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Medion RIM 1000 UMPC with Vista/GPS

Can hardly wait to get my test machine at the end of January, would be my first UMPC. Impressive feature set, slide out keyboard, incl. Vista! Variant with GPS. Bill Gates presented it at CES (ok ok not an IPhone, but the first mobile Vista :
Seems the right size and enough power for my international work. Will keep you posted on usability. Built by Arima in Taiwan (Arima UM650UV1).

TAG Heuer Introduces $6,750 Android Smartphone.

WOW!!!
THAT IS CRAZY!!!!
It’s no secret that some of the staff at The Mac Observer are timepiece fans, more particularly fans of mechanical watches. It’s rare, however, that the horological world intrudes into the Mac, iPhone, iPad universe, however, which is why we were so pleased to cover De Bethune’s iPhone 4 case. Today, we have more crossover news, sort of: Entry-level luxury watch maker TAG Heuer is entering the smartphone market with a € 4,700 (roughly US$6,750) Android-based device.
Better yet, it’s based on Android 2.2, a version of Google’s platform that’s a couple of generations old. Never fear, though, because you can have your Android 2.2 device with a steel, 18-carat rose gold, or titanium finished case, and you can get it accented with rubber; calfskin, alligator, lizard or carbon leather trims.
According to LuxuryWatches, it also features a Gorilla Glass screen on a 3.5” display, and it comes with 256MB of RAM and an 8GB memory card. Oh and it has a button that looks like a traditional watch winder on the side, as you can see in the image below.
http://www.macobserver.com/tmo/article/tag_heuer_introduces_6750_android_smartphone/

A Moment of Silence for Palm and webOS

**Reposted from the Galaxy S i9000 General Thread**
Yes I know this is a forum dealing with Android...however there are some moments that need to be commemorated.
As most of you know by now, HP has responded to the humiliating failure of their webOS based TouchPad tablet by ending all production of webOS devices (and seem to be about to do the same to their PC line as well). They are saying they are open to someone purchasing the operating system, or licensing it for other devices...but rational voices are rightfully declaring webOS dead once and for all...the final end of Jeff Hawkin's Palm Computing.
webOS is the descendant of the classic Palm OS developed by Hawkins which basically created the market for mobile computing devices for consumers. It was purchased a bit more than a year ago by HP who had intended to use it as the cornerstone for a panoply of mobile products...which never came to be. It is open to debate if the cause of that failure was market realities, or HP corporate chaos, or brand mismanagement, the rise of Android, or Apple being Apple...to be fair the "why" doesn't really matter.
I first entered the mobile computing world with a Palm Tungsten E. I adored it and went on to own 6 Palm OS devices. I still have my favorite Palm device, a Tungsten C, lovingly displayed on my desk like a relic. Palm OS seemed to me at the time to be the perfect compromise between portability and computing power, a simple architecture with thousands and thousands of apps. Back then, Palm and Microsoft's PocketPC were locked in a battle to see who would rule mobile computing from then on...how naive that seems now.
Palm should have been Apple. They really should have been. They had a totally unique niche, and thousands of loyal developers. They had positive buzz in the market and were well liked by the tech press. Their name was synonymous with handheld computers and a powerful brand. They were poised to go beyond PDAs when the Treo was the premier smartphone on the market. Then however, for many sad, inexplicable legal, financial and creative reasons...Palm OS development just stopped and some horrible mistakes were made.
After Palm had been bought and sold by such likes as US Robotics and 3M, Palm was spun out into an independent company again and chose the opposite road that Apple would one day take, splitting into PalmOne for hardware, and PalmSource for software. Palm had lost control of their own OS, with PalmOne licensing the software from PalmSource. From 2002 to 2007 Palm OS 5, codenamed Garnet, was the only offering from PalmSource. They kept promising a next generation OS, to be called Cobalt, but after numerous delays and a half baked attempt at offering both Garnet and Cobalt at once, no devices were ever created using Cobalt. and the Palm OS went into development hell, and PalmSource was bought by ACCESS in a scheme to create the first consumer oriented Linux mobile OS. No devices have ever used the Access Linus OS, either. When it was clear ACCESS had no clue what they were doing, PalmOne renamed themselves Palm again and chose not to license their own OS back and instead created webOS. The Palm Pre was supposed to be the great iPhone killer...but wasn't. Then HP bought Palm and the rest is history...or tragedy.
If Palm had made use of the years between 2005 and 2010 to innovate and make use of their army of developers, Apple's iPhone could very well have found themselves struggling to enter a marklet dominated by the Treo 3G. Instead, Steve Jobs just swept the bones of the Palm OS out of the way and claimed many of the revolutionary features of Palm OS among his own inventions.
What can Google learn from all of this to help Android? First of all, keep control of the OS at ALL COSTS. Hardware may come, hardware may go, but the OS is the key. Next, keep momentum at all times. If a mobile OS stops developing and innovating, it dies.
Lastly, never assume that the status quo will remain static. Ten years ago the companies to watch in the mobile space were Palm and Microsoft...now one is gone and the other is a minor force in mobile. 5 years ago Blackberry ruled. Now, the question is who will buy them for patents and customer base. Currently Apple and Google are titans which fanbois will tell you will reign forever...but either one could be sent back to being an also-ran and a trivia question by just a few serious mis-steps.
The mobile market is a volatile, ever changing thing...for now, we all love our Android phones...in a year, will we still say the same, or will my SGS sit next to my Tungsten C as I write about how great Android was back in the day? For those of you who say that could never happen...just look at Palm.

