Samsung Galaxy S6 Sells 10 Million Units Slower than Predecessors

Samsung's Galaxy S6 could well be the best smartphone available right now (sure, it’s debateable) and has given the Korean giant a flagship that ticks all the right boxes. Indeed, the Galaxy S6 and Galaxy S6 Edge have been pointing to a sales increase for Samsung after a disappointing 2014, but the reality seems different. That’s because the Galaxy S6 has passed 10 million unit sales, but interestingly the devices have reached the milestone slower than previous S smartphones.

However, we should say that Samsung has not said when the Galaxy S6 passed this particular number, but it seems it did not match to the Galaxy S4 or Galaxy S5. We think the company would be happy to brag about the new flagship getting to 10 million units before its predecessors. The Galaxy S4 managed the feat in 27 days, while the Galaxy S5 made 10 million in 25 days. The S6 and S6 Edge were both launched April 10th and have been on the market more than a month.

It’s not really bad news for Samsung though as while the Galaxy S5 outsold the Galaxy S4 during the first month, the latter device actually managed to outsell the former through its cycle. The S6 is expected to outsell both, so there are plenty of good times ahead for Samsung and its flagship.

Free LG Leon Lte Coming to Pre-paid on T-Mobile

T-Mobile continues to do things that shake up the industry and now they doing it again with a free phone!  Ok that's not that new and exciting unless of course it's for a pre-paid plan.  Naturally it's not a flagship by any stretch but it is a nice low to mid ranger with a 4.5 inch screen and a quad core processor. It's the LG Leon LTE.

 

According to T-Mobile experts at TmoNews here's how it breaks down:

Prepaid customers will see the price dropped down to just $50 at checkout and then be able to claim the $50 back online as a promotional rebate. Customers on the no credit Simple Choice plans, however, pay $149.76 up front and then claim that amount back as a rebate online at http://ift.tt/1zkOWPB.  In the end, neither customer pays for the device, they just get different amounts as a rebate to take their effective tally to $0.

While the device itself is not that impressive it is free device with no contract.  Lets see if the other major carriers follow suite on this one.

Samsung Gets a HUGE Break in it’s Apple Settlement

Way back in 2012 Samsung and Apple had a court dispute in which Apple got award a whopping $930 million dollars in damages.  This was for "violating Apple's intellectual property."  Well that ruling was partly reversed. It seems that Samsung did not violate Apple's trade dress — broader elements of design and aesthetic that dictate the presentation of Apple's gadgets.  This got the damages dropped... a lot all they way down too $548 million from $930 million.

While that's still a great deal of money it's a $382 million discount for Samsung.  What is exactly is "trade dress"?

Design elements that are nonfunctional and these design choices were seemingly made for the sake of customer comfort.

Apple claimed that "a rectangular product with four evenly rounded corners," "a flat, clear surface covering the front of the product" is trade dress and had no impact on functionally.  The court disagreed and tossed that part of the law suit out.

Need more info on this ruling?  You can see the whole thing here.

VIA

Tablet Sales Fall Again in the United States

Apple's iPad has been suffering a sales decline that has encompassed numerous quarters, although CEO Tim Cook says he is not worried. Cupertino claims that it knew iPad sales would fall as consumers to not recycle tablets like they do smartphones. That seems to be the case across the entire market as it was revealed that slate sales in the United States continued to fall last quarter.

Overall tablet sales in the U.S. market, like the iPad, have been on the decline for around two years, although it is quite interesting that cellular tablet sales increased during the first quarter of this year. Tablet sales fell by as much as 7% in the United States during the first quarter of 2015 from 13.8 million last year to 13.4 million in 2015 according to Strategy Analytics. IDC however says the number is 8.9 million units, down from 9.6 million during Q1 of 2014.

While the two firms disagree on the units sold, both reveal that sales are on the wane. As for cellular connected devices, they enjoyed growth from 2.2 million last year to 3.2 million this year, and increase of 45%, while the four major carriers in the U.S. (Verizon, AT&T, Sprint, and T-Mobile) all showed increased revenue from postpaid tablets in their Q1 financials.

Amazon Giving Away Free App Games, Including Game of Thrones

Amazon offers a fantastic accompaniment to the Google Play Store with its own Appstore. In our opinion it is the best third party app store on the market, and while we would still use the Google Play Store more, Amazon provides a fantastic service to supplement it. The great thing about the Appstore is that it is available on Android and BlackBerry devices, and Amazon often has amazing sales and even flat out giveaways.

Such as this week where the company is offering a plethora of free games that usually cost money. Interestingly, these are not throwaway titles either and include some meaty stuff like Game of Thrones: A Telltale Games Series, Five Nights at Freddy's 3, Sorcery! 3, Angry Birds Seasons, Bloons TD 5, Fleksy Keyboard, and many others. You can check out the full list by hitting up the source below.

The giveaway is lasting until the end of Saturday (May 16th) so if you do not already have the Amazon Appstore you should head to the company’s page and download it.

Amazon

HTC Announced Third J Butterfly

HTC's Butterfly J series has often been used to showcase the best specs the company can offer, although they are launched as Japanese exclusives, sadly for the rest of us non-Japanese consumers. The new J Butterfly (Butterfly 3) is the newly launched model and it the most highly spec’d smartphone HTC has made so far. Yes, the company that has been launching flagships for fun has topped itself again.

The J Butterfly is better than the One M9 and One M9 Plus in a side by side specs comparison and is a mix of the pair, but it certainly lags behind in terms of design. That's the main difference to consider here as well as that Japan exclusivity. This is probably the most boring looking flagship quality smartphone HTC has made for some time, and it lends weight to the opinion that the company is losing its design touch.

So the looks are nothing to get too excited about, but the specs might be if you’re into that kind of thing. Qualcomm's headline making 64-bit Snapdragon 810 is the processor of choice in the Butterfly 3. The 810 has been overheating according to many reports, while Qualcomm says this is not the case it has had a controversial start on the market. The J Butterfly will provide another test for the chip, hopefully it will be more of a powerhouse than a heater for your pocket.

The 5.2-inch Quad HD screen we first saw on the One M9+ has made the journey to the J Butterfly, with a pixel density of 565ppi we should add. 3GB of RAM provides the grunt for the handset, while a 2,700 mAh battery will hopefully keep the high end hardware running for long periods. Elsewhere there is a 20 megapixel rear camera with dual lenses, and a very enticing 13 megapixel front facing snapper; take that selfie phones. Out of the box the HTC J Butterfly comes with 32GB of built in storage, but it also comes with a micro SD card slot so you can expand the space if you need. As you would probably expect, this LTE device comes with Android 5.0 Lollipop with HTC's own Sense 7.0 UI on top.

Iron Man Galaxy S6 Edge Confirmed by Samasung

Samsung has their hands in the new blockbuster movie hit the Avengers which lead to rumors that they will be making special edition Galaxy S6 Edge devices.   There was even fan made concepts on what this device would look like.  Now Samsung has confirm indeed this device is coming.

The above photo was posted by the official Samsung Tomorrow Twitter page. While it's only a box for now it's proof that at least an iron man device is "coming soon".  There was no word when soon was, how much it would cost or if there other Avengers edition coming.

Anyone out there waiting to buy a new device for limited edition?

VIA