Group items tagged

Samsung's

a date for the U.S. release

its hotly anticipated phone,

sold lavishly in foreign markets

r 5 million people worldwide

bought the flagship Android phone

85 days it has been on the market

one sold every 1.5 seconds,

Samsung

"a major product announcement"

an invitation to journalists early Friday

Galaxy S II

Aug. 29.

Galaxy S II by name,

The Galaxy is coming.

"It isn't rocket science to understand that it's the Galaxy S II announcement,"

It isn't an overstatement to say that the Samsung Galaxy S II is the strongest competition the iPhone faces.

sports a 4.3-inch, 800x480 screen, a 1.2-GHz processor, fast 4G network connectivity, and a sleek, simple design evocative of the iPhone. By contrast, the Apple iPhone 4  has a 3.5-inch, 960x640 screen, a 1-GHz processor, and a slower, 3G connection.

Bigger and faster?

Though it hasn’t gone on sale yet in the U.S.

Galaxy S II are copious

obscene.

24 days, the company sold 1 million units

The 2 million units sold in 42 days would fill two and a half soccer fields.

That's a lot of smartphones. But it's more than that: It's a lot of good smartphones,

"If the U.S. versions are anything like the international versions, these are going to be spectacular smartphones," he told FoxNews.com. Segan gave an international version of the phone an Editors' Choice award, calling it the finest Android smartphone available today.

Apple iPhone 5

he elephant in the room

he 3 million Galaxy S II phones sold in just over 50 days are as heavy as 100 elephants)

iPhone 5 is widely expected to be coming out in September, Segan noted.

And getting the right price could make all the difference for Samsung. "They don't want to be more expensive than the iPhone," Segan said.

But that 4G network connection may prove a major difference between the two. 

Unless Apple has made some sort of secret breakthrough, [the faster LTE network] might make a Verizon iPhone too thick and power-hungry for Apple's demands this year. Apple may skip it for now and wait for smaller and cooler chipsets," Segan noted.

That faster connection really pays off for anyone surfing a lot of complicated websites or viewing movies over Netflix, he said. 

But in the end, pricing, a final feature set and the design is all up to the carriers. "The mainstream price for a smartphone is $199 with contract," Segan noted. "We're all hoping for $199."