Samsung DeX Pad will go on sale in the US on May 13th

Samsung’s new DeX Pad, which the company unveiled alongside the Galaxy S9 and Galaxy S9+, will be made available for purchase in the US on May 13th. The company has also announced the pricing for its upgraded docking station in the country. The DeX Pad will cost $99.99, and pre-orders go live today on Samsung’s website. Samsung is even giving prospective Galaxy S9 and Galaxy S9+ customers a chance to get a free DeX Pad by buying either phone through the company’s official website for a limited time.

Samsung DeX Pad will go on sale in the US on May 13th

The DeX Pad brings more than just a design upgrade to Samsung’s docking station. The pad design allows the display of the connected device to be used as a trackpad if you don’t have a mouse lying around, and the same goes for a keyboard. That’s not to say you can’t use the new touchpad feature on the original DeX, as the trackpad support is built into Android 8.0 Oreo. The DeX Pad also supports higher-resolution displays – WQHD (2560×1440 pixels) to be exact, while the original only supported Full HD displays. There’s still no audio port on the station, but thanks to the horizontal design, you can simply use the phone’s headphone jack to power external speakers. Samsung has also done away with the LAN port that was found on the DeX Station, although this may not be much of an issue for most folks in today’s Wi-Fi connected world.

Don’t forget to check out our review of the original Samsung DeX to see just how well it enables you to turn your phone into a PC, and let us know if you’re thinking of picking up a DeX Pad. Also take a look at our Galaxy S9 review if you’re thinking of taking advantage of the free DeX deal on Galaxy S9 orders and don’t own Samsung’s latest flagship yet.

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Limited-edition Burgundy Red Galaxy S8 launched in India

The recently launched Galaxy S9 and S9+ are not very different from the Galaxy S8 and S8+ in terms of their design language and features. Given the similarities, one would assume Samsung to discontinue or discourage sales of the Galaxy S8 series to nudge the customers towards the Galaxy S9 duo. However, Samsung seems to think otherwise and is aggressively pushing the older models without any fear of sales cannibalization.

Available for purchase starting April 13

Earlier this month, Samsung India announced a substantial price-cut for the Galaxy S8 and S8+ to make them more appealing. Before the price cut, the Galaxy S8 and S8+ were priced too close to the current Galaxy flagship smartphones, effectively discouraging any sales. To make the Galaxy S8 even more compelling, Samsung is now bringing the Burgundy Red Galaxy S8 to India. This color variant was already available in select markets around the world. Samsung currently offers the Galaxy S8 in Midnight Black, Maple Gold, and Orchid Gray color options in India.

Naturally, the specs of these devices remain the same, so it’s only the beautiful new color option that’s the highlight here. The Burgundy Red Galaxy S8 will be available for purchase starting April 13 at a price of  Rs. 49,990. Paytm will offer an additional cashback of Rs.10,000 at all leading retail stores to sweeten the deal.

Also Read: Three reasons to buy the Galaxy S9 or S9+ over the Galaxy S8 or S8+

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Galaxy J7 Duo should launch soon, firmware now available online

Samsung’s been testing quite a few new Galaxy J smartphones, as has been evident by the slew of benchmark listings and certifications discovered in recent weeks. These are in addition to the Galaxy J8 and Galaxy J8+, which are expected to be the successors to the Galaxy J5 (2017) and Galaxy J7 (2017). Samsung also has a Galaxy J7 Duo in the works for some markets, and the release of the phone’s user manual on the company’s website suggested it would soon be launching officially. That certainly seems to be the case, as firmware for the device are now available online.

Possibly the first budget Samsung phone with Oreo out of the box

Depending on when the Galaxy J7 Duo will be unveiled, it could be the first budget Samsung phone to run Android 8.0 Oreo out of the box, or any non-flagship phone for that matter. And with firmware files now available for the handset, the J7 Duo will most likely be launched before this month is over. Launch markets should include the UAE, Turkey, India, Sri Lanka, Nepal, and Bangladesh, all of which are countries where Samsung’s budget phones usually do quite well. Sadly, it seems the phone will only have the latest Android security patch (April 2018) in the UAE and Turkey. The firmware for the other four markets include the January 2018 security patch, and it remains to be seen how quickly Samsung will bring security updates to the device.

