Samsung’s first round smartwatch will be released soon enough and as we mentioned in our full review of the Gear S2, the company has finally understood what a smartwatch should be. We firmly believe that this is the best smartwatch design that we’ve seen from Samsung yet and that it deserves credit for making a smartwatch with such understated beauty. The company didn’t have to offer two different sizes of the Gear S2 to appeal to ladies because as you can very well see, the Gear S2 design works just as well for them.
Some smartwatch makers think that offering two different sizes is the only way to cater to female consumers but the Gear S2 shows that this couldn’t be further from the truth. This is the normal version of the Gear S2 and it looks amazing on the wrist, one can imagine just how better the Gear S2 Classic would look, which itself is more subtle and looks much more like a traditional dress watch. Kudos to Samsung for nailing the design of its first round smartwatch.
Samsung announced today that the Gear S2 is going to be released in the United States in just a couple of days, the smartwatch will also be launched in other markets later this month so it’s time to tell our readers how the company’s first smartwatch stands up to the pack. Our full review of the Gear S2 is available for you to peruse and our in-depth video review of the Gear S2 is now live as well.
In the series of in-depth video reviews we cover everything from the design to user interface, watchfaces, features and even apps like S Health on the wearable device. You also get to see how various features of the smartwatch are controlled through an app on the connected Galaxy smartphone. Take a look and let us know in the comments below what you think about this new smartwatch from Samsung and whether or not you’re convinced to put money down for one.
After almost a year of development, Samsung announced the Gear S2, a smartwatch the company says it has tried to make as perfect as possible. The Gear S2 is the first round smartwatch from Samsung, replacing all those square watches that we’ve seen until now. But can this round smartwatch differentiate itself from other smartwatches? Did Samsung create a winner on the wrist, or do other smartwatch vendors still remain stronger (at least when it comes to design)?
In this review we will take a closer look at the Gear S2, which isn’t just round, but comes with a cool new way of navigation through the rotary bezel and is compatible with any smartphone running Android 4.4 and above and with 1.5 GB of RAM.
We also advise you to have a look at our video review.
Design
Finally! That’s the only word that comes to our mind right now. Finally, Samsung developed a smartwatch with a round display. Not just any smartwatch, but a smartwatch that looks extremely good. The Gear S2 Classic is the better looking version; we unfortunately got the normal Gear S2 from Samsung, but we do have pictures of the Classic version as well.
Samsung uses a stainless steel case for both the Gear S2 and Gear S2 Classic. The biggest difference between the two is the finish. Where the Gear S2 looks sporty and even a little futuristic, the Classic version looks more like a traditional watch. The bezel of the Gear S2 is flat, while on the Classic version the bezel looks more like a big sprocket.
Both versions have two buttons on the right side; in a Samsung-like move, the buttons are not equally sized, which is strange and somewhat takes away from the overall design. Between these buttons is a microphone, which we found worked extremely well during our test period. On the back we find a heart rate sensor and the watch’s IMEI number.
Samsung has used wireless charging on its smartwatches for the first time, so you will not find any connectors on the Gear S2, with everything built right into the watch. It’s very easy to charge the Gear S2. Within the box you get a charging dock similar to the one Motorola uses for the Moto 360; the difference is that Samsung’s charger is magnetic so using the dock is not a hassle. Just put the watch on the dock and it sticks to it, with no worry about whether you’ve put the watch on the charger the right way.
What we do miss is a loudspeaker. It was present on all previous Samsung smartwatches, but with the Gear S2 you are restricted to using a Bluetooth headset to make calls.
Now let’s talk about the watch’s bands. The Gear S2 uses rubbery bands, while the Classic version uses leather. The rubber bands complement the build of the watch; it feels nice and soft and we never felt any skin irritation because of the band. As Samsung had announced, in the future, there will be a plethora of watch bands to choose from. The bands are usually easy to change, though we did face issues with changing one of the two bands that we received with the review unit.
The biggest negative of the Gear S2 is its size. If you have big wrists or are used to big watches, it will be hard to get used to the size of the Gear S2. To us it doesn’t seem like an easy task to do, and we hope Samsung will take notice when it is designing the Gear S3.
Overall, the Gear S2’s design is the best we have seen from Samsung, and the company deserves all the credit it can get for making a smartwatch that looks so understated yet so beautiful.
Display
For the Gear S2, Samsung uses a 1.3-inch circular Super AMOLED display. Its resolution is 360×360 pixels and a pixel density of 302 PPI (pixels per inch), which is higher than any other smartwatch on the market today.
The display’s brightness has 10 presets; it goes from very bright to very dim, and when you walk outside the door the watch automatically switches to outdoor mode. The display is easy to read outside, and it is very vivid thanks to the Super AMOLED technology. The blacks are extremely black, and since the entire software interface uses a black background, the display looks really good.
The black interface background also helps in battery life. Since AMOLED displays light every pixel individually, the pixels get turned off when displaying black, which in turn helps the battery last longer. Also, we noticed the Gear S2 display has the same pixel layout as the display on the Galaxy Note II. It’s not exactly not PenTile but it isn’t RGB either; it’s not an important parameter on a display with a high pixel density, but we thought this is something worth mentioning.
Battery Life
The Gear S2 uses a 250 mAh battery and Bluetooth 4.1 LE (Low Energy) for connecting to a smartphone. One might think 250 mAh isn’t enough for a smartwatch but the opposite is true on the Gear S2. On pre-final software we got about a day and a half of usage time. This is with the watch set to be always on (which means you can always read the time on the screen), screen brightness set to full, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth enabled, and the watch turned on overnight.
The Gear S2 also comes with the Power Saving Mode preset so you can get even more usage on a single charge. We are familiar with this mode from Samsung’s smartphones, and it works in a similar way on the watch. Everything except calls and notifications are turned off, and the screen is limited to displaying only black and white colors.
Samsung says the Gear S2 can last about 2 to 3 days, but we weren’t able to reach those figures on the test software on our review unit. It’s possible Samsung turns off the watch at night during long periods of inactivity to achieve that kind of battery life, but we will need to check a retail unit to be sure.
Software
Since the Gear 2, Samsung has opted for its own operating system, Tizen, for its watches. For the Gear S2, it isn’t anything different. While all other manufacturers are using Android Wear, Samsung is staying with Tizen. The big question remains: is this a smart thing to do? When we have a look at the interface of the Gear S2, we must conclude it was certainly a very smart thing to do. In fact, Samsung had to use Tizen since Android Wear is limited by Google and can’t be customized in any meaningful way by manufacturers. Take the rotary bezel that Samsung users; we’re not sure Android Wear would support that.
With this bezel you can control most parts of menus, as it replaces a swiping and touch action with a turn of the bezel. The only part where you usually touch the screen on the Gear S2 is when you want to confirm an action, and the big advantage of that is that your fingers aren’t always blocking the screen. When we have a look at the competition, we see that Android Wear is based on swiping and Apple’s watchOS is based on a digital crown. The rotary bezel is somewhat similar to the crown on the Apple Watch, but is easier to operate.
