Galaxy M10 and Galaxy M20 price and release date confirmed

Samsung has unveiled its new Galaxy M series today in India. This is a brand new lineup of affordable devices that will initially be released in this country. The launch event took place today and Samsung has now confirmed the Galaxy M10 and Galaxy M20 price and release date.

These are also the first Samsung devices to feature an Infinity-V display. It uses a waterdrop style notch for the front camera. Both devices also feature ultra-wide cameras at the back for added value for money.

Galaxy M10 and Galaxy M20 price and release date

Samsung has confirmed the Galaxy M10 and Galaxy M20 prices. The Galaxy M10 starts at ₹7,990 ($112) for the 2GB RAM and 16GB storage configuration. It will also be available with 3GB RAM and 32GB storage for ₹8,990 ($126). Samsung is selling the Galaxy M20 with 3GB RAM and 32GB storage for ₹10,990 ($155). There’s also a 4GB and 64GB variant for ₹12,990 ($183).

These devices are only going to be sold online through Amazon and Samsung’s online store in India. The company has decided not to sell them through brick and mortar stores. That, coupled with the fact that these phones have been very aggressively priced, should see a favorable response from the market.

Interested customers can place their orders online starting today. Samsung will release the Galaxy M10 and Galaxy M20 in India on February 5.

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Galaxy M10 and Galaxy M20 official with Infinity-V displays, ultra-wide cameras

Samsung’s new Galaxy M lineup of budget phones has gone official in India today. As expected, the Korean giant has launched the Galaxy M10 and Galaxy M20 as the first devices in the series, and both feature Samsung’s Infinity-V display, which has a waterdrop notch. The M10 and M20 are also unique for having ultra-wide cameras on the back, similar to the Galaxy A7 (2018) and Galaxy A9 (2018).

The Galaxy M10 and M20 come with 6.2-inch and 6.3-inch LCD displays of HD+ (720×1520 pixels) and Full HD+ (1080×2340 pixels) resolution respectively and a 19.5:9 aspect ratio. Both phones get a 5-megapixel ultra-wide sensor as part of the dual rear camera setup and a 13-megapixel primary camera. The notch on those displays holds an 8MP selfie camera on the M20 and a 5MP camera on the M10.

The Galaxy M20 also boasts a 5,000 mAh battery, the biggest yet on a budget Galaxy phone and only the second time Samsung has used such a high-capacity battery on any Android phone. it also has fast charging support and a USB Type-C port, also features never before seen on a budget Galaxy. The Galaxy M10 gets a 3,400 mAh battery, which might seem small but should offer long battery life thanks to the power efficiency-focused Exynos 7870 chipset that powers the phone.

Under the Galaxy M20 there’s the new Exynos 7904 chip that Samsung says has been made specially for the Indian market. It’s basically an Exynos 7885 with lower operating speed for its two Cortex-A73 performance cores (1.8GHz). The six power-efficient Cortex-A53 cores are clocked at 1.6GHz, and there’s a Mali-G71 GPU accompanying the chipset. RAM options include 3GB and 4GB for the M20 along with 32GB or 64GB of storage. The M10 will be sold in 2GB+16GB and 3GB+32GB configurations.

The Galaxy M10 and Galaxy M20 are outdated on the software front, as both run Android 8.1 Oreo with Samsung Experience 9.5 and not Android Pie. Samsung India says it has stripped the software of some of the features that millennials – the demographic the company is focusing on with the M series – don’t use, such as Bixby Home, so that the phones run faster and smoother. Android Pie will come later this year.

The Galaxy M10 and Galaxy M20 will be sold only through Amazon and Samsung’s online store, and that has allowed the company to price both phones amazingly well. The Galaxy M10 is priced at ₹7,990 ($112) and ₹8,990 ($126) for the 2GB+16GB and 3GB+32GB models, while the Galaxy M20 starts at ₹10,990 ($155) for the 3GB+32GB variant and goes up to ₹12,990 ($183) for the 4GB+64GB model. Again, impressive pricing, and despite the fact that the phones won’t be sold through brick and mortar stores, we can see them doing quite well.

