Business News Holding

Tag: smartphone

  • Samsung Galaxy Nexus Ban Taken Off Temporarily

    The Samsung Galaxy Nexus ban in the US following a favorable ruling for Apple by the U.S District Court Judge Lucy Koh has been seen as many as a major win for the makers of the iPhone and the iPad.

    Apple, off late, has been engaged in scores of copyright law suits against other manufacturers including Samsung, HTC and Motorola. In an attempt to desperately stall the rise of Android powered devices in the market and ensure that they stay firmly at the top, they have even posted a $2.6 million bond for stopping the Samsung Galaxy Tab and a further $95.6 million bond for the Samsung Galaxy Nexus.

    However in a turn of fortune the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit has now lifted that ban against the shipment of the Galaxy Nexus paving the way for its return to stores and to the Google play store.

    For the uninitiated, the reason for Apple’s move to court was apparently four features that the Samsung Galaxy Nexus boasted and which the Apple iPhone 4S also had. These are slide to unlock, word suggestion, auto correct (which is in fact a cool tool) and the ability to do a local phone search. The last one was particularly very important for Smartphone users. This means the much vaunted Google Ice Cream Sandwich powered smartphone is going to look quite not so smartphone like when the 4.1 updates and other patches removing these features are implemented.

    The Galaxy Nexus has lesser emotional attachments to Samsung and more for Google and they are taking this Galaxy Nexus ban revoke as a second coming for the Smartphone to the US market. Apparently with Apple’s recent history of going against any thing that is remotely threatening, the next obvious target is the Samsung Galaxy S3 and with the iPhone 5 rumored to be launching next October, Apple would be looking to embroil the S3 in as much litigation as possible to remove the competition for the last iPhone designed by legendary Steve Jobs.

  • Samsung Expects 1st Quarter 2012 Profits to Double

    Samsung, now the world’s biggest-selling smartphone maker, says it expects to see its profits double for the first three months of the year.

    Online investments experts told BBC Monday that Samsung Electronics apparently has been able to hang on to its lead as the market leader in the heated smartphone niche, with its 1st quarter 2012 profit expected to hit $5.1 billion.

    BBC said analysts from the LIG Investment & Securities and Kiwoom Securities in Seoul see Samsung’s increasingly popular Galaxy range of smartphones as the engine for the Korean company’s continuing profit growth, despite great competition from the active smartphone market led by Apple’s iPhones, RIM’s Blackberry and Nokia’s Symbian OS models. 

    Samsung’s high-end Galaxy S and Galaxy Note editions have been the year’s best sellers, having overtaken the Apple iPhone last year.

    The company’s efforts to keep its profit margins healthy despite sharp competition from its giant smartphone rivals have been cited as the key to the double profit figures set to be released in detail in a formal quarterly report on April 27. Profit margins for the company’s fast-selling handsets have been higher than 20%, accounting for the 4 trillion-won profit for the smart phone division. 

    The analysts noted that despite Samsung’s current difficulties in its other products, notably in memory chips which are suffering from a glut in worldwide supply, the company could still rev up its overall profit margin as the global economy improves later this year, as predicted, and as parts suppliers such as Japan and Thailand recover from various economic and political problems.

  • Your Smartphone Cameras Can Give Digital Cams A Run For Their Money

    In these need-to-feel-better times, you should feel good knowing that your smartphone cameras can save you a lot of money if you want to do a good photo-taking job and have lots of fun without having to buy yourself one of those expensive, high- end digital cameras.

    A new report by the online tech observer Appolicious said over the weekend that your smartphone cameras have one absolutely unassailable advantage over any digital camera, if you own one, and that is– your smartphone is always with you while your digital camera typically isn’t.

    In a pretty detailed analysis of the smartphone cam versus a digital camera, Appolicious pointed out what every camera bug knows by heart: the best shots in the world were those taken at exactly the right moment, that fleeting and unrepeatable moment. Only smartphones and their cameras are this poised for that moment.

    Going into details, the study said the latest smartphone camera technology are equal to that of digital systems, plus the ready availability of smart phone applications that allow the editing and sharing of photos, rendering  the need for a separate digital camera rather minimal.

    Citing just one example, the study described Apple’s latest iPhone model, the iPhone 4S as setting the standard for the best smartphone photography today.

    It noted the 4S model’s f/2.4 lens which allows a good depth of field and capable of low-light performance and the iPhone’s backside-illuminated sensor or BSI which together give the Apple smartphone its color accuracy and face-detection superiority equal to any digital camera.

    The latest iPhone likewise is fitted with greater HDR capabilities, fast performance and 1080p HD video capture.

