab 2 tablet and are all equipped with voice calling capabilities, much like the original Galaxy Tab. Boasting 7 and 8 inch screens respectively, they are much of the earlier Samsung device like the Tab 2 310 and the Note 8.0. It is also likely that Samsung will be launching both the devices tomorrow, as we have just received an invite for a press conference tomorrow.

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