The entire interface looks cool and awesome. The Tizen effects from the former Tizen watches are still present, but Samsung has also introduced new animations which make the Gear S2 more enjoyable to use. What everyone wonders is how does the Gear S2 work when it comes to support for different apps? That’s different for each user and based on their needs; we mainly used the watch for notifications, S Health, and of course, reading time.
With the Gear S2 Samsung supports Facebook apps like the main app itself and Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp. What this means is that responding to someone on these apps is better implemented than on other apps. For instance, Hangouts only lets you open the app on the connected phone and doesn’t let you send any emoticon or respond via voice actions. It’s a shame, really, as a lot of Samsung smartphone users are used to Android and, as a result, many of them use Hangouts as well.
With the Facebook and WhatsApp apps, you can do all of that – the options in these apps include reply, show on phone, block app, and clear all notifications. What about Gmail, one of the most used apps on Android phones? Well, Gmail frankly works quite well. It lets you read the whole email, archive or delete it, in addition to offering the options of opening the app on the phone, blocking the app, and clearing all notifications, which are offered on every app on the watch.
For replying to messages, there are three options: voice, emoticon, or keyboard. Typing on a 1.3-inch screen on a T9 keyboard isn’t the easiest thing to do even if you have really small hands. You can also respond with presets, which you can predefine yourself in the Gear Manager app on your phone.
Now, it’s time to discuss some apps that we did not use too much during our review period.
Phone: When you open the phone app, you will see two icons and a list of your recently contacted contacts. You can use the Gear S2 to initiate a phone call. Scrolling through the phonebook is done by the bezel; when you scroll slowly you scroll by name, and when you do it fast you jump through the list by letter.
S Health: In our opinion the coolest and most beautiful app on the Gear S2 is S Health. It makes you want to run, it creates a nice overview of your exercise, and it lets you know exactly when you achieved your target. Once you open S Health, you are presented with a clock face. This clock face shows the number of hours you have walked, sat down, and laid in bed. Basic functions are also included, like adding your coffee and water intake, check the number of steps you have walked, and measure your heart rate.
Settings: The settings menu is divided in 9 groups, namely display, vibration, device, call, connections, screen lock, input, power saving and Gear info. For more info about the settings menu, take a look at our video review.
Agenda: When you open the calendar, you get the monthly bill first. If you tap on one of the days you only see an overview of the next 15 days, and unfortunately you can’t add an agenda item yourself.
SVoice: We all know S Voice from Samsung’s smartphones, and here it works exactly the same.
Weather: For years Samsung has partnered with Accuweather for their phones to provide weather information, and the same goes for the Gear S2. It is very easy to add your own cities, and when you have entered a desired city, you can click on its name to get detailed hourly and daily weather information.
Alarm: You can set an alarm on the watch (of course), and the entire process is pretty straightforward.
Timer: To set a timer for a few hours, minutes or seconds, the Gear S2 handles that pretty nicely as well.
Stopwatch: Did you always want to clock your workouts? Well, the Gear S2 can do that for you and look pretty cool at the same time.
Music player: Playing music is something a lot of users will do. Every music player that has a notification can be be used to play music on the watch, but Samsung’s own music player is more deeply integrated and lets you browse albums, playlists and more. The Gear S2 doesn’t have a speaker so you will need a Bluetooth headset. You can store music on the watch, so there is no need to take your phone along when you’re going for a run.
Gallery: The most useless app on the Gear S2 is the gallery, if you ask us. We just don’t think anyone would want to look at their pictures cropped in a circle. But how does it work? It’s easy: you open the gallery, then use the bezel to browse through the images. Double tapping a picture enlarges it.
Buddy: Buddy is an app that lets you store 10 of your favorite contacts, which can be set through the Gear Manager app on the phone.
Email: As the name suggests, this app lets you add an email account to your watch, nothing more, nothing less.
Find my phone: This app lets you find your phone by making it ring, which comes in handy when you’ve left your phone somewhere in the house and can’t find it. Of course, the phone will need to be near enough to be still connected to the watch through Bluetooth.
Maps: Samsung uses Nokia’s Here Maps for navigation on its smartwatches, and the app comes preloaded on the Gear S2 as well. It shows navigation data for both driving and walking, and also presents you with a few points of interests, such as hotels and restaurants nearby.
Voice memo: It does what the name says it does: record spoken memos. It’s as simple as it gets: just press the red button and it starts recording. It’s possible to pause, resume and cancel each recording, and every recording is pushed to your phone after you hit the stop button.
More apps: When you press this icon, you go to the Gear app store on the phone, where you can find every app that has been developed for the watch. Popular names include Nike Running, Bloomberg, CNN, and WSJ.
All in all, in the apps department Samsung’s new smartwatch is more than successful. The amount of apps is still somewhat disappointing, but we are hopeful more developers will show interest in the watch and the platform in the future to expand the ecosystem.
Watchfaces
A watchface is a personal preference, and we know that watchfaces can be an important factor for someone is on the market for a smartwatch. With the Gear S2 Samsung has included a lot of watchfaces, and some of these faces can be “stylized”. That is Samsung’s way of saying you can edit things, like the watchface’s dials, backplates, and their overall functionality (think displaying a pedometer, phone battery level, or watch battery percentage.) Out of the default options, you can stylize the classic, modern utility, neon, basic and world clock watchfaces.
If you want add more watchfaces, that is possible through the Gear apps store within Gear Manager. Unfortunately there aren’t many choices available at this moment, but this could be because the Gear S2 hasn’t been released yet.
Performance
The Gear S2 uses Samsung’s Exynos 3250 processor, which is a dual-core chip, 512MB of RAM, and 4GB of internal storage, out of which 1.5GB is reserved for the system. In our test period, the screen and the rotary bezel responded very well. We found the Gear S2 to be extremely fast and fluid to use, and the performance can be seen in our video review.
(Our sample Gear S2 was running firmware version R720XXU2AOIE.)
Samsung Gear (app)
In Samsung’s Gear Manager app, you can do quite a few things. You can set the watchface, look at and manager installed apps, set up preset responses, check for software updates, add notifications, and ensure your Gear S2 can be found with the Find my Gear app.
Conclusion
Samsung is finally heading in the right direction with the Gear S2. For us this is the first real smartwatch from the Korean giant. It took a while, but if it’s good it’s okay to wait a little longer, right?
Thanks to the rotary bezel and the smooth interface, the Gear S2 is a rock solid smartwatch. The only downside is that Samsung’s Tizen app ecosystem is lacking. Many popular apps are missing, but again, we are hopeful this will be fixed in the future. Oh, and we would also like to see a bigger round smartwatch. Samsung, if you’re reading this, maybe take it into consideration when you’re making your next smartwatch?
