Everything we think we know about the Galaxy S8 Active

Samsung has been working on a ruggedized variant of the Galaxy S8 for a while now, and it’s starting to look like its release is right around the corner — so we thought we’d take this opportunity to recap everything we’ve heard about the Galaxy S8 Active.

Availability

In line with previous Active-branded handsets, the Galaxy S8 Active will launch exclusively through AT&T. It’s rumored to hit the shelves on August 1, with pricing set at around $650, but you should be able to pick it up for less when the carrier kicks off its summer sale.

Related: New Galaxy S8 Active render appears online, launch expected soon

Battery

According to a hands-on image that surfaced online on Monday, the Galaxy S8 Active packs a 4,000mAh battery, which should see it through two-to-three days’ worth of intermediate use, judging by how well the Galaxy S8+ performs with its 3,500mAh cell.

Design

The Galaxy S8 Active features a similar design to the Galaxy S8, but it will reportedly be constructed from military-grade polycarbonate and has a protruding metal bezel to protect both the handset’s display and internals.

Display

Unlike the Galaxy S8 and Galaxy S8+, the Galaxy S8 Active doesn’t sport a curved Infinity Display. Instead, Samsung opted for a flat 5.8-inch panel that features equally thin bezels and is coated with Gorilla Glass 5 to shield it from scrapes and scratches.

Software

Recently, the Galaxy S8 Active stopped by the FCC in the United States running Android 7.0 Nougat. The handset will also have Bixby on board (with the Bixby button replacing the traditional Active key) and a set of on-screen navigation buttons à la Galaxy S8.

Specs

Aside from packing a beefier battery, the Galaxy Active should ship with the same internals as the Galaxy S8. Under the hood, you’ll find a Snapdragon 835 octa-core processor, 4GB of RAM, a 12MP rear-facing camera and an iris scanner.

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We’ll be updating this post with new information as and when it comes out. What do you think of the Galaxy S8 Active? Are you forward to picking one up, or will you be waiting for the Galaxy Note 8 that’s scheduled to launch in late August?

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SamMobile Daily Recap: July 25, 2017 — Galaxy A7 (2018), Galaxy J (2017) 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.

Business

Samsung’s lobbying costs in the US have tripled in the first half of this year

Deals

Daily Deal: Bag yourself a pair of Active InEar headphones for 49% off

General

Samsung conducts first 5G fixed wireless access trial in the UK with Arqiva

Seven Samsung SDI employees get recognized as ‘Tech Meisters’

Phones

Dual Messenger on Galaxy J (2017) devices lets you use two accounts in social networking apps

Samsung Galaxy A7 (2018) specifications leaked already?

Poll

[Poll] How much do you care about Android updates?

Samsung Pay

Samsung Pay now supports Financiera El Corte Inglés private label card in Spain

Virtual Reality

Samsung’s PhoneCast app makes various video streaming services compatible with the Gear VR

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Dual Messenger on Galaxy J (2017) devices lets you use two accounts in social networking apps

Ever longed for the possibility of using two different WhatsApp accounts on your phone, or inside other social networking apps that don’t let you use two accounts? Of course you have, and Samsung has been offering a way to do that via Secure Folder, a feature you find on the company’s flagships and now, on most of its handsets running Android 7.0 Nougat. Secure Folder creates a dedicated environment that’s sandboxed from the regular data on the phone, which means you can install WhatsApp, Facebook, and other apps inside Secure Folder and log into a different account.

With the new Galaxy J (2017) handsets, Samsung is removing Secure Folder from the equation and offering a direct way to use separate accounts on social networking apps. The Galaxy J (2017) devices come with a feature called Dual Messenger, and it does exactly what the name suggests. Dual Messenger works by installing a separate copy of the app on the device; you see two shortcuts for the same app in the app drawer, so you can fire up each instance of the app, log in to different accounts, and, well, use them just like you would use two different apps.

Dual Messenger supports apps like WhatsApp, Facebook, Facebook Messenger, Skype, and Snapchat; I only had the aforementioned apps installed on my phone, so you might see more apps with Dual Messenger support on your device depending on the ones you have installed. Naturally, apps that officially support using more than one account don’t show up in Dual Messenger, such as Instagram.

