By Roy Mathur, on 2013-03-18, for The Independent Daily, Mauritius (in which an edited version appeared)
Welcome to this swanky new technology column! To start the New Year off with a bang, let's look at what frighteningly clever new smart phones we'll be able to get our hands on in the coming year!
It only seems fair to start with the Samsung, after the legal savaging over patents they've been experiencing lately from Apple.
Samsung plan to release this device soon as their flagship smartphone device is rumoured to run Android Ice Cream Sandwich, have a large 4.6 inch Super AMOLED screen, a 1.8GHz processor, 4g, NFC and a massive 12 megapixel camera.
Samsung is currently the largest seller of mobile phones in the world, selling something like 10 million units more than Apple in the last quarter of 2012. Given the ruthless competition between the two companies, perhaps this phone will be the greatest threat to Apple.
Samsung phones are available around the island, but you might want to check out the Samsung Store at Game.
Summer 2012 should finally see the long awaited iPhone 5 finally hit the stores.
Rumours of a more tapered casing are most probably just vapour, but it is highly likely that the screen size will increase to at least 4 inches, keeping it in line with the standard screen size for flagship model smart phones, like the Samsung Galaxy S II which has a 4.3 inch display. The phone may also have an aluminium back, those affording greater protection than the current all-glass model. Also, on the cards in full 4G support, but with Apple it's anyone's guess at the moment.
Incidentally, if you have a yen for the current unlocked iPhone 4S and still have a sack full of money left over after the Christmas splurge, you should be able to get one of the svelte devices from the iShops in either Caudan or Les Halles for MRU 38,000 to 42,000 depending on storage capacity.
Despite Research In Motion barely clinging to the ropes, with its assets now worth far less than its stock value, and co-CEO Lazaridis terrible public persona; he's probably an OK enough guy, but boy, does could he use better PR, industry pundits have yet to count RIM out totally out of the game. But recent revelations concerning delays in the new Blackberry operating system (QNX) for their hardware updated series 10 smart phones, have added more nails to RIM's already bristling coffin.
Finally, on top of all this disastrous news for the pioneering Canadian company, RIM are again being sued over trade mark violations, this time over the "BBM" trademark, amazingly by a fellow Canadian company! It seems the sharks are circling with both Microsoft and Nokia making takeover overtures and, given that RIM are now saying that the new series 10 phones won't be out until the second half of 2012, it seems only a matter of time, unless some miracle occurs, that RIM will disappear altogether.
Despite the pessimism, people are still buying Blackberrys and currently the best devices are thought to be the Blackberry Bold 9900 (GSM) 9930 (GSM+CDMA) and, for those on a more modest budget, the Blackberry Curve 9370. Blackberry smartphones are available from Courts and other stores in Mauritius.
Next week, we'll be talking tablets.
Read my blog at roymathur.com, follow me on Twitter @roymathur, e-mail your stories, comments and suggestions to roymathur@gmail.com
Chek Sa Tek!
Roy
Sources: Apple, Blackerry, CNET, Crackberry, Information Week, Macrumors, Samsung and Softpedia.