Samsung launches Android-based smartphones Galaxy 3 and Galaxy 5 in the Indian market

Samsung Eletronics launched affordable smart phones Galaxy 3 and Galaxy 5 in the indian market. Both the phones are based on Android platforms.

Announcing the launch Ranjit Yadav, Director, Mobile & IT, Samsung Electronics said, “The smart phone era has begun and is here to stay. We, at Samsung, are committed to making smartphonesavailable for everyone. We have been focusing on Open OS mobiles recently since many key characteristics of smartphones are becoming more and more relevant - especially mobile internet, messaging features, strong third party applications and flexibility for customization. 

In the open OS area, our strategy is to offer consumers with whatever they want. As a result we are offering mobiles based on the Android, Windows and our own proprietary OS bada in the Indian market.” Thus, while Samsung WAVE is based on the bada platform, the Galaxy S is based on the Android platform.

The Samsung Galaxy 3 is priced at Rs.12,300 while the Samsung Galaxy 5 is priced at Rs.10,200.

“With the launch of these two smartphones, Samsung’s smartphone portfolio now boasts of 4 feature-rich models at a price range of Rs.10,200 – Rs.31,500.“By the end of 2010, we plan to a have a portfolio of 8-9 smartphone models and expect to notch up a 20% market share in the smartphone market” stated Mr. Yadav.

The company also launched two new entry level mobile handsets namely Samsung Guru Power with a long battery life of 2000 mAh priced at Rs.3,150 and Samsung Champ priced at Rs.4,500.

Samsung India Launches Champ C330, Omnia Lite B7300

Samsung has launched Samsung Champ C330 and Samsung Omnia Lite B7300 phones in India. The Samsung Champ C330 is a touchscreen phone and can function as a music player as well. The Samsung Omnia Lite B7300 is also a touchscreen phone which runs on Windows 6.5 Pro Edge operating system. Let us see the specification of these mobile phones in detail.

Samsung Champ C330

Samsung is portraying music player and low cost as two most important feature in Samsung Champ C330. The music player has a 3.5mm ear jack and dual speakers. The phone also has a wireless FM radio and a function called Sound Alive 3D effects. Samsung Champ C330 has a 2.4-inch QVGA touchscreen, a 3 page menu, Touchwiz Lite 2.0 and the Stylus Pen. In terms of memory, the phone has 30 MB internal memory which can be expandable up to 8GB. It has 1000 phonebook and 500 SMS memory. The Samsung Champ C330 uses 1000 mAh and gives a talktime of 12 hours, Samsung claims.

The phone also let users connect to social networking sites like Facebook, MySpace, Photobucket, Flickr, Friendster, Picassa, and Twitter. The Samsung Champ is available at the price of Rs. 4500.

Samsung Omnia Lite B7300

The Samsung Omnia Lite B7300 is a 3G and GSM ready phone. It has 3-inch full touch TFT display with a resolution of 240 x 400 pixel. The phone has a 3.2 megapixel camera with digital and optical zoom option. User can also do video recording in MPEG4 format, and the video player can play DivX / H.264 / H.263 / MPEG4 / WMV / Real One / Xvid video formats. For music, the Samsung Omnia Lite B7300 can play MP3 / AAC / e-AAC+ / WMA / MIDI / Real Audio.

In terms of connectivity, the Samsung Omnia Lite B7300 can connect to HSDPA (3.6Mbps) and Wi-Fi (802.11 b/g). It has Bluetooth 2.0 and USB 2.0 and Opera 9.5 for internet browsing. For memory, the phone has 128MB of internal memory which can be extended up to 32GB, with the help of external memory card. Samsung claims that the phone gives a talk time of 6 hours on 3G network.

The Samsung Omnia Lite B7300 is available at the price of Rs. 17,560.

Samsung's Cheapest Touchscreen Phone Out in India

Samsung has quietly launched its smallest and cheapest touchscreen handset in India. The Samsung Champ (C3300), as the phone is known, is a very tiny touchscreen handset.

