Earbuds for Samsung’s upcoming smartphones leaked

It was reported last month that the Galaxy S6 is going to come with Sennheiser earbuds. Today several pictures of the earbuds that are likely to be supplied with Samsung’s upcoming smartphones, the Galaxy S6 and the Galaxy S6 Edge, have been leaked online. While it is unclear if both devices will come with the same earbuds today’s leak does reiterate what we exclusively reported last month.

Our sources had revealed to us that Samsung’s new earbuds would have a design similar to Apple’s Earpods and clearly the similarities are there. As far as the partnership with Sennheiser is concerned it is possible that Samsung might have worked with this company to improve the quality of its earbuds but it doesn’t appear that Samsung will be shipping Sennheiser branded earbuds with the Galaxy S6 and the Galaxy S6 Edge.

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Can Samsung be the Samsung of drones?

Could Samsung be the Samsung of drones?

Drones are pretty much what we’ve been talking about on the internet, besides of course, phones. Why the sudden interest though? We’ve been reading about drones right since the start of the millennium, but it’s only now that drones are trending as much as they are. The only possible reason I can fathom at the moment is commercial viability. Thanks to the perennial technological revolution, drones, especially those with four propellers (i.e., ‘quad-copters’) are finally affordable for the common man. You can now buy drones for as low as US$15, or make one yourself right from the comfort of your home and spend how much ever you can.

Not long back, a chirpy bird spread word about the fact that Samsung built itself a whole new lab to build new drones and other products for its Internet of Things catalogue. As for the smartphone market, there’s hardly a maker with the reach of Samsung; the company has an authoritative foothold in almost every market across the globe. That is what makes Samsung the Samsung of smartphones. Now that the ambitious maker is looking to, or at least has shown signs to, head into the drone market, an obvious question arises in every mind reading this bit: will it be able to re-create the magic in the drone arena? Will Samsung be able to become the Samsung of drones?

This question, like many more, will only be answered when the time is due. As for the current market, China’s DJI leads the way along with companies such as Parrot, and others. To succeed in the drone market, not only will Samsung have to make its products as affordable as some of its phones, but it’ll also have to provide the cushion of an extensive retail chain. Now, to do that for what will be the first generation of truly commercial drones for Samsung, is by no means an easy feat.

As drones get more popular, legal implications of flying the man made machine start appearing as well. If you’re into flying drones, now is a good time to start. If you haven’t yet guessed why, read the first line of this paragraph again. Yeah, slowly but certainly, governments around the world are going to take note of the hazards that drones bring along with them. This could be something as simple as choking hazard, and something altogether as serious as national security. Because rules on that aren’t clear yet, companies such as Samsung can’t go full-blooded with R&D, and consequently, manufacturing of drones.

If you didn’t know, even companies such as Huawei have tried their hand at commercial drone manufacture. The time is all but ripe for Samsung to take a dive into the drone pool already, but issues such as the ones mentioned previously need to be taken care of before that.

In a nutshell, Samsung’s authoritative position in the world market is something that could certainly make it the Samsung of drones as well, but if you ask for a timeline, I, like many others reading this article, believe that there’s a fair bit to go before we can even think of that. Don’t you agree?

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Samsung announces 128GB Universal Flash Storage 2.0 memory chips for smartphones

Samsung has announced that it has started mass producing the industry’s first ultra-fast 128GB memory chips based on the Universal Flash Storage (UFS) 2.0 specification. The announcement comes right before the Galaxy S6 and Galaxy S6 Edge are set to be unveiled, with both devices expected to have a 128GB model (these UFS 2.0 chips also have 32 and 64GB versions, the other two storage variants that will be offered on the two flagships.)

Samsung’s language in the press release seems to suggest that we might see the microSD slot disappear from flagship devices, as higher capacity chips will begin to be mass produced and be easily available to OEMs in the mobile industry. In terms of performance, Samsung says the new ultra-fast UFS memory “conducts 19,000 input/output operations per second (IOPS) for random reading, which is 2.7 times faster than the most common embedded memory for high-end smartphones today, the eMMC 5.0.”

The new chips also consume less power and have higher random read speeds. With smartphones expected to be faster and more powerful in the coming months, this faster storage standard will no doubt come in handy in matching the performance improvements gained by other components like mobile CPUs and RAM chips.

