Watch the Galaxy Z Fold 2 flex its Flex Mode in this new hands-on video

We’ve grown to love Flex Mode on the original Galaxy Z Flip as it has proved to be very useful in practice, so you can imagine we were very happy to learn about this feature coming to the brand-new Galaxy Z Fold 2. This is not only because Flex Mode is a great concept but also due to the fact that the Galaxy Z Fold 2 has a different form factor than the Galaxy Z Flip, which leaves room for Samsung to toy around with the idea. Indeed, Samsung hasn’t left Flex Mode unchanged for the Galaxy Z Fold 2 and it did think of ways to improve the concept further.

The new Flex Mode for the Galaxy Z Fold 2 was recently highlighted in a new hands-on video uploaded on YouTube. It shows how Flex Mode can be enabled when using the Galaxy Z Fold 2 in tablet mode, but more importantly, it highlights some of the main functions.

Flex Mode in the Camera app has two ways of operating, depending on whether the Galaxy Z Fold 2 is held in portrait or landscape mode. In portrait mode, the viewfinder is shown on the right half of the screen while the last photo you captured is shown on the left half. In landscape mode, the left (now lower) half accommodates both a preview of your most recent shot as well as the camera controls.

Galaxy Z Fold 2 has Flex Mode in Samsung Gallery and Messages

Flex Mode on the Galaxy Z Fold 2 works with a couple more apps aside Camera. The Gallery app also supports Flex Mode but only in landscape mode. It lets you swipe through your gallery and view additional details on the lower half the screen by swiping left/right or up. In essence, you can view all the details of a photo without the photo ever leaving the screen – something that can’t be done with a standard ‘candy bar’ Galaxy phone.

Although it’s not enabled by default, you can also make Flex Mode work inside Samsung Messages by enabling the option in the Display settings menu. Once this feature is enabled you’ll be able to see all your message threads on one half of the screen and the selected conversation on the other half.

All in all, Flex Mode and the Galaxy Z Fold 2 look like the perfect match and we’re eager to take it for a spin ourselves. Stay tuned for our upcoming review and you’re bound to learn more about Flex Mode and a ton of other Galaxy Z Fold 2 features.

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Galaxy Note 20 Ultra destroys iPhone 11 Pro Max in drop test

The Galaxy Note 20 Ultra pretty much demolished Apple’s last year’s flagship in a series of extensive drop tests planned and performed by popular YouTube mobile channel PhoneBuff. Or, perhaps it’d be more accurate to say that the Galaxy Note 20 Ultra — protected by Gorilla Glass Victus on the front and back — watched the iPhone 11 Pro Max destroy itself while taking repeated beatings like a champ. Because that’s pretty much what happened, as the video below can attest.

Samsung has mastered the art of making beautiful phones that walk off injuries

While 2020 was hardly Samsung’s strongest-ever showing in the mobile space, all of its flagships released this year obviously retained this amazing build quality that has been one of their main selling points for over half a decade at this point; since at least the Galaxy S6 whose switch to metal and glass ushered in a new era of smartphone durability. Samsung refined this unibody concept to a significant degree over the years, but at its core, an all metal and glass build proved to be a way stronger foundation for a smartphone than many would reasonably expect. At least in Samsung’s hands, that is, as evidenced by countless examples of iPhones being handily beaten by their Galaxy rivals in any kind of even remotely legitimate durability tests.

Of course, that isn’t to say the Galaxy flagships cannot shatter on first drop – in fact, that’s precisely what happened in today’s test as well. Yet they continue to endure damage much better than most competing smartphones, Android and otherwise, both in terms of cosmetic damage and functionality preservation. And that’s without even accounting for the fact that while your poor handset may indeed end up involuntarily taking flight many times over the course of its life, there’s a good chance very few of those will include it dropping from a pocket height onto a concrete floor completely naked.

And as many who owned a Galaxy flagship over the years can attest, Samsung has gotten really good at making phones that brush off less severe falls, such as the all too familiar table-hand-oops-table scenario.

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First Galaxy A42 camera details emerge but they tell a familiar story

The Galaxy A42 is nowhere near its market debut but this hasn’t stopped the steady flow of leaks from creeping in. We previously and exclusively learned that the Galaxy A42 will be 5G-enabled, making it one of 2021’s most affordable 5G phones. The phone is also expected to pack a generous 5,000mAh battery in support of 5G, and earlier this month the same device was benchmarked online with a Snapdragon 690 chipset and 4GB of RAM under the hood. Now, our colleagues over at GalaxyClub have obtained some information about the Galaxy A42’s camera setup.

