Watch out Apple, Samsung means business with the Galaxy Tab. I wouldn’t mind owning one of these.

Samsung unveiled the Galaxy Tab during an electronics fair in Berlin. Instead of calling it a tablet, Samsung is calling the Galaxy Tab a smart media device.

The Galaxy Tab runs Android 2.2 with a 1Ghz Cortex A8 processor, 512MB RAM, and either 16 or 32 GB of internal memory upgradable through microSD cards.

Furthermore it features a 7″ TFT-LCD screen capable of 1024×600 resolution, 2 cameras, one a 3-megapixel with flash at the the back and the other a 1.3-megapixel front facing camera for video calling. Connectivity include WiFi and 3G.

Samsung claims that the Galaxy Tab will be capable of 7 hours battery life during movie playback, supporting a variety of formats like DivX, XviD, MPEG4, H.263 and H.264.

The Galaxy Tab will be available from October through Vodafone in Europe, so there might just be hope for us South Africans to get our hand on this soon, perhaps before the iPad is available in South Africa.

With the relaunch of Cell C’s branding the company also announced that they will be launching a brand new 4G network capable of broadband speeds of up to 21Mbps.

Cell C is already advertising its new HSPA+ packages on its website, currently seems like there will be 2 packages available, one with a maximum speed of 7.2 Mbps and another with a maximum speed of 21.6 Mbps.

The two broadband offerings from Cell C comes in way bellow that of MTN and Vodacom working out R63 and R50 per GB respectively.

1. 7.2 Mbps capable modem with 2GB worth of data every month for 12 months at only R1499
2. 21.6 Mbps capable modem with 5GB worth of data every month for 12 months at only R2999

Availability of these new Cell C broadband packages will be made public later this week.

• Screen clarity and colours are just amazing
• Camera takes pretty decent quality pics
• Bada may just be errm… amazing
• Browser seems to pixelize web page images
• Asks me for sim card to be able to use Twitter client, guess you wont use a phone without a sim.

The new BlackBerry App World introduces new ways for South Africans to buy premium paid apps through all major credit cards like Master Card, Visa and American Express. In addition to credit card payments, users also have to option to pay for their apps through PayPal.

Apart from the payment methods, BlackBerry has also added tabbed list sections, allowing users to simply swipe across the screen to view the latest application, top free application, top paid applications, top themes and recently updated applications.

The BlackBerry App World 2.0 also features a build in QR code scanner to enable users to gain quick access to application download pages by simply scanning codes on the web or magazines.

To get your hand on the new BlackBerry App World 2.0 visit mobile.blackberry.com or www.blackberry.com/appworld if you have not yet received the update prompt.

For those of you interested in whats going on under the hood of the Nokia N8, here is a more detailed breakdown:

So what do you think? Is this the phone you are waiting to get your hands on?

My initial impression was WOW, carved from a solid block of anodised aluminium the Nokia N8 has it in the bag when it comes to looks, sleek with curved edges and available in nice bright colours.

The Nokia N8 certainly means business when it comes to multimedia, the 12 megapixel wide-angle lens camera takes brilliant snapshots, even in low light conditions and through windows the quality of the pictures did not disappoint through the large 3.5″ AMOLED screen. The 12 megapixel camera also enables the N8 to records videos at 720p at 25 frames per second.

The one thing that really impressed me about the Nokia N8 was the fact that it had a mini-HDMI port, allowing you to just plug your N8 straight into your HD TV with the supplied HDMI cable to view all your photos and video in its full HD glory.

But wait, there’s more. Yes Nokia has decided that giving you 16GB internal memory is not enough, so they added this nice new feature that allows you to plug in a USB drive or stick into the N8 through the provided mini-USB to USB cable and allows you to transfer files between the phone and USB device or even play media directly from the USB device. What this basically means is you can use your Nokia N8 as a home multimedia device when combined with the HDMI out.

The N8 is also the fist phone that runs the all new Symbian 3, I must admit I have never been a huge fan of Symbian but must say that Symbian 3 really stack up against the likes of Android and IOS. Symbian 3 on the Nokia N8 has also reverted to a homescreen approach such as Android and Apple have done. The new Symbian gives you 3 homescreens to customise as you please with the options of adding widgets, folders and shortcuts.

