Samsung Pay rewards program goes live in India

Samsung has launched the Samsung Pay Rewards program in one of the service’s biggest markets. A Samsung Pay update is rolling out in India with support for earning reward points on transactions via credit and debit cards, wallet services like Paytm, and the country’s UPI (Unified Payments Interface) service. The update also brings a refined interface for UPI payments, making it possible to make UPI transactions without running through as many steps as before, and adds support for the FreeCharge wallet.

More you use Samsung Pay, the better you’re rewarded

Samsung Pay Rewards offers three tiers for earning points based on the number of transactions users make each month: Silver, Gold, and Platinum. Users get 10, 15, and 20 points for each transaction in those tiers respectively. Naturally, there’s a limit on the number of transactions that will fetch reward points – up to 15 transactions in a month, with UPI and wallet transactions limited to three per day. Each transaction through UPI and wallets has to be for at least Rs. 50, while credit and debit card transactions must be higher than Rs. 100. The points accumulated can then be used to purchase Samsung devices or vouchers from select merchants from within the app, and bonus points are credited on various actions, such as the first debit or credit card transaction and every third card transaction.

To download the Samsung Pay update and get started with the rewards program, open the Samsung Pay app on your phone and hit the Update button when you get the notification about the update’s availability. It’s a 100 MB+ download, so make sure you’re on a Wi-Fi connection or have enough bandwidth available on your mobile data plan.

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Galaxy Xcover 5 listed on Samsung New Zealand’s website?

Samsung has released new versions of the rugged Galaxy Xcover lineup in March every two years in the past, but it looks like the company isn’t going to be waiting so long for the Galaxy Xcover 5. The Galaxy Xcover 4 was launched last year, and according to Google’s search results, at least Samsung New Zealand did have a listing for the Galaxy Xcover 5 at some point. The link to the device fails to load so it’s possible the listing has been removed sometime in the last couple of weeks, which might explain why Samsung hasn’t yet made the Xcover 5 official.

Galaxy Xcover 5 in the works

This may not be the first sighting of a Galaxy Xcover 5. Leakster Roland Quandt had published an image of a rugged new Samsung phone at the beginning of March, saying that the device wasn’t the Galaxy S9 Active. The device in the image had three LED flashes for the camera at the back, which is something we haven’t yet seen on a Samsung device. None of the specs of the alleged Xcover 5 are known, either, but we can expect IP68 water and dust resistance and military grade ruggedness covering entry-level specs. Android 8.0 Oreo should also be on-board, that is if Samsung actually intends to launch the Xcover 5 in 2018.

Thanks for the tip!

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Samsung sued for infringing on patents related to biometrics

US-based data security firm PACid Technologies has filed a patent infringement lawsuit against Samsung in the Texas Eastern District Court on April 6. The firm alleges that biometric features like the fingerprint, facial recognition, iris scan, and the underlying user verification systems such as Samsung Pass and Samsung KNOX found in recent Galaxy smartphones have infringed upon two of its patents in the US (U.S. Patent No. 9,577,993 and 9,876,771) and one in South Korea (KR20110128567A).

US-based PACid files patent infringement lawsuit against Samsung

Damages could be as high as $3 billion

The lawsuit covers Galaxy flagship models from the Galaxy S6 to the Galaxy S8 and all their variants. The sales volume of these devices will be used to determine the quantum of damages, and if it is proven that Samsung was aware of the patent infringement before the filing of the suit, it will be forced to pay up to three times the damage amount per unit sold. PACid claims that Samsung knew about its patents at least since January 2017, and if it wins the case against Samsung, the compensation claims could be as high as $3 billion.

Lawsuits by unknown firms against major companies are nothing new in the US. The country has witnessed many frivolous lawsuits against major corporations over vague patents and loose interpretations of such patents. Commonly referred to as patent trolls, the business model of these shady firms is to sue companies which actually develop and sell products. Industry sources seem to slot PACid in the same group given the many patent lawsuits it filed against Google, Apple and Nintendo.