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Samsung talks about 10nm FinFET process technology ahead of Galaxy S6 launch

The Galaxy S6 will bring along a slew of impressive features if the rumors and leaks are any indication, and it will also be the first smartphone to be powered by a processor manufactured on the 14nm process technology that is more power-efficient and powerful than CPUs based on the 20nm process technology.

Samsung is the first OEM to be mass producing 14nm mobile chips for mobile devices, and it seems the company isn’t sitting idle being content with the present, as it has announced that it is working on the world’s first 10nm FinFET semiconductor technology. Samsung is touting that this technology will be an important step for IoT (Internet of Things), something the Korean manufacturer is backing quite heavily in a bid to lead upcoming technologies.

Mobile chips based on 10nm tech will probably not show up on consumer devices until late 2016/early 2017, but it certainly seems Samsung will be focusing heavily on its chip business, something it needs to do if it wants to compete with the likes of Qualcomm.

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Verizon will start selling Galaxy Core Prime from February 26

The largest carrier in the United States, Verizon Wireless, has confirmed that it will start selling the Samsung Galaxy Core Prime from Thursday, February 26th. Samsung initially announced this smartphone in India last week. Verizon will offer it for $29.99 with a two year service contract. Customers who opt for the Verizon Edge equipment installment plan will pay monthly installments of $8. The smartphone is compatible with Verizon’s 4G LTE network.

Samsung Galaxy Core Prime has a 4.5-inch WVGA display, 8GB internal storage, 1GB RAM, microSD card slot for external expansion, 2,000mAh battery, 5 megapixel rear and 2 megapixel front camera. The smartphone comes with Android 4.4 out of the box and it will be updated to Android 5.0 Lollipop in the coming months.

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The Galaxy S6 will have a 16-megapixel camera with Sony’s IMX240 sensor

Every flagship smartphone goes through various revisions before the final version hits retail, and for a major smartphone like the Galaxy S6, the number of prototypes is often high. We reported on the S6′s camera earlier this month based on info we received about one of the prototypes of the device, with this particular prototype featuring a 20-megapixel Samsung-made camera sensor on the back.

Rumors about the Galaxy S6 have been rather uncertain about whether it will have a 16 or 20MP camera, and we can now confirm that the device will come with a 16MP camera on the final retail unit. The camera sensor will be the Sony IMX240, the same sensor used on the Galaxy Note 4, though according to our insider Samsung has made considerable tweaks to the camera lens and the software. We have talked about the software part in our camera exclusive, but it’s yet to be ascertained what enhancements were made to the camera lens.

It’s possible Samsung has made improvements for low-light imaging, something the company’s teasers about the Galaxy S6 have hinted at. With just a little over a week left before the Galaxy S6 is set to go official, it won’t be long before we find out just what these improvements bring to the tablet over the cameras on existing Samsung smartphones.

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Gear VR lets people go virtual ‘shark diving’ in Australia

Samsung has recently been focusing a lot on content for Gear VR. Its virtual reality headset can provide amazing experiences and all the company needs to do is come up with those experiences that allow people to really see the power of this device. The company recently set up a dive shop in Alice Springs, Central Australia which is 1,200 kilometers away from the nearest ocean. One would question the logic behind setting up a dive shop in a landlocked place, but Samsung had a pretty good reason, it allowed people to go virtual “shark diving” by just using the Gear VR.

Folks who tried it were pleasantly surprised, as evident from the video, as they were able to get a virtual diving experience complete with shark encounters. This footage will be available to people who try out the Gear VR at Samsung Experience Stores in Sydney and Melbourne, and it will also be released through the Oculus App Store, which is a channel used to release official content for Gear VR.

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It’s awesome that the Samsung Galaxy Note II will be updated to Lollipop

How often have you heard of an Android device that’s more than two years old get an official update to a major new version of Android? Outside of Google’s Nexus lineup, it’s not something that has ever come to pass – every flagship out there usually gets one or two major updates within 2 years after they go up for sale, after which the device manufacturer moves on to newer devices. And you can’t blame them, considering how many devices they churn out every year.

