Samsung recently introduced the new Notebook Series 5 ULTRA, which combines high performance with a Ultrabook casing.

On the inside the Series 5 ULTRA is powered by a Intel Core i5 processor; combined with ExpressCache system by Diskeeper and a powerful AMD Radeon HD graphics card, with which it delivers high performance packed in a thin and light form factor.

“Based on in-depth market research and consumer surveys, we propose a new type of Ultrabook which will change the perception of Ultrabooks among users. Our findings strongly indicate that consumers demand more than just thin and light devices, hoping for a satisfactory level of daily performance and storage, as digital files become larger. The Samsung Series 5 ULTRA will be the first to answer these needs,” said David Song, Senior Vice President, IT Solutions Business at Samsung Electronics. “The latest Samsung knowhow  has been applied  – our Series 5 ULTRA positions the device for today’s fast changing media environment by adding greater value for consumers through a more balanced product concept.”

“The Series 5 ULTRA is a further step to demonstrate Samsung’s commitment to coming up with ways that continue to meet the day-to-day consumer needs by producing the best products,” adds Suria Pretorius, Product Manager of Notebooks at Samsung Electronics South Africa.

Performance (more…)

Clearly the next big battle in the tech world is TV – not in terms of ever growing screen sizes and resolutions, but rather the software and services that power it. With rumours circling about Apple’s apparent entry into the TV market, many manufacturers are taking a wait and see approach. Not Lenovo though – they decided they will build there first TV as well, and it will be powered by Android. Lenovo is planning to release their first TV in China at first, but international markets will get it later. It should be noted that this TV will not ship with Google TV. Instead it will ship with Ice Cream Sandwich, with Lenovo’s own custom skin, and it will pack some serious processing power. Here are some of the specs:

• Snapdragon processor running at  a healthy 1.5 GHz.
• Two screen sizes – 42 and 50 inch. Both LED, Full HD.
• Built in Webcam with 5 megapixel resolution – great for Skype sessions.
• 8GB of built in storage, which is expandable by SD card.
• The remote control will include a touchpad, and it will recognize your voice with a built in microphone.

The TV will still ship with standard HDMI inputs, so you can still connect your set-top boxes. Lenovo must still announce their streaming services that combine with this TV – which makes us think this was rushed to market as an answer to that apparent Apple threat. Which we are not to certain about either… The idea that Apple would move into a highly commoditzed market like TV manufacturing is still difficult to comprehend, but their advantage will lie in the ecosystem that iTunes will provide. But if a Apple Cinema Display costs $1000, we wonder if Apple can crack the TV market where profit margins are lower than ever.

As 2011 draws to a close we thought it might be a good time to look back and see what products we really enjoyed using in 2011. Some of our choices might be controversial, but hey, horses for courses. Let us know what you think in the comments?

Best Phone: Samsung Galaxy S2

Even the most ardent fans of iPhone have to agree – the Galaxy S2 is a truly great phone. It is very fast, is built well (despite being made of plastic), the screen is beautiful, the camera is excellent – the list goes on. Pricing is also pretty good, and the phone is still great several months later, which you cannot typically say of the Android phone marketplace. You cannot go wrong. Not even Samsung’s bigger and faster Galaxy Note could change our name. Now we just have to get our hands on the Samsung Galaxy Nexus. Close second: Apple iPhone 4S. Expect our review in the new year.

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Tablets in general and the Amazon Kindle in particular will be the hottest technology seller during the 2011 festive season, followed by “ultrabooks”, and gaming equipment. This is according to Dave Miller Incredible Connection CEO.

Miller continues,  ”In the past several years, the changes on the technology and device front have been incremental. The iPad changed the game by popularising the tablet format. In South Africa, Incredible Connection was granted the exclusive right to sell Amazon Kindle e-readers in a retail environment. Now, tablets are the fashion item of 2011 and the ideal gift for the festive season.”

Another step-change in the device arena was the introduction of the Ultrabooks, the first of which was the Macbook Air. Ultrabooks are an ultrathin machine with the portability of a netbook and the advanced functionality of a notebook. Other notebook manufacturers are racing into this space, by bringing models to market that are less than 20mm thick, have no optical drive, use a solid state drive (SSD) for all storage, use a core i5, i7 processor, weigh less than 1.4kg, yield up to eight hours of battery life, and are at the low end in terms of price.

Most of the new models are available globally and Incredible Connection currently stocks the Macbook Air, the Asus Ultrabook and the Samsung 9 Series and Intel predicts that these will carve out a new space in the netbook and notebook market in time to come.

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OK, so another month, another best Android phone out there. This is partly to blame on the massively quick development with Android and the constant competition between the manufacturers. In recent months Samsung seems to be having the upper hand, with the great Galaxy S2, and the recently released Galaxy Nexus.

The Galaxy Note is different however – it aims to combine the use of a phone with a tablet, and it includes a stylus as well, something which is relative scarcity since the arrival of capacitative screens. This “phoneblet” is truly huge – if you ever look at your current smartphone and think the screen is too small, or if you think your tablet is too big, you might want to give the Galaxy Note a serious look.

