Korea Economic Daily is reporting that the Samsung Galaxy S III has received over 9 million pre-orders from 100 carriers around the world. This information comes courtesy of a Samsung official who remains anonymous. Whichever way you look at it, that's an impressive figure. We knew the Galaxy S III was going to sell big but these numbers are much higher than what we would have bet on. It's predecessor, the Galaxy S II, took 10 months to ship 20 million units and the Galaxy S III took two weeks to reach almost half of that. Also, these are pre-order figures, not shipments, and are almost as good as actual sales figures. Looks like Samsung has another winner on their hands. Obviously, this does not bode well for rivals such as HTC and LG. And even though this figure is nowhere close to the iPhone 4S pre-orders, Apple should be feeling the heat as well, especially considering the 9 million figure excludes Apple's key market, the US of A.

Samsung keeps extending its Duos lineup and today we learned the popular Galaxy Ace is the next smartphone to grow an extra radio. The Samsung Galaxy Ace Duos went official for the Indian market.

You should keep in mind that the Duos part here doesn’t mean a second SIM slot as it does on most other Samsung devices. Instead, the Samsung Galaxy Ace Duos will come with GSM and CDMA support, making it a truly global phone. You can still have two subscription plans with this one, but only if your country has both CDMA and GSM carriers.

The Samsung Galaxy Ace Duos will be mostly identical to the original Galaxy Ace, but it will get a larger battery to make up for the second radio. Instead of the 1350 mAh unit found in the original Galaxy Ace, the Galaxy Ace Duos will have a 1650 mAh Li-Ion battery. It’s unclear if the new battery will be compatible with the original smartphone, though.

The Samsung Galaxy Ace Duos will retail for INR16,900, which translates to about €260 or $340. We don’t know if Samsung has any plans of bringing the smartphone to Europe or America, but we should learn more about the company’s plans soon enough

Adding to the litany of Galaxy S II models comes another one. This one is exclusive to Japan and has WiMAX onboard and will be sold through au by KDDI.

The Galaxy S II ISW11SC has a 4.7-inch Super AMOLED HD display with a resolution of 1280 x 720 pixels, 1.4GHz dual-core Qualcomm QSC6085 processor, 8 megapixel rear camera with 1080p video recording, 2 megapixel front camera, 16GB internal memory, expandable memory, Wi-Fi 802.11a/b/g/n, Bluetooth 3.0 and NFC.

The news that Samsung has almost completed the development of the white Galaxy Nexus broke yesterday, but we only get the first actual photos of the smartphone now.

As it turns out the white Galaxy Nexus won’t be completely repainted (as was our yesterday’s mockup) and its front panel will remain black. The back and the sides is where all the whitening action happened with the camera module ending up silver rather than snow-white.

Leaving the image aside, there’s not much new information about the white version. It’s still expected to come in the first days of February (February 6 is the most frequently mentioned date) and cost as much as its black sibling (which is actually gray if we have to be pedantic).

Samsung has just announced the successor of its highly popular Galaxy Ace Android smartphone. The successor of the mid-range device is dubbed Samsung Galaxy Ace Plus and improves several key aspects of its hardware.

The Samsung Galaxy Ace Plus comes with a faster, 1GHz, CPU, 3GB storage and more RAM than its predecessor – 512MB. The Ace Plus also sports a marginally larger HVGA LCD – it measures 3.65″ in diagonal compared to the 3.5″ of the original Galaxy Ace. The exterior of the smartphone also got redesigned and it’s now made of glossy rather than matte plastic.

The rest of the Samsung Galaxy Ace Plus hardware is pretty much on par with the firs Galaxy Ace. You get a 5 megapixe autofocus camera with LED flash, dual-band 3G with 7.2 Mbps HSDPA, Wi-Fi, GPS, 3.5mm audio jack and a standard microUSB port.

The internal storage is expandable through the microSD card slot, while the Bluetooth version is 3.0.

Unfortunately, there’s no information about the Samsung Galaxy Ace Plus pricing and availability at this stage.

Galaxy S users waiting for the Value Pack from Samsung are in for a disappointment. A company spokesperson has just confirmed that Samsung has dropped the plans to release the update.

