Samsung Care+ could bring theft and loss insurance coverage

Samsung’s premium after-sales service plan Samsung Care+ currently covers accidental damage, including cracked screens, drops, and accidental liquid damage. It currently doesn’t cover burglary or theft of a device. However, that could soon change as newly uncovered information suggests Samsung could add theft cover at an additional cost.

The folks over at XDA Developers did a teardown of the Samsung Shop app’s APK file and found that the South Korean firm could allow Samsung Care+ subscribers to add a Theft and Loss subscription in the future. The subscription will be billed monthly over 36 months (or until canceled).

Samsung Care+ currently costs $3.99, $8.99, or $11.99, depending on the device. However, it is not clear how much the service plan would cost after adding the Theft and Loss subscription or when the new benefits would be made available.

Here are the strings that were extracted from the Samsung Shop APK:

Samsung Care+ and Samsung Care+ with Theft and Loss Subscription: I understand that I will be billed on a recurring basis for 36 months or until canceled. The monthly charge will be a standard purchase with payment due in full every month and is not eligible for special financing.

Samsung Care+ with Theft and Loss Subscription: Insurance coverage for loss, theft, and damage. Service contract coverage for accidental damage from handling (ADH) and out of warranty mechanical breakdowns. $99 – $269 insurance deductibles and $29 – $99 service fees apply. Maximum of three (3) insurance claims within any consecutive 12-month period, with replacement product value maximum of $2,500 per claim. Maximum of three (3) ADH claims within any consecutive 12-month period. Claims may be fulfilled with a new or refurbished product. You may cancel your optional coverage at any time and receive a prorated refund. Program coverage contains binding arbitration (express state exemptions may apply; please see your program terms and conditions).

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Samsung to shut down S Translator service next month

Samsung has shut down various apps and services over the past couple of years, including Find My Car, MirrorLink, S Voice, and PlayGalaxy. Now, the company has announced that it will shut down one more service: S Translator. However, there’s a replacement that you can use for language translation.

The South Korean firm will shut down the S Translator service on December 1, 2020. Samsung announced its plan via a notice that was sent to South Korean users. The company said that personal information collected from users to improve the service would be deleted without any delay. Samsung also thanked S Translator users for showing interest in the service and using it over the years. S Translator offered language translation between 11 languages: Brazilian Portuguese, English (UK), English (US), French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Russian, Simplified Chinese, and Spanish.

If you were using S Translator, you can now use Bixby to translate text from one language to another. You can also use Google Translate or Microsoft Translator, both of which offer translation of more languages than Bixby. The company is continuing to improve Bixby’s language translation performance using on-device AI.

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Samsung adds 25 artworks from Etsy artists to The Frame Art Store

Samsung’s been constantly enriching the user experience of The Frame owners with new digital art pieces every half a year or so. The platform introduced works from the State Hermitage Museum exactly one year ago, and back in May the company ran the #StayAtHome with Arts campaign which added 30 renowned works to the collection. Now, the latest addition to the Samsung Art Store brings 25 new works of nature-inspired art, in partnership with global marketplace for creative goods, Etsy.

The new art collection’s been made available via the Art Store for The Frame late last week and 25 new art pieces now complete the existing rich library of over 1,400 works. Unlike previous art pieces, the latest collection of 25 digital paintings were created in collaboration with Etsy, or more specifically, they were made by popular Etsy artists known to the global audience. Our partnership with Samsung will provide an entirely new avenue for these artists to bring their creative inspiration directly into homes for people around the world, says Kelly Clausen, Senior Director of Communications and Strategic Partnerships at Etsy.

The new digital art collection was created by five popular Etsy artists including Jorey Hurley, Elly Mackay, Melanie Mikecz, David Scheirer, and Mirlande Jean-Gilles. The collection comprises a mix of collages, whimsical graphics, and vivid illustrations, so there should be something interesting for everyone. As usual, the new gallery is available for download via The Frame’s Art Store.

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Poor Galaxy Note 20 sales force Samsung to revise production plans

The Galaxy Note 20 series isn’t performing as well as Samsung had hoped, reveals a new report stating that sales figures in the month of October fell below expectations and the company was forced to revise its manufacturing plans. Samsung was expecting demand for the Galaxy Note 20 series in October would be high enough to warrant the manufacturing of 900,000 units, however, poor sales figures have forced the company to lower that figure down to 600,000 units, claims the recent report by The Elec citing anonymous sources.

