Samsung Blog

Samsung Corby (S3653)

mobi — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 14:57:03 +0000

Samsung has just launched the much anticipated Samsung Corby (S3653) to their mobile range.

Aside from being the hottest item to hit the market the phone features and capabilities exceed all expectation such as social networking services Facebook , YouTube , Twitter available and to be the first mobile phone ever to have Mxit embedded.

Corby comes standard with 2 interchangeable jackets 1 being a basic black jacket and the other being a fashion print jacket which is a great self expressive tool.

The full touchscreen capability with finger zoom option allows images to be viewed clearer.

Samsung are giving away 3 Nintendo Wii's and the 3 Samsung Corby,s to stand a chance to win these amazing prizes go to www.samsungcorby.co.za . As a true trend setter Samsung Corby are throwing huge parties all over South Africa, the parties will include the exclusive Corby dancers know as the Flash Mob, dj's, music and awesome atmosphere.

To view more about Samsung Corby, visit www.samsungcorby.co.za.

Samsung Corby dance crew

Savannah Walley — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 12:52:37 +0000

Samsung Corby dance auditions - keen to see more? Be sure not to miss the Corby events coming to a venue near you!

Will Android be the Next Big Thing in Mobile?

Brett Loubser — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 07:36:45 +0000

The research firm Gartner predict that at the end of 2012, Android will be on 14% of all mobile devices. This means that Android will become the second most deployed Mobile Operating System on earth. Not bad considering that by the end of 2012, Android will have been in existence for only three years. Now, Gartner are a highly respected research firm, so their perspective should be considered soberly. Why do they predict such incredible growth for this newborn Operating System that, and let's be honest here, most of us (outside of the uber geek community) do not know exists? Ask a man on the street and he will likely tell you an Android is something you would find in Spielberg screenplay, not the little green man put on your phone by Google.

The truth of the matter is that the Operating System we use on our mobile devices is generally irrelevant to most of us. Although current mobile devices have reached similar processing power to the desktop PC's of only a few years ago, we do not describe our devices by pointing out the Operating System they run (well, most of us anyway). The PC analogy is interesting, because the Windows vs Everybody else debates have raged for years. On the desktop, the Operating System is everything. Are we marching toward this mindset in the world of the mobile device?

We very well could be. It seems that generally, we want the same things on our mobiles as we do on our PC's. Access to our mail, the ability to search and surf the web, maybe to play a game every now and then, view a picture or two and so on. It follows that any Operating System that enables these things, with a simple, easy to use interface, could transform what our expectations, and change what we are able to do while on the move.

There is one fundamentally important difference between the PC and mobile environments though, mobile is personal: Most PC's are shared, most mobiles are not. To some degree this means the level of personalisation we will experience on our mobile devices will ramp up soon. Mobile phones are already these portals in our hands, through which we communicate, socialise, plan, deal, educate and entertain ourselves. This is just the beginning.

Combining the personal nature of the mobile with the exponential march of technological progress, sooner than we realise, our mobile devices will become the epicenter of how we organise and structure our lives, our businesses and our interactions with one another. Android is a hugely important step in moving us toward this eventuality.

Google, in producing the Android Operating System, have created a platform that delivers an environment upon which the next generation of services and applications will be delivered into our hands. The Android platform is flexible enough to meet the needs of the new Web. It is not only open as an Operating System, but Open Source, meaning developers can interact with the hardware in ways that supersede many other Operating Systems on offer. This can be seen by the wide variety of devices that Android is currently being deployed on. Not just mobile phones, but portable media devices and netbooks... Expect many others soon.

The flexible, free nature of Android makes it incredibly attractive to device manufacturers, including Samsung. Expect a wide range of Android based devices in the future. Expect Google to continue developing the platform and enriching the user experience. Expect the development community to grow their support for Android as devices start to take large chunks of market share. It certainly does seem that Android is poised to become one of the most important, most widely supported mobile operating systems we have seen. The future looks green indeed.

Samsung beats worldwide sales dip

Daniel Lamberti — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 12:38:51 +0000

Although South Africa leads the way in many areas, when it comes to mobile phone trends we often follow where the global market leads. So when a brand or type of handset does well overseas we can predict a similar pattern here in South Africa within 6 months to a year.

