Samsung Galaxy S - Android Community

Tagged: Samsung Galaxy S

Samsung Galaxy S Plus hands-on and benchmarks

By Chris Davies
on 11 Aug, 2011

All eyes may be on the Samsung Galaxy S II right now, but the Korean company believes there's some life left in its best-selling predecessor. The Samsung Galaxy S Plus GT-I9001 was officially announced at the end of March, a 1.4GHz upgrade to the original Hummingbird phone, and Android Community caught up with Vodafone UK today to grab some playtime and run some early benchmarks. Outwardly, there's little to differentiate the 119g Galaxy S Plus from the Galaxy S before it: the same plastic casing, 4-inch WVGA Super AMOLED display, reasonably slimline chassis and 5-megapixel camera on the back. You also get the same front-facing camera, 8GB of internal storage - with a microSD card slot to boost that by up to 32GB - and Android 2.3 Gingerbread with Samsung's TouchWiz UI. What's different is processor speed and battery life. Samsung has overclocked the original 1GHz chip to 1.4GHz so as to bring it more in line with the performance we've seen from dual-core devices, but it's also managed to extend battery life at the same time. In fact, the company reckons the Galaxy S Plus will last 24-percent longer than the regular S. We took the opportunity to run a couple of benchmarks on the phone, starting with Quadrant Standard. The Galaxy S Plus scored 1241, a neat bump on top of the Galaxy S. Then we turned to Vellamo, Qualcomm's mobile browser benchmarking tool, which combines various web-centric tests into one. Here, the Galaxy S Plus scored 829, slotting in-between the HTC EVO 3D and the HTC Sensation, an impressive boost over original phone. In short, while you're not getting the very best specs of the day, you're getting a phone that needs no third-party ROMs to achieve a turn of speed. Vodafone will be offering the Galaxy S Plus imminently in the UK, priced from free with a new, 24-month agreement at £31 per month ($50) including 600 voice minutes, unlimited messaging, 500MB of data and 2GB of inclusive BT OpenZone WiFi hotspot use. Update: The Galaxy S Plus is available now, on pay monthly plans from £25. Meanwhile, we're giving away a pair of Vodafone Galaxy S II handsets to UK readers over at SlashGear, so head over to see how you can win! [gallery]

Samsung hits 5m Galaxy S II sales

By Chris Davies
on 27 Jul, 2011

Samsung has announced that global sales of the Galaxy S II have passed the 5m mark, again beating its predecessor, the Galaxy S, to the milestone. Currently available in various European and Asian countries - though not, yet, the US - the GSII has been on sale for just 85 days. The handset had already passed the 3m point after 55 days on the market. In contrast, the Galaxy S took 85 days to make it to 3m, and 125 days to reach 5m. Beyond that, after seven months of availability, the Galaxy S hit 10m sales, a record Samsung now says it is confident the Galaxy S II will beat. Availability in North America - which has taken longer than for the Galaxy S - will undoubtedly help achieve that goal. Verizon Wireless is expected to be the first US carrier to offer the Galaxy S II - in CDMA form - with a launch within the next 2-3 weeks tipped, while Samsung is believed to be crafting custom versions for all four major networks. Meanwhile, a slider version of the smartphone, packing a QWERTY keyboard and apparently headed to AT&T, was spotted earlier this week. [Thanks to everyone who sent this in!]

Samsung sells 1.3m Galaxy S II in Korea; promises successor in 1H 2011 plus 4G Galaxy Tab

By Chris Davies
on 30 May, 2011

Samsung has announced that it has broken the 1m sales barrier for the Galaxy S II in South Korea, smashing sales records in the process. Meanwhile, mobile comms chief J.K. Shin has confirmed that a sequel to the GSII, aka the "Galaxy S III", is planned for the first half of 2012, while a Samsung Galaxy Tab 4G slate should arrive later in the year. Details on the two new devices are unknown, with Shin only saying that the tablet would be built upon, and improve, what the current Galaxy Tab models offer. The 4G standard it will support is also unclear, so it could be LTE, WiMAX, HSPA+ or - most likely - all three to suit the various carriers. Samsung actually sold 1.3m GSII units in May, Shin says; the original Galaxy S took 70 days to reach the 1m mark. As for the ongoing legal battle between Samsung and Apple, Shin dismisses it as not being "legally problematic." "We didn't copy Apple's design" the exec insisted, "we have used many similar designs over the past years."

