Samsung ATIV S is the first Windows Phone 8 smartphone

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 Samsung ATIV S is the first Windows Phone 8 smartphone

The Galaxy Note II wasn’t the only flagship device that Samsung announced at its pre-IFA press conference. The company has also revealed the first ever Windows Phone 8 smartphone – the Samsung ATIV S.



The ATIV S is built around a 4.8-inch Super AMOLED display of HD resolution and has Gorilla Glass 2 on top for extra protection. Powering the smartphone is a 1.5GHz dual-core Qualcomm Krait processor and 1GB of RAM. At the back, there’s an 8MP camera with 1.9MP snapper at the front.

Measuring 137.2 mm x 70.5 mm x 8.7 mm the Samsung ATIV S weighs 135 grams and packs a beefy 2,300mAh battery. Connectivity options include Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n, Bluetooth 3 and NFC. Windows Phone 8 supports memory expansion slots and the Samsung ATIV S makes use of that, bringing a microSD card slot to allow expansion of its 16GB or 32GB built-in storage.

Pricing and availability is yet to be confirmed, but we're guessing the smartphone will hit the shelves immediately after Microsoft officially releases the Windows Phone 8 OS.

Making the Samsung ATIV S company are three new Windows 8-powered tablets – the 10.1” ATIV Tab, and two 11.6” ATIV Smart PC and ATIV Smart PC Pro.

source : samsungmobilepress.com

Samsung Google Nexus S review: Royal droid

Another year, another heir to the Droid throne – and Google are trying to be democratic about it. Which is a roundabout way of saying they’re not monogamous. For the Nexus One, Google teamed up with HTC. This time around, they trusted Samsung to do the job, using the Galaxy S as a base.

  
Google Nexus S official photos

It’s only their second try and users are given a second chance to like the Royal Droid. A tall task it is – the very concept is fundamentally incompatible with the free and open source Android system. Royal blood is not a benefit in a free democracy. Google did learn it the hard way with the Nexus One.

Google’s second smartphone child has more than just an image problem to tackle. The Samsung Google Nexus S has to keep pace with the evolution of the platform. The “S” in the name may stand for many things – from second to superior. But with Android 2.3 Gingerbread inside, speed is not far from the truth either. Here’s what else the Nexus S has to offer in a nutshell.

Key features:

• Quad-band GSM and tri-band 3G support
• HSDPA, 7.2 Mbps; HSUPA, 5.76 Mbps
• 4.0" WVGA (480x800) Super AMOLED Contour Display with curved glass screen
• Android OS, v2.3 Gingerbread
• 1 GHz ARM Cortex-A8 (Hummingbird) processor
• 16GB storage, 512 MB RAM
• 5 MP autofocus camera with LED flash and geotagging
• Front-facing VGA camera
• Wi-Fi b/g/n with DLNA
• GPS with A-GPS
• Portable Wi-Fi hotspot and stereo Bluetooth v2.1
• Near Field Communication chip
• Accelerometer, proximity and light sensors
• Standard 3.5 mm audio jack
• microUSB port (charging)
• Adobe Flash support out of the box
• Latest Google Mobile apps

Main disadvantages:

• No microSD slot
• No 720p video recording
• All-plastic body, fingerprint magnet
• No DivX and XviD support (no actual video player) out of the box
• No dedicated camera key and no lens cover
• No FM radio
• No smart dialing
• Overly expensive for its feature set

As you can see, the Nexus S shares a lot of the Samsung Galaxy S components. Powered by the very same 1Ghz Hummingbird processor and having the same 512MB of RAM, it feels a bit quicker probably thanks to Gingerbread.

The fact aside that our review isn’t exactly on time, this hardware is so 2010, while the imaging department is surely from 2009. We wouldn’t fuss about it was it not for the Tegra 2 SoC and its 1080p video recording, which has the power to be the next big thing in the industry. The emphasis here being on next. Maybe Google should’ve thought of that and instead of rushing to release the Nexus S.

If they chose to wait a couple of months, a dual-core CPU could’ve made a lot of difference – especially with Gingerbread. The Nexus S would have been a beast just like its predecessor was, with the first droid powered by a 1Ghz processor on the market. With this hardware, the Nexus S is no more than an overclocked Nexus One.

   
Google Nexus S live shots

But wait a minute – maybe not all is lost and the Nexus S will be salvaged by the software. Not only is it the first Gingerbread-powered phone to the market – it can also count on special treatment in terms of getting updates on time.

Anyway, when you have a second try at something the results are supposed to be better. Just like when parents raise a second child differently having learned from their past experience. Stick around to find out if the Google Nexus S is the definitive, all-muscle replacement of the Nexus One we’ve all been waiting for.

Here's the Samsung Galaxy S on Gingerbread, benchmarked

Our hands were itching to try the leaked Gingerbread update for the Samsung Galaxy S and to give it a spin to see what's what. The update doesn't bring anything spectacular in terms of looks; only the notification bar has changed icons and looks, but the rest of its is basically the same old TouchWiz 3.0.

   

The new version of the Samsung custom launcher that will launch on the Galaxy S II is sadly unavailable here. At least you get the download center that Gingerbread brings. Plus the leaked ROM feels surprisingly bugless for a beta release.

We also ran a few benchmarks to see if it's noticeably faster than its Froyo-running twin brother. Here are the results:

 

Compared to a Froyo-powered Galaxy S, these results are obviously better, which is pretty good considering that this is not a final version of Gingerbread.