To nobody’s surprise, the report goes on to mention that the base Galaxy Note 20 model performed worse than its larger sibling, the Galaxy Note 20 Ultra. This is despite the fact that the Galaxy Note 20 is a cheaper model, so it only goes to show that the base model offers poor value for money in the eyes of many Samsung fans. According to the source, the drop in production was higher for the base model and Samsung created a single Galaxy Note 20 model for every two Galaxy Note 20 Ultra units in the month of October.

This will hopefully persuade Samsung to do a better job with its future non-Plus/Ultra flagship models. The Galaxy Note 20 might be a decent phone in a vacuum but in the real world it simply doesn’t offer enough value for the price. It’s even succeeded by the Galaxy S20 FE in some aspects such as the high refresh 120Hz display. The Galaxy Note 20 is still rocking a 60Hz panel, and for this reason and others, it feels more like a Lite S Pen model than a full fledged one.

Galaxy Note 20

• Model: SM-N980F
• Dimensions: Bar: 161.6 x 75.2 x 8.3 mm
  
• Display: 6.7 inch / 170.18 mm Super AMOLED Plus
• CPU: Exynos 990
• Camera: 12MP

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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Samsung accidentally mentions Galaxy Note 20 FE on official landing page

Samsung is now planning to normalize the concept of FE (Fan Edition) smartphones and, at Unpacked 2020 in September, the company confirmed its latest plans to release new Galaxy FE devices every year. This change in strategy had made us wonder if this means that the Galaxy Note 20 series will be joined by a FE variant in the coming months, and it could very well be so. The existence of a Galaxy Note 20 FE may sound like wild speculation at this point in time but Samsung itself can’t help but fuel these theories.

The official Galaxy S20 FE landing page published on Samsung’s Brazilian portal includes a few unusual mentions of the Galaxy Note 20 FE. Specifically, the fine print states the size of the Galaxy Note 20 FE screen to clock in at 6.5 inches or a 6.3-inch diagonal when including the screen’s round corners. This information appears to pertain to the Galaxy S20 FE and Samsung may have made a typo, but it’s not the only one.

There are mentions of the Galaxy Note 20 FE in the page’s source

Samsung also mentions the mysterious Galaxy Note 20 FE in the source of the Galaxy S20 FE’s landing page. Specifically, the code details a page section in which Samsung highlights the benefits of Night Mode with a couple of side-by-side photos.

Once again, this is probably a typo, but because it’s not just a single isolated case, it makes one wonder if someone working at Samsung knows more about the company’s plans for the Galaxy Note 20 / FE series than the average person. Perhaps the Galaxy Note 20 FE is being written on behind Samsung’s closed curtains and someone’s muscle memory has betrayed the company’s hidden plans. Or perhaps it really is a simple error and Samsung has no intentions of building and releasing a Galaxy Note 20 FE variant.

As to whether or not a Galaxy Note 20 FE would even make sense considering Samsung’ s ongoing S Pen lineup, that’s another topic we’ve discussed last month but, in short, we believe that early adopters of the base Galaxy Note 20 model would have reasons to feel offended by the release of a Fan Edition variant. Time will uncover Samsung’s real plans so stay tuned and we’ll keep you posted.

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Report: The Galaxy S21 might go on sale in early February at the latest

The Galaxy S21 series may have already entered production and the reason for this is because Samsung might be preparing the flagship for an earlier-than-usual release. Samsung’s usual launch schedule suggests that the Galaxy S21 should be unveiled in February before going on sale in March, however, a recent report from South Korea lends more credibility to an early release.

As some of our readers will let you know, SamMobile was the first to break the news regarding a potential early release of the Galaxy S21 lineup. It was mid-October when we exclusively reported on Samsung’s alleged launch plans for the upcoming series, and now a new report from South Korea seemingly corroborates the data. It claims that Samsung will unveil the Galaxy S21 lineup in early January and prepare it for market release later the same month.

