Almost like with an iPhone, details on Samsung’s Galaxy S III were rumoured, leaked, exposed and went through the entire online hype cycle before it was finally unveiled last week.

Just how well does the flagship model from the new number one manufacturer of phones do in the face of increased competition? Not so bad, I have to say, after a hands-on session with the Galaxy S III a couple of days ago.

With a typically bright screen, slim body and new quad-core processor that provides zippy Android 4.0 performance, it holds its own against the best. To be clear, there’s nothing dramatically different here from the previous Galaxy Nexus, Note or S II, but the Korean phone maker knows it already has winners and doesn’t need to reinvent the wheel. …

Guess which Chinese company is back in the news with a pleasant surprise?

After being the first company in the world to roll out the Android 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich) update to the Honor, Huawei said on Friday that an update is now also available for the MediaPad Android tablet as well.

Unveiled last year at CommunicAsia, it has been running Android 3.2. Besides the expected feature and performance boost that comes with Android 4.0, the software update will also let the MediaPad send SMSes and make voice calls.  …

A couple of weeks ago, we got our hands on the HTC One X, the Taiwanese phone maker’s best effort in a while and probably the Android phone to beat right now.

We can now say that the One V, a low-cost model launched together with the flagship One X, is also highly impressive. Indeed, with a solid build, useful Sense 4.0 interface and a very fast camera, the One V feels like a premium phone belying its entry-level price tag. …

At this time last year, Samsung was agonising over how slim its Galaxy Tab 10.1 was going to be to challenge Apple’s iPad 2.

Just like Apple this time, its updated Galaxy Tab 2 tablets, unveiled recently at the Mobile World Congress show in Barcelona, seem more poised and you could say, possibly more confident of the response from potential buyers.

Besides having Google’s Android 4.0 or Ice Cream Sandwich operating system out of the box, no big changes exist in the two versions of the Galaxy Tab 2, either in their 7-inch or 10.1-inch versions.

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The Korean phone maker finally released its official Ice Cream Sandwich update for the popular Galaxy S II phone, after weeks of leaked rumours that it would be available this month.

The update brings the S II on par, at least in terms of the software, with the Galaxy Nexus, along with several other features like an improved Gmail experience, a new task manager and improved browser.

However, the release is only available for South Korea and several European countries like Poland, Hungary and Sweden, and there is no news still of availability for Singapore users, who have had the phone since last year.

Samsung said on a Facebook post today that it was still working with other wireless carriers in other markets to get the Android 4.0 operating system out to more users.

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Credit: Barry Soon

Here’s a 7-inch tablet that will wow you without burning a hole in your wallet – as long as you accept that it’s not an Apple, Samsung or Motorola, but an Ainol product.

While tablet geeks may have heard about the Chinese electronics maker being the first to make an Android 4.0, or Ice Cream Sandwich, tablet late last year, most consumers in brand-conscious Singapore are probably not even aware of the Shenzhen-based Ainol.

Yet, one of the most appealing tablets now on the market is drawing the crowds in at Sim Lim Square, where the 7-inch Aino Novo 7 Aurora is on display to curious, surprised shoppers. …

After a difficult 12 months, the Taiwanese phone maker is hoping to turn the next phone you buy this year into a real camera that can take pictures as you would on dedicated cameras, which can then be easily backed up over the Internet with cloud storage.

The cameras on its new HTC One series of high-end phones are tweaked to fire in 0.7 seconds, after auto-focusing on a subject in a short 0.2 seconds, say company representatives at the annual Mobile World Congress show in Barcelona today.

What’s more, like a real camera, the new phones are expected to fire multiple shots when you hold down the snap button. And just like high-end cameras now, the software onboard is able to let you select a frame from a shot video and save it as a still image.

The “hero” among the three phones featuring these new photo-friendly features is the HTC One X, which comes packed with all the goodies you’d expect from a phone this year. …

After a raft of “also-ran” tablets from the Android camp of late, here’s one from Sony that should get your attention.

The foldable Tablet P comes with not one but two 5.5-inch screens. That lets you play a game on one screen and use the other as a control pad, for example. Alternatively, you can have one screen play a video on YouTube while you tend to your e-mail on the other.

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The Samsung Galaxy Nexus, the Google phone that had fans waiting for months, is finally here in Singapore this Saturday with a small bonus – it will come in both black and white.

The first model here to sport the new Android 4.0 OS out of the box, the top-end phone had been delayed from its original January launch, missing both the Christmas and immediate post-Chinese New Year buying sprees.  …

Motorola is putting up a lighter, more powerful follow-up to its Xoom tablet for sale here in Singapore from today, but with a rather hefty price of S$978.

The new Xoom 2, which will come with both 3G and Wi-Fi, sports a 10.1-inch screen and a faster processor, but will run only on Android Honeycomb (3.2) for now. It should likely be upgradeable to the newest Android 4.0 later in the year, if Motorola Singapore follows the practice of its US headquarters.

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