Without a doubt, one of the most reviled and revered mobile devices of this past year has been theGalaxy Sline, fromSamsung. It seems that, beyond Motorola’s DROID line, the Galaxy S was the phone that really took Android mainstream. So how does Samsung top itself? The Galaxy S II, of course. The II runs Android 2.3.3 (at the moment) on a 4.27-inch 480×800Super AMOLEDPlus display. While Super AMOLED can look amazing, I wasn’t really impressed with the original ones in the Galaxy S line....

I’ll be honest, I wasn’t a big fan of the the original Samsung Galaxy S. Its Google-sanctioned variant, theNexus S, didn’t really excite me either. Despite being slim and light, they both felt cheap and plasticky to hold. This ended up making them feel more like toys than serious smartphones. However, with the Galaxy S II, I think the Korean electronics giant has won me over. This video is no in-depth look at the device, but it does accurately reflect my excitement as I first played with a device that takes the original S and hones it into something a little more refined....

Yesterday at a private, all-day press event, Microsoft laid bare much of Windows 8. TNW was in attendance, and along with every other invited publication was lent a tablet running a developer preview of Windows 8. Though we have had scant time to test the device, our experiences thus far have allowed us to form some rather solid opinions as to what Microsoft is building, and whether the market will share the company’s enthusiasm for what it has created....

The NDA is over: let’s talk about Mango. Over the past week I have been in the possession of a Samsung Focus running a mostly functioning version of the Windows Phone 7 update generally called ‘Mango.’ No, I didn’t find it in a bar, Microsoft mailed it to me. And no, you can’t touch it. The phones that Microsoft lent out for testing do not contain a full Mango build, but are instead running a mostly complete edition....

If you’re aGowallafan, this is going to win your heart. If you’re not a Gowalla fan, you might just become one. The check-in cum discovery service has just upgraded its Android version and you can really tell that the team has spent some time making the app right. First off, you have to know whether you’d use it. If you’re like me, you don’t use location services because there’s just no payoff....