According to research by industry-watcher Gartner Inc, 286.1 million mobile phones were sold worldwide in the second quarter of 2009. That’s 6.1% down on one year ago. There was, however, a big growth area in smartphone sales, which topped 40 million units, 27% up from the same period last year.

"Touchscreen and qwerty devices remained a major driver for replacement sales and benefited manufacturers with strong, touch-focused midtier devices” said Carolina Milanesi, research director at Gartner. “However, the decline in average selling price (ASP) accelerated in the first half of the year and particularly affected manufacturers of mid- and low-end devices".

Samsung had a very strong second quarter of 2009 with sales of 55 million units thanks to its range of touchscreen devices, QWERTY phones and smartphones. Samsung is forecasted to gain further market share in the second half of 2009, rapidly closing the gap with Nokia, which remained in number 1 position thanks to sales of primarily low-end devices.

Sony Ericsson's market share dropped 2.8 percentage points year-on-year in the second quarter of 2009 but its volume dropped a massive 41%. Although the market environment was challenging, Gartner attributes Sony Ericsson's poor performance to its “uncompetitive” range of handsets.

Apple sold 5.4 million units in the second quarter of 2009 – 51% growth – ensuring it remains in third position in the smartphone market.

Sales for the remainder of 2009 in both South Africa and abroad will be driven by features that consumers are starting to demand most strongly: touchscreens, intuitive user interfaces and application/content ecosystems (incl. widgets, apps and tools). These are areas where Samsung is perfectly positioned to compete strongly. And for motivated Samsung sellers that means good things. Remember to translate techie features into human benefits, and you’ll soon be matching Samsung’s global success with some red-hot results of your own ...

Daniel Lamberti – Brand Manager: Samsung Mobile Division

Samsung’s Green vision for the future

Daniel Lamberti — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 09:32:00 +0000

It’s great to be associated with a brand that puts its money where its mouth is. While most companies talk a good environmental message, Samsung is walking the path of environmental responsibility and leading the way where others will hopefully follow.

The latest confirmation of this comes with Samsung's offer of free recycling for all Samsung-branded consumer electronics in all 50 US states, starting from 1 October 2009. The programme, called Recycling Direct, is world-first allowing customers to return devices like televisions, monitors, DVD players, and mobile handsets for responsible recycling. Mobile phones can be returned free via the post for environmentally friendly recycling.

In Korea the system involves 130 Samsung Service Centers throughout the nation. After collecting used mobile phones, Samsung uses its own transportation system to carry them to recycling facilities.

In China, a country not exactly famous for taking care of the environment, Samsung has worked with the government to put in place green-friendly initiatives. Service teams have installed collection boxes for electronic waste at its 101 service centers in 60 major cities in China and has been implementing programmes to recycle used cell phones.

Plans are afoot to bring similar recycling initiatives to South Africa in the future. Until then customers might be interested in the next best thing: Flipswap, a great new idea, that lets customers swap their old mobiles for a cash discount off their next handset, the handset is then recycled. (Currently available at Edgars or CNA stores.)

Other environmental initiatives from Samsung include the recent establishment of the Samsung Global Environment Research Centre and the Samsung Global Water Fund and the Climate Change Fund, which aims to encourage other companies to do business in a more green-friendly manner.

Despite its different activities all over the world, Samsung has a coherent strategy that carries through into all its thinking and products.

“Our own sustained growth will only be possible if we fulfil our obligations and responsibilities for environmental protection”, explains Geesong Hoi, Global Head of Samsung Telecommunications. The company is guided by “Five Green Management Activities” - Greening of Management, Greening of Products, Greening of Processes, Greening of Workplaces, and Greening of Communities.

“We are committed to being an environmentally and socially responsible corporate citizen. On the environment side, we will stick to the Green Management principles, participating in activities to protect the environment so that it can be passed on to the next generation intact.”

DANIEL LAMBERTI – Brand Manager: Samsung Mobile South Africa

Another world-first: the greenest handset in history

Daniel Lamberti — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 13:06:49 +0000

Break out the lentils and granola bars people: Samsung has just launched the most eco-friendly handset ever.

The Samsung Reclaim is a full-function Qwerty slider manufactured from 80% recycled materials, including a corn-based plastic bio-material shell. Appropriately the Reclaim comes in any colour you want – provided it’s green. Other features include 3G, 2 mega pixel camera and Bluetooth. Plus it’s even got built-in ring tones of crickets, streams, and chirping birds. Seriously!

