Category: Samsung

Apple iPhone X Vs Samsung Galaxy S8 Feat. Samsung Galaxy Note8

2017 saw the rise of ‘bezel-less” smartphones which was ignited by the 2016 Xiaomi Mi Mix. In March 2017, the Samsung Galaxy S8 with a zero side bezels and thin forehead and chin was launched. The trickle down effect was noticeable as more and more smartphones came out with thin bezels. The Samsung Galaxy Note8 was launched in August as the successor to the ill-fated Galaxy Note7 with a design similar to the Galaxy S8 albeit, a more square-ish build which is iconic to the ‘Note’ series. After months of speculations and leaks, Apple launched the highly anticipated iPhone X on the 12th of September.

Display

All the three smartphones have excellent displays with great clarity and viewing angles. All three phones have an OLED panel manufactured by Samsung and while the 5.8 inch inch display on the iPhone X has a resolution of 2436 x 1125 px, the Galaxy S8’s 5.8 inch and Galaxy Note8’s 6.3 inch display have a resolution of 2960 x 1440 px.

Performance

Every flagship smartphone in this day and age has to be fast. You can’t pay over Rs 60,000 for a phone and experience lags and jitteriness just a few days into using it. For a phone launched back in March, the Samsung Galaxy S8 holds up very well. Both the Galaxy S8 and the Galaxy Note8 have the Exynos 8895 chipset, and while the Galaxy S8 has 4GB of RAM, the Galaxy Note8 has 6GB of RAM. The Apple iPhone X on the other hand has the A11 Bionic chipset with a neural engine and 3GB of RAM. All three phones are fast and day-to-day usage as well as heavy gaming is a breeze.

Camera

The Apple iPhone X and the Samsung Galaxy Note8 have dual camera setup at the back while the Samsung Galaxy S8 has a single camera. Despite a single camera, the Galaxy S8 is still one of the best camera smartphones out there. However, the flexibility of a dual camera setup trumps the single one on the Galaxy S8 and with dual OIS, the iPhone X and the Galaxy Note8 perform better than the Galaxy S8. If you are a content creator then look no further than the iPhone X as it records 4K videos at 60 fps, something that no other smartphone does right now.

Watch our full comparison here:

November 4, 2017
Samsung Galaxy Note9 Could Have A Pressure Sensitive In Display Fingerprint Sensor

2017 has been a hugely successful year for Samsung Mobile, and with the popularity of the iPhone X, Samsung Components division is about to make a lot of money, too. This year saw the rise of three great flagship smartphones from Samsung, the Galaxy S8, Galaxy S8+ and the Galaxy Note8. With barely any flaws to point out, the three phones have become hugely popular thanks to the display, design and camera performance. One blemish, on otherwise great devices, is the placement of the fingerprint sensor. All of this might change with the Galaxy Note9 in 2018. Report suggests Samsung has filed for a patent with KIPRIS, South Korea’s patent office, for a pressure-sensitive in-display fingerprint reader which may debut on one of its upcoming flagship smartphone in 2018.

After a lot of complaints pertaining to the awkward placement of the fingerprint sensor on Samsung’s 2017 flagship smartphone lineup, consumers might be able to experience the in-display fingerprint sensor in the Samsung Galaxy Note9 in 2018. Samsung had developed an optical fingerprint reader that was tested on the Galaxy Note8 but, it turned out to be imperfect due to uneven screen brightness. The area containing the fingerprint reader appeared brighter than the rest of the screen, which is why it eventually couldn’t make it to the Galaxy Note8.

This falls in line with the report from Ming Chi Kuo from KGI Securities who said that the Galaxy Note9, and not the Galaxy S9 will feature the pressure sensitive in-display fingerprint sensor. Time will tell how much Samsung has progressed with this new technology and rest assured, by the time Samsung launches the Galaxy Note9, the South Korean conglomerate will not be the only smartphone maker with this feature in its smartphone.

