الاثنين، 17 يوليو 2017

SamMobile Daily Recap: July 17, 2017 — Galaxy A7 (2017), Galaxy Note 8 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.

Here’s what went out today.

Deals

Daily Deal: Save 24% on a Gear VR (2017) with Controller

Firmware News

Firmware update magazine: July 17, 2017

Galaxy A7 (2017) certified running Android 7.0 Nougat

Opinion

Galaxy S8+ battery life review: Holding up very nicely indeed

Phones

Samsung mobile division’s boss confirms when the Galaxy Note 8 will be announced

Polls

[Poll] Would you prefer a squeezable frame instead of a dedicated button for Bixby

Samsung Pay

Indian e-wallet service Mobikwik reportedly partners with Samsung Pay Mini

Samsung Pay adds support for PayPal



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Galaxy S8 is outselling the Galaxy S7 by 15 percent, says Samsung’s mobile chief

There has been speculation recently that the Galaxy S8’s sales have stalled. The new flagship was off to a great start when it was released a couple of months back. It broke pre-order records for Samsung and it appeared that the handset was going to be a smash hit for the company.

It was reported over a week ago that the Galaxy S8 was no longer outselling the Galaxy S7. The report actually claimed that the new flagship was lagging the Galaxy S7 in sales. This was surprising, to say the least. The chief of Samsung’s mobile division has now set the record straight.

During his visit to Taiwan last week, president of Samsung’s mobile business DJ Koh revealed that the Galaxy S8 continues to outsell the Galaxy S7. He revealed that combined sales of the Galaxy S8 are 15 percent higher than the Galaxy S7 based on the same number of days that they’ve been out on the market so far.

Koh also predicted that the numbers aren’t going to swing significantly against the Galaxy S8 in the coming months. Samsung expects the momentum for the Galaxy S8 and Galaxy S8+ to continue well into the third and fourth quarters of this year.



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Galaxy S8+ battery life review: Holding up very nicely indeed

When it became evident that the Galaxy S8 and Galaxy S8+ will feature 3,000mAh and 3,500mAh batteries respectively, many presumed that it would be a repeat of the Galaxy S6 and Galaxy S6 edge. Those handsets ticked all the right boxes but the battery life left a lot to be desired. Fortunately, that wasn’t the case.

The hardware that’s found inside the new flagships from Samsung is far more power efficient than what was inside the Galaxy S6 series. Couple that with software optimization and you get decent mileage from the Galaxy S8 and Galaxy S8+’s battery.

It has been almost three months since the Galaxy S8 was released and I’ve had it for two of those three months. The reason why I opted for the Galaxy S8+ was not only because it has a 6.2-inch display but because it has the larger 3,500mAh battery.

Since my biggest qualm with the Galaxy S6 edge was the battery life, I had hoped that this choice wouldn’t let me down.

So how has the battery life fared over the last couple of months? Let us take a look at how the Galaxy S8+’s battery life has been holding up for me so far.

Let me start off by saying that your battery life experience could differ because it depends on a variety of factors. We all use our phones differently in different conditions, which is why it’s often similar to comparing apples to oranges when we feel that our device returns less battery longevity than what other users get.

I’ve been very impressed with how the Galaxy S8+’s battery has held up so far. Granted that I don’t push the handset as much as others do but even when I have, I’ve always managed to get a day or even a day and a half’s worth of longevity.

The Galaxy S8+ is my main device, so it’s locked and unlocked dozens of times per day for emails, Slack, messages, and more. Twitter is the only social media app that I frequently open, so it helps that I have no use for the battery-hogging Facebook app. YouTube is another app that’s used multiple times a day for music and content consumption.

Since I’m not that big on mobile gaming, I don’t have any games installed on my device. That I believe is a major reason why on some days I’m able to make it to almost 48 hours on a single charge. Modern mobile games require a lot of processing power and while the Galaxy S8 is more than capable of providing that, it’s asking a lot from the battery.

It also helps that my handset is almost always connected to Wi-Fi so it doesn’t have to fallback to LTE data. Most calls that I make or receive aren’t longer than a couple of minutes. It’s not used for creating a hotspot on a daily basis, so that also contributes to the overall longevity.

