iGR, a market strategy consultancy that focuses on wireless and mobile communications industry, revealed in its Android consumer research that Samsung is the most preferred Android device brand. Of the major brands supporting Android, Samsung has the highest brand preference among consumers, followed by Motorola, HTC and LG. ZTE and Huawei ranked toward the bottom of the brands studied, although note that these brands currently sell comparatively lower volumes in the U.S. market.

iGR’s new research also shows that 45 percent of Android users researched the OS prior to purchase and specifically selected an Android device when they bought a new smartphone. It also appears that Google’s reputation is driving Android sales – 27 percent of Android users said that they selected an Android smartphone because they believed that Google was a ‘reputable company’ and therefore inferred that Android must also be reputable.

Samsung Electronics launched the Galaxy tab 620 in India. Running on a a 1.2GHz dual core processor and Android Honeycomb 3.2 OS, it offers
3G calling capabilities. The Galaxy tab 620 weighs 345g and is 9.96mm thick. The device although runs Honeycomb, however, Samsung has customized it with the Touchwiz UI.

The tablet supports 1080p FullHD playback and the Divx with multi codec support. You can expand the storage with an for storing more data. The Galaxy tab 620 can also be used as a universal remote control that will allow you to control electronic devices at your home.

On the business applications front, the Galaxy tab 620 supports Exchange ActiveSync, on-device encryption, Cisco VPN and Cisco Webex. It also features the Sybase Afaria MDM (Mobile Device Management), co-developed by Samsung and Sybase, it provides comprehensive management and security capabilities allowing the corporate IT department to easily view, control and administer all deployed mobile devices.

Available in two colours, Metallic Gray and Snow Silver, the Galaxy tab 620 is priced at Rs.30,250.

Samsung has announced to release a new Galaxy S II software update that will add two new features to the phone. Expected to release soon, the new update’s highlight is the Big Home that increases the icon size by 30%. Next feature is the System Update widget. The new update brings firmware-over-the-air widget that allows instant access to update phone software and notify if a new one is available.

UPDATE: Samsung has released a new statement saying this new update is restricted to Korea and is an ‘option’ in addition to the regular UI.

See the phone in action in the video below.

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It seems that Samsung is in aggressive mode with Apple on legal patent disputes. Recently, Samsung filed preliminary injunction motions to stop iPhone 4S sales in Paris and France. Now in a fresh wave of legal dispute, Samsung has asked an European Union agency to nullify Apple’s exclusive rights to the iPad design in Europe.

“Apple claims that the iPad’s design is exclusively its own, but the design existed long before the iPad,” said Samsung spokesman Kevin Jeong. Samsung has not been able to launch the Galaxy Tab 10.1 in the Australian market and is feared to miss the Christmas season which may hamper the sale.

A Spain-based agency, Alicante, oversees rights for trademarks and designs in the EU countries. The registered community design, which gives an entity the exclusive rights to make, market, import or export products, stays valid for five years and can be renewed up to a maximum of 25 years.

iPad’s community design has been filed on May 2004, this means the Cupertino giant still has the exclusive rights to use the design and to prevent others from using it within the European Union.

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We had reported few months back that Samsung has teamed up with Visa to launch a special NFC based device for the London Olympic 2012. Today the device has confirmed by Sandra Alzetta, Head of innovation and new product development at Visa Europe, at the company’s first European security summit in Frankfurt.

Celebrating the London 2012 Olympics, Samsung with Visa will be launching a special phone that would feature Olympic 2012 content. This iconic phone will be launched in the first quarter of 2012.

Details of the upcoming device are not available at this time, however, the phone will feature NFC and will be available globally. Visa is keen on users using the NFC feature in their smartphones to make the event contactless and hence is working to bring NFC based microSD cards as well. The new NFC ready phones or memory cards can be used at almost 160,000 terminals in Europe, including the 70,000 shops, bars, and restaurants in the UK, says Visa.

