Samsung has pretty much confirmed that the Galaxy S7 will be water resistant

It has consistently been rumored that the Galaxy S7 and the Galaxy S7 edge will be water resistant. The existing flagships don’t play nice with water but it looks like the upcoming handsets will get along with it just fine. Soon after Samsung Indonesia posted a video online which more or less confirmed that the next flagship handsets will be water resistant, Samsung is teasing the same feature through its official Twitter account.

“Change your idea of what a phone can handle,” says the tweet, and it also features a short clip which shows the unfortunate incident of a young lady dropping her phone in the pool, implying that you wouldn’t need to worry about the Galaxy S7 dying out on you should you drop it in the pool. Samsung is going to unveil the Galaxy S7 and the Galaxy S7 edge on February 21 and pre-orders are expected to go live the very same day with deliveries likely started March 11 in launch markets.

Change your idea of what a phone can handle on 2.21.16. #TheNextGalaxyhttps://t.co/saU2TutJ5T

— Samsung Mobile (@SamsungMobile) February 17, 2016

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Samsung Pay now supports 15 more banks and credit unions in the US

Samsung has just updated its mobile payment gateway with support for fifteen new banks and credit unions in the United States. This brings the total of supported Visa and MasterCard issuers up to an astonishing 68. However, despite the South Korean company’s best efforts, the third-largest bank in America, Wells Fargo, is still missing from the list.

A roundup of all of the newly-supported banks can be seen below:

• Affinity Federal Credit Union
• Central Minnesota Credit Union
• Charlotte Metro Credit Union
• Connexion Credit Union
• Fannin Bank
• Marine Federal Credit Union
• NCPA Federal Credit Union
• Partners! Federal Credit Union
• People’s United Bank
• Redwood Credit Union
• Security Service Federal Credit Union
• States Department Federal Credit Union
• Trustone Financial
• US Alliance Financial
• Wes Banco

If you own one of the newest card additions, you will now be able to activate Samsung Pay and store your payment details within the application, so that you can effortlessly make mobile payments when you’re out and about.

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[Poll] Does Samsung’s update policy affect your decision to buy a new Galaxy smartphone?

Samsung announced earlier this week that Android 6.0 will be rolling out to the Galaxy S6, Galaxy S6 edge and other Galaxy devices in the coming weeks. It was a welcome announcement, but it also got us thinking: Why did the release of the newest version of Android for existing devices come just a week before Samsung’s latest flagships are set to be unveiled? The answer is pretty clear we guess, and it’s a tradition that the company has followed for a long time now.

At a time when smaller manufacturers like HTC and Motorola are rushing out software updates (if only in certain markets) without making consumers wait for months on end just so they can announce newer smartphones, Samsung is disappointingly unwilling to change. Okay, so it did change a little by allowing users to take part in a beta testing program, but even that was limited to just two markets around the world.

To say Samsung’s software is huge and needs to be tested would be an overstatement. HTC’s software isn’t the lightest out there either, but the Taiwanese manufacturer manages to complete everything from porting to testing in a matter of weeks. With Samsung’s resources, doing the same (or even doing it faster) shouldn’t be a problem. It just looks like the Korean giant is unwilling to roll out software updates to an existing flagship before the next one gets announced.

There’s no guarantee that the next major version of Android that comes along later this year will come to the Galaxy S7 and Galaxy S7 edge before the Galaxy S8 goes official, just like the Galaxy S6, Galaxy S6 edge, Galaxy S6 edge+ and the Galaxy Note 5 are still waiting for Marshmallow. Which brings us to the question of the day: Does Samsung’s software update policy affect your purchasing decision of the company’s new flagships? Not just the Galaxy S7, which will be hogging all the limelight in the next couple of months, but generally as well?

Let us know through the poll below, and do leave a comment with your thoughts on the matter.

Note: There is a poll embedded within this post, please visit the site to participate in this post's poll.

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Samsung Galaxy J7 (2016) with a 3,300 mAh battery hits FCC

The Galaxy J7 (2016) has paid a visit to the FCC, leaving behind the documentation of its 3,300 mAh battery. Recently, the 2016 iteration of the Galaxy J7 surfaced on several occasions. Specifications of the device were revealed in GFXBench’s database, and certification at the Bluetooth SIG marked a major step towards its release. Now, with the appearance at the FCC, another hurdle seems to have been cleared.

Significantly, the FCC documents reveal a battery with a capacity of 3,300 mAh, which is a lot less than the previously rumoured 4,300 mAh. However, it’s still 300 mAh more than the original Galaxy J7. Combine that with the device’s Exynos 7870 processor with 14 nanometer technology, and it should be efficient enough to make those 3,300 milliamp-hours last at least a day or two.