If you have one of the Galaxy J7 (2017) smartphones (including the India-exclusive Galaxy J7 Max), you can find Dual Messenger in the Settings » Advanced features menu, where enabling the feature for each app can be done with a single app. Once enabled, you will see two icons for the app in the app drawer, with a small icon of a linked chain indicating which of the two is the second app. Since the phone treats the two instances as individual apps, you can even use them at the same time in Multi Window mode.

It’s unclear how Dual Messenger works, and if it’s simply an extension of Secure Folder, it would be great to see Samsung bringing support for a few regular apps in addition to social networking apps. Hopefully, Dual Messenger will show up on other Galaxy devices as well, although it’s possible Samsung will keep it exclusive to its budget smartphones.

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Samsung conducts first 5G fixed wireless access trial in the UK with Arqiva

Samsung’s network solutions business has been focusing on rapidly commercializing 5G network technologies. It has teamed up with many partners across the globe to conduct 5G trials in key markets. It announced a statement of intent back in February this year to conduct the first 5G fixed wireless access trial in the United Kingdom and Samsung has now done just that.

Samsung has teamed up with Arqiva, a leading communications infrastructure company in the United Kingdom, for this trial. The first field trial of 5G Fixed Wireless Access (FWA) technology in the UK and Europe is now live in Arqiva’s central London headquarters. The field trial is powered by Samsung’s 5G network solution that equipment that uses Arqiva’s 28GHz mmWave spectrum.

In this trial, a Radio Access Unit has been installed on the rooftop of Arqiva’s Fitzrovia office. It links wirelessly to an easily installable customer premises equipment. Samsung’s system then provides high bandwidth connectivity.

The commercial application will be a bit different while access units being mounted on lampposts or similar street infrastructure to provide reliable gigabit-per-second internet service to customers in the neighborhood.

The companies aim to demonstrate the stability of the FWA service with this trial and that it’s a fast-to-market and cost-effective alternative to fiber connectivity. The system was able to achieve downlink speeds of around 1GB per second at the premises equipment during this trial.

The trial is going to be live for a period of four months. Samsung and Arqiva will continue to further maximize the performance capability of the system to improve the value of future network infrastructure.

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Daily Deal: Bag yourself a pair of Active InEar headphones for 49% off

Amazon has slashed the price of Samsung’s InEar headphones by 49% — so you can currently pick up a pair for just $15.38. For those unaware, these are the same earphones that ship in the box of the firm’s smartphones, with the Galaxy S8 being the only exception.

If you want to take advantage of this particular promotion, hit the Buy Now button below. We’d advise you to hurry, though. Like most of the deals we highlight, Amazon only has a limited amount of inventory available and it’s safe to say it won’t be around for too long.

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Samsung Pay now supports Financiera El Corte Inglés private label card in Spain

Spain’s largest department store El Corte Inglés has added support for Samsung Pay to its Financiera El Corte Inglés payment card. Financiera El Corte Inglés is now the first private label card provider in the country to have support for Samsung Pay. Customers of the department store can now integrate their private label cards with Samsung Pay to easy make mobile payments.

Samsung Pay went live in Spain last year. It was actually the first country in Europe where Samsung launched its mobile payments service. Samsung continues to expand the presence of its payments service in the country.

Store customers can easily enroll their payment cards online with Gemalto’s TSH platform. Their card credentials are turned into tokenized data that’s stored on Samsung’s mobile payments platform.

Now that customers can integrate their Financiera El Corte Inglés payment cards with Samsung Pay, they won’t need to carry the physical card with them while shopping. They will be able to access and pay using the card through Samsung Pay on their mobile device.

Samsung Pay is compatible with recent Samsung handsets including but not limited to the Galaxy S8, Galaxy S7 and Galaxy S6 series as well as the Galaxy Note 5. It’s also available on the Gear S3 smartwatch.

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Samsung’s PhoneCast app makes various video streaming services compatible with the Gear VR

Even if you aren’t watching 360-degree videos, the Gear VR is a great way to consume videos content. The internal video player brings you an experience of watching the content on a 200-inch screen. However, third-party apps are not compatible with the Gear VR. Now, Samsung has released a new app that makes various third-party apps compatible with the Gear VR.

