Samsung Galaxy S4

Samsung sets a goal to sell 500 million devices in 2013

Samsung has set a high goal for 2013 - its goal is to ship a whopping 500 million devices, a huge increase over the nearly 420 million it shipped in the past 2012. The information comes courtesy of Taiwanese DigiTimes’ supply chain sources.

Samsung has stopped announcing exact figures for its quarterly shipments and sales of devices and that makes it harder to estimate the company’s exact sales data. However the Korean company uses a number of panel suppliers for its low and mid-range devices and data seems to leak from there. One of the screen panel suppliers, Chinese BOE, is estimated to ship 10 million panels a month to Samsung.

In more affordable devices, Samsung is using traditional LCD displays, while for higher end devices the company manufactures its own AMOLED screens. It also gets panels for high-end smartphones from Sharp and Japan Display.

Samsung Galaxy Ace 3 to debut in May or June, cost €300

Another year, another Galaxy Ace smartphone is in the works. According to SamMobile, Samsung is preparing a follow-up to the Galaxy Ace 2 with an updated screen, processor and more color options.

The Galaxy Ace 3 would carry the GT-S7272 model number, which following Samsung's nomenclature hints to a dual-SIM version. The third-gen Galaxy Ace is purported to sport a 4.0" display of an yet undisclosed resolution, although rumors have it that a 720p display and a 1.2GHz dual-core CPU are likely. Android Jelly Bean is going to be in the driver's seat, but a specific version isn't yet known.
The specs sheet of the new Samsung Galaxy Ace 3 includes a 5MP camera, 4GB of internal storage and 1,500mAh battery, which happens to be exactly the same as the one found in the Ace 2. The variety of colors available is nice as well - Metallic Black, Metallic Blue, Pure White and Wine Red.
Expect the mid-ranger to debut towards the end of May or beginning of June, with a price of about €300.

Galaxy S4′s Korean variant (SHV-E300S/K) to feature Exynos 5 Octa clocked at 1.8GHz, confirmed by FCC

The Samsung Galaxy S4′s Korean variant (SHV-E300S/K) will support an Exynos 5 Octa CPU clocked at 1.8GHz. The device has just passed through FCC certification in the United States of America and the documents on the FCC’s website reveal this information.

According to the FCC documents, the Korean version of the Galaxy S4 will have an Exynos 5 Octa CPU with a clockspeed of 1800MHz (1.8GHz) whereas the Global Variant of the Galaxy S4 (GT-I9500) is clocked at 1600MHz (1.6GHz), this makes the Korean variant 200MHz faster. The documents also reveal that the Korean Galaxy S4 supports multi-band LTE (Band 3,5,1,7,17) too. The device is scheduled to be made available between a time frame of late April to early May.

Samsung Galaxy Mega handsets with 5.8" and 6.3" screens coming

Samsung is preparing to introduce a new series of Galaxy devices carrying the Mega moniker, a report by SamMobile suggests.

The information comes from an inside source, who confirmed that two Galaxy Mega smartphones are in the works. The first is codenamed Galaxy Mega 5.8 with a model number GT-I9152. Obviously, we are talking about a handset with 5.8-inch display and the model number pointing to its dual-SIM nature.
More interestingly, the second one is carrying the codename Galaxy Mega 6.3, which hints at a 6.3-inch display - the same as the Galaxy Note III is rumored to pack. However, the model number GT-I9200 doesn't correspond with Samsung Galaxy Note naming convention Nxxxx (Galaxy Note II N7100, Galaxy Note N7000), so it will most likely lack S Pen functionality.
Everything should be revealed once those two phones get out of Samsung's factories. The Galaxy Mega 5.8 should do so around the end of May, start of June (week 22, as per SamMobile), while the Galaxy Mega 6.3 around mid-June (week 25).

Here are the launch dates for Galaxy S4 in Eastern Europe

A global launch of a smartphone is no easy task – there are long lists of which country gets what and when. The latest list (courtesy of SamMobile) about the Samsung Galaxy S4 is about the Eastern European launch of the flagship droid (including Russia and the Ukraine).

The Galaxy S4 is split into two versions – 3G and LTE. Unfortunately, it’s not entirely clear if those are the Exynos 5 Octa and Snapdragon 600 or some mix of the two. Both chipsets support LTE. The earlier rumors suggested the Exynos version will be the one sold in both Russia and the Ukraine, you can consult the list for the rest of the countries.
Both color versions – Black Mist and White Frost – will arrive at the same time. Also, the 32GB version seems to have been dropped – you get either the 16GB version or go for broke with the 64GB. The microSD card slot means storage is easy to expand, so you must really need huge amounts of storage to go for the 64GB units.
Anyway, here’s the list:
Galaxy S4 3G 16 GB – Week 16
Galaxy S4 3G 32 GB – DROPPED
Galaxy S4 3G 64 GB – Week 24
Galaxy S4 LTE 16 GB – Week 21
Galaxy S4 LTE 32 GB – DROPPED
Galaxy S4 LTE 64 GB – Week 24
Week 16 is April 15-21, Week 21 is May 20-26 and Week 24 is June 10-16.

Korean Galaxy S4 (SHV-E300S) to use an Exynos 5 Octa SoC with LTE

It looks like the Korean variant of the Samsung Galaxy S4 (SHV-E300S) will be using an Exynos 5 Octa SoC with LTE onboard. Samsung has been performing network tests with the Galaxy S4 from the past 29 days and has just finished this week. To test the Galaxy S4 in public, Samsung used a square box casing on the device to prevent the design from being leaked. The Korean Galaxy S4 is scheduled to be made available in the Korean market starting from the end of April or in the first week May.

The Galaxy S4 features a 4.99” Full HD Super AMOLED Display, an Exynos 5 Octa CPU, PowerVR SGX 544MP3 GPU and a 13 Megapixel Camera. The device comes with Android 4.2.2 Jelly Bean and Samsung’s TouchWiz Nature UX 2.0 running on top of it.