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.  …

The much-awaited Samsung Galaxy Nexus, the next “Google phone” featuring the new Android 4.0 operating system, will only reach Singapore stores in February 2012, a month later than expected.

Samsung Singapore today said the units would be sold at S$948 (without contract), as it revealed earlier in November. However, the delay will not be good news for folks here who have been waiting for the latest and greatest from the Android camp.

The Galaxy Nexus, following in the Nexus One and Nexus S tradition, would come with a “clean” interface without any add-on software, which is a boon to those who want a “pure” Google experience without clunky extras. It has another plus: being a Nexus phone, it will be the first to get the latest updates direct from Google. …

SingTel is upping download speeds on the go on December 22, with a new mobile broadband service that promises up to 75Mbps with the new LTE or long term evolution technology.

The new service will be available at Singapore’s central financial district at launch, along with other high traffic areas like Orchard, City Hall, Marina Bay and Novena. By end 2012, SingTel expects to provide coverage for 80 per cent of users, and 95 per cent by end 2013.

Rival telco M1 had launched a limited LTE service earlier this year, but it offered this only to business customers. SingTel’s service is open to consumers as well. …

The knives are out.

Since Steve Job’s untimely death, Samsung has been ramping up the assault on Apple, having launched a series of funny ads attacking the iPhone 4S.

Take a look at this ad which was just released a few days ago:

…

I’ll be honest. I wasn’t crazy about the Galaxy Note when I first saw it a few weeks ago at Samsung’s big show-and-tell in Jakarta. The 5.3-inch screen makes it bigger than most phones (the Galaxy S II has a 4.3-inch screen), yet is smaller than the most petite tablet, like the original 7-inch Galaxy Tab.

Samsung’s new gizmo also uses a stylus in addition to the usual finger gestures that you can use to interact with the Android 2.3.5 OS (upgradable next year to Android 4.0). Now, where have we seen a stylus before? Yes, in the HTC Flyer, a slightly larger tablet, which didn’t do fantastically well.

Then there are other “middle of the road” devices like Dell’s Streak, which was well-made but didn’t win over enough fans, some of whom must have been confused by its “hybrid” nature.

And now, here we are with the Galaxy Note, which is cosmetically, a larger version of the popular Galaxy S II. What I think is crucial to its popularity in recent weeks, as I’ve heard from sources, is that it has come at a time when the screen sizes of phones have themselves increased from the iPhone’s 3.5 inches to 4.7 inches on the HTC Sensation XL, for example. …

One of the most loved Android phones and certainly the most long-lasting – the Google Nexus One – looks to finally have a worthy successor in the Samsung-made Galaxy Nexus out in Singapore in January 2012.

For a long time, the Nexus One’s sleek lines, zippy performance and first access to the latest Google Android OS releases have made it a phone to cherish for folks who bought it when it first hit the stores about two years ago.

Since then, brighter and better screens, as well as dual-core chips and faster graphics processors have appeared on newer gizmos, but the Nexus One’s basic design and simple Android OS without any third-party manufacturer add-ons still kept it a favourite among Android geeks.

In the Galaxy Nexus, they will find a worthy upgrade. The Nexus model immediately after the Nexus One, the Nexus S made by Samsung last year, was interesting, but it didn’t feel as slim, as sturdy or as much of an upgrade to the original. …

The Galaxy Nexus, the first of many phones bearing Google’s latest Android 4.0 operating system, will hit the shelves in Singapore in January 2012, to the delight of Android fans who have waited a long time for a new Google-branded device.

Though it won’t make it in time for the holiday season, the Samsung-made gizmo will come with all the goodies on the “Ice Cream Sandwich” OS that were unveiled in Hong Kong about three weeks ago. Among these: a face recognition feature that unlocks the phone by detecting a user’s face, and updated Gmail features.

However, all the bells and whistles will come at a cool S$948, said Samsung at a regional media event.

…

The next Nexus phone from Google and Samsung, the Galaxy Nexus, will start shipping in November with new features like an improved Gmail experience and the ability for the phone to unlock by simply recognising a user’s face.

They are part of Google’s new Android 4.0 operating system, codenamed Ice Cream Sandwich, which will feature for the first time on the Galaxy Nexus, according to a Google show-and-tell in Hong Kong this morning. …

The Korean electronics giant said today that it has sold 10 million of the popular Galaxy S II phone worldwide, even as its legal battles with Apple rages across several markets around the world amid the iPhone 5′s impending launch next month.

According to Samsung, its popular Android phone has taken just five months to hit the target in “global channel sales”. It said this was helped by a doubling of demand from five million units just eight weeks ago. The feat is even more eye-catching for the fact that the Galaxy S II had only started selling in the United States in recent days, despite shipping in Asia and Europe from late April.
…

UNWIRED, Singapore’s first and only independent wireless and mobile conference, returned for a second run last Thursday, and saw the attendance of top-level executives from the relevant industries from across Southeast Asia.

Opened by the Infocomm Development Authority’s assistance chief executive Khoong Hock Yun, it featured half a day’s discussion on hot topics affecting the industry and its users.

From Singapore’s expected move to next generation mobile broadband (4G/LTE) to the rise of mobile computing and winning features of a mobile operating system, the conference was packed with fresh insights from a who’s who list of the country’s industry experts, who fielded a number of questions from the audience. …