3G took its own sweet time to arrive in India but it seems the fourth generation successor will be out sooner than expected. Times of India reports that Reliance Industries will launch 4G services by mid-2012 along with attractively priced tablets.

While 4G-enabled tablets could go for a meager Rs. 3,000 price tag, Reliance will also look to offer 4G data cards to be used with notebooks.

4G as you’d expect will be much faster than 3G that will have data speeds of ranging from 50 to 100Mbps.

Samsung top executive recently confirmed in an interview that they’re planning to launch a 4G-toting tablet this year. Although there are no details as to what and how the tablet will look, we can expect it to be similar to current Galaxy Tab models.

Not a tablet fan? Well, Samsung also confirmed that the successor of the recently released Galaxy S II is already in development. Galaxy S III will be unveiled in the first half of next year, presumably at MWC.

[Via SamsungHub]

Samsung has finally unveiled MetroPCS’ first LTE phone – the Craft (SCH-r900). It’s the world’s first commercially available phone supporting LTE, multi-mode, CDMA networks. Samsung Craft goes for $299 after $50 instant rebate and features a 3.3-inch AMOLED touchscreen display, a sliding QWERTY keyboard, 3.2MP autofocus camera with panorama, mosaic shots support, Wi-Fi, GPS, Bluetooth and microSD card slot supporting up to 32GB.

The Craft however, will be bundled with a 2GB microSD card that will be preloaded with Paramount Pictures’ Star Trek.

As far as 4G LTE services are concerned, the service has gone live in Las Vegas (equipment supplied by Samsung Mobile USA) with plans starting from $55 per month.

Note: This post has been republished from Samsung Hub. For more Samsung news, head over to Samsung Hub.

Russia is developing a 4G phone that will apparently be restricted to Russian borders only. However, the phone’s uniqueness comes from the fact that it has two displays – one side sporting an e-ink display and other one having a regular LCD. The phone will be sold by Russian operator, Yota and is scheduled for release in 2011.

The image you’re seeing above is just a mockup of the device that was revealed by State Technology Minister Sergei Chemezov and President Dmitri Medvedev.

[Via Gizmodo]

Samsung had started selling its first USB-based 4G-only modems for TeliaSonera in December last year and promised to launch 2G/3G supporting modem in first half of 2010. Well, they’ve delivered it with the launch of GT-B3730 that will give the same blistering speeds while connected to a 4G network or 2G/3G in case of no 4G coverage.

Like the previous version, this USB modem is based on Samsung’s proprietary Kalmia chip and supports 2.6GHz. It supports 3G on 2100MHz whereas 2G/EDGE on 900MHz/1800MHz. As far as speed goes, 4G can give users a max download/upload speed of 100/50Mbps (megabits); 3G of 17/5.7Mbps; and 2G up to 296Kbps (kilobits).

The modem supports Windows operating systems as well as Mac OS X 10.5 and 10.6.

Note: This post has been republished from Samsung Hub. For more Samsung news, head over to Samsung Hub.

Looks like Sprint made a gaffe in reporting HTC EVO launch day sales records, by mistake. The original release stated that HTC EVO sold more than three times on its first day as compared to combined sales of Samsung Instinct and Palm Pre’s in the first three days. However, it turns out the sales on the launch day were in line with total number of Instinct and Pre sold in their first three days.

“We originally reported that the total number of HTC EVO 4G devices sold on launch day was three times the number of Samsung Instinct and Palm Pre devices sold over their first three days on the market combined. We inadvertently erred in the comparison. The total number of HTC EVO 4G devices sold on launch day was in line with the number of Samsung Instinct and Palm Pre devices sold over their first three days on the market combined.”

Sprint hasn’t released any official figure so we might not know how many EVOs they managed to exactly shift on the launch day.

Press Release

[Via Reuters]

MetroPCS has roped in Samsung to deploy LTE network in various metropolitan cities across United States. Samsung will not only provide MetroPCS with its commercial infrastructure network products, they’ll also have a phone, the SCH-r900 during the 4G roll out in the second half of 2010.

We don’t know how Samsung’s LTE device looks but we do know that it supports CDMA as well and features a 3MP camera and Bluetooth.

PS: The image above is from CTIA 2009 which looks to be a modified Omnia I900.

Note: This post has been republished from Samsung Hub. For more Samsung news, head over to Samsung Hub.

HTC’s oft-rumored Supersonic has finally become a reality. At the CTIA yesterday, HTC unwrapped the Sprint exclusive device. The phone will be known as Evo and its major selling point is the integration of the 4G radio, which will allow users to download large chunks of multimedia content at faster speeds than 3G.

The phone is no slouch in terms of specs too. It boasts a huge 4.3-inch WVGA touchscreen display, 1GHz Snapdragon processor, 512MB RAM, 1GB ROM, 8MP rear camera with dual LED flash and 720p video recording, 1.3MP front facing camera, 3.5mm headphone jack, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, FM Radio and microSD card slot.

The phone also comes with an updated version of Sense UI and an integrated app that allows the user to share its 4G connection with up to 8 Wi-Fi enabled devices.

Sprint hasn’t set the price but confirmed to launch in summer. Interested users can signup here.

When operators were willing to spend an arm and leg for 3G spectrum, the government was struggling to fix a base price and when government is ready, operators are thinking to give it a miss. An article in Business Line says that cellular operators are contemplating to skip 3G and instead go for 4G deployment expected in 2011. And if 4G or LTE (Long Term Evolution) arrives as expected, I think it makes more sense to skip 3G.

Operators’ rationale says that spectrum allocation will be done by August 2010 and services will be initiated in early 2011, which means 3G operators (there are 4 slots up for auction) won’t have enough time to recover their investment since LTE technology will be just around the corner.

The Indian government was expecting to rake in a healthy 250 billion rupees but if operators are not willing to adopt it, government’s projected cash reserves could go for a spin.

To give a gist, 3G and LTE technology offer high data speeds over-the-air. 3G is capable to give up to 14Mbit/s whereas LTE can give up to 100Mbit/s download speeds.

UPDATE: The network’s live in Oslo, Norway.

TeliaSonera has become the first operator in the world to commercially launch the 4G or LTE services in Stockholm, Sweden. It is touted as the largest deployment till date and is 10 times faster than HSDPA, giving about 100Mbps down speed.

LTE or Long Term Evolution is the next-gen mobile communication technology that allows to transfer heaps of data over-the-air at a fiber-like broadband speed.

Users can begin using the service by buying Samsung’s LTE USB dongle that is compliant with 3GPP LTE Rel-8 standard.

Press Release