Mobile and Wireless: Samsung Intros Slate, Smartphone, Note II and AiO PCs

Samsung unveiled a family of products from the IFA 2012 trade show in Berlin Aug. 29. Adding to the three Windows 8-running, Series 5 and Series 7 all-in-one PCs it showed off the day before, it introduced Series 5 and Series 7 Slate PCs—devices that can transition from laptop to tablet, and not by folding over, as Microsoft-running slates used to, but by separating. A keyboard and tablet display connect and disconnect around a hinge said to be so secure that users needn't worry about the two separating when they're held with just one hand. Samsung also introduced a touch-screen-equipped version of its 13-inch Series 5 Ultra laptop, and for foreign markets showed off a smartphone with a 4.8-inch HD Super AMOLED (active-matrix organic LED) display. Called the ATIV S, the phone is part of what the Korean market will know as Samsung's ATIV line. The name is VITA—"life," in Latin—spelled backward. Why that should still mean life, and not the opposite, is anyone's guess. What's more clear is that Samsung is making a larger play for users' complete device ecosystems and shoppers that perhaps used to have eyes for only Apple. Lastly, score one for the rumor mill: To its pile of new devices Samsung added a Galaxy Note 2, a slightly larger version of its original S Pen device.