Samsung Hercules to Save T-Mobile Customers?

By John Scheible
on 17 May, 2011

An early accessory listing leaked the names of Samsung Galaxy S II variants for AT&T, Verizon, and Sprint, leaving T-Mobile out of the loop. Today though it looks like there may be another "hero" phone coming T-Mobile, in the form of a phone named (for now anyway) the Samsung Hercules, a phone with the power of the Galaxy S II, and the size of AT&T's new Infuse 4G.

Gingerbread Promised for Galaxy Devices by End of May

By Chris Burns
on 17 May, 2011

Samsung's sent out an update for all you owners of basically every Galaxy device under the sun promising no less than Android 2.3 Gingerbread before the end of this month. The update comes officially at the end of yesterday, those of you living in the UK and other Nordic countries having the best luck will be seeing this update first. From there, starting in mid-May (now,) the rest of the world will see such lovely treats: Euro markets, North America, Southeast Asia, Middle East Asia, Africa, and the rest. This update will be rolling out via Kies. This release solidifies months of whispers of similar such reports on the same cookie.

HBO to GO now in the Android Market

By James DeRuvo
on 29 Apr, 2011

A few weeks back, we reported that HBO to GO would be coming to the Android Market. The we didn't know when it would be coming to Android, although it was strongly hinted at May 2nd in their commercials. Well, HBO has released it early and the app is now live. Users who subscribe to the PayTV service can download it to most Android devices.

TouchWiz 4 ported to Samsung Galaxy S

By James DeRuvo
on 26 Apr, 2011

The gang at XDA can't be stopped. This time, taking TouchWiz 4 and they've ported it to the Samsung Galaxy S. Now before you think, "oh cool, I've been wanting to do the whole rooting ROM thing," give it a second thought. The average user just cutting their teeth on custom ROMs may want to stay clear or at least wait on this one, it's not for the faint of heart.

Samsung Vibrant gets an update tweak

By James DeRuvo
on 18 Apr, 2011

Users of the Samsung Vibrant (aka the Samsung Galaxy S) can get an update for their phones that fixes a few bugs here and there. The update, known as KB5, also updates Gmail and YouTube, boosting them to R9 versions respectively. There was also a DRM issue with the music player that prevented some music from playing. Samsung has fixed that as well.

Vodafone UK releases Samsung Galaxy S Gingerbread update

By Chris Davies
on 18 Apr, 2011

Vodafone UK has begun to push out the update for the Samsung Galaxy S, updating the smartphone to Android 2.3 Gingerbread. Vodafone looks to be the first UK carrier to offer the update. The first signs of Gingerbread for the Galaxy S were spotted over the weekend, with the new firmware being flagged up in several Nordic countries. According to Vodafone's change-list, the handset will get a "simpler and slicker" UI, the new Gingerbread keyboard, boosted power and camera management, and the ability to lock it into 2G mode. To install the new firmware, you'll need to hook your Galaxy S up to a PC running Samsung KIES. Let us know how you get on in the comments! Press Release:

NEWS: Update for the Samsung Galaxy S A new maintenance release for the Samsung Galaxy S is now available for Vodafone customers. This is an Android platform update to 2.3 Gingerbread which introduces a number of fixes and improvements which include; Ul Enhancements (simpler and slicker) New Android Keyboard, with easy copy/paste feature Improved Power Management Multiple Camera Management (front and back) The ability to switch the device to GSM (2G) only mode has been restored in this update. How will you get the latest software? This can be done manually by connecting your handset to your computer via USB and opening the Samsung KIES application. You will be prompted that an update is available and should then follow the onscreen instructions. Checking the software version To check which version of the software you have on your handset you need to dial *#1234# The new software version will show as i9000BUJV4

Gingerbread for Samsung Galaxy S goes live

By Chris Davies
on 16 Apr, 2011

Samsung has begun pushing out the Android 2.3.3 Gingerbread update for the Samsung Galaxy S, with multiple European users of xda-developers reporting that the new ROM went live overnight. The update is available through Samsung Kies, the company's PC software tool. A Gingerbread build for the Galaxy S was leaked back in February, but until now the freshest European firmware has been Android 2.2 Froyo. US versions of the Galaxy S are still languishing on Eclair in some cases. It's early days for feedback on the new ROM, but users are hoping for snappier performance more akin to the Samsung-made Nexus S. Let us know if you spot the update rolling out to your country in the comments. [via AgeMobile - thanks droider!]