Samsung is busy dishing out touchscreen phones one after the other, but it hasn’t exactly forgotten about those who can’t just do without a physical keyboard when typing on their handsets. To address the need of keyboard diehards, Samsung has released Captivate Glide for the AT&T network.

Partnering with AT&T was a good move as the phone, which has a QWERTY slider, makes full use of the network’s 21Mbps HSPA+. Captivate Glide is like your typical touchscreen phone but has a slide out keyboard. Despite having a four-row QWERTY keyboard, Captivate Glide manages to look slim enough while boasting that 4 inches of 16M-color Super AMOLED capacitive touchscreen.

Captivate Glide will not win on the looks department with many slim and sleek touchscreen phones around nowadays but Samsung has managed to somehow trim some of the heft associated with such slider designs. Its dimensions are: 4.9 x 2.5 x 0.5 inches and weighs 5.2 ounces.Captivate Glide is no slouch when it comes to hardware and software. The phone comes equipped with Android OS v2.3.5 powered by its 1 GHz dual core NVIDIA Tegra 2 CPU and 1GB of RAM. Samsung didn’t scrimp on the camera either, packing in an 8MP shooter with LED flash at the back and a 1.3MP front-facing camera. Captivate Glide records 720p HD video at 30fps. The built-in storage may be a tad smaller by today’s standards at 8GB but a microSD slot makes up for it.

Samsung Captivate Glide may not have made so much noise when introduced compared to flagship phones, but it will surely be a welcome addition to AT&T’s offerings and will find a spot for users who still prefer that good old physical keyboard as an alternative to their touchscreen phones.

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The Galaxy Nexus hopes to change this though, being the first phone to run the new Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich.

It has a massive 4.65″ super amoled HD screen with 1280×720 resolution and the glass display is curved to supposedly be more comfortable while talking on it. Here is the Nexus compared to an iphone for size comparison:

Even though it has a much larger screen than the iPhone 4s it only weighs 5g more than the iPhone’s 140g. It features a dual-core 1.2GHz processor, 32Gb of storage, 1Gb of RAM, 5MP camera with zero shutter lag, compass, and even a barometer (for weather prediction apps?).

Here are the full tech specs from Google:

It has a few cool new features such as face unlocking, which makes it a little harder for someone to steal your phone. It has been shown to work with a picture though.

Right now the Galaxy Nexus is the best smartphone available, available for only $189 through Amazon on Verizon.

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Here are the complete hardware specs for the phone:

The high point of the Galaxy S II is definitely the display. The Super AMOLED plus actually packs more pixels in than the original Super AMOLED, making for a brighter display with darker blacks as well. Here’s a closeup of the pixels for the original Super AMOLED and the AMOLED plus:

As you can see the AMOLED plus has twice as many red and blue pixels, making for a much sharper resolution.

To go with the great display is a screaming fast Exynos chipset, which easily blows all other smartphones out of the water performance-wise. Here’s a benchmark test run by Engadget:

As you can see with this type of processing power the phone can handle anything you can throw at it without skipping a beat.

There is the standard 8MP camera on the back of the GSII along with a 2MP front-facing for video chat. The camera is great in terms of smartphone cameras and has an LED flash, as well as settings for mode, ISO, exposure, etc. It won’t stand up to your average stand-alone camera, but is definitely on the higher end of smartphone cameras, and films video up to 1080p.

The Galaxy S II has an updated touchwiz interface, 4.0. It makes a few small tweaks to the previous touchwiz, and is very smooth and easy to use as always. Here’s a few shots of the new Touchwiz interface:

The Galaxy S II is currently available from AT&T for the usual price of $199 with a contract, and if you’re looking for the fastest, lightest and thinnest smartphone out there with the best display this is it.

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full specs:

Weight: 131 g
Display: Super AMOLED Plus capacitive touchscreen, 16M colors
Size: 480 x 800 pixels, 4.5 inches
- Gorilla Glass display
- TouchWiz 3.0 UI
- Multi-touch input method
- Accelerometer sensor for UI auto-rotate
- Touch-sensitive controls
- Proximity sensor for auto turn-off
3.5mm jack: Yes

Card slot microSD, up to 32GB
Data GPRS Yes
EDGE Yes
3G HSDPA 21 Mbps, HSUPA 3.6 Mbps
WLAN Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n; DLNA
Bluetooth Yes, v3.0 with A2DP
USB Yes, v2.0 microUSB
Camera Primary 8 MP, 3264×2448 pixels, autofocus, LED flash
Features Geo-tagging, touch focus, face and smile detection
Video Yes, 1080p
Secondary Yes, 1.3 MP
OS Android OS, v2.2 (Froyo)
CPU ARM Cortex A8 1.2 GHz processor

As you can see it also has the fastest processor (it’s actually just overclocked from previous phones) and runs Android 2.2 froyo. With the impressive hardware specs this phone should have no problem dealing with anything you can throw at it.