October 28, 2017
Samsung Spain Hands Out 200 Galaxy Note8 Devices To Passengers In A Flight

All seems to be very well at the Samsung Mobile HQ’s after a very successful 2017. Samsung started the year with the highly successful Galaxy S8 smartphones and resurrected the Note series with the Galaxy Note8 which received record pre-orders in the US and South Korean market. 2017 succeeded the debacle of the global recalling of the Galaxy Note 7 due to serious battery issues. To overcome that psychological block and show how far Samsung’s new Note device has come, Samsung Spain decided to give away 200 Galaxy Note8 devices to unsuspecting passengers of a flight going from Madrid to A Coruna.

In the video, you can see passengers baffled in the beginning, but, when they realised that they are actually getting a US $1000 phone for free, that confusion quickly changed to joy. The boxes were accompanied by a written message in Spanish. It translated to: “A year ago we asked you to turn it off, we welcome you today on board.” This was in reference to the Galaxy Note7 and its highly publicised battery issue. Due to such an extraordinary security concern from a phone, almost everywhere in the world airlines first banned the phone from the check-in baggage and then later banned it altogether.

The global recall of the Galaxy Note7 was a huge blow to Samsung, not just from a financial point of view but, also the company’s image. All was redeemed with the Galaxy Note8 when it was launched in August in 2017 and received rave reviews from critics and consumers alike. This gesture from Samsung goes a long way in proving that no matter how successful its new phones will be, the company will do anything to get over the disaster that was the Galaxy Note7.

https://youtu.be/9FAmSCUq5zw

October 25, 2017
Samsung And Apple To Face Retrial Over $400 Million Patent Damages

Apple has its hands full at the moment, as the sale of the iPhone X nears, the company finds itself in a yet another prolonged legal battle against Samsung. The patent battle between Apple and Samsung over who owns the concept of smartphones with round corners is back for another trial. Back in 2012, the case was settled and Samsung was ordered to pay over US $1 billion to Apple. That figure is currently US $400 million and a successful appeal for a retrial means that this amount might be reassessed again.

The judgement was made yesterday by Judge Lucy Koh of the United States District Court for the Northern District of California, with the ruling spotted and shared by patent lawyer Florian Mueller. Apple and Samsung now have until the 25th of October to propose a date for the retrial, although Mueller has said that there is a high chance that the two companies will settle out-of-court instead. Although there’s still a lot of money on the table, both sides have proved their willingness to go to the mats on this issue. Moreover, Samsung and Apple cannot be distracted right now since both companies will be up against Qualcomm in a legal battle.

It is worth noting that the retrial isn’t to determine whether Samsung infringed the patents of Apple while making its smartphones. That bit is settled and Apple will receive the damages f0r it. This retrial is to see whether Samsung will pay the damages it pays based on the total profit it made from its handsets, or a percentage of that profit. Samsung argues that even if it copied certain aspects of Apple’s smartphones, these were only ever a part of the appeal of its own products. The Supreme Court Of America had already ruled that a judgement based on profit would be unfair.

October 23, 2017
Portrait Mode May Be Coming To Samsung Galaxy S8 With A Future Update

The portrait mode on smartphones is the new rage. Every new flagship phone is almost entirely judged by how good the camera is and how good the portrait mode is nowadays. Smartphone makers went the dual-camera route in order to create that bokeh effect but, Google showed that great software can do just the right amount of work in a camera with the Google Pixel 2 and Pixel 2 XL. Now, there are reports that Samsung wants to keep its flagship S8 and S8+ relevant, and a ‘portrait mode’ might be added with future updates.

When Samsung Galaxy S8 was launched in early 2017, the dual-camera craze was just starring to pick up and it as understandable why Samsung stuck to a single camera setup on it flagship smartphone. A customer inquired if such a feature is inbound and the response from Samsung Electronics support read: “there is no information yet, but we hope that you will get portrait mode update with the next SW”. The usual support responses would have only contained the first part, but this one not only suggested that the feature is a possibility, but also gave hope that it’s just around the corner.

