SamMobile TV: Is the Galaxy S21 FE worth waiting for?

The Galaxy S1 FE has been in the rumor mill for longer than it should have, but despite some recent rumors claiming it’s been canceled, Samsung’s new Fan Edition smartphone might still be on its way to a 2021 market release.

The question, however, is whether or not the Galaxy S21 FE will be worth it once it goes on sale, and it’s a question we’ve explored in our latest SamMobile TV episode — linked below.

So, the Galaxy S21 FE. Is it worth waiting for? Or will it be too little, too late, once it goes official? Well, there are reasons to be worried about the Galaxy S21 FE’s alleged release being too close to the end of the year — and, therefore, the launch of the Galaxy S22 flagship series. Then again, even if it will face tougher competitors in Samsung’s own backyard, the Galaxy S21 FE should still have a few aces up its sleeve, i.e., a few key characteristics that should set it apart from other upper mid-range phones and flagships alike.

We explore these few key factors that should, in theory, contribute to the Galaxy S21 FE’s relevance in our latest SamMobile TV episode. Join us on YouTube as we dive deeper into what the future of the FE smartphone series might have in store for us, and don’t forget to subscribe to stay up to date.

Join SamMobile’s Telegram group and subscribe to our YouTube channel to get instant news updates and in-depth reviews of Samsung devices. You can also subscribe to get updates from us on Google News.

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Samsung update freaks out UK user with Russian government apps

Getting firmware update notifications from Samsung is a routine matter. Most of the time you might just tap on the install button without even looking at the changelog. Imagine the one time that you did and saw that the update was actually installing apps mandated by the Russian government.

That might not make a difference to you if you’re living in Russia. You’ll definitely freak out if you were living anywhere else. So imagine how freaked out a user in the United Kingdom was when a recent update told him he’d be getting bloatware sanctioned by the Kremlin.

Russian government bloatware for the UK? That’s a big no!

A bit of background is necessary to understand what happened here. Russia passed a law in April this year that made it mandatory for smartphones in the country to have government-issued apps. Since then, Samsung has added these apps to its smartphones in Russia through firmware updates.

The BBC reports that Andrew Edmans, who lives in the UK, bought a used Galaxy Z Fold 2 from Amazon Marketplace last month. Upon updating the device, he saw that the changelog mentioned a decree of the government of the Russian Federation that required mandatory apps to be installed with this update.

Edmans was understandably freaked out. He reached out to Samsung and was ultimately escalated to the head office team that confirmed this was nothing more than a notification error. No Russian apps had been downloaded on his phone.

In a statement provided to the BBC, Samsung said that “We can confirm that the wording of the message was incorrect and shared with a limited number of UK customers due to a technical error. The upgrade received was UK-specific and no third-party apps from Russian have been installed on devices, or have access to the device itself. We sincerely apologise for any inconvenience caused by this.”

It’s good that Samsung clarified what happened here. Those who were hit with this update notification would certainly have been freaked out. Hopefully, Samsung won’t give such a scare to users in other markets.

Join SamMobile’s Telegram group and subscribe to our YouTube channel to get instant news updates and in-depth reviews of Samsung devices. You can also subscribe to get updates from us on Google News.

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Galaxy Z Fold 3, Flip 3 Wooyoungmi Editions get a release date

Well, that didn’t take long, at all; the luxurious Wooyoungmi Editions of the Galaxy Z Fold 3 and Galaxy Z Flip 3 now have a release date attached to them. Prospective owners in South Korea can reserve either flagship as of today via Coupang, the largest e-commerce outlet in the country. No other distributor seems to be taking pre-orders right now.

As for their price tags, they’re as eye-watering as you’d expect from branded consumer electronics. The Galaxy Z Flip 3 Wooyoungmi Edition is hence retailing at 1,628,000 won, which amounts to just over $1,360. Meanwhile, the Galaxy Z Fold 3 Wooyoungmi Edition is available at 2,328,000 won, or approximately $1,950.

How much is too much for a phone?

