Samsung’s newest flagship phone, the Galaxy S7, has received generally favorable reviews. One caveat seems to be that, like many other phones, the Galaxy comes preloaded with a frustrating number of preinstalled apps. The New York Times has an article succinctly titled “Samsung’s Smartphones Aren’t the Problem (Just Prune the Bad Apps).” In this piece, the Brian X. … Continue reading Preinstalled Apps
Looks like Samsung has come around to Apple’s design language, what with the headphone jack placement and all. Continue reading Samsung Galaxy S6
Android OEMs seem bent on making the most bizarre, alienating commercials they can manage. Samsung was the first offender – immediately below – but LG now seems to have taken the cake with its latest bit of insanity.
The new Samsung Galaxy S4 is so powerful complicated, it has an Easy Mode – the rough equivalent of the big-button jumbo remote control you’d buy for your parents as a joke when they turn fifty. Apple has an easy mode too. It’s called iOS. Continue reading The Next Big Thing, Simplified
Yesterday, Samsung announced that it started production on the Galaxy Giant, a 58.3-inch Android smartphone that stands almost five feet tall. The phone packs a 1.4GHz Snapdragon processor, 16GB of onboard memory, and the usual layer of TouchWiz. Samsung made it clear that “this is not a tablet or television. It’s simply a large smartphone that we know our customers will love.” Cynics, who felt that the “phablet” definition no longer applies, have dubbed the device a “tonolith,” after the large obsidian slab featured in Stanley Kubrick’s 1968 film, 2001: A Space Odyssey. Continue reading “Samsung Launches New Phone, Dubbed Tonolith”
Here at Ben & David, we’re pretty tolerant of most things. We don’t mind if you’re short or tall, Democratic or Republican, fans of Michael Bay films or just people who like movies with substance. However, we have a low tolerance for smartphone foibles, and chief among them, the Android industry’s insistence on using virtually pornographic names for their phones. Samsung, it’s been pointed out, makes great phones – Ben owns a Galaxy SII – but does an awful job naming them. In fact, the company’s greatest coup in 2012 was likely shifting their marketing parlance from”Galaxy S III” to simply “GS3.” Short, sweet, and totally appropriate for children under age 17.
Continue reading “The Samsung Galaxy Note II is So Big, It’s Stupid”
Silicon Spatula 