Samsung Galaxy S8 and S8+ lack a telephoto lens but, can achieve this feature with software, just like the Pixel 2 smartphones. There are no details as to when the software update will come but, since the Android 8.0 Oreo update is around the corner, Samsung might just add this feature in the next big software update.

October 17, 2017
Unboxing The Samsung Galaxy Tab A
Samsung recently launched a new Android-powered tablet for a price of Rs 17990 in India. Samsung, apart from Apple is the only significant smartphone maker to continue making tablets. Let’s unbox the new Galaxy Tab A and see what’s inside the box:
- Samsung Galaxy Tab A
- USB Type C cable for charging and data syncing
- Wall charger
- Documentation
- Sim ejector tool
The tablet has a good form factor with significant bezels around the display.

The Galaxy Tab A (2017) has an 8 inch 1280 x 800 TFT display with a brightness of 480 nits. The tablet is powered by a 5000 mAh battery and runs Android 7.1 Nougat out of the box with Samsung’s custom TouchWiz UI on top. Under the hood, the device has the Qualcomm Snapdragon 425 chipset, 2GB of RAM, 16GB onboard storage which can be expanded up to 256GB via microSD card.

In terms of optics, the tablet has an 8MP rear-facing camera with an f/1.9 aperture with an LED flash. To the front of the tablet is a 5MP camera.

One of the highlights of the Galaxy Tab A (2017) is the new Bixby Home support that brings Samsung’s AI assistant to the mid-range tablet. Bixby understands and responds to the user’s behaviour and routine to suggest content and apps based on usage and location, among other things.
October 14, 2017
Samsung Might Announce Bixby 2.0 In Late October

Samsung may launch a new version of its AI assistant, Bixby at the company’s developer conference in San Francisco. A report from The Korea Herald claims that Samsung has appointed a new executive to lead the Bixby development team. Samsung Research America’s Vice Chief Chung Eui-suk is now the head of developing Bixby as well as other artificial intelligence services. Rhee In-jong, Samsung Mobile’s CTO, who headed Bixby in both Korean and English versions, will reportedly be in charge of smartphone development excluding Bixby.

The report claims that Bixby could also be introduced to third party products beyond smartphones. Expect the AI to receive major upgrades in an attempt to compete with other AI assistants like Google Assistant, Siri, and Amazon’s Alexa, which are already available in a lot of countries.

Bixby was launched alongside Samsung Galaxy S8 and S8+ in early 2017. Such was the push from Samsung that all the three flagship smartphones in 2017 have a dedicated physical button to access Bixby. When Samsung introduced Bixby, there was a general consensus of it being exactly like Google Assistant. The new Galaxy Tab A also has Bixby, though without the physical button.

Similar to other AI voice assistants like Google Assistant, Siri, and Amazon Alexa, Boxby allows you to verbally communicate with your phone and perform tasks such as googling something, open apps or even make calls or send text messages. You can even point your phone to a certain object and Bixby will be pull up links to buy that product.

In India, Bixby was announced along with the Galaxy Note8 and the roll out of Bixby Voice began in late September. Samsung has said that it has optimised Bixby for India in away that it will understand different Indian accents. This means that your Galaxy flagship phone will respond to you regardless of which region of the country you are from.

How much of an improvement Byxby 2.0 will be over Bixby ‘1.0’ is yet to be seen. Whether Samsung will continue pushing Bixby through its successful flagship smartphones lineup in 2018 is also a question that will be answered in months to come.

October 13, 2017
Samsung Galaxy S8/S8+

Samsung launched the Galaxy S8 and its bigger sibling, the Galaxy S8+ in India in April 2017. Both the phones feature a bezel-less display and high-end specifications. With a glass back, both the Galaxy S8 and Galaxy S8+ have wireless charging and have a fingerprint sensor placed at the back just next to the camera. The display is edge-to-edge with minimal upper and bottom bezels.

