Samsung Electronics Co., the world'slargest smartphone maker, said Wednesday that it has decided to buy a 10 percent stake in Pantech Corp., South Korea's third-largest handset maker.

The deal, valued at around US$47.6 million, will help further solidify bilateral cooperation in smartphone and other business areas, it said.

Samsung has confirmed the deal, providing a statement to TNW that explains it will be a passive investor with no input into Pantech's management decisions - presumably to offset any anti-competitive concerns:

Samsung Electronics has agreed to acquire a 10-percent stake in Pantech, valued at approximately KRW 53 billion. The investment is aimed at solidifying our relationship with Pantech, a key component customer of Samsung. Samsung will have no involvement in Pantech's business management in any way or form.

In the domestic market, Pantech trails behind Samsung Electronics Co. and LG Electronics Inc. in mobile phone shipments.

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Beginning today, AT&T customers can update their Pantech Burst and Element to Android 4.0 (Frozen treats Sandwich).

 

Android 4.0 makes your devices easier to use and more powerful than ever before. The many new features of the update include a new browser with improved page loading, tabbed browsing, offline reading and desktop mode. The brand new lock screen provides shortcuts towards the camera, text messaging, phone dialer and residential screen. You can also create desltop folders just by dragging one app icon onto another, and swipe away notifications bar.

 

Using this update, Pantech Element customers will have resizable widgets and an updated Setup Wizard with an increase of training information. Android 4.0 provides support for Burst users with Native Sync for AT&T Address Book, along with expanded camera options such as Self-Mode and Panorama Capture. Also featured will be the new Recent Apps button, which lets users move from one task to another using the list inside the System Bar.

 

You can download the update by visiting

https://www.pantechusa.com/upgrade/burst/ (for Element) 

https://www.pantechusa.com/upgrade/element/ (for Burst)

 

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Competition is getting heavier in South Korean, Pantech, country's third largest handset maker, has officially announced it's first full HD smartphone, code name Vega No. 6, which was rumored about a week ago.

The Pantech Vega No. 6 is one of the largest smartphones, with display measures 5.9 inches.  In addition, the handset comes with Android 4.1.2 Jelly Bean, Pantech's own UI called Flux UX, LTE connectivity, Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n, NFC, 13MP rear camera, 2MP front-facing camera, quad-core 1.5GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon processor, 2GB of RAM, 32GB of internal memory, MicroSD card support, and a 3,140 mAh battery, very big battery life.

Patech said its retail price will be 849,000 KRW, which's aournd $776 dollars. However, we aren't sure if it's going to be released outside of South Korea yet.

Before summer time this year, Samsung should unveil at least two Full HD devices: the Samsung Galaxy S4, and the Samsung Galaxy Note III.

Competition is always good for consumers, so we will keep a closer eye on this device.

Press Release

 

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