AT&T finally gets GS4 mini, as it preps for start of HD Voice

Posted on by Stephen Schenck

Last week, AT&T shared news of its efforts to vastly improve voice call quality on smartphones, moving forward with its introduction of HD Voice, the carrier’s Voice over LTE solution. We knew to expect HD Voice to go live this coming Friday in a number of Midwestern markets, and knew that the first AT&T phone to support the service would be the Samsung Galaxy S4 mini. Today we see AT&T’s plans start coming together, as it begins sales of the GS4 mini. Wait a minute; AT&T didn’t already have ...

Continue reading »

The post AT&T finally gets GS4 mini, as it preps for start of HD Voice appeared first on Pocketnow.

AT&T launching Voice over LTE service next week

Posted on by Stephen Schenck

For all the advancements smartphones have made with high-speed data, audio fidelity, and advanced noise-cancellation, voice calls have been seriously stuck in the past. While our phones blast cellular data out at multiple megabits per second, voice has been constrained by its reliance on older standards – your $700 smartphone handles voice traffic in much the same way as a free-on-contract dumbphone. Progress has been slow to revamp voice, but the promise of voice over LTE – or VoLTE for short – has been looking like one of the most ...

Continue reading »

The post AT&T launching Voice over LTE service next week appeared first on Pocketnow.

Sprint Android KitKat plans for Samsung devices revealed

Posted on by Anton D. Nagy

As the leak suggested last month, owners of a Samsung Galaxy S 4 on Sprint’s network were able to install the latest official Android 4.4.2 KitKat update on their phones starting February 13. Additionally, Note 3 owners on the Now Network joined the KitKat party on February 20, but now the carrier is publishing further details regarding Samsung phones and the 4.4.2 refresh. If you have a Galaxy Note II, Galaxy S 4 mini, Galaxy S III, Galaxy Mega, or a Galaxy Tab 3 7.0, you shouldn’t ...

Continue reading »

The post Sprint Android KitKat plans for Samsung devices revealed appeared first on Pocketnow.

There’s nothing ‘G2′ about the G2 mini

Posted on by Taylor Martin

There are plenty of miniature things in this world that are great. Love or hate it, the Mini Cooper S is an incredibly fun car to drive. The iPad mini is a smaller, more affordable version of the iPad Air with just as much power and prowess. Even mini golf is one of my favorite time wasters to partake in when I’m on vacation. If my opinion on “mini” were instead based on the mobile industry’s meaning of the word, I would hate practically everything with the mini tag. ...

Continue reading »

The post There’s nothing ‘G2′ about the G2 mini appeared first on Pocketnow.

HTC One Max comes to Verizon, with some smaller Androids in tow

Posted on by Stephen Schenck

HTC’s largest screened smartphone to date debuted last month, and ever since we’ve had our eye on the One Max’s arrival in the States. Last week we were talking about Sprint’s plans for the phablet, but today we’ve got Verizon in our sights, learning of the handset’s arrival alongside two much more petite Androids. The One Max itself will run Verizon users just ...

Continue reading »

The post HTC One Max comes to Verizon, with some smaller Androids in tow appeared first on .

Motorola killed mid-range phones with the Moto G

Posted on by Stephen Schenck

Mid-range smartphones have always been an odd segment of the mobile landscape. The hardware they offer is never top-notch, their designs can look like bloated mutations of sleeker flagship models, and despite more affordable prices than those higher tier handsets, mid-rangers just haven’t been a great value for your dollar. And then today we get this new Motorola – the Moto G. It doesn’t completely hit the ball out of the park with its hardware, but there are a few stand-out components. The ...

Continue reading »

The post Motorola killed mid-range phones with the Moto G appeared first on .

Sprint announces high-speed Spark LTE network with plans for gigabit service

Posted on by Stephen Schenck

The spread of LTE has brought higher data speeds than ever before to our smartphones, yet carriers aren’t resting on their laurels; we’ve already been talking about where things can go from here, like with the LTE-Advanced support that’s come to phones like the Galaxy S 4. Today we heard about something a little different from Sprint, with news of its own high-speed LTE service, dubbed Spark. The way Sprint describes it, the key to Spark is its ...

Continue reading »

The post Sprint announces high-speed Spark LTE network with plans for gigabit service appeared first on .

Samsung announces US Galaxy S 4 mini availability

Posted on by Stephen Schenck

We are on a pint-sized smartphone kick this morning; we just heard about a possible global launch for Sony’s Xperia Z1S, and now we’re looking at a fun-sized handset from Samsung, with the company confirming plans to bring the Galaxy S 4 mini to the US next month. This shouldn’t come as any real shock, as we’ve recently seen some new GS4 mini leaks addressing such a US launch, with a render of the phone in AT&T livery ...

