As expected, the Samsung Flight has been cleared for landing on Rogers (NYSE: RCI). Translation: it’s hit the runway and is now available. The Samsung Flight features a portrait-slide full QWERTY keyboard, 2MP camera, 2.8″ touchscreen display, Bluetooth, expansion to 16GB via microSD and much more.
Oh yeah and the pricing? Try $69.99 on a 3-year contract, $119.99 on a 2-year, $219.99 on a 1-year, or $274.99 contract-free. The Flight is available in red only. For more details, head on over to Rogers.
Samsung has announced a new handset, the Monte, that seems packed with social networking software. Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, Bebo, instant messaging, and even Google (NSDQ: GOOG) Latitude all have dedicated widgets, accessible through a Touch Wiz 2.0 Plus interface. For the more serious users, there’s also Exchange and Google Sync support.
The hard specs are a little ho-hum: 3” WQVGA LCD display and a 3.2 megapixel camera. Still, if you’re digging the sound of the device, the good man Eldar Murtazin has had some hands-on time with the Monte already. My Russian’s a bit rusty, but I think we all get the gist of it. Yeah, we’ll see this at Mobile World Congress next week, but I think Samsung’s biggest focus will be on their own operating system, Bada.
The first Bluetooth 3.0-enabled device, Samsung S8500, has been blessed with the FCC approval. It looks like a European version, so we wonder why the Korean company had to take this route, anyway.
Full specs are still a mystery, but we know few things – the S8500 will ship with a 3.1-inch AMOLED touchscreen, quad-band GSM radio, WiFi, Bluetooth, 1000 mAh battery and a microSD memory card slot. As soon as we hear something new, you’ll be the first to know. Stay tuned…
Our buddies at Oled-display.net have let us know about a nifty new Samsung handset that is going to be announced at MWC 2010, packing a SUPER AMOLED (yes, SUPER!) touchscreen!
We do a little bit more, but not much – the AMOLED will be WVGA, and around 3.3 inches. Apparently Samsung have suggested that the new screen is 5x more vivid than normal screens, and 20% better outdoor. I’m not 100%sure I believe it will be that much better outdoors (AMOLEDs aren’t historically the best in sunlight), but giving more vivid colours is definitely something we could all do with.
Unfortunately we don’t know the model name/number yet – but, we will dear readership, oh yes, soon we will!
Our buddies at Oled-display.net have let us know about a nifty new Samsung handset that is going to be announced at MWC 2010, packing a SUPER AMOLED (yes, SUPER!) touchscreen!
We do a little bit more, but not much – the AMOLED will be WVGA, and around 3.3 inches. Apparently Samsung have suggested that the new screen is 5x more vivid than normal screens, and 20% better outdoor. I’m not 100% sure I believe it will be that much better outdoors (AMOLEDs aren’t historically the best in sunlight), but giving more vivid colours is definitely something we could all do with.
Unfortunately we don’t know the model name/number yet – but, we will dear readership, oh yes, soon we will!
While these aren’t the touchscreen beauties we’ve heard about, it’s always worth noting when a carrier has something new to offer. In this case, it looks like we have some proof (via a FutureShop flyer) of the Samsung Flight and the Motorola (NYSE: MOT) (NYSE: MOT) W388, coming to Rogers (NYSE: RCI) (NYSE: RCI) and Fido respectively.
The Samsung Flight features a look and form-factor strikingly similar to another popular device out on the market these days. I won’t mention the name, but if you know what webOS is, I think you can figure it out. The Flight packs a slide out QWERTY keyboard, 2.8″ touchscreen, 2MP camera with video, expansion to 16GB via microSD, and a bunch more. The cost? $99.99 on a 3-year term with Rogers.
The Motorola W388 is a basic candybar complete with 2.5mm headset jack, 1.8″ display, expansion to 2GB via microSD, 0.3MB VGA camera and more. The price tag will apparently be set at $15 on a 2-year contract with Fido.
Samsung T139 Mayon has been spotted on the company’s website on its way to T-Mobile (NYSE: DT) USA. It’s an entry-level clamshell that targets folks who need an easy-to-use device for basic calling and texting. Features include two screens (internal and external), VGA camera that can take both photos and videos, Bluetooth, aGPS, speakerphone and an HTML browser. That aGPS promises that even some location-based apps will be available with the T139, which is cool to see in a low-end phone. Exact released date is unknown, though.
