SamMobile Daily Recap: February 9, 2017 — Galaxy S8 battery size, Samsung Hello and more!

We publish a lot of stories on a daily basis. Unfortunately, the bulk of the news breaks during our European hours of operation, which makes it difficult for our readers in the US (and other regions) to follow every post that goes live on SamMobile. But, we think we’ve come up with an ideal solution — a daily recap.

In the list below, you’ll find the stories we’ve published today. Chances are, you’re not going to be interested in all of them. To help you find what’s important to you, we’ve split them into their respective categories — so if you want to see the latest Galaxy S8 news, locate the Phones subheading.

Business

Phil Cohn appointed Sales Senior VP at Samsung

Deals

Daily Deal: Save 60% on a Samsung Wireless Hands-Free Bluetooth Headset

Firmware News

Galaxy S5 Plus update brings January security patch

T-Mobile rolls out February security patch for the Galaxy S4 and the Galaxy Tab 3

Phones 

Galaxy S8 battery size might be similar to the Galaxy Note 7

Samsung Hello might be another AI-powered service for the Galaxy S8

Tablets

Here are the purported specifications of the Galaxy TabPro S2

Themes

Themes Thursday: Here’s the best theme from this week

TV

Samsung’s new QLED TV is the first TV to be verified to offer ’100 percent color volume’

Samsung QLED 2017 price revealed as TVs go up for pre-order

Virtual Reality

Samsung and Six Flags team up for another virtual reality roller coaster

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T-Mobile rolls out February security patch for the Galaxy S4 and the Galaxy Tab 3

T-Mobile is rolling out the latest Android security patch to two old Samsung devices that you may not even remember anymore. The carrier has released the February security patch for the Galaxy S4 and the Galaxy Tab 3. They’ve received the patch today even though they’re still on Android 4.4 KitKat. One can think of many newer models that could do well with receiving the latest patch but it is what it is.

It has been over a year since the carrier released a new update for either device. It sent out the last update for the Galaxy S4 back in December 2015 while the Galaxy Tab 3 got its last update in August 2015. It appears that out of the blue, T-Mobile decided to release the latest Android security patch for two devices that won’t even be bumped up to Android 5.0 Lollipop.

Nevertheless, if you own a Galaxy S4 or Galaxy Tab 3 on T-Mobile, keep an eye open for firmware version M919UVSFQA1 and T217TUVSBQA1 respectively as both are being rolled out today by T-Mobile over-the-air.

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Daily Deal: Save 60% on a Samsung Wireless Hands-Free Bluetooth Headset

You can currently pick up a Samsung Wireless Hands-Free Bluetooth Headset for just $12 (60% off). Obviously, this particular device isn’t going to appeal to everyone, but if you spend a lot of time driving a car that doesn’t have an integrated hands-free system, this is definitely something you should be looking into.

If you’re interested in the Samsung Wireless Hands-Free Bluetooth Headset and would like to take advantage of this promotion, hit the Buy Now button below. Unfortunately, the merchant isn’t offering international shipping — so you’ll need to be based in the United States to purchase the unit for the discounted price.

Buy Now

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Themes Thursday: Here’s the best theme from this week

Welcome back to Themes Thursday! 74 new themes have been released in Samsung’s Theme Store over the past one week, but we found only one theme pack that’s worth have a look at. The Felix UI, which is a paid theme pack, uses purple as its base color. It also features Material icons and wallpaper.

If you don’t know it already, with the Nougat update, you can now mix and match different themes, icon packs, and wallpapers. This feature was first released for the Galaxy Note 7, but it was expanded to the Galaxy S7 and S7 edge with the Nougat update. Which new theme did you like apart from the one listed here?

Felix UI | Paid

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Here are the purported specifications of the Galaxy TabPro S2

Earlier this week, Samsung’s upcoming Windows 10-powered tablet, the Galaxy TabPro S2, was spotted passing through the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) in the United States. Information included in the filing documentation that was uncovered yesterday by The Leaker suggests that the device will pack a 12-inch Super AMOLED Quad HD display, a 3.1GHZ Intel Core i5 7200U 7th Gen Kaby Lake CPU, 4GB of RAM, 128GB of SSD storage and a 5,070mAh battery.