Although the Reclaim is currently only available in the United States, this hippie-friendly tree-hugger of a handset is sure to head our way soon.

But wait, as they say on Verimark adds, there’s more:

Even the packaging is fully recyclable, made from untreated cardboard and natural soy-based ink. Every purchase includes a donation to an environmental charity. And the charger? Well, it consumes 12 times less power than a conventional charger. (With Eskom’s new fees that could save you a lot of money.)

The Reclaim makes sense on many levels. For one, it could be a huge seller as increasing numbers of customers are concerned about the environment and are looking at purchasing goods that match their values. And, of course, producing goods that are less harmful to our planet is good news for everyone. What’s truly amazing about the Reclaim is that Samsung have found a way to be genuinely eco-friendly and impressively high-tech at the same time.

Maybe this is that handset to lure all those hippies down from the hills. Although don’t expect too many Hummer drivers to buy one.

DANIEL LAMBERTI – Brand Manager: Samsung Mobile

What is GSM?

Daniel Lamberti — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 12:01:46 +0000

Probably the most useful thing to know about the Global System for Mobile communications (GSM) is that it is an international standard. If you travel in Europe and many other parts of the world, GSM is the only type of cellular service available. Originally, the acronym GSM stood for Groupe Spécial Mobile, a group formed by the Conference of European Posts and Telegraphs (CEPT) in 1982 to research the merits of a European standard for mobile telecommunications. Commercial service using the GSM system did not actually start until 1991. Instead of using analog service, GSM was developed as a digital system using TDMA technology.

Using TDMA, a narrow band that is 30 kHz wide and 6.7 milliseconds long is split time-wise into three time slots. Narrow band means channels in the traditional sense. Each conversation gets the radio for one-third of the time. This is possible because voice data that has been converted to digital information is compressed so that it takes up significantly less transmission space. Therefore, TDMA has three times the capacity of an analogue system using the same number of channels.

Daniel Lamberti – Brand Manager: Samsung Mobile

Q409 Phone-per-quarter competition

mobi — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 15:38:23 +0000

It's the last quarter of 2009 (already!) and we have another Samsung phone, a Samsung S8300, to give away in the Phone-per-quarter competition. Samsung Blog members will already know that points are accumulated through participation on the Blog such as writing blog posts and phone reviews.

Not signed up to the Blog yet? You can register to be a member at http://www.samsungblog.co.a/user/register Not only do you get to be part of an awesome community but you also get access to members-only downloads and the ability to receive support for your handset from Samsung, Windows Mobile, Garmin and MXit teams.

Get the low-down on the competition here.

Samsung Blog winners announcement!

mobi — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 11:09:07 +0000

Congratulations to Blog members Yasheel and Dumisa who have each won Samsung phones via the Blog.

Yasheel is the winner of the quarterly Samsung Blog Phone-per-quarter competition and he wins a Samsung Star S5233. He is the first of our winners to have written all his blog posts on his mobile phone, a Samsung F480.

Dumisa wins a Samsung Corby S3653 for his participation on the Favourite Samsung Corby Colour poll.

Didn't win this time around? Not to worry; there are other opportunities to win with Samsung:

Win a Samsung i560 via the Samsung contact on MXit. (Learn how to add Samsung on MXit)
Win a once-in-a-lifetime trip to the Kennedy Space Centre as well as a Samsung Jet. Enter at www.samsungjet.co.za
Visit the Samsung Blog next week to get an early start in the Q4 Phone-per-quarter competition where you can win a Samsung phone.

Win the new Samsung Corby S3653!

mobi — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 08:07:27 +0000

The Samsung Corby S3653 is a full touchscreen mobile phone aimed at the young market and can keep you connected to various social networks. It has direct integration of Facebook and other networking sites with pop-up notifications so you're never out of touch.

The Corby comes in a range of bold, funky colour options in Yellow, Pink, White and Orange. Which one of these is your favourite? Vote on the current poll and you could win one! (only registered members can win).

Click on the button below to take a look at the phone at all angles.

(will launch new window)

Competition rules

You have to be a Samsung Blog member to be eligible to win. (register now!)
The competition runs from 09 September to 23 September 2009
Winners will be randomly chosen from a list of Samsung Blog members that have participated in the voting process
See the Blog's general competition Terms & Conditions here

[This competition is now closed but you may still vote]