    New photo-taking apps for the iPhone 4S from Apple’s Camera Awesome applications library further allow users, for instance, to set both exposure and focus readings from different areas  plus a selection of filters for every occasion.

  • iPhone Is Shattered In China: Apple Fails To Win The Chinese Market

    Apple’s strategy of aligning the iPhone to a single mobile operator seems to have failed in China, where Samsung has achieved impressive market share. According to Bloomberg, iPhone has a 7.5% share of smartphones sales in China, while Samsung has 24.3% market share.

    This percentage makes Apple the fifth smartphone seller in the country, while Samsung ranks first. Samsung has sold phones through the three largest mobile operators even since 2009: China Unicom (about 200 million subscribers), China Telecom (129 million subscribers) and China Mobile (655 million subscribers).

    Apple, on the other hand, has sold exclusively through China Unicom, but two weeks ago began to sell its iPhone through China Telecom as well, which should increase the company’s market share. But China Telecom, although huge considering the Western standards, is the smallest of the three Chinese mobile operators.

    The “Father” of mobile communications in China, China Mobile, expects to start selling Apple’s iPhone only after the Cupertino company will release the LTE version, expected by the Chinese company later this year. About 15 million “decoded” iPhones are already in use in China Mobile’s network, without the operator to sell one.

    The reason why the market share is so important is that the smartphones have become a marketing platform, on which developers are building applications running on different operating systems. As for Windows, if a platform reaches a dominant market share, developers tend to “gravitate” around it. Thus, a risk for Apple in China (and worldwide as well) is that Android could become the dominant platform for application development.

    The operating system developed by Google, which supports the smartphones produced by Samsung, is the market leader in China with a share of almost 50%, even though Apple has regained an important part in the previous quarter thanks to the sales of iPhone 4S.

    It is likely that Apple’s sales through China Telecom to help reduce the difference between the Cupertino company and Samsung in China, but until will sell the smartphone through China Mobile, Samsung will remain the leading smartphone manufacturer in China.

  • Samsung Launches New Smartphone: Samsung Galaxy Pocket

    Samsung has announced the newest handset in the Galaxy range. Samsung Galaxy Pocket, with Android 2.3 it is wanted to be an affordable smartphone. With a thickness of 11,98 mm, weighing only 97 grams and featuring a 2.8-inch display, the device remains portable, ensuring at the same time, the best viewing experience of content and images.

    The updated user interface – TouchWiz – features an improved navigation system, providing handy shortcuts for the frequently used functions. Also, thanks to the improved writing function, users can easily browse the Web or write messages faster.

    The device has 3GB memory for applications, MP3 files, photos and other media materials as well as an integrated FM radio, which gives the ability to listen to the favorite radio stations. The integrated high-speed Wi-Fi and the HSDPA 3.6 connectivity, provides a Web browsing experience without delay and fast downloading of multimedia content.

    Samsung Galaxy Pocket provides quick sharing of content through the features responsible for communication and access to social networks. However, the platform Samsung ChatON, available in Samsung Apps, it connects all users in a single community, offering them instant messaging, group chat and content transmission in multiple formats, making communication simpler and more intuitive. At the same time, the already well-known Samsung service, Social Hub, gives users the possibility of storing messages, social networks and e-mails in a single Inbox, making the service easier to use.

    We could say that these are minimum requirements for an Android smartphone. The small screen has a QVGA resolution, which does not encourage browsing the Internet. It’s 2-megapixel camera stresses the fact that Samsung Galaxy Pocket is an affordable smartphone.

    In what concerns the price, the Koreans have not announced it, but say it will be very affordable. It will compete with LG Optimus L3, an entry-level smartphone recently presented at MWC 2012. On the other hand, the comparable models from Sony Ericsson and HTC come with a higher resolution screen and superior specifications.

  • Increased Demand for Smartphones in Europe

    Demand for mobile phones increased again in Europe, last year – mostly due to the growing popularity of smartphone. According to the findings of the latest study conducted by the research company GfK, 3.2% more mobile phones were sold in 2011, the sales of smartphones increased by 67%.

    Last year, 258 million handsets were bought by European consumers, a 3.2% increase on 2010.

    In what concerns the smartphone segment, the number of devices sold in 25 European countries surveyed was 93 million. If in 2010, smartphones represented only 22% of sales in the mobile market, in 2011 the percentage increased to 36% – so that in December 2011 the share rised to 45%.