As far as specs are concerned, the Galaxy J7 Duo will come with a dual rear camera (a 13-megapixel and 5-megapixel pair), a fingerprint sensor, a front-facing camera with selfie flash, dual SIM slots, the Exynos 7884/7885 SoC, 3 or 4GB of RAM, and a removable battery of unknown capacity. Bixby Home will also be included, thanks to Android Oreo, although a dedicated button will not be present. Also, some of the specs aren’t fully confirmed at this point, but considering these were spotted in recent benchmark listings, we can expect to see them on the final product. Pricing, then, is the biggest question mark, and we’ll just have to wait for the official launch for the answer.

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SamMobile Firmware Update Magazine: April 9, 2018

Welcome to the latest edition of our weekly Firmware Magazine. You can think of it as your go-to resource to find out which of your Samsung devices has received a new update or if it’s going to receive a new firmware update in the near future.

To keep things interesting, we present the Firmware Magazine in new designs every week. It will always include the important details about firmware updates such as the firmware versions, device model numbers, Android OS versions and the country where said update is out already.

SamMobile Firmware Update Magazine

Keep in mind, however, that these firmware details are based on the firmware that are available in our database, and in some cases, the latest updates might not show in the same week as the full firmware files take additional time to make it to our database.

The purpose of this magazine is to bring all of that important information about firmware updates to you, the reader, in a manner that’s easy to comprehend—so even if you’re new to the world of firmware, you’ll have no trouble making sense of it all.

Click on the image below to grab the latest firmware magazine!

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[Poll] How do you like the Galaxy S9’s Super Slow-mo feature?

The Super Slow-mo camera feature has been at the forefront of Samsung’s marketing push for the Galaxy S9 and Galaxy S9+, and the company says its engineers had to sit down and design a faster image sensor so that its latest flagships could slow down a 0.2-second moment to nearly six seconds. The Galaxy S9 and S9+ can even record super slow-motion videos on their own when they detect movement, and in manual mode, one can capture up to 20 super slow moments in a single video.

Super Slow-mo is great, but it’s not perfect

Super Slow-mo isn’t a perfect feature, though. It doesn’t work great indoors or at night, even when you think the lighting is good, since the camera has to use a fast shutter speed to record these videos. These videos are also recorded at only 720p resolution, so they don’t do justice to the beautiful high-resolution display on the Galaxy S9 and S9+. But, when it works, it works great, and you can get some amazing slow-motion videos using the Super Slow-mo feature if you time things right.

The Galaxy S9 and S9+ hit retail shelves in mid-March, and were released in more than a 100 markets by the end of the month. That means many of you have been using either of these phones for a couple of weeks and have probably tried out Super Slow-mo, and we want to know how you like it. Is it one of your favorite Galaxy S9 features, is it something that’s nice to have but not so important, or do you think it sucks?

Whatever your opinion, let us know by voting in the poll below and leaving a comment. And in case you missed it, there’s also an option to take regular slow-motion videos on the Galaxy S9, though it isn’t enabled by default. Go here to see how you can fix that.

How do you like the Galaxy S9's Super Slow-mo feature?

