Samsung on Wednesday unveiled new smartphone and tablet devices
soon to be available in Singapore, among which include the
much-awaited Samsung Galaxy Nexus phone and the Galaxy Tab 7.7
tablet.
Galaxy Nexus ($948 without line contract, Feb
2012)
Labelled as the "world's first smartphone running on the latest
Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich", the Galaxy Nexus sports a sleek
8.94mm thick body and features a massive 4.65-inch HD Super AMOLED
display at 720p resolution. Weighing just 135g, it has a computing
power of a 1.2GHz dual core processor.
The new Ice Cream Sandwich mobile operating system introduces
innovations such as Face Unlock, which uses facial recognition to
unlock the phone. Using NFC technology, Android Beam allows the
sharing of web pages, apps, and YouTube videos with friends by
simply tapping the phones together.
Unlike the one rolled out in the U.S, the Galaxy Nexus that is
made available for the Singapore market is not LTE-enabled, though
two out of three telcos here offer Long Term Evolution (LTE) mobile
broadband packages for customers.
The much-awaited Galaxy Nexus, which is largely touted as a
strong competitor to Apple's iPhone 4S by renowned technology
bloggers worldwide, is said to have disappointed local fans as it
will only be made available next month, instead of the original
release schedule of January 2012. It is priced at $948 (inclusive
of GST) without line contract.
Galaxy Tab 7.7 ($898 without line contract, Feb
2012)
In just a year, Samsung has come up with a set of new tablets,
like the Galaxy Tab 10.1, 8.9, and 7.0. And the latest device in
the product line -- the Galaxy Tab 7.7 -- is set to arrive in
Singapore next month.
The world's first tablet to feature the brilliant Super AMOLED
Plus display, the Galaxy Tab 7.7 sports a stylish metal casing
design with ultimate portability. Featuring a 1.4GHz dual core
processor, the device measures only 7.89mm thick and weighs 335g,
making it easy to fit into the jacket pocket or purse.
It runs on the Android 3.2 Honeycomb mobile operating system and
is pre-loaded with Game Hub, giving users access to social games
containing lightning fast graphics.
The tablet will be available in February 2012 at $898 (inclusive
of GST), without line contract.
Besides the Galaxy Nexus and Galaxy Tab 7.7, Samsung also showed
the Omnia W (which runs on the Windows phone 7 platform), Galaxy W
and the Galaxy Tab 7.0 Plus.
LTE-enabled devices coming soon
A Samsung spokesman said that the company plans to roll out
LTE-enabled devices for the Singapore market by the first half of
this year. He did not mention specifically what the devices will
be.
The LTE mobile broadband, which is touted as the successor to
the current 3G networks, is currently available for SingTel and M1
customers. It allows mobile users to surf webpages and stream
high-definition videos at speeds about three times faster than the
current speeds on 3G networks.
- Yahoo!