The full specs can be seen below, courtesy of The Verge:

• Operating system: Windows 10 Home or Pro
• Display: 12-inch Super AMOLED Quad HD, 2160 x 1440.resolution
• CPU: 3.1 GHz Intel Core i5-7200U 7th Gen, Kaby Lake
• GPU: Integrated Intel HD Graphics 620
• RAM: 4GB LPDDR3
• Storage: 128GB SSD
• Power: 5070 mAh battery with 25W Turbo Charger
• Camera: 13-megapixel rear camera with 4K video, full-HD 5-megapixel front camera
• Ports & Connectivity: SD card slot, two USB 3.0 Type-C ports, Bluetooth 4.1, 2.4 GHz / 5 GHz 802.11 a/b/g/n/AC Wi-Fi, optional LTE
• Extras: S-Pen and keyboard cover
• Models: SM-W720, SM-W723, SM-W727 and SM-W728.

It’s important to note, however, that these specifications are far from confirmed — so they should be taken with a relatively hefty pinch of salt. That said, they do seem perfectly feasible and the paperwork revealing that there will be four variants — depending on whether you want Windows 10 Home or Windows 10 Pro, and LTE connectivity or not — matches up to what we’ve heard in the past. Only time will tell, though.

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Phil Cohn appointed as Sales Senior VP at Samsung

Samsung has appointed Phil Cohn as the Sales Senior Vice President of its American consumer business division. With over 25 years experience in the consumer electronics, retail and entertainment industry, the South Korean company is hoping that his skills and ability to lead large teams will generate fresh ideas to help it accommodate the rapidly-changing requirements of consumers in the United States.

“As Samsung continues to deepen its relationships with retailers, we look to strategic industry experts like Phil to drive the growth of our product portfolio in today’s dynamic marketplace,” said Joe Stinziano, Executive VP of the department. “Phil has extensive expertise in managing large sales organizations and delivering top-quality results. With his experience and leadership skills, we look forward to his contributions as we continue to address the evolving needs of our U.S. [customers].”

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Samsung and Six Flags team up for another virtual reality roller coaster

Samsung announced a new partnership with Six Flags, the world’s largest regional theme park company, last year which appointed Samsung as the “Official Technology Partner” of Six Flags and also brought the first virtual reality roller coasters to North America powered by the Gear VR. The two companies have now announced their renewed collaboration on virtual reality roller coasters.

Samsung and Six Flags have teamed up to offer a one-of-a-kind mixed reality experience. The latest VR ride is called The New Revolution Galactic Attack and attendees will have to wear a Gear VR for the entire duration of the ride. Attendees will get to experience the device’s passthrough camera functionality which will instantly make them aware of their surroundings as they will be able to see the real world, including the person they’re sitting next to, along with virtual content.

During the ride they will see a heads up display overlay on the passthrough camera view that will show data like time codes, fuel cells, current status of weaponry and a countdown clock. As they drop at high speeds, the mixed reality view will change to a completely immersive, virtual reality experience in which they find themselves inside a fighter spaceship cockpit and take part in a space battle as they come under attack from laser-firing drones and missiles.

You might think that all of this is an invitation to puke all over the place but Six Flags says that the ride is synchronized to the graphics so attendees shouldn’t feel any more motion sickness than they would on a normal roller coaster. The New Revolution Galactic Attack makes at debut at Six Flags Magic Mountain, near Los Angeles and Six Flags Discovery Kingdom, near San Francisco.

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Samsung QLED 2017 price revealed as TVs go up for pre-order

The Samsung QLED 2017 TV series was unveiled last month at the Consumer Electronics Show 2017 in Las Vegas. Pricing and availability information is almost never confirmed at CES so those who want one have to wait for a few weeks before the new TVs go up for pre-order. They will be delighted to find out today that the Samsung QLED 2017 price has now been confirmed as these new TVs can now be pre-ordered via Samsung’s online store as well as retailers like Amazon and Best Buy.

Samsung promises that its new QLED TV series provides significantly improved color performance as it’s capable of displaying DCI-P3 color space accurately. It boasts that this series is the world’s first that’s capable of reproducing 100 percent color volume. This means that the TVs are able to express all colors regardless of the level of brightness. Samsung claims that this has been made possible by its use of a new metal Quantum Dot material that improves color gamut and peak brightness level. The peak brightness level for this new series is claimed to be in the 1500 to 2000 nits range.

The new QLED TV range from Samsung is now available for pre-order in the United States via Samsung, Amazon and Best Buy. Prices start at $2,499 for the cheapest model which is the 55-inch QN55Q7F and go up to $6,000 for the 75-inch QN75Q7F.