Further specs include a 5.5-inch display with a resolution of 1,920 x 1,080 pixels, a 12-megapixel rear-facing camera, a 5-megapixel front-facing shooter, 3GB of RAM, and 16GB of internal storage space. In all likelihood, we may see a microSD slot for expanding the storage on the device, and possibly a fingerprint reader. The device tested at the FCC is the SM-J7109, which is a dual-SIM version that’s headed for China.

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Samsung Galaxy S7 leaks in new images and a short video

The Galaxy S7 was leaked in Dubai yesterday along with its box and box contents. Now, more images and a short video (fifteen seconds to be precise) of the device have been leaked that confirm some of its features. The leaked images show the black variant of the Galaxy S7 and its SIM card slot which also holds the microSD card, thereby confirming the return of the much requested microSD card slot to Samsung’s flagship.

According to AndroidAuthority, the Galaxy S7 will come with a 12-megapixel rear-facing camera and IP68 (or IP67) rating for water-resistance. The design of the device seems quite similar to the Galaxy S6. There’s the metal frame and glass front/back, but the glass is now curved across all the sides, and the home button is now relatively taller.

Even though the camera has a resolution of just 12 megapixels, each individual pixel is said to be much larger (similar to the pixels on the Nexus 5X and the Nexus 6P). Although it doesn’t tell us much about the actual image quality, we all know that Samsung has been a leader when it comes to smartphone camera technology. There’s no information about the resolution of the front-facing camera in this report.

Now coming to the most important (yet heartbreaking) thing, the device is said to come with a 2,800 mAh battery instead of a 3,000 mAh one as rumored earlier (though our sources are still pointing towards a 3,000 mAh battery). We should wait for the official unveiling before making any assumptions based on these leaks. Moreover, there’s no USB Type-C port here, and it looks like Samsung has decided to stick with the good old microUSB 2.0 port for now.

The Galaxy S7 will run TouchWiz on top of Android 6.0 Marshmallow, and this is the first time that we’re getting to see the software side of the Galaxy S7, thanks to the short video. From the looks of it, the interface looks nice and clean (and colorful). The icons look flatter and rounded off, but the Flipboard integration is still present. That’s it for now. What do you think about this device? Will you be upgrading to the Galaxy S7 or the S7 edge from your current device?

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Android 6.0 for Galaxy devices brings new Samsung browser, Cross App, and more

Samsung recently started updating the Galaxy S6 and Galaxy S6 edge to Marshmallow globally, and most of the new features were revealed through the consumer consultant guide that we leaked last week. The Korean giant has now officially announced everything the update brings to its devices on its website, and it’s not just default Android 6.0 features that have come along for the ride.

Android 6.0 brings version 4.0 of Samsung’s internet browser; this is the version that supports the ad blocking plugins that were launched earlier, and the update also adds a Secret mode for private browsing. Yes, it seems funny that the option wasn’t present in the browser before, but users who haven’t already opted for alternatives like Chrome and others should now be able to browse websites without “leaving behind a trail of information”, with the ability to lock the Secure mode with a fingerprint. Samsung Internet 4.0 also supports browsing through the Gear VR, which we took for a spin in our hands-on last year.

The other major new feature is Cross App. With Cross App, you will be able to operate “certain apps from within other apps.” As Samsung’s example notes, this could include firing up the gallery or camera or opening a link through the in-app browser in the messaging app. For the latter, the app will allow users to flick the in-app browser while the page is loading so they can continue sending messages while the website’s content loads in the background. Cross App isn’t totally new – third-party apps already do this pretty well (for example, WhatsApp), and Samsung is simply implementing cross-app functionality in its own apps.

Other new functionality is mostly standard fare, including the power-saving feature Doze, better control over app permissions, and the ability to adjust audio speed when playing video. Here’s hoping the update makes its way to various Galaxy devices quickly and that all these new features aren’t accompanied by too many bugs or issues that have ruined major updates in the last couple of years.

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Samsung releases ’7 Days of Unboxing’ videos leading up to the Galaxy S7 release

With the Samsung Galaxy S7 and the Galaxy S7 edge almost nearing release, the company’s marketing team is working double time to make sure there’s enough buzz surrounding the handsets. The Korean manufacturer has now released two new promo videos titled “7 Days of Unboxing” as we lead up to the Unpacked event.

The first one features a child named Tyson unboxing the device. After being in a room with the device for 30 seconds, Tyson goes out and tries to portray what he saw on a blank piece of paper. Naturally, we can’t decipher much from Tyson’s representation of the Galaxy S7.

The second video which was published earlier today goes even further and shows a Llama unboxing the device. Yes, we’re talking about an actual Llama, called Kuzco. Once the friendly animal walks into the room and checks out the device for itself, it is given a canvas to draw whatever was seen inside. Needless to say, the art was quite interesting, although nowhere close to what the Galaxy S7 or the Galaxy S7 edge might look like.

We should see more videos of this nature as we lead up to Sunday’s launch. It’s certainly going to be an interesting week for us Samsung fans.

What do you make of these videos?

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