Galaxy M10

• Model: SM-M105F
• Dimensions: 160.6 x 76.1 x 7.9mm
• Display: 6.2"(157.48mm) LCD
• CPU: Exynos 7870
• Camera: 13 MP, CMOS F 1.9 & 5 MP, CMOS F2.2 Ultra Wide

More specifications

Galaxy M20

• Model: SM-M205F
• Dimensions: 156.6 x 74.5 x 8.8mm
• Display: 6.3"(160.02mm) LCD
• CPU: Exynos 7904
• Camera: 13 MP, CMOS F 1.9 & 5 MP, CMOS F2.2 Ultra Wide

More specifications

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Xiaomi beats Samsung in smartphone shipments in India

Counterpoint Research has published smartphone and feature phone shipment numbers for India for Q4 and the whole of 2018, and none of them look pretty for Samsung. Like in many other reports before, Xiaomi is ahead of Samsung in smartphone shipments, while Reliance Jio leads in feature phone shipments in the country. Samsung was the market leader in both these categories not very long ago, but all that changed in the last few quarters.

According to the latest data, overall mobile phone shipments in the country grew at a healthy 11% to reach more than 330 Million units last year. Smartphones shipments registered a 10% growth, making India, according to Counterpoint Research, the fastest growing smartphone market in the world last year.

Xiaomi beat Samsung both in Q4 2018 and the whole of last year to emerge as the largest smartphone vendor in the country. The Chinese OEM captured 27% of the market share, up from 25% in Q4 2017, and topped the charts, while Samsung came in second with 22% market share, down from 23% it registered a year before. Vivo occupied the third place with 9% market share, followed by the new player Realme who made it to the top five for the first time with 8% market share.

For the full year, Xiaomi’s market share saw a substantial increase from 19% in 2017 to 28% in 2018, whereas Samsung’s market share remained stable at 24%. The numbers show that while Samsung is able to hold on to its market, the company has been unsuccessful in expanding its share in a growing smartphone market. Vivo, Oppo, and Micromax occupied the next three spots, respectively, without any noteworthy change in their market shares.

Apart from market share, Samsung also has a lot to worry about with OnePlus growing at 58% YoY and emerging as the fastest growing premium smartphone brand. OnePlus eating into Samsung’s flagship sales is bound to have ramifications on the Korean company’s already-strained smartphone profits. Overall, it was a great year for Chinese OEMs with their combined market share going up from 54% in 2017 to 60% in 2018.

Jio ahead of Samsung in feature phone sales

On the feature phone front, as expected, telecom carrier Jio continues to lead the market with its vastly discounted offerings. In Q4 2018, Jio accounted for 38% of the total feature shipments in the country, up from 26% in Q4 2017. Samsung’s market share, on the other hand, dropped slightly from 15% to 14% during the same period but was still enough to make it the second largest feature phone vendor in India.

Jio also increased its yearly market share from 11% in 2017 to 38% in 2018 to firmly cement its place as the market leader in the category. At the same time, Samsung’s feature shipments dropped significantly from 21% to 12%, pushing the company to the second place. This helped Jio to emerge as the overall market leader with 21% of the total mobile phone shipments.

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Galaxy Note 9 Android Pie UK OTA rollout is now underway

There’s good news for folks based in the United Kingdom. The Galaxy Note 9 Android Pie UK over-the-air rollout has begun. Many of our readers had been asking about this over the past few weeks. The wait is finally over for them.

It’s not like the update wasn’t available already. You could download the firmware from our database and flash it. However, those who didn’t want to do that can now get a taste of Pie on their device as well.

Galaxy Note 9 Android Pie UK OTA update rolling out

We updated our list of countries where the Galaxy Note 9 Android Pie update is available a while back to confirm that the firmware was live for the United Kingdom & Ireland. Getting on the latest iteration was thus simply a matter of downloading the firmware file and flashing it on the device.

In case you did not want to do that, The Galaxy Note 9 Android Pie UK OTA rollout has begun. Samsung is sending out firmware version N960FXXU2CSA2 to unlocked variants in the country. We have received reports about this since early this morning so most users should have received the OTA update notification by now.

Nothing is different about the firmware update being sent OTA. All of the features that are part and parcel of Android 9 are present in addition to One UI. It also has the security patch for the month of January 2019.

If you’re interested in finding out if Android Pie is available for the Galaxy Note 9 in your country, do check out our list. We update it on a regular basis whenever the firmware for more countries get added to our database.