With the Galaxy Note II though, Samsung might just be about to do what no other manufacturer has done. Samsung Poland recently confirmed that the Note II would be getting an update to Lollipop, and Samsung Finland also says the same on its support site. The Note II launched with Android 4.1.2 out of the box, and since its launch, has been updated to Android 4.2, 4.3 and 4.4. If that wasn’t good support already for an Android device, it looks Samsung isn’t done with its second-generation Galaxy Note flagship yet.

Samsung has often been criticized for being slow with rolling out updates to devices, though what most fail to understand is that for a company with so many phones and tablets and software that has a ton of features, the Korean manufacturer is actually rather fast. With Lollipop, we’re seeing Samsung update a new device every other day, even making these updates widely available in a short span of time instead of keeping them limited to a region or two.

If the Galaxy Note II really is going to get Android 5.0, it would be a very impressive move from Samsung. The Note II has been available for purchase for around two years and five months now, and by the time the update would arrive, it will probably be pushing more than two and a half years of existence on the consumer market.

Even Google doesn’t usually update its Nexus devices after two years – the only advantage the Nexus devices have is that since they get updates faster, they usually get more updates within the same time as a non-Nexus device. But in terms of the period of support, Samsung seems set to create history in the Android ecosystem, and while it might not be at the level of what Apple offers in terms of software updates, it still goes to show that Samsung is doing what no other Android OEM has done yet.

Though we certainly hope they follow Samsung’s example, and that Samsung would show the same support longevity for some of their other phones. We could all do with some solid software support on devices that are an important part of our daily lives, and we have our fingers crossed that this show of love for the Galaxy Note II is not just a one-time thing for the Korean manufacturer.

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Z1′s success could mean Samsung release the Z2 sooner than you expect

The Z1 isn’t Samsung’s most popular phone by some distance, but that’s because Samsung intends to have it that way. The phone was launched a month back in the Indian market, where it did well despite having more competition than comfort would allow for Samsung. To put that into perspective, Samsung sold more than 100,000 units of the phone in less than a month in the price-sensitive Indian market, and another 20,000 in Bangladesh, where the phone was launched only in the first week of February.

According to sources, the company, encouraged by the success that the Z1 saw, might already be working on a successor to the device. It’ll most likely be known as the Z2, and from what we hear, it’ll have slightly higher-end specifications, including a higher-resolution screen (presumably a 960 x 540 pixel panel), and more.

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$56 billion cash pile will be used to fund growth for Samsung Electronics

According to the Korean juggernaut’s investor relations head Samsung Electronics will make use of its $56 billion cash pile to fund growth through acquisitions and other investments, this is being done at a time when the company’s shareholders are demanding for dividends to be even bigger. Even though the company saw a decline in profit last year, that too for the first time in three years, investors were happy about the 40 percent dividend boost as well as Samsung’s first share buyback since 2007.

The head of investor relations at Samsung, Robert Yi, said that the company’s shareholders should not expect the same this year as Samsung is fully focused on growth. Speaking to Reuters Yi said that while dividends and other forms of returns are responsibilities that the company has for shareholders, it will make efforts to meet them, “but our primary objective is growth and that is what we are communicating to our shareholders.”

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Samsung’s Galaxy Tab Active is coming to India, but it won’t be cheap

Today at the annual and ongoing Samsung Forum event in Thailand, Samsung announced that the company would be bringing its enterprise tablet offering, the Galaxy Tab Active, to the Indian market. There was no timeline provided; all the company had to offer in that regard was ‘soon’. Besides that, Samsung also revealed that the slate will have a suggested MRP (maximum retail price) of 52,000 INR (US$836), which certainly doesn’t make it the cheapest tablet on the planet. It will be interesting to see how the Indian market — known to be extremely price sensitive — reacts to the pricing of the robust tablet, whenever it does go on sale.

The Galaxy Tab Active comes with an 8-inch 1280 x 800 pixel display, and is powered by a 1.2GHz quad-core processor along with 1.5GB of RAM to make for a mid-range tablet solution. Other specifications of the device include a 3.1 mega-pixel camera on the rear, a 1.2 mega-pixel sensor on the front, 16GB of on-board storage (expandable via microSD) and lastly, a 4,450mAh battery.

