Grab the Samsung Galaxy S8 wallpapers here

The cat is out of the bag: The Galaxy S8 and Galaxy S8+ are official, and they’re creating a lot of discussion on the internet. With those Infinity displays and the beautiful design, Samsung’s new flagships are a striking evolution of what the company started with the Galaxy S6 edge. But before we digress, let’s come to the reason why you clicked on this article: the official wallpapers from the Galaxy S8 and Galaxy S8+.

There are 12 wallpapers in total, and unlike recent Galaxy flagships, Samsung has gone for minimalism with most of the wallpaper options. The interesting ones show a dune against a backdrop of a group of stars, no doubt a nod to Samsung’s “galaxy” of smartphones. Each wallpaper is a high-resolution image (of 2960×2960 resolution), and you can grab the entire collection from our wallpaper archive here.

Like Samsung’s Galaxy S8′s wallpapers? Don’t like them? Let us know in the comments, and don’t forget to check out our extensive coverage of the Galaxy S8 and Galaxy S8+ (with much more to come).

Hat tip to Henk for providing us with the wallpapers. 

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Watchface Friday: Here’s four of this week’s best watchfaces

It’s Friday, so it’s time for another edition of Watchface Friday! For those unaware, every Friday, we highlight a selection of our favorite watchfaces for the Gear S3 classic and Gear S3 frontier. All of the offerings are available to download through the Galaxy Apps Store, so you can rest assured that you won’t have to search all over the Internet to find something we’ve listed.

Gear S3 classic

A-Class Pro Blue (24H)

Facer: Gunmetal Classic Weather

Gear S3 frontier

Chronometer – Rebel Alliance

DSS Armonia

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SamMobile Daily Recap: March 31, 2017 — Galaxy S8, Gear S3 frontier and more!

We publish a lot of stories on a daily basis. Unfortunately, the majority of news breaks during our European hours of operation, which makes it difficult for our readers in the US (and other regions) to keep up. However, we think we’ve come up with a fantastic solution — a daily recap.

In the list below, you’ll find the stories that went live today. We understand that you’re not going to be interested in all of them, so to help you find what’s important to you, we’ve split them into their respective categories. If you want to see the latest Galaxy S8 news, for example, locate the Phones subheading.

Business

Samsung Q1 2017 earnings guidance may be announced next week

Samsung reportedly starts $9 billion expansion of OLED production lines

Deals

Daily Deal: Save 57% on a pair of Active InEar headphones

Opinion

The Galaxy S8 is so tall I might start using Multi Window mode again

Phones

Folk in Germany can now pre-order the Galaxy S8 from Amazon

Galaxy S8′s facial recognition feature can apparently be fooled by a photo

Samsung’s struggling to get a hold of camera modules for the Galaxy S8

Watches

Samsung teams up with Bear Grylls to showcase the power of the Gear S3 frontier in new ad

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Folk in Germany can now pre-order the Galaxy S8 from Amazon

Amazon has kicked off pre-orders for the Galaxy S8 for folk in Germany. As expected, the device is listed with a price tag of €799 ($854), with inventory shipping in time for the April 20 release date. What’s more, we’ve updated our promotion to include the online marketplace — so you can be in with a chance of winning the cash value of your handset.

To place your order, head over to Amazon now.

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The Galaxy S8 is so tall I might start using Multi Window mode again

Yesterday, after what felt like ages, I decided to run two apps at the same time through Samsung’s Multi Window feature on my Galaxy S7 edge. Multi Window is something I would regularly fire up when it first made its way to Samsung devices, but once the novelty wore off, it became one of those Samsung features that you know is available on your phone but is not used all that often. But with the Galaxy S8, it looks like I might just get back to using Multi Window more often, thanks to the taller display.

My biggest gripe with multi window multitasking on phones is that on smartphone displays, there simply isn’t enough real estate for it to be a seamless affair. It’s even more of a problem when you want to look at something in one app and type it in the other app, because once the keyboard comes up, it takes over the screen. This will probably be a problem on the Galaxy S8 as well, but the taller display should make for an improved experience when you have two apps running at once, especially on the S8+.

I haven’t used either of the two Galaxy S8 handsets yet, so there’s no telling if the taller screens will make a difference in the way I use my phones. But it’s possible, and I can’t wait to get my hands on Samsung’s beautiful new flagships to see what the taller (and narrower) displays offer. Too bad they will take almost a month to hit retail shelves.

What do you think about the taller displays on the Galaxy S8 and S8+? Is there any other use case you can see getting better (you know, apart from watching videos)?

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Daily Deal: Save 57% on a pair of Active InEar headphones

You can currently snag yourself a pair of Samsung’s Active InEar headphones for $12.91 (57% off). These are the same earphones that ship in the box of the firm’s latest smartphones (the Galaxy S8 and Galaxy S8+ are an exception) and come with interchangeable wingtips.