Even though I have the dual-SIM variant of the Galaxy S8+, I don’t have two SIMs installed. However, two months ago, our editor-in-chief pointed out that he was impressed with the Galaxy S8+’s battery life with two SIM cards and Always On Display enabled.

So while we still believe that the battery life on Samsung’s flagship smartphones needs to be on par with what its mid-range handsets offer, the 2017 flagship certainly doesn’t disappoint.

At this point in time, I feel that the battery life of the Galaxy S8+ fully meets my requirements. I almost always get a full day’s worth of use even when I push the device more than I normally do. On other days, I normally get a screen time of nearly five hours. That, to me, is very impressive. It also helps that according to Samsung, the Galaxy S8’s battery will hold 95 percent of its original charge even after a year, so this kind of battery should hold up a few months down the line.

Nevertheless, if you feel that the battery life on your handset could be better, we have a long list of tips that are useful in extending the battery life of the Galaxy S8 and Galaxy S8+. The tips include the use of power saving modes, disabling Always On Display, reducing screen resolution and brightness, etc.

Samsung’s Adaptive Charging technology on the Galaxy S8 and Galaxy S8+ does leave a lot to be desired, though. Even with the rapid charging technology the handset still requires almost two hours to go from empty to full.

There’s room for improvement here. There are better forms of fast charging on the market that can accomplish the same task in under an hour (or at least get the device from 0 to 50 percent in a shorter time). Hopefully, Samsung will improve on its fast charging technology for future flagship smartphones.

How has your experience been so far with the battery life on the Galaxy S8 and Galaxy S8+? Do share it with us by leaving a comment below.



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Samsung Pay adds support for PayPal

Big news for Samsung Pay customers in the United States: you can now use PayPal to pay for goods both online and in brick-and-mortar stores through the mobile payment platform.

While accessibility is currently restricted to the aforementioned region, it should make its way to other countries, including India and the United Kingdom, in the not-too-distant future.

“Customers will be able to use their Samsung Pay to access and use their PayPal wallet, letting them make a payment in millions of stores,” explains Samsung in a post on its Newsroom.

Once you’ve linked your PayPal account to Samsung Pay using the secure process, you’ll be able to benefit from Samsung’s generous reward program whenever you spend your PayPal Balance.

“At Samsung, we pride ourselves on our open model of partnership and collaboration, which helps us deliver the best experiences to our customers,” said Injong Rhee, CTO and Head of R&D, Software and Services.

Teaming up with PayPal is certainly a smart business move on Samsung’s part. For as long as we can remember, PayPal users have been requesting a convenient way to pay using their Balance — and now they finally can.

“We are excited to be partnering with PayPal, one of the largest payment platforms in the world, to offer our global consumers a richer mobile wallet experience,” Rhee added.

Developing…



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[Poll] Would you prefer a squeezable frame instead of a dedicated button for Bixby

Samsung debuted its AI-powered digital assistant Bixby with the Galaxy S8 and the Galaxy S8+, and even dedicated a hardware button for it on the smartphones. However, since the company failed to launch Bixby Voice (the assistant’s most important feature) in time, consumers got annoyed. Hello Bixby isn’t very useful in its current form, and Samsung doesn’t even let users remap the Bixby button to open other apps that they use frequently.

On the other hand, HTC’s flagship smartphone, the U11, comes with a squeezable frame. It can be configured to launch one of the three AI assistants available on the phone: Alexa, Google Assistant, and HTC Assistant. Moreover, users can configure its pressure sensitivity as well as use short and long squeezes to perform various operations. It is also rumored that Google’s next Pixel phone will use a similar squeezable frame to launch Google Assistant.

If the idea of a squeezable frame gets picked up by multiple smartphone brands, would you prefer Samsung using a similar feature in its phones instead of a button? Such a hardware feature would also make it possible to let users configure the long squeeze action (with the short squeeze dedicated to summoning Bixby) to launch the camera or any other third-party app. Moreover, it can also eradicate accidental presses that some consumers face with the Bixby button on the Galaxy S8 and S8+.

Cast your votes in the poll below, and let us know your thoughts on the matter in the comments section!