As you may know, Samsung initially declined upgrading the popular Galaxy S smartphone to ICS last year, stating the lack of space on the phone as the reason. Later on they said that they will look into it, only to come back a while later and say that it’s not going to happen after all. They did, however, promise a “Value Pack”, which was supposed to add some useful features to the Galaxy S, found in ICS.

But now, even that’s not going to happen. Once again, Samsung claims that the hardware is not capable of running the new software while staying clear of making any more promises that they cannot keep. So it seems that the Galaxy S users are going to be stuck on Gingerbread for the rest of their lives, assuming they stick to the official channel.

Samsung has announced that they will be launching the pink colored variant of the popular Galaxy S II smartphone in Taiwan. This shade has been in sale for a while now in Korea but this is the first time it is making an appearance in Taiwan.

The phone will go on sale starting January 1, 2012 and will cost TWD 21,900 (USD 722). Other than the color, the phone is identical to other Galaxy S II phones, wherein it has the same 4.3-inch Super AMOLED Plus display, 1.2GHz dual-core processor, 1GB of RAM, 8 megapixel camera with 1080p video, 1,650mAh battery and Android 2.3 Gingerbread.

Last week Samsung released the Android 4.0.1 custom ROM for the Galaxy S II for those eager to try it out on their devices before the official update starts rolling out sometime next year. The second version of that ROM has now been released.

It is still version 4.0.1 and not the latest 4.0.3 that Google released, although in Samsung’s defense it was just released and since this ROM was created on December 8, there was no way they could have had the latest version, although we expect the future ROM updates to run the latest version of Android.

According to SamMobile.com this update is faster but still has some bugs in it and runs the TouchWiz skin on top, but that’s not very surprising.

To download the custom ROM (assuming you know what you’re doing), click on the source link below.

Google is on a roll with the Ice Cream Sandwich updates for the Galaxy Nexus. After releasing the 4.0.2 update for the LTE version of the Galaxy Nexus, the have now released the same update to its GSM sibling as well. This update brings the same changes as the one on the LTE version and is 8.7MB in size.

But that’s not all. Google has also announced the upcoming 4.0.3 update for the Galaxy Nexus, which includes bug fixes, performance updates and new APIs for the developers that includes social stream API in Contacts provider, Calendar provider enhancements, improved access to camera features and improvement to accessibility features.

Google also wants 4.0.3 as the base version of Ice Cream Sandwich to be used by Android handset manufacturers. The update is said to be made available in the coming weeks.

We knew that the Galaxy Y, among other smartphones, will be offered in white for the Christmas holidays in Germany, but now the white Galaxy Y has appeared in the UK as well.

The black version of the phone has been on offer for a few months, but Phones4U has the white one on a few different offers. You can get it on a Pay As You Go plan for £79.95 (approx. €95) or for free on various plans for carriers such as O2, Orange, Vodafone and T-Mobile.

But before heading over to the source link for more pricing information be sure to check out our in-depth review of the Samsung Galaxy Y.

Phones4U also offers some other phones in white – like the Galaxy S II and the Galaxy Ace, if you’re looking for a higher-end snow-colored droid by Samsung.

If you were worried about the battery life on the Galaxy Nexus then you can stop worrying, at least if you’re in Korea. Because Samsung has decided to treat its motherland with an extended battery pack.

The Korean version of the Galaxy Nexus will not only come with the standard 1,750mAh battery but also an extra, 2,000mAh battery along with a separate battery cover to accommodate the larger battery.

In comparison the Galaxy Nexus in Europe comes with only the 1,750mAh battery whereas the US version will have a bigger 1,850mAh battery and also a slightly different (read: Thicker) design. Hard to say who got the short end of the stick; the Europeans who got the smallest battery or the Americans who haven’t even got the phone yet.

It’s likely though that Samsung will provide the larger battery along with the special battery cover as an option in other markets.

US, Europe and Australia may be one of the lucky countries to get LTE but there are still a lot left that are bereft of this amazing new technology and one of them, surprisingly, is Japan, one of the most technologically advanced countries in the world.

But that is about to change now as Japan’s NTT DoCoMo has launched the Samsung Galaxy S II LTE in the country, which will be the first phone to be officially launched with LTE on-board. Although NTT DoCoMo did have LTE network in the country since last year, they did not actually have any devices that would make use of it till now.