[section label=”Latest News”]

Latest News

[loop included_tags=”39360,39410,39380,39606″ loading=”paged” layout=”c” postsperpage=”6″ disable_ads=”true” disable_excerpt=”true”]

[section label=”Videos”]

Videos

October 13, 2017
Samsung Galaxy Note8

The Samsung Galaxy Note8 has been launched in India on September 12th at a price of Rs 67900. The Galaxy Note8 is the first note series smartphone to sell in India in always two years, since the launch of the Note5. While Samsung had taken registration for the Note7 last year, the company never launched the phone in India due to its global recall. The Galaxy Note8 is the third Samsung flagship smartphone launched in the country in 2017 after the Galaxy S8 and S8+ were launched earlier in the year. The new 2017 Samsung Galaxy Note has a 6.3 inch 2960 x 1440 px 18.5:9 aspect ratio Super AMOLED display with an 83.1% screen-to-body ratio and Corning Gorilla Glass 5 on the front and back of the device.

[section label=”Latest News”]

Latest News

[loop included_tags=”39697,39437,39436″ loading=”paged” layout=”c” postsperpage=”6″ disable_excerpt=”true”]

[section label=”Videos”]

Videos

October 13, 2017
Samsung CEO Kwon Oh-hyun Resigns Under Mysterious Circumstances

Kwon Oh-hyun, CEO of Samsung Electronics and Samsung Display, vice chairman and head of Samsung’s components division has announced his resignation. He will step down from the role as well as his position on the board in March 2018.

Kwon Oh-hyun said in a letter to the employees:

It is something I had been thinking long and hard about for quite some time. It has not been an easy decision, but I feel I can no longer put it off. As we are confronted with unprecedented crisis inside out, I believe that time has now come for the company start anew, with a new spirit and young leadership to better respond to challenges arising from the rapidly changing IT industry.

There are no words to describe how proud I am that we built together one of the most valuable companies in the world. We have come a long way to create a company that truly changes how people live, work and communicate with each other. But now the company needs a new leader more than ever and it is time for me to move to the next chapter of my life.

Kwon joined Samsung in 1985, rising to lead its semiconductor business before his appointment as the CEO. He was appointed CEO of Samsung Electronics in 2012 and in 2016, he became the CEO of Samsung Display.

Samsung has had a very successful finanical year but, all may not be well in its leadership. The South Korean tech giant, Samsung expects its operating profit to nearly triple year on year, demonstrating a very strong recovery after the equivalent period in 2016 saw the infamous Galaxy Note7 recall. In his letter, Kwon cites “unprecedented crisis,” he might be referring to the arrest of Lee Jae-yong, the de facto leader of the entire Samsung group, on corruption charges. It looks like the scandal will slowly show the repercussions and Kwon Oh-hyun’s resignation seems like the fist indication. Samsung is yet to announce a replacement. It seems like one of the two “co-CEOs”, BK Yoon and JK Shin would replace Kwon. Will this internal turmoil affect Samsung and its future plans? We don’t think so.

October 13, 2017
Samsung Galaxy J2 (2017) Officially Listed On Samsung India’s Website

Samsung has quietly listed the Samsung Galaxy J2 (2017) on its official India website. The price of the phone however, has not been revealed yet but, indicates that the smartphone will be available in India soon. It will be available in two colours, Metallic Gold and Absolute Black.

The Galaxy J2 2017 has a 4.7 inch 960 x 540 px Super AMOLED display. The device is powered by a 2000 mAh battery while there is no mention of the OS version the device is running but, it is fair to assume that the smartphone will run Android 7.0 Nougat out of the box. Under the hood, the device has the Exynos chipset, 1.3 GHz quad core processor, 1GB RAM, and 8GB of onboard storage which is expandable via microSD card. The Galaxy J2 (2017) comes with Smart Manager for automatic memory management which will help delete duplicate images on the device automatically, and also delete saved APK files to utilise the storage. The smartphone also comes with Ultra Data Saving mode that the company claims can help consumers save up to 50 percent data.

