Buying a Galaxy S10e in the Netherlands helps recycling phones in Africa

For every Galaxy S10e purchased in the Netherlands, a scrap phone found in the e-waste dumps of Ghana and Uganda will be properly recycled. This is the latest campaign thought up by Dutch company Closing the Loop, who has partnered with Samsung and T-Mobile in the Netherlands in order to achieve its goals.

The initiative should help stimulating local economies in Africa and aims to clean up the landscape and raise awareness. Therefore, every Galaxy S10e purchased through T-Mobile Netherlands will guarantee the recycling of a scrap phone from African countries where e-waste is a growing issue. The program promotes circularity and responsible consumption and production of electronics.

Only 25 percent of our phones are being recycled

According to research cited by Closing the Loop, only 25 percent of phones that have been decommissioned in 2018 have been properly recycled. This means that e-waste landfills are accommodating roughly 1.5 billion scrap phones. The number will likely grow as we continue to swap our phones on a regular basis unless something can be done to promote the idea of circularity and proper recycling.

The Dutch government will equip public servants with material-neutral phones

Evidently, buying one Galaxy S10e as a sole customer in the Netherlands probably won’t save the world or solve the e-waste landfill problems, but perhaps there is some satisfaction to be had, knowing that your purchase has made a small contribution towards the concept of circularity.

More importantly, the numbers will add up and the positive impact might be felt in the long run. Likewise, bigger corporations who may want to get more in the green could also benefit from the program. They would inherently make larger phone purchases which would result in more scrap phones being recycled. And, of course, this could benefit Samsung as well, if said companies decide to buy the Galaxy S10e en masse.

The Dutch government appears to be in favor of the program too. Moving forward, all civil servants will have material-neutral phones like the Galaxy S10e. Alternatively, they will be compensated at the purchase of a new phone via T-Mobile by recycling a scrap phone themselves.

Galaxy S10e

• Model: SM-G970F
• Dimensions: 69.9 x 142.2 x 7.9mm
• Display: 5.8” (146.5mm) Super AMOLED
• CPU: Exynos 9820 Octa
• Camera: 12 MP, CMOS F1.5/F2.4 (77°) & 16MP, CMOS F2.2 (123°)Ultra Wide

More specifications

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Leaked Galaxy Watch Active 2 render confirms what we already know

What appears to be a promotional render for the Galaxy Watch Active 2 has leaked online today. It confirms what we already know about Samsung’s upcoming wearable device. It reiterates that the upcoming smartwatch will indeed be called the Galaxy Watch Active 2.

The original Galaxy Watch Active was launched in February this year. We found it to be a pretty good smartwatch packed in a small package. It ditched the rotating bezel ring for a more compact and light build. The Galaxy Watch Active 2 sticks to the same script.

Galaxy Watch Active 2 gets its own leaked render

We were the first to exclusively leak hands-on images of the Galaxy Watch Active 2. We have also confirmed that the smartwatch will be offered in 44mm and 40mm sizes and that it will be available in both Wi-Fi and LTE variants.

The render iterates what we already know about the smartwatch. The display is going to be slightly larger, for example, with the overall design being more or less the same as the original Galaxy Watch Active. What can only be a microphone hole is positioned between the two physical buttons, suggesting that this render depicts the LTE variant.

It obviously doesn’t reveal anything about the other new features that will be included. We exclusively revealed a week ago that the Galaxy Watch Active 2 will get several new features. They include the ability to take an ECG, Afib notifications, and fall detection. It does show that a leather strap would be on offer this time as opposed to the silicone strap that came with its predecessor.

Samsung hasn’t said anything about a new smartwatch at this point in time. So it’s unclear whether we will see it being unveiled alongside the Galaxy Note 10 on August 7.

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Latest Galaxy S10 update for the US is preventing access to the phone

Some Galaxy S10 users in the United States are reporting an issue they’ve encountered after updating their devices to the most recent software. The bug causes users to be locked out of their smartphones without being able to get past the password entry screen, according to people who have described the problem via Reddit and Samsung’s own support channels. The bug persists regardless of whether the users entered their passwords correctly, or even if they didn’t have a password in the first place.

Factory reset is the only proper fix as of now

So far, it seems that the only working solution to bypass the Galaxy S10 lock screen issue is to perform a factory reset. Meanwhile, another user on the Samsung Community page – who claims to be a Verizon representative – says that the only way to get past the bug is to introduce the password incorrectly enough times so that it would trigger a factory reset. This method has yet to be confirmed by people affected. Another user claims to have managed to get the phone working properly again by rebooting it in Safe Mode, which can be done by following the steps mentioned here.