Deliveries start on the 22nd — which falls on Friday — as per Coupang. Naturally, this is going to be quite a limited run of devices. And we still don’t know whether either one of these gadgets will officially make its way out of South Korea. But don’t count on them becoming widely available at any point. This artificial scarcity makes gauging the actual interest for such products pretty difficult. No matter what, it’s a pretty safe bet that Samsung will report all of its designer electronics sold out in record time.

Unlike the Thom Browne family of Samsung flagships, the Wooyoungmi-series smartphones are just special case accessories for the Z Fold 3 and Z Flip 3 and don’t make any changes to the design of the phones themselves. They have been co-designed in collaboration with Paris-based male clothing brand of the same name.

The only recent Samsung device that’s missing from the Wooyoungmi line is the Galaxy Watch 4. That one, at least, is part of the new Thom Browne series whose pre-orders went live just last week.

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Samsung launches new eSports news app called Jaxon

Samsung has teamed up with news aggregator Upday to launch a new esports-centric app called Jaxon that aims to deliver the latest news about the industry. It will cover a wide range of titles, such as League of Legends, DOTA2, CS: GO, Valorant and more.

There is no word about when Jaxon will be available for download yet, but we can expect it to happen in the coming days.

Along with delivering the latest esports news and exclusives, Jaxon will also let you stream your favourite titles on streaming websites such as Twitch and YouTube. Users can also create customized feeds that mix and match multiple titles.

Alternatively, users can switch between individual games by swiping left or right on the home screen. The in-build calendar function allows you to keep track of when your favourite team is scheduled to play.

The app will use its namesake, Jaxon, to deliver all content to the user in a ‘humorous and informative way.’ Samsung claims that Jaxon is a ‘design element, social media influencer, author, advisor, and offline personality.’

Jaxon’s launch comes at an ideal time, as the world’s largest e-sports tournament —The International 10 DOTA2 Championship— has just kicked off in Bucharest, Romania. Since the event is online-only fans will rely on services such as Jaxon to keep themselves up to date with the tournament standings, match results and find out if their favourite team got eliminated.

Join SamMobile’s Telegram group and subscribe to our YouTube channel to get instant news updates and in-depth reviews of Samsung devices. You can also subscribe to get updates from us on Google News.

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SamMobile TV: Lots to discuss in our Weekly Round-Up!

The weekend is almost here and it’s now time to look back at all of the Samsung news of the week. We’ll be rounding it all up on our official SamMobile channel on YouTube, so do be sure to join us!

There’s a lot that’s up for discussing, including but not limited to all of the changes introduced with beta 2 of One UI 4.0. We’ll also be talking about Samsung’s expected launch plans for the Galaxy S21 FE and whether rumors about the Galaxy S22 being delayed are true.

Join us today for the show at 2:30 PM CET/5:30AM PST/6PM IST on YouTube. We’ll be taking your questions as well so we’d for you to join the conversation!

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Apple is coming for Samsung in South Korea

Samsung currently rules over 70% of the smartphone market in South Korea. The company did exceedingly well this year in its home country, especially after the launch of the Galaxy Z Flip 3 and the Galaxy Z Fold 3. However, it could now face some competition as Apple has finally launched the iPhone 13 series in Korea.

As a part of its second round of launches, Apple launched the iPhone 13 Mini, iPhone 13, iPhone 13 Pro, and the iPhone 13 Pro Max in Malaysia, Mexico, South Korea, Thailand, and ten other countries across the globe. The new iPhones are expected to gain higher popularity in South Korea as the pre-orders for the devices were sold out in just nine minutes earlier this month.

All three South Korean network carriers—LG Uplus, KT, and SK Telecom—are offering the iPhone 13 series. These new smartphones are priced similarly to their predecessors. The iPhone 13 Mini is priced at KRW 950,000 (around $795), while the iPhone 13 starts at KRW 1,090,000 (around $915). The iPhone 13 Pro has a starting price of KRW 1,350,000 (around $1,130) and the iPhone 13 Pro Max costs KRW 1,490,000 (around $1,245).