Samsung teased us with a quite unique device a couple of weeks ago called the Galaxy View, a tablet with a very large screen meant for schools and businesses. This is the tablet that we exclusively revealed some time ago and it has a 18.4-inch touchscreen display, and the ‘Galaxy’ word in its name means that it’s running Android. The same tablet passed through SIG certification and now it also passed RRA certification, a clear indicator that we could see it released pretty soon.
SM-T670 is the model name for this huge tablet, and it will probably be released in South Korea pretty soon. There are many potential uses for such a big tablet especially in education, art, health and various other domains. According to previous reports, this tablet could sport an 1920 x 1080 pixel display, an Exynos 7580 chipset, 2GB of RAM and 32GB of internal storage with support for a MicroSD card.
It has been announced today that Photobucket and Samsung have teamed up to create an exclusive Photobucket app for Samsung Galaxy smartphones, the app will be available exclusively for Galaxy handsets and will allow users to simply and easily manage their photos and order personalized print products from their device. Samsung appears to have adopted this new strategy of teaming up with popular app developers to create exclusive versions for its handsets, not too long ago it teamed up with Expedia for an exclusive travel application.
The app is built on Photobucket’s highly scalable infrastructure and the new smart gallery feature in Photobucket for Samsung includes the patented background auto-uploading technology, photo privacy and intelligent photo organizing capabilities. Thus users can easily view, manage, share and print all of their social network and Photobucket photos from within the smart gallery, the print service provides users with a large select of print merchandise such as framed prints, canvas prints and high resolution metal prints. As an added incentive all those who use this exclusive Photobucket for Samsung will receive unlimited cloud storage for six months for their photos, free storage will be expanded to 12 months on purchase of individual prints using the app, aside from quarterly offers and a 30% discount on print product purchases for a limited time in the United States only.
Samsung fans across the globe have been anxiously waiting to find out when the company’s first round smartwatch will be available for purchase, there’s good news for those who reside in the United States, the company today confirmed price and release date for the Gear S2 and the Gear S2 Classic. The Tizen-powered smartwatches were formally launched last month and Samsung had said back then that it would begin shipments by October.
Customers in the United States will pay $299 for the Gear S2 and $349.99 for the Gear S2 Classic, both smartwatches will be available for purchase starting October 2 through Samsung.com, Amazon, Best Buy and select Macy’s stores. The smartwatch has a 1.2 inch AMOLED display, dual-core processor with 512MB RAM, 4GB internal memory with Wi-Fi, NFC and wireless charging built-in. Gear S2 also supports Samsung Pay which has already gone live in the United States. The company is yet to reveal pricing and availability for other markets but since October is when shipments are to begin, it may not take long before it details pricing and availability for other markets as well.
Interested in the Gear S2 but not quite sure yet whether or not you should spend your hard earned money on it? Fret not, our official review of the Gear S2 will be live soon which will make it much easier for you to decide.
The Galaxy S6 edge+. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard someone make fun of the name. If you think I’m joking, take the time to watch yet another unboxing video on Samsung’s larger Galaxy S6 edge and you’ll understand.
One of the most often-read complaints from website commenters about the Galaxy S6 edge+, apart from the name, is the following: “Why create the Galaxy S6 edge+ in the first place? Why not just stick with the Galaxy S6 and S6 edge? The Galaxy S6 edge+ contributes nothing new to Samsung’s lineup (except for a larger screen), so why create yet another phone that looks like a clone of the Galaxy S6 edge just to provide a larger screen?” This complaint sounds valid until you examine it closely.
First, it’s not necessarily the case that the larger screen is the only reason behind the Galaxy S6 edge+; battery life is another. The Galaxy S6 edge had a 2,600mAh battery that hasn’t gotten the best stats in terms of battery life, depending on whom you talk to about it. The new Galaxy S6 edge+ provides a 3,000mAh battery that has been said to improve the battery life of the “edge”smartphone line. The edge itself must be powered along with the usual “square” display, and powering the larger screen and the “edge” screen slither mandates a bigger battery. Of course, Samsung said at the event last month that it is “betting on big” with larger screens or wider screens, but battery life takes a hit with larger screens; when larger screens include a Quad HD screen resolution, a bigger battery is never too much of a good thing.
The edge can also work at night while the majority of the display goes black, which makes the edge a second screen (although a minor one) that drains battery life. Users have an insatiable desire for increasingly better battery life, but there’s another reason that ties into the larger display: the Goldilocks Philosophy.
What is the Goldilocks Philosophy? The Goldilocks Philosophy says that there are things in life that are too big or too much, too small or too little, or “just right.” The name “Goldilocks” stretches back to an old childhood story called “Goldilocks and the Three Bears,” where Goldilocks is a little girl who stumbles onto a cottage while in the woods that belonged to a family of three bears (Mama, Papa, and Baby Bear). While the bears are out in the woods, she taste-tests Mama and Papa’s porridge but finds the baby bear’s porridge to be “just right” and eats it. She tests out each bear’s bed but, once again, finds the baby bear’s bed to be “just right.”
Most consumers are like this, too. When they go to a store to buy shoes, for example, they usually try on a pair of shoes they like while searching for the perfect size. Sometimes, they find the first size of their favorite shoe to be “too large,” the second pair to be “too small,” or vice versa. Then, finally, they stumble upon an in-between size that proves to be “just right.”
When it comes to Samsung, the Galaxy S6 edge+ is meant to be that “just right” smartphone for consumers who would rather have a larger Galaxy S6 edge. Many a Samsung customer over the years has purchased a Galaxy Note but rarely if ever touches the S Pen. Others purchase the Galaxy S line each year but long for the display size of the Note line. And now, thanks to Samsung’s innovation, the Galaxy S6 edge provides just one more factor that they want in the smartphone experience. With the Galaxy S6 edge+, these customers, like Goldilocks, find their “sweet spot” for smartphones: the Galaxy S6 edge+ gives them 1) the edge, 2) the larger screen, and 3) a more streamlined experience that doesn’t mandate they keep up with a stylus they don’t want. The S Pen and the Galaxy Note 5 work wonderfully together, but why purchase a device if you don’t seek to get the most out of the experience?
Thus, the Galaxy S6 edge+ gives smartphone users a chance to enjoy a big beautiful screen, the company’s new flexible “edge,” alongside of mastery of their phone experience without feeling overwhelmed. I love the Galaxy Note line, but I still purchase Galaxy S devices. In my hands-on time with the Galaxy S6 edge, the original edge device feels too small for my mammoth hands. If I were a heavy Galaxy S user, I would prefer the screen size of the Galaxy S6 edge+ over that of the original Galaxy S6 edge. And it’s the Goldilocks Philosophy, the “just right” idea, that Samsung is chasing after. The company may or may not reach it, depending on whom you ask, but you have to give the Korean manufacturer credit for trying.
Intuitive and user-friendly software design is hard. No matter how simple you might make things, there are going to be users who scratch their heads at various aspects of your software. Samsung has been at the forefront of making its smartphone software easy to understand and operate (yes, despite adding a ton of features that many might call gimmicks), and with the refined version of its TouchWiz user interface, one of the changes made by the company over vanilla Android is something very simple yet very effective.