Samsung is bringing the fight closer to Apple, in January or February

The reasons why Samsung may have decided to unveil and release the Galaxy S21 a month or so ahead of the expected launch schedule are not entirely clear but there are speculations on Samsung wanting to have a better chance at competing with Apple’s latest flagship series, the iPhone 12. Apple’s solution is hitting the shelves a couple of months ahead of the Galaxy S21 series and apparently Samsung wants to shorten Apple’s safe period throughout which its flagship phones represent the peak of certain technical advancements.

Now, whether Samsung will be able to achieve this is another matter. The recent report also states that the company might not be able to release the Galaxy S21 series in late January and could launch it in early February instead. Either way, it would still mean an earlier-than-usual release for the next-gen flagship series, giving Samsung a better chance at fighting back against the competition.

Other reasons behind Samsung’s apparent decision have to do with its other rivals from China as well as the current economic climate. Samsung has constantly adjusted its mobile business throughout the year to mitigate the losses caused by COVID-19 so an early Galaxy S21 release might be another way for the company to keep the situation under control.

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Samsung Daily feed will soon be replaced by Samsung Free

Last year, Samsung replaced Bixby Home with Samsung Daily. The change was brought along with the Android 10 update for Galaxy smartphones. Now, the company is replacing Samsung Daily with Samsung Free.

The company has sent a notice to its users, notifying them of the change to the Samsung Daily feed. Samsung Free will be placed on the leftmost homescreen, and it will offer a streamlined design. It will reportedly offer information about games, news, media, and more in a new format.

Samsung has claimed in the notice that Samsung Free will offer easier navigation through a multi-tab structure. The company has also mentioned that some cards that were available on Samsung Daily will be discontinued, but it hasn’t named the service that will be discontinued.

Samsung Free could possibly roll out with the Android 11-based One UI 3.0 update in the future. The company wants to offer a simpler and more streamlined content experience. With the introduction of Samsung Daily, the South Korean firm had removed Foursquare and Uber cards.

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Galaxy S10, Galaxy Note 10, and Galaxy Note 20 pick up November security update

It’s raining updates for Samsung’s flagship phones today. The Galaxy S20 series started getting an update with the November 2020 security patch earlier today, and a similar update is now rolling out to the Galaxy S10, Galaxy Note 10, and Galaxy Note 20 lineups. Well, similar as in all these phones are picking up the latest security fixes as part of the update, but with different changelogs and firmware versions.

The Galaxy Note 20’s update is the most boring, as it brings only the November 2020 security patch. As with the Galaxy S20 update that rolled out earlier today, it’s to be expected that Samsung will only be bringing new features and changes to its 2020 flagships with the One UI 3.0 update, which is currently in beta testing in some markets and will go live sometime before the end of the year.

The Galaxy S10 series changelog, meanwhile, boasts Wi-Fi and camera stability improvements, but since we’ve already seen the exact same changelog a couple of times before, we’re willing to bet that it’s a copy-paste job this time around as well. The Galaxy Note 10 and Note 10+ changelog is unknown at this time, but the firmware version suggests that it’s not just security fixes that are a part of the package and we will update this article once we find out what’s new or improved.

If you own any of these Galaxy S or Note flagships, you can check if the latest firmware update is available for your phone by opening its Settings app, selecting Software update, and tapping Download and install. It will also be available for download from our firmware archive once the update goes live in your country.

Galaxy S10e

• Model: SM-G970F
• Dimensions: Bar: 142.2 x 69.9 x 7.9 mm
  
• Display: 5.8 inch / 147.32 mm Dynamic AMOLED Display
• CPU: Exynos 9820
• Camera: 12MP

More specifications

Galaxy Note 10

• Model: SM-N970F
• Dimensions: Bar: 151.0 x 71.8 x 7.9 mm
  
• Display: 6.3 inch / 160.02 mm Dynamic AMOLED Display
• CPU: Exynos 9825
• Camera: 16MP

More specifications

Galaxy Note 20

• Model: SM-N980F
• Dimensions: Bar: 161.6 x 75.2 x 8.3 mm
  
• Display: 6.7 inch / 170.18 mm Super AMOLED Plus
• CPU: Exynos 990
• Camera: 12MP

More specifications

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Galaxy Home Mini just got an update, and it’s raising some questions

Bixby, for all intents and purposes, has fallen by the wayside as far as Samsung’s priorities are concerned. It still exists on Galaxy phones and tablets and keeps getting updates, such as the UI makeover it received recently, but it’s clear that Samsung’s initial fervor for Bixby has turned lukewarm. Perhaps the biggest indication of that is the fact that Samsung’s smart Bixby speaker is still limited to select customers in the company’s home country, something we were reminded of today as the Galaxy Home Mini received a new software update.