Continue reading »

The post Samsung announces US Galaxy S 4 mini availability appeared first on .

Galaxy Gear will be compatible with Galaxy S 4, S III and Note II soon; but how soon?

Posted on by Jaime Rivera

You’d wonder how smart a smartwatch really is if you really can’t pair it with more devices than just one, and ever since Samsung launched the Galaxy Gear, one of our biggest complaints was that we simply couldn’t use it on most of the existing and popular Galaxy smartphones in the market. Android 4.3 is required for the Galaxy Gear to work, and that’s rather unfortunate since Samsung hasn’t really been famous for timely updates in the last two years. If you wanted to use that Galaxy Gear, you were really forced to buy a Galaxy Note 3 along with it, and some ...

Continue reading »

The post Galaxy Gear will be compatible with Galaxy S 4, S III and Note II soon; but how soon? appeared first on .

Mini versions of flagship smartphones not finding success

Posted on by Stephen Schenck

Miniature versions of top-shelf smartphones have been around for years; Samsung’s been keeping up with it for its Galaxy S line, sure, but this year we really saw renewed interest in the practice. That meant a Galaxy S 4 Mini, launched shortly after the GS4 and flanked by other GS4 variants like the Active and Zoom models, as well as an HTC One Mini coming out a little longer after its parent its parent phone arrived. While ...

Continue reading »

The post Mini versions of flagship smartphones not finding success appeared first on .

FCC receives possible Sprint Galaxy S 4 Mini dubbed the SPH-L520

Posted on by Jaime Rivera

Even though we’ve never been real fans of the “mini” concept on any smartphone, our reviews of both the Samsung Galaxy S 4 Mini and even the HTC One Mini have proven quite favorable. Neither of these is as powerful as their larger siblings, which is the real reason for our skepticism when it comes to adopting them as our daily drivers, but still, not everyone is out for flagship specs either. So far only Verizon and AT&T had ...

Continue reading »

The post FCC receives possible Sprint Galaxy S 4 Mini dubbed the SPH-L520 appeared first on .

New Galaxy S 4 variant confirmed (but probably not what you’re expecting)

Posted on by Stephen Schenck

For the past several weeks, we’ve been looking at signs here and there of Samsung developing new Galaxy S 4 hardware for release. After all, that LTE-A model for South Korea with the Snapdragon 800 made it clear that the GS4 lineup could still have a few tricks left in it, and we spotted a couple Samsung model numbers that sure felt like they could be similar models for other markets. What we lacked was much in the way of proof. There’s still a lot we ...

Continue reading »

The post New Galaxy S 4 variant confirmed (but probably not what you’re expecting) appeared first on Pocketnow.

Remember when a mini phone was actually small?

Posted on by Joe Levi

Cellular phones started out as monstrous bricks. The first one I saw was being carried by a man in a suit walking through the mall. It had a handset attached to a coiled cord that went down inside a bulky-looking box with a handle and antenna on the top. It was comical. I laughed out loud. And then I stopped in my tracks. “This guy is talking on the phone — while he’s walking through the mall,” I thought. It was earth-shaking. Something magical happened next: the possibilities of telephones that didn’t need to be tethered to the kitchen wall went rushing ...

Continue reading »

The post Remember when a mini phone was actually small? appeared first on Pocketnow.

Pocketnow Weekly 049: Samsung keeps making stuff, we keep squawking about it (Samsung Premiere 2013)

Posted on by Michael Fisher

In the food service industry, when you’re a server who’s been slammed with too many customers and can’t keep up with the demand, you’re said to be “in the weeds.” On a podcast, that same expression means something quite different. It means you’ve wandered so far from your intended topic (in this case, mobile technology) that you’ve found yourself in the far-flung wilderness talking about anything but (in this case, sports cars, British accents, and the adult film industry). But while we do spend a fair amount of time in OT land on ...

Continue reading »

The post Pocketnow Weekly 049: Samsung keeps making stuff, we keep squawking about it (Samsung Premiere 2013) appeared first on Pocketnow.

Samsung, stop calling every new phone a Galaxy S 4

Posted on by Taylor Martin

Branding is more important than many people give it credit for. And if you have ever doubted its power or influence, look no further than Samsung for proof that branding does matter. Every Android phone Samsung releases these days bears the Galaxy branding. Every Windows device bears the ATIV branding. Between them, the flagship devices each use the S moniker (i.e.: ATIV S and Galaxy S 4). The Note line signifies any device with an S Pen. The Tab moniker is used to categorize high-end tablets without S Pens. And there are at least a dozen other branding terms Samsung uses for various ...

Continue reading »

The post Samsung, stop calling every new phone a Galaxy S 4 appeared first on Pocketnow.