What is that change? It’s Samsung’s move to using full text for actionable buttons inside apps and the general interface over text-less icons. For advanced users and techies, it’s not hard to figure out what an icon in the interface might mean, but the general populace often sits about trying different options out just to see what they do. Take, for example, the copy and paste icons on Android. Us techies can easily understand that the “two squares next to each other” icon stands for the copying text function, but the average joe, for whom computing isn’t as easy as 1-2-3, that icon isn’t exactly simple.
Even Android’s share icon suffers from the same issue. Again, it’s not that hard to see that an icon which shows two branches going out of a single dot means we can make an image or file available to other people, but it’s not as easy to comprehend for the general smartphone using population as it often requires them to spend a second or two pondering over what to press.
Using text for these actions is as simple as it can get if you want to make it easier for your users to understand what button does what, and Samsung rightfully swapped out all those non-user-friendly Android icons for plain text. You still have those icons all across the interface, but barring the camera app, you’ll see an icon’s description right below it. It’s something other companies should be copying shamelessly, and we can only hope software makers begin to simplify their user interfaces through similarly minor changes.
Just a few days back AT&T released the much awaited Android 5.1.1 update for the Galaxy S6 and the Galaxy S6 edge, now it’s giving the same treatment to the Galaxy Note Pro 12.2 which has now received the aforementioned update. The tablet is being bumped up to Lollipop from KitKat so users will certainly be grateful to receive all of the new features, user interface changes and improvements that come part and parcel of Android 5.1.1.
Firmware version P907AUCU1BOH3 is rolling out now for the Galaxy Note Pro 12.2 on AT&T, the update itself comes in over 1GB since it’s a big one, it’s based on Android build LMY47X which is the latest publicly available version of 5.1.1 available for Samsung devices right now. The update removes some preloaded apps such as Beats Music, WatchON and Famigo kids, three go out and one comes in, Amazon Shopping will automatically be installed on the tablet once the update is done.
Samsung Pay finally went live in the United States a couple of days ago, it’s supported by almost all major carriers in the country except Verizon Wireless, which also happens to be the largest mobile carrier in the US. Carrier support is required for Samsung Pay to function, aside from support from card networks like MasterCard and Visa, so unless Verizon flips the switch even if you own a compatible device on the carrier you won’t be able to use Samsung Pay. However Co-GM of Samsung Pay, Will Graylin, says that Verizon subscribers should be able to get the app in “the next week or so.”
Something doesn’t seem to be quite right here, Graylin suggests that Samsung Pay app will be available to Verizon subscribers via the Google Play Store even though one would expect that the company would release it through the Galaxy Apps store. That doesn’t even matter though because the Samsung Pay app hasn’t been released through either app store, newer devices like the Galaxy Note 5 and the Galaxy S6 edge+ come with it pre-installed while older devices like the Galaxy S6 and the Galaxy S6 edge got it via a software update. Moreover Verizon hasn’t said anything as yet to indicate that it’s about to flip the switch on Samsung Pay support, the last we heard from the carrier on this subject was that it’s “evaluating” the service, so all Verizon subscribers can really do now is wait until next week as Graylin suggests to see if the situation becomes clear.
@KochharPulsar soon to be down loadable on Google Play for Verizon customers. Hoping in the next week or so.
Samsung launched the Galaxy S6 back in April and it has since been nominated as one of the best looking and most powerful smartphones on the market by many. However, if you haven’t had the opportunity or wherewithal to pick one before now, it may interest you to know that independent retailer Monoprice is currently selling the factory unlocked 32GB LTE model of the handset for just $429 through a deal on eBay.
For those in need of a refresher of its specifications, the Galaxy S6 packs a 5.1-inch QHD Super AMOLED display, an Exynos 7420 octa-core chipset, a Mali-T760MP8 GPU, 3GB of RAM, 32GB of flash memory, a 16-megapixel rear-facing camera equipped with Optical Image Stabilization (OIS), a 5-megapixel selfie shooter and a 2,550mAh non-removable Li-Ion battery.
As far as connectivity goes, this particular variant comes with support for carrier brands 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 8, 17, 20 and 28, which are the frequencies AT&T and T-Mobile use to operate in the United States. There’s also compatibility for GSM, WCDMA, Bluetooth Class 1 (Version 4.0, LE+EDR), 802.11b/802.11g/802.11n Wi-Fi, NFC and GPS.
If you like the sound of the Galaxy S6 and would like to take advantage of this deal – hit the source link below.
Samsung fans have long been waiting for the company’s first round smartwatch and a few weeks back it followed through by formally unveiling the Gear S2. It talked in detail about what the new smartwatch is capable of doing and all of the features it touts. Even if you have used Samsung smartwatches in the past you might need some time to get accustomed to the Gear S2. That’s because it has a revolving bezel unlike any other previous Gear smartwatch, the bezel is instrumental for navigation and new gestures to access features.
To make sure that users don’t have a hard time figuring out all of the new interactions on their own Samsung has published five new video tutorials for the Gear S2 which explain how the touch screen and bezel are to be used to navigating, how to connect the Gear S2 to a compatible smartphone, how to transfer files between mobile devices, how to conserve the all important battery power s well as how to use the call and message features of the smartwatch. It’s a good time for these videos to be published, the Gear S2 is going to be released in the coming month and those who are excited about purchasing one can get accustomed to the new user experience even before their unit arrives.
When it comes to their courtroom battles Samsung and Apple rarely agree on anything, both companies have filed suits and countersuits against each other and even though it has been a few years since this has been going on an end is yet to be achieved. Perhaps the companies are growing weary because both Samsung and Apple have submitted a joint statement to a California district court announcing that they’ve reached an agreement to take part in court-supervised mediation to settle their arduous patent lawsuit.
Attorney from both companies said in the filing that Samsung and Apple are ready to enter mediation talks which will cover settlement terms concerning the first patent trial between them. Magistrate Judge Joseph Spero will be presiding over the mediation that takes place in November. Don’t get your hopes up for a resolution though, the companies have taken part in court-supervised mediation before their first jury trial in 2012 and once again before the second trial last year but an amicable settlement wasn’t reached. Who knows, as they say, third time’s the charm. Samsung and Apple have decided to give mediation another shot as their case enters a second damages retrial which is scheduled for early next year, it aims to ascertain damages worth $1.05 billion awarded to Apple as Samsung was found guilty of patent infringement in the first trial, but since then a series of successful appeals and retrials from Samsung has brought down the amount to $548 million.
The Galaxy A8 is an impressive mid-range handset in Samsung’s 2015 lineup, and the company is now working on the Galaxy A9. Samsung trademarked the Galaxy A9 name earlier this year, and our insiders have confirmed that the device will be seeing a market release sometime in the future. The Galaxy A8 went on sale only in August this year, so Samsung will likely allow the device some time to shine before releasing the next phone in the A series. There’s no word on the specs either, but we’re hoping the Korean manufacturer will fix some of the shortcomings of the A8, like the lack of a notification LED and the high price tag.
