Samsung launches a new Frame TV with design and feature improvements

Samsung unveiled the home-décor focused Frame TV last year at CES 2017. The premise behind the model was to make a TV that blends into the interior of your house as a work of art when not being used as a TV. It was not just a concept as Samsung commercially launched it in many markets around the world through the year.

The company has now launched a successor to the last year’s model with many design and feature improvements. Similar to its predecessor, the new 2018 Frame TV has a 4K screen but now comes with improved HDR capabilities with HDR10+ support. The new model also packs all the smart features you expect from Samsung’s premium TV lineup in 2018. These include seamless setup using your Galaxy smartphone, Bixby integration, and smart home features, etc.

Comes with customizable bezels

On the design front, the Frame TV 2018 comes with four customizable bezel color options – black, white, walnut and beige wood – that users can swap via magnets to match the interiors of your room. It also boasts ‘Samsung’s proprietary No Gap Wall Mount’ to make the TV hang flush to the wall. The new Frame TV also comes with sensors to automatically adjust the screen brightness in Art Mode depending on the ambient light in the room.

Since the focus of the Frame TV is to morph into a digital painting, Samsung has made many improvements on that front as well. The art collection in Samsung Art Store is now expanded to 800 works, which customers can either purchase individually or opt for a subscription for $4.99 a month after the one-month free trial.

Samsung has also tweaked the Art Mode UI to make it easier to pick the art you want to display on your wall. Apart from the genre, it now supports browsing by color scheme and medium (drawings or photography) to suit your room’s interior design. Once curated, Frame TV will shuffle through the curated collection like a music playlist.

The 2018 Frame TV is available for purchase on Samsung US website starting today. It comes in two different sizes – a 55-inch variant priced at $1,999 and a 65-inch variant priced at $2,700. It will land at other retailers sometime this month.

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First Galaxy Tab S4 render leaked online

We are well aware that Samsung has a new tablet in the pipeline and that it’s the successor to the Galaxy Tab S3. The company is expected to launch the Galaxy Tab S4 in the next couple of months. There have already been multiple reports about what this device could bring to the table and now the first Galaxy Tab S4 render has been leaked online. It gives us a glimpse of what the new flagship tablet from Samsung may look like.

Galaxy Tab S4 render

There’s some circumstantial evidence to suggest that Samsung might opt for a 16:10 aspect ratio display for the Galaxy Tab S4 and this render seems to suggest that this might be the case. It would be a return to form for Samsung’s flagship tablet as some of you might remember that the first-generation Galaxy Tab S that was launched back in 2014 featured a 16:10 aspect ratio display. Samsung adopted the 4:3 aspect ratio from the Galaxy Tab S2 onwards.

The render does show that the Galaxy Tab S4 will have slimmer bezels and that the display will stretch out more which may result in no Samsung logo at the top and no physical home button on the chin. Since the back doesn’t show a fingerprint sensor, the tablet may rely on iris recognition only for biometric access control.

Apart from the front, the design doesn’t appear to be all that different. The power and volume button placements appear to be the same while the back has a “Tuned by AKG” branding to highlight that like its predecessor, the Galaxy Tab S4 will also have AKG-tuned audio.

Even though this is claimed to be an official press render of the Galaxy Tab S4, it doesn’t make sense for Samsung to highlight Google Chrome on the lock screen instead of its own browser, so there’s a possibility that this may not be the final render.

As far as the specs are concerned, the Galaxy Tab S4 is said to feature a 10.5-inch 2560×1600 pixel resolution display with a Snapdragon 835 processor under the hood coupled with 4GB of RAM and 64GB of storage. It may also feature a 12-megapixel rear and 7-megapixel front camera. The tablet will come with Android 8.0 Oreo out of the box.

The Galaxy Tab S4 recently picked up its FCC certification which suggests that the launch may not be that far off. It’s expected that Samsung might unveil the Galaxy Tab S4 at IFA 2018 in Berlin which takes place this September.

