Samsung at IFA 2013: Galaxy Gear, Note 3, and more – The Verge

Samsung promises over 70 apps for Galaxy Gear, these are the first 12

2013-09-05T07:58:01-04:00

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Now that Samsung has finally announced the Galaxy Gear, you've probably made up your mind on whether it's beautiful or hideous. What you probably don't have a great grasp of is what apps will be available on the smartphone, and how they'll work. We had a brief preview of Pocket for Galaxy Gear yesterday; it offers a complimentary experience to the Android app, effectively functioning as a remote control for the phone version. You can ask your phone to read an article aloud to you, favorite articles, or archive them, and that's about it. Other Gear apps are a little more ambitious.

Facebook and Twitter haven't announced any plans to make Gea …

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Galaxy Note 3 first phone to feature ugly new Micro USB 3 port

2013-09-05T05:07:22-04:00

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With all the news coming from its big event yesterday, Samsung glazed over the importance of one new feature of its Galaxy Note 3 - it's the first phone we know of that uses USB 3.0. The benefits of the switch to the more modern standard are two-fold. The obvious plus for USB 3.0 is that it offers far faster data rates, potentially increasing the speed of transferring music, videos, and photos to and from your phone. "Potential" is an important word here: the speeds you'll actually achieve will depend on the quality of the storage Samsung has included in the Galaxy Note 3.

Another less obvious benefit is you'll be able to charge your phone …

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Watch this: Samsung Unpacked in under four minutes

2013-09-04T17:15:54-04:00

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Did you miss Samsung's Unpacked event? Let's catch you up in about 212 seconds. For all things Note 3, Note 10.1, the Galaxy Gear smartwatch… and of course the S Pen. So many 'S' things, in fact. And those glasses! Oh, those glasses!

(Looking for something a bit longer? Check out our replay of The Verge Live: Samsung and Sony at IFA.)

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Pocket for Galaxy Gear gives a glimpse of how apps will work on Samsung’s smartwatch

2013-09-04T14:08:27-04:00

Galaxy Gear apps

Revealing its new Galaxy Gear today, Samsung proudly announced the smartwatch will have 70 apps available to users at launch. What it hasn't shown us in detail yet is how third-party apps will look and function. The popular read later service Pocket has just announced that it'll be among the first to support Galaxy Gear with a short preview of it's new app.

The Pocket app for Galaxy Gear will work in conjunction with the regular Android app, letting you have text read aloud to you through a text-to-speech function without taking out your phone. You'll also be able to favorite and archive articles straight from the watch. The Pocket app wil …

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Samsung’s Galaxy Gear is a smartwatch like no other

2013-09-04T13:30:05-04:00

Samsung Galaxy Gear (verge stock)

The Galaxy Gear, Samsung's latest foray into the smartwatch category, is now official and it's quite unlike anything you've seen before. Yes, it's a smartphone accessory that can pick up notifications, control music playback, and keep time with a rich variety of watch faces, but Samsung takes it a few steps further by integrating a 1.9-megapixel camera, a speaker, and two microphones - allowing you to shoot short 720p movies and even conduct phone calls with the Galaxy Gear.

It's not a standalone phone, but you can use it to make phone calls

Importantly, the Galaxy Gear is not a phone in its own right - it relies on a Bluetooth connection to …

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Samsung’s new Galaxy Note 10.1 is a high-res tablet that syncs with the Gear smartwatch

2013-09-04T13:30:05-04:00

Gallery Photo: Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 2014 edition hands-on photos

While last year's Galaxy Note 10.1 featured a 1280 x 800 display, Samsung is opting for a high-resolution screen this time around. At IFA today the company is announcing what it calls the 2014 edition of the Galaxy 10.1-inch, complete with a 2560 x 1600 display. The screen is identical to Samsung's own Nexus 10, providing a high-density alongside Android 4.3, all of Samsung's software customizations, and its S-Pen stylus.

The Nexus 10 may have improved upon the display of last year's Note 10.1, but the latest 2014 edition goes a step further with its hardware specifications. The new Note 10.1 will use Samsung's own 8-core Octa chip running at …

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Samsung’s Galaxy Note 3 is bigger, faster, thinner, and lighter, but is it any better?

2013-09-04T13:30:05-04:00

samsung galaxy note 3

Samsung's made an annual tradition of introducing a new Galaxy Note at Berlin's IFA trade show and this year's no different. The Galaxy Note 3 sticks close to the winning formula: it enlarges the Super AMOLED display of the Note II to 5.7 inches, adds a bombastic 3GB of RAM and a 2.3GHz quad-core processor, raises the camera resolution to 13 megapixels, and simultaneously trims the fat so it can be a millimeter thinner at 8.3mm and a shade lighter at 168g. Those incremental upgrades all point to a better device, but only marginally so - Samsung's hopes for attracting new buyers to its Note platform rest on a suite of new stylus-friendly soft …

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Samsung unveils new Galaxy Note 10.1 2014 Edition

2013-09-04T13:13:29-04:00

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Samsung has just revealed its latest revision of the Galaxy Note 10.1 tablet here at IFA 2013. Dubbed the "2014 Edition," Samsung's latest tablet measures just 7.9 millimeters thick and is billed as the "ultimate productivity" device. It's also seen an uptick in resolution compared to the previous model, now featuring a a high-res 2560 x 1600 display. In fact, it's basically identical to the panel we've previously seen on Google's Nexus 10, which of course is manufactured by Samsung. That's about where the hardware similarities end, though.

The 2014 Note 10.1 carries Samsung's 8-core Octa chipset clocked at 1.9GHz with a class-leading 3GB o …

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Samsung announces the Galaxy Gear smartwatch

2013-09-04T13:11:23-04:00

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After giving as an accidental glimpse prior to today's big event, Samsung has finally revealed its new smartwatch, the Galaxy Gear. First impressions: it's big, but up on stage at IFA today it looks very little like the prototype watch VentureBeat leaked last week. The basic shape is the same, but, despite having a huge 1.63-inch 320 x 320 AMOLED display up front, it's a lot more svelte than the leak may have led you to believe.

The Galaxy Gear's front is dominated by that display, which is framed, unusually for Samsung, in metal. Its strap appears to be made of rubber, and, just as the leaks suggested, there's a camera built into the strap …

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Samsung unveils the Galaxy Note 3 with larger screen, faux-leather back

2013-09-04T13:09:36-04:00

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Samsung has just announced a redesigned Galaxy Note 3 with a slimmer design and larger screen. Though the phone's front looks similar to its predecessors, Samsung has made some tweaks to the design, covering the plastic back with an apparent faux-leather finish in three colors, adding a metallic sheen to the plastic sides, and redesigning the S Pen. The screen has grown to 5.7 inches from the Note II's 5.3, and it weighs in at a slightly lighter 168g. It's 8.3mm, about a millimeter thinner than its predecessor, with 3GB of RAM, a 2.3GHz quad-core processor on its LTE model - another 3G version will use a 1.9GHz octocore processor - and a 13- …

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