Pictures of the Galaxy Tab A 2016 leak again

We have known for a while now that Samsung has a budget tablet in the pipeline but there has been some confusion regarding the name of this tablet. It appears that the tablet will be sold as the Galaxy Tab E in the United States and as the Galaxy Tab A in Europe. We leaked some new pictures of the Galaxy Tab A 2016 about a week ago and today more pictures of this tablet have been leaked online.

The Galaxy Tab A 2016 will have a 7-inch display with a 1.3GHz quad-core processor hooked up to 1.5GB RAM under the hood. It should also feature 8GB of internal storage, a 5-megapixel rear and 2-megapixel front camera, microSD card support and a 4,000 mAh battery. The last set of leaked pictures showed the new wallpaper from the Galaxy S7 and the Galaxy S7 edge hinting that this tablet might run Android 6.0 Marshmallow straight out of the box. Samsung is expected to release the Galaxy Tab A 2016 by late March or early April with a possible price tag of 169 Euro.

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Samsung becomes fourth largest smartphone processor maker in the world

Samsung, which has been making its own line-up of mobile processors under the Exynos brand, has now entered the top 5 rankings in the global smartphone application processor market. The South Korean electronics giant stood fourth in the global rankings last year after Qualcomm, Apple, and MediaTek.

Qualcomm still stands as the largest mobile processor maker with a market share of 42 percent, while Apple and MediaTek have market shares of 21 percent and 19 percent, respectively. Samsung stood fourth and Spreadtrum stood fifth in the smartphone processor space last year.

Samsung managed to ship around 50 million units of Exynos chipsets in 2015. This might be the direct effect of Samsung’s decision to increase the usage of its homegrown processors in its mobile devices, including mid-range and entry-level smartphones as well as wearable devices like smartwatches.

DRMeXchange estimates that Samsung had used Exynos chipsets in at least 15 percent of its smartphones last year. Samsung also provides Exynos chipsets to other smartphone brands such as Meizu. Moreover, it also manufactures mobile processors for the likes of Apple and Qualcomm.

According to Strategy Analytics, Qualcomm is facing strong competition from Samsung as the latter is vertically integrated from the semiconductor division to the smartphone division. The global smartphone processor market declined 4 percent year-over-year in 2015 to reach $20 billion.

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Samsung’s Oscars 2016 commercial is packed with celebrities

Samsung is always a major sponsor at the Oscars and this year is no different. Fresh off of the Mobile World Congress 2016 stage where it unveiled the Galaxy S7 and the Galaxy S7 edge, Samsung filled the show’s first ad spot with a commercial that’s packed with celebrities. Samsung’s Oscars 2016 commercial runs for about a minute and a half and gives us a peek at celebrities like Wesley Snipes, Lil Wayne, James Harden and William H. Macy. All of them highlight salient features of the Galaxy S7 edge in their cameos.

The company has used the Oscars to push its flagship smartphones in the past as well so it’s hardly surprising that it’s doing it this year as well. Samsung got the best bang for its buck back in 2014 when it sponsored a selfie that host Ellen DeGeneres took on the Galaxy Note 3. Peppered with A-list celebrities that selfie became the most retweeted tweet ever, giving Samsung incredible exposure. The ad doesn’t come close to that but millions of people watching the Oscars certainly got a glimpse of the latest and greatest from Samsung.

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Samsung has restarted talks to acquire Jay-Z’s Tidal music streaming service

A few months ago rap mogul Jay-Z was spotted at Samsung’s headquarters in Silicon Valley. He was seen leaving the office of Samsung Research America where the Samsung MSCA unit is located, this particular unit creates content strategy for services like Milk Music, and Jay-Z was said to have met with Samsung’s SVP of content and services Daren Tsui who is said to be the driving force behind Milk Music. You can see where this is going. It didn’t take long for reports to circulate that Samsung was interested in acquiring Tidal, Jay-Z’s music streaming service.

The New York Post has heard from several sources that Samsung has restarted talks to acquire Jay-Z’s music streaming service. This doesn’t come as a surprise since Samsung has long been rumored as an interested buyer and the scribe claims that it has held on-and-off talks with Tidal. “Samsung is re-engaging; they are working on something really big, and they’re keeping it very quiet in case it leaks,” says a source close to the talks. Samsung and Tidal have not yet commented on this report.

Tidal hasn’t really been doing well in the streaming market and it’s still struggling to bring in more subscribers. With Apple Music performing well and Google rumored to be eyeing a Spotify acquisition it would make sense for Samsung to acquire a running service and use it as a stepping stone to craft it into something better. Like Apple, Samsung can push its music streaming service though its handsets, and possibly end up carving some space for itself in the competitive music streaming market.

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T-Mobile Galaxy S7 pre-orders are being shipped early

It’s hard to wait for your brand new smartphone to arrive once you’ve placed a pre-order and are just counting down the days till it ships. Pre-orders for the Galaxy S7 and the Galaxy S7 edge were opened on February 23 and the Samsung has declared March 11 as the official release date in 60 countries. However, it’s not uncommon to see carriers ship out units ahead of time, T-Mobile did it last year with the Galaxy S6 and it appears to be doing it again with the Galaxy S7.

Shipping notices have started to arrive for several T-Mobile customers who pre-ordered the flagship handsets from Magenta. Several reddit users reached out to T-Mobile through its official Twitter account and were told by representatives that devices that have already been ordered are being packed and getting ready to ship out on Monday, February 29. They may reach customers in a couple of days depending upon the shipping option they chose. If this is indeed true it would mean that customers would get their hands on the Galaxy S7 and the Galaxy S7 edge before the devices are even available in stores on March 11. Looks like several T-Mobile customers will receive the new flagships over the new couple of days, and they say Christmas only comes once a year.