As we exclusively revealed last week, we will also be seeing new versions of the Galaxy A3, Galaxy A5 and Galaxy A7 in the coming months. In addition to confirming that the A9 is in the works, our sources also revealed the accessories that will be accompanying the three devices. The list isn’t unique: Samsung will release an official screen protector, Flip Wallet and Clear Cover cases, and an S View Cover (the S View Cover won’t be present for the new A3, likely because its screen will fall below 5 inches like the original and make usage of the S View cover non-intuitive.)
The Galaxy Note 5 is one of the hottest devices on the market right now, it’s a true Android powerhouse with specifications that match the best of them, and then some. Samsung has only released the handset in select markets and the US is one of them, carriers in the country are asking well over $700 for unlocked models but today there’s a great opportunity for those who don’t mind putting a few hundred dollars upfront for a factory unlocked Galaxy Note 5. There’s an eBay deal going on right now offering the unlocked Galaxy Note 5 for $579.
Don’t think that this is going to be a refurbished or used unit, for this price you’ll actually get a brand new unopened device that’s factory unlocked, the handset will work with GSM carriers like T-Mobile and AT&T and not with CDMA carriers like Verizon, Sprint and more. Supported bands are mentioned on the eBay listing. The item is only going to be shipped to customers located in the United States so if you’re not based there you’re out of luck.
T-Mobile today rolled out a firmware update for a couple of Samsung tablets, both the Galaxy Note 10.1 2014 and the Galaxy Tab 4 have been stuck at KitKat for quite some time now, users have had to wait patiently for Lollipop to arrive and now it finally has. There’s a caveat though, it’s still not the latest publicly available version of Lollipop, so users will have to make do with Android 5.0 and not Android 5.1.
Magenta has rolled out firmware version P607TUVUBOI2 for the Galaxy Note 10.1 2014 today whereas version T337TUVU1COH5 is now available over-the-air for the Galaxy Tab 4. Both updates bring all the bells and whistles that we have come to expect from Android 5.0 Lollipop and also bring a fix for the Stagefright security vulnerability. It can’t be said for sure right now when Android 5.1 might be released for these tablets, and with Android 6.0 Marshmallow just around the corner, it might take a long time before the very latest version of Android arrives for these tablets on T-Mobile.
Samsung Pay has gone live in the United States today and to make sure that word gets around Samsung has also posted a new ad for its payments service, the ad continues with the company’s current “it’s not a phone, it’s a Galaxy” theme which takes a subtle jab at Apple in itself. The one-minute ad focuses entirely on getting one point across: that Samsung Pay is unlike other mobile payment solutions and actually happens to be very easy to use.
There’s truth to the company’s claim, Samsung Pay supports both NFC and MST-based transactions, this means that it’s acceptable at almost all merchants with conventional credit card terminals where you can already swipe your credit card. Services like Apple Pay rely on NFC and thus merchants need to upgrade their terminals in order to accept the payment method, on the other hand MST works just as fine with conventional terminals so you can rest assured that Samsung Pay will work at both the giant retail chain and the mom-and-pop store around the corner. Samsung Pay is now live in the United States, this is the second launch market for the service, the company is running a promotion for people who own the Galaxy Note 5 or the Galaxy S6 edge+ giving them choice of a free wireless charger or flip case if they activate Samsung Pay on their handset over the next two weeks.
Almost a year after launching the Milk Music streaming service Samsung expanded Milk’s presence over to video last year with a new service called Milk Video, the app was designed to make it easier for users to discover viral videos on their Samsung smartphone. It pulled in content from popular sources like YouTube and Vevo, Samsung also teamed up with the likes of Vanity Fair, Vice, Funny or Die, Cracked, College Humor and more for content. At the start this app was only available for selected handsets before Samsung started pre-loading it on its flagship smartphones. Now though the company has announced that it’s going to shut down Milk Video this November.
The company didn’t really explain the reason behind this decision, writing on the Google Play Store that while it remains committed to providing premium entertainment services, it has decided to end support for the Samsung Milk Video app as of November 20, 2015. It has also informed users that the Milk Video app might automatically disappear from their handsets after an upcoming software update. The move comes after it was reported recently that Samsung’s content and services unit has been through a round of layoffs with Kevin Swint, the executive in charge of its content and service, also leaving the company a few months back.
Samsung’s new payments service was unveiled earlier this year before it entered beta testing in South Korea. It has been over a month since Samsung Pay has been live in the company’s home country and it has performed spectacularly on its own turf, now it’s time for the service to go live in the US. As promised, Samsung Pay has gone live in the United States today and to commemorate the occasion Samsung is offering a choice of a free wireless charger or a flip case to those who activate the service on the Galaxy Note 5 or the Galaxy S6 edge+.
The promotion is valid for those own the Galaxy Note 5 or the Galaxy S6 edge+ on any supported carrier in the United States, carrier support is required for Samsung Pay, users simply need to activate the service in order to choose from a free wireless charger or a flip case for their device. Keep in mind though that the activation has to be done before October 11 to claim the free gift, the terms and conditions are laid out in detail on Samsung’s promotions website.
Samsung has seen incredible success with its Galaxy smartphones, the success has propelled the company to become the top smartphone vendor in many countries across the globe. Samsung held this position in Germany as well but for the first time its smartphone market share in the country has dipped, the company still maintains its lead over rivals like Apple and Sony, but nevertheless there has been a decline which might predict the trajectory that its market share could take in the future.
According to a report out of Germany Samsung’s market share in the country peaked at 45% earlier this year in March but six months on the company has posted a loss of two percentage points. Even at 43% Samsung is still far ahead of Apple and Sony who have clinched 21% and 8% of Germany’s smartphone market. Samsung is now relying upon its high-end handsets to push sales across the globe, it has even cut prices of some models to sustain momentum, but many believe its decision to not launch the Galaxy Note 5 in Europe this year might end up hurting the company’s position in many markets across the continent. We’ll have to wait and see if that reflects on its position in Germany.
So you’ve just gotten your hands on a shiny new Galaxy Note 5, only to find that its gorgeous 5.7-inch Super AMOLED display continuously freezes on you and stops responding. Pretty frustrating, huh? Yeah, we think so, too. Thankfully, there’s a super-easy fix that prevents the freezing from occurring repeatedly.
Here’s what to do:
Turn off your Note 5 by holding the Power button and selecting Power Off from the on-screen menu.
Hold the Power, Volume Up and Home buttons simultaneously until the Android mascot appears on the screen.
A recovery menu should appear. Using the Volume Down button, highlight the option entitled ‘Wipe Cache Partition’, and click the Power button to select it.
Press the Power button again to reboot the system.
