Rewind: SamMobile Facebook Live Session – Episode 1

We announced our weekly Facebook Live sessions a few days ago. It’s a new platform that we’re exploring to bring you the content that you love in a manner that’s more engaging and dynamic. The live sessions will be conducted every Wednesday by our co-founder Martin Reinders and YouTube Producer Rutger Verstegen.

We conducted our very first Facebook Live session yesterday in which we talked about the Galaxy S9, Samsung’s display technology and many other topics. The entire team is extremely grateful to all those who tuned in, participated in the discussion and gave us their valuable feedback. We are only just getting started with Facebook Live so you’ll surely see more improvement in our sessions down the line.

Don’t worry if you weren’t able to catch it live yesterday. The SamMobile Facebook Live Session – Episode 1 is embedded below so you can easily watch it at your convenience. Do tune into our next live session via our Facebook page which will take place on Wednesday, March 28 at 19:30 PM CET (10:30 AM PST, 13:30 PM EST).

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Samsung to decide on the Galaxy Note 9 in-display fingerprint sensor soon

It has long been rumored that Samsung will introduce a display-based fingerprint sensor on its flagship smartphones but the company is yet to do that. There have been conflicting reports recently about the possibility that this feature might make it to the Galaxy Note 9. A new report out of South Korea today claims that Samsung is going to make a final decision on the in-display fingerprint sensor for the Galaxy Note 9 soon.

The report claims that Samsung is likely to introduce an in-display fingerprint sensor with the Galaxy Note 9 this year. Samsung Display, the division that supplies panels for Samsung devices, has reportedly prepared three or four solutions to integrate a fingerprint sensor into the display.

Galaxy Note 9 in-display fingerprint sensor

Both Samsung Display and Samsung Electronics are said to be “seriously considering” one of the solutions developed. It’s also claimed that the design concept of the Galaxy Note 9 has not yet been finalized due to the pending decision concerning the fingerprint sensor. Samsung is expected to make a final decision on the matter by the end of this month.

Some industry watchers are optimistic that Samsung will finally introduce an in-display fingerprint sensor on its smartphones this year as the company seeks to offer new features in order to further differentiate its handsets from the competition. Others are not so optimistic, they believe that technical difficulties will prevent Samsung from doing this for the Galaxy Note 9 and that we’ll only see this technology from Samsung in 2019.

It merits mentioning here, though, that Samsung recently said that it’s no longer obsessed with being the first in the world to bring new smartphone technologies to market. This means that the company will rather wait to ensure that its in-display fingerprint sensor technology works perfectly instead of rushing it out the door just for bragging rights.

We’ll likely hear more about this in the months to come as this is one of the most highly anticipated features of the Galaxy Note 9. Samsung isn’t due to launch the Galaxy Note 9 until the second half of this year even though it has begun firmware development for the new flagship earlier.

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Samsung Pay launched in Italy

Samsung continues to expand its mobile payments service to more markets across the globe. The company has announced today that Samsung Pay is now available in Italy. This is the 21st market for Samsung’s mobile payments service, making Samsung Pay one of the most widely accepted payment solutions in the world.

Samsung Pay in Italy

Samsung Pay has proven to be an award-winning service for the company. It was most recently recognized as the “Best Mobile Innovation for Payment” at the annual Global Mobile Awards during the Mobile World Congress 2018.

Italy is the latest market to receive Samsung’s mobile payments service. Samsung Pay is available to users in Italy as long as they have a compatible Samsung device. They will be able to make payments through it almost anywhere in the country where they can already pay using conventional debit and credit cards.

It’s this flexibility that sets Samsung Pay apart from the competition. The service supports both NFC and MST payment technologies which eliminate the need for merchants to have dedicated terminals for Samsung Pay. They can accept this payment method using existing payment card machines.

Samsung Pay can also be used for storing membership cards and promotional coupons. Some value-added features will be available exclusively to customers in Italy, such as discounts of up to 20 percent on popular brands such as Moleskin, Daybreak Hotel and Leroy Merlin.

Devices compatible with Samsung Pay in Italy include the Galaxy S9/S9+, Galaxy S8/S8+, Galaxy S7/S7 Edge, Galaxy Note 8, Galaxy A8, Galaxy A5 (2017) and (2016) as well as the Gear S3 and Gear Sport.

