Samsung announced the Galaxy S5 this week at Mobile World Congress, so naturally it is time to start seeing some accessories for the new phone. iLuv has introduced a line of cases that promise to be stylish, protective and functional. There are also three screen film options ranging from $9.99 to $19.99. The cases retail from $19.99 to $69.99. Preorder at the iLuve website.
Samsung is intent on claiming your pockets and your wrist. The original Galaxy Gear watch, designed as a smart watch companion to the Galaxy phones, received a mixed response. Now only a few months later, Samsung is announcing two new watches, the Galaxy Gear 2 and Gear 2 Neo!
Samsung is an absolute powerhouse in the technology world. But aside from a rather disastrous Windows Mobile phone a few years ago, I’ve never experienced firsthand what makes Samsung stand out from the crowd. After spending a few weeks working with the Samsung Series 7 Ultrabook though, I’m starting to see why they succeed — this Ultrabook is sleek, stylish and powerful!
I owe Microsoft Windows 8 an apology. See, when I first tested it, I thought it was dreadful. But I’ve become more comfortable with the Metro interface between my trusty Lumia 928 and using a Surface RT, and it is starting to grow on me. What really changed my mind, though, is the Samsung Ultrabook I have been testing for review!
Samsung has been pretty smart about their tablet releases so far, correctly predicting the demand for everything from 7-8in tablets to phablets. Now they’re going super-sized with the GalaxyNotePRO and TabPRO, two new Android tablets that will clock in with shockingly large 12.2in screens!
When you do things live, stuff happens. That is just how it goes – technical problems, mixups and misunderstandings, and so on. They happen. As they say, it isn’t the problem but how you deal with it that says more about you. Well, at the Samsung Press Conference there was a teleprompter problem … and Michael Bay just walked off the stage. As Dan said when he grabbed the video: Michael Bay stepped on stage at the Samsung Press Conference at CES2014 to talk about UHD televisions. His TelePrompt went out of sync… And so did he. Check it out:…
We just looked at JOBY’s GPod Mini Magnet tripod. It is designed for use with cameras and accessories that have a standard tripod screw mount. If, however, you are shooting with a smartphone that doesn’t have a screw mount the $14.95 JOBY MPod Mini may be just the thing. It works with most smartphones. It is inexpensive and it works!
The Samsung GALAXY Note 3 is an engineering marvel. Packed with features, its stylus is more than a mere gimmick. Still, like far too many Samsung products, it feels cheap. That’s where the iLuv FlightFit comes in. For under $30 it promises to protect your Note 3 even as it props it up for easy viewing. Pre-order yours.
Samsung is many things – they are an innovative chip maker, excellent device maker, massive company with their hands in nearly everything. Samsung is one of the “chaebol” – family-run conglomerates that dominate South Korean society. They are also a company that has a proven willing to do nearly anything to succeed – and today we learn their latest shameful tactic.
For some people benchmarks don’t matter … and for others they are ALL that matter. For hardware companies, benchmarks provide an internal performance metric and external bragging rights. But new evidence shows that Samsung tweaked their Galaxy Note 3 to perform better on benchmarks than in ‘normal usage’. This isn’t the first time they’ve done this, either! According to an article at ArsTechnica, Samsung tweaked their CPU performance when a known benchmark app was run, so it would give better than expected results. This was noticed when the Galaxy Note 3 outperformed the LG G2 — despite the two sharing…
We all know both the iPhone 5 and Galaxy S4 are excellent phones. But since the iPhone 5 is now ‘obsolete’ and the S4 is just a few months old, it might surprise you that in ‘real world’ tests the iPhone 5 is considerably faster than the S4. The tests were intended for the iPhone 5s, which is insanely fast. You can see all results here, but I do realize that these sorts of tests are seldom an indication of exactly the experience someone will have. For some it is all about app-switching, others are data-throttled, and so on. Personally…
Last week Apple made official the phones we knew they’d been planning to introduce. This came a week after Samsung’s Galaxy Note 3 announcement, which a friend summed up as ‘exactly what we already knew’. No surprises from Moto X, HTC One, or Samsung Galaxy S4 either. All fantastic devices, but are we losing out because of spoiled surprises? Everyone made a huge deal about how the only surprise from the Apple announcement was the realization that the 5C was NOT the ‘low cost’ phone so many in the media had talked about, but instead the mid-range iPhone 5 replacement….