It’s important to note that, so far, the issue seems to be specific to the US. Not only that, but the problem appears to largely affect Verizon customers – although AT&T was also mentioned. This could indicate that the June 2019 security patch launched by Verizon and AT&T last week may be causing the issue, particularly since Sprint hasn’t launched the patch yet, and T-Mobile didn’t include any additional features in its release, such as the dedicated Night mode.

The Galaxy S10 is seemingly the most affected by the problem. Nevertheless, a couple of Galaxy S10+ owners and one Galaxy S10e user have also described similar issues with their phones after the latest update.

We would recommend Galaxy S10 users in the US who haven’t yet updated to the latest software release to wait a bit longer and see how the story develops further. Or, at the very least, make sure you’ve backed up your data before proceeding with the installation process. Let us know if you’ve encountered this issue stateside, or anywhere else for that matter.

Galaxy S10e

• Model: SM-G970U
• Dimensions: 69.9 x 142.2 x 7.9mm
• Display: 5.8” (146.5mm) Super AMOLED
• CPU: Qualcomm Snapdragon 855
• Camera: 12 MP, CMOS F1.5/F2.4 (77°) & 16MP, CMOS F2.2 (123°)Ultra Wide

More specifications

Galaxy S10

• Model: SM-G973U
• Dimensions: 70.4 x 149.9 x 7.8mm
• Display: 6.1"(157.5mm) Super AMOLED
• CPU: Exynos 9820 Octa
• Camera: 12 MP.CMOS F2.4 45° Telephoto & 12MP F1.5 77° & 16MP F2.2 123° Ultra-wide

More specifications

Galaxy S10 Plus

• Model: SM-G975U
• Dimensions: 74.1 x 157.6 x 7.8mm
• Display: 6.4"(162.5mm) Super AMOLED
• CPU: Qualcomm Snapdragon 855
• Camera: 12 MP.CMOS F2.4 45° Telephoto & 12MP F1.5/F2.4 77° & 16MP F2.2 123° Ultra-wide

More specifications

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Galaxy A7 (2017) Android Pie beta test ongoing, but don’t get too excited

Samsung has an Android Pie beta program running for the Galaxy A7 (2017), but don’t get too excited unless you bought the device in South Korea. The Galaxy A7 (2017) launched worldwide with Android 6.0.1 Marshmallow except for Samsung home’s country, where it ran Android 7.0 Nougat out of the box. And since Samsung provides two major OS upgrades to all of its devices, the A7 (2017) was always destined to end its life on Android Pie in South Korea.

The Galaxy A7 (2017) was among the first non-flagship Galaxy phones to support Bixby, although it only had Bixby Home and Bixby Reminder support as it didn’t have a dedicated physical button for Bixby Voice. And it’s unclear if Bixby Voice will come to the device with Android Pie, which allows one to use the power button to fire up Bixby Voice. The various discussion threads on Samsung’s community forums doesn’t mention anything about the feature, and the A7 (2017) probably won’t get it considering the phone is two years old at this point.

Some features included in the beta are floating mode for the Samsung Keyboard, support for RCS messaging, new Always On Display clock styles, and navigation gestures. There’s apparently a software-based Live Focus mode for the rear camera as well; the A7 (2017) had earlier received software-based Live Focus for the front camera with a previous update. It remains to be seen when the stable Android Pie update for the device will be released, although one thing’s for certain: Whenever it does come out, the update will be limited to the South Korean market.

Thanks for the tip, Aliyetim!

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Pujie Black helps you create your own watch faces for Galaxy smartwatches

Being able to download new watch faces is one of the biggest advantages of owning a smartwatch. It allows users to tweak the look of their smartwatch and keep it fresh. This is one area where Samsung’s Galaxy Store fares better than Google’s Play Store with thousands of downloadable watch faces from third-party developers and designers.

If for whatever reasons, you don’t like any of the existing watch faces in the Galaxy Store, the Pujie Black app might interest you. It’s a watch-face maker app that helps users to create their own designs by customizing almost every aspect of a watch face. The app was previously available only for Wear OS devices, but the developer has now released a Tizen OS version for Galaxy smartwatches as well.

The Tizen version currently supports the Galaxy Watch, Watch Active, and Gear Sport, with support for the Gear S3 coming soon. To get started, you need to first download the Pujie Black Android app from the Play Store, which costs $2, and the free companion app for the smartwatch from the Galaxy Store. Once they are installed, on the main Android app, you can either create a new watch face from scratch by selecting every aspect of its design or pick available presets and make edits before sending it to the smartwatch. You can also download presets from FaceRepo or Pujie’s cloud library to quickly create new watch faces, but the latter requires a paid subscription.

