blaze

There are a few things I can say about the Samsung Galaxy S Blaze 4G. The Android Gingerbread phone might not be the most high end of all, but it offers a huge performance increase over the original Samasung Galaxy S phones, yet keeps the familiar design.

That 4-inch Samsung Super AMOLED screen is always a crowd pleaser (at least in my crowd of one); the 5-megapixel camera takes consistently good shots; there's a front-facing camera for video chats; and I have no complaints with the dual-core on-board processor. Even call quality behaved.

The single most worrisome issue I … Read more

CES was the first we heard of T-Mobile's Samsung Galaxy S Blaze 4G, and Mobile World Congress was the first time we got our hands on T-Mobile's latest 4G Android smartphone.

Today, T-Mobile is sharing the price and release date for its latest Android 2.3 Gingerbread phone. March 21 is the date for buying the phone in stores, and the phone will cost $149.99 after a $50 mail-in rebate and with your John Hancock on a two-year contract. If you prefer to pick up your smartphones online, you'll need to wait until March 28.

The phone with the mouthful of a name features a 4-inch Super AMOLED screen (with a 480x800-pixel WVGA resolution), a 1.5GHz dual-core Qualcomm processor, a 5-megapixel camera that can shoot 720p HD video, and a 1.3-megapixel front-facing camera.

You can find out more pros and cons in my hands-on review of the Samsung Galaxy S Blaze 4G.… Read more

In this edition of Ask Maggie, I offer some advice for buying a new smartphone that doesn't require a crane to hoist it up to your ear. And I explain why Nokia's new 41-megapixel technology is on such a lame OS.

Dear Maggie, I've been using the iPhone since it first came out and have not looked back until recently. Now I'm considering switching. But I've run into a huge problem, every new phone is too big for my personal taste.

I would like the latest greatest flagship device, but it seems that every manufacturer … Read more

BARCELONA, Spain--Samsung Galaxy S Blaze 4G: try saying it five times fast. Or better yet, just call it the "Blaze" like I do, and appreciate the simple pleasures of what is by today's standards your regular upper-mid smartphone.

T-Mobile and Samsung first announced the Blaze 4G at an intimate press gathering at CES; in fact, it was one of the last of the new handsets to be revealed. The unveiling was part of a larger speech delivered by T-Mobile USA CEO Philipp Humm promising that despite the proposed merger with AT&T going belly-up, T-Mobile would fight to regain relevance and 4G network spectrum--an ambition that spells out L-T-E.… Read more

As usual, Samsung was involved in a fair number of product announcements this past CES, but the Samsung Galaxy S Blaze 4G's debut proved the most hush-hush. T-Mobile executives announced it at a small, exclusive event to a knot of journalists, in almost the same breath as the carrier's mission statement to keep on fighting in the aftermath of the disintegrated merger with AT&T.

From such tinder comes more news of T-Mobile's Galaxy S Blaze 4G, including an official launch target--"late March"--and pricing: $149.99 after a $50 mail-in rebate card, … Read more

LAS VEGAS--T-Mobile USA may be down, but it's not out.

T-Mobile struck a defiant tone today and is making sure to be heard: At the Consumer Electronics Show the company unveiled its latest high-end smartphone, the Samsung Galaxy S Blaze 4G, Samsung Galaxy-class handset. It also said it has expanded its HSPA+ network, which it calls 4G, to 12 additional markets, and added mobile instant-messaging capabilities to its Internet-based Bobsled service.

Many questions remain on where T-Mobile goes after AT&T scrapped a deal to take over the carrier. The company has for months talked about its inability … Read more

BlazeMeter, a new cloud-based service for load and performance testing of Web apps, today announced $1.2 million in venture funding.

BlazeMeter--based on the Apache JMeter open-source project is a load-testing application designed to measure the response of putting demand on a system or device.

Load testing typically simulates heavy usage (among other things) to stress the Web application to see how it responds. The aim, of course, is to release into productions Web applications that don't break or degrade--two things that drive away users quickly.

BlazeMeter's founder and CEO Alon Grimonsky told CNET that he built … Read more

This past Sunday, after reporting on Anonymous' hack of BART's Web site and leak of user information from mybart.org, I started receiving messages on Twitter and elsewhere from sources purporting to be tied to Anonymous. They were all critical of the leak of personal info from mybart.org--pointing to dissent on Twitter and Anonymous IRC channels. "Just wanted you to know not all of Anon approves..." read one of the messages. Then today, it seems to have all become too much for one former Anonymous hacker.

Until now, he's gone by the handle "SparkyBlaze&… Read more

Blaze Mobile said today it had been awarded a patent for its mobile wallet and a sticker that lets consumers to wave their phones in front of a checkout reader to pay for goods.

Blaze was one of the early proponents of mobile payments, which has taken hold thanks to a strong push by the likes of Google, credit card issuers, handset manufacturers, and carriers. Blaze was also one of the first to embrace near-field communications technology, which enables tap-and-pay capability.

Blaze has sold an NFC sticker that would attach to the back of the phone and work in conjunction … Read more