This week Samsung began updating the Galaxy Tab line up to ICS. This is good news to all the Galaxy Tab fans out there. Samsung promised an update this month and August. I honestly thought that the update would come in August given Samsung updates usually come late. The Galaxy Tab 7.7 is the first one to start receiving the update but the rest will probably start receiving it soon. The tablets that will receive the update include the Samsung Galaxy Tab 7.7, Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1, Samsung Galaxy Tab 8.9 and the Samsung Galaxy Tab 7.0 plus.
Also making headlines, Nokia finally parted ways with Meego. It’s been a wave of bad news for Nokia fan boys and the only OS that really made them have some kind of hope is now no more. Good news though Meego won’t just die like Maemo did. Other manufacturers like Samsung will continue developing it of course in partnership with Intel the co-pioneers of the Meego OS. Under Samsung Meego is now Tizen and am sure Samsung Tizen phones will come out soon. Tizen looks really promising and now we only need to wait.
Seems it’s only Samsung making the headlines. They have announced a new phone, sort of like the Nokia touch and type. The Samsung Galaxy Chat B5330 features a 3 inch screen with a physical QWERTY keyboard kinda like the Nokia E6 with a larger. It comes with full connectivity since HSPA, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 3.0 are all onboard. It’s only the camera that may be a disappointment given it’s a 2MP unit. There is 4GB of internal memory expandable via SD. Almost forgot the best part. It runs ICS with Touchwiz 5 that’s on the Galaxy S 3. Good entry level phone by Samsung.
It’s all Samsung I tell you though this one isn’t good news. The Galaxy Nexus was banned in the US are quickly removed from major stores such as the Google Play Store. The Samsung and Apple war getting out of hand now. Most manufacturers make products in a bid to try and please American consumers, Samsung being one of them. I liked the approach Nokia took in considering developing markets. So how about Samsung market the Galaxy Nexus in developing markets like Kenya and slash the price a bit. I am sure they will benefit from that instead of spending money on the court room.
Great news for all is that Cyanogenmod 10 (CM10) has been confirmed. We know that manufacturers will take their time to roll out Jelly Bean update and have sweet words for not updating some devices just like they did with ICS. The Cyanogenmod team has always taken care of the less fortunate devices and now they will bring us Jelly Bean through CM10. The devices that support CM9 will be able to support CM10 which is really great.
Finally Motorola have updated their Motoblur skin. Usually this would not be news (great news) but it is. I can’t believe I can finally say I like Motoblur. The negative comments on the previous versions of Motoblur were overwhelming and it was a matter of time before Motorola responded since sales were affected. The new Motoblur based on ICS is really colourful and looks lighter than the HTC Sense 4.0 or even Touchwiz 5. Great move by Motorola.
~Eddy