TechFruit

Whether your phone runs iOS, Android, or WP7 – there is little denying that the Samsung Galaxy SII has been one of the most advanced smartphones on the market for the last few months. But Apple has managed to develop a God-like halo over the past few years during a period when it was leagues ahead of the competition – to make many people believe that the latest iPhone will be the best device available without even trying the alternatives. It is an impressive feat for Apple to retain its “cool” factor when it is the most widely used smartphone in existence, but there is no doubting Apple has lost its ability to be the scrappy underdog.

Samsung has decided to take a play for that alternative/under-the-radar and underdog position with its latest ad for the Galaxy SII in the US. Without naming the iPhone by name, they cleverly make fun of those who believe owning one product over another makes them any more “creative” and all the various complaints about the iPhone 4S – same design, poor battery, etc – making it look as if the Galaxy SII is the phone for people who actually “think different”.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6h5JSojJN3Y

Samsung overtook Apple for the first time in the period July-September to become the world’s biggest smartphone manufacturer – only a few months after Apple took the crown from Nokia.

Samsung shipped 27.8 million smartphones in the three month period, compared to 17.1 million from Apple, and 16.8 million from Nokia according to research from Strategy Analytics. Apple’s sluggish performance for the period was likely due to customers waiting for the release of the iPhone 4S before upgrading, whilst Samsung led the smartphone field for months with the Galaxy SII.

In terms of total handset sales, Apple currently sits in fifth place with 4.4% market-share as it does not sell any dumb-phones or feature-phones, and focuses solely on high-margin smartphones. Nokia was the top handset shipper with 27.3% market-share, with Samsung in second with 22.6%, LG in third with 5.4%, and Chinese manufacturer ZTE taking the fourth spot with 4.4%.

Nokia’s dominance in the phone arena has been sliding for the last year, but with the recent release of new Windows Phone 7 smartphones they could be making a comeback soon.

[via BBC]

Samsung has today unveiled three new smartphones for your digital pleasure in the form of the Galaxy SII LTE, the Galaxy SII HD LTE both running Android 2.3 (Gingerbread), and the Omnia W running Windows Phone 7.5 (Mango).

The Galaxy SII HD LTE comes packing a beautiful 4.65″ Super AMOLED HD display (that’s a pixel count of 1280 x 720 or 316 ppi) and features a dual-core 1.5GHz processor, 16GB of memory, an 8-megapixel camera that can shoot 1080p video. And as its name suggests it will also sport 4G LTE connectivity.

The Galaxy SII LTE is pretty similar to its HD bigger brother, except that it will be featuring a 4.5″ WVGA Super AMOLED Plus display and so will likely come in a bit cheaper. The other internals remains pretty much unchanged though.

The Omnia W comes with a smaller 3.7″ WVGA Super AMOLED display, a 1.4GHz processor, a 5-megapixel camera, and 8GB of internal storage – and runs Microsoft’s Windows Phone 7.5 Mango rather than Android.

Samsung doesn’t look to be letting up on its lead in the smartphone stakes with the Galaxy SII (which has now reached 10 million global sales) any time soon.

Samsung has been looking to strengthen its offerings outside of Android since Google decided to acquire Motorola Mobility, and was quick to quash rumours that it may purchase WebOS from HP after Google as they have said they will put more focus on their own Bada OS. If today’s WSJ report is correct, they may be looking to take the fight to Google more directly and open source their proprietary OS within a year, and make the software the backbone to other devices such as connected TVs and Blu-ray players.

Samsung is currently the world’s second biggest smartphone manufacturer behind Apple, and they produce devices for Android, Windows Phone 7, and Bada OS. Their Galaxy S2 range may be their fasting selling and current flagship product, but they have been pleased with sales of the Wave range of Bada OS phones as well – selling over a million in the four weeks after the original launch, and having debuted three new Bada 2.0 smartphones is Asia last month.

By open sourcing Bada OS, they hope to be able to gain from the community involvement and excitement that has aided Android’s wide adoption, as well as take advantage of the lack of transparency within Android development. Bada already has its own app store, but so far it has always been a background OS for developers trying to capture the hearts and minds of smartphone users – but if Samsung turns their focus to it we might see development rise a notch or two quite quickly.

Samsung appears to have found the smartphone sweet-spot with its Galaxy SII phone which packs a 1.2GHz dual-core processor, a 4.3-inch Super AMOLED Plus display, and 8-megapixel camera into its slimline chassis. Those specs have made it more popular than Apple’s flagship iPhone 4 in the UK according to uSwitch Mobile Tracker.

These statistics come as no surprise to us at TechFruit with Samsung selling 5 million Galaxy SIIs in its first 85 days, and cost on contract nearly a third less than its underpowered by comparison rival – the iPhone 4. Android has overtaken iOS as the fastest selling smartphone OS worldwide, but the software is used on hundreds of different phones by many different manufacturers – these statistics show that it can compete with Apple on a head-to-head basis as well.

It is important to remember, however, that the iPhone 4 has been on sale for over a year now, so it will be interesting to see how the Galaxy SII stacks up against the future iPhone 5 (or iPhone 4S) rumoured to be released in the next couple of months.