Samsung Galaxy A8 makes its way through the FCC

The Galaxy A8 (SM-A800) just moved a step closer to an official launch, as the upcoming Galaxy A smartphone has made an appearance on the FCC, barely a week after we saw it in the flesh over in China. The FCC filing doesn’t give us any useful details (except confirming that it will feature all of the standard connectivity options, including dual-band Wi-Fi and LTE), but it does complete one of the many pit stops a smartphone has to make before it can be unveiled to the consumer.

Of course, this doesn’t mean we don’t already know a lot about the Galaxy A8. As we exclusively detailed last month, the Galaxy A8 should feature a 5.7-inch Full HD Super AMOLED display, an octa-core Snapdragon 615 processor, 2GB of RAM, 16-megapixel and 5-megapixel rear and front cameras, 16GB of internal storage, and a 3,050 mAh battery. The phone will also have a touch fingerprint sensor, run Android 5.0 Lollipop, and have an extremely thin 5.9 mm metallic frame.

These specs were recently confirmed by China’s TENAA, and the leaked photos that we saw last week – coupled with the FCC listing – suggest it won’t be long before Samsung takes the wraps off the Galaxy A8.

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Samsung expected to ship 45 million Galaxy S6 and S6 edge units this year

It’s been coming of age for Samsung, a company that finally seems to have gotten the flagship right with the Galaxy S6 and the S6 edge. The entry-level and mid-range market may not be too accommodating for Samsung, but the company sure is making it up with its high-end models in the Galaxy S6 and the S6 edge.

According to a report by Deutsche Bank, the high-end market has been kind to Samsung, and it’s here to stay; which is why, Samsung is expected to ship a massive 45 million units in the S6 and the S6 edge alone. Now, that’s quite a huge number, especially considering the S6 and the S6 edge aren’t the cheapest flagships around. It also goes to show that the design experiment that Samsung did with the S6 edge has gone down well with the market.

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T-Mobile just started updating the Galaxy S5 to Android 5.1.1

T-Mobile might just be on the way to becoming the favorite carrier for those rocking a Samsung flagship. The carrier was the first to update the Galaxy S6 and Galaxy S6 edge to Android 5.1.1, and it has now started rolling out the latest version of Android for the Galaxy S5. That’s right – Galaxy S5 users on T-Mobile just scored Android 5.1.1 before most Galaxy S6 and S6 edge owners around the world.

We’re not sure what changes are included in the update, but you can expect to see performance improvements, support for RAW and lower ISO values if you’re using a third-party camera app that makes use of Lollipop’s camera API, and a slew of bug fixes. The update should be rolling out over the air later today and over the coming days, and you can also download the full firmware from our firmware section or update through Samsung Kies.

Have you received the Android 5.1.1 update on your Galaxy S5? Let us know in the comments!

Firmware Details:

Model	SM-G900T
Model name	GALAXY S5
Country	USA (T-Mobile)
Version	Android 5.1.1
Changelist	90673209
Build date	Wed, 10 Jun 2015 17:15:27 +0000
Product code	TMB
PDA	G900TUVU1FOF6
CSC	G900TTMB1FOF6

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Android 5.1.1 for the Galaxy S6 is now seeding in France

Samsung announced the Android 5.1.1 update for the Galaxy S6 and the S6 edge a while back, but this is the first time the users of the device based in France are getting a taste of the updated Lollipop ROM.

The update measures 623MB in size, so nothing out of the ordinary here. The update brings in a few optimization and then some tweaks, both of which should result in a better user experience. For one, you can now sort applications alphabetically, reports Planet Galaxy. The camera app gets a little revamp of its own, too; you can now adjust exposure right from the viewfinder. Convenient!

Now for the bad part: it looks like the RAM issue that’s plagued the device seems to persist; the phone boots with 58% of RAM used which quickly rockets to over 80% when you start using the phone. Here’s hoping that the guys at Samsung get rid of the issue soon!

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Galaxy S6 and S6 edge Android 5.1 update does bring RAW support and lower ISO values after all

About three weeks ago we reported exclusively that the Android 5.1.1 for the Galaxy S6 and the Galaxy S6 edge is going to bring new features to the camera app such as the ability to shoot in RAW as well as lower ISO values. The Android 5.1.1 update was released a few days back for both handsets and these features were nowhere to be found, but as it turns out we were right after all. Android 5.1.1 for the Galaxy S6 and S6 edge does bring RAW support and lower ISO values, it’s just that these features can not be accessed through the stock camera app.

The Pro mode that’s already present in the camera app allows users to customize the ISO value but at the moment 100 is the lowest ISO setting, we reported that the Android 5.1 update will add an even lower value of ISO 50 which is the lowest you can find on many digital cameras. We also said that manual control of shutter speed might also be added in this update and all of that has turned out to be true.

To access all of these advanced camera features on the Galaxy S6 and S6 edge, just install a third-party camera application from the Google Play Store that has full support for Lollipop’s Camera2 API. It’s unclear when Samsung is going to enable all of these features in the stock camera app but for now third-party apps are the way to go if you want lower ISO values, RAW support and control over the shutter speed.