(ALL ABOUT)Samsung Galaxy S3: the latest bid to dominate the Android market

Samsung has released a new flagship smartphone, the Galaxy S3, including voice control, wireless beaming of content and exclusive apps, as it aims to consolidate its position at the top of the mobile sector.
The S3 has a super AMOLED 4.8in screen, larger than its predecessor the S2, with an 8 megapixel rear camera and 1.9MP front camera which offers "intelligent camera features" that the company says will adapt to what it sees you doing.
The phone runs on Google's Android 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich) software, but has a number of Samsung additions – including voice recognition and eye tracking.
The phone will go on sale on 30 May in the UK, with Orange and Phones4U already lined up to sell it. No price has yet been given. It will go on sale in the US this summer. Samsung said it will go on sale with 296 carriers in 145 countries. It can connect at "4G" speeds in compatible countries.
"S Voice" can respond to spoken orders such as "wake up" when its screen is off, "snooze" for an alarm, or to play a particular song, change volume settings, and take pictures. It also responds to gestures, so that lifting the phone to the face while sending a text message will dial the recipient's number instead.
Samsung has also souped up Google's Android Beam (which can pass data such as business card details) so it is capable of sending a 1GB file between two S3 phones in three minutes, or a 10MB file in two seconds by touching them together.
It comes in a 15GB or 32GB version, though the company said a 64GB model would come soon. Buyers can get an optional wireless charging pad, similar to that offered with the now-defunct HP TouchPad last year.
At 4.8in, the screen size is only just below the minimum 5in that most analysts class as a tablet – indicating Samsung's confidence that top-end users will want larger screens. The first-generation Galaxy S in 2010 had a 4in screen; the S2, a 4.3in screen.
The company sold an estimated 44m smartphones across its entire portfolio in the first quarter of 2012, more than any other company. It dominates the Android sector too, selling around 50% of phones on a platform which itself makes up 50% of smartphone sales.
Jason Jenkins, editor of CNET UK, said: "The Samsung Galaxy S3 is a cracker of a smartphone that makes the iPhone look a little like yesterday's model. It cements Samsung's place as one of the leading phone manufacturers and really puts the pressure on Apple to come up with something different for its next iPhone later in the year.
"It's also starting to look like this will be a two-horse race – Samsung and Apple fighting it out for the number one spot with everyone else left to pick up the crumbs. HTC, Sony, BlackBerry and Nokia are the ones with the real work to do."
Ian Fogg, an analyst at IHS Suppli, said: "What's striking is that Samsung is focusing on software and the experiences, more than the hardware (although that is excellent too). Features like Pop over, social tag, and S Voice all aspire to differentiate from the opposition through the user experience that Samsung's software customisation delivers.
"Samsung have been leading up to this for a while, but this is the first time they've led their product positioning on user experience and software."
Francisco Jeronimo, IDC's smartphones analyst, was downbeat, saying: "It is not an eye-catching device that will overwhelm consumers."
He noted that analysts had not been given the chance to try out the voice control in pre-release demonstrations of the phone. Of a brief test, he said: "Overall, [it] seems very similar to Siri, but my first impression was that is not as well integrated with the phone as Siri is with the iPhone."
Carolina Milanesi, smartphones analyst at the research group Gartner, said that Samsung was looking for ways to remain ahead of rivals in the Android space, as well as Apple.
"They need to push the boundaries in order to remain ahead," she said. "It will be interesting to see how many of these new features [in the S3] will be open to developers so that they can take advantage of them in their apps."
However, if developers start to target Samsung APIs for apps, that could potentially split the Android platform still further beyond the individual versions produced by Google – and would also tend to increase Samsung's control of Android.
Such an "embrace and extend" manoeuvre would build its control of the platform, where it already presently has half of worldwide sales and is the biggest profit-maker.
Jeronimo observed: "Samsung definitely embraced Android, and is extending it. We shouldn't also forget that Samsung has a quite opportunistic approach to market trends.
"If Android is now the new kid on the block that can best contribute to its success, they will invest and nurture it to maximise the opportunity. But if the trend changes (and they are very good at anticipating that), they will also change the platform they embrace in the future."
But, he added: "It is clear that Samsung has no other strong options at the moment."
No price was announced, though Milanesi suggested that it would be priced similarly to the Google-branded (but Samsung-made) Galaxy Nexus, released last October, and that prices of the year-old Galaxy S2 would be cut to boost Samsung's already dominant share.
Milanesi was generally impressed with the device, though with some reservations. "The design is much improved, and despite the fact that it is still plastic it feels much less cheap than the Galaxy S2 and the Nexus," she said.
But she thought the S Voice control was less convincing: "It came across as a little gimmicky when I played with it. But to me the main issue is that these features are quite buried in the device, so might not be that obvious to consumers. S Voice is not as complex as Siri – more like voice activation for simple commands."
Overall, she suggested: "I think Samsung has similar challenges to Apple but with a less convincing overall package and a weaker brand."
But Fogg suggested that the real problem would be for other companies. "For Nokia, this must be deeply concerning," he said. "One of Nokia's stated reasons they opted for Windows Phone was because they believed that it would be impossible to differentiate using Android.
"Samsung is showing with the the Galaxy S3 that it's perfectly possible to innovate with Android software. In fact, Android is enabling faster innovation than any handset maker has managed with Windows Phone."
But the new Galaxy S3 could also pose problems for the smaller players in the Android space, Fogg suggested. "Samsung's marketing spend and brand awareness are second to none. This combination of marketing spend and channels will cause serious problems for smaller handset makers such as HTC, LG and Motorola."
Jeronimo warned that Samsung needs to consolidate its position: "Samsung needs to come up with unique features and not to catch-up once again with other vendors. What is there that's completely unique on the S3 that we haven't seen on other devices? Maybe slight differences on the features, but nothing disruptive.
"They entered a new era. The only way to succeed is to set the pace of innovation. I believe that's exactly what they want to do, but they still suffering from the 'follower-syndrome': to improve what others created. That's why consumers will compare the S Voice to Siri and not the other way around."