While these watch faces are super customizable and may satisfy even the most demanding customers, the way the app works may not please everyone. Unlike the watch faces from Galaxy Store, the Pujie Black designs are not integrated into the on-device watch face library and work more like a separate app widget. This is bound to consume more battery, but the reviews seem to indicate the impact is minimal and worth the benefits. Overall, considering the app is priced cheap, it is worth giving a try and may very well appeal to many smartwatch owners.

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Caught in the wild: Has Samsung started public testing of the Galaxy Fold?

Has Samsung started publicly testing the fixed and updated Galaxy Fold? That seems to be the case: A man riding the metro in New Delhi, India’s capital, was spotted using a Galaxy Fold, as you can see in the photo below. This photo was sent to us by one of our friends (who we cannot name) in New Delhi, and it’s actually the first time we’re seeing a Galaxy Fold being tested by a random person out on the streets (or metro, in this case).

The Galaxy Fold was a heavily guarded secret: No leaks showing us the complete device came out before Samsung officially unveiled it at its Unpacked event in February. And it’s entirely possible Samsung didn’t test the Fold in the real world at all before launching it earlier this year, which might be why a couple of basic design oversights slipped through and forced the company to delay the retail release of the device indefinitely. It’s not a mistake Samsung would want to make again, and its mobile chief did reveal recently that mass testing of more than 2,000 units of the Fold is currently ongoing.

Its appearance in India also suggests Samsung will launch the fixed Galaxy Fold in a lot more markets at the same time. Sadly, we’ll only find out for sure when Samsung is ready to divulge details on the Fold’s second coming. The company hasn’t done a great job of keeping us and prospective consumers apprised of its progress with its foldable smartphone, and the most recent rumor only tells us that Samsung is hoping to release the device sometime “during the holiday season.”

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Samsung officially introduces SmartThings in Germany

Samsung has officially launched its SmartThings range of home automation devices in Germany. SmartThings products, which include smart hubs, sensors and control devices, will be commercially available in Germany from September, 2019. Samsung also recently added a camera, WiFi smart plug and a smart bulb to its SmartThings portfolio. The new products are currently available in the US only.

Samsung brings SmartThings products to Germany

Samsung acquired SmartThings back in 2014 to strengthen its hold in the smart home category. SmartThings has since become Samsung’s umbrella-brand for all its IoT products and services. The SmartThings Hub, which supports ZigBee, Z-Wave and Bluetooth connectivity, connects to all other SmartThings products in the home. They can be controlled through the SmartThings app on a smartphone, tablet, Smart TV or a Family Hub refrigerator. SmartThings devices are also compatible with a variety of third-party products.

A SmartThings Wi-Fi Hub is also available, which offers the same functionality over a Wi-Fi connection. In addition, it enables consistent internet coverage throughout the home, thanks to its mesh functionality. It adapts to internet usage in the home to intelligently provide users with the fastest speed possible.

Prices of SmartThings products in Germany vary from 29.99 euros to 139.99 euros. The SmartThings Hub V3 costs 89.99 euros, whereas the Wi-Fi version costs 139.99 euros. Other products on offer include a motion sensor, multipurpose sensor, button, and a water leak sensor, all priced at 29.99 euros. There’s also a smart outlet which costs 44.99 euros. Samsung expects to begin selling the devices from September this year.

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Galaxy M40 update improves camera, face recognition performance

Samsung has released a Galaxy M40 software update that brings improvements to the device’s camera and facial recognition performance. Specific details aren’t mentioned, although we did notice that facial recognition seems to work a bit faster after the update. The new software version is M405FDDU1ASG2 and the update includes the June 2019 security patch.

Also included in the update is the blue light filter feature, which was missing on the device despite being a standard feature on all smartphones these days. No other new functionality seems to have been added to the device with the update, and that means features like Bixby Routines are still not available for Galaxy M40 owners. Which is a shame considering the Galaxy M40 already isn’t the best proposition compared to Samsung’s own Galaxy A50, which does support Bixby Routines and is priced lower despite a better overall hardware and software package.

The new Galaxy M40 update is a 378.40 MB download, and a notification should show up on your M40 once the update is available for you. You can also manually grab the update by selecting the Download and install option in the Software update menu of the phone’s Settings app. Another option is to upgrade by downloading the newest firmware from our database and flashing it on your phone using a Windows PC.

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FCC photos confirm Galaxy Note 10+ has no 3.5mm headphone jack

Photos of the Galaxy Note 10+ published by the FCC confirm that Samsung’s upcoming flagship won’t have a 3.5 mm headphone jack. Rumors and leaked CAD renders had already indicated this would be the case, and the FCC photos pretty much seal the deal. The regular Galaxy Note 10 hasn’t shown up on the FCC website yet, but there’s a pretty solid chance it won’t have a headphone jack, either.

