Android dominates smartphones in Q3 2012, Samsung widens its sales lead

Android continues expanding its dominance of the smartphone market, Samsung keeps on increasing its lead as the biggest smartphone maker and Nokia slips catastrophically in Q3 2012. That is a quick summary of what happened in the third quarter of 2012, according to the latest numbers by Gartner.

The analytics company concludes that while overall phone sales dropped slightly, smartphone sales are growing rapidly rising by 46.9% in Q3 2012.

Samsung cemented its position as the most prolific phone manufacturer selling nearly 98 million devices in the quarter.

There are now over 1 billion smartphone users on the planet

In Q3 of 2012, a pretty significant milestone has been reached, according to a study by the research experts at Strategy Analytics. It is estimated that the total number of smartphone owners worldwide has surpassed the 1 billion mark for the first time ever since smartphones came to be back in 1996. In comparison, the figure stood at 0.7 billion at the end of Q3, 2011. That’s huge!

Think of it this way: one in seven people around the globe have some kind of a smartphone, be it an iPhone, an Android handset, a Symbian device, or any kind of phone worthy of being called smart. But what’s even more exciting is that the numbers are to go higher at an even more ridiculous pace, if the research is correct.

Dell’s Latitude 10 tablet and dock, OptiPlex 9010 AIO, Latitude 6430u laptop arrive to tempt business pros

Windows 8 is coming folks, and so is an onslaught of new machines featuring Microsoft’s something-for-everyone OS. Dell already showed us some of its fresh consumer Win8 hardware back at IFA 2012, and now it’s the enterprise’s turn to shine. First up is the Latitude 10 tablet, which packs an Intel Atom SoC, a 10.1-inch IPS 1366 x 768 LCD display covered in Gorilla Glass, 8-megapixel primary camera plus an HD front-facing shooter. It’s got 2GB of RAM and up to 128GB of eMMC NAND storage, plus an SD card slot should the integrated storage prove insufficient. Connectivity comes via one full-size USB 2.0 port, a microUSB charging socket, mini-HDMI, a headphone/microphone combo jack, proprietary docking port and a micro-SIM slot for WWAN use. The Latitude 10 packs up to a 60Wh battery, which isn’t remarkable in and of itself, but the fact that it’s removable is. That means road warriors can travel with a spare cell or two to keep their slate in the juice no matter how long they work on it. While the swappable battery can keep the 10 from being tethered to an outlet, the dock Dell built for it ensures it’ll have a stylish place to rest when it is. The dock expands the slate’s connectivity with four USB 2.0 sockets, Gigabit Ethernet, HDMI and audio output.