The press release that Samsung has sent out today doesn’t confirm which banks will be supported at launch but seeing as how the service’s arrival in Italy has now been officially confirmed, we might find out soon enough which Italian banks will support the service at launch. The Samsung Rewards program, which offers points in exchange for purchases, has not yet been launched in Italy.

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Samsung’s Disney AR Emoji deal is a masterstroke

With the Galaxy S9, Samsung introduced AR Emoji. Like the iPhone X’s Animoji feature, AR Emoji lets you create emojis that “follow your movements and expressions,” and Samsung managed to rope in Disney to bring many of its popular characters to AR Emoji. Mickey Mouse and Minnie Mouse emojis have already gone live (see how to start using them here), and over the course of the year, more Disney characters will be made available. While Samsung’s implementation of AR Emoji isn’t that great, especially when compared to Apple’s Animoji (which has the benefit of the iPhone X’s Face ID technology for more accurate emulation of the user’s face), the company has stepped up its game with the collaboration with Disney.

Samsung’s Disney AR Emoji deal is a masterstroke

Disney has always been popular with children, and it’s also managed to attract parents through its animated movies (films like The Incredibles and WALL-E have found fans in both the young and old) and, in the last decade, through the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Apple is famous for its design and software, but Samsung seems to have taken up the task of bringing new features that can attract more and more customers. Super slow-mo videos are one such feature, but while you may not always find yourself wanting to take a slow-mo video, AR Emojis can be real fun, especially when it comes to communicating with your family and friends, something you’ll do all too often.

AR Emoji will also prove a hit with children, and I just think Samsung has pulled off a masterstroke by teaming up with Disney, despite the latter’s usually cosy relationship with Apple (particularly with the cartoon side of things; the Apple Watch, for example, comes preloaded with Mickey and Minnie Mouse watch faces). Sure, AR Emoji could be better, and at this point only the Mickey and Minnie Mouse emojis are available, but this collaboration shows how Samsung is starting to think ahead in areas that many might not deem so important.

For me, it’s the best collaboration Samsung has ever cooked up, and the only thing the company needs to do now is hype it up, add more Disney characters as soon as possible, and work on improving AR Emoji the best it can.

The ball’s in Apple’s court now.

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Galaxy S9 ARCore support will arrive in a few weeks

Samsung announced at its annual developers’ conference last year that it has teamed up with Google to bring its ARCore platform to the Galaxy, Galaxy S8+ and the Galaxy Note 8. Samsung decided against fragmenting augmented reality on Android. It could have created its own AR platform for its smartphones but in the interest of reducing fragmentation on what is already an overly fragmented platform, Samsung embraced ARCore.

Samsung has since released a new flagship smartphone and contrary to what many of you might have assumed, the Galaxy S9 ARcore support is yet to arrive. However, the good news is that it’s going to arrive in the next few weeks.

Galaxy S9 ARCore support

ARCore is Google’s software platform for augmented reality solutions. It can be used to build AR apps that leverage advances in cloud software and device hardware to place digital objects in the real world. Almost 100 apps have now been built using this platform which include a furniture visualizer from IKEA, a virtual bakery from Food Network, YouVisit Campus for virtual college campus vists and many more.

It’s an evolution of Google’s Project Tango AR platform which was hardware-specific, in that it required an array of depth sensors and cameras to 3D map environments. ARCore doesn’t need any of that since it’s a software platform and thus brings AR experiences even to less powerful devices. It goes without saying that the list will expand considerably down the line as more developers jump on the AR bandwagon.

As previously mentioned, the Galaxy S9 ARCore support isn’t here yet, but it has been confirmed through the ARcore Dever Support Requests thread on GitHub that “Support for the S9 and S9+ will be added in the next release, which should be released in the coming weeks.”

So if we take the company’s word for it, then it shouldn’t take too long before ARCore is finally supported on the Galaxy S9 and the Galaxy S9+.

Samsung remains committed to augmented reality solutions for its smartphones and is even of the view that AR will go beyond smartphones in the future. The company will continue to grow its community of developers and collaborators to further advance the AR cause.

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Samsung’s new Exynos 9610 chip brings premium multimedia features

Samsung today announced the launch of its new mobile processor, the Exynos 7 Series 9610. The Exynos 9610 chip is built on Samsung’s 10-nanometer FinFET process and it will bring premium multimedia features to mid-range devices.

Samsung’s Exynos 7 series chips are primarily used for its premium mid-range lineup such as the Galaxy A series while its Exynos 9 series chips are meant for flagships like the Galaxy S9. Aside from delivering enhanced multimedia features, the Exynos 9610 will also deliver added power and speed.

