Neptune MObile

Samsung Galaxy S III LTE Edition Finally Making Its Way To T-Mobile Stores

David — Sat, 18 May 2013 23:32:13 +0000

After a lengthy wait, T-Mobile is finally set to deliver on the Galaxy S III LTE edition. After an announcement all the way back in January, we’ve heard nary a sound about it since. The Galaxy S III LTE is the exactly same device internally as the original Galaxy S III with the addition of LTE being the only noticeable difference.

Even with LTE, the Galaxy S III LTE is a hard sell against the Galaxy S 4 which is a step-up feature wise and some may prefer the new shape of the fourth-generation.

There’s no word on when these devices will arrive, but I wouldn’t expect a ton of units to be available. Hopefully, T-Mobile will drop these at a price low enough to clearly separate the Galaxy S III and Galaxy S 4 as “old” and “new.” Even as an “aging” device by industry terms, the Galaxy S III was top of its class when it arrived and still offers a fantastic Android experience and with huge community support there’s plenty of rooting and ROM’ing to keep you busy for well into the future.

As of now, signs point to T-Mobile stores receiving 16GB White Galaxy S III LTE variants with the titanium model nowhere in sight.

via Tmonews

Follow us on Facebook

At Neptune Mobile, you will find that we do our best so we can be the best ! We strive for excellence and that Is what you will get each time.

We welcome you to contact any member of our staff with questions or comments you have about our products and services.

White Nexus 4 Found All Over Google I/O, Set For June 10th Launch

David — Sat, 18 May 2013 22:52:01 +0000

Oh hai White Nexus 4 as it makes the rounds over at Google’s I/O conference. Pretty much every website, developer or Google Glass user in attendance has seen someone from Google hanging around with a White Nexus 4 so its public presence is a clear indicator its set to launch. According to a report out of Androidandme, the Nexus 4 with its white back shell will launch on June 10th and ship with Android 4.3. Yup, you read that right, it will ship with Android 4.3.

All signs point to Google keeping the same pricing and availability through the Play Store. There’s no word on whether T-Mobile will pick up the Nexus 4 through its channels.

The Nexus 4 may not have the same appeal as it did a few months ago with the HTC One and Galaxy S 4 now on the block but vanilla Android at $299/$349 is still enticing. Of course you could always go all-in and pick up the vanilla Android Galaxy S 4 for twice the price at $649. That too is expected to come in white.

Mobileburn, Androidandme

via Tmonews

Follow us on Facebook

At Neptune Mobile, you will find that we do our best so we can be the best ! We strive for excellence and that Is what you will get each time.

We welcome you to contact any member of our staff with questions or comments you have about our products and services.

T-Mobile’s LTE Network Sightings Begin In Minneapolis, NYC And Detroit

David — Sat, 18 May 2013 22:44:16 +0000

You can file all of this as “unofficial” as is the namesake of TmoNews as an “unofficial” blog for T-Mobile, but LTE sightings are coming en masse out of New York City, Detroit and Minneapolis. While I’m in the camp that all three markets are both in the “fine tuning” and “testing” phase, Minneapolis has been scheduled for a May launch, so there’s reason to suspect things can be happening a little early. As it stands today, Detroit and NYC are still slated for a June launch.

Needless to say, there’s plenty of sightings hitting my inbox and the @tmonews Twitter account. Still, I wouldn’t jump too far ahead and assume that a LTE sighting means an entire market is live. For the moment, we’re just happy things are progressing and that more markets appear on the horizon.

Recapping our current intel on the May/June LTE market launches:

In May we’re looking at Austin, Texas; Honolulu, Hawaii; Minneapolis and St Paul, Minnesota; Tulsa, Oklahoma; Sacramento, California; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; San Francisco and part of the Los Angeles areas both of which will also be spread into June.

The June list of launches is a little longer and includes the continuation of the San Francisco and Los Angeles area build-outs. As we wrote a few days ago, it appears as though two dozen markets will launch sometime during the month of June but here’s a list of the tentative markets so far. Anticipated May launch markets are indicated in parentheses.