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Samsung announces that it started mass producing industry’s first 14nm FinFET processors for mobile devices

Samsung has announced that it has started mass producing the industry’s first 14nm FinFET application processors for mobile devices. Samsung claims that this technology, which will be used in the upcoming Exynos 7 Octa processor, provides highest levels of efficiency, performance and productivity. When compared to Samsung’s 20 fabrication process, the new 14nm FinFET process based chips are are claimed to be 20 percent faster and 35 percent more power efficient. Samsung was able to achieve this by opting for three-dimensional (3D) FinFET structure for transistors, which in turn allows overcoming performance and scaling limitations of the older planar structure based designs.

Gabsoo Han, Executive Vice President of Sales & Marketing, System LSI Business, Samsung Electronics said, “Samsung’s advanced 14nm FinFET process technology is undoubtedly the most advanced logic process technology in the industry. We expect the production of our 14nm mobile application processor to positively impact the growth of the mobile industry by enabling further performance improvements for cutting-edge smartphones.”

Samsung first presented the idea of 3D FinFET processor in 2003 at the IEDM (International Electron Devices Meeting), and since has filed for a number of key patents related to the technology. If you remember, Samsung has been mass producing 3D V-NAND products since 2013. It is expected that the 14nm FinFET-based Exynos 7420 processor, which will be used in the Galaxy S6 and the Galaxy S6 Edge, will be faster than the 20nm-based Qualcomm Snapdragon 810 SoC.

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Galaxy Note 4 Snapdragon variant (SM-N910F), Galaxy Note 3 LTE get Lollipop update

When the Galaxy Note 4 started receiving the Lollipop update on the Exynos model earlier this week, we pointed out that it looked like Samsung was finally starting to give their own CPU more attention. However, it seems the company isn’t leaving the Snapdragon variant behind, as the Lollipop update is now making its way to the Galaxy Note 4 in Germany (model number SM-N910F). The update is available on Samsung Kies, and it shouldn’t be long before it starts showing up in OTA form.

The Galaxy Note 3 isn’t too far behind either, as the LTE variant of the device (SM-N9005) is also getting Android 5.0 in a lot of countries as we write this, around two weeks after the standard variant received the update. It’s a good sign of how seriously Samsung is taking the software update business at the moment, especially since the company is also working on updating the Galaxy Note II, a device more than two years old, to Lollipop.

Keep in mind that the update might not show up on your device immediately even if the rollout has started in your country, though you can manually check if it’s available from the Settings » About phone » Software update menu. You can also download the full firmware from our firmware section to manually upgrade, though this process is only recommended for advanced users.

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Samsung teases the Galaxy Grand 3 in India

Samsung isn’t done putting out new devices in the Galaxy Grand lineup, as it is now teasing a new Galaxy Grand smartphone over in India. According to a teaser sent out by the company in India, it is gearing up to launch “the Grandest Ever” device, and all signs point toward the fact that the Galaxy Grand 3 will soon be made official in the country. The Galaxy Grand 3 was quite active in the rumor mills last year but Samsung never announced it; instead, we were treated to the Galaxy Grand Prime, which was more or less a Grand 2 but with a high-resolution front-facing camera.

The Galaxy Grand 3 is expected o feature a 5.25-inch 720p display, a 1.2GHz Snapdragon 410 processor, 1.5GB of RAM, a 13-megapixel rear camera, a 5-megapixel front-facing camera, and 16GB of internal storage (and a microSD slot). Back when it was certified by TENAA in China, the phone was running Android 4.4.4, but we will hopefully see the Grand 3 launch with Android 5.0 Lollipop out of the box (which is unlikely, unless the device goes on sale after the Galaxy S6).

Anyone interested in the Galaxy Grand 3?

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China gets the 5.5-inch Samsung Galaxy E7

After announcing the Galaxy E7 for the Indian market a few weeks back, Samsung has gone on to launch the device in China, as we expected. The Galaxy E7 comprises the first batch of Galaxy E series phones, which are basically cheaper variants of the Galaxy A series. To speak specifically of the Galaxy E7, it comes with a 5.5-inch display that has an HD resolution of 1280 x 720 pixels, and is powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon 410 SoC which packs a 1.2GHz quad-core 64-bit CPU. Along with that, the Galaxy E7 has 2GB of RAM and 16GB of on-board storage, which is of course expandable via microSD.

A 2,950mAh battery powers the aforementioned internals, which also include a 13 mega-pixel camera on the rear of the phone, and a 5 mega-pixel sensor on the front of it. In China, the phone will be available for 2100 CNY or roughly US$336.

