Rumour has it the Galaxy Note line might go away

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With the differences between the Galaxy Note and the Galaxy S lines diminishing, Samsung might be doing more harm to its flagship smartphone segment. A new rumour from tipster Evan Blass (@evleaks) suggests that Samsung might be thinking about this problem and the company might unite the two under the Galaxy One brand. And the one reportedly getting axed is the more innovative Note brand. Instead of releasing two flagships at the start and latter part of the year, the company might focus on the S series. This flagship will launch at the beginning of the year with phones that also carry the S Pen.

As for the gap in the fall, Samsung is said to be considering filling this in with the Galaxy Fold. As MSPowerUser points out, the Note line did start as Samsung's more experimental line. It makes sense that Samsung's most out-there product right now takes its place. But according to this is still reliant on a few factors. He tweets, "Assuming that Fold performs according to expectations—both functionally and in the market—the hope is to deploy its successors as a second-half flagship, in the spot that would be vacated by Note. This was described as still being very fluid and tentative at this stage." For now, these are all rumours, and we still have the Note line. But we're keeping our eyes out for any changes to suggest otherwise.

Report claims Samsung might merge its Galaxy S line with its Note line

Review: Samsung Galaxy S9

If the story coming out of Korea is to be believed, we might be seeing some changes in Samsung’s flagship lines. According to Korean media outfit The Bell, Samsung’s Vice Chairman Jay Lee is thinking of merging its Galaxy S and Note lines. This move makes a lot of sense with Samsung facing tough competition in the entry-level and mid-range market from the Chinese companies and people complaining about the rising prices of flagships. Plus, the differentiating the S and Note line seems to be getting harder and harder with each iteration.

There are rumours that Samsung plans to release three versions of the Galaxy S10 and it would make sense if the highest end will feature the S Pen, but then there will also be a regular version, and a lite or budget version. If Samsung pushes through with this, it’ll help them streamline their operations as well as save them money on development, design, and manufacturing. 

Source: GSMArena

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Samsung Galaxy S and Galaxy Tab aren't getting Ice Cream Sandwich because of bloatware

By Gadjo Cardenas Sevilla

Owners of Samsung's Galaxy S and original 7-inch Galaxy Tab devices will not be able to upgrade to the latest and unified Android OS 4.0 codenamed Ice Cream Sandwich. The reason for this isn't the hardware but limitations brought about by Samsung's own TouchWiz overlay and country specific carrier apps.

This came to light when Samsung revealed its ICS rollout that included the Galaxy S II, its LTE versions, the Galaxy Note, the Galaxy R and  the Galaxy Tab 7.0 Plus to the Galaxy Tab 10.1. The update is slated to arrive first on both the Galaxy S II and Note in Q1 2012.

According to a blog post, the adding ICS on these Galaxy Tab and the Samsung Galaxy S isn't possible because of lack of space taken up by TouchWiz elements (Touch Wiz / Samsung Widgets / video calls, etc.) as well as third party carrier apps that are country specific such as mobile TV and music apps. There isn't enough RAM and ROM to run both ICS, TouchWiz and the sundry carrier apps.

The Google Nexus S, which has similar hardware, runs ICS just fine but it runs just the ICS software without any extraneous applications.

ICS can still run on these devices but through unlicensed ROMs which require rooting and hacking around the system to eliminate tbe bloatware and overlays. This is not advised, however, since it is not officially supported and device specific issues are unlikely to be fixed. 

Samsung sold 10 million of these smartphones under the  Epic 4G, Vibrant, Captivate, Fascinate, and Mesmerize monickers with various carriers globally. It is unfortunate that the smartphones have the specs to run ICS (1GHz ARM Hummingbird processors,  512MB RAM) but is limited by add-on software.