The Galaxy A42’s back panel will accommodate a 48MP main camera and a 5MP depth sensor, according to new information unearthed by the source. Galaxy A41 owners will let you know that these specifications are familiar because they are indeed unchanged from this year’s model. However, details about the ultra-wide camera are missing and there’s a possibility that this module will see more significant upgrades. It’s also unclear if the Galaxy A42 will have the same 25MP selfie camera as its predecessor or a different sensor.

Samsung’s budget-oriented Galaxy A42 is likely to see the light of day in early 2021 so a lot of unknowns about this device remain. Camera upgrades might not be the phone’s biggest selling point but what seems to be a certainty is the inclusion of 5G and a complementary large battery that compensates for the higher energy requirements of 5G. Even so, it might not be the most affordable 5G Galaxy phone next year as that label is seemingly reserved for the Galaxy A32.

Do you own the Galaxy A41 and are there any specific upgrades that you’d like from the 2021 Galaxy A42? Let us know in the comment section below.

Galaxy A41 review

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Galaxy S21 may get S Pen as Samsung said to ditch Galaxy Note series

The S Pen is the key differentiator between Samsung’s Galaxy S and Galaxy Note series. That’s why the stylus was never made compatible with any Galaxy S flagship. However, if a new report out of South Korea is believed, Samsung might be making a major change to its lineup in 2021.

It’s claimed that the Galaxy S21 will come with an S Pen as Samsung is set to ditch the Galaxy Note series next year. The S Pen will only be available with the top-of-the-line model which would ostensibly be called the Galaxy S21 Ultra.

Is the Galaxy Note series going to end next year?

The report mentions that the Galaxy S21 is in development at Samsung under the codename “Unbound.” It’s going to come in three different models and if Samsung doesn’t change the names, expect them to be called the Galaxy S21, Galaxy S21+ and Galaxy S21 Ultra. The S Pen will only be available with the Ultra.

It adds that the Galaxy Note 21’s launch isn’t set in stone yet for the second half of 2021. Samsung might launch an S Pen-equipped Galaxy Z Fold 3 in its place, at least that’s what the industry sources mentioned in this report would have you believe. This would leave the foldable device as the only flagship handset Samsung releases in the second half of the year.

The company would certainly see a drop in overall shipments. Samsung is typically able to ship 10 million units of a new Galaxy Note before the end of the year. Shipments won’t be anywhere near that for a foldable phone, at least over the next couple of years. Samsung would also be constrained by the production volume of the Ultra Thin Glass used for the Galaxy Z Fold 3’s display. It currently makes 600,000 panels per month and is aiming to increase capacity to 1 million panels by the end of 2020. So it won’t be able to produce as many foldable phones.

If this information is accurate, it would mean that the Galaxy Note 20 is the last iteration of this iconic series. Samsung might feel that doing away with it is a great way to secure a significant market share for the Galaxy Z Fold series. Shipping an S Pen with the foldable might be enough to entice Galaxy Note loyalists to switch. Samsung’s margins on the Galaxy Z Fold handsets may also be enough to allow it to strike a balance between the number of units shipped and the amount of revenue generated compared to a Galaxy Note device.

Nevertheless, this will be a significant shakeup of Samsung’s lineup, and would also require a big design change for the Galaxy S21 Ultra. Is this something you’re interested in seeing?

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Huge SmartThings update drops with some Galaxy Note 20 Ultra extras

The latest SmartThings update is here and wow, do we have a lot to talk about. As of Monday morning CET, this new SmartThings version, build number 1.7.51.42, was only available for download from the Google Play Store. Its Galaxy Store page is still on last month’s update, so make sure you’re trying to upgrade from the correct store if you’re having issues with getting the release to actually show up on your end. But anyway: new automation vectors, expanded QR code support, more accessibility improvements, including a partial UI rework – those are just some of the new SmartThings Samsung is now offering on most modern Galaxy devices.

But only one of those is now able to take advantage of several major efficiency improvements to SmartThings. Naturally, that would be the Galaxy Note 20 Ultra, Samsung’s latest flagship which comes packed with a variety of cutting-edge tech – including support for refined ultra wideband (UWB) radio transmissions. It can now leverage those in conjunction with augmented reality (AR) in order to help you locate your IoT gadgets faster or interact with them more intuitively once you do. So, while you will hopefully never lose your car, you might find it now integrates with SmartThings in a much more seamless manner, largely due to the raw gains in encryption key sharing speeds supported by the Galaxy Note 20 Ultra.

We could get used to these massive SmartThings updates

The new SmartThings update also introduces plenty of other novelties and improvements, all of which are much more widely accessible. One of those is a redesigned Automation Configuration menu that now offers more response if-then triggers so as to speed up any (re)programming effort on your end. Speaking of automation, it got two new conditions in this latest SmartThings build. One of them is weather, so you can now have your Internet-enabled household automatically play Tears in Heaven whenever it rains, for example. The other is Linked Places which allows you to e.g. have Bixby message home that you’ll be late whenever you enter your psychiatrist’s office in order to deal with the emotional impact of listening to Tears on Heaven the day before.

