Samsung has been awarded five iF Material awards by International Forum Design. The award is given to the products which are uniquely designed and Samsung has bagged the most of them this year, including the Gold Award.

The Gold Award was given to G Series USB HDDs for its distinct appearance and the usage of eco-friendly materials in making the drive.

Other products awarded were SRT746ZWKPZ refrigerator for its special photo etched design, Jet phone for the natural gradient effect on the battery cover, ST5500 digital camera and MLT-D105L toner.

A new firmware of Samsung Jet is floating on the interwebs, claiming to bring in barrage of new features. Users who have installed the new S8000XEII2 firmware, claims the overall performance has been improved.

Amongst specific improvements – the Dolphin web browser and media browser have been worked on to make it faster; 3D Cube interface has got a new background along with new widgets of Twitter, Facebook and MySpace; Media player now supports landscape orientation with a new interface and more.

The firmware is not available officially but interested users can go to the link below to grab it and flash it via unofficial means.

S8000XEII2 [Free registration required]

As much as Samsung spends on R&D of phones, it also spends a considerable amount on marketing too. The high profile Jet recently got a viral ad that is fast paced and includes…elephants and UFOs. Not the best of virals we’ve seen from Samsung but conveys the message well. Enjoy the ad.

[Thanks Vincenzo]

Here’s the scenario of the Taiwanese touchscreen mobile market. LG Electronics is the leader with a 17 percent market share while Samsung holds 12 percent. Now to turn things around, Samsung is planning to launch at least 10 touchscreen devices in Taiwan in the remainder of this year as compared to LG who is planning to launch at least 7.

In fact, if we see it’s not really surprising for Samsung to bring more touchscreen phones because their roadmap is already filled with them ranging from entry level to high end.

Taiwan will see touchscreen devices like Jet S8000, Beat DJ M7600, Omnia II I8000, Galaxy I7500, S5600 and more.

Source

Want a free trip to South Korea and visit one of the world’s biggest company’s headquarters? Well, you may want to enter the Samsung Mobile of the Future contest. Samsung and Financial Times have teamed up wherein a user has to write about 200-300 word paragraph about ‘the key features of the phone of the future’. It does not matter if it’s feasible or not but should not fail the two most important criterions – innovation and creativity.

This competition is open to anyone who is over 18 years of age. Fair enough? Head over to the link below to know the mailing details. By the way, you should do it right away because the contest closes today and the entries should be received before 5PM GMT.

The winner will get to know about the future of Samsung phones in their HQ including return business-class airfare and accommodation in a 4-star hotel. Two runners-up will receive Samsung Jet each.

Contest Page

[Image|Via Thanks, Joe]

We have said this before and we’ll say it again, the global launch of Jet has worked highly in favor of Samsung. Today, Samsung unveiled that they have got beyond expectation response for Jet S8000. Firs t the 2m units preorder and now Samsung Electronics Europe is said to be ramping the production in order to meet the demands. Since the launch last month, Jet’s been selling in around 70 countries.

Jet S8000 sports a fast 800MHz processor, 3.1-inch WVGA AMOLED screen, 5MP camera, TouchWiz UI 2.0, Dolfin browser, Media Gate 3D, A-GPS, Bluetooth and Wi-Fi.

Samsung has unveiled the Korean version of Jet that will be known as W850/W8500/W8550 amongst different operators. To lure the homeland consumers, Samsung has integrated few extra features that won’t be available in the international versions. The first difference that actually cannot be termed as ‘added’ but obvious, is the different placement of front video camera and sensor as compared to S8000 Jet. It’s also got a larger WVGA (800×480) AMOLED screen, measuring 3.5-inches to original Jet’s 3.1-inches and addition of T-DMB.

Rest of the features are same – 5MP AF camera and LED flash, Haptic UI 2.0 (TouchWiz 2.0), 3D Cube, One-touch zoom, multiple video format support like DivX, H.264, MPEG-4 while D1 video recording, GPS, Bluetooth, microSD slot and much more.

The phone will arrive on SK Telecom (SKT), Korea Telecom (KT) and LG Telecom (LGT) at a Korean Won equivalent of around $630.

Source

Looks like the simultaneous announcement worldwide worked for Samsung. They are happily claiming that more than 2 million units have been ordered before the phone hit the retail stores. That’s pretty impressive because this is the first time Samsung has achieved something like this. Even its flagship UltraTouch could only gather about 1.8m before the worldwide launch.

Jet should be available from this week in India for Rs. 24,150.

Source|Via

If you read Dutch and have ample of time in your hands, Allaboutphones have reviewed S8000 Jet from each and every possible angle you can think of. They reckon Jet is far away from being tagged as smarter than a smartphone but it’s a great phone in its own right. Though they were not happy with some missing Exchange certificates, not as fast 800MHz processor and underperforming camera, they do think many advantages negate the disadvantages.

For non-Dutch speaking audience, here’s the machine translated review.

Samsung Jet Review
Samsung Jet Review [translated]

UPDATE: Phone Arena and GSM Arena have posted their preview.

It’s still under three hours to go for the Unpacked event but it looks Samsung cannot wait any longer. They have officially unveiled Jet touted as the ‘Smarter than a Smartphone’ phone.

Samsung’s Jet is a powerpacked that brings in 3.1-inch WVGA AMOLED display with 16M color support, Media Gate which is actually a six sided Cube UI, a powerful 800MHz applications processor, TouchWiz 2.0, A-GPS, 5MP autofocus camera with dual power LED, XviD and DivX support, one finger zoom, Microsoft Exchange support, DVD-like D1 video playback, music player with SRS WOW and DNSe, Bluetooth and a microSD slot supporting up to 16GB.

Samsung has developed its Dolfin browser that can be reckoned as stronger than other mobile browsers. It supports multi-window browsing (up to 5 windows), multiple background download support and ad-blocker.

It will start retailing in India in the last week of June for Rs. 24, 150.

Full Specifications:

Network: EDGE/GPRS Class 12 (850, 900, 1800, 1900 MHz), HSDPA 3.6Mbps (900, 2100 MHz)
Display: 3.1” 16M WVGA AMOLED
Camera: 5.0 Megapixel AF camera + Dual Power LED
Camera Features: Face Detection, Smile Shot, Panorama Shot, Blink Detection, Geo-tagging,
Photo Editor
800MHz Accelerated Application Processor
Video: D1 Video Playback/ D1 30fps Video Recording
MPEG4, H.263, H.264, WMV, DivX, XviD, Video Editor
Audio: Music Player with DNSe & SRS WOW Sound Effect
Find Music, 3.5mm Ear Jack, FM Radio/ Recording
MP3, AAC, AAC+, eAAC+, WMA, AMR, MIDI,
SP-MIDI, i-melody, WAV, MMF, XMF
OMA DRM v2.1, WMDRM, DivX VOD
In-house developed Dolfin Browser, WAP 2.0, One finger Zoom
Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync, Share Pix & Mobile Widget
A-GPS, On Board Navigation(3D Map)
TOUCHWIZ 2.0, Motion UI, Media Gate 3D, Multi-tasking Manager
Connectivity: Bluetooth technology v2.1, microUSB (USB v2.0 Hi-Speed), WiFi
Memory: 2GB/8GB, External MicroSD slot (Up to 16GB)
Battery: 1,100 mAh
Talk time : 2G/ 492 minutes, 3G/ 300 minutes
Standby : 2G/ 422 hours, 3G/ 406 hours
Size: 108.8 X 53.5 X 11.9 mm