Anul trecut la MWC, Samsung a anunțat tableta sa Galaxy Note 10.1, anul acesta continuă în același ritm și anunță Galaxy Note 8.0. Tableta care își va găsi locul între smartphone-ul Galaxy Note II și Galaxy Note 10.1.

          Ce ține de specificații, Note 8.0 vine cu un display de 8 inch, cu rezoluția de 1280x800 pixeli, are un procesor quad-core Exynos de 1.6 GHz, conceput de Samsung. Pe lîngă asta tableta are 2GB de RAM și 16/32GB de memorie internă, ca deobicei device-urile de la Samsung suportă cartele de memorie microSD. Note 8 este echipat cu două camere, una de 5 megapixeli pe spate și una frontală de 1.2 megapixeli. Seamănă mult cu Galaxy S III și Note II și folosește ca material, în continuare, același plastic lucios.

          Ca și anul trecut Samsung echipează tableta cu S Pen și pachetul necesar de programe pentru folosirea acestuia, ca sistem de operare rulează Android 4.1.2 Jelly Bean cu ultima versiune de TouchWiz. Dimensiunile sunt relativ asemănătoare cu cele ale altor tablete care concurează în linia de 7-8 inch, 210.8 mm x 135.9 mm x 7.95 mm și cîntărește doar 338g.

          Tableta este echipată cu Wi-Fi, 3G, Bluetooth și spre mirarea tuturor poate efectua apeluri telefonice. Samsung planifică o versiune a Note 8.0 cu LTE, dar prețurile și data lansării nu au fost anunțate.

As the rumor has it Apple might be working on a smart stylus for its next-gen iPhone 6. It should work the similar way as the Note and Note II S-Pens but support even more functionality.
You should definitely take this one with a healthy pinch of salt as it's coming from The Sun, which is not exactly known for its tech industry coverage. Anyway the tabloid's sources had it that the next iPhone will have a smart stylus, just like the S-Pen on the Note smartphones.
The rumor also has it that the next flagship by Apple will offer some sort of motion gesture password protection and mini barcode scanner.
What lends some credence to those rumors is the fact that Apple recently filed three patents for stylus technology. The Cupertino giant might simply be preparing for another legal round (with Samsung probably), but it might be getting ready to try and attack the Koreans' Note lineup instead. We guess only time will tell.

The Samsung Galaxy S IV specifications are now all but officially confirmed thanks to a leaked AnTuTu benchmark test that the phone has undergone. Samsung's upcoming flagship will sport an Exynos 5 Octa 5410 chipset with a CPU running at 1.8GHz, 2GB of RAM and a PowerVR SGX 544MP GPU. Previously the Galaxy S IV was rumored to sport the Exynos 5 Octa 5450 chipset rather than 5410. Still, the four Cortex-A15 cores combined with four Cortex-A7's are sure to be a pretty capable combo.
Additionally, the AnTuTu testing also confirms a 4.99" screen of Full HD resolution, providing a pixel density of 441 ppi. Android 4.2 is what the Galaxy S IV will run on out of box.
Interestingly, the scoresheet confirms that the Exynos Octa chip on the Galaxy S IV supports GSM, WCDMA as well as LTE networks. This refutes the rumor that Samsung will launch the phone in two versions with different chipsets.
Meanwhile another piece of Galaxy S IV gossip comes from Eldar Murtazin, who says that the device is going to be built from plastic. Mind you, he also claimed that the S III is going to sport a 12MP camera, and that he has personally played with it. We all know how facts turned out to be in the end.
Lastly, according to the benchmark's report, the camera of the Galaxy S IV is going to be 13MP, breaking Samsung's habit of using 8MP sensors in its high-end devices (Galaxy S II, Galaxy Note, Galaxy S III and Galaxy Note II).

Samsung Galaxy Xcover 2, a recent addition to the extensive collection of smartphones from the company is up for grabs. The device has been listed on gigantti.fi, a Finnish retailer, with a price tag of €329 (about $428).
Samsung Galaxy Xcover 2, which is an IP 67-certified smartphone, comes with 4" LCD display, 1 GHz dual-core processor along with 1 GB of RAM, 5-megapixel rear camera with LED flash, VGA front facing camera, 4 GB inbuilt memory with microSD slot and latest connectivity options.
Galaxy Xcover 2 runs on Android 4.1.2 Jelly Bean and is powered by a relatively small 1,700mAH battery.

Samsung has managed to keep a surprisingly tight lid on the Galaxy S IV, especially considering that the launch is just a week away. GottaBeMobile partnered with Martin Hajek to try and guess what the Galaxy S IV will look like. The result is cool-looking concept renders like this one.
The design is based on the most common rumors about the device and a healthy dose of imagination.
The concept follows the Galaxy S III design but takes cues from the Note II and Note 8.0. The major change is the almost bezel-less display – the concept fits the 4.99″ 1080p display in just 136.7 x 64.8 x 7.9mm, that’s smaller than the Galaxy S III and not much bigger than the iPhone 5.
Meanwhile, some alleged Galaxy S IV screenshots cropped up. Yes, again. They include shots of Quick System Info pro, which points to a 5.01″ 1080p with 480ppi pixel density. At least one of these numbers is wrong – 5″ 1080p phones have 441ppi pixel density, while 1080p at 480ppi results in a 4.6″ screen.
The CPU is a quad-core ARMv7at 1.8GHz. Note that if this is a big.LITTLE design like the Exynos 5 Octa, only four cores are visible to the OS at a time, while the other four sleep to preserve energy. Note the little tab over the CPU specs, this could be for Multi Window like on the Galaxy Note II.
The camera screenshot reveals 13MP maximum resolution, but no other big differences compared to the Galaxy S III. The homescreen screenshot looks pretty much the same too. The status line on top of the screen shows 4G (LTE), Smart Screen features (Smart scroll and pause) and NFC.
There’s no way to tell how accurate the Galaxy S IV concept render is – it seems a bit too aggressive with the side bezel of the screen (some really accurate software will have to recognize and ignore all the accidental touches) while being too conservative with the changes. Bezel aside it’s barely different from the S III.
As for the screenshots, they seem fishy – a screenshot is not hard to fake, they have some wrong numbers and they show nothing new.
Well, it’s only a week before the official announcement, until then our only reliable source of info are the teaser ads from Samsung. The first one is out already and we expect more soon. Too bad they probably won’t reveal anything major.