Samsung working on the Galaxy J1 Pop (SM-J110)

The Galaxy J1 is far from the budget smartphone Samsung needs to be making for competing in the low-end market, but the company could soon be launching its successor. Our insiders have offered us information on what could launch as the Galaxy J1 Pop – we’re not sure if Pop is the codename or the final name of the device, but it will likely be the latter.

We haven’t received any information on specs, but the phone will be launched worldwide, including Russia, Brazil, and India. The hardware is likely to be as low-end as it can get, possibly with a few improvements over the Galaxy J1 (SM-J100). As a refresher, the Galaxy J1 featured a 4.3-inch WVGA LCD display, a dual-core Spectrum processor, 512MB of RAM (the LTE model has 768MB RAM), 4GB of expandable internal storage, a 5-megapixel rear camera, a 2-megapixel front-facing camera, and Android 4.4.4 KitKat out of the box.

The high-resolution front-facing camera was one of the touted features of the Galaxy J1, and we wouldn’t be surprised if it’s an area of focus on the Galaxy J1 Pop as well. We would really love to see at least 1GB of RAM and a faster processor under the hood, though the small change in model number suggests we won’t be seeing anything notably different in the Galaxy J1 Pop compared to the first phone in Samsung’s Galaxy J lineup.

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Samsung developing denser batteries and slimmer camera sensors for smartphones

Samsung has just announced that it is currently working on newer batteries that have higher energy densities and camera sensors that are thinner than the current ones in order to maker smartphones and tablets even thinner. The South Korean electronics giant has announced that these new technologies will be used in smartphones that will be released in 2017, so there’s still some time for that.

Currently, Samsung is working on batteries that have energy density of 700Wh/l (Watt-hours per litre), but they expect this number to increase to 750Wh/l by the end of 2016, and to 780Wh/l by 2017. This means that batteries with the same capacity will be thinner than their current dimension, or you can expect increased battery capacity by sticking to the current dimensions. Not only this, the company is also working on increasing the battery voltage 4.40 volts in the coming months, and 4.5 volts by 2017. Samsung has also mentioned that it is working on improving its fast charging technology. It is expecting to make charging technology can charge 80 percent of the battery within 30 minutes. All this means that you can expect better battery life in smartphones by 2017.

Samsung also revealed that it is developing RWB camera sensors for mobile devices. RWB stands for ‘Red White Blue’, which will supposedly provide “better color fidelity” for photos. Additionally, Samsung’s upcoming smartphone camera sensors will come with a smaller pixel size – from 1.12 microns to 1 micron – for its upcoming 16-megapixel camera sensors. This will result in a 23 percent thickness decrease – from 6.5 mm to 5 mm for a 16-megapixel sensor and from 5.2 mm to 4.5 mm for a 13-megapixel sensor.

With keeping these advancements in mind, you can definitely expect smartphones to last longer on a single charge, and captured better images and videos than current smartphones.

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Samsung announces 10nm FinFET manufacturing plans

Samsung has unveiled its next-generation 10nm FinFET manufacturing plans, a month after releasing its first smartphones that are using 14nm FinFET based Exynos 7420 processor. The South Korean electronics giant didn’t offer any specifications regarding the new process, but it said that the processing node will be fully functional by the end of 2016.

According to Hung Hao, the senior vice president of foundry business at Samsung, the new 10nm FinFET process offers “significant power, area and performance advantages.” Samsung is planning to beat industry leader TSMC, which is also planning to have its own 10nm manufacturing by the end of next year. Even Intel is developing its own 10nm manufacturing process, and is believed to be ahead of the competition, but has stayed mum on its plans. “The last couple of years have been transformative for the foundry business. We have brought competition back into the foundry industry. 14nm node is going to be a game changer for us,” Hao added.

Samsung currently has four manufacturing facilities – two in South Korea, one in Austin Texas, and one Global Foundries Fab in the New York State – that are currently manufacturing chips based on its 14nm FinFET process. Samsung is expected to take large 14nm orders from other companies later this year. As it beat TSMC in bringing 14nm process based chips, Apple and Qualcomm are believed to turn to Samsung’s foundries for production of their next-generation application processing chips. If that happens, there is a good change that it might happen with the 10nm process as well, as long as Samsung has capacity to satisfy large orders.

