Samsung is playing God with mobiles

Samsung is playing God with mobiles
Thorsten says: "Yes, she was a lovely pony. I loved her with all my heart. But there comes a time when you just want to ride a proper horse."

It's been a mixed ol' bag here over the past few days, with triumph, laughter, distress and what we thought was someone's water breaking but actually turned out to be spilt tea.

But you probably care as much about what happened to us as you do about 'Cupcakes gone wrong with Enrique Iglesias ' on Loose Women - so let's talk about more jovial things, such what's been going on with the world's mobile devices this week.

You'd think it was predictable that Samsung is nabbing headlines this week in the lead up to a Mobile World Congress, but when it's already told us that the cool thing we wanted (the Galaxy S3, OBVIOUSLY) isn't going to be there, colour us surprised that the brand is still being chatted about.

Perhaps only in whispered tones around the back of the internet, but it's solid gossip nonetheless.

LIFE!

The first part centres around the Galaxy Note – you know, that big isn't-a-phone-isn't-a-tablet-no-Samsung-it's-blatantly-a-big-phone that we all saw at IFA in 2011.

Well, that bad boy has been rebooted and scaled up to become the Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1, as confirmed in a 'Guide to Samsung Developer Day' at MWC 2012. We're sure you're asking the same questions: how the deuce is that any different to a tablet? Does that make the Note a tablet? Just how did Johnny Five manage to stay alive when all his battery power had run out?

We're sure the answers are coming – but with all this 'is it a tablet? Is it a phone?' nonsense flying around, we're not sure we really care.

DEATH!

Bad news for the Samsung Galaxy Nexus fan that simply can't stomach 16GB of internal storage: that's your lot, it seems.

The rumour mill was alive, ALIVE WE TELL YOU with word of a larger-capacity variant of the device landing any time soon. But then again, can a product that never existed really ever have been cancelled? Well, yes given there was a page on the Expansys website that now has 'Discontinued' written on it.

Word is that that Samsung is struggling to meet demand of the 16GB version and therefore canned the larger one – but we're so distraught we're thinking of giving up the internet.

Other things that happened this week

Apparently in 2016 there will be more connections than people on the planet. Assuming there will still be a number of people not using any form of internet, that means there will be some that have 16 active data streams in use at any one time.

These people will still be using cyber-hacking alter egos and will believe themselves to be 'the One'.

And think you're cool for sending more than 12 messages in a single week? Think again, lame-o-text-o, as Fred Lidgren sent out 566,607 messages in one month.

We don't want to go down the route of making comedy speculations over what he was doing (not least because there's clearly no notion of anything resembling comedy here) but it's highly plausible he was texting everyone he knew to ask 'I can't remember, what was the old currency in Germany?' and had a grand old time discussing it.

Mobile phones… and unicorns?

Ever lost a mobile phone? Know somebody that does? Well, show them this video. It might not make them feel better, but it will be slightly relevant to their plight.

We've run out of things to say now… and to be honest, there's a flagon of ale waiting that won't drink itself. So if you need us, head on over to @TR_Phones and @TR_tablets. We'll see you there.

Gareth Beavis
Formerly Global Editor in Chief

Gareth has been part of the consumer technology world in a career spanning three decades. He started life as a staff writer on the fledgling TechRadar, and has grown with the site (primarily as phones, tablets and wearables editor) until becoming Global Editor in Chief in 2018. Gareth has written over 4,000 articles for TechRadar, has contributed expert insight to a number of other publications, chaired panels on zeitgeist technologies, presented at the Gadget Show Live as well as representing the brand on TV and radio for multiple channels including Sky, BBC, ITV and Al-Jazeera. Passionate about fitness, he can bore anyone rigid about stress management, sleep tracking, heart rate variance as well as bemoaning something about the latest iPhone, Galaxy or OLED TV.