We’ve had our hands on the Samsung/Google Nexus S [tracking page] for a few days now and are putting the phone and the OS (Android 2.3) to the test. You may have caught the overview video already, and now we’ve got a bit more to tide you over until the full review, a full gallery! A few choice photos are below, but be sure to swing by the gallery itself if you’re interested in the Nexus S. And while you’re here, let us know in the comments if there’s anything specific that you’d like to see covered in the review.
We’ve got the Nexus S [tracking page] on hand for some testing and it’s certainly doing some impressing! In addition to a beautiful display with an amazing contrast ratio, the Nexus S is topping the Quadrant benchmark charts over all other Android devices. Then there’s that whole Android 2.3 thing it’s got going on that has some great tweaks to the OS. There’s a full review in the works, but in the mean time we’ve prepared an overview video for your viewing pleasure:
This is the Samsung Galaxy S Wifi 5.0 with, obviously, a 5″ screen (Wvga). It has the 1Ghz SP5C110 cpu inside and, confirmed, full Google market and apps suite making it quite unique. It records 720p (fixed focus) and has a nice 5MP camera. It’s built well and slots nicely into a few categories I can think of. People wanting a full Android experience without a contract for a start.
Launching this month in Korea and soon for global markets. A 2500mah battery should see it lasting a long time between charges. DLNA, Samsung app market, GPU, accelerates top off the specs.
Video coming soon but here are a few pics. More coming later.
It’s not been long since the Galaxy Tab first hit retail stores however Samsung have wasted no time in announcing their next tablet device, the Galaxy Tab 10.1. If the name doesn’t give it away, Samsung’s latest Android tablet sports a 10.1” display, is powered by a 1GHz Tegra 2 core and of course runs the latest and greatest Android 3.0 firmware.
This device follows the recent trend of large screen Android Honeycomb tablets however it’s quite surprising that Samsung decided to transition from the original 7” sized Galaxy Tab as the original device was extremely popular for it’s fairly mobile form factor.
Unlike the original Galaxy Tab, the 10.1 provides a stock Android experience like many other Android 3.0 tablets and will not have a modified user interface that is often present on many Android phones, including Samsung’s Galaxy S range.
Samsung are yet to announce when the Galaxy Tab 10.1 will be launching.
It’s not been long since the Galaxy Tab first hit retail stores however Samsung have wasted no time in announcing their next tablet device, the Galaxy Tab 10.1. If the name doesn’t give it away, Samsung’s latest Android tablet sports a 10.1 inch display, is powered by a 1GHz Tegra 2 core and of course runs the latest and greatest Android 3.0 firmware.
This device follows the recent trend of large screen Android Honeycomb tablets however it’s quite surprising that Samsung decided to transition from the original 7 inch sized Galaxy Tab as the original device was extremely popular for it’s fairly mobile form factor.
Unlike the original Galaxy Tab, the 10.1 provides a stock Android experience like many other Android 3.0 tablets and will not have a modified user interface that is often present on many Android phones, including Samsung’s Galaxy S range.
Samsung are yet to announce when the Galaxy Tab 10.1 will be launching.
Samsung previously piqued my interested with it’s Galaxy S Fascinate [tracking page][review], so I’ve been excited to give the Continuum a try. The Continuum is much like the Fascinate except it has a 1.8 inch 480×96 AMOLED “ticker inch display underneath the main screen for notifications and quick access to info like time/date/weather/twitter/facebook/etc. Does the extra display equal extra functionality or is it merely a monotonous novelty without much depth? Read our full review to find out!
We’ll start out with the classic hardware tour, but before that I want you to know that, as I mentioned, the Samsung Continuum is very much like the Samsung Fascinate that we reviewed a little while ago. It’s pretty much the same device in a slightly different body and without the Continuum’s extra display. We aren’t in the business of boring our readers so I’m not going to hit you with information that we’ve already covered. I’ll point you to the Fascinate review if need be, but for the most part this review is going to focus on the Continuum’s unique aspects (ie: the ticker display) and it’s particular performance. Now that we’ve got that out of the way…
Hardware Tour
Here’s a quick visual rundown of the Continuum to get you familiar with the device:
secondary 1.8 inch capacitive Super-AMOLED @ 480×96
Android 2.1 (custom Samsung overlay)
ARM Cortex A8 CPU @ 1GHz
PowerVR SGX graphics
366MB of RAM
5.0MP auto-focus camera with single-LED flash (capable of 720p HD recording)
WiFi b/g/n & BT 3.0
Design
The Continuum is lightweight (125g) and fairly thin (12mm). It’s not as thin as the iPhone 4 or Fascinate, but definitely close. The entire phone casing is made of plastic; coupled with the lightweight nature of the device, it ends up feeling somewhat cheap compared to some of its contemporary devices. Still, it’ll slip into a jeans pocket with no problem and won’t bother you while it’s there.
