Strategy Analytics has released its new research figures for the US market and it appears that mobile phone shipments in the States have reached 52 million units in the fourth quarter of 2012, representing a 4% growth. Apple has become the largest phone vendor in the US in the last quarter of 2012. The iPhone 5 managed to boost Apple in Q4 2012 as the company regains the first place with its 17.7 million units shipped, versus 16.8 million Samsung phones. As far as the figures for US market share are concerned, Apple leads the pack with its 34% followed by Samsung and its 32.3%. As far as ...

If you've had your ear to the ground over the past day or so, you know the Galaxy Note 8.0 is all but assured a grand unveiling at MWC 2013 in Barcelona next month. Sources say the tablet will come with a 5MP rear-facing camera, probably some form of Exynos processor, and -of course- an 8-inch display with a rumored 1280x800 resolution. That's not all that exciting on the surface: we've seen those specs, or variations thereon, spread across many devices already. But bundling them together inside one chassis, especially one bearing the prestigious Note sub-brand, is exciting. Samsung is no ...

Watch todays Pocketnow Daily as we talk about Samsung's launch of the Galaxy Note II in more colors. The rumors of the Galaxy Note 8.0 make the scene next as we get some details on specs and a probable release date. Asus may not have been much news lately, but some reports have them working with Microsoft on building a Padfone-like device for Windows Phone 8, and that's hot. The LG Optimus G Pro is next, even though we still think this is just the Optimus G2. We end today's show by talking about the new Facebook Messenger update for iOS which allows calls within the US. All this and more ...

News arrived last month of a potentially serious hole in how Exynos-based Android handsets let apps access system memory, giving them essentially free rein. Samsung responded to the discovery within a matter of days, promising software updates to correct the situation with affected devices "as quickly as possible". Now, less than a month later, we're beginning to see some of those updates arrive for Samsung users in the States. Samsung already got the ball rolling on this a couple weeks back, when users in the UK started receiving fixes for their Galaxy S III handsets. Now that we're ...

For our latest CES smartphone head-to-head, we decided to put the bigger-than-anything 6.1-inch Huawei Ascend Mate against its chief phablet competition, Samsung's hugely successful 5.5-inch Galaxy Note II. Despite an overabundance of screen real estate, Huawei doesn't mess around at all when it comes to letting you take full advantage of the display, enabling you to hide the Android soft keys with a tap. While the Galaxy Note II might be a little more usable a size, and have a display with higher visual quality, there's little doubt that the Ascend Mate has batter power to spare, and its ...

It's almost a bit magical how smartphones are able to track our broad, imprecise finger inputs and work out at just which on-screen elements we're clumsily trying to stab. Largely, it works fantastically well, but despite accomplishments along these lines, I was incredibly excited last year to see the return of the stylus, in the form of Samsung's S Pen. While the Galaxy Note's pen was nice, the implementation Samsung came up with for the Note II is superior to even that. As far as anyone knew, the S Pen would be restricted to the company's Note series of devices, but last week a rumor ...

Did you manage to score a new Galaxy S III or Galaxy Note II for the holidays? Head on over to Facebook to register the phone with Samsung USA, and the company will thank you with quite the nice-sounding accessory package. Once you register your device, you should get an email from Samsung letting you know about the care package you can then claim. You'll get your pick of colors for a flip cover, which Samsung will ship to you for free along with half a dozen NFC TecTiles. For the icing on the cake, Samsung is also offering a coupon for half-off accessories for your phone bought through ...

All of the American carrier variants of the Samsung Galaxy Note II have received their multi-window update but AT&T flavors. This is about to change today as an over-the-air refresh will bring the functionality to Note II device on Ma Bell, according to the carrier itself. Multi-window functionality is the ability to place two supported applications side-by-side (or one on top of the other). AT&T "plans to begin rolling out a software update for Samsung Galaxy Note II customers that includes the Multi-Window feature, which allows the user to divide the screen into two active ...