“This is one of the biggest positive steps for the industry in the last few years. It shows that Samsung sets these very aggressive goals, and they may not hit them exactly but they will be very close. If they can achieve 10nm, that will be hugely disruptive,” said International Business Strategies CEO Handel Jones.

Samsung has already bagged orders from Apple to produce an SoC that is expected to be used in the upcoming iPhone. “The only customer that will really drive [high wafer volumes] is Apple. If you miss the big ones then you basically have a big problem,” Jones added. Even Qualcomm is expected to follow Apple in choosing Samsung’s foundries for its upcoming Snapdragon processors.

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Samsung topped global smartphone sales in Q1 2015, renowned analyst says

There have already been a number of reports from analytics firms like Strategy Analytics and TrendForce stating that Samsung has gained back its podium position in the global smartphone market, defeating Apple. Now, yet another report from a renowned analyst, Tomi Ahonen, confirms that Samsung was indeed the top smartphone brand during Q1 2015 in terms of sales.

According to the report, Samsung captured 24.3 percent of the global smartphone market during Q1 2015 with shipments of 82.8 million units, defeating Apple, which managed to capture 17.9 percent market share with sales of 61.6 million iPhones. Lenovo (5.5 percent) , Huawei (5.1 percent), and LG (4.5 percent) captured the third, fourth, and fifth positions respectively. Surprisingly, Microsoft (formerly Nokia) and Sony, which are one of the oldest players in the market, and considered as respectable smartphone brands, are nowhere in the list of top 10 global smartphone brands.

Brands	Units (In Millions)	Market Share (In Q1 2015)	Market Share (In Q4 2014)	OS Systems Supported (Coming)
Samsung	82.8	24.30%	20.10%	Android, Windows, Tizen
Apple	61.6	17.90%	20.10%	iOS
Lenovo	18.7	5.50%	6.60%	Android (Tizen)
Huawei	17.5	5.10%	6.60%	Android (Tizen)
LG	15.4	4.50%	4.20%	Android
Xiaomi	15	4.40%	4.60%	Android
ZTE	12.5	3.50%	3.60%	Android, Firefox
Coolpad/Yulong	11.5	3.40%	4.00%	Android
TCL/Alcatel	9.7	2.80%	4.50%	Android
Vivo	9.3	2.70%	3.10%	Android
Others	97.1
TOTAL	340.8

 

Tomi Ahone, a former Nokia executive, is also considered to be one of the world’s most influential analyst in the global mobile sector. He said, “Obviously we’ve already seen the market share peak of iPhones and my projection is that the actual market share for full-year 2015 for the iPhone will be down again this year.” This is logical, because Apple sells only high-end smartphones, while Samsung sells smartphones in a wide range of price categories.

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Galaxy S6 edge Iron Man Limited Edition officially launched

A couple of weeks back Samsung confirmed that it will be launching an Iron Man edition of the Galaxy S6 edge, the upcoming variant was teased a couple of times and now it’s finally here. Samsung today officially announced the Galaxy S6 edge Iron Man Limited Edition and as the name suggests, it will only be available in select markets and that too in limited quantity.

Samsung has teamed up with Marvel to create this limited edition variant of the Galaxy S6 edge, it’s meant as a “celebration of the technological innovation and creative visual storytelling in Marvel’s Avengers: Age of Ultron” Everything else about the handset remains the same, customers will get a special box with the iconic Iron Man mask plastered on top and in it a vibrant red and gold Iron Man-themed Galaxy S6 edge with 64GB of storage. Inside the box there’s also a matching wireless charger that looks like the Arc Reactor found in Tony Stark’s chest, and a clear cover.

The Galaxy S6 edge Iron Man Limited Edition will first be released in Korea tomorrow with Hong Kong and China getting it this June. Samsung has not yet said if this variant will be released in other markets as well, particularly in Europe and North America.

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