Design and Build

First off – this phone is massive. Or this tablet is small? Either way you look at it, the Note is good deal bigger than any phone you might be used to. (more…)

So 2011 is drawing to a close, but I thought it might be cool to look back and see what was our most popular articles of the year. 2011 was a great year for Bandwidth Blog, not only terms of traffic, but also with regard to interaction and loyalty with our reader base. More than ever we have seen what you think, be it through comments or tweets, and we would like to thank you for that. We value your feedback and opinion, so here is our most popular posts of 2011:

10) The iPhone 5 – What to expect, Why you should upgrade to iOS5 right now

OK, so it was not the iPhone 5, but the 4S did show up. While many people were initially irritated because it was not called iPhone 5, the iPhone 4S is a more significant update than the name and appearance would suggest. Most of predictions were right, with the major exception of the larger screen.

9) iPad 2 in South Africa, iPad 2 Hands On Review

Clearly people were interested to get their hands on the iPad 2. Core stepped up and brought the iPad 2 to SA a lot sooner than most of us expected, and at a pretty decent price! We managed to get hold of iPad 2 a while before release in SA, and we were very impressed. Even a few months later, it is still the tablet to beat.

8 ) Nokia’s New Lumia Smartphone Leaked

In 2011 Nokia announced that they will finally be moving away from the aging Symbian operating system to Microsoft’s Windows Phone 7. But then it got silent, and no one knew what these new phones would look like. Windows Phone 7 and first rate hardware sounds like a great recipe, and the Lumia 800 was leaked a few hours before its official announcement. It is almost a carbon copy of the brilliant but very sad Nokia N9, and we cannot wait to get our hands on it.

7) Vodacom Announces 20GB for R500 Promotion

In a bandwidth starved country like SA, there is a constant battle between the network providers to see who can give customers the best bang for the buck. In 2010 it was Cell C, but in 2011 the landscape evened somewhat. But in November Vodacom announced that they will be running a 20GB for R500 promotion during December and January. Now Vodacom, do the right thing and make it more permanent offer, OK?

6) The Top 5 Twitter Clients for iPhone

Twitter is one of the most visited social networks from a mobile phone, and the number of clients out there just seems to increase every day. Luckily it is pretty easy to choose with this list. Luckily our favourite choice is still free.

5) Blackberry Bold 9900 out in SA, Bandwidth Blog’s Hands on Review of the Bold 9900

RIM had a tough 2011 with a worldwide outage that lasted more than 3 days. But for the die hard crackberry fans, this will not scare them off – they have been looking forward to the ultimate Blackberry, the 9900. Dressed in steel, glass and carbon fibre, the 9900 impressed us with a pin sharp display, beautiful construction and a new touch screen plus physical keyboard combo. We can confidently state it is the best Blackberry yet.

4) 8ta Announces Blackberry Deals

You would think there is enough Blackberry deals out there, but readers were clearly waiting to see what 8ta would bring to the table. In typical 8ta fashion there is plenty of incentives included, even though the pricing was not a major improvement over other networks.

3) Microsoft Shows off Windows 8 New Ribbon Explorer Interface

While 2011 is the year Apple might have reached the highest market cap in the world, the fanbase waiting for Windows 8 is clearly bigger than we expected. Windows 8 will sport a new Metro start menu interface, but also more touch friendly ribbon bars throughout the desktop.

2) Vodacom Puts Cap on Blackberry Usage, Pieter Uys has to clarify Blackberry Throttling

Vodacom announced that it will be throttling Blackberry BIS users who use more than 100MB per month, effectively stepping them down to 2G speeds. Needless to say – there was tremendous backlash to this decision. Twitter was abuzz, and Bandwidth Blog had massive traffic from users who wanted to comment on this. People were NOT happy, and they did not see this helping all Blackberry users in the bigger scheme of things. All in all, everyone thought they will be affected. Vodacom’s CEO had to cut a trip short to quickly return and face the media regarding this announcement… He put everyone’s fears to rest.

1) The Best Thing Tim Cook Did Not Announce

Everyone was waiting for the ever-delayed iPhone 5, which Apple did not announce. Instead they announced the iPhone 4S, while keeping the iPhone 4 on the market at a lower price point. But in a new move for Apple, they also kept the iPhone 3GS on the market, a phone first released in 2009. In the US this phone will be given free with contracts, and it can still run the latest iOS5 software. Richard Oakley did an excellent post on the iPhone 3GS’s extended life – instead of developing a new watered down version of the iPhone, the 3GS is more in tune in with Apple’s vision of devices that just work.

The world’s very first dedicated Android store has opened its doors in Melbourne, Australia. The store is the creation of Australian operator Telstra and operates as a store within a store, supplying smartphones and tablets that run Google’s Android operating system under one, fun and interactive, roof.

Inside, customers are offered an interactive spaceship zone that features a flight simulator via the search giant’s Google Earth software, a massive screen on which they can play Angry Birds and a dedicated area to ‘Androidify’ themselves. Of course, customers are invited to explore and play around with a number of tablets and phones including those from Samsung, LG, Motorola and HTC.

The staff have been expertly trained to assist customers with choosing and operating devices, setting up their new handsets and tablets and recommending applications.

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Apple Analyst Gene Munster recently commented at the Ignition: Future Of Media conference that he believes that Apple will be launching its very own television in time for the 2012 holiday season. Munster was so confident about the project that he told the audience to wait for Apple, if they are planning to buy a new television in the near future.