Samsung has announced the new smartphone Samsung Galaxy R (GT-I9103) is now available for sale in some European countries and also in Russia.
The slightly cut down version of the Galaxy S2 was announced not so long ago, in the beginning of this month. In Samsung’s new naming convention, an “R” handset is a high-end device that comes just below the “S”.
The new handset is made of less expensive components, but this fact doesn’t prevent it to be still a very desirable smartphone.
The device has a suggested price of €450, but it is most likely to be closer to €400 via various mobile phone deals around offered by online retailers.
The Galaxy R is a dual-core device with specs that make it more powerful than most rival smartphones apart from ultra high-end handsets. The phone is equipped with a 1GHz ARM A9 CPU, 4.2″ 480 x 800 pixel display, a 5 megapixel camera on the back with 720p HD video capture, a 1.3 megapixel video calling camera, FM radio and all the usual Android features such as WiFi, 3.5G and GPS.
The dimensions of the device are 126x67x10mm and it weighs 132 grams. The battery is quite powerful, 1650 mAh, which is quoted as allowing nearly 10 hours of talktime and 23 days standby time. It is quite pleasant that Samsung is fitting larger capacity batteries as Android handsets are hungry for power.
It will not be surprising for us that most of you would prefer to go for the Galaxy S2 rather than the Galaxy R. But you don’t need to hurry up. Right at this moment Apple has a European-wide injunction, which blocks the sales of such devices as the Samsung Galaxy S2, Galaxy Ace and the original Galaxy S. And the Galaxy R is not covered by the injunction.
Initially Samsung was going to have quite a limited release of Galaxy R in Europe, but with an obvious gap in their product range it may well be that Samsung will ramp up production. The device is very close to the ”banned” phones in design and it may only be a matter of time for Apple to block this one too.
At this moment the countries that will get the Galaxy R are Russia, Turkey, and most of the European countries, some still pending.
Source : Mobile Gazette