With this new handset, the carrier expects to compete against the new iPhone that the other two carriers in Japan offer. The Galaxy S II LTE will be priced at ¥20,000 ($258) and come with a two-year contract.

Hide your kids! Hide your wife! But more importantly, hide your wallet! Because the Galaxy Nexus has just hit US stores and it ain’t cheap.

Currently, we are only hearing about one retailer in the US named Expansys USA who claims to have the device in stock. The phone will be sold unlocked to anyone willing to part $750 of their hard-earned (or otherwise) cash and will work on AT&T and T-Mobile network.

That is quite a steep price but not for those who just can’t wait any longer and don’t have a problem spending that kind of money on a device that, let’s face it, will be outmoded when the next big thing in the Android world comes out, like, say, the Galaxy S III. Which will be just a few months from now.

Of course, you do have an option to wait for the Verizon version of the phone. Which should be out, one of these days. Probably.

If you’d rather buy it now, click the source link below.

If you live in Germany and have been waiting for a white colored version of Samsung’s latest Android smartphones then you’re in luck. Because this Christmas Samsung will be making your wish come true.

Samsung has announced that they will be launching white colored versions of some of their recent Android smartphones in Germany. This includes the Galaxy Y, Galaxy Ace, Galaxy S II, Galaxy S Plus and the Galaxy Note.

Apart from the new color scheme though, there is not much else new on these devices, with both the specifications and the pricing remaining the same.

After the successful collaboration with Giorgio Armani on the special edition of Galaxy S, Samsung is now friends again with Hugo Boss as back in the days of Samsung F480. The fruit of the their new cooperation is the Galaxy Ace Hugo Boss edition.

After taking a look at it you can clearly see why Samsung and Hugo Boss dub this device as being specially tailored to the lifestyle of the fashion brand’s customers. The smartphone has a matte black finish abd the back cover has been given special treatment from the designers over at Hugo Boss.

But the modifications don’t stop on the outside. The Ace Hugo Boss also features special wallpapers to make your Hugo Boss stand out from the crowd of Samsung Aces even further.

Samsung Ace Hugo Boss official photos

Unfortunately, that’s about the changes the special collaboration between the two companes brings to the table. Hardware-wise, the Ace Hugo Boss has not changed a bit from the original. The smartphone still features a 3.5-inch 320×480 pixels screen, 800MHz single-core processor, 5MP autofocus camera and the usual Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and microSD slot found on most Android smartphones.

Happily though, the Samsung Ace Hugo Boss runs Android 2.3.3 Gingerbread and will be available pretty soon at selected Hugo Boss stores as well as on their website. There’s no official pricing but we spotted a store that has it for about 280 euros taxes included. If you can afford Hugo Boss costumes, that sort of cash should be pocket money to you.

The original Samsung Galaxy S resigned from the role of a flagship quite some time ago, but it’s good to know that it’s still getting good treatment by its maker. Samsung just started seeding the Android 2.3.5 update to the I9000 units in the UK, or at least to those of them who didn’t already get it by the dark means of manually flashing one of the leaked ROMs.

The changelog includes a batch of bugfixes to the system apps, some performance tweaks and the stock Gingerbread glow when you reach the end of a list. The messaging app got some improvements as well and it should now launch and operate much faster.

Battery life should also see an improvement after the update as Samsung have done some work to optimize the power consumption of the smartphone.

The update is said to wipe your apps and data so you’d to well to back them up before starting. And don’t forget to drop a line in the comments, saying how are you liking your Galaxy S after the update.

Samsung has announced that they will be releasing an update for the popular Galaxy S II smartphone that will increase the size of the on-screen application icons by 30 percent.

UI after update on the left. Current UI on the right.

This means that after the update the homescreen will show just three icons at the bottom and even the application menu grid will be reduced to a 3×3 grid.

While we don’t know the exact reason for this, it’s not hard to imagine what it could be. Currently, Apple is in a legal battle with Samsung for copying the trade dress of the iPhone. After applying this update, the Galaxy S II UI will share very few similarities with the iPhone’s UI, making Apple’s complaint almost a non-issue.

Another change that this update will bring is a System Update widget. It will inform you of the current version of the software and if there are any new updates available.

The update should be available to Galaxy S II owners soon. Hopefully, the icon size change will be optional, as it seems like a waste of good display space that some users might like to keep.