It features a 2.4-inch resistive touchscreen that has a QVGA resolution. It has a 1.3 megaixel camera at the rear and also boasts of various connectivity options including Bluetooth and USB.

The phone, as expected, doesn't support 3G but is good enough for GPRS/EDGE based Internet usage. It has a 3.5 mm music jack as well and packs in an FM radio.

Like other Samsung feature phones, this one too is social networking friendly and comes with a load of social networking tools. Memory is expandable using microSD cards and with a 1000 mAH battery, the phone should offer decent battery life as well.

The phone costs Rs. 4,100 only, making it arguably the cheapest touchscreen you can buy from one of the mainstream phone makers out there.

Samsung's Galaxy S phones: A different take on Android

Tapping the tiny button on the side of Samsung Electronics' Vibrant smart phone illuminates the beautiful, 4-inch touchscreen that, on first glance, looks to be running software from another galaxy.

The Vibrant for T-Mobile -- and its AT&T sister called Captivate, both of which went on sale in the last week -- make up the first half of Samsung's new Galaxy S product line, which will show up on all four major carriers. These first two phones each cost $200 with a two-year contract. (For the Vibrant, that price comes after a $50 mail-in rebate.)

I've spent the last week or so putting the Vibrant through its paces; the Captivate is a very similar product. Software on the two is seemingly identical, and the hardware differs only in minor aesthetics. Whereas the Vibrant's look is reminiscent of Apple's previous set of iPhones, the Captivate has a boxier feel.

As you dive deeper into the software, some aspects will look familiar. These phones run a heavily modified version of Google's open-source Android operating system -- the software that powers about 60 devices including Verizon Wireless' popular line of Droids.

Some of Samsung's software revisions are for the better.

With the new lock screen, you can swipe your finger in any direction after the screen lights up, and you're quickly tossed into the software.

On the home screen, a dock with four key apps stick to the bottom as you scroll between screens, much like the iPhone. However, which ones remain in this strip cannot be customized.

[Updated, 6:17 p.m. Turns out you actually can rearrange the apps in the dock -- just not the way apps are normally moved around. As a reader points out, the setting is buried five steps deep in a menu within the "applications" drawer.]

Unlike the iPhone, each screen can hold numerous widgets -- mini app-like utilities that can display and refresh data.

Android's staple notification menu, which you can access by pulling down the top bar where the clock resides, has some nice improvements. It presents quick access to buttons that toggle the Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and GPS functions on or off.

Amid all of these daring software overhauls, there are shortcomings.

One of those, it seems, may have been out of Samsung's control. As we noted last week, the Vibrant, like Motorola's Droid X on Verizon, includes some apps -- such as the full "Avatar" film and Sims game -- that are difficult to uninstall and seemingly impossible (for mere mortals) to remove completely.

Another problem, which may be attributed to either a faulty chip, T-Mobile's network or a software error, has to do with the GPS system. It's weak. At times when using Google's excellent navigation system, the phone will lose a GPS link for minutes at a time. Other times, it gets fairly close at finding a location but struggles to pinpoint.

However, some issues lie solely on Samsung. The loads of software tweaks seem to slow the system down at moments, despite the phone's speedy 1-gigahertz processor. Other Androids of comparable hardware don't suffer from this.

The large, high-contrast touchscreen -- it employs a display technology called Super AMOLED -- takes up the face of the device. Below that are the four navigation buttons common to every Android phone.

Battery life is lacking. It struggles to survive a workday, even with limited usage. Get used to carrying around a charger.

The Galaxy S has no scroll ball of any kind, but unlike what Motorola did with the Droid X, Samsung seems to have overlooked providing an acceptable alternative. Scroll balls enable users to fine-tune their writing. Without one, you'd need, as Motorola implemented and Apple pioneered, a sort of magnifying glass feature to easily locate a certain spot in a sea of text.

