Samsung Galaxy SII

Samsung Galaxy SII, UK Galaxy SII users continued to wait for Android 4.0, but Samsung has at least begun the roll-out process with a few European countries now able to download the update

Samsung has finally begun fitting Galaxy SII smartphones with Android 4.0, with users in Korea, Hungary, Poland and Sweden the first to get their hands on that tasty Ice Cream Sandwich.

Following widespread, but eventually unfounded, speculation that the blockbusting Android phone would be updated on March 10th, Samsung waited another two days before unleashing features like Face Unlock, along with the heavily-refined UI and improved homescreen widgets.

In a post on the official Samung Tomorrow blog, the company announced the update, along with the ‘gradual roll out’ for the rest of the territories, which means we’re still unsure when it will be arriving in the UK.

Samsung Galaxy S

Samsung Galaxy S, There’s a new Samsung Galaxy S II around the corner, though it’s not the previously rumored Galaxy S II Plus. It’s (quite unintuitively) called the Galaxy S II v2, or at least that’s what one retailer chose to call it. There’s absolutely no difference between this unit and the ‘vanilla’ Galaxy S II, save for the fact that the processor of the new version is manufactured by Texas Instruments, and not Samsung. It’s still clocked at 1.2 GHz, and it’s still a dual-core unit. It’s just a TI part (unknown number, but it’s safe to assume that it’s the same as that found in the Samsung Galaxy Nexus).

Cyberport, a German retailer, has already started taking pre-orders for this new Galaxy S II, which it priced at €469.90. Shipping is expected to begin on March 15.

The probable reason for this launch is that Samsung simply can’t make enough of its own Exynos processors to fit in all the Galaxy S II units it expects to sell in the near future. So it’s decided to also have a version with a third-party processor. And it’s probably not chosen TI as the supplier at random – the fact that Samsung already makes an Android smartphone (the Galaxy Nexus) with the same processor had to count.

Anyway, if you’re in Germany and want to pre-order a Samsung Galaxy S II with a TI processor, head over to Cyberport right now.