BARCELONA, MOBILE WORLD CONGRESS 2012 — Samsung seems to be obsessed with adding easy-to-break, easy-to-lose accessories to its “phones” and tablets. The two Notes come with tiny, disappearing styluses, and this monstrosity — the five-inch Wi-Fi-only Galaxy S — has an antenna. Yes, heft this slab in your palm and you’ll be whisked back to the early 1990s, when phones were the size of bricks, and you pulled the antenna out to make and receive calls.
The solution seems all the more inelegant when you remember that there’s a lot of plastic in the phablet’s construction, and that Wi-Fi is actually not too bad at getting through glass. Better yet, the ultra-skinny strip of metal is designed to pivot at its base, just like on a transistor radio. And unless you make sure you’re bending it the right way, that bend will turn into a snap.
Otherwise it is much the same as its younger 4.2-inch brother, with a 1GHz “powerful processor” running Android Gingerbread, and a slightly bigger 3.2MP camera. If you want to look like you’re using a Sony portable TV form the 1980s, this is the gadget for you.
Charlie Sorrel writes reviews and how-tos. Follow Charlie on Twitter at @mistercharlie, and at micro.blog on @mistercharlie
3 responses to “Samsung’s 5-Inch Wi-Fi Tablet Has An Antenna [MWC 2012]”
So is Samsung going Retro? Is that their new game changer? I thought we ditched rabbit ear antennas on cellphones long ago. I haven’t seen antennas on Smartphones in a long time with a Palm Treo being the last one I recall with a stick out antenna. Or even a Verizon VX636345345 model string (I made that number up).
Isn’t that a TV tuner antenna? It’s an important feature to consumers in Korea, Japan and Brazil. In Japan it’s on every phone and you can watch many TV channels in good quality and without depending on Wi-Fi
Soon you can insert FLOPPY DISK into a Samsung phone.