SmartThings currently supports a maximum of three Linked Places, though strangely enough, its functionality is limited by the number of Galaxy devices you have. For the uninitiated, SmartThings also works on third-party devices as it’s been a while since Samsung gave up on its ambition of selling its smartphones to entire families at all costs. In January of 2018, to be more specific. That’s why it seems strange to limit Linked Places to just Galaxy smartphones given how third-party devices are otherwise able to benefit from almost every other feature of the app. In fact, it’s possible this is simply a bug that will be ironed out in the coming weeks.

Furthermore, you can now get weather updates on the Location Summary screen, though they’re limited to automated refreshes at 20-minute intervals. Of course, this will require the geofencing setting to be enabled, though that shouldn’t be a detriment in any meaningful way since the feature doesn’t use GPS but instead relies solely on existing cellular data your phone is already constantly exchanging with nearby towers whatever you do – except when you enable Airplane Mode. Finally, this enormous SmartThings update also expands the Android app’s QR code support. It does so by allowing you to scan multiple Zigbee 3.0 QR ciphers during a single setup, which finally makes it as useful as Google Lens for stuff like quickly getting your new mesh network up and running in no time.

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T-Mobile rolling out One UI 2.5 update to the Galaxy S20 series

It’s not often that the Snapdragon variant of Samsung’s flagship phones sold stateside gets a substantial new update as quickly as the Exynos variant, but times seem to be a-changing, and T-Mobile is leading the charge. The Exynos-powered Galaxy S20 series received the One UI 2.5 update in some markets on the same day the Galaxy Note 20 and Note 20 Ultra were released worldwide, and the update is also rolling out for units running on T-Mobile’s network in the US.

Wireless DeX, advanced Pro video camera mode, and more

The Galaxy S20, S20+, and S20 Ultra on T-Mobile are getting firmware version G98xUSQU1BTHD and the August security patch as part of the One UI 2.5 update, along with a number of new features. That includes wireless DeX, which lets you run DeX wirelessly on any TV that supports Miracast-based screen mirroring (pretty much every modern smart TV), and multiple productivity-enhancing functions in Samsung Notes (which are available through an app update for Note smartphones).

The camera’s Pro video mode has also picked up new functionality. You can now shoot 8K videos in Pro video mode and select the 21:9 aspect ratio to make videos cover the entire display. 120 fps recording has been added as well. The enhanced Pro video mode also lets you select which of the phone’s three microphones are used for recording audio; you can also choose to record audio via Bluetooth or USB microphones. Finally, One UI 2.5 enables the use of Google’s navigation gestures in third-party launcher apps.

As with all updates, you can download this one over the air by opening the phone’s Settings app, selecting Software update, and tapping Download and install. It may take a few tries before the update shows up, so don’t lose hope if the phone says it’s already running the latest software. If waiting isn’t your thing, you can download the new firmware from our archive and install it on your S20, S20+, or S20 Ultra using a Windows PC.

Galaxy S20 5G

• Model: SM-G981U
• Dimensions: Bar: 151.7 x 69.1 x 7.9 mm
  
• Display: 6.2 inch / 157.48 mm Dynamic AMOLED 2X
• CPU: Snapdragon 865
• Camera: 12MP

More specifications

Galaxy S20+ 5G

• Model: SM-G986U
• Dimensions: Bar: 161.9 x 73.7 x 7.8 mm
  
• Display: 6.7 inch / 170.18 mm Dynamic AMOLED 2X
• CPU: Snapdragon 865
• Camera: 12MP

More specifications

Galaxy S20 Ultra 5G

• Model: SM-G988U
• Dimensions: Bar: 166.9 x 76.0 x 8.8 mm
  
• Display: 6.9 inch / 175.26 mm Dynamic AMOLED 2X
• CPU: Snapdragon 865
• Camera: 12MP

More specifications

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Infamous green tint screen returns with Galaxy Tab S7, Note 20 Ultra

The notorious green tint issue plaguing the displays of many a Galaxy S20 earlier this year appears to have made a comeback with Samsung’s newly debuted Galaxy Note 20 and Galaxy Tab S7 series. We’ve already noticed several new owners of the Galaxy Tab S7, Galaxy Tab S7+, and the Galaxy Note 20 Ultra reporting pretty much the same thing – that their devices look like they’re about to vomit the moment they drop below a a fixed low brightness value. The Galaxy Note 20 Ultra in question is of the Snapdragon variety, which is significant because the issue mostly affected the Exynos side of the Galaxy S20 range.