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The Nexus S is made by Samsung and features their Super AMOLED 4.0″ WVGA (480×800) screen. It’s probably the best display available now for a phone, and also features a new curved face that is supposed to be more comfortable to hold to your face when talking.

The processor is the 1GHz Cortex A8 Snapdragon processor, and there is 16GB of internal memory. The combination of the A8 processor and 16GB of internal memory make this phone very fast and capable of hd video playing and gaming.

Here are the full tech specs:

Connectivity

• Quad-band GSM: 850, 900, 1800, 1900
• Tri-band HSPA: 900, 2100, 1700
• HSPA type: HSDPA (7.2Mbps) HSUPA (5.76Mbps)

• Wi-Fi 802.11 n/b/g
• Bluetooth 2.1+EDR
• Near Field Communication (NFC)
• Assisted GPS (A-GPS)
• microUSB 2.0

Display

• 4.0″ WVGA (480×800)
• Contour Display with curved glass screen
• Super AMOLED
• 235 ppi
• Capacitive touch sensor
• Anti-fingerprint display coating

Size and weight

• 63mm x 123.9mm x 10.88mm
• 129g

Hardware

• Haptic feedback vibration
• Three-axis gyroscope
• Accelerometer
• Digital compass
• Proximity sensor
• Light sensor

Processor and memory

• 1GHz Cortex A8 (Hummingbird) processor
• 16GB iNAND flash memory

Cameras and multimedia

• Back-facing: 5 megapixels (2560×1920)
• 720 x 480 video resolution
• H.264, H.263 MPEG4 video recording
• Auto focus
• LED Flash
• Front-facing: VGA (640×480)

• 3.5mm, 4-conductor headset jack
  (stereo audio plus microphone)
• Earpiece and microphone
• Software noise-cancellation

Battery

• Talk time up to 6.7 hours on 3G
  (14 hours on 2G)
• Standby time up to 17.8 days on 3G
  (29.7 days on 2G)
• 1500 mAH Lithum Ion

Software

• Android 2.3 (Gingerbread)
• Android Market
• Calendar
• Gmail
• Google Earth
• Google Maps with Navigation
• Google Search
• Google Talk
• Google Voice
• Voice Actions
• YouTube

As you can see the phone is the first to feature Android 2.3 Gingerbread, and also has a front view camera (new to Android 2.3). The Google maps is updated also and has a 3D feature:

The new 3 axis gyroscope  allowed by Android 2.3 should also make for more exciting gaming on the phone in combination with the  accelerometer and compass.

The Nexus S is $529 unlocked, and will be $199 with a contract from T-Mobile.

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• Display: 4″ super AMOLED 480×800 resolution capacitive
• Processor: 1GHz Snapdragon
• Memory: 8GB internal + microSD slot
• OS: Windows Phone 7
• wifi: 802.11 b/g/n
• Camera: 5MP autofocus with LED flash
• Video Capture: 720p HD 23fps
• Talk time: 6.5 hours

The Focus is similiar to the Galaxy S line of phones, and the high point is definitely the 4″ super AMOLED screen. It’s very bright and coupled with the good quality 5MP camera pictures and video look great on the screen.

The updated Windows phone 7 interface makes for quick information gathering at a glance, and even allows game play through Xbox live. Windows 7 is still a new OS, so there are a few things missing like cut-and-paste and landscape mode support, both of which should be coming soon through a software update.

Basically the Samsung Focus is a great alternative to the iPhone and has a slightly cleaner and faster interface than many Android phones, though Windows 7 is still fresh and lacking in features the Focus makes for an all around great smartphone.

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Here are the full specs:

• Processor: 1GHz ARM Cortex-A8 + PowerVR GPU
• Memory: 16GB built-in, memory card
• Screen: 480×800 Super AMOLED 4″ capacitive touchscreen
• Camera: 5MP, HD video record, auto focus, zoom
• OS: Android 2.1
• 802.11 b/g/n wifi, bluetooth
• 1500mAh battery
• Weight: 4.16oz
• A-GPS
• 3G connectivity

The Samsung Galaxy S GT-I9000 looks very similiar to the Samsung Beam, as well as another phone made by a company that is named after a piece of fruit.