After following the steps above, you should find that your Note 5’s display does not freeze anymore as you’ve wiped the cache that was causing it malfunction in the first place. If you happen to run into any issues along the way, do be sure to let us know in the comments section below, and we’ll do our very best to get you back on track.
The second largest carrier in the United States has finally released Android 5.1.1 Lollipop for the Galaxy S6 and the Galaxy S6 edge on its network, many of its rivals have already sent out this update for these handsets but AT&T took its sweet time with it. Now the carrier is pushing it out ahead of Samsung Pay’s launch in the United States, it’s rivals have also got these devices ready for Samsung’s new payment service ahead of time.
Till now the Galaxy S6 and the Galaxy S6 edge have been on Android 5.0.2 on AT&T so it’s a big bump for these devices which explains why the download size for this update is around 670MB. There aren’t really any new major features in the update but it does bring some performance improvements and stability fixes. It also makes sure that the Galaxy S6 and the Galaxy S6 edge users are ready to use Samsung Pay when it goes live in the US later today. Samsung Pay has already performed quite well in South Korea during its first month after launch and a similar response is expected Stateside.
We’ve been hearing about the Samsung Z3 for quite some time now, the launch appears to be just around the corner with multiple models of the handset making the customary FCC stop. Earlier this month the Samsung Z3 (SM-Z300H) received its FCC certification and now it’s the SM-Z300F that has sailed through the regulatory body. There is one big difference between the two models, the latter features 4G LTE, full connectivity support includes GSM, W-CDMA 850/1900, LTE Band 5, Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n and Bluetooth Low Energy.
Other than 4G LTE this model has the same 5.0-inch 720p display, 1.3GHz quad-core processor with 1.5GB of RAM, 8-megapixel front and 5-megapixel rear camera as well as two SIM card slots. Though unlike the SM-Z300H which has a 2,600mAh battery FCC listing for SM-Z300F mentions only a 1,500mAh battery even though 4G LTE compatibility warrants the need for a bigger battery. Samsung is yet to confirm anything about this particular handset so perhaps it can clear up this matter when the Samsung Z3 is formally launched.
Not too long ago we reported exclusively that Samsung has started working on the Galaxy Mega On (SM-G600), later on the specifications of this upcoming handset were leaked and it has also made a couple of trips to the benchmarks. The handset recently received its TENAA certification which is usually an indication that the launch is just around the corner, and now images filed with China’s equivalent of the FCC have appeared online and they reveal that the Galaxy Mega On has ridiculously thin bezels.
Even though much has been written about this handset’s specifications this is really the first time that we’re seeing an image of the Galaxy Mega On, it appears to be business as usual at the back which resembles other recent Galaxy models. Things get interesting at the front though particularly with the display that doesn’t really have bezels, the edge-to-edge glass contributes positively to the overall design. The Galaxy Mega On is apparently going to feature a 5.5-inch HD display, Qualcomm Snapdragon 412 processor with 1.5GB RAM, 13-megapixel rear and 5-megapixel front camera, 8GB internal storage with microSD card support as well as a 3,000mAh battery.
Here’s a first for virtual reality: if you own a Gear VR, then you will be able to attend the democratic presidential debate on the 13th of October. Basically, the media giant will broadcast a virtual reality stream of the debate, and you’ll feel like you’re actually there in the audience.
There’s apparently no limit as to how many people can attend, because the way it works. CNN books a single spot from which everyone can watch. The only downside to this feature is that you won’t get presidential candidates close-ups, but you will be able to see the audience and how they react to what the candidate are saying.
CNN’s offer brings a whole new layer of entertainment to consumer homes after Mariott and Samsung teamed up to deliver a unique new experience. They allowed guests to book a VR room for up to 24 hours at the New York Mariott Marquis, and it’s a really fancy experience.
All in all, it looks like virtual reality content is growing every day, and soon the Gear VR will be available to all consumers for merely $99. The company’s consumer variant of the Gear VR is compatible with the Galaxy S6, the Galaxy S6 edge, the Galaxy S6 edge+, and the Galaxy Note 5.
Vodafone UK is looking towards the future of voice calls by rolling out Wi-Fi Calling on the Galaxy S6 and the Galaxy S6 Edge this autumn. After updating these devices, you’ll find an ability to call someone over a Wi-Fi network, and according to Vodafone UK, this feature works on many remote locations such as the London Underground or older buildings with thick walls, or even basements. What’s more is that Vodafone UK has recently rolled out 4G+ and HD Voice, both of which will greatly enhance the quality of calls performed through a Wi-Fi network.
Currently, Vodafone UK only supports Apple’s iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus devices, but they are also adding Samsung’s latest flagship to the list, and you need a Pay monthly Red or Red Value Bundle, Red+ or Business Premier. You don’t have to install any apps whatsoever, because the Galaxy S6 and Galaxy S6 Edge come with this feature out of the box, so after updating them you’ll simply have to connect to a Wi-Fi network and then turn on Wi-Fi Calling in the settings menu.
Owners of the Galaxy Note 5 on T-Mobile are now receiving a new update to Samsung Pay, but it doesn’t look like anything major yet as the update size is only about 30MB. The exciting thing about this OTA is the fact that it could be a sign of Samsung pay making its way into the US.
So far Samsung Pay has only been released in South Korea where it had a huge success with nearly 25,000 registrants a day, smashing its competition. Starting tomorrow, US-based residents will be able to use Samsung Pay in their country, and given the impact it had on the Asian community, it’s likely to dominate the US market as well.
This isn’t the only update we’ve gotten in regards to Samsung Pay. Three days ago, the official Samsung Pay app was updated with support for auto card number display and off-screen activation, so it’s pretty clear that the payment service’s release in the US is imminent, but the competition is very fierce. We have Apple Pay on one hand and Android Pay on the other, and it will be interesting to see whether customers will go with Apple, Google or Samsung on this one.
Samsung has a great promotion going on right now if you want to switch to its recently released high-end smartphones. The South Korean smartphone giant is willing to pay your monthly smartphone instalment bills from your carrier until 2016 if you purchase a new smartphone from the company.
If you purchase the Galaxy S6, the Galaxy S6 edge, the Galaxy S6 edge+, or the Galaxy Note 5, from the carrier of your choice, Samsung will reimburse your monthly payments for the phone till 2016 (upto $120). This offer is applicable only when you trade in your current smartphone for one of these smartphones from Samsung.
To claim this promotional offer, you need to head to Samsung’s dedicated website to register your email address. Then, head to your carrier, trade in your current smartphone, and purchase any one of smartphone that are listed above. If you are trading in an eligible iPhone, Samsung is making the deal even sweeter by including a $100 Google Play credit.
A new low-end smartphone offering from Samsung, the Galaxy J1 Ace, is now available in India. The specifications and price of the device were revealed by an Indian retailer a few weeks ago. Now, the device has been listed on the company’s official web store in India.
