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Samsung commits to improve smartphone battery life in 2012


Sure, we all love having the latest and greatest smartphone from the likes of Samsung, but the power consumption driven by larger displays, LTE, and more use is making it increasingly harder to get through the day. Samsung's vice president of product innovation, Kevin Packingham, said in an interview with CNET that Korea's darling has set the lofty goal that smartphones coming out this year last an entire day under average to moderately heavy use. Samsung's plans include beefing up batteries, but it also intends to look at improving energy efficiency by tweaking the various radios -- LTE, WiFi -- to make them a little less greedy. Motorola has already seemingly caught this wave with the RAZR MAXX -- a slightly chubbier Motorola RAZR -- which is essentially the same set as the RAZR but with enough juice so you can use it instead of spending your day looking for an outlet to charge it. Unfortunately, things could get sticky as the definition of "moderately heavy use" is a pretty tough thing to pin down. Would you put up with a huskier phone to get you through the day or is a slim set more important? Feel free to chime in with your comments below.

Samsung commits to improve smartphone battery life in 2012 originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 17 Jan 2012 12:57:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Behind the scenes at CES 2012: getting to a hands-on (video)

Getting to and from an announcement, meeting, or keynote is one of the things we find ourselves doing countless times a day. To truly appreciate just how far we sometimes have to trek to get to the things we're covering at CES is hard to understand unless you've done it. Crowds that delay because they're ambling along, booths that are hard to find, and the time you burn getting to and fro is always at the back of our minds. We thought it a good idea to put together a little tour of how we find and then travel to a booth at CES. Enjoy the video after the break.

Continue reading Behind the scenes at CES 2012: getting to a hands-on (video)

Behind the scenes at CES 2012: getting to a hands-on (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 13 Jan 2012 19:37:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Telus launching Samsung Galaxy Nexus January 13th

Telus does a me too and follows Bell to market with the Samsung Galaxy Nexus. Starting tomorrow, January 13th, Telusites can grab Google's newest pure Android dev. set for a cool $99.99 on a 3-year contract, $549.99 for 2-years, $599.99 for one and $649.99 off-contract. In case you've been away from civilization for the last little while and missed what this set is all about, feel free to check the facts and figures followed by our review.

Update: The Galaxy Nexus just popped up on Telus' site for an introductory price of $99 on a 3-year deal. The sale starts today and carries on until the 26th of Jan. Happy days!

Telus launching Samsung Galaxy Nexus January 13th originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 12 Jan 2012 23:08:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Verizon’s ZTE Jetpack hands-on

Verizon launched two new mobile hotspots at CES, both called Jetpack. We found the ZTE entry -- the Verizon device has all the branding -- and gave it a quick once over. The device itself is quite big for a mobile hotspot, measuring 88mm x 88mm x 18mm, though finish and materials are slick. The menu system is easy to use, buttons responsive, and as seen in the pic above lets you get at settings, SMS messages, and a quick heads up as to how many of the 10 supported clients are currently connected. Power on and off is controlled by a sliding switch, rather than an on off button, which we think is a great idea. Have a gander at the gallery for some more shots.

Verizon's ZTE Jetpack hands-on originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 12 Jan 2012 15:03:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Cricket’s ZTE Chorus hands-on

Cricket's latest Muve music service device -- which by the way just became the 2nd most popular music service in the US -- the ZTE Chorus made an appearance at CES so we decided to give it a once over. First off, the OS kinda looks like Android, though, of course isn't. The housing, and display quality are rather low end, and while we can look past the housing quality being cheap, we can't ignore the fact that the display and touch sensitivity on this phone is very poor. On the upside it does have Muve and for folks looking to get in on that ecosystem, the $50 Chorus might just be the ticket for those only concerned with music. Quick gallery is just below.

Cricket's ZTE Chorus hands-on originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 12 Jan 2012 14:03:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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