Atlanta and Sandy Springs, Marietta, San Antonio
Austin and Round Rock, San Marcos (May Launch)
Part of the Carolinas – Charlotte, Rock Hill
Chicago and Joliet, Naperville
Cincinnati and Dayton
Cleveland
Connecticut – Bridgeport, Stamford, Norwalk
Columbus and Mentor
Dallas and Fort Worth, Arlington
Denver and Aurora, Broomfield
Detroit and Warren
Honolulu and Maui (May Launch)
Long Island, New York and New Jersey – specific areas unknown
Los Angeles and Pasadena, West Covina, West LA, Metro LA, Burbank, Beverly Hills
Oklahoma City
Orlando
Miami and Fort Lauderdale
Minneapolis and St Paul, Bloomington (May Launch)
New England – Boston, Cambridge
Philadelphia and Camden, Wilmington (May Launch)
Sacramento and Arden, Arcade, Roseville, Fresno
San Diego and Carlsbad, San Marcos
San Francisco and Oakland
Seattle and Tacoma, Bellevue
Tampa
Tulsa (May Launch)
Phoenix and Tuscon (May Launch)

via Tmonews

Follow us on Facebook

At Neptune Mobile, you will find that we do our best so we can be the best ! We strive for excellence and that Is what you will get each time.

We welcome you to contact any member of our staff with questions or comments you have about our products and services.

HTC Says One Production Capacity To Double As Samsung Announces New Galaxy S 4 Milestone

David — Fri, 17 May 2013 18:48:07 +0000

Some good news coming out of HTC this morning as the company’s North American president, Jack Tong, says that production capacity for the HTC One will double this month. In fact, production will not only double this month by continue increasing in June to meet the “strong demand” for the HTC One.

“Our capacity is expected to rise significantly starting from mid-May. We are optimistic about our high-end sales during April and June,” Tong said in the report.

That could bode well for T-Mobile customers who have struggled to find the One in their local company-owned T-Mobile stores.

The news is in contract to Samsung CEO JK Shin announcing their Galaxy S 4 flagship smartphone will pass 10 million units sold in under 4 weeks. That’s three weeks faster than the Galaxy S III sold the same amount and confirms reports from earlier in the week that the device is the company’s fastest selling smartphone ever.

“It is selling much faster than the previous model S3,” said Shin.

While stopping the Galaxy S 4 juggernaut seems unlikely, my question is how much if any impact will a vanilla Android Galaxy S 4 have on Samsung’s sales volume?

ZDNet, TheNextWeb

via Tmonews

Follow us on Facebook

At Neptune Mobile, you will find that we do our best so we can be the best ! We strive for excellence and that Is what you will get each time.

We welcome you to contact any member of our staff with questions or comments you have about our products and services.

Loophole Allows Deutsche Telekom To Sell T-Mobile USA Shares Before Lock-In Period Ends

David — Fri, 17 May 2013 18:45:35 +0000

Deutsche Telekom Chief Financial Officer Timotheus Hoettges spoke early this morning and said that the majority shareholder of T-Mobile USA can sell the company to a buyer before the 18-month share lock-up period is over. Hoettges spoke to shareholders at the annual Deutsche Telekom meeting in Cologne, Germany earlier this morning. His comment was in response to a question from an investor who named Vodafone as a hypothetical buyer for T-Mobile USA.

In its attempt to “sweeten the deal” for MetroPCS shareholders, the German telecommunications giant pledged not to sell its shares of the new company until after 18 months had expired. As of today, the 74% stake in T-Mobile USA is worth $14.2 billion.

“There is an exception clause in the contract regarding the lock-up,” said Hoettges, who will take over as Deutsche Telekom’s chief executive officer next year. “We are in a position to sell all shares in one go.”

The comments are somewhat mysterious in light of T-Mobile USA CEO John Legere who recently stated that consolidation in the US wireless industry is both “necessary and inevitable.” Legere went on to say that T-Mobile will take part in some of that consolidation.

Mysterious!

Bloomberg

via Tmonews

Follow us on Facebook

At Neptune Mobile, you will find that we do our best so we can be the best ! We strive for excellence and that Is what you will get each time.

We welcome you to contact any member of our staff with questions or comments you have about our products and services.

Galaxy S4 with Stock Android: Is This The Next Great Tech Superphone?

David — Fri, 17 May 2013 18:43:48 +0000

We had caught wind of a possible Nexus-like Galaxy S4 previously, but we were naturally a little skeptical because good old Sammy wants to capitalize on its products and craft the signature Samsung experience with its own customized skins and software implementations. I personally wished upon a star for it to be true, but had trouble believing it. Until, of course, Google made this dream device a reality yesterday at Google I/O.

The Galaxy S4 with stock Android is a sort of perfect storm for the techy. Packed with the same 1080p, 441 ppi display, speedy quad-core processor, and 13 megapixel shooter as Samsung’s skinned S4 superphone, the stock Android version comes with a pure and unmodified installation of Android 4.2.2 and will receive future updates directly from the Mountain View mothership itself. Oh, and it has an unlocked bootloader for the extreme modder.