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Status report: Samsung’s Galaxy and the Android 8.0 Oreo update

So we entered the seventh month of the year over the weekend, and Android 8.0 Oreo has officially been out as the latest stable version of the Android OS for almost a year at this point. It was in late February that Samsung first updated one of its devices to Oreo. That was the Galaxy S8, and now, four months later, how far has the Korean company come in bringing Oreo to all of the eligible devices?

Samsung’s Galaxy and Android Oreo: Not yet at the finish line

When it comes to flagships, Samsung has released the Oreo update for all of them. Those would be the Galaxy S8, S8+, Galaxy S7, S7 edge, Galaxy Note 8, and the Galaxy Tab S3. Samsung has also released the update for spin-off devices like the Galaxy S7 Active, Galaxy S8 Active, and even the Galaxy Note FE, which was launched in some markets after the Galaxy Note 7 met an early demise. Of course, other than the Galaxy S8, not every flagship has been updated to Oreo in every country and by every carrier (for carrier-locked devices), though it shouldn’t be long before that changes.

Mid-range devices updated to Oreo include the 2017 variants of the Galaxy A3, Galaxy A5 and Galaxy A7, and the Galaxy C9 Pro. That’s it. The Galaxy A8 (2018) and Galaxy A8+ are still running Nougat, which is a shame considering these are the latest mid-range offerings from Samsung and provide a user experience that’s closer to a flagship’s than any previous A series phone. For budget devices, such as the Galaxy J series phones, not a single Oreo update has been released. And going by how long it took for the Nougat update to reach Samsung’s budget phones, Oreo may not arrive until October this year, after Android 9.0 P has been officially unveiled.

Android 9.0 may not take as long to arrive on all eligible devices

Devices that have launched with Android 8.0 Oreo out of the box come with Project Treble, which is designed to make it faster for companies to release software updates. Samsung may take advantage of Project Treble and push the Android 9.0 update for its devices (see the list of devices that are expected to get Android P) faster than it has released Oreo, but it remains to be seen if that actually turns out to be the case. But as far as Oreo is concerned, Samsung still has work left to do to make sure every eligible device has been updated.

What do you think of Samsung’s progress with the Oreo update? Have you received it on your Galaxy? Sound off in the comments, and be sure to mention what device you own and your country of residence if your device has been updated to Oreo.

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SamMobile Firmware Update Magazine: July 2, 2018

Welcome to the latest 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.

SamMobile Firmware Update Magazine

Keep in mind, however, that these firmware details are based on the firmware that are available in our database. 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. Even if you’re new to the world of firmware, you’ll have no trouble making sense of it all.

Click on the image below to grab the latest firmware magazine!

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Samsung Galaxy On6 launched in India as the Galaxy J6′ online-only variant

Samsung has launched the Galaxy On6, an online-only variant of the Galaxy J6, in India today. As with all other Galaxy On series of smartphones, the Galaxy On6 benefits from a lower price tag compared to the device it’s based on as it will not be sold in offline stores. The Galaxy On6 comes with 4GB of RAM and 64GB of storage and is priced at ₹14,490, ₹2,000 less than the 4GB variant of the Galaxy J6.

Galaxy On6 launched in India

The Galaxy On6 specs are the same as the Galaxy J6′. It has a 5.6-inch Super AMOLED Infinity display, octa-core Exynos 7870 chipset, a 13-megapixel rear camera, an 8-megapixel front-facing camera (with an adjustable flash), a 3,000 mAh battery, dual SIM slots, a fingerprint sensor, and 4G LTE connectivity. It runs Android 8.0 Oreo with Samsung Experience 9.0 and comes with Chat Over Video as an exclusive feature for the Indian market. Chat Over Video lets the user reply to messages on WhatsApp and the default SMS app while watching a video using a transparent keyboard.

The Galaxy On6 comes in blue and black. Sales kick off on July 5 from Flipkart and from Samsung’s official online store, with the former the exclusive third-party seller. Since this is just a rebranded Galaxy J6, it gets our recommendation as the J6 is the first truly impressive budget Samsung phone that offers a user experience that’s better than what the price tag may suggest. For more details, read our Galaxy J6 review.

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