The Galaxy S lacks anything of the sort. It feels like I'm poking blind, needing to delete chunks of text in order to revise what I've written. In some text fields, such as Google's own Buzz website, tapping in a crowded box of text provides no on-screen response whatsoever.

Swype, a rather clever alternative to standard touchscreen keyboards, doesn't remedy the issue, but it's a great feature to have turned on by default.

Software issues aside, the hardware on these phones is quite nice. The design isn't groundbreaking, but it's thin and impressively light. It feels solid too, like it could survive some perilous falls. That unusually small, misplaced power button I mentioned earlier is annoying, but users can adapt. The speaker on the back can get really loud -- great for hands-free calling. There's one 5-megapixel camera on the back, sadly lacking a flash.

And the Galaxy S lacks a different kind of Flash -- Adobe's multimedia software, which comes with Android version 2.2. With all of these software changes, who knows when Samsung will condition their systems for Google's newest version that some Androids can already install?

While flawed, the Galaxy S phones are solid, bold and distinguished. Since Google's Nexus One will soon be gone for good, the Vibrant and Captivate are worthy alternatives for T-Mobile and AT&T customers.

Samsung's Wave

Samsung Wave marks the South Korean major’s first serious foray into the smart phone segment in India.

The highlight of this phone is that it works on Samsung’s own proprietary operating system—Bada—which is an open platform that allows users to download applications from Samsung Apps—which is an application store that can be accessed from the device and online.

The online application store features lots of freebie downloads. This is where the social networking, games and many other applications can be found. Bada is an open and configureable platform that also allows developers to create new applications with ease. Multi widgets provide weather reports, news headlines, stock updates and personal schedule all on one screen.

Besides the Bada platform, the other feature that’s being highlighted about Wave is the Super Amoled screen. It definitely is bright and eye-catching—20% brighter and 80% more visible in sunlight, the company claims, than the general Amoled screen. It also uses 20% less battery. The 3.3-inch display with a high-resolution touchscreen adds the wow factor to viewing experience—both videos and photos.

The phone’s ultra fast 1 GHz CPU enables seamless HD video playback, a great gaming experience and the running of multiple applications at the same time. While the touchscreen is intuitive and fast, we’d give more marks to the Wave for bright display. Multitasking is easy and there are ten home screens that can be customized. Moving on to social networking – the phone’s integrated Social Hub feature brings together all major email portals and SNS services directly. Managing all contacts is possible at one place, without getting confused.

The 5-megapixel camera comes with the usual bells & whistles—LED flash, autofocus, face and blink detection, beauty shot, smile shot, panorama shot, geo-tagging, and built-in image editor.

The Samsung Wave is a good-looking device with a streamlined aluminium body and strong tempered glass display. The black and gray colour combination, however, puts it firmly in the business category—a few more brighter colour options would be welcome. The phone is priced at Rs 19,100.

Samsung launches Bada OS, plans to cut smartphone price

NEW DELHI: Samsung has launched its new mobile operating system Bada in India along with two new products and said it plans to bring down price of smartphones to Rs 10,000 by the year-end to capture a higher market share in the growing segment.

It launched Samsung Wave based on Bada platform alongwith its first smartphone on Google’s Android platform – Samsung Galaxy on Wednesday. Samsung has launched Samsung Wave at Rs 19,000, much lower than Samsung Galaxy that is priced at over Rs 31,000. “We want to make smartphones available to a larger population and our new platform will aid that,” said Samsung director - mobile & IT business, Ranjit Yadav said.

The company plans to bring down smartphone prices significantly with new launches this year. At present Samsung has two smartphones in the market , which work on Windows platform. The company plans to launch about eight more smartphones by year-end , almost half based on its own platform.

