Sammy’s gone ahead and priced the latest in its Galaxy Tab and Player series, affixing monetary stickers to not only the 7-inch slate we just took for a spin, but to its 10-inch brother and a pair of handheld cousins. $250 nabs you the aforementioned Galaxy Tab 2 7.0, but an extra $150 will afford you the Tab 2 10.1′s three-inch advantage. Of course, if you’d rather keep that 7-inch beauty and pocket a spare device, that same $150 will buy a Galaxy Player 3.6. If that’s too small, Sammy will let you pick up a 4.2 variant for $200 square. Care to read that straight? Mosey on past the break for Samsung’s official press release.

A mere day has passed since we stumbled upon initial benchmarks for the Optimus 4X HD, and now, yet another LG smartphone has tossed its hat into the arena. In the Optimus 3D Max’s arsenal is a dual-core 1.2GHz CPU, which is part of the TI OMAP 4430 SoC. Today, we pitted it against two dual-core contemporaries from HTC and Samsung — namely, the One S and Galaxy S Blaze 4G. Sadly, the Optimus 3D Max failed to put up much of a resistance to either smartphone, and while its scores remain unofficial, its plainly obvious that this LG will look sorely dated upon its arrival. You can see how it all unfolded just after the break.

Promise not to laugh, folks, because this one appears a bit camera shy: meet the HTC Incredible 4G for Verizon Wireless. As you can see, the designers have kept the same industrial, funky and yet austere style as before, and like the original, the famous red accents are back in the mix. The camera pod continues to exist as part of a larger protrusion on the back, which now sports a significant amount of texture. The number of capacitive buttons on the front has been reduced to three, with search now absent. The Incredible 4G is is most certainly an Ice Cream Sandwich device, complete with a Sense 4 overlay.

A quick peek at the hardware information reveals a dual-core 1.2GHz CPU, 1GB of RAM, 8GB of built-in storage, an 8MP primary camera and a front-facing VGA counterpart, along with 802.11a/b/g/n and Bluetooth 4.0 — as well as support for LTE, NFC and WiFi Direct. The display is estimated at 4-inches and is said to offer qHD resolution. In highly welcome bit of news, the camera is said to capture a rapid burst of images, which gives us hope that this is the same option found on the One X and One S. Nonetheless, it appears to be a mainstream, middle-of-the-road handset that will likely be priced between $100 and $150 on-contract. Be sure to hop the break for the press render, and for a few extra blurry snapshots, just hit up the source link below.

This recent announcement that Dell would not be pursuing new smartphones for the time being following the retirement of its Venue Windows Phone devices raised the spotlight on PC companies — at least those other than Apple — and why they have struggled so mightily in the US smartphone market. Virtually every major PC company, including HP, Dell, Acer, Lenovo, Toshiba and ASUS, has either passed completely on entering the domestic market or released only a handful of models without much carrier support behind them. HP, of course, made the largest investment in mobile with the purchase of an ailing developer of devices and operating systems. But even before that Palm slapped its forehead, HP had only casually flirted with smartphones, releasing a few token Windows Mobile smartphones.

PC companies have been fighting the battle with some heavy handicaps.

To be fair to these companies, the investment demands of the ultra-competitive smartphone market have proven formidable for many companies, including many, like Motorola, Nokia and RIM, that were once considered masters of the game. Even companies that have not seen such a prolonged decline, like HTC, can find the tables turned on them in the course of a financial quarter. But PC companies have been fighting the battle with some heavy handicaps.