It has a very snappy processor with the latest Android OS, and is very thin at 0.39 inches, due in part to no physical keyboard.

The phone features a nice voice search function and great HD video playback with its snappy processor, it even plays divx.

And of course browsing the web is not bad at all with its 4″ screen.

The hands on reviews are in and Engadget says if you put this thing beside an iPhone it makes the iPhone looks like a 1990’s Nokia. Well they didn’t actually say that but apparently the “Super” AMOLED screen is called super for a reason. Here is a hands-on video they took of it at CTIA:

Notice how amazingly smooth and fast the graphics are? Well that’s due to a little known fact that the Galaxy S uses a new S5PC110 application processor that combines an ARM Cortex-A8 core and a PowerVR SGX540 GPU. The setup is codenamed “Hummingbird” and has only been seen in 2 devices ever, the Galaxy and the S8500 Wave.

This combination can process 90 million triangles per second. This is a staggering number, but only when you can compare it to other systems.

• Nexus One: 22 million triangles/second
• iPhone 3G S: 28 million triangles/second
• Playstation 2: 65 million triangles/second
• Samsung Galaxy S: 90 million triangles/second
• Playstation 3: 250 million triangles/second

As you can see the Galaxy is in good company in-between the Playstation 2 and Playstation 3, with no other phones in site. This is why HD video playback is no problem for this phone, as well as filming HD video with its 5MP camera at 30 frames per second.

It will be nice to see some gaming tests performed on this phone when it’s out in the wild. Look for it to be available within the next month or two for around $500 to $600, cheaper of course with a 2 year contract with AT&T.

*update* Samsung reps say that the Galaxy S will be simultaneously launched on all 4 major carriers for $199 with a contract. They should start shipping in late July or early August. Also interesting is that the Sprint model (the epic 4G) will have a slide out keyboard while the rest will not.

If you’re a big fan of a physical keyboard (like I am) then you’ll also be glad to hear that there’s a Pro model coming in a few months with a slide out keyboard for about $50 more.

via engadget

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Design

At the top right corner is a frontal camera for video conferencing. Below the display are the talk/speakerphone, menu and end call/power buttons which resembles that of the Samsung Jet.

The volume keys are on the left of the Omnia II, and they also double up as the digital zoom controls when you go into camera mode. However, in camera mode, you would be holding the Omnia II in a landscape position (with the left facing down), which means the zoom buttons are at the bottom instead.

On the right are the neatly laid phone lock key, back/cube launcher and camera mode buttons.

At the top are the 3.5mm audio jack and miniUSB connector. With the 3.5mm audio jack, you plug in your earphones/headphones conveniently, unlike other phones that require a special adapter or using their earphones.

And at the rear is the 5-megapixel camera with dual power LED flash. The rear cover is easy to open, and inside reveals the battery compartment as well as the SIM card and microSD card slots. The 3.7V 1500mAh Lithium-ion battery is included to power the Omnia II.

Multimedia

There are three customizable Home screens in which you can replace the wallpaper with your personal images. Samsung kept the widget toolbar on the left which allows you to drag the various widgets from the toolbar to the main screen including time, calendar, image gallery sound profile, music player, FM radio, network connection status, MySpace, FaceBook, Google Search, CNN news and even Yahoo! Finance.

Pressing the Cube button (or selecting the Cube launcher key) will activate the 3D Cube screen. Each of the face on the 3D Cube holds the shortcut to specific application such as Photo Album, Music Library, Video Library, Phonebook, Games and internet.

The onscreen keyboard can be challenging, but overall it’s better than most others and not far off of the iPhone’s mark.

Music playback is impressive and the audio comes from the speaker at the rear of the phone. It plays Divx and WMV formats flawlessly and supports up to 720×480 resolution which is sufficient for viewing your favorite movies clearly with good details.

The 5 megapixel camera is the same from the first Omnia, and is sufficient to take nice pictures with. It is around an 8.5 smartphone cameras, and has a dual led flash.

The Samsung site has an Omnia emulator that you can play with to see the functionality here:

http://omnia.samsungmobile.com/omnia2/

Overall this is a very nice phone with all of the functionality you could ask for. If you’re looking for a smartphone upgrade now is the time with the Omnia 2 available for only $239 with a 2 year contract.

Price: $600.00

review via vrzone.com

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