The Galaxy J1 Ace (SM-J110H) features a 4.3-inch WVGA Super AMOLED display, but runs a dated version of Android in the form of v4.4 KitKat. It is equipped with a 1.3GHz dual-core processor, 512MB RAM, 4GB internal storage, a microSD card slot, two SIM card slots with HSPA+ connectivity, a 5-megapixel primary camera, a 2-megapixel secondary camera, and an 1,800 mAh battery.
The device is available for purchase from SamsungIndiaEStore for INR 6,300 (~$95) in three colors; Black, White, and Blue. In comparison, the company’s own Galaxy J1 4G, which features a 1.2GHz dual-core processor, 768MB RAM, and 4G LTE connectivity, appears to be a well-equipped device at a similar price, but has a TFT LCD display instead.
As we exclusively revealed the specifications of the Galaxy Mega On, the device features a 5.5-inch HD TFT LCD display, a 1.2GHz quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 400 processor, 1GB RAM, 8GB internal storage, a microSD card slot, a 13-megapixel primary camera, a 5-megapixel secondary camera, 4G LTE connectivity, and a 3,000 mAh battery.
Going by its specifications, the Galaxy Mega On (SM-G600) appears to be an entry-level phablet that runs Android 5.1.1 Lollipop, is 8.2 mm thin, and weighs 172 grams. Usually, TENAA certifications are accompanied by multiple images of the device, but for some reason the images appear to be missing this time around.
Samsung’s Tizen OS is a fledgling mobile operating system, and the key to any OS’s survival in the mobile space is “apps, apps, apps,” as the app-hungry among us continue to drill. Samsung has heard this message, and the company intends to make Tizen as formidable an OS as Android and iOS.
To this end, the Korean manufacturer is partnering with free voice, video chat, and messaging company Line and Tencent to bring Line Messenger and Tencent’s messaging app WeChat to Tizen for Z1 and Z3 customers. Of course, Tizen-powered devices after the Z3 will also see these apps as part of the Tizen app selection, speeding up and encouraging the adoption of Samsung’s homegrown OS.
Tizen customers have been clamoring for these apps for some time now, and it seems as though Samsung, Line, and Tencent are listening to customers. Sometimes, all it takes is for a few well-known companies to partner with another company to make things happen. Thanks to Line and Tencent, Tizen is on its way to fulfilling Samsung’s claim that Tizen is “the OS of everything.”
Samsung is trying to expand its influence in the chipset industry by expanding to California and targeting an expansion in logic chips to complement memory chips. According to Kim Ki Nam, head of Samsung’s logic chip business, the tech giant will try to sell more chipsets to other companies rather than prioritize its own, which basically means that they’re going to focus on technological advancements rather than be more competitive. Right now, the company is the #1 supplier of TVs and liquid-crystal displays among many other things. Here’s what Kim Ki Nam had to say about this matter:
We believe we have plenty of room to grow. If you have a fab (plant) to operate it doesn’t matter whether your customer is internal or on the outside. Whoever buys our capacity is the primary customer.
Santa Clara in California is also now hosting a new chip research and design center, which is a one million square-foot structure built near some big headquarters such as Intel’s and Cisco Systems Inc’s. While Samsung has been losing money for a while now, their chipset industry has certainly advanced, increasing sales and revenue. They’re currently right behind Intel in the production of chips, but it’s been growing at a very fast pace, so things are likely to get better.
The Korean manufacturer owned mobile and global smartphone shipments in Q2, having placed first in mobile marketshare with 19% to Apple’s 10% overall, first in Asia with 13% to Apple’s 8%, first in Europe with 31% as compared to Apple’s 14%, first in Latin America with 24% to Apple’s third place (behind Alcatel, tying with LG, Motorola, Huawei, and ZTE), and first in the Middle East with 25%. Apple didn’t rank in the MEA for Q2.
In global smartphone share, Samsung placed first with 21% to Apple’s 14%. As for particular regions, Samsung placed first with 14% to Apple’s 11%, first in Europe with 32% to Apple’s 16%, first in Latin America with 27% (Apple tied for third with Huawei), and first in the Middle East with 34%. Apple tied for third with ZTE and Alcatel.
Despite the prevailing story worldwide, however, Apple still won in its home country with 31% mobile phone share in the US as compared to Samsung’s 24%, and 34% in global smartphone share as compared to Samsung’s 26%. Samsung said recently that it has won marketshare but Apple still owns mindshare, but the mindshare hold the fruit company has is slipping in certain areas. Perhaps Huawei’s rise to the third-largest global smartphone manufacturer over Microsoft may have something to do with that.
The Gear 2 saw Samsung switch its smartwatch software to Tizen, and the company also updated its original Gear smartwatch to its home brewed operating system. When the Samsung Z1 was released, it was rather ironic to see the company’s Tizen phone didn’t support its smartwatches, but given the extremely low-end nature of the Z1, it wasn’t surprising that smartwatch support wasn’t a part of the feature list.
Fast forward to 2015, and Samsung made a great move by announcing that the Gear S2 would be compatible with Android devices in general despite running Tizen. According to Tizen Experts, the Gear S2 will also be compatible with the Z3, Samsung’s upcoming Tizen smartphone. The Z3 will reportedly come with a native Gear Manager app for connecting with the Gear S2, with the app finally in a stable state after being seen in the testing stages last year.
Smartwatches are only set to become more popular and mainstream in the coming years, and while consumers buying the Z3 won’t be too inclined to buy the Gear S2 considering the watch will be costlier than the phone itself, it would provide a good starting point for Samsung for bringing support for smartwatches to the operating system.
Here at SamMobile, we had something of a love-hate relationship with the Galaxy Tab S, Samsung’s second tablet with a Super AMOLED display. The tablet had a good design and the display was stunning, but a weak processor made the experience on the software side rather irritating at times. With the Galaxy Tab S2, Samsung set out to fix all the shortcomings of the original, while also opting for a 4:3 aspect ratio for the display instead of the 16:9 ratio that is a standard on most Android tablets.
As we noted in our hands-on, the new iPad-like aspect ratio isn’t the best fit for watching videos, something tablets are heavily used for. But apart from that major change that may or may not work out for many users, the Galaxy Tab S2 – which comes in 8.0 and 9.7-inch sizes – has all of the important features one would look for in a high-end tablet. But how is the real-life experience of using the Galaxy Tab S2?
Read on to find out.
Design
The Galaxy Tab S2 is Samsung’s thinnest tablet yet with a thickness of 5.6 mm, and combined with the metal frame around the sides and the soft touch plastic on the back, it feels rather premium. Despite the thin frame, the tablet feels solid in hand, though the Tab S2 attracts considerably more fingerprints than the Tab S. The thinness and size of the 8-inch model make it feel better than the 9.7-inch model, and it’s the one we would prefer if we were out to buy the Galaxy Tab S2.