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Samsung Galaxy J1 goes live in the Indian market for 7,190 INR

As we reported previously, Samsung went ahead and launched the entry-level Galaxy J1 smartphone in the Indian market today. The phone is available for purchase via Amazon India for 7,190 INR, which translates to about US$115. To make the offer look better, Samsung and Amazon also offer 500MB of 2G/3G data worth 600 INR per month for six months for subscribers of Aircel and Reliance, along with content worth 1400 INR from StarSports.com. The phone itself comes with a 4.3-inch 800 x 480 pixel WVGA display, a 1.2GHz dual-core processor and 512MB RAM besides a 5 mega-pixel rear camera, 2 mega-pixel front camera and an 1850mAh battery.

The Galaxy J1 can be had in Black, White and Blue color variants. It’ll go against similarly priced devices in the Indian market, which include the Xiaomi Redmi 1S and the Android One series, and just like the ones mentioned here, will be available online-only (at least for now) at Amazon India.

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Samsung once again reported to be supplying chips for the next iPhone

Time and again it has been reported that Apple hasn’t quite been able to end its reliance on Samsung’s semiconductor division even though it wants to move its business elsewhere. Other vendors have fallen short and it looks like none have displayed the capacity and reliability that Samsung’s chipmaking arm offers. Apple had apparently wanted to rely more on the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company for the chips that are meant for its next iPhone but it has once again turned to Samsung for production of the next-gen A9 chip, which will also be used for other iOS devices.

There’s another reason why Apple has returned to Samsung. The company has perfected its 14nm manufacturing process while TSMC hasn’t come down from 20nm. Samsung’s process allows it to pack more processing power into a relatively smaller package that’s also more power efficient.

Apple tried its hand with TSMC last year when it split orders for iPhone 6′s processor between TSMC and Samsung. Re/code reports that the “balance of power” has once again shifted in Samsung’s favor, primarily because of its superior fabrication technology.

Today’s report comes on the heels of predictions by analysts that Samsung’s chipmaking arm is going to show “stellar performance” in the coming quarters as it starts raking in orders from the likes of Apple, NVIDIA and even Qualcomm.

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Samsung Galaxy Alpha price down by 32% since launch in India

Critics started writing off Samsung, but the company launched the Galaxy Alpha as its first ‘premium built’ phone to win back lost love. In India, the phone was launched back in September last year for 39,990 INR or US$650, but has received numerous price cuts to finally retail for around the 27,000 INR (US$437) mark in the country. This translates to a price cut of 32% percent in under 5 years; it perhaps goes to show how brutally price-sensitive the Indian market can be. Last month, Samsung also launched the budget Z1 smartphone, which happens to be its first ever Tizen-powered smartphone for 5,700 INR, to compete against the likes of Xiaomi Redmi 1S, and devices from the Android One scheme.

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Verizon Galaxy S5 Android 5.0 Lollipop update released

Verizon has just released the much awaited Android 5.0 Lollipop update for Samsung Galaxy S5. It brings all of the new features that come part and parcel of Lollipop apart from its own tweaks and improvements.

Developing…

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Samsung starts sending out press invitations for March 1st, hints at curved design

pending…

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Galaxy S6 renders point at a phone that’s going to be slimmer than you expect

Innumerable leaks and rumours about the next-in-line Samsung flagship, aka the Galaxy S6 have popped up in the recent past. However, this one’s perhaps the most comprehensive, when you’re talking form than anything else. Previous leaks have pointed at a phone that might have support for various feature-enabled rear covers, suggesting that accessories will be the Galaxy S6′s strongest suite. And it makes sense; the pace at which technological advancements took place in the past two years is hard to parallel for any OEM right now, so it’s natural that the focus shifts elsewhere.

Building on that and a lot more, case makers have put together what they feel will be the blueprint of the next big thing, about which we also talked about sometime back. What you also must take into consideration is the fact that official numbers (dimensions) are let out to case makers well in advance, so that it doesn’t take too long before 3rd party accessories start showing up after launch… which makes it possible for these renders to have more than just random numbers.

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This might be our first look at the upcoming Galaxy S6′s original design

This might be our first look at the upcoming Galaxy S6′s original design. Its edges appear to be curved, similar to that of the Apple iPhone 6.

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Developing…

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