Samsung announce Galaxy Portal with Layar
“Layar”, the Augmented Reality Browser”, boasts Samsung like we all know all about this intriguingly titled new browser already. When in reality most of us have never even heard of it, although that is perhaps a good sign in the cutthroat world of technology and the increasingly pressurized yearning for companies, particularly mobile phone companies, to be innovative and inspiring.
In launching the Galaxy Portal, Samsung have leapt into the electrifying new world of Augmented Reality, and they’ve sure done it in style. The chicly slender handset embraces a 3.2” TFT screen, has 32GB of memory and its Android Operating System enables users to download more 20,000 applications from the Android Market. Where many mobiles fail, Galaxy Portal users can enjoy the extensive range of apps and multimedia content without being abruptly interrupted by a flat battery, as this phone comes equipped with a 1500mAh battery life.
With the Galaxy Portal, users can quickly learn the location of a local business with the ‘Samsung Local Search’, powered by Qype. They can find a hotel with ‘Samsung Hotel Search’, powered by hotels.com, or they can obtain train station information with the ‘Samsung Train Station Search’, powered by thetrainline.com. It is interesting that many of the thousands of pre-installed apps on this phone have been re-named to ‘Samsung’ – savvy self-promotion by the South Korean mobile giants, and one which exemplifies Samsung as being seminal ambassadors in mobile app technology.
Although regardless of Samsung’s determination to be branded as the indispensable developers in the app-driven world of mobile phones, it is the ‘Layar’ application that is undoubtedly the Galaxy Portal’s most innovative and exciting feature. Samsung have teamed up with a strategically decisive assortment of ‘lifestyle brands’, intent on easing the itineraries of even the most demanding of lifestyles. Faced with the tedious task of finding somewhere to dine tonight, simply point the Galaxy Portal at a restaurant and the visual guide will steer you to a restaurant. Not sure which pub has your team’s game on, the ‘Samsung Football Pub Finder’, with its comprehensive database of pubs with satellite television across the nation, will take you to the door. By pointing the handset, the Augmented Reality browser provides detailed visual guides about what’s going on in the vicinity.
And as the UK has recently been primed as becoming one of the world’s biggest consumers of mobile Augmented Reality, Samsung have well timed the launch of the Galaxy Portal onto the British high streets. As since January 12 this year, T Mobile has had the Galaxy Portal in stock, albeit only for an exclusive three months.
Although regardless of this mobile’s aesthetical elegancy, its ferocious appetite for apps and its seemingly endless quest to make busy lives seamless, what is really spectacular about the Galaxy Portal is its price. At approximately 225.00 pounds, the Samsung Galaxy Portal really does allow Augmented Realism to become a reality.