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[Poll] Which feature do you miss on the new Galaxy S7 and Galaxy S7 edge?

We won’t lie to you guys: We love what Samsung has done this year with the Galaxy S7 and Galaxy S7 edge. These new flagships offer all of the major features one would expect and fix every flaw in the Galaxy S6 lineup. But at the same time, we are fully aware that there are quite a few things Samsung could have done to make these handsets even better.

A USB Type-C port and a pressure-sensitive display are major features that were part of the rumors but didn’t make the cut, but a lot of minor things could have been improved as well. For example, the front camera is still a measly 5-megapixel unit, there’s no true dual SIM variant, and the IR blaster is once again not on the spec sheet. Maybe Samsung could have finally upgraded to stereo speakers, or at least put the single loudspeaker at the front of the devices (of course, this would have affected the design, most likely in a negative manner).

No device can be completely perfect, as there will always be some thing or the other that we will complain about being missing from the latest and greatest. What do you think is missing from the Galaxy S7 or Galaxy S7 edge, and what would you like to see on the sequels to these impressive smartphones? Let us know through the poll options, and through the comments!

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Seoul Battle: The Galaxy S7, S7 edge trap you into their worlds, the G5 attempts to create one

“It’s Not a Phone, It’s a Galaxy” may have seemed to some to be nothing more than a commercial jab at Apple, but it has become a philosophy for Samsung: to make its Galaxy smartphones worlds (galaxies) of their own. And this strategy is paying off big-time for the Korean giant, with the latest Galaxy S7/S7 edge unveiling being yet another opportunity for Samsung to showcase its strengths and growth over the last 12 months. If you believed the Galaxy S6 and S6 edge were enticing worlds, then you’ll be pleased to know that their successors highlight their all-encompassing nature even more.

Samsung retained the glass and metal design of the Galaxy S6 and S6 edge, but the company waterproofed the Galaxy S7 and S7 edge “from the inside out” this time – taking these devices to better water resistance than their Galaxy S5 predecessor. The IP68 water and dust resistance means you can be confident that your devices will outlive the water (just make sure you read that new manual, though; it comes with some information on water and dust resistance that may save you trouble down the road).

The Galaxy S7 and S7 edge have better lowlight performance than their predecessors, meaning that photos in low light have never been as good as they’ll get with the f/1.7 camera apertures of both the front 5MP camera and the back 12MP Sony IMX260 camera. The Galaxy S7 and S7 edge now have Always On Displays that take advantage of our inherent need to “check our phones,” on average, about 150 times a day, and the Galaxy S7 edge now has quicker apps and content access so that you can spend time “swiping on the edge” and appreciating the aesthetic beauty of your smartphone while “living on the edge” for productivity.

The Galaxy S7 and S7 edge are worlds you’ll live in daily, whether at the office (checking your Always On Display or using the edge on the S7 edge), at the beach splashing the water and taking pictures (IP68 water and dust resistance, f/1.7 aperture cameras), at the grocery store or movie rental (Samsung Pay), on the road (microSD card slot for up to 200GB additional storage for movies, TV shows, and music), and so on. Like Visa, the Galaxy S7 and S7 edge can go “everywhere you wanna be.”

In contrast, though, the LG G5, also unveiled on Sunday, didn’t quite create the world Samsung’s Seoul rival wanted. Yes, it does feature what the Korean manufacturer calls a modular design (though I’d say it’s only semi-modular at best and fancy word-dressing at the worst), but LG wants to sell you on the G5 being modular “if” (this being the key word) you buy “Friends” to go with the G5, including the 1) Cam Plus, 2) Hi-Fi Plus, 3) LG 360 VR headset, 4) 360 Cam, 5) LG Rolling Bot, and others.

Along the same lines, the G5 is only a world (dare I say, Galaxy?) if and only if you buy these external devices and connect them via wire cables. As a friend of mine said to me this week, friends aren’t friends if you pay for them. “Life’s better with friends,” LG says, but how much better life is when you have to pay for them is debatable.

Whether or not your G5 is an entire world is dependent upon how much you’re willing to spend. When you haven’t sold your phone, worth $700 USD, as a Galaxy, you won’t do well to give people the world “if” they’ll spend additional funds. If the Galaxy S7 and S7 edge are worlds of their own, on their own, why would anyone spend more money to try to have a DIY “Galaxy” project, as the G5 presents to us? LG’s wireless headphones, and its G5, the latest smartphone out of step with landline phones, take a huge step back in innovation with the G5’s VR headset and “Friends” cables.

To have a successful product, manufacturers must sell customers on one single device as meeting their needs completely. The LG G5 will appeal to DIY folks who love taking things apart and putting them together, but most consumers lie in the opposite camp: they want a truly “smart” smartphone that is all-encompassing, right out of the box that requires as minimal a setup for enjoyment purposes as possible. If they get a smartphone that can do “a Galaxy” of things for them, then they’ll be happy to use it to construct their own Galaxy (which is why Samsung’s Gear VR is rising in popularity) and buy additional accessories to make it happen.

Sell consumers your phone as their world first, and then they’ll buy your accessories. LG has yet to sell its G2, G3, and G4 as “Galaxies” of their own (LG Pay for mobile payments may have helped in this regard); why would anyone want to DIY a world with the G5 when the person hasn’t figured out whether or not he or she even wants the G5 on its own merit? LG could’ve focused on the G5 alone, but its attempt to leap into an ecosystem with the G5 “Friends” shows that the company has not yet thought through its marketing strategy carefully.

The G5 is different for the sake of being different, but where will LG’s modular design go next year? I’m inclined to think that the modular G5 is a one-hit wonder that I can pass up. And when you’re going up against a name like Samsung, you have to make sure all, not some, of your ducks are lined up in a row.

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