Long term thinking
Unbowed by its continued challenges in Europe's courts, Korean electronics giant Samsung is set to unveil LTE versions of two of its signature mobile devices at the IFA consumer electronics, which commences on 2 September in Berlin.
The 4G flavours of the Galaxy S II and the Galaxy Tab 8.9 have been announced by Samsung, amid lots of talk about all the great potential of LTE, such as theoretical download speeds of 100Mbps. But there was not much more of substance revealed, with prices, dates and geographies conspicuously absent from the announcement.
"With the introduction of Galaxy S II LTE and Galaxy Tab 8.9 LTE, we will take the capabilities of these devices to a whole new level. LTE redefines the user experience made possible by these devices and opens entirely new possibilities in terms of content viewing, sharing, quality and connectivity," said JK Shin, president of Samsung mobile, provocatively dropping the definite article from the product names, for which he risks being sued by Apple.
"This is a milestone in our commitment to lead the charge in 4G mobile telephony around the world, both in terms of back-end network solutions for service providers and the development of powerful consumer handsets."
That's all well and good, but an LTE handset is only useful if there's an LTE network, and Europe has been especially slow to roll them out. Of greater interest will be what Samsung has up its sleeve regarding WP7, with that offering surely imminent.