On the optics front, the device has a rear-facing 5MP camera with autofocus and a flash. On the front is a 2MP camera.

Prolific Mumbai-based retailer Mahesh Telecom has a history of accurately predicting the price of Samsung smartphones. The offline retailer has said that the device will be available at a price of Rs 7390. At this price, the smartphone will compete with the likes of Xiaomi Redmi 4A, Moto C and the Moto E4 Plus.

October 11, 2017
Samsung Launches The Galaxy Tab A In India For Rs 17990

Samsung has continued to keep refreshing its tablet lineup by launching the Galaxy Tab A in India at a price of Rs 17990. The same tablet was first launched in Vietnam as Galaxy Tab A 8.0.

The Galaxy Tab A (2017) has an 8 inch 1280 x 800 TFT display with a brightness of 480 nits. The tablet is powered by a 5000 mAh battery and runs Android 7.1 Nougat out of the box with Samsung’s custom ToucnWiz UI on top. Under the hood, the device has the Qualcomm Snapdragon 425 chipset, 2GB of RAM, 16GB onboard storage which can be expanded up to 256GB via microSD card.

In terms of optics, the tablet has an 8MP rear-facing camera with an f/1.9 aperture with an LED flash. To the front of the tablet is a 5MP camera.

One of the highlights of the Galaxy Tab A (2017) is the new Bixby Home support that brings Samsung’s AI assistant to the mid-range tablet. Bixby understands and responds to the user’s behaviour and routine to suggest content and apps based on usage and location, among other things.

The tablet will go on sale on October 10th across retail outlets and will be available in Black and Gold colour variants. The Samsung Galaxy Tab A (2017) is 4G-enabled, and Samsung has announced a data offer for Reliance Jio users, who will get up 180GB additional 4G data over the course of one year. Another launch offer includes a one-time screen replacement offer for those who buy the tablet before November 9.

October 10, 2017
Samsung Galaxy Note 9 Might Have A Screen Embedded Fingerprint Sensor

Ever since Qualcomm showed off the screen embedded fingerprint sensor earlier in 2017, there were rumours of the Samsung Galaxy Note8 and the iPhone X will adopting the technology. However, it was determined that the time was too less for these companies to implement a technology that was in a nascent stage. The Galaxy Note8 was launched with the similar awkwardly placed fingerprint sensor at the back and the iPhone X got rid of the TouchID all together and replaced it with facial recognition system called FaceID.

Now, Ming-Chi Kuo of KGI Securities has stated that Samsung’s next Note device may have such an “under-display optical fingerprint” technology when it launches in the second half of 2018. A fingerprint sensor has slowly become a staple in all smartphones nowadays. With bezels getting thinner and smartphone manufacturers not convinced with a fingerprint sensor at the back, thiis technology seems to be the next big thing in the smartphone industry. It is however, a tricky technology to implement and there aren’t a lot of successful products in the market which use this technology. In May 2016, LG developed a fingerprint sensor that sits under the display and earlier in 2017, at MWC Shanghai, Vivo unveiled the first smartphone with a under-display fingerprint sensor based on the technology developed by Qualcomm.

There are three companies vying to be the supplier to Samsung, of which, BeyondEyes and Samsung LSI have already reported to have shipped samples to Samsung. Egis is the third of the top contenders, who currently supplies fingerprint sensors for Samsung’s phones.

If and when this technology is perfected by the smartphone makers is yet to be seen and the question is more about when rather than if. The Samsung Galaxy Note9 and the 2018 iPhone are far from launch right now and the closer we get to their eventual launch, the more details about the screen embedded fingerprint sensor will be spilled out.

