Samsung Galaxy Ace Plus lands at the office, we do our first video tour for the year

It feels like it was yesterday that we saw the Samsung Galaxy Ace Plus official announcement and we are already welcoming it to our office. Oh wait – the announcement really was yesterday, which makes us especially glad to introduce this one to you.

The Samsung Galaxy Ace Plus has some pretty big shoes to fill as its predecessor is one of the most successful products that the Koreans released in 2011. You don’t need to look much further than our own specs page to see that the original Galaxy Ace has been enjoying tremendous interest, so the Ace Plus needs to be quite an upgrade.
Of course, we won’t be sure about that until the Samsung Galaxy Ace Plus is finalized and it hits the shelves, but things aren’t looking too shabby at present. A faster ARMv7 CPU and a bit of extra RAM are all that it takes to enjoy the full productive potential of Android.

Naturally, there might be some games that won’t feel perfectly at home on the Samsung Galaxy Ace Plus and most of them won’t look particularly good on the HVGA LCD anyway, but that’s not what this handset is all about. The Ace Plus is about maximizing the functionality, while keeping the price to a minimum.
Still, great functionality isn’t good for much without at least decent performance, so let’s see how the Galaxy Ace Plus does in that aspect.
Naturally, you shouldn’t expect miracles at these stages as what we have here is nothing but an early prototype, which will see plenty of improvement before it hits the shelves. Yet, we are pretty pleased with how stable the Galaxy Ace Plus already feels and we are left feeling optimistic about its prospects.

Samsung drops plans to release Value Pack for Galaxy S

Galaxy S users waiting for the Value Pack from Samsung are in for a disappointment. A company spokesperson has just confirmed that Samsung has dropped the plans to release the update.

As you may know, Samsung initially declined upgrading the popular Galaxy S smartphone to ICS last year, stating the lack of space on the phone as the reason. Later on they said that they will look into it, only to come back a while later and say that it's not going to happen after all. They did, however, promise a "Value Pack", which was supposed to add some useful features to the Galaxy S, found in ICS.
But now, even that's not going to happen. Once again, Samsung claims that the hardware is not capable of running the new software while staying clear of making any more promises that they cannot keep. So it seems that the Galaxy S users are going to be stuck on Gingerbread for the rest of their lives, assuming they stick to the official channel.

Samsung announced the Samsung Galaxy M and the Samsung Galaxy Ace plus

More news from Samsung as we get closer to CES, this time unveiling two new budget phones that will make their debut at CES.

First is the Samsung Galaxy M. This is very similar to the original Galaxy S phone specs wise. It's running Android 2.3 Gingerbread with TouchWiz 4, it's powered by a 1GHz single-core processor, 3MP camera with a front-facing camera, 4GB internal storage and a 1650mAh battery.

It looks very similar to the Galaxy S II, but not as thin at only 9.9mm thin. It will be available in three colors, Platinum Silver, Blue Black and Lavender Pink. No word if it will be coming here to the US but you can get it for $499.

And then there's the Samsung Galaxy Ace Plus, a successor to last years very popular Galaxy Ace. It's also running Android 2.3 Gingerbread with TouchWiz 4, a smaller 3.665-inch display but with a surprising bad resolution at 480x320, really? It's powered by a 1GHz single-core processor with 512MB of RAM, 5MP camera with flash and a 1300mAh battery.

The Ace will be available shortly after it's CES debut across Europe, CIS, Latin America, Southeast and Southwest Asia, the Middle East, Africa and China. No word on US at this time, but you can expect a prepaid carrier to pick up this phone as one of their high-end devices.

Tapatalk optimized for Galaxy Tab 8.9 and Galaxy Tab 10.1; available for free on Samsung Apps

When not browsing the Android Central Forums from a computer, many folks use the popular app Tapatalk. And now, a special version of Tapatalk is available exclusively from Samsung Apps free for a limited time. The special version was built for the Galaxy Tab 8.9 and Galaxy Tab Tab 10.1 so if you own either of those devices, you can open up Samsung Apps and grab your free copy now. Once downloaded, let us know how it's working in the Android Central Forums.

WiFi Tether on VZW Galaxy Nexus, On screen buttons [From the Forums]

We've reached mid-week here at Android Central and things are still popping. Some more CES info managed to leak out as expected but there is still plenty more new to come we suspect. If you missed out on anything from today, be sure to jump back and have a look. Make sure you check out some the highlighted threads within the Android Central forums as well:

FYI: NFL Mobile finally working on the Verizon Galaxy Nexus

Good news, everyone! The NFL Mobile app is finally working correctly on the Verizon Galaxy Nexus. The app actually got its update fix last night, but the login was still borked for a lot of people. (Or at least us, and we count double.) Anyhoo, all is well, you should be able to log in, and just in time for the playoffs. Huzzah

Samsung Galaxy M magically launches ahead of CES

Over in Korea, the Samsung Galaxy M has just got official. So, as with all Samsung phone launches, we have to refer back to the Samsung naming conventions to see what the latest Sammy device bringeth.
And we see that M stands for Magical: "High-performance models at an economic price-point".
Ah, so it's a budget handset. We think that we may have been correct when we commented upon the Samsung Galaxy Ace Plus announcement yesterday, suggesting that Samsung may be getting some of its lower profile kit out of the door prior to CES and prepping itself for some bumper launches come show time.
A pre-CES tech based wheat and chaff sort-out if you will.
Although the Korean company probably wouldn't like us referring to its latest Magical device as chaff. Not when it's packing Android Gingerbread, a 1GHz processor, a 3-megapixel camera, 4GB of storage, Bluetooth 3.0 and a 1650mAh battery.
For a mid-ranger that's not too bad. Throw in a 9.9mm thick chassis, a TV tuner and a "refined metal body" and you're onto a PAYG-winner.
That's if it arrives for a darn sight less than the $500 mentioned. We'd expect a sub-£200 price-tag if it ever reaches Blighty. We'll let you know if we hear any word about its arrival.