If you’ve bought into the notion that Apple will indeed be releasing both the iPhone 5 and iPhone 4s in a bid to capture a wide swatch of smartphone users, then you might be interested to know that the same theory is beginning to develop in the Android- and Windows-based smartphone camps as well. A broad range of reports have surfaced over the past day or so that reveals the possibility that Samsung and HTC may both be planning to release value-priced versions of their most popular smartphone designs to counter the eventuality of an iPhone 4s, while still planning for a heavyweight bout with a beefed-up iPhone 5.
The new rumors suggest that Samsung will release two versions of the Galaxy — the Galaxy S2 Plus, which would be an upgrade from the current model, as well as a Galaxy Z, which would be a natural competitor to the iPhone 4s.
The Galaxy S2 Plus, according to Daily News Engine, “will support 1.4GHz dual-core processor and 1GB of RAM. The handset will most likely continued featuring the Super AMOLED screen that comes with Samsung’s popular TouchWiz User Interface.”
The Galaxy Z, on the other hand, according to IT Pro Portal, “is expected to come with an Nvidia Tegra 2 SoC with two cores clocked at 1GHz which is not a lot slower compared to the 1.2GHz of the Samsung Exynos 4210 SoC that equips the Galaxy S2. The screen itself is not much smaller than the Galaxy S2′s (4.2-inch vs 4.3-inch) but is not of the same vein (Super LCD vs Super AMOLED plus); it does carry the same resolution as the Galaxy S (480×800 pixels) and at 9.5mm and 135g is just a bit stockier than its elder brother.”
But Android-powered Samsung isn’t the only smartphone designer indicating that they could have an answer to the iPhone 5/iPhone 4s combo.
HTC is also in the news with a potential new contender for the fabled iPhone 4s. The rumored HTC Eternity would run on Mango instead of Android (mmmm . . . mangoes), and, according to the Times Wire Service, “will be a notable product from the company. The device will run on a single-core 1.5GHz MSM 8255 processor and sport 512MB RAM and 16GB internal memory. HTC Eternity will feature a 4.7-inch WVGA Super display for great clarity and brightness. The 0.38-inch thick device weighs at almost 5.9oz.”
The HTC rumor is more nondescript on whether the Eternity would take on the iPhone 4s as a “pro” device, or as the value-priced device that many are conjecturing about.
We have collected all of the stories that are mentioned here on the iPhone 5 News Ticker. Take a look, or click “Read More” to read the rest of this piece.
The iPhone 5/iPhone 4s Rumor Goes Android (and Mango). But Does Anyone Care?
Now that we are entering the dog days of Summer in the northern hemisphere, the iPhone 5 rumors are lethargic at best, with only the prospect of Apple releasing both the iPhone 5 and 4s concurrently gaining any traction in the tech news community. Givcen the fact that the iPhone 5/4s rumor may turn out to have been completely fabricated by the malicious snake oil salesman, otherwise known as “tech analysts,” the notion and “logic” of a dual iPhone release has now gone viral and is seeping into the Android and Mango rumor mills (which are, by the way, much smaller rumor mills that few even seem to care about).
My question is this: does anyone out there even like the notion of the iPhone 5/4s combo, much less a copycat approach from Samsung and HTC?
Even those who seem to believe that the dual iPhone release is imminent have expressed little enthusiasm about having an el-cheapo iPhone 4s to go with the big guns of an iPhone 5. The same seems to be true about these fresh Samsung Galaxy and HTC Eternity rumors. Even if all of these speculations are true, a quick gander from Apple, Samsung, and HTC at the lackluster reaction from both the smartphone intelligentsia — as well as the “unwashed masses” — would give them pause about whether ir is such a good idea to further dilute the potency of the smartphone market.
Android has already done this by empowering the release of, like, 137 smartphones this year.
It remains to be seen if we, the people, really need cheap smartphones. After all, the notion of a smartphone is that is it “smart” — it towers over the functionality of even an advanced mobile phone. There are hundreds if not thousands of mobile phones available in the world today, and you get most of them for FREE from your favorite mobile carrier with a contract upgrade. Or, you can go to your local supermarket and buy a pre-paid one for less than $50 bucks.
Shouldn’t smartphones as a whole remain something akin to a luxury product? Shouldn’t there be some sort of excellence associated with them? Some sort of investment on the part of the user?
This, after all, has been the crux of Apple’s marketing message for the iPhone up until this point. Hence the slogan: If you don’t have an iPhone, then, well, you don’t have an iPhone.
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