• It's great!
• It's nice when it works
• I don't care for slow-motion videos
• I'll tell you when I actually use it
• It's okay, not particularly exciting
• It sucks, doesn't work when I want it to
• The low video resolution puts me off

Results

• It's great! 25%, 1 vote
  1 vote 25%

  1 vote - 25% of all votes
• It's nice when it works 25%, 1 vote
  1 vote 25%

  1 vote - 25% of all votes
• I don't care for slow-motion videos 25%, 1 vote
  1 vote 25%

  1 vote - 25% of all votes
• I'll tell you when I actually use it 25%, 1 vote
  1 vote 25%

  1 vote - 25% of all votes
• It's okay, not particularly exciting 0%, 0 votes
  0 votes

  0 votes - 0% of all votes
• It sucks, doesn't work when I want it to 0%, 0 votes
  0 votes

  0 votes - 0% of all votes
• The low video resolution puts me off 0%, 0 votes
  0 votes

  0 votes - 0% of all votes

Total Votes: 4

6 April 2018

×

You or your IP had already vote.

• It's great!
• It's nice when it works
• I don't care for slow-motion videos
• I'll tell you when I actually use it
• It's okay, not particularly exciting
• It sucks, doesn't work when I want it to
• The low video resolution puts me off

×

You or your IP had already vote.

Results

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Gear S3 update brings battery life improvement

Samsung has recently updated its smartwatches and fitness trackers with new features and interface tweaks to improve the experience these devices offer. A few months ago, a similar update was released for the Gear S3, and it was a substantial one compared to what the Gear S2 or the Gear Fit2 have received. Unfortunately, that update also hit the Gear S3’s battery life. Many users complained of seeing as low as one-third of the battery life their Gear S3 offered earlier, and Samsung halted the original update, released a revised version, and also followed up with a separate update with battery life improvements later on. Today, yet another update targeting battery life is making its way to the Gear S3.

New Gear S3 update rolling out

The update also improves Bluetooth connection stability, so you should technically see fewer instances of the connection between your watch and your phone acting up. Of course, it remains to be seen what kind of effect the update will have on battery life; if you’re facing problematic battery life on your Gear S3, you will need to wait for the update and see how things are for a few days after you’ve installed it. We are told the update is currently rolling out in the US, Canada, and South Korea, with firmware version R760XXU2CRC3. Other markets should be getting it soon, and if you own a Gear S3, you can see if the update is available for you from the About Gear » Update Gear software section in the Settings tab of the Samsung Gear app on your phone.

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Samsung forecasts 57.6% profit jump in Q1 2018

Market analysts predicted that when Samsung will announce its earnings guidance for the first quarter of this year, it will forecast an almost 50 percent increase in profit for the quarter. Samsung has officially released its Q1 2018 earnings forecast today and the company has beat market expectations. It forecasts a 57.6 percent jump in profit this quarter compared to the same period last year.

A healthy 57.6% surge in profit

Thomson Reuters polled financial analysts earlier this week and they expected that Samsung will post an operating profit of $13.7 billion in Q1 2018 with the semiconductor business accounting for almost three-quarters of that. Samsung’s expects to post $14.7 billion in profit for the quarter which is a 57.6 percent jump compared to the $8.7 billion operating profit it posted in Q1 2017. It expects revenue for the quarter to touch almost $56 billion.

Samsung has not released performance and division-wise figures so far as that will happen later this month when it reports the full results for the period ending March 2018. However, as expected, the company’s semiconductor division has put it on the path to a very profitable year in 2018 as well. The company has benefitted from rising prices for memory chips and the fact that it’s the dominant supplier of these chips. Analysts predict that Samsung makes 70 cents in operating profit for every $1 of DRAM chips sold.

There were some concerns in the market that the gains made by the semiconductor division would be offset by losses at its display business which has reportedly been impacted by Apple’s decision to cut iPhone X production in half due to sluggish sales. However, that does not appear to be the case.

Even though the forecast looks good on paper the response from the market has been muted, Samsung’s shares actually fell after the earnings forecast was released. It simply confirms the notion that Samsung is heavily relying on its semiconductor business to bring in a major chunk of its profits. Analysts forecast similar or lower profit for Samsung in the second quarter as memory chip prices are expected to fall and Samsung may also incur higher marketing costs for the Galaxy S9.

Samsung will report the full earnings result for the first quarter of this year towards the end of April.

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