Samsung is targeting to sell close to 50,000 smartphones in the current fiscal year and to capture a 20% market share in a market valued at about 2.5 million handsets. Most leading brands are launching their own operating systems, with a long term view of generating revenue through content. The smartphones market in India is fraught with competition with brands like Research In Motion, Palm, Acer, Nokia, all fighting it out for a piece of the pie.

Samsung Launches Its New Dual SIM Touchscreen Phone

Samsung’s latest B7722 dual SIM touchscreen phone has been launched in Sweden. Along with number of features like a 5MP camera, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 3G with HSDPA support, FM radio and microSD card slot, the new samsung phone boasts of a 3.2-inch WQVGA touchscreen.

Quad-band GSM supports the SIM in B7722. Although, only one SIM can be connected with 3G service. This new handset runs on TouchWiz User Interface. The price of this new device is 420 Euro.

The full touch Duos has 256K colors and 240 x 400 pixels with a 3.2 inch touchscreen. Along with LED slash, it has a capable 5 mega-pixel camera, which captures pictures at a resolution of 2,592 and also records videos at 30fps.

Like every high end phone, this new variant of Samsung supports ample of multimedia formats, including MP3, WMA, eAAC+, WAV, MP4, H.263 and H.264. However, GPS support is not available in the phone but it has Google Maps and mobile tracker in it. Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g, Bluetooth v2.1 with A2DP, instant messaging and Push Email are also available. MicroSD cards up to 8 GB are also supported.

Samsung Galaxy S gets worldwide launch

Samsung earlier today announced an ambitious launch for itsGalaxy S i9000 handset. Though many cell phones launch in one country and with one carrier at a time, over 100 wireless providers from around the world have agreed to offer the device including, as we've guessed earlier, the four key players here in the United States.

As a reminder, the Galaxy S is powered by Android 2.1 and features a blazing fast 1GHz processor. The four-inch super AMOLED display, which is by far the sharpest I've seen on a smartphone to date, makes other devices looked washed out in comparison.

Other features include Samsung's TouchWiz 3.0 user interface, a 5-megapixel camera, and a front-facing camera to allow for video calling. Among the pre-loaded apps are Swype, Tele Atlas, and the popular augmented reality browser, Layar. Samsung has also taken time to create a Daily Briefing widget, which offers up instant The Galaxy S is available immediately for select European carriers and a full, worldwide rollout is expected later this summer. We've yet to hear when the device will arrive in the United States, but I suspect the day is fast approaching. Samsung pegged the phone with a "summer" release when it unviled the handset at CTIA back in March. Delaying it too much could impact sales as new, more powerful phones seem to arrive every few weeks.

As much as I loved the Galaxy S upon its debut, I already see where it lacks when compared to phones like HTC's last few devices. Yes, the 5-megapixel camera is terrific, but it lacks a flash. Released last month, Verizon's Droid Incredible boasts an 8 megapixel camera and dual LED flash. Also, the Galaxy S features inter-device connectivity through DLNA (Digital Living Network Alliance) whereas the EVO 4G offers the more common HDMI output.

Samsung S3370 Christened the Star Nano 3G in India

Looks like Samsung wants to cash in on the popularity of the word "Nano" in India. No, the Apple iPod Nano ain't that popular in India! We are talking about the Tata Nano - the world's cheapest car which has a nice fan following in the country.

What other than this can explain the rationale behind the naming of the Samsung S3370 to the rather weird and awkwardly long "Star Nano 3G". What is pertinent to note is that the phone also goes by the following names: Samsung Corby 3G, Samsung Pocket3G and Samsung Acton in the various markets where it is sold.

The Star Nano 3G, as the name suggests, will be 3G ready and comes with a 2.6-inch QVGA display - a notch smaller than the normal, 2.8-inch Corby screens. The phone features Samsung's TouchWiz UI, 3G, MP3 player, Bluetooth, FM radio, mobile tracker, access to Samsung Apps, a very basic 1.3MP camera, and Micro SD card support. It also comes with a host of social networking apps including Google Talk, Palringo Chat and AIM.