October 10, 2017
Samsung May Have Early Access To Snapdragon 845

It looks like the Samsung Galaxy S9 and Galaxy S9+ will have an early access pass to Qualcomm’s next flagship chipset, Snapdragon 845. If Qualcomm decides to go for a similar deal with Samsung like last year’s Snapdragon 835, then Galaxy S9 could b the first device to have the next flagship processor. Samsung manufactured Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 835 chipset and got to keep the initial batch for itself. That’s why early in 2017 there was no other Snapdragon 835-powered handset on the market other than the Galaxy S8.

There isn’t a lot known about the Snapdragon 845 but, as the launch of the chipset comes near, there will be a lot more known about it. It is however, rumoured that it is expected to get manufactured through 10nm Low Power Early (LPE) FinFET process. The processor is also said to incorporate a combination of Cortex A75 cores, Adreno 630 graphics and X20 LTE modem. A report suggested that Qualcomm Snapdragon 845 SoC will be clocked at 2.5GHz, suggesting that the upcoming chip may not offer a significant improvement over the Snapdragon 835 as it clocks at 2.45GHz. A recent GeekBench listing of the Snapdragon 845 revealed a single core score of 2600+. In comparison, the Apple A9 scored around 2500 while the new A11 Bionic chipset on iPhone 8+ scored 4200+.

As far as availability is concerned, the Samsung Galaxy S9 and Galaxy S9+ will likely be the first smartphones to have the Qualcomm’s latest chip. This means that rivals like LG would have to go through yet another flagship cycle without access to Qualcomm’s latest chip, just like last year. There were rumours that Xiaomi’s Mi7 will also have the Snapdragon 845 chipset and that the smartphone and chipset manufactures were working together to optimise the chipset for the Mi7 called ‘Snapdragon 845 V2’.

October 10, 2017
The Foldable Samsung Galaxy X Device Could See A Limited Release

There is an increasing interest and intrigue in the soon-to-be-launched Samsung Galaxy X. In early September, after IFA 2017 in Berlin, Dongjin Koh, President of mobile business at Samsung told some reporters at a news conference in South Korea that a foldable smartphone is in the works and the company is aiming for a 2018 release. Ever since that, there have been reports of the Galaxy X receiving certification from South Korea, Samsung’s native country.

A report from the South Korea Herald suggested that the production of the Galaxy X would be on 100,000 orders, making it an extremely limited edition device. If this happens, the Galaxy X would be the most difficult Galaxy phone to get your hands on. The foldable smartphone is being touted as the “next big innovation” in the smartphone industry, which has been stagnant for a while in terms of exciting innovations. Apart from tinkering with the display and shrinking the bezels, there hasn’t been much innovation to write home about. The Galaxy X could shake the tech industry out of complacency and usher in an era of foldable smartphones becoming more accessible than the Galaxy X.

The Samsung Galaxy X is expected to be unveiled during CES in early 2018. This makes sense because the Galaxy S9 and S9+ are expected to be unveiled in mid 2018 and a new phone like the Galaxy X would require some breathing space to really have an impact on the smartphone market. Even though it will soon be known as “that phone which folds” and will have its own fair share fans, the market still needs time to register a phone, no matter how unique or path-breaking the device is. Just because the phone is close to its grand unveiling doesn’t mean that there aren’t hurdles to cross during the making of a foldable smartphone, Mr. Dongjin Koh has said:

When we can overcome some problems for sure, we will launch the product. We are digging thoroughly into several issues we must overcome, as we don’t want to just make a few, sell a few and be done. We want to hear that Samsung made a very good product. We have a plan to adopt a foldable display in our roadmap.

A number of patents as well as Samsung’s own concept video from CES 2013 tell us what to expect from the Galaxy X. Samsung is most likely to start small, with a smartphone that folds halfway like a wallet. Another design, in line with Samsung’s prototype unveiling, could see the phone unfold into a full-size tablet.

Limited edition or not, the Samsung Galaxy X is anticipated to be a real head turner come its launch.

October 7, 2017