Note: There is a poll embedded within this post, please visit the site to participate in this post's poll.

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Firmware update magazine: July 17, 2017

Welcome to the newest edition of our weekly Firmware Magazine. You can think of it as your go-to resource to find out which of your Samsung devices has received a new update or if it’s going to receive a new firmware update in the near future.

To keep things interesting, we present the Firmware Magazine in new designs every week. It will always include the important details about firmware updates such as the firmware versions, device model numbers, Android OS versions and the country where said update is out already. Keep in mind, however, that these firmware details are based on the firmware that are available in our database, and in some cases, the latest updates might not show in the same week as the full firmware files take additional time to make it to our database.

The purpose of this magazine is to bring all of that important information about firmware updates to you, the reader, in a manner that’s easy to comprehend. So even if you’re new to the world of firmware you’ll have no trouble making sense of it all. Nevertheless, if you ever require assistance, you can always leave a comment down below.

We’ve embedded the magazine below so that you can check it out easily. Once you find the firmware that you’re looking for, just head over to our firmware section and download it for free.

(Tip: You’ll get much faster download speeds if you sign up for one of our premium membership plans.)



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Daily Deal: Save 24% on a Gear VR (2017) with Controller

You can currently pick up a Gear VR (2017) with Controller, which ships with both a microUSB and USB Type-C connector, for just $99.43. That’s an impressive saving of 24 percent off its usual price of $129.99.

Read more: Hands-on with Samsung’s Gear VR controller

If you like the sound of this promotion and want to take advantage of it, hit the Buy Now button below. You’re probably going to want to act fast though, as inventory won’t be around for too long.



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Indian e-wallet service Mobikwik reportedly partners with Samsung Pay Mini

Indian e-wallet service provider Mobikwik has announced that it has partnered with Samsung. The e-wallet service will soon be integrated into Samsung Pay Mini, a cut-down version of Samsung Pay that works on mid-range phones without NFC or MST. Samsung Pay Mini users can pair their Mobikwik accounts in the near future with the service to pay at 1.4 million locations throughout India.

Samsung Pay Mini already supports Paytm as well as UPI for e-payments in the country, and Mobikwik integration will give users more choice for making payments. Daman Soni, MobiKwik’s Head of Growth, said, “The future of digital payments in India will thrive only by collaborating with various ecosystem partners to drive acceptance. More than 55 million users and 1.4 million merchants will benefit from this association.

Samsung Pay Mini comes preloaded with the Galaxy J7 Max, which was launched recently, since it doesn’t feature NFC or MST technologies. The South Korean smartphone giant wants to expand Samsung Pay Mini to more mid-range and entry-level phones. Sanjay Razdan, Director of (Samsung Pay Business), said, “Moving into the next phase of new and innovative services for Samsung Pay, we are delighted to have MobiKwik on board as a partner.

 



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Galaxy A7 (2017) certified running Android 7.0 Nougat

A variant of the Galaxy A7 (2017) has been approved by the Wi-Fi Alliance running Android 7.0, leading us to believe that Samsung is planning on distributing the much-anticipated Nougat update for the handset in the not-too-distant future.

Last week, Samsung released the Galaxy A7 (2017) in South Korea and it had a surprising feature on board: Bixby. It’s unclear whether the firm has baked the assistant into the upcoming build of Android 7.0 for Asia, but we’re guessing it has.

After all, Samsung has announced that its objective is to bring Bixby to not only its smartphones, but also its home appliances and tablets. To meet that goal, all of its latest handsets need to have the functionality, including the Galaxy A7 (2017).

For those unaware, the Galaxy A7 (2017) was announced and released in Asia back in February. It sports a 5.7-inch Full HD display, a 1.9GHz Exynos 7880 CPU, 3GB of RAM, a 16MP rear- and front-facing camera and a 3,600mAh battery.

Galaxy A7 (2017) Review: A force to be reckoned with

Available in four colors — Black Sky, Blue Mist, Gold Sand and Peach Cloud — the Galaxy A7 (2017) is priced at approximately $510, which, as we noted in our review, is a fair price to pay for a mid- to high-end smartphone.



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