NEW DELHI: Samsung constantly denied the likelihood of showcasing the upcoming Galaxy S IV at Mobile World Congress in February, but the latest word is that the South Korean manufacturer may unveil five new devices at the event.
Recently, four unannounced Samsung devices have surfaced on the database of GLBenchmark, which is widely used to assess the performance of smartphones and tablets. Tech news websites and bloggers have known about Samsung Galaxy Fonblet 5.8, Galaxy Star, Galaxy Pocket 2 and Galaxy Note 8.0 for some time. The alleged details of Galaxy Note 8.0 tablet have been available on the internet for quite some time. Rumours have long said that Galaxy Note 8.0 will be unveiled at MWC 2013 and speculation is now rife that these new devices may also be showcased at the mega event.
The mystery is about the fifth device – a high-end device whose specifications are similar to be that of a new tablet, but naming convention hints at a smartphone with Qwerty keyboard.
According to GLBenchmark data, this upcoming device runs on Android 4.2 (Jelly Bean) and features a full HD display (1920x1080p resolution). It is powered by a dual-core 1.7Ghz processor and features a quad-core Mali-T604 graphics processor. While these specifications point towards a tablet, its codename (GT-B9150) indicates a phone with Qwerty keyboard, since the GT-BXXXX name is given to devices in this product line.
TOI reported in January that Samsung is working on a dual-sim smartphone named Fonblet 5.8 that runs on Android 4.1 (Jelly Bean). The phone has screen resolution of 960x540p and is powered by a 1.2GHz Broadcom processor.
Recent reports suggest that Galaxy Star is an allegedly upcoming low-end smartphone by Samsung and has features similar to the recently announced Galaxy Young, which was listed on GLBenchmark separately. It is anticipated that this is powered by Android 4.1 (Jelly Bean) and features a 3-inch touchscreen, 2MP camera, 4GB internal memory and microSD support up to 32GB. Connectivity features in the device include Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 4.0 and microUSB, and its battery capacity is rated as 1,200mAh.
Samsung Galaxy Pocket 2 is said to be another budget Android 4.1 (Jelly Bean) smartphone that the company is said to be working on. This phone is expected to have screen resolution of 320x240p and run on an 850MHz Broadcom processor.
Galaxy Note 8.0 is the iPad mini rival that is rumoured to have an 8-inch Super Clear LCD display and S-Pen stylus compatibility and runs on Android 4.2 (Jelly Bean) out-of-the-box. It is likely to be available in 16 and 32GB variants with microSD card support up to 32GB. Rumours say that it will have a quad-core 1.6GHz processor, 2GB RAM, 5MP primary and 1.3MP secondary camera. Other features are said to be 4,600mAh battery, Wi-Fi, 3G, Bluetooth 4.0 and microUSB 2.0. It is said to retail at a higher price than that of its rival, iPad mini.