    Retailers in all 25 monitored countries in Europe showed double-digit sales ranging from 35% in Britain and 105% in Eurasian countries such as Kazakhstan, Russia, Turkey and Ukraine. With a share in unit volume of over 17%, the UK is currently the largest market for smartphones in Europe, followed by Germany, Austria and Switzerland, with 16% in total. The average price paid for a mobile phone has increased in Europe by 8% between 2010 and 2011 – up to EUR 200.

    GfK retail expert predicts that the digital devices industry – including mobile phones, TVs, computers, digital cameras, tablet PCs and desktop devices – this year will reach 22% of its global sales only from the sales of smartphones. This would mean an increase of 4 percentage points over the figure recorded in 2011.

    The current analysis is based on data on the growth of mobile market in 2011 from 25 countries: Austria, Belgium, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Kazakhstan, Latvia, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Russia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, Ukraine and United Kingdom.

  • Samsung Wants to Improve the Autonomy of Its Smartphones

    For a user of the latest smartphones, several-day autonomy is an impossible to achieve ideal. Components have been miniaturized and ought to be more space for the battery. Unfortunately, the market demands phones as thin as possible, so that the battery still cannot exceed a certain physical limit.

    Moreover, processors have gained extra megahertz and cores, the autonomy being sacrificed at the expense of performance as high as possible. In conditions of moderate to intense use, the owner of a top smartphone can end the day with low battery, although it was charged the night before.

    https://smartphone.biz-news.com/news/tags/en_US/Samsung has decided that in 2012 will do something in this regard. The main ways of dealing with this problem will be to increase battery capacity and to increase the smartphone’s radio modules efficiency. An example in this regard is being given by the https://smartphone.biz-news.com/news/tags/en_US/Motorola RAZR MAXX, which differs from the previous model by the fact that the 1780 mAh battery has been replaced with one of 3,300 mAh. We definitely applaud this move, but we cannot ignore the fact that the terminal thickness increased by 2 mm and the weight with 18 g.

    Even sadder is the fact that an entry-level or mainstream smartphone doesn’t come with a better autonomy.  You would expect that a phone with 1 GHz processor and 3.2-inch display to offer a higher working time than a 1.2 GHz dual-core processor and a 4.3-inch screen. In reality, things are different, because rarely can be found an affordable smartphone that it’s being charged at every two days.

  • CES 2012: Intel Sets New Standards in Smartphones and Tablets

    Intel has announced a series of progresses on its entire activity in the smartphones industry, including the signing of a partnership for several years on many devices with Motorola Mobility and provided information on a Lenovo smartphone based on the new platform of the Intel Atom processor. More Intel Atom-based smartphones are to hit the market in 2012.

    Paul Otellini, President and CEO of Intel, made the announcements during this year’s Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. Also, Intel CEO has offered information on the way Ultrabook is seen by users and has described the way the company develops products and technologies in order to provide high performance to a wide range of computing devices.

    Intel Computing Technologies Integrated into Smartphones and Tablets

    Intel CEO also talked about the Intel Atom Z2460 processor, formerly codenamed “Medfield”, which has been created specifically for smartphones and tablets, which is now offering high performance and greater energy efficiency.

    Sanjay Jha, Chairman and CEO of Motorola Mobility, joined Otellini on stage and they together detailed the strategic relationship between the two companies. The partnership includes the smartphones that Motorola will start to deliver in the second half of this year, terminal that will integrate Intel Atom processors and will run the Android platform. Collaboration, which also covers tablets, combines Intel’s leadership in terms of technology based on silicon and innovations in the computer industry with Motorola’s experience in terms of design for mobile equipments.

    Liu Jun, Lenovo’s Senior Vice President and President of Mobile Internet and Digital Home, also went along with Otellini on stage and presented the smartphone Lenovo K800, based on Intel technology and which uses the Android OS. Liu Jun said that the K800 will be available in China starting from the second quarter and will work on the 21 Mbps network of China Unicom. Lenovo K800 uses the Z2640 Intel Atom processor with Intel Hyper-Threading technology, supports HSPA and features Intel’s XMM 6260 platform. As interface, the model uses Lenovo LeOS.

    Otellini said the development of the best mobile experiences is a priority for Intel. Michael Bell, General Manager of Mobile and Communications Group at Intel, has also joined Otellini on stage and he has presented the Intel Smartphone Reference Design technology, which wants to reduce production time and cost for mobile developers and operators. The two Intel officials presented a smartphone with multiple functions, slim and which has a 4.03” touchscreen as well as two 8-megapixel cameras with advanced capabilities, including the “burst” mode, which allows users to take 15 photos in less than a second.

    By presenting the Angry Birds app on the phone, Bell showed that the smartphone equipped with Intel technology can run lots of applications for Android, but also for other operating systems.