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The RAM management issue on the Galaxy S6 and S6 edge might be a ‘feature’

For years, Samsung’s smartphone software has been pretty laggy and slow, even on smartphones that cost an arm and a leg. With the Galaxy S6 and Galaxy S6 edge, Samsung finally got around to optimizing TouchWiz, its feature-packed custom Android UX. The S6 devices are fast and smooth, but as users have realized after a few weeks with either phone, the S6 and S6 edge suffer from an extreme case of background memory management.

Samsung has used some aggressive RAM management values on the latest iteration of TouchWiz, and this makes apps in the background close down within a few seconds after you switch to something else. In fact, Chrome doesn’t stay loaded in memory even if you open a single app and then switch back to Chrome. The poor multitasking experience has very little to do with the memory leak problem in Lollipop, which wreaks havoc in a different manner and basically makes a device slower after a few days of use, as the OS doesn’t efficiently clear memory when needed.

We have been waiting for an official fix for the RAM issue from Samsung, and our insiders believe the fix might be introduced with the Galaxy S6 edge Plus and then make its way to the regular and curvy S6. However, I’ve personally begun to think that the memory management on the Galaxy S6 might be deliberately set to be so extreme at killing background apps.

The reason? Probably the fact that Samsung might not have completed its work on optimizing TouchWiz to a level that would offer a good experience when there are a lot of apps open in the background. A few years of Samsung adding more and more bloat to its Android UX with each iteration without focusing on optimization at the same time means TouchWiz was in a pretty bad shape, and while the company started clearing up the core even before the Galaxy S6 and Galaxy S6 edge with the Galaxy A and Galaxy E series, it was possibly not able to get to a hundred percent before the two flagships were launched.

Of course, I’m only making a guess here, but the thing about Samsung planning to introduce the Galaxy S6 edge Plus with a more standard RAM management system does somewhat hint that it will unleash a more optimized version of its software with the larger S6. Then, maybe an update will bring the new optimizations to the Galaxy S6 and Galaxy S6 edge, but with even the Android 5.1.1 update (for the T-Mobile variants) apparently lacking any solution to the problem, I’m beginning to lose hope.

What do you think? Could the memory issue on the Galaxy S6 and Galaxy S6 edge be a deliberate thing, or do you think I’m just clutching at straws?

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Samsung Galaxy S6 wins blind camera test against its fiercest competitor

The Galaxy S6 and iPhone 6 are two smartphones at the top of their game. The iPhone 6 and 6 Plus have their adherents, the Galaxy S6 and S6 edge their own. When it comes to the never-ending battle between Cupertino and Seoul, fanboyism is never far behind. However, the fanboy battle is but one: the other pertains to the devices. No matter how much devotion you have for one company in particular, average consumers who don’t have a stake in the fanboy wars will look at one thing: performance.

The Galaxy S6 series is the hottest Samsung star at the moment, and there’s good reason. A recent PhoneArena blind camera test between the Galaxy S6 and iPhone 6 had users vote for which photos were the best (without knowing which photos were taken from which of the two rival smartphones). After voting, the results were then compiled and announced. In this most recent blind camera test between the two top smartphones, Samsung’s Galaxy S6 won – in overwhelming fashion. The Galaxy S6 received 27,063 votes to the iPhone 6’s 3,033 votes.

While these results may seem lop-sided to you, a simple glance at the photos in the camera comparison at the source link below will explain all. Some photos have slight, nuanced differences, but Samsung’s Galaxy S6 shined the best in low-light photos. Of the six different scenes snapped, scenes 2, 5, and 6 show the GS6’s camera prowess against that of its rival.

In Scene 2, Samsung’s Galaxy S6 camera provided a better portrayal of the ruins in the sunlight, while the iPhone 6 smears the sunlight’s color all over the ruins. Scene 5, the battleship, shows the GS6’s accurate portrayal of the scene with some accurate lighting for daytime photos. The iPhone 6 fairs well, but tends to have a colder portrayal of photos outdoors as though every object is in the shade.

In Scene 6, titled “Chill Out,” the Galaxy S6’s camera prowess clearly outpaces the iPhone 6. You can hardly see the bottles on the wall in the iPhone 6 photo, but the light is distributed exceptionally well in the GS6’s portrayal of the same scene. Even when zooming in, the GS6’s 16MP camera could better handle details than the iPhone 6’s 8MP camera.

In Scene 3, the iPhone 6 could very well be guilty of oversaturation, as many a tech reviewer of the iPhone 6’s camera has said the same. Scene 1’s close-up view shows the beauty of cameras with more megapixels: the GS6’s 16MP camera fared better in its details than that of the iPhone 6. Samsung’s f/1.9 apertures on both cameras continue to send the message that specs such as “f/1.9” really do matter – they’re not just impressive numbers on a spec sheet.

Don’t take our word for it: check out the link below to validate the win in your own mind.

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