If you want to take advantage of this deal, click the Buy Now button below. We advise you to hurry, though, as Amazon only has a limited amount of inventory available and as this is an international promotion, we have a feeling it’s going to disappear pretty quickly.

 

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Samsung reportedly starts $9 billion expansion of OLED production lines

Samsung Display is one of the leading suppliers of OLED displays in the market but it can’t rest on its laurels. The company has to work hard to ensure that it maintains and even grows its lead. According to a new report out of South Korea, the company has started its planned expansion of OLED production lines and it will invest $8.90 billion in this endeavor in 2017 alone.

The company has reportedly signed deals with several equipment manufacturers to replace its existing production lines for LCD displays with those for OLED production. One of the new lines is said to start production of 30,000 units of the sixth-generation OLED panels per month from the fourth quarter of this year.

Samsung is also expected to spend a significant sum of money to expand its A3 flexible OLED production plant to increase the current capacity of 30,000-45,000 units to 120,000 units by the end of this year.

With its OLED displays accounting for 95 percent of the market and smartphone demand rising, it makes sense why Samsung Display would embark on an ambitious expansion for its OLED production lines.

The company is also expected to be the sole supplier of panels for Apple’s first OLED iPhone which means that a demand-supply gap is not something that Samsung Display can afford right now.

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Galaxy S8′s facial recognition feature can apparently be fooled by a photo

We’ve already told you that the Galaxy S8 offers the most security options of any smartphone on the market right now. You can use a pattern or a pin to secure access to the device or use the fingerprint sensor that’s placed at the back. The handset also has an iris scanner if you’d like to use that and it even supports facial recognition.

Samsung highlighted the facial recognition feature during its Galaxy S8 presentation a couple of weeks ago. It’s meant to take the pain out of the unlocking process. You just have to pick up the phone and it instantly does its thing and unlocks the device when it detects the owner. However, it appears that the feature can be fooled by just a photo of the owner.

A video is making the rounds online which shows a Galaxy S8′s facial recognition feature being bypassed with a photo of the person it’s supposed to detect. It takes a few tries as the photo is hovered on top of the device but eventually it recognizes the user and unlocks the device.

It remains to be seen if Samsung will improve the facial recognition feature’s ability to distinguish between a photo and a real face by the time the handset comes to market.

It’s pertinent to mention here that the photo used was taken at the same angle and distance that the face would normally be at when the handset was being unlocked by the user directly. Whether or not this loophole will be of any use if the photo is taken at quite a bit of distance or at an extreme angle is unclear.

Do you think that Samsung should have used a 3D camera on the front to make the facial recognition feature more secure or is this something that you’re not too worried about? Let us know in the comments below.

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Samsung Q1 2017 earnings guidance may be announced next week

Industry sources in South Korea believe that Samsung is going to announce its earnings guidance for the first quarter of the year next week. They expect that the guidance will beat forecasts as earnings are likely to be buoyed by the continued stellar performance of Samsung’s chip business.

Samsung’s operating profit for the first quarter of 2017 is expected to come in at 10.1 trillion won $9 billion which remains a record that has not been breached since the third quarter of 2013.

Over the past few quarters, the chip business has continued to account for a significant chunk of the company’s earnings. Of the 9.2 trillion won in operating profit that Samsung posted in Q4 2016, 4.9 trillion won was generated by the chip business.

While the company’s chip business is expected to drive growth in this quarter, the mobile division may not show significant improvement in its performance, considering the fact that sales of the Galaxy S7 would have slowed down in anticipation of the Galaxy S8 and there was no Galaxy Note 7 to hold down the fort in the high-end segment.

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Samsung’s struggling to get ahold of camera modules for the Galaxy S8

Samsung’s reportedly struggling to get ahold of front-facing camera modules for the recently-announced Galaxy S8 as its supplier Patron is struggling to boost the yield rate, reveals The Bell. It’s thought that the production yield remains at less than 70 percent and should be elevated to 80 percent for stable supply.

Power Logics, the supplier the firm is using for the Galaxy S8+, doesn’t appear to be having the same problem (in fact, it recently increased its yield rate to more than 90 percent). Why? Because the front-facing camera and iris scanner are combined into one module on the smaller Galaxy S8, but not on the larger variant.

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Samsung teams up with Bear Grylls to showcase the power of the Gear S3 frontier in new ad

Samsung has teamed up with British explorer Bear Grylls to demonstrate the power of its latest smartwatch, the Gear S3 frontier, in a new commercial. The one-and-a-half-minute ad showcases a whole host of the device’s features, including its barometer and health tracking functionality.

Check it out for yourself below:

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