Just like I did with several tablets last year, I am going to try to use the Chromebook as my ‘90% computer’. This means using it for all of my normal daily tasks except those I know it cannot do, such as PC or iPad gaming. With great portability, battery life, and ease of use, I anticipate great success! I already have a couple of challenges – the USB port is incompatible with my Garmin GPS watch, and I am still figuring out the WiFi configuration for my work network … but I am persevering, as I have most other…
In their quest to dominate the smartphone world by having a Galaxy device in every imaginable size, Samsung today announced the upcoming US availability of the 6.3″ Galaxy Mega phablet. Shipping soon with Android 4.2.2, a 1.7GHz processor, and 1.5 GB of RAM, the phone and its features will be immediately familiar to anyone using a Galaxy device. Check it out.
I’m going to surprise myself by writing this, but were I in the market for a new phone right now I think the Samsung Galaxy S4 Active would be at the top of my list of possibilities. It’s packed with power, it feels great in the hand, and it overcomes many of the issues I have with the Samsung Galaxy S4. Because the two phones are running the same operating system and have the same Samsung bells, whistles and capabilities such as Air View, Air Gesture and Smart Pause, I’m not going to run down those specifics. Instead, I will…
The Samsung Galaxy S4 is the newest incarnation of the most popular Android phone series in the world; it comes jam-packed with state of the art tricks and tweaks, and it is definitely the phone to choose if you want to experience things that might one day be standard on all mobile phones without waiting for that day to actually arrive. Mitchell recently reviewed the S4, and I have been using the US Verizon version for a little over a month. I have become so well acquainted with the S4 that even though I recently purchased an HTC One, I have found…
In the rap and hip-hop world, few artists loom as large as Jay-Z. Emerging in 1996 with a blockbuster debut that was as successful critically as it was commercially, he seemed to fade for a few years before emerging with the excellent ‘The Blueprint’. Then some more mediocre minor releases before what he claimed would be his last release, 2003’s ‘The Black Album’. Since then he has worked more as a producer and executive developing new artists than as an artist himself. That all changes on July 4th with the release of “Magna Carta Holy Grail”. But this one has…
Whenever I get a new device I always jumped over to the Waterfield SF bag website to see what the company might have to protect it. Waterfield cases, pouches and bags are high-quality, well designed accessories that promise to protect your device for its life and beyond. I can honestly say that I have used/currently use a Waterfield product with every device I own. And while I don’t have a Samsung GALAXY S4 (yet…) I know many of you do and if you are looking for a stylish way to protect the new Samsung super phone you’ll want to check…
Samsung recently started delivering their new flagship, the Galaxy S4. The GS4 is the follow-up to the Galaxy S3, which is the best-selling Android phone ever made, and one of big reasons Samsung is now the largest smartphone maker in the world. The GS3 was itself the sequel to the earlier best-selling Galaxy phones – but with the GS3 Samsung went from being a ‘leader’ to becoming the de facto Android flagship and market leader. Early critical and user reviews for the new S4 have been generally solid but not exactly glowing – and with more and more issues cropping…
We’ve all done it., killed a phone at one time or another. I’ve had one die in the toilet, I almost lost my G1 in a glass of tea, and I broke my first PDA by dropping it on the floor at church. My friend from church lost his in unique way; that picture above is his Galaxy S III after it was chopped up by a bush hog lawn mower. It’s a good thing he had insurance! Come on, fess up! What is the worst thing that you have ever done to your phone? Has it changed what…
Verizon Galaxy Nexus users who don’t like to install custom ROMS on their devices are a lonely bunch, and are, too often, stuck with the version of Android that came with the original phone. In fact, until recently Verizon Galaxy Nexus users were still forced to use Android 4.1.1 or risk installing a custom (hacked) ROM. A test release of an update for the Verizon version of the Galaxy Nexus recently leaked. I gave it a try and thought I might share my impressions. My Number 1 Favorite New Feature: Photo Sphere The 4.2 version I installed updated the camera…