Samsung Infuse 4G review: Extra legroom

Introduction

In America, it is widely believed that bigger is better. Or so Samsung must have thought when they decided to launch the phone with the biggest and brightest screen first in the United States, and with the biggest network – AT&T. The Samsung Infuse 4G is definitely meant to stand out – its 4.5” Super AMOLED Plus screen is nearly unmatched on the market, and a beauty to look at. It makes 4-inchers look petty and irrelevant.

Despite its humongous screen, the Samsung Infuse 4G has an impressively thin body. At 8.99 mm, it is only a tad thicker than a Galaxy S2. It does have an excuse though – it’s packing a larger screen than the current Samsung flagship. That’s the spirit.

Key Features

• Quad-band GSM and quad-band 3G support
• 21 Mbps HSDPA and 5.76 Mbps HSUPA support
• 4.5" 16M-color Super AMOLED Plus capacitive touchscreen of WVGA (480 x 800 pixel) resolution
• 1.2 GHz ARM Cortex A8 processor, 512 MB of RAM
• 8 MP wide-angle lens auto focus camera with LED flash, face, smile and blink detection
• 720p video recording at 30fps
• Dual-band Wi-Fi 802.11 b, g and n support
• GPS with A-GPS connectivity; Digital compass
• 16GB internal storage, microSD slot
• Accelerometer, gyroscope and proximity sensor
• Standard 3.5 mm audio jack
• Charging MHL microUSB port with USB host and TV-out (1080p) support
• Stereo Bluetooth v3.0
• FM radio with RDS
• Great audio quality
• Super slim and lightweight at 8.99mm and 139g
• 1.3MP secondary camera, video-call
• Full Flash support and GPU-acceleration enable 1080p flash video playback in the web browser
• Document editor
• File manager preinstalled
• The richest video format support we’ve seen

Main disadvantages

• All-plastic build
• No dedicated camera key
• Super slim body has poor grip when taking pictures
• Single-core processor
• No 1080p video recording despite having the same camera unit as the Galaxy S2
• Sheer size raises questions about single-handed use
• Non-hot-swappable memory card slot
• The device ships with Android 2.2 (Froyo), not the latest Gingerbread

Certain comparisons are not in the Samsung Infuse 4G’s favor. It looks like a flagship, but it’s not quite there. The Infuse just doesn’t have the raw processing power of the Galaxy S2. What’s fair’s fair though – it does look even more impressive.

Oddly enough, Samsung has decided to go with their older generation, single-core CPU which we know well from the Galaxy S line of phones. Is it going to be enough to power the Infuse 4G? We are about to find out.
Editorial: You might notice that this review is shorter than usual and doesn't include all of our proprietary tests. The reason is it has been prepared and written far away from our office and test lab. The Samsung Infuse 4G is a US-only phone, so it will probably never get to the shores of the Old Continent. Still, we think we've captured the essence of the phone in the same precise, informative and detailed way that's become our trademark. Enjoy the good read!

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Motorola XOOM review: The Big Bang

Introduction

Phones far and wide wanted to be the iPhone killer and you know what – tablets are no different. The iPad needs to get used to living with a bounty on its head. And always be ready for the likes of the Motorola XOOM.
But the XOOM is no ordinary competitor. We’re talking the first Honeycomb tablet, a cornerstone for Android. It’s Motorola’s first tablet too. If they play their cards right, it could be a big money earner for a company in trouble, so we know Moto gave it their best.

Motorola XOOM official photos
The XOOM has a 10.1” screen of 1280 x 800 pixels resolution, Google’s latest Android OS (after the update rolls out in full), purpose made for tablet use, and a powerful Tegra 2 1GHz dual-core chipset with 1GB RAM. Barely a few lines into the spec sheet and we already like the sound of it.
The Motorola XOOM has more to offer than that. The Verizon US version will be getting a (delayed) LTE update, while dual-band Wi-Fi (2.4GHz and 5GHz) sounds sweet too.
But we won’t go on and on about the specs of the XOOM. Here go the highlights followed – as usual – by what we didn’t like.

Key features

• 10.1” capacitive touchscreen of 1280 x 800 pixel resolution; multi-touch
• 730g of weight
• Dual-band (2.4GHz and 5GHz) Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n connectivity; Wi-Fi hotspot
• Optional 3G connectivity (data only) – HSPA or 1xEV-DO (LTE via upgrade)
• GPS with A-GPS support on all models
• 1GHz NVIDIA Tegra 2 AP20H Dual Core processor
• 1GB RAM
• Android 3.0 Honeycomb, upgradable to 3.1
• 16/32/64GB of onboard storage
• microSD card slot (up to 32GB)
• Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR
• Accelerometer, compass and three-axis gyro-sensor; barometer sensor
• 5MP auto-focus camera with dual-LED flash
• 720p video recording at 30fps
• 2MP secondary video call camera
• HD TV-Out via microHDMI port
• microUSB with host functionality
• Flash-enabled web browser
• 10 hours video playback, 3.3 days of music playback

Main disadvantages

• Seems quite laggy despite the 1GHz dual-core CPU
• Screen is very reflective, hard to use outdoors
• Quite a porker at 730 grams
• No kickstand – it cannot be stood up on a table without a dock
• Non-replaceable battery
• Can’t charge off USB
• LTE-enabling update not out yet for the Verizon version
• Still waiting for an update to enable microSD slot as well
• No document editor pre-installed, not even a viewer

We’re really curious to try out the tablet minded version of Android – the one we’ve tested before was clunky to use and clearly not intended for big screens. And we’ve had a positive experience with the Tegra 2 platform. It’ll be interesting to see how it performs inside a tablet.
And let’s just say that seeing a standard microHDMI port was a pleasant surprise – no need of an adapter to get the TV-Out working. The competition doesn’t even have a standard microUSB port so thumbs up for Motorola and keeping to standards.