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Galaxy A8+ (2018) update brings January 2019 security patch

January is nearly at an end, but Samsung is far from done when it comes to releasing the month’s security patch for its devices. It’s been a slow march compared to security patches from the last few months of 2018, perhaps because of work on Android Pie, but we’re seeing the January patch coming out for a new device every other day. The latest release of the January patch comes for the Galaxy A8+ (2018).

The Galaxy A8+ (2018) is receiving an update with the new patch in Puerto Rico and Mexico; the update is accompanied by software version A730FXXS3BSA3. The enhanced security is the only change the update brings, with the rest of the changelog mentioning your usual performance and stability improvements. The January 2019 security patch fixes three critical Android OS vulnerabilities and four critical vulnerabilities in Samsung’s software, and more details can be found on Samsung’s official security bulletin.

If you own a Galaxy A8+ (2018), you can check for the update in the Settings » Software update menu on the device by tapping the Download updates manually option.

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Carrier-locked Galaxy Note 9 and Galaxy S9/S9+ to get Android Pie soon

Samsung has been rolling out Android Pie for the Galaxy Note 9 and Galaxy S9/S9+ across the globe for a few weeks now. Those with carrier-locked units in North America have had to wait, though. That’s because carriers put firmware updates through an additional testing process which ends up delaying the rollout.

The wait might be over in the very near future. Canadian carrier Rogers has shared its Android Pie roadmap and it mentions that these Samsung devices will release Android Pie in early February.

North American carriers will soon release Android Pie

The roadmap shared by Rogers mentions that the Galaxy Note 9 will receive Android Pie on February 4 while the Galaxy S9 and Galaxy S9+ will get it a week later on February 11. This is effectively a ray of hope for users in the United States as well. The rollout of this update on a major North American carrier by next week means that it will not be long before US carriers start sending out Android Pie as well.

T-Mobile, the third largest carrier in the United States, already mentions on its website that the Pie update is in development for these devices. It goes without saying that other carriers are gearing up to bring Pie to users on their network as well.

There is thus a good possibility that we will see carrier-locked units of the Galaxy Note 9 and Galaxy S9/S9+ receiving Android Pie in the coming weeks. February is just a couple of days away so the wait isn’t going to be that long. We’ll be sure to update you when the carriers start sending out the Pie update for these devices on their network.

Galaxy Note 9

• Model: SM-N960F
• Dimensions: 161.9 x 76.4 x 8.8mm
• Display: 6.4" (162.5mm) Super AMOLED
• CPU: Exynos 9810
• Camera: 12 CMOS Dual OIS (F1.5/F2.4) & Telephoto: 12MP AF F2.4)

More specifications

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Samsung phone chargers to lose their glossy exterior finish

Samsung has announced that it’s going to replace plastic packaging for its products with paper and other environmentally sustainable elements. The plan to first limit and ultimately replace plastic packaging is part of the company’s sustainability policy. It will also result in a change of finish for Samsung phone chargers.

The plastic packaging that’s currently used for Samsung’s products and accessories will be replaced with sustainable elements such as recycled/bio-based plastics and paper from the first half of 2019.

Samsung phone chargers to get a matte finish instead

Samsung has formed a task force to revamp product packaging. The design and development, purchasing, marketing and quality control departments will put their heads together to come up with innovative packaging ideas. For smartphones, wearables and tablets, Samsung is going to ditch the plastic holder trays for pulp molds. The bags wrapping accessories will be replaced with other eco-friendly materials.

Samsung is changing the phone charger design as well. The glossy exterior is out and a matte finish is in. The plastic protection films on chargers are going to be dropped as well. The announcement doesn’t mention when we will start seeing chargers in the box with this matte finish

This sustainability drive covers other products like TVs, refrigerators, air conditions, washing machines and kitchen appliances as well. The plastic bags used to protect the surface of these products will be replaced with bags made from recycled materials and bioplastics. These materials are made from plastic wastes and non-fossil fuel materials such as starch or sugar cane, respectively. As regards to paper, Samsung is only going to use fiber materials that are certified by global environmental organizations.

This is going to be a gradual transition. As per the company’s mid-term implementation plan, only paper packaging materials certified by global organizations will be used by next year. The company is aiming to use 500,000 tons of recycled plastics by 2030.

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