After spending a full week with the Samsung Galaxy Tab 7.7 I purchased from an importer, I’m thoroughly impressed with the small slate. U.S. consumers will see a version with LTE for Verizon’s LTE network in the near future, but my hope is that the Wi-Fi version I bought follows soon; it would be priced less than an full-cost LTE version and wouldn’t require a lengthy data contract.

The Galaxy Tab 7.7 is Samsung’s first tablet to use its Super AMOLED Plus technology, bringing vivid colors, deep blacks and super-wide viewing angles. It doesn’t hurt that the 7.7-inch screen has a higher resolution than most 720p HDTV sets either: the 1280 x 800 resolution is a treat for the eyes; especially when watching high-def videos.

Of course, the outside of a tablet is only as good as what’s inside. In this case, its Samsung’s Exynos dual-core processor running at 1.4 GHz. And this chip keeps the Galaxy Tab 7.7 humming along quickly.

I ran many benchmarks between this new tablet and several others, including the quad-core Transformer Prime, and found that the new Tab tests just as fast, if not faster.

The Prime is better for gaming, thanks to 12 graphics cores, but for most tasks the Galaxy Tab 7.7 is currently comparable. This may change in the future as more apps become optimized for quad-core chips, however.

A cheaper Android tablet option appeared this week as well. Sprint is selling the ZTE Optik for with a 2-year 3G data contract or 9 without a commitment. This 7-inch slate runs Android 3.2, not Android 4.0, but has a 1.2 GHz dual-core processor, two cameras, GPS radio and 1280 x 800 resolution display.

ZTE, a Chinese hardware maker, is starting to make a big push in the U.S. tablet and smartphone market; if it can build quality devices with these low price points, it should do well against the current competition.

Late in the week, some confusion arose around the Galaxy Nexus, Google’s flagship developer phone. Verizon currently sells the Galaxy Nexus LTE in the U.S. while an unlocked GSM version — the one I have — is sold overseas. On Google’s website for the Galaxy Nexus stock software, the Verizon version is now archived. It appeared at first glance that Verizon was taking over control of the Galaxy Nexus software for phones on its network.

Google later provided an explanation that suggests it will still provide the updates for the Verizon Galaxy Nexus, saying certain software signatures on CDMA phones aren’t compatible with the Android Open Source Platform builds of Android. The situation is odd because the Sprint Nexus S, available since December of 2010, is a CDMA Nexus phone and this issue never cropped up. I suspect there’s more to this story, so I’ll be researching and watching for further developments.

Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
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• CES 2012: a recap and analysis
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A fresh contender for your blow-out 2012 Olympic gaming rig: AMD’s first 28nm GPU, the Radeon HD 7970. It’s scheduled to arrive on January 9th, priced at 9 — nearly 0 more than its direct ancestor, the 6970. Then again, this newcomer packs some supremely athletic specs, including a 925MHz engine clock that can be readily OC’d to 1.1GHz, 2,048 stream processors and an uncommonly muscular 384-bit memory bus serving 3GB of GDDR5. At the same time, AMD hopes to make the card more practical than the dual-processor 6990 by bringing the card’s power consumption down to less than 300W under load and a mere 3W in ‘long idle’ mode, and promising quieter cooling thanks to improved airflow and a bigger fan. We’ll have to wait for benchmarks in January before we hand out any medals, but in the meantime NVIDIA’s forthcoming 28nm Kepler GPU might want to step up its training schedule.

Continue reading AMD announces next-gen Radeon HD 7970 for 9, says it ‘soundly beats’ rivals

AMD announces next-gen Radeon HD 7970 for 9, says it ‘soundly beats’ rivals originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 22 Dec 2011 00:01:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Satellite images of Nigeria’s coastline show the new Shell oil spill covering a 356-square-mile patch of ocean. By Deepwater Horizon mega-disaster benchmarks, it’s not so big — but it might be in the Exxon Valdez ballpark, and underscores the risks of a new deepwater oil-gathering technique that’s coming soon to the Gulf of Mexico.

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We had a feeling the Samsung Galaxy Note would be a hit on the benchmark scene, but now its unsurprisingly speedy results are documented. Greek site TechBlog installed Quadrant Standard on one of the phone / tablet hybrid demo units at IFA 2011 and produced a benchmark score of 3,624, exactly where we’d expect a Sammy-branded 1.4GHz dual-core CPU to end up; in comparison, our review of the 1.2GHz Samsung Galaxy S II produced an outcome of 3,396. Here’s the letdown: the Galaxy Note is expected to top the charts in pricing as well, as it’s being reported that we should see the device show up in Scandinavia by year’s end for no less than €715 (,000 in the US). Let’s hope those benchmarks are worth the cost, because there’s one thing that can’t be denied — it makes the HTC Jetstream feel like a bargain.

Continue reading Samsung Galaxy Note tops benchmarks, price sheets (video)

Samsung Galaxy Note tops benchmarks, price sheets (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 06 Sep 2011 01:32:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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What we have here appears to be some variation of the Samsung Galaxy S II, with support for 850MHz and 1900MHz GSM frequencies, making its way through the FCC. Now, we know what you’re thinking, “didn’t we already see an AT&T ready S II?” Yep, but this one sports a different model number — GT-I9103, and you know where we’ve seen that before? Those mysterious Tegra 2-equipped Galaxy S II benchmarks. The rumblings of Sammy’s flagship handset coming in two versions, one rocking NVIDIA’s mobile chip, aren’t without precedent — Exynos is still fairly young silicon and this could be a way to boost supplies (as we put it, in the most politically correct terms possible) “outside its critical markets.” In other words, don’t expect to pick one of these up at your local AT&T shop, unless your local store happens to be in St. Petersburg Russia.

Another Galaxy S II passes through the FCC, possibly rockin’ a Tegra 2 originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 06 Jul 2011 08:50:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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What do you do after you’ve bought the most powerful smartphone to yet grace the Android universe? Some timid folks would urge you to just enjoy it, but if you’re like us, you’ll probably want to know just how high that dual-core Exynos 4210 birdie could fly. The processor inside the Galaxy S II started off life at 1GHz, then got sped up by Samsung to 1.2GHz just before release, and has now been taken all the way to 1.5GHz thanks to coolbho3000 over on the xda-developers forum. He’s been nice enough to provide the source code and instructions necessary to reproduce this stable overclock on your Galaxy S II, but don’t rush off just yet — there’s video of the GSII romping through Quadrant and Linpack after the break.

[Thanks, Mike and Sam]

Continue reading Samsung Galaxy S II overclocked to 1.5GHz, used to obliterate benchmarks (video)

Samsung Galaxy S II overclocked to 1.5GHz, used to obliterate benchmarks (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 12 May 2011 04:57:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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