The company’s PhoneCast app offers users an experience of watching streaming video content on a 200-inch virtual screen. It is compatible with various apps, including YouTube, Plex, Kodi, Hulu, Xfinity, Sling TV, Epix, and Crackle. It is also compatible with VLC and MX Player. Samsung will add support for more video streaming apps soon. Amazon’s Prime Video app is currently disabled, though.

When the PhoneCast app is launched, users are presented with a scenic background with lakeside campfire, and any compatible video streaming app can be launched. Users can not only change the brightness of the video, but also the size and position of the virtual screen. The app is still in beta, but you can download and install its latest version from  our APK section.

Here’s the list of Android apps that are currently supported by the PhoneCast app:

1. Plex
2. Vudu
3. Epix
4. Hulu
5. Tubi TV
6. Crackle
7. YouTube
8. NFL
9. Musically
10. Kodi
11. Naver TV
12. V Live
13. Kakao TV Live
14. Smart DMB
15. Africa TV
16. Naver Webtoon
17. Oksusu
18. Olleh TV Mobile
19. LTE Video Portal
20. VLC
21. Xfinity
22. Sling TV
23. MX Player

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[Poll] How much do you care about Android updates?

While Samsung has been working harder than earlier to release software updates to more smartphones and tablets, there have been a few instances where devices are running two-year older versions of Android. For example, the South Korean smartphone giant is yet to release Android 7.0 to the Galaxy A7 (2017), and it’s still running Android 6.0, which was released by Google back in 2015.

Google released the fourth beta version of Android O yesterday, and it’s a matter of weeks before the final version is released. However, we also know that Samsung brings a lot of features earlier than Google. Features like iris recognition, Secure Folder, themes, and Always On Display, which are available on Samsung’s phones are not available in the stock version of Android. So, we wanted to know how much our readers care about Android updates for their smartphones, tablets, and other devices.

How important are Android updates and security patches for you? Cast your vote in the poll below, and let us know your thoughts about Android updates as well as Samsung’s software update policy.

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

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Samsung’s lobbying costs in the US have tripled in the first half of this year

The major shift in the policies of the US administration has forced many companies to ramp up their lobbying efforts to ensure that they don’t fall out of favor with the folks in power. The latest figures from the US Senate Lobbying Disclosure Database shows that Samsung’s lobbying costs have tripled in the first half of this year.

Samsung hasn’t just responded to the changes in Washington by spending more on lobbying. The company hedged its bets against growing protectionism in the country by announcing that it’s setting up a new appliance plant in the state of South Carolina.

The $380 million plant will be used to manufacture washing machines and other appliances that will be sold to customers in the United States. The investment by Samsung is also going to create almost 1,000 new industrial jobs in the state.

It has spent $1.47 million on lobbying so far which is considerably more than what it did in the same period last year. Samsung spent $680,000 on lobbying in the first quarter of this year and ramped it up to $790,000 in the second quarter.

The company has given several reasons for increased spending on lobbying including the Korea-US free trade agreement, Trans-Pacific Partnership, NAFTA and trade restrictions.

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Samsung Galaxy A7 (2018) specifications leaked already?

Samsung had unveiled the Galaxy A (2017) smartphone series earlier this year. The series consists of the Galaxy A3 (2017), Galaxy A5 (2017), and the Galaxy A7 (2017), and they might soon receive the Android 7.0 update. Now, it appears that the successor to the Galaxy A7 (2017) has been spotted already.

The Galaxy A7 (2018) or SM-A730 has appeared in GFXBench’s database, revealing most of its specifications. Going by the details available on the website, the phone might feature a 1080p display (most probably, a 5.7-inch Super AMOLED one), a 2.1GHz octa-core processor with Mali-G71 GPU, 4GB RAM, 32GB internal storage, and Android 7.1.1 operating system.

Similar to its predecessor, the Galaxy A7 (2018) could come with a 16-megapixel rear-facing camera and a 16-megapixel front-facing camera. The front-facing camera appears to have QHD video recording abilities, so it is possible that the company could upgrade the rear-facing camera’s video capture resolution to QHD or 4K, but we’re not too sure about it.

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