Samsung’s upcoming super smartphone
Here at the CTIA 2010 in Las Vegas the big announcements have been few and far in-between, so far – but the ones we’ve heard about are pretty big blockbusters.
Take the big-deal announcement about Samsung’s new super-smart Android phone, the Galaxy S (also known as model GT-I9000) with Smart Life.
Up close, this handset looks like a real contender for the title “Best Smartphone in the World”.
The absolute best feature of the new handset is the amazing 4-inch super-AMOLED color screen. You have to see it in person to believe it. Large and sharp, this is one terrific screen.
The rest of the phone ain’t bad either. Consider Samsung’s fast, home-grown 1.0 GHz processor inside – and some nightmare of an alphabetical jumble called the mDNLe (mobile Digital Natural Image engine) which is really some clever video technology they’ve borrowed from their LCD and LED TVs. Samsung claims that it helps create what they call “a perfect environment to record, edit and play HD video, to browse the Internet, and to read your favorite e-books.”
Smart Life is Samsung’s new social media interface which incorporates all the “de riguer” features of the day (Twitter, Facebook, You Tube, etc.) It looks like a very cool solution to getting all your important information on your home screens. Samsung thinks this new feature will “shift the way that consumers view smart phones and how they interact with them in their daily lives.”
The phone runs on Android 2.1 operating system. Actually, on one of the sample phones we got to play with, it said the device ran on Android 2.1 Update 1 – whatever that means.
The test phone was a GSM-based model which runs on GSM/GPRS/EDGE/HSDPA and HSUPA networks. That would explain why Samsung announced the phone would be released in Europe, North America, Latin America, Australia and Asia very soon. Our sample was running on T-Mobile’s EDGE network which means, in the United States, if you want 3G you’ll need an AT&T SIM card.
The Galaxy S also features Swype. It’s a slide-your-finger, on-screen keyboard available on other Samsung devices (and the new T-Mobile, Motorola CLIQ XT) which makes “fast typing” on a smartphone a breeze. There’s also a 5 megapixel camera, aGPS, 802.11b/g/n Wi-fi, Bluetooth and an 8GB or 16GB microSD memory expansion card will be made available (depending on the carrier).
Overall, the phone looked very promising. Samsung, the number one cell phone manufacturer on the planet, says the Galaxy S will be available “soon”.
I’m guessing that means we’ll hear something about a U.S. cellular carrier distribution deal and possible pricing very soon. Probably by early summer.