The beauty of this vanilla Android device is more than skin-deep.

The S4 with stock Android packs some fantastic hardware, but the real beauty of this device comes in the coupling of the powerful, sleek hardware with the utility and flexibility of stock Android. Some may argue that what makes a Galaxy a Galaxy is the custom software experience implemented by Samsung, which will be true for a sizable part of the Android-weilding public. There are bound be some who will choose the Samsung experience over the stock Google experience, but for the developer (for whom this device is tuned, if you haven’t guessed by the name), the tinkerer, or the lover of minimalism, this phone is the phone to have because it arrives untainted by skins and themes, and will have no pre-installed carrier or Samsung apps.

Don’t call it a Nexus, though. Google and Samsung have both abstained from calling this device a Nexus phone. Google itself had no hand in the design of the S4′s hardware, which is a hallmark of a Nexus phone. The dev edition packs identical hardware to the carrier versions (with the exception of radio variations available across the globe), very much making this device a Samsung device. Also, unlike the Nexus 4 and the Galaxy Nexus before it, this device will have no Nexus branding, and also lack Google’s heavy subsidy.

Unlocked In Every Sense

Along with pure Android and an unlocked bootloader, Google and Samsung are following in the footsteps of Nexus devices by offering this device as a GSM-unlocked handset with a pentaband radio. The S4 dev edition’s radio will support virtually every GSM carrier, at least up to HSPA+, including T-Mobile. Also on board, we find… wait for it… LTE support! While the technical details are scant, we do know that the S4 with stock Android will support at least T-Mobile and AT&T’s LTE bands, and possibly more global-friendly bands, though the frequency bands haven’t been released and that’s just speculation.

Which brings me to my next point: prepare to lighten your wallet. Lacking the Nexus branding, this device will also lack the Nexus price tag. Google will not be subsidizing this device for us, my friends. And since this is a Google Play Store exclusive handset, don’t expect to see be able to get your hands on it through Magenta’s financing or with an AT&T subsidy. The Galaxy S4 developer edition will launch as an unlocked, unsubsidized GSM device on June 26th for $649. As with any GSM-only phone, this phone will not interface with Verizon, Sprint, or any other CDMA carrier’s network.

I myself am very excited about this device, and would love to get my hands on one, but the $649 price tag is out of the budget right now. What do you guys think? Will this be your next phone, or will you be passing over the Samsung Galaxy S4 Developer Edition?

via Tmonews

Follow us on Facebook

At Neptune Mobile, you will find that we do our best so we can be the best ! We strive for excellence and that Is what you will get each time.

We welcome you to contact any member of our staff with questions or comments you have about our products and services.

Windows Phone Overtakes BlackBerry Marketshare As Samsung Dominates Android Profits Once Again

David — Fri, 17 May 2013 18:40:01 +0000

Oh how the mighty have fallen as another piece of bad news surfaces for the BlackBerry crowd as new figures suggest the once giant smartphone OS has dropped to fourth in global shipments. There’s no question that Android at 75% and iOS at 17.3% of the total global smartphone market in the first quarter 2013 have the clear lead. Still, Microsoft saw an increase of 133.3-percent over the last 12 months to hit 3.2-percent globally. Everyone who rebuffed those predictions that BlackBerry wouldn’t fall to Microsoft’s OS should take note of just how far BlackBerry has fallen.

Unfortunately for BlackBerry they have declined 35.1% year-over-year, dropping to 2.9% overall. BlackBerry maintains a firm lead over fifth place OS in Linux, but its clear that BlackBerry 10 has to really rock the boat to give BlackBerry any kind of boost in the market.

Windows Phone shipped 7 million total units in the first quarter of this year with Nokia shipping 5.6 million of those. It’s clear that Nokia is far and away the most popular vendor for Microsoft’s Windows Phone platform. Analysts predict that Nokia could match total Windows Phone Q1 sales in the second quarter with another 7 million handsets sold.

It should come as no surprise that Samsung dominates Android with 41.1 percent of the marketshare of smartphones. Combine that with reports that Samsung makes up 95% of the total Android sales profit and its clear once again that no other Android OEM comes close to the Samsung juggernaut. Only LG, with $119 million mobile profit stands out with 2.5% of total Android profit. That leaves HTC, Sony, ZTE and other lesser known Android OEMs in the “other category” at 2.7%.

IDC (Login required), Strategy Analytics

via Tmonews

Follow us on Facebook

At Neptune Mobile, you will find that we do our best so we can be the best ! We strive for excellence and that Is what you will get each time.

We welcome you to contact any member of our staff with questions or comments you have about our products and services.