Hey Sammy, when’s the Galaxy Home (Mini) going on sale?

Yes, development on the Galaxy Home Mini is still ongoing, and the latest software update for it is actually rather interesting: It introduces the option for users to wake the speaker up by saying Hey Sammy instead of Hi Bixby. Every Samsung fan has probably called the company Sammy at some point or the other, and it’s great to see Samsung recognizing that and making it an official callsign for using its voice assistant. Sadly, the feature’s out of reach for most of those fans, as the Galaxy Home Mini is still not available anywhere outside South Korea.

And it makes us wonder: Is Samsung’s smart speaker ever going to make its way to other markets, like the United States, and is it even going to be sold as a standalone product? Last we heard, Samsung had no plans for doing the latter and was only offering the Home Mini as a pre-order offer for Galaxy S20 customers, and it hasn’t said anything about the speaker’s release since then. However, we’ve reached out to the company for a comment — both on the Home Mini’s release and whether the Hey Sammy wakeup command will come to Bixby on smartphones and tablets — and will let you know once we hear back, so stay tuned.

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Early Galaxy S21 launch hinted at yet again

Since the launch of the Galaxy Note 20 and the Galaxy Z Fold 2, we have come across numerous Galaxy S21 leaks and reports. We had exclusively reported a couple of weeks ago that the Galaxy S21 series will be launched as soon as January 2021. Now, another report seems to confirm the earlier-than-usual launch time frame for Samsung’s next-generation flagship smartphone.

Roland Quandt, who has published some accurate leaks related to Galaxy devices in the past, has recently mentioned on Twitter that the part production of the Galaxy S21 Ultra is starting right now. However, he says that it could either be mass production of the smartphone or just sampling production for testing units. Some previous rumors had claimed a similar time frame for the production of the Galaxy S21.

The first renders of the Galaxy S21 Ultra emerged last month, showcasing a gigantic camera bump. It appears that Samsung will mostly ditch curved screens for the entire Galaxy S21 series. The color variants for the upcoming flagship series was leaked as well. The Galaxy S21 Ultra seems to have a penta-camera setup on the rear, a punch-hole selfie camera, and a 5,000mAh battery.

The Galaxy S21, Galaxy S21+, and the Galaxy S21 Ultra will mostly launch with Android 11-based One UI 3.0 onboard. They could come equipped with the Snapdragon 875 processor in China and the US, and the rumored 5nm Exynos 2100 SoC in other markets. We can also expect features such as 5G, Wi-Fi 6, in-display fingerprint reader, stereo speakers, IP68 certification, Samsung Pay, 65W fast charging, and wireless charging.

Are you as excited about the Galaxy S21 as we are? Let us know what features you expect with Samsung’s upcoming flagship smartphone series in the comments section below.

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Galaxy S20 getting another update, come check out what’s new

Samsung’s making headway toward the eventual release of the heavily anticipated One UI 3.0 and Android 11 update for the Galaxy S20 series later this year, but the company is simultaneously working on standard updates for its 2020 flagship lineup. To that end, Samsung is rolling out a new update for the Galaxy S20, S20+, and S20 Ultra for everyone who is still using Android 10 and One UI 2.5. This update, featuring firmware version G98xxXXS5BTJ4, is available in Germany at this time and will no doubt get a wider release before the week is over.

Latest Galaxy S20 update all about security fixes

What does the update have to offer to Galaxy S20, S20+, and S20 Ultra owners? Well, nothing except security fixes, which shouldn’t surprise us as Samsung is likely holding off on bringing new features to its flagships before the One UI 3.0 update is ready to roll out. Exactly what vulnerabilities are addressed by these security fixes is a mystery right now, as Samsung has yet to detail the November 2020 security patch even though it is already bringing the patch to some of its devices.

As usual, the latest update can be downloaded over the air by tapping the Download and install option in the Settings » Software update menu on the phone. The new firmware is also available for download from our firmware archive for those who aren’t fond of waiting for the over-the-air release and would like to make the jump to the latest software right away.

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