Samsung Galaxy Gear Smart Watch: Brand New, Pretty Awesome

All eyes (including ours) have been on Apple’s upcoming September 10th release announcements. But yesterday, Samsung debuted their newest offerings, including a smart watch that has a lot of people excited. Last month, we reviewed some of the more popular smart watches on the market, and at that time, we only just heard that Samsung had filed for a trademark for Galaxy Gear. But the watch is here, and it looks pretty amazing.

Smart watches have labored under the impression that they’re a needless accessory: it’s hard to imagine what we’d want on our wrist that isn’t better done with the phone in our pockets. The niche they seem to fill is as a kind of notification device: if you’re inundated by emails or text messages or phone calls or push notifications, your watch will let you know about it first before you feel the need to dig into your pocket and pull out your phone.

It’s understandable if this doesn’t seem like that big of a deal to everyone. But maybe combine that feature with easy updates to the weather or stock tickers and maybe a couple of other apps, and the proposition becomes a little more appealing. Recognizing the limited scope of current smart watches, the Galaxy Gear packs in a few additional toys: there’s a 1.9-megapixel camera, a microphone, two speakers, and a gyroscope and an accelerometer to keep track of your workouts. Read More

End of Summer Sweepstakes: Enter to Win a Free New Smartphone from AT&T

Enter to Win: AT&T Samsung S4 Giveaway
Happy end of summer! To celebrate, AT&T is giving away 10 free smartphones before 9/2/2013, including two Samsung Galaxy S4, 2 Samsung Galaxy SIII, 3 LG Optimus G Pro and 3 HTC First.

Entering to win is easy – just go to AT&T Premier’s page and enter your email. Plus you can improve your odds by sharing with your friends: for every 5 friends who enter using the link you share you’ll get another entry.

Samsung Galaxy S4 Available for Pre-Order from AT&T

samsung galaxy s4
Samsung Galaxy S4

As of today AT&T is the first and only carrier taking pre-orders for the brand-new Samsung Galaxy S4. Right now pre-orders for the S4 are scheduled to start shipping on April 30th, so if you’ve been waiting for the new device you’ve only got a couple more weeks left!

The 16GB model (available in black or white) will run you $199 with a two year contract that includes data. That seems to be the price of top-of-the-line smartphones, and is the same price as the HTC One and an iPhone 5.

The Samsung Galaxy S4 is a hotly anticipated new phone: the S3 was a best-seller last year, and the S4 promises new updates to keep things interesting: the new Air View feature can tell when you’re finger is hovering over the screen, and will call up supplementary information about what you’re looking at. Think of it like a standard “mouseover” feature on your laptop or desktop.

The display is also beautiful on the S4: it’s a five inch “Super AMOLED” screen that displays 1920×1080. For the non-technical, that means the picture is sharp and crisp, and colors look really good. Samsung has also promised that the S4’s bigger battery will mean improved battery life, even with 4G LTE running.

We’ll be talking more about the Galaxy S4 in the coming weeks, but if you already know you want one you can go to AT&T to pre-order now.

Samsung Galaxy S III Now Available in Red—Check it Out!

Want a great smartphone to take advantage of blazing LTE speeds (now in 51 markets!) but can’t wait to find out if Apple’s next iPhone will be able to connect to the network? The Samsung Galaxy S III on AT&T is a great choice. And with AT&T, you can exclusively order the phone in Garnet Red (seen to the right). And just like the white and blue models, the red Galaxy S III is available for just $199 with a 2-year contract.

If you’re still on the fence about the S III, then you might enjoy our preview video where we look at some of its top features. And we don’t even cover everything in that video! There’s a bunch more photo modes (take pictures while video records, for one) as well as NFC technology built into the phone, so you’re getting a lot with a phone that’s available today. Well, Sunday, technically.

What do you think? Is a red Galaxy S III enough to get you to embrace Android? If not, what killer feature does Android lack that’s holding you back? Let us know in the comments!

Samsung Galaxy SIII Now Available on AT&T

Samsung Galaxy SIIIIt’s here! The Samsung Galaxy SIII is now out, and if you missed your chance to pre-order, don’t fret! You can order the phone with a discount if you’re a qualifying AT&T premier customer using this link, or you can order the phone normally through AT&T’s website. Either way, you’ll be able to get your hands on the most exciting Android smartphone of 2012!

Samsung Galaxy S III: a Social, Simple, and Intelligent Smartphone from AT&T

The next generation Samsung Galaxy S III is the perfect smartphone for your small business needs. Fast 4G LTE speeds, huge touchscreen, one-touch social sharing, powerful new features and more. Here’s a breakdown of the new 4G LTE Samsung Galaxy S III smartphone, now available at AT&T Premier:

*       1.5GHz dual-core processor

*       4.8″ HD Super AMOLED(tm) display

*       Fast 4G LTE network speeds

*       Android 4.0 OS (Ice Cream Sandwich)

*       8 MP camera and 1.9 MP front-facing camera

*       Samsung S Beam one-touch sharing

*       Smart Stay eye tracking technology

Pre-order yours now!

AT&T fine print: Eligible voice and data plans required. Limited 4G LTE available in select markets. Additional restrictions apply.

iPad Still King: Why Artists Can’t Take Samsung’s S-Pen and the Galaxy Note Seriously

2 of my drawings. Galaxy Note (left), iPad 2 (right)

Professional artists are increasingly looking to take advantage of the latest in Tablet and Smartphone tech to make the transition from tools like pen, pencil, watercolor and oil paint into the digital age. While solutions like Wacom tablets have existed for a long time, the high-end models with screens have two problems. While they’re fantastic tools for artists, they keep you bound to a desk as they require a computer to interface with. Plus, they’re not cheap—a 12″ Cintiq 12WX is lower resolution than the new iPad and twice the price.

So, within the artistic community, tablets like the $499 iPad 3 and phablets like the $249 on-contract Samsung Galaxy Note are getting increasing amounts of attention. The recently-released Paper app for iPad has specifically brought a lot of people to the iPad, while Android apps like the $2 Autodesk Sketchbook Mobile have emerged as premier artist tools for AT&T’s Galaxy Note.

The Verge updated their comprehensive guide to iPad styluses today with tons of new pens and new winners announced. This is the most comprehensive guide I’ve found on stylii for the iPad and a good place to start if you’re feeling lost. From personal experience with a variety of Styluses, however, I honestly find them to be all about the same. I love the Kensington Virtuoso, for instance, because it comes in a variety of colors, has a good weight, and can be picked up almost anywhere for around $10. If you’re out and about and left your stylus at home, you can easily pop into a Best Buy or a Staples and just pick up a new one without hurting the wallet.

But I bring up the Verge article because the #1 response from the community seems to be, “What about the Samsung S-Pen on the Galaxy Note?” This is especially relevant because Samsung has already announced they’re delaying the next 10″ Galaxy Note Tablet in order to incorporate the same S-Pen tech they use in the note. Technologically, this sounds like a good thing, as the S-Pen has several advantages over the iPad’s stylus like pressure sensitivity and OS-level support for things like handwriting recognition. But can Samsung win artists over to Android?

I’ve been using the Galaxy Note as my primary phone for a few months, and while it’s great for a ton of different uses, the answer is “hell no,” at least until Samsung fixes some major problems with the S-Pen tech. Keep reading to see why.  Read More