We got our hands on a retail Samsung Galaxy S II, does yours look the same?
We got our hands on a retail Samsung Galaxy S II, does yours look the same?
Today we managed to get our hands on a Samsung Galaxy S II with the retail hardware and we’ve taken some pictures for you. But we are wondering if your retail Galaxy S II looks the same?
As you know Samsung has added its logo above the display as soon as it was announced its CPU is going to run at 1.2GHz.
Samsung Galaxy S II retail unit • the older Galaxy S II back (the last photo)
We already met with an older Galaxy S II unit packing a 1GHz CPU and lacking the front logo. It also had a slightly different texture on its battery cover. The new texture is finer than the previous one, but the cover is still the same – thins as a sheet of paper.
Anyway, this is how our retail Galaxy S II looks like. We heard some of the retail units still lack the Samsung logo at the front, but it could be a regional thing, so if you got a different one, please share with us your impressions.
The iPad 2 sets the benchmark.
We’ve been expecting the announcement of the iPad 2 for some time now and finally yesterday Apple delivered the goods. At a special press event held in San Francisco, Apple CEO Steve jobs introduced the latest iPad Model.
Before Mr jobs introduced his new product he highlighted some milestones that Apple had achieved lately. The biggest being that developers who sell their apps over Apples app store had made 2 billion dollars between them. Mr Jobs clearly wants to highlight what makes the iPad unique in a market place that will soon see an influx of new devices.
Specifically Jobs highlights that the iPad has 65000 dedicated apps compared to around 100 apps for Google’s honeycomb OS. So after flexing their muscles and shouting about how successful 2010 was for the iPad, Apple finally showed us how they have improrved on their original model.
Firstly the design of the iPad is fairly amazing, not so much in it’s overall looks which are slick and polished as expected, but what amazes us here at mobiles is that the iPad 2 is 33% thinner! The all new design is really astounding considering the iPad 2 has some added hardware.
Firstly the iPad has been upgraded to an A5 processor which is dual core and twice as fast as the original iPad. The graphics processing has also been upgraded and is expected to be 9 times faster then the original iPad. With all of these improvements we would expect the power consumption increase, however Jobs assures us that the battery performance isn’t affected and that the iPad also offers 10 hrs of battery life.
The iPad 2 also contains two cameras that will allow the iPad to take advantage of Apples video calling software called “Face Time” which is now available on many iPhones and Apple computers. The exact quality of the cameras hasn’t been defined yet but we guess a 5 megapixel camera as seen in the iPhone 4 is the most likely. The iPad will also be shipping in both black or white from day 1(Jobs is clearly able to laugh at Apple’s struggle to get the white iPhone 4 out the door.
It’s clear to see that as Apples competitors have been scrambling to get their tablet to market, Apple has been quietly making sure that when these products hit the stores the iPad will still stand tall amongst the crowd.
Below we have a handy little comparison matrix for you to look at to see how the iPad 2 stands up against the new kids on the block.
As you can see the iPad 2’s hardware is comparable to the upcoming devices, and is currently significantly cheaper then it’s main competitor the Motorola Xoom. With support of around 6500 apps, the iPad 2 is still a very strong proposition in a market that will soon be very competitve.
The iPad 2 will be available in the uk from the 25th of March. For any updates on tablets and their availability keep checking the mobiles Blog.
HTC Merge goes official, will be offered by multiple US carriers
After the HTC Merge images leaked a while ago, now the Taiwanese company finally makes the phone official. The device is also HTC’s first Android-based CDMA/GSM dual mode phone or “world phone” as they call it States-side.
The HTC Merge runs Android, and naturally will come with HTC’s custom Sense UI on top of it. The device packs a sliding QWERTY keyboard and a capacitive 3.8-inch touchscreen. At the back the Merge touts a 5MP camera capable of 720p video recording.
Pricing is still unknown, as well as major hardware specifications, so maybe HTC will get those details out soon. What we know, though, is that the Merge will be available this spring for multiple US carriers. We bet Verizon and Sprint are definitely on that list.