Ditching the headphone jack will probably get Samsung plenty of criticism by longtime fans, as the Galaxy lineup will be losing a feature that everyone has taken for granted for years. It was bound to happen, though, and it remains to be seen if it will affect sales of the Note 10 and Note 10+ in any substantial way. Samsung will be putting in USB Type-C earphones in the box, of course, and we could see upgraded AKG-tuned earbuds with noise cancellation according to one rumor.

Interestingly, the live photos published by the FCC come almost a month before the Galaxy Note 10 and Note 10+ are set to go official, and Samsung probably isn’t too happy about it. That said, photos of the devices in the flesh would have leaked at some point. There’s already been one leak showing a working Note 10+, and we can expect more such leaks as we count down the days to Samsung’s August 7 Unpacked event.

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Daily Deal: 64% off SanDisk 128GB Extreme microSD Card

We know we publish a lot of deals on microSD cards, and we couldn’t let this one slide: You can now get a SanDisk Extreme 128GB microSD card for a 64% discount! SanDisk is one of the oldest players in the flash storage business and makes reliable and high-quality microSD cards for smartphones, cameras, and other digital devices. The SanDisk Extreme card reaches read and write speeds of 160 MB/s and 90 MB/s respectively and is made to withstand harsh conditions. It’s waterproof and able to survive in temperatures ranging from -40ºC to 85ºC.

Use the Buy Now button below to grab one while the discount is still in effect!

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Galaxy A50s spotted on AnTuTu with 64GB onboard storage

A Galaxy A50 variant bearing the model number SM-A507F was spotted on Geekbench earlier this week. The benchmark results revealed a few key hardware details of the device, supposedly called Galaxy A50s. It has now stopped by AnTuTu to reveal a couple of more details.

Galaxy A50s AnTuTu benchmark

According to Geekbench, the upcoming SM-A507F smartphone will be powered by the Exynos 9610 processor. It’ll have at least 4GB of RAM and will come with Android 9 Pie out of the box. AnTuTu benchmark now adds that the smartphone will have 64GB of onboard storage. It corroborates our exclusive report from a couple of months ago, where we also revealed that the handset will be released in black and white color variants.

The AnTuTu listing further suggests the Galaxy A50s to have a display resolution of 2340×1080 pixels. And judging by the two benchmarks, it appears the device would be identical to the regular Galaxy A50, which goes by the model number SM-A505F. However, the rest of the specifications of the Galaxy A50s are a mystery as of now, so there still remain a few areas where Samsung may have made improvements.

Perhaps the Galaxy A50s could see some significant improvements in the camera department? A recent DxOMark camera review had revealed that the Galaxy A50’s triple rear cameras can’t challenge the top mid-range phones. The “s” variant of the Galaxy A10 is also likely to see improvements in its camera configuration and sensors. We can expect Samsung to take a similar approach with the refreshed Galaxy A50 as well.

There’s no word yet on when the Galaxy A50s might arrive. In the meantime, you might want to check out our Galaxy A50 review and see what it brings to the table.

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Galaxy Note 10 and Galaxy Note 10+ are now one step closer to release

Press renders of the Galaxy Note 10 and Galaxy Note 10+ leaked yesterday, giving us a good glimpse of the upcoming flagship. The handsets have now been certified by the Federal Communications Commission. They have cleared a major regulatory hurdle and are now one step closer to release.

We are less than a month away from the unveiling of Samsung’s new flagship. The company has confirmed an Unpacked event for August 7 in New York City. That’s where the Galaxy Note 10 will be announced.

Galaxy Note 10 and Galaxy Note 10+ receive FCC certification

The FCC has certified both the Galaxy Note 10 and Galaxy Note 10+ with model number SM-N975F and SM-N976B respectively. Samsung will be offering two different models of the flagship this year. The Galaxy Note 10 features a 6.3-inch display while the Galaxy Note 10+ gets a larger 6.75-inch display.

There will be some differences between the two models. The Galaxy Note 10+ will have a ToF sensor at the back, for example, while the Galaxy Note 10 will not. The battery capacity will be different on both handsets as well. There will also be a lot of similarities between the two. They’ll be the same design-wise and both are expected to ditch the 3.5mm headphone jack. That’s backed up by reports of a pair of USB Type-C wired noise cancellation earphones which may ship with the device.

Samsung is going to offer 5G variants of both models in markets where the next-gen networks have gone live. We also exclusively revealed yesterday that the Galaxy Note 10 5G will be available in 256GB, 512GB and 1TB internal storage options.

Galaxy Note fans are no doubt excited for the unveiling of this new device. Samsung will confirm pricing and availability information next month. August 7 can’t come soon enough.

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