Motorola XOOM in our office
The XOOM we’re about to get started with is the 3G-enabled variety with 32GB of inbuilt storage. And yes, it’s got Honeycomb inside – the version of Android meant for tablets. We can hardly wait. Jump to the next page and try to keep up
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Samsung Galaxy Tab 8.9 comes to the office, makes calls

The Samsung Galaxy Tab 8.9 has just arrived in our office and, boy, do we have some news for you. It turns out that the Honeycomb slate takes on from where its 7” predecessor left off, and brings native telephony capabilities to an even larger form factor.
Yeap, we are talking regular GSM network phone calls and even some video-calls if you wish. There’s no dialer on board, but you can either get a 3rd party app from the market (as we did), or use your contacts list for initiating calls.

Samsung Galaxy Tab makes calls too
Much like with the 7” Galaxy Tab, you can either use the built-in microphone and speakerphones, a handsfree plugged into the 3.5mm audio jack, or a Bluetooth handsfree for calling. Pretty cool, eh?
But of course telephony is not why people would go for the Galaxy Tab 8.9. The reason why people would probably choose the ultra-slim tablet is the great mix of portability and functionality that it offers. Despite being as powerful as its larger competitors, the Galaxy Tab 8.9 comes in a shell that’s way more portable and easier to handle (due to the reduced weight and unbelievably slim waistline).

Samsung Galaxy Tab 8.9 live shots
Anyway we shouldn’t be getting ahead of ourselves here. We’ll see if the Galaxy Tab 8.9 will manage to live up to the high expectations when the preview is created. In the meantime, feel free to check out how it compares to its larger brother and the iPad 2 on paper.
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Samsung Galaxy Pro B7510 review: Utility droid

Samsung’s QWERTY messengers have not exactly been setting the world on fire. They have done well though to set the scene for this one. The Samsung Galaxy Pro B7510 follows on the heels of Omnia and Corby. It puts Android in a time-tested form factor and is ready to entertain upgraders coming from dumbphones and PocketPCs alike.

Samsung Galaxy Pro B7510 official pictures
The Galaxy Pro has a clear objective – deliver the full Android experience, a good social package and hassle-free messaging. What does it need to meet those tasks? Well, a comfortable QWERTY keyboard obviously, possibly a touchscreen, enough processing power and at least some basic shooting skills to capture the important moments. Of course, a messenger is nothing without a proper OS and this is where the Android Froyo comes in. But let’s see what else the Galaxy Pro has to offer.

Key features

• 2.8" 256K-color TFT capacitive touchscreen of QVGA (240 x 320 pixels) resolution
• Full four-row QWERTY keyboard
• ARMv6 800MHz CPU, 270MB RAM, 180MB of user-available storage
• Android 2.2.2 (Froyo) with TouchWiz 3.0 UI
• Quad-band GSM and dual-band 3G support
• 7.2 Mbps HSDPA
• Wi-Fi 802.11 b, g, n with hotspot functionality
• GPS with A-GPS connectivity; digital compass
• 3.15 MP autofocus camera
• QVGA video recording @30fps
• microUSB port (charging) and stereo Bluetooth v3.0
• microSD slot (up to 32GB, 2GB in box)
• Standard 3.5 mm audio jack
• Accelerometer and proximity sensor
• Document viewer out of the box, paid editing
• Stereo FM radio with RDS
• Light and compact
• Smart dialing

Main disadvantages

• The QVGA screen looks bad and limits the choice of apps
• Portrait homescreen ported to landscape takes some time getting used to
• QVGA-only video recording
• No shutter key
• No Adobe Flash support in the browser
• No secondary video-call camera
• No ambient light sensor
• No dedicated video player app
• No multi-touch
• Android 2.2 Froyo, instead of latest Android 2.3 Gingerbread

It should be clear by now the Galaxy Pro B7510 isn’t your typical Android powerhouse for HD video, quality imaging or heavy-duty internet browsing. Gaming is out of the picture too. To be honest, the Galaxy Pro doesn’t quite make the grade as a BlackBerry competitor. To make up for it, it is social and friendly – and a great texter too. Virtual keyboards have been getting better but the Galaxy Pro’s superbly laid-out keypad is the prefect addition to Gmail.

Samsung Galaxy Pro B7510 live shots
So the Samsung Galaxy Pro B7510 it is and, although this is not the typical Android package, let’s hope the experience is up to scratch. With a handful of Samsung Ch@ts, Corbies and Omnia messengers gone almost unnoticed, we’re about to see if our Galaxy Pro here has what it takes to leave a mark. Our traditional hardware check-up is due right after the break.
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