Exynos 9610 specs and features

The Exynos 7 Series 9610 chip is the successor to the Exynos 7 Series 7885 which Samsung has used in the Galaxy A8 and Galaxy A8+ (2018). We were quite impressed with that chip as it’s arguably the best feature of Samsung’s new premium mid-range lineup.

So the Exynos 9610 has big shoes to fill and it does that on paper, and then some. The CPU is made up of four Cortex-A73 cores clocked at 2.3GHz and four 1.6GHz Cortex-A53 cores mated to a second-generation Bifrost-based ARM Mali-G72 graphics processor. There’s also an embedded Cortex-M4F-based low-power sensor hub to power Always-on solutions, it manages the sensors in real-time without having to wake up the main processor.

It’s no slouch in the connectivity department as well. Samsung’s new processor has an embedded all-network LTE modem with Cat.12 3CA support for 600 Mbps downlink and Cat.13 2CA for 150 Mbps uplink. It also features 802.11ac 2×2 MIMI Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 5.0 and FM radio.

Now on to the promised premium multimedia features. The Exynos 9610 has deep learning-based image processing and enhanced slow motion video recording. It couples vision and image processing with a neural network engine for improved face detection, single camera out-focusing (bokeh with a single camera) and improved low-light performance.

Samsung has really embraced slow motion video recording this year with the Galaxy S9. Its new flagship comes with the Super-slow motion feature which lets users record short clips at a whopping 960 frames per second in 720p resolution. It’s made possible by Samsung’s brilliant new three-stack image sensor that will soon be available for other devices as well.

The Exynos 9610 will significantly improve slow motion video recording on the company’s premium mid-range handsets. It has support for slow motion video recording at 480fps in full HD resolution. The chip is able to encode slow motion video even with a traditional two-stick image sensor courtesy of its image signal processor which brings a 1.6x improvement in performance. Moreover, the Exynos 9610 utilizes a premium multi-format codec to encode and decode up to 4K 120fps video.

Samsung says that the Exynos 9610 is going to be mass produced in the second half of this year which means that the Galaxy A8 (2018)’s successor due early next year will most certainly be powered by it.

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Samsung reveals prices for its 2018 QLED TVs

Earlier this month, Samsung officially launched its 2018 QLED TVs at a special event in New York. Samsung used the launch event to showcase all the new features and improvements coming to its 2018 QLED TV lineup. The company, however, didn’t reveal any pricing information at the time of the launch.

Samsung’s new QLED range starts at $1500

Samsung has now updated its US website with pricing information for most of its 2018 QLED TVs. As to be expected, these TVs are expensive starting at $1500 and going all the way up to $6000. Samsung’s 2018 QLED TV lineup includes Q9F, Q8F, Q7F, Q7C, and Q6F models. All these models are available in different screen size options ranging from 49 inches to 82 inches. The Q7C models are the curved TV variants, and the rest are flat-screen panels.

Of the listed prices, the 75-inch Q9F model is the most expensive at $6,000, while the 55-inch Q6F model is the cheapest at $1,500. The Q6F model also has a 49-inch option, but Samsung hasn’t revealed the pricing for it yet. When available for purchase, it should be the lowest priced option among all the 2018 QLED TVs. The 82-inch Q6F model which is the largest of the bunch retails for $4,500.

The pricing for the entire range is as follows:

• Q9F Class

1. 75-inch (QN75Q9F): $6,000
2. 65-inch (QN65Q9F): $3,800

• Q8F Class

1. 75-inch (QN75Q8F): $4,800
2. 65-inch (QN65Q8F): $3,000
3. 55-inch (QN55Q8F): $2,200

• Q7F Class

1. 75-inch (QN75Q7F): $4,000
2. 65-inch (QN65Q7F): $2,600
3. 55-inch (QN55Q7F): $1,900

• Q7C Class (Curved TVs)

1. 65-inch (QN65Q7C): $2,700
2. 55-inch (QN55Q7C): $2,000

• Q6F Class

1. 82-inch (QN82Q6F): $4,500
2. 75-inch (QN75Q6F): $3,500
3. 65-inch (QN65Q6F): $2,200
4. 55-inch (QN55Q6F): $1,500
5. 49-inch (QN49Q6F): TBA

Samsung’s new QLED TVs will be available for purchase in the United States later this month with other markets to follow suit down the line.

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