Despite being priced higher than Samsung’s high-end phones, iPhones certainly enjoy decent popularity in South Korea due to a simpler user interface and good brand value. The US-based brand has over 20% market share in the country. Whether Apple can attract current Galaxy smartphone users with the iPhone 13 remains to be seen, and the first results will be out sometime next quarter.

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Ridiculous expectations: Despite crazy profits, Samsung stock is in the red

In spite of a highly optimistic earnings guidance posted Friday morning, Samsung stock isn’t looking too hot today. On the contrary, it ended day trading in the red as the market proved apathetic to the historic Q3 forecast.

The tech giant’s shares have been trading at just under $60 — 71,500 won — once the Seoul stock exchange closed up shop for the week several hours ago. The decline isn’t substantial, mind you; that’s only 0.14% down compared to Thursday. But it definitely illustrates how ridiculously unrealistic investors have gotten with Samsung nowadays.

The economic background of this story is more complicated than it seems

Far Eastern analysts report the market is already looking toward Q4 and hasn’t expected anything below record Q3 profits, anyway. The economic reasons for this baffling situation are still a bit more complicated than investors being unreasonable. Namely, two-thirds of Samsung’s forecast income for the third quarter of the year stems from semiconductors. Largely on account of the ongoing global shortage. But in addition to keeping prices high, what this shortage is doing is strengthening the won against the U.S. dollar.

That, in turn, makes Samsung’s “historic” profits pretty context-dependent. And way less impressive from an investor’s point of view than it might seem at first. Combined with the fact that the likes of Intel and TSMC are aggressively investing in their own foundries, Samsung’s continued dominance in the semiconductor space is far from guaranteed. This, in turn, might have led to today’s correction which seems to imply Samsung stock was already overvalued.

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Galaxy Tab A 8.0 picks up the September 2021 security update

Samsung has started rolling out the September 2021 security update to the Galaxy Tab A 8.0. The LTE variant of the tablet has started getting the update in Mexico, but more markets could get this update over the next few days. The two-year-old mid-range tablet is currently running Android 11-based One UI 3.1.

The new software update for the Galaxy Tab A 8.0 LTE comes with firmware version T295XXU4CUI3. It includes the September 2021 security patch, which according to Samsung’s documentation, fixes more than 40 privacy and security-related vulnerabilities. The new update could also include general bug fixes and device stability improvements.

If you have the Galaxy Tab A 8.0 LTE and live in Mexico, you might have already received a notification of the new update. If you haven’t received it yet, you can check for it manually by navigating to Settings » Software update and tapping on Download and install. You can also download the latest firmware file from our database and flash it manually.

Join SamMobile’s Telegram group and subscribe to our YouTube channel to get instant news updates and in-depth reviews of Samsung devices. You can also subscribe to get updates from us on Google News.

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Three-year-old Galaxy A6+ gets the September 2021 security update

Samsung has improved a lot over the years in supporting its smartphones and tablets with the latest software updates. The company promised three major Android OS updates for its high-end and some mid-range smartphones last year. It also pledged to release security updates for four years to its Galaxy devices. Now, the company has updated a three-year-old smartphone with a new security patch.

The Galaxy A6+ has started getting a new software update in Mexico. It comes with firmware version A605GNUBU8CUI1 and includes the September 2021 security patch. Samsung had mentioned last month that the September 2021 patch fixes more than 40 vulnerabilities related to privacy and security. The update could also include some bug fixes and device stability improvements.

This new update could expand to more markets in the coming weeks. If you are a Galaxy A6+ user in Mexico and haven’t received this update yet, you can check for it manually by navigating to Settings » Software update and tapping on Download and install. You can also download the latest firmware file from our firmware database and flash it manually using a Windows computer.

Samsung had launched the Galaxy A6+ in mid-2018 with Android 8.0 Oreo on board. The device received the Android 9-based One UI update in 2019 and the Android 10-based One UI 2.0 update in 2020.

Join SamMobile’s Telegram group and subscribe to our YouTube channel to get instant news updates and in-depth reviews of Samsung devices. You can also subscribe to get updates from us on Google News.

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