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Update: We have a fresh set of updates coming in from GSMArena that majorly proves the BGR.com mentioned specs wrong.

GSMArena was contacted by a tipster from inside Google that revealed the specs. Besides being a world phone, the Nexus Prime will also be LTE enabled. With so many specs leak coming in, we would take this with a pinch of salt. Please see the updated specs below.

Although we are waiting for 11 October Samsung Unpacked event for Google and Samsung to reveal their next developer phone in the Nexus series, the Nexus Prime, bgr.com has managed to get the details of the upcoming flagship device. They received the information from a trusted source and that makes us believe them. Here’s the specs of Nexus Prime that will take the Apple iPhone 4 S headon.

- Runs of Android Ice cream sandwich (ver.4.0)
- Measuring 9mm thin
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- Powered by TI OMAP 4460 dual-core Cortex A9 processor clocking at 1.2GHz Samsung’s own chipset,
with a blazingly fast dual-core 1.5GHz processor
- PowerVR SGX543MP2 GPU
- 1 GB RAM and 32GB of internal storage
- 5-megapixel main camera 8-megapixel main camera and 1.3-megapixel front camera
- High-definition 1080p video capture support
- LTE/HSPA support
- Wi-Fi a/b/g/n and NFC as well
- Powered by 1750mAh 2050mAh battery

Lastly, the Nexus Prime will be Verizon exclusive phone. It would be interesting to see like the other Nexus phones will it be also available unlocked, that is, without contract.

Source: bgr.com

Samsung Electronics will be seeing dip in profit this quarter that will be announced this Friday. This can be attributed to the decline in chip prices, however, investors would be happy to see their telecom business boom with increase in handsets sale.

One of the reason cited by industry experts for the growth in smartphone business is the launch of Apple iPhone 4S that was not revolutionary, and left many fans disappointed.

“Major concerns for Samsung had been that its smartphone momentum will decelerate with Apple’s new iPhone, but that’s now less of a concern as the new iPhone failed to excite many,” said Kim Young-chan, an analyst at Shinhan Investment Corp.

“Samsung’s got broader product lineups and better offerings for the lucrative high-end segment such as 4G models and that will put it in a better position in the fourth quarter.”

Samsung which is in the race to outdo Apple in smartphone sale may soon overtake it as it has got a good line-up of Android based Galaxy series phones and upcoming bada devices. Smartphones may now account for one-third of Samsung’s handset portfolio, up from around 26 percent in the second quarter and 12 percent a year ago, lifting the company’s profit margin of its overall handset business to around 14 percent, analysts said.

More details on the profit can be found here.

According to the leaked image, if true, we can confirm the specifications of the phone my Nexus S already seems so outdated. The image confirms a HD resolution Super AMOLED display with 4.6inch screen. The pixel density is pumped to 320ppi with 1280 x 720 pixels resolution.

The phone also misses out on hardware controls as Honeycomb uses UI navigation. Although there are no details on revealed of the system info, but whatever we see, we can bet that the phone will be mighty powerful.

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Update: The Galaxy Tab 10.1 may not see the light of the day in Australia if the ban persists. For more information on the update, visit Bloomberg Businessweek.

Few days back, Samsung offered a quick settlement to Apple to resolve the Galaxy Tab 10.1 launch in Australia. However, today Apple refused to the quick settlement, making it difficult for the Korean giant to launch the Galaxy Tab 10.1 in Australia. The probable reason to reject the settlement offer by Apple is that they might be sensing a victory in the court. Unfortunately for Samsung, the launch of Galaxy Tab was postponed from August to September and now there seems a further delay.

Earlier, Samsung also agreed to withdraw two features from the Galaxy Tab 10.1 bringing down the disputed patent to one. Since the launch of Android based tablets, there has been a threat to the iPad market share. However, iPad still leads the tablet market share.

Apple and Samsung have also locked horns in various countries and are suing each other for smartphone and tablet patents.

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