What’s more, given how not even the regular Galaxy Tab S7 appears to be immune to this goblin syndrome, it would seem the root cause of the problem may not have anything to do with Super AMOLED drivers, as was previously speculated

Even phones look like they want off of the 2020 wild ride

While Samsung certainly can’t catch a break this year, it’s worth noting that virtually no popular smartphone launch in recent memory avoided the infamous green tint screen issue in its entirety. The iPhone 11 line had it, the Google Pixel 4 series had it (yeah, yeah, it’s as popular as 2020 China), the OnePlus 8 Pro had it, the OnePlus Nord is suffering pretty hard from it at this very moment, many other Galaxy devices were affected beforehand, and so on.

The silver lining for users affected by the issue is that even on the off chance they’re unable to reach Samsung’s warranty department immediately (as lockdowns are once again gaining traction around the world and haven’t stopped at all in others), there’s a good chance this annoyance isn’t indicative of some hardware defect. Namely, the vast majority of all Galaxy S20 models affected by pretty much the same problem earlier this year were cured of their green-tinted ailment with a single software update. Hopefuly that ends up being the case this time, as well.

Galaxy Tab S7

• Model: SM-T870
• Dimensions: Tablet: 253.8 x 165.3 x 6.3 mm
  
• Display: 11 inch / 279.4 mm LTPS TFT
• CPU: Snapdragon 865+
• Camera: 5MP

More specifications

Galaxy Tab S7 Plus

• Model: SM-T970
• Dimensions: Tablet: 285 x 185 x 5.7 mm
  
• Display: 12.4 inch / 314.96 mm Super AMOLED Display
• CPU: Snapdragon 865+
• Camera: 5MP

More specifications

Galaxy Note 20 Ultra

• Model: SM-N985F
• Dimensions: Bar: 164.8 x 77.2 x 8.1 mm
  
• Display: 6.9 inch / 175.26 mm Dynamic AMOLED 2X
• CPU: Exynos 990
• Camera: 108MP

More specifications

 

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Galaxy Buds, Galaxy Buds+, and Galaxy Buds Live can reportedly overheat

The Galaxy Buds+ and the Galaxy Buds Live are among the best truly wireless earphones available today. They feature a simple yet well-fitting design, great sound for their price, and long-lasting battery life. However, they can reportedly overheat in some conditions. Yes, not only smartphones and tablets but even wireless earphones can overheat.

Some users of the Galaxy Buds, Galaxy Buds+, and the Galaxy Buds Live are reporting that using the buds in warmer conditions render them useless in a matter of minutes. The problem appears when Samsung’s wireless earphones are exposed to direct sunlight. Within minutes, the buds reportedly start beeping, and they won’t stop until they’re removed from the sun’s exposure and are allowed to cool down. Moreover, there’s no clear indication or notification within the app when the Galaxy Buds start beeping.

Users claim that this behavior happens when the Galaxy Buds, Galaxy Buds+, and the Galaxy Buds Live are exposed to sunlight in conditions where the temperature is above the 90°F (32.2°C) mark. Many regions around the world are regularly hotter than 90°F in the summer. However, we’ve personally never heard of the overheating problem related to the Galaxy Buds, and some of us live in countries that are usually warm.

Are you facing overheating with your Galaxy Buds, Galaxy Buds+, or Galaxy Buds Live? Let us know your experience in the comments section below.

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Samsung’s next-gen Quantum Dot displays expected in Q3 2021

While Samsung already sells QLED-based digital signage displays for commercial use, monitors, and TVs, they are not based on the real Quantum Dot technology. The company’s current-generation QLED technology uses regular LCD panels with a quantum dot enhancement film to improve the color and LED backlighting. However, the South Korean tech giant is working on the next-generation QLED panels with true, self-emitting quantum dots.

According to a new report from display market research firm Omdia, Samsung Display might start the mass production of its next-gen QLED panels by as soon as the third quarter of next year. Apparently, the company has already sent prototypes of newer QLED panels to Samsung Electronics and Sony to be tested for TVs. Samsung’s display manufacturing arm had announced its plans to cease all the production of LCD panels to focus on the mass production of QLED panels by investing KRW 13 trillion (around $11 billion).

Experts claim that Samsung’s next-generation QLED panels actually use self-luminous LEDs, which are actually considered as a variant of OLED with a quantum dot enhancement coating. However, the company denies those claims and prefers to call it QLED or QD-OLED. The company claims that it’s not joining rival firm LG in the OLED TV market. Market researchers say that Samsung is capable of producing over 30,000 Quantum Dot displays in its Gen 8.5 production line for 55-inch, 65-inch, 78-inch, and 82-inch TVs.

A Samsung Display official recently said, “The company has set its goal to commercialize QD panels in 2021, but hasn’t fixed the exact timing.” At the earliest, we could expect Samsung Electronics and other TV brands to launch second-gen QLED-based TVs by the end of 2021 or at the start of 2022.

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