Samsung faced many patent infringement lawsuits over the years, with the most prominent one being the long drawn legal dispute with Apple over design patents in the US. Samsung is also involved in a legal battle with Huawei in China over alleged infringement of 4G patents held by the Chinese firm. Samsung faced varying levels of setbacks in both these cases. If PACid is indeed a patent troll as reports seem to suggest, let’s hope Samsung wins this case as a defeat would be bad not just for Samsung but the industry in general.

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Galaxy A8 (2018) and Galaxy J7 Prime get April 2018 security patch update

As expected, Samsung hasn’t started rolling out the latest security patch to its flagship phones and is focusing on the budget and mid-range segment once again. To that end, the company has released an update with the April 2018 security patch to the Galaxy A8 (2018) and the Galaxy J7 Prime, with the former marking the first time a non-budget Samsung phone has received the April patch. For the A8 (2018), the update is available in Russia, while the J7 Prime is being updated in Sri Lanka. The build numbers for these updates are A530FXXU2ARD1 and G610FXXU1BRC1 respectively.

April 2018 security patch comes to the mid-range

The Galaxy A8 update doesn’t just include the latest security fixes. It also brings the option to increase the screen’s touch sensitivity (accessible from the Advanced features menu in the device settings), similar to the Galaxy S9 and S9+, and improves camera stability. It’s possible the same update will also be released for the Galaxy A8+ in the coming days. As for the April security patch, it brings fixes for seven critical Android vulnerabilities and eight vulnerabilities that only affect Samsung’s software. Of course, a slew of low and medium-risk vulnerabilities have also been patched to enhance the overall security of these devices.

You can download the update from the Settings » Software update menu on your Galaxy A8 (2018) or Galaxy J7 Prime, and we also have the full firmware available in our database for flashing via a PC. As always, you can just wait for the update to show up on its own, although that can take a few days.

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Samsung SM-G8850 is a 5.8-inch Galaxy S9 with dual cameras, 6GB RAM for China

While we were arguing over why Samsung didn’t offer 6GB of RAM and dual rear cameras on the regular Galaxy S9, the company was busy finding ways how it could do that specifically for the Chinese market. The Samsung SM-G8850, which was spotted earlier on the TENAA website, has now been listed in full by the certification authority, along with images of the phone. This isn’t the Galaxy S9 mini as we had speculated, but a new variant of the regular Galaxy S9. It seems Samsung is going for an iPhone-like design to attract consumers, with the SM-G8850 sporting a rear camera setup like the one seen on the iPhone X. Is this how the Korean giant is planning to get back into the game in China? It certainly looks like it.

Galaxy S9 with a flat display for China?

The SM-G8850’s 5.8-inch display is missing curved edges, the curves at the back of the phone are very minor, and the fingerprint sensor is shaped different from Samsung’s usual implementation as well — is it possible that these changes are what allowed the company to find space for the dual camera? Of course, the more likely explanation is that Samsung knows it has to offer its best if it intends to survive in China, but the problem here is that the regular Galaxy S9 is already available in the country. It’s possible the SM-G8850 would be exclusive to one of China’s major carriers, though there’s no way to be sure until the phone goes official or we get more information ahead of its launch.

Other specs of the SM-G8850 include an octa-core processor clocked at 2.8 GHz (so a slightly overclocked Exynos 9810), a 3,000 mAh battery, Android 8.0, an 8-megapixel front camera, and 12MP+12MP cameras at the back. Yep, pretty much what you see on the Galaxy S9 and Galaxy S9+, only this time inside a body that looks more like the iPhone. And if we look at the Galaxy C series of phones, aiming for an iPhone-like design isn’t entirely new for Samsung. If that’s what helps them sell more smartphones in the country, that’s great, but it seems like a slap in the face for consumers who had to settle for the less exciting 5.8-inch Galaxy S9 outside China.

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