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Samsung Withholding Vibrant Update in Favor of Vibrant 4G Push

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In what is being described as a hostage situation at AndroidSPIN, a tipster has informed the blog that Samsung is withholding the already finalized Android 2.2 update to the original T-Mobile Samsung Vibrant for the U.S. carrier in hopes of pushing aggressive sales and updates to the slightly updated Vibrant 4G hardware, which was recently leaked.

Some disturbing things have happened the last week or so concerning our “Vibrant”. Samsung has NOT allowed us to push the update OTA for 2.2 because they feel it will decrease the value of the upcoming Vibrant4G +. While from a marketing aspect i totally understand, as the Vibrant 4G is what the original Vibrant should have been in the 1st place. But to shun off and bold face lie to customers is NOT what T-Mobile is about.

The original Vibrant is a variant of Samsung’s popular Galaxy S smartphone that was adopted by T-Mobile USA. The device launched with Android 2.1 along with Samsung’s TouchWiz user interface overlay on top. The phone-maker did promise that an upgrade for Android 2.2, also known as Froyo, would be forthcoming and rumor had it that Froyo would make it by the end of 2010 with Adobe Flash 10.1 Mobile support, but so far that has not happened.

With the Vibrant 4G being so similar to the original Vibrant, the conspiracy theory may have some merit as Samsung may not want to cannibalize sales of a higher-end device, which may occupy a more expensive price point in T-Mobile’s lineup compared to the original Vibrant, which may be discounted.

New features of the Vibrant 4G, in addition to the rumored launch with Android 2.2 Froyo, would include a front-facing camera for video calls and video chat along with 4G support for up to 21 Mbps download speeds.

With T-Mobile pushing its network speeds, the original Vibrant may see some enhanced speed benefits, though it may not take full advantage of the 21 Mbps 4G speeds of the Vibrant 4G.

We have already put it out there that most of out devices would see a speed boost with the new network. Just the Vibrant will see a bit more. So I dont see why that is such a huge surprise to your readers. But not full 4G.

4 Comments

4 Comments

  1. Joe

    01/13/2011 at 9:57 pm

    Where’s T-Mobile in all this?!? Don’t they get a say as to what version we get?? I guess my next phone *WONT* be from T-Mobile, if they are always going to be dead-last on the current release list!!

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