If you're going to copy/paste an article that someone else wrote, I believe common courtesy would be to cite the source. Also, what is the point of starting a thread like this? There are already a ton of other GS3 threads, why not post your OWN opinions in one of those threads instead of starting a new thread with someone else's words?
All that said, I don't think Sammy is going to dominate anything with this phone, it is downright hideous. I really hope the US variants look a lot nicer.

Samsung Galaxy s7 edge reviews

summation from the verge..
"The result is that the S7 Edge is easily one of the best phones I’ve ever used, and probably the best Android phone you can buy right now."
Cnet
http://www.cnet.com/products/samsung-galaxy-s7-edge/
Engadget
http://www.engadget.com/2016/03/08/galaxy-s7-and-s7-edge-review/
Android Central
http://www.androidcentral.com/samsung-galaxy-s7-edge-review
the Verge
http://www.theverge.com/2016/3/8/11172968/samsung-galaxy-s7-edge-review
Anandtech
http://anandtech.com/show/10120/the-samsung-galaxy-s7-review
Phone arena
http://www.phonearena.com/reviews/Samsung-Galaxy-S7-edge-Review_id4164
Wired review
http://www.wired.com/2016/03/review-samsung-galaxy-s7-galaxy-s7-edge/
Android Pit
https://www.androidpit.com/samsung-galaxy-s7-edge-review
Tech Radar
http://www.techradar.com/us/reviews/phones/mobile-phones/samsung-galaxy-s7-edge-1315189/review
"The best smartphone in the world right now"
Yahoo
https://www.yahoo.com/tech/samsung-galaxy-s7-and-s7-1380967001481270.html
Gizmodo
http://gizmodo.com/samsung-galaxy-s7-review-inching-toward-perfection-1763438896
USA Today
http://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/...galaxys-new-phones-have-fizz-review/81463026/
Venture beat
http://venturebeat.com/2016/03/08/samsung-galaxy-s7-edge-review/
Telegraph UK
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/2016/03/07/samsung-galaxy-s7-edge-review/
Slashgear
http://www.slashgear.com/samsung-galaxy-s7-edge-review-08430676/
Notebook Review
http://www.notebookreview.com/phone...-perfect-but-new-features-a-work-in-progress/
Toms Guide
http://www.tomsguide.com/us/galaxy-s7-edge,review-3440.html
BGR
http://bgr.com/2016/03/08/samsung-galaxy-s7-review-roundup/
"Samsung has made a masterpiece"
Computerworld
http://www.computerworld.com/articl...nd-galaxy-s7-edge-the-new-phones-to-beat.html
Time magazine
http://time.com/4248284/samsung-galaxy-s7-review-android-edge/
TechnoBuffalo
http://www.technobuffalo.com/reviews/galaxy-s7-edge-review-best-android-smartphone/
"The best Android smartphone, everyone else can go home now"
Forbes early review
http://www.forbes.com/sites/ianmorr...ly-review-smartphone-perfection/#581016b37e54
"Smartphone perfection"