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Samsung Hello might be another AI-powered service for the Galaxy S8

We’ve brought you extensive coverage of Bixby, the artificial intelligence-powered virtual assistant that Samsung is going to debut with the Galaxy S8. It all started when we first spotted trademarks for Bixby a couple of months back and since then countless reports have given us an idea of what to expect from Bixby. Samsung has now filed a trademark in Europe for Samsung Hello. It’s not immediately clear what this trademark is for but it could possibly be another AI-powered service for the Galaxy S8.

Samsung has filed for this trademark with the European Intellectual Property Office. The filing describes Samsung Hello as “software that enable block users or computers and mobile devices to access, aggregate, organize and interact with content, information and images and topics of general interest to such users.” The filing also mentions that Samsung Hello is an “application software that gives personalized features and information based on user’s preferences in the fields of weather, music, entertainment, games, travel, science, health, contact, and social news via voice command and voice recognition.”

The description makes one wonder if Samsung Hello will be related to Bixby in some way, perhaps it’s going to be an extension of that AI technology which aims to make it easier for users to navigate everyday life. This is pure speculation at this point in time so nothing is set in stone just yet. However, given Samsung’s focus on AI for smartphones this year, we may find out soon enough what Samsung Hello is all about.

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Galaxy S5 Plus update brings January security patch

Some of you might not be aware that Samsung launched another variant of the Galaxy S5 back in 2014. It launched the Galaxy S5 Plus in Europe a few months after the Galaxy S5 was released. Both handsets looked very similar to each other as far as the design was concerned as the real difference was underneath the hood. Instead of the Galaxy S5′s Snapdragon 801 processor, the Galaxy S5 Plus was touting the latest Snapdragon 805 processor with the same 2GB of RAM. It also had support for LTE-Advanced for download speeds as high as 300Mbps.

Samsung is now sending out a new update for the Galaxy S5 Plus in Europe which brings the January security patch for this device. Firmware version G901FXXS1CQA7 is now being rolled out for the Galaxy S5 Plus. The security patch contains fixes for 67 issues in Android OS and 28 issues exclusive to Samsung’s software. The update is rolling out over-the-air right now and it’s also available for download via our firmware section.

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Samsung’s new QLED TV is the first TV to be verified to offer ’100 percent color volume’

Samsung has announced that its new QLED TV, which was unveiled at CES 2017, has become the first TV to be verified to offer 100 percent color volume as per the DCI-P3 color space. The testing and verification were done by Verband Deutscher Elektrotechniker (VDE), a world-class testing and certification association.

The color volume of a TV is measured by two factors: color gamut and brightness level. The color gamut measurement looks at the largest amount of colors that can be displayed physically, while the peak brightness level represents a TV’s highest brightness level. The larger the color gamut and the higher the brightness level, the bigger the color volume of the TV.

Samsung claims that it uses a new metal Quantum Dot material in its new QLED TV that significantly improves color gamut and peak brightness level. With a peak brightness level of 1500 to 2000 nits, the company’s new QLED TV offers 100 percent color volume. The company also claims that its QLED TV offers wide viewing angles as well as deep black levels. All of this results in a great TV watch experience overall.

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Galaxy S8 battery size might be similar to the Galaxy Note 7

There are a lot of conflicting reports these days about the Galaxy S8 and it’s bound to continue right up to the release of Samsung’s new flagship smartphone. It was reported last week that Samsung had given its batteries suppliers with an updated production roadmap which includes 3,250mAh and 3,750mAh battery cells for the Galaxy S8 and the Galaxy S8 Plus respectively. Today’s report brings a new set of figures.

According to a report out of South Korea, the 5.7-inch Galaxy S8 is going to feature a 3,000mAh battery while the 6.2-inch Galaxy S8 Plus would tout a 3,500mAh battery. You may recall that the Galaxy Note 7 also had a 3,500mAh battery. The report quotes an unnamed Samsung official who says that the company decided to go with these batteries after completing a range of tests. Batteries for the Galaxy S8 will reportedly be supplied by Samsung SDI and Murata Manufacturing of Japan.

The figures might be worrying for some who think that the handset is just a bit too big for a battery of this size to provide any proper longevity. It might even be considered as a repeat of what Samsung did with the Galaxy S6 and the Galaxy S6 edge. Nevertheless, nothing is confirmed right now so it would be better to hold judgment on this until more information comes up.

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