    Otellini said that Intel will set new standards in the Tablet PC segment through the compatibility with millions of applications and devices already on the market. On stage at CES 2012 has been presented for the first time the 32nm Intel Atom processor for Tablet PCs and other hybrid devices running on Windows 8, codenamed "Clover Trail."

    You may also want to read:
    RIM Cuts Off Prices, Likely to Name Barbara Stymiest as Chairman
    LG Optimus 3D and Nokia X7: The Battle Continues!
    The Year in Which the World Divided Between Samsung and Apple

  • What to Expect from Android in 2012

    Google has shown just the tip of the iceberg with the latest improvements to the Android operating system. Users have become accustomed to expect more from the mobile operating systems and it is likely that the expectations to end in 2012.

    Software Improvements

    Latest release, Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich, came with the new Samsung Galaxy Nexus, being only a matter of time before other smartphones and tablets to start using it. Cameras with better software, improved graphics and perhaps a voice assistant similar with Siri might be on the launching ramp next year.

    Ice Cream Sandwich already allows users a wide enough range of voice commands. Even if the idea of assistant will not be adopted by Google, via Google Translate, they provide an idea in which direction the voice functions are moving.

    In what concerns the cameras software, Android started with a gross soft, not having too many options. The upgrade to Ice Cream Sandwich brings features such as panoramic photos and zero time between shots. Future updates may include facial recognition and advanced settings options. These functions could also be included in tablets, not just for smartphones.

    Hardware Improvements

    Improvements in terms of hardware are also foreseen, especially in the range of smartphones with two processors. Starting with Ice Cream Sandwich on smartphones with dual-core processors, hardware acceleration option is automatically activated. This means that new applications for the operating system will run much faster. Also, there will also be improvements in games, in terms of graphics. Old applications will require updates in order to observe the improvements in performance.

    The number of terminals that will use Android is growing. This year Google launched android@home, a base for the operating system to be installed in smart homes. They will communicate with other devices running Android to make life easier for residents. In addition, car manufacturers have also been showing their interest since 2010 regarding Google’s OS in order to introduce it in cars’ consoles, which will allow sharing media files between smartphone and car.

    You may also want to read:
    iPhone 4S Could Be Banned in Europe
    Amazon Prepares a Smartphone
    Samsung Wave 3 Available in Europe

  • Amazon Prepares a Smartphone

    It seems that lately, Amazon becomes a synonym for “success”: after the exceptional sales of their e-book reader, Kindle, it foresees a good season for Kindle Fire tablet, but also the launch of a smartphone under the same brand!

    The information comes from the research department of Citigroup, which recently published a note by Mark Mahaney: “Based on our supply chain channel checks in Asia led by Kevin Chang, Citi’s Taipei-based hardware research analyst, we believe an Amazon Smartphone will be launched in 4Q12.”

    Mahaney adds that Amazon would develop the smartphone together with the producer Foxconn. Thus, Foxconn will develop the concept of the smartphone and will receive the NRE fees (non-recurring engineering fees) from Amazon, while the execution part will come to TMS division of Hon Hai Group (the same that produced the e-reader and the tablet for Amazon).

    According to Citigroup’s predictions, the smartphone will be based on a processor powered by Texas Instruments and a 6 Series dual core chip from Qualcomm (traditional supplier to Amazon).

    Mahaney’s estimates led to a production cost of about $150 to $170, the analyst stating that a competitive sale price should be close to this amount. “For a normal brand like HTC, they need to price the product at US$243 to make 30% gross margin. If Amazon is actually willing to lose some money on the device, the price gap could be even bigger,” said Mahaney.

    Although he doesn’t specifies whether the smartphone will use Google’s Android OS, but suggests this stating that Amazon will have to pay royalties to Microsoft for the operating system – given that Microsoft has obtained this fee in justice from the hardware partners that are using Android.

    Speculations about pricing are perfectly real, considering that Amazon decreased the price of their Kindle Fire tablet to only $199 and expects sales of five million units in Q4. According to iSuppli, this price would be lower than production costs, given that components’ price would be only $185.

    The future Kindle Phone would have to be another “sales vehicle”, a mobile extension of the website, additional to Fire tablet. According to the scenario, the phone may integrate an application that will scan the desired product on the website and to buy it through a single touch.

    You may also want to read:
    Official: Motorola Mobility To Be Bought by Google for $ 12.5 Billion
    Kaspersky Lab In a Partnership with TAG Heuer
    RIM Launches Blackberry Bold 9790 and Blackberry Curve 9380