With the metal frame around the sides and the soft touch plastic on the back, the Tab S2 feels rather premium
The front of the Tab S2 is dominated by the Super AMOLED display (which is gorgeous), with the hard home button, recent apps and back keys below it. The home button has an integrated fingerprint sensor – it’s the same touch-based sensor as the Galaxy S6, and it’s as accurate and fast as well. Above the display you get your usual sensors (including the front-facing camera) along with the Samsung logo.
The top of the tablet is completely bereft of any ports or features. At the bottom, you get stereo speakers with each grille placed at the left and right corners, and the microUSB port and headphone jack between those grilles. The power and volume buttons (in that order) are at the right of the device, and the left side is as barren as the top.
The Galaxy Tab S2 has a good overall design; it’s not as premium as the iPad because of the soft touch plastic on the back, but that in turn helps it be easier to hold and operate.
Display
The Galaxy Tab S2 has one of the latest-generation Super AMOLED displays from Samsung, and you probably know what we’re going to say here. But we’ll say it anyway – the display on this thing is amazing, with all the inherent qualities of the Super AMOLED technology. The colors simply pop out of the screen, something that is enhanced by the large size of the display compared to Samsung’s smartphones. The blacks are as black as can be, and the viewing angles are impeccable except for a very slight shift in colors at extreme angles. The resolution has been reduced from 2560×1440 pixels to 2048×1536 pixels, but in regular usage the reduced pixel density doesn’t make any difference unless you’re looking at the screen up close.
The display on this thing is amazing
But while the display itself looks amazing, we’re not too happy about the new squarish aspect ratio. It’s great for reading books, browsing and using productivity tools like note-taking apps, but for viewing pictures and videos, it just doesn’t work out. Most of the times videos on YouTube would have black bands at the top and bottom as videos are usually shot in 16:9. The video player that comes pre-installed does give you an option to stretch the video to fill the screen, but that either cuts out some part of the picture or elongates things on-screen.
For viewing pictures and videos, the display’s aspect ratio just doesn’t work out
Media consumption is what we use our tablets for most of the time, so in that regard the Galaxy Tab S2 isn’t a great choice. We understand why Samsung has made this move – the bestselling tablet of all time, the Apple iPad, has a similar screen ratio, but it’s a move that affects the experience for the end user. The display is excellent, but it’s shaped in the wrong way if media consumption is your primary use case on a tablet.
Software
The Galaxy Tab S2 runs Android 5.0.2 Lollipop out of the box (yes, it’s not 5.1.1), with the same version of Samsung’s TouchWiz UX as the one that debuted on the Galaxy S6 and Galaxy S6 edge. This might be Android 5.0.2, but Samsung has fixed things like the missing A-Z sorting in the app drawer and included Multi User support, which isn’t there on the company’s smartphones but is very important on a tablet. Themes are supported, too, making it possible to change the look and feel by selecting from the plethora of options available on the Theme Store.
The upgraded software is one of the key advantages the Tab S2 has over its predecessor. Samsung completely turned around TouchWiz with the Galaxy S6 and S6 edge; the interface looks much cleaner, modern and sleek, and its colorful nature is well suited to the Super AMOLED display. Oh, and it’s worth mentioning that a pack of Microsoft apps come pre-loaded, with 100GB of free OneDrive storage for every user.
Performance
Performance was pretty much the biggest issue on the Galaxy Tab S, as the Exynos 7420 was unable to cope with the Quad HD display, and that device was also running Samsung’s previously unoptimized software. On the Tab S2, there’s an octa-core Exynos 5433 processor running the show, with four cores clocked at 1.8GHz and the other four clocked at 1.3GHz. This chipset is considerably faster than the 5420, and the tablet performs very well. Everything happens at a quick pace, and the animations are smooth throughout. There are a few hiccups now and then when we’re going back and forth between apps, but there really isn’t any Android device out there that doesn’t suffer from those hiccups.
Everything happens at a quick pace, and the animations are smooth throughout
Multitasking is where you might feel the Tab S2 is a downgrade, because the tablet comes with the same aggressive RAM management as other 2015 devices from Samsung. It’s not as bad as it was on the Galaxy S6, but if you put the Tab S2 beside another Android tablet with 3GB of RAM, you will see how apps in the background get killed a little too quickly on the Tab S2. There’s no way of knowing why the Korean giant is limiting the multitasking experience on its devices this year, and our best guess is that it’s a way to hide the fact that TouchWiz still isn’t as optimized as it should be.
Camera
The Galaxy Tab S2 features an 8-megapixel camera on the back and a 2.1-megapixel camera on the front. Tablets and imaging don’t usually go hand-in-hand, and as expected both the cameras on the Tab S2 more or less get the job done. Image quality is slightly above average, and if you’re limiting usage of those images to Facebook and other social networks, you won’t see yourself complaining. But if you start looking at them on your PC, you will notice a distinct lack of fine detail in many cases even in natural lighting conditions.
The cameras are good if you’re limiting usage of those images to Facebook and other social networks
Video calls over the front camera are clear for the most part, though there is visible noise in the image indoors, something that can’t really be avoided. Again, the cameras are fine considering this is a tablet and not a smartphone, but you won’t be coming away impressed with what’s on offer.
Here are a few camera samples:
Battery Life
Both variants of the Galaxy Tab S2 feature smaller batteries than the ones seen on the original Tab S, but that didn’t seem to affect regular endurance in our experience. Watching videos, the tablet could go on for around 8 hours of continuous usage before reaching the first warning level (15 percent), but the total usage times do seem to have gone down. With general usage we were charging the tablet in around two days, and the small batteries and higher-end processor are no doubt the major reason behind it.
The tablet could go on for around 8 hours of continuous video viewing
Audio Quality
The audio experience is an important aspect on tablets, and this is another area where we were neither disappointed nor impressed with the Galaxy Tab S2. Both variants feature stereo speakers located at the bottom of the device; the sound produced was good with a certain amount of depth, but the volume wasn’t very high. The placement at the bottom can be a problem when you have the tablet on your lap, and we can’t wait for the day when Samsung will start using front firing speakers. There is enough space on a tablet’s top and bottom for accommodating loudspeakers, and it’s something the Korean giant would do well to adopt in the future.
Sound produced by the loudspeakers was good with a certain amount of depth, but the volume wasn’t very high
Wrap Up
Super AMOLED displays are amazing, and when you put them on a tablet, the experience becomes even better. The first Galaxy Tab S provided a stunning viewing experience, and the Galaxy Tab S2 does the same while also improving on the software front. As media lovers, we don’t agree with the new aspect ratio of the display, but at the same time we have to say the Tab S2 is a great tablet. There are improvements in all the right places, and the display is as stunning as one would expect it to be.
Battery life could have been better, but it’s not a major concern unless you’re a frequent traveller that uses the tablet a lot and don’t have access to a charging point for multiple days on a stretch. In the end, the takeaway is this: If reading books and browsing the web are going to be two of your primary use cases, the Galaxy Tab S2 is an excellent choice. If you’re a fan of watching movies and YouTube videos, the original Galaxy Tab S is still a better bet despite its issues.
