Samsung Galaxy S2, Tab2 details, infos, release dates

Posted by – February 13, 2011
Category: Samsung, MWC, Android

I’ll post my videos once I get the bandwidth tomorrow. Here are some infos I grabbed from the awesome Samsung event, I don’t know if those are common knowledge or if those pieces of infos are interesting:

– Samsung Galaxy 10.1 is Nvidia Tegra2 based, to be released next month, design is pretty awesome (except a bit heavy, no HDMI, no kick-stand), Honeycomb is freaking awesome, the first real tablet OS ever made. (iPad OS is not a real tablet OS). Wow Google made awesome work.

– Samsung Galaxy S2 has a MHL (Multimedia High-definition Link) connector, which basically allows the Micro-USB to do much more than just be a Micro-USB connector, it can for example output 1080p with a Micro-USB to HDMI cable, it can do USB host stuff such as USB keyboards, which basically means, if Samsung wants, they can make it do most of the things the Motorola Atrix 4G does. My understanding is Samsung’s Exynos is better than Nvidia Tegra2, has better/faster memory bandwidth, better graphics in ARM Mali-400 (did they say it does 320 Million triangles/polygons per second?). The units on display were hot, but that’s probably just cause of the hot lights and many people fondling them while launching videos and 3D stuff. It may also be I guess because the Exynos are pre-production and being over-clocked for good performance in these pre-production prototypes, but they told me that was not the case. The Linux kernel in S2 Gingerbread supports Dual-core, but I think Samsung and Google have plenty of software optimizations still to do to fully utilize the dual-core ARM Cortex-A9 power. This might be what happens once 2.4 comes out with all the 3.0 tablet features and hardware acceleration but adapted for smartphones.

– I think Samsung should turn the S2 into an Atrix 4G-like all-in-one chameleon of a device, basically just provide the right types of accessories for it, hopefully they’d price those more reasonably than Motorola. Also, Samsung says the MHL standard is going to be a standard for the industry, first introduced with S2, so perhaps any third party accessory makers could make alternative and compatible Laptop Docks, TV Docks, Desktop Docks, Keyboard Attachments and more interesting stuff.

– Samsung Galaxy Family, they are releasing a whole range of cheap Android phones. The Samsung Galaxy Mini is the cheapest of the bunch. Prices are confidential, up to carriers or/and distributors to decide, but I expect the Mini to be available below $150, perhaps towards $100, for unlocked or/and prepaid plans. Those are extremely great capacitive smartphones, 3.something inch screens (some weird Samsung LCD sizes), but most are QVGA, and the middle range Samsung Galaxy Ace goes to 3.5″ HVGA.

You can probably find much more real infos on other blogs, but here are some of the things I heard. Overall, the S2 is totally awesome, just beautiful slim nice phone, Tab2 is probably the best Tegra2 tablet I’ve seen. To be seen and retested what Acer and LG does with that.

Look for tons of my videos starting tomorrow. I’m at Mobile World Congress, no sim card in sight, only roaming. I’ll get a Yoigo SIM card tomorrow.