Obviously the N8 is not all play, with support for exchange, Office and PDF documents it is certain to appeal to the business man with style also.

The Nokia N8 should be available early October in South Africa, and you can expect it to retail for about R5500. Nokia will also sell 1500 units from their Ringaz blog for those that really want to claim to be the first to own a Nokia N8 in South Africa.

The I8910 Omnia HD features a 3.7″ AMOLED display ensuring that all things multimedia looks absolutely brilliant on the device. And when you have a 8 Megapixel camera capable of recording 720p HD Ready video you are sure to need a bright and colour rich screen like this.

The Samsung I8910 was the first phone that was capable of recording 720p HD Ready video, yet it never catched on as a must have device.

The 8 Megapixel camera on the I8910 is capable of taking gorgeous snapshots, even some closeup tests rendered crisp and clear images. The camera comes with all sorts of features, one that stood out to me was the panoramic setting that allows you to take 180 degree panoramic photos by just turning 180 degrees with the phone in your hand automatically taking a few snapshots and then auto stitching them together to render a seamless panoramic scene.

Another sign that the Samsung I8910 is built for multimedia is its support for video formats. Out of the box the I8910 supports DivX format allowing you to watch any DivX or XVid compressed video on the device, I tested it out with an episode of IT Crowd and playback was smooth and in sync. If I was on the go I could easily watch my series on the 3.7″ AMOLED screen.

Although the Samsung Omnia HD has all these great multimedia capabilities, one thing that kind of annoyed me was the interface. Me being used to Android now, I found it hard to get used to the Symbian OS on the I8910. That aside, I still think the interface is simple to operate, maybe too simple and that may be why I am not liking it and other power users will also.

The Samsung I8910 Omnia HD runs an ARM Cortex A8 600 MHz CPU with PowerVR SGX graphics to power that HD video playback and 3D games. It also features 7.2Mbps HSDPA, b/g WiFi and Bluetooth for all your networking needs and a Li-Ion 1500 mAh battery capable of 600 h standby time on 2G and 13 h 30 min talk time on 2G.

My conclusion, the Samsung I8910 Omnia HD is a superb multimedia phone, capable taking clear high resolution photos and HD Ready video with its 8 Megapixel auto focus camera and built in flash. Gaming graphics on the device is also superb and not to mention the DivX / XVid support. My wife loved this phone and if you are just like her and into photos and videos and like to take snaps on the go then this is the phone for you.

One thing where this phone could have been improved was perhaps with the operating system, but then again that is just me. If you are used to Symbian then it gives you just more reason to like it, I on the other hand would have loved to have Android run on this baby, luckily there is the Samsung Galaxy S out now.

All in all the Samsung I8910 gets my thumbs up as a superb multimedia device for people on the move.

Here is the specials currently going on at MTN for the month of August 2010:

As far as I know there is no pay-in fee for any of the above phones and the price is the monthly over a period of 24 months. The MTN 200 package includes R200 worth of airtime.

I am glad to see that Samsung is coming to the party with their new Galaxy S and Wave phones and at such a cheap prices. Please note that the N8 is only on pre-order atm and will only be available in September.

[Thanks Gerhardt Fourie]

The Nokia Ovi App Wizard enables anybody to create Nokia Ovi applications without the need of any programming language knowledge. The concept is pretty simple, although you can’t do all the fancy things like you can do with App Inventor for Android it is still useful.

Ovi App Wizard works by taking RSS feeds and transforming it into an application, users can then upload logos, change colour schemes and even add advertising if they wish. It supports multiple RSS feeds so adding your blog and twitter accounts into one application is very simple.

The Ovi App Wizard is already being used by many local developers, even media giant News24 has adopted it and created applications for News24, Channel24, Sport24, Wheels24 and Fin24.

I tested out the Ovi App Wizard this morning and must say I am really impressed with the simplicity and ease it was to create an Ovi application for iGeek, currently the application is waiting approval so keep an eye out for the iGeek Ovi application soon.

If you are interested in trying your hand at creating your own Ovi application I would recommend giving the Ovi App Wizard a try, its free and easy to set up.