The Star Nano is priced at Rs. 7,320 and will come with a leather pouch, a stylus and a 2GB memory card.

Samsung phones with TV Tuners: Corby and Metro TV

There is no stopping in technology. Korean company Samsung is leaving no stone unturned in offering its users groundbreaking handsets. Samsung is all geared up to render “Live TV services” on Mobile Phones through CDMA-EVDO network.

Samsung has started implementation of two new telephone networks, one of which belongs to a series of Corby. The devices have named Metro TV and Corby TV. New mobile phones from Samsung have embedded in themselves TV-tuners. Opportunities to play on television screens of the devices Metro TV and Corby TV is possible through the application MimobiTV, owned by software developer Apalya, which allows storage of 40 digital TV channels.

Corby TV is equipped with a 2.8-inch touch screen with a resolution of QVGA, FM-radio, Bluetooth, 2 mega pixel camera and memory card slot for MicroSD.

Samsung Corby TV can be purchased at a price of Rs. 9699.

The second model viz., Metro TV, made in a candy bar is also equipped with an application MimobiTV. Metro TV is equipped with a 2-inch screen, FM-radio, Bluetooth, mobile tracker, 2-megapixel camera, a slot for MicroSD memory card support 9 regional languages of India.

This phone is priced at Rs 6,999.

Samsung Monte rolled out in India

That Samsung Monte was launching in India has been doing the rounds for quite some time now. Well, now the news is confirmed.Samsung Monte has officially been released for the Indian market.Appealing to fashion-conscious users, this new phone is a stunning combination of style and performance.

Monte sports a smooth curvy design which is additionally augmented by a yellow parting surface and a sleek rear surface. With its drop-dead gorgeous looks, multi-media attributes and an intuitive TouchWiz 2.0 Plus User interface, this device can turn out to be the newest must-have phone amid stylized handsets.

Ranjit Yadav, Director- Mobile & IT, Samsung India, commented, “The Samsung Monte stands out as much for its great looks as its advanced features. It lends an essential glamour to its users and through its cool functionalities allows them to lead an effortless mobile lifestyle.”

Avid social networkers may find this phone to be nothing less than paradise as assessing Facebook and MySpace is quite easy via a host of apps. This enables them to access their profiles as per their preferences. The device is available with a Multi Instant Chat Messenger to stay in touch from one universal Instant Messenger, irrespective of where users are or what IM their friends use. Moreover, users can experience full internet browsing, with an accelerometer sensor enabling the onscreen image to mechanically adjust as users rotate the phone.

Furthermore, users can shift their e-mail, calendar, and contacts from their Google accounts to their handset via Google Active Sync technology. The mobile phone boasts of navigation attributes with GPS supported by Google Latitude with an en suite version of the latest Google Maps Version 3.0. With the geo-tagging facility, they can imprint their images with geographic tags to share it with their friends and family. Monte comes with hi speed connectivity features such as 3G and Wi-fi and is equipped with 220MB internal memory expandable upto 16GB.

The device sports a 3.0-inch WQVGA LCD screen and superior imaging features namely smile shot, panorama shot, photo slide show and image motion view with a 3.2 megapixel camera. The phone is also compatible with 3D Sound Effects to offer advanced sound quality. Moreover, the phone embraces an entrenched music search service, Find Music, which facilitates users to recognize their preferred bands and download music straightaway to their phone. For effortless using, the phone is also attuned with Smart Unlock and One finger zoom.

Apart from being an all-inclusive multi-media package, Samsung Monte also provides users access to more opulent content via customized software applications crafted by Samsung Electronics. Samsung Fan Club hosts the application store. Also users can download an array of content which ranges from Maps on Mobile, Mobile shopping experience, Cricket and to social network communities.

Moreover, users can read newspapers in 9 Indian languages via a specific software. Samsung Monte carries a price tag of Rs. 12,390.