The aspect ratio on the Continuum is nearly 16:9 (as with most modern Android devices) which makes the device quite tall and thin to begin with. Slap the extra display below it, and you’ve got a phone that feels peculiarly tall. This feeling will fade eventually though, and the height doesn’t hinder usage of the phone at all, unless you’ve got ultra-shallow pockets!
As with most of the other Galaxy S phones, the Continuum doesn’t have a lot going on aesthetically and it’s materials don’t feel premium. The front is bland with little more than an ear piece and a Samsung logo to break up the black bezel.
The back of the device has a camera and LED-flash housing that is centered horizontally. The camera housing has a chrome accent and is raised up just about a millimeter or so from the back of the device. The lack of sliding lens cover leaves it susceptible to scratches..
Other than the camera, there’s a Galaxy S logo and a pair of speaker vents for speakerphone and media playback on the back. The rear plastic grabs fingerprints readily. The back of the phone wishes that it had some texture as the color is actually made up of a bunch of little black dots on top of a grey background. Sadly they are so small that it just looks like a plain color unless you have great eyesight and are inspecting it closely.
The rear panel is indeed removable, but it’s terrifying when you do so. It always feels like it’s about to break in half as you are pulling it off, but so far I haven’t managed to do that (yet…).This is a plus for road-warriors who carry extra batteries on them, but a negative for the average consumer who won’t be happy if they suffer a crack in the thin plastic after a drop.
Samsung removed the sliding cover over the Micro-USB port that was on the Fascinate. I think this is a good move as it didn’t feel like it would last very long before breaking off.
Looking back on the date of my previous post about a Solar, mobile PC for 2011 I think its time for an update.
Firstly, WOW!, the Galaxy Tab is working out amazingly well for me as a productive device and PCs just can touch it in terms of social apps, location, tracking and microblogging. I’m still using my netbook for long-form writing but as time goes on, I’m writing longer and longer pieces on the Galaxy Tab.
As for battery life, the Tab is returning a minimum of 7 hrs (that’s a hugely busy day on it) and a maximum of 2 days. The battery inside is 10wh which is 1/5th of the battery on a 7hr netbook. With a charging voltage of 5v at around 1500mah it’s something that can be run from 500gm of power pack for a week. Wherever you are in the world, are you going to be away from a source of mains power for that long? The only problem is that the charger is fairly unique in delivering a quick-charge via up to 2A over a USB port. You will have to search long and hard for a solar-powered or battery pack solution to support that. The only option is to trickle charge it from a standard USB port overnight. It really does take that long but it might work for you. With a 420gm weight, no moving parts, a Gorilla Glass hardened screen and a good range of cases and covers available, I won’t hesitate to recommend it to travellers.
If you really need Windows though, you might want to wait a few months. I saw a some new ultra-mobile PCs based on the Intel Oaktrail platform at CES in Jan and the efficiency is looking good. Samsung will be launching the TX100 (aka Gloria and PC7 Series) in March and the message from Samsung is that you’ll be getting 9hrs battery life in under 1kg with an SSD, 2GB of RAM. It’s the perfect setup for some ultra-mobile and ultra low power computing. The screen is somewhat exposed as it’s got a tablet/sliding keyboard form factor but that’s the only thing that causes me any concern. Expect something in the region of 45wh on the battery capacity though. This is no smartphone!
Finally though, we’ve seen some indicators that more smart-books could launch in 2011. Honeycomb, the tablet-oriented version of the Android operating system will support multicore ARM architecture and should stimulate developers to make more pro-oriented apps. Expect the pricing of these ‘HD’ apps to be more than you’re used to on a smartphone but don’t expect anything near the prices you get charged on Windows. Devices like the 7hr, 800gm, Toshiba AC100 would come of age if Honeycomb got ported to them and then things would get interesting. The AC100 has a 15wh battery and costs around 200 euro!
2011 will be a great year for low power computing and for those that have occasional access to mains power, maybe that solar requirement will drop away as we move within the 10wh / day requirement. Off-the-power-grid computing will be easier than ever.
I hope to do some off-the-grid travelling during the summer and of course, ill report here if I find anything of interest in the meantime.
[This post written in portrait/thumbing mode on the Samsung Galaxy Tab using the WordPress application.]
JKK (JKKMobile), Chippy (Carrypad) and special guest Al Sutton (Funky Android) talk in depth about Honeycomb and some of the tablet and netbook news from the last 2 weeks including Fusion, WebOS and Galaxy Tab 2