By Dusan Belic on Saturday, February 6th, 2010 at 3:58 AM PST In Samsung
Samsung expects that its handset shipments grow 19% to more than 270 million units this year, helped by demand for smartphones. In other words, that’s more than double that of the industry, according to the company’s president of the mobile-communication division – J.K. Shin.
Last year, Samsung shipped 227 million mobile phones and this year their big bet is on smartphones – the plan is to go from 2009’s 6 million devices to 18 million. In addition, the Korean company also plans to cover other market segments.
There are some merits to these numbers as global sales of smartphones are set to increase 32% in 2010 and further expand 34% next year, according to the research firm ISuppli. The overall global handset market will grow 10% to reach 1.2 billion units (Morgan Stanley) and Samsung, unsurprisingly, wants to monetize on the trend…
Say what you will about TouchWiz, but no amount of complaining about its awkward and confusing user interface will keep Samsung from continuing to feature TouchWiz in their latest smartphones – the new Samsung M100S, for example. Samsung just unveiled their Samsung M100S as their first Android smartphone to run Android OS 2.1. Like it’s brother-from-the-same-mother Behold II, the Samsung M100s sports an eye-catching AMOLED capacitive touchscreen, 5-megapixel camera with flash, GPS, WiFi, Bluetooth, and a 3.5mm headphone jack. Unlike the Behold II, though, the M100S is a South Korea-only model that bumps screen size up to an expansive 3.7-inches and stuffs a DTV receiver into its slim body.
Going back to the whole TouchWiz argument for a moment, Samsung has apparently made some tweaks and changes to the version of TouchWiz used on the M100S. The TouchWiz UI on the Behold 2 has been criticized far and wide for its confusing, unintuitive interface. Rather than mount the Android app drawer on the left side of the screen, Samsung moved it to the bottom and revised the way apps sit on the homescreen. The left-mounted app drawer has been a major sticking point on the Behold II, so it’s good to see Samsung making these changes.
Still, we’ll have to wait and see if Samsung can refine TouchWiz to the point where we don’t all automatically cringe at the thought of using it on the daily. The M100S is slated to hit South Korea’s SK Telecom (NYSE: SKM) in March.
Being the first one to do anything deserves some serious street-cred. Being the first mobile phone to be certified for Bluetooth 3.0 deserves our geeky attention. The Samsung S8500 has just become the world’s first mass production mobile phone to feature support for the Bluetooth 3.0 standard, as approved by the Bluetooth Special Interest Group (Bluetooth SIG). And, as usual, the Bluetooth SIG has leaked some information about the Samsung S8500.
According to certification documents, Sammy’s S8500 will feature a high-res 3.1-inch OLED display with an anti-glare coating. It’s supposed to be a compact and slim phone that will work on any GSM network in the world with its quad-band GSM radio. We have no idea how compact, or how slim, the device really is, so take that at face value.
Aside from that, we have little other info on the S8500. We suppose we should just be happy knowing that Bluetooth 3.0 is already official on at least one handset, but then again, that’s not our M.O.
The next few months are going to see quite a few new touchscreen devices appearing on Rogers (NYSE: RCI). Among them are the Sony Ericsson (NYSE: SNE) XPERIA X10, the LG Pop, Samsung CorbyPRO and LG KM555.
TheSony Ericsson XPERIA X10 boasts a 4″ capacitive touchscreen display, 1Ghz Snapdragon processor, 8MP camera, GPS, WiFi, micro SD and more. The last I heard, a custom Sony Ericsson Timescape UI was integrated into Android, and I have no reason to believe this won’t be on the Rogers model.
The LG Pop features a 3″ WQVGA touchscreen (240×400), a 3MP camera with video, and holds up to 16GB via microSD expansion.
Next is the Samsung CorbyPRO, which features a 2.8″ WVGA touchscreen, side-slider QWERTY keyboard, 3MP camera with video, 3.5mm headset jack, WiFi, and expansion to 16GB via microSD.
Finally, the LG KM555 is the last touchscreen slated to hit Rogers over the next little while, and this one comes complete with a 3″ touchscreen (at 240×400), 3MP camera with video, FM Radio, Bluetooth, WiFi, HSDPA support, and expansion to 16GB via microSD.
No pricing or release dates have been made available for any of these devices, but expect to hear more real soon.
Our buddies at 
Being the first one to do anything deserves some serious street-cred. Being the first mobile phone to be certified for Bluetooth 3.0 deserves our geeky attention. The Samsung S8500 has just become the world’s first mass production mobile phone to feature support for the 
