That’s a positive: Galaxy Tab S7+ Lite might launch without a smaller peer

The Galaxy Tab S7+ Lite is expected to debut in several variants later this year, but a non-plus model might not be happening, after all. That’s according to some newly leaked pre-commercial product info from South Korea. It seems the data has been scooped up by an eagle-eyed industry watcher from South Korea.

Either way, the development suggests Samsung is currently working on two Galaxy Tab S7+ Lite configurations, both of which are rumored to sport identical displays, presumably on the larger end, given the “plus” moniker.

If every variant is a “plus” model, does the moniker mean anything?

The ostensibly more affordable Android tablet is expected sport model number SM-T735N and 4G LTE support. Meanwhile, the SM-T736N designation supposedly belongs to another configuration of the Galaxy Tab S7+ Lite which most significantly differs from the first one thanks to the addition of 5G connectivity.

Both newly leaked instances of the Galaxy Tab S7+ Lite have been labeled as unlocked in the leaked docs, but that doesn’t mean much. Apart from the possible omission of a smaller peer to go alongside the Galaxy Tab S7+ Lite, the key takeaway here is that Samsung started the firmware development targeting its next mid-range tablets.

This news comes only a week after another substantial report revealed the currently planned release window for the Galaxy Tab S7 Lite. That one referred to the tablet sans the Plus label, however, so it remains to be seen what Samsung actually ends up launching this summer. While today’s info dump only concerned Korea-bound models, it’s pretty much a given that the Galaxy Tab S7+ Lite will also be releasing globally. As was the case with its direct predecessor, the Galaxy Tab S6 Lite.

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Weekly SamMobile Quiz 66 – Come test your Samsung knowledge!

Fancy yourself as a Samsung superfan? Take our quiz and see how many answers you can get right! This is a fun activity that we do with our readers every week to test their knowledge of the Korean giant. The quiz has a mix of easy and difficult questions that most fans should be able to answer without turning to Google.

We make a new quiz for you every weekend so we hope that you’ll participate and learn a thing or two about Samsung in the process! Don’t forget to share the results of the quiz with your friends and see if you can outscore them. A little competition never hurt anybody!

Remember, if the quiz isn’t loading properly, please access the non-AMP version of this webpage.

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Samsung confirms Snapdragon-powered Galaxy S20 FE 5G is coming to India

Indian customers who recently purchased a Galaxy S20 FE could end up having a case of buyer’s remorse soon: Samsung India has confirmed that the Galaxy S20 FE 5G is coming to the country by listing it on its official website and making the announcement on Twitter. The 5G variant of the phone is powered by the Snapdragon 865 processor, which is superior to the Exynos 990 found in the LTE model in more ways than one.

This isn’t the first time India is getting a flagship Galaxy with a Snapdragon processor. The Galaxy S10 Lite was powered by a Snapdragon chip as well, though some could argue that wasn’t a proper flagship as it lacked many of the features of the main Galaxy S10 trio, such as water resistance and a zoom camera (though it was better in some respects, such as having support for 25W charging).

But, again, anyone who bought the Galaxy S20 FE in the country recently could soon end up feeling like they were ripped off, as they could have purchased the better model if they had waited a little longer. That said, most customers don’t really care for the whole Exynos vs Snapdragon debate, and Samsung is no doubt confident that it won’t face a major backlash.

The Galaxy S20 FE 5G is set to go on sale in India on March 30. Pricing isn’t known yet but is said to be somewhere below the Rs 50,000 mark, which would be an excellent deal if true and would make the S20 FE the cheapest Galaxy phone in India to feature 5G connectivity. Whether or not it will make the S20 FE 5G the best deal is a discussion for another day now that the OnePlus 9R is also available in the country.

Galaxy S20 FE (5G) review

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The price of failure: Samsung’s about to see off LG’s smartphone hopes

The Android smartphone landscape changed quite a lot over the years. And while Samsung’s been one of the top dogs for a good long while by now, watching some of its few remaining rivals crumble into little pieces has been a somber experience. Market consolidation is never a good thing for consumers, especially when the ones getting consolidated used to contribute to pushing the envelope as much as LG did.

Then again, no quantity of rose-tinted glasses is enough to forget that LG hasn’t delivered a decently consistent flagship since the G3. Which is about to turn seven, might I add. So, this is hardly an end of an era we’re looking at, more like a long-overdue reckoning.

Is Samsung given enough credit for keeping the ship steady all these years?

If you haven’t been following the news lately, LG’s smartphone ambitions are reportedly in the gutter these days. And that’s putting it mildly. A more accurate assessment would be that LG sobered up the other day, probably from the G3 launch party, and realized it’s been in the gutter for years. So, now it wants to sell the gutter and focus on its products that haven’t sucked for a decade, like its TVs, its television sets, and its smart displays with Internet connectivity that people hook up in their living rooms to watch other people play make-believe.

The problem is, no one wants to buy the gutter because – it’s a gutter, duh. At least the view was nice half a decade ago, what with the smartphone market still hitting historic highs every month. These days, the industry’s consolidating quite rapidly, especially since the disaster that has befallen Huawei in the form of Trump’s foreign policy. Samsung’s not complaining, though. It’s too busy crossing rivals’ names off the wall. It’s probably doing so digitally on the Wall; it came up with a lot of cool, ultra-premium stuff since it locked in the U.S. Android market all those years ago.

Looking at the medium term, an Apple-Samsung duopoly isn’t just an inevitability for the Western markets – it has pretty much been our reality for over a year now. And things haven’t been that bad so far, given the concerns.

Still, the likely imminent demise of LG’s smartphone ambitions is a good reminder of how the smartphone phenomenon is turning into something strangely resembling a zero sum game. No one bar Apple and Samsung ever made meaningful margins in the game. And of those who still remain besides them, the only ones with a likely sustainable future ahead are Chinese companies, thanks to an unprecedented ability to always keep undercutting its rivals.

In the end, LG can’t even claim its meltdown was particularly entertaining. Especially not next to the 24-7 political thriller starring Huawei which we’ve been watching unfold for the past few years. China took that, as well, while the former industry giant lost steam gradually, without much in the way of excitement or even hope for what remained of its fanbase since the mid-2010s.

On the other hand, the next five or so years of smartphone trends are going to be particularly interesting to witness, given how the stakes have never being higher.

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Galaxy S21-exclusive camera feature could still come to older flagships

One of the best Galaxy S21 camera features could soon be coming to older flagship phones via firmware updates. We’re referring to Director’s View, which has remained exclusive to the Galaxy S21 series ever since it was introduced earlier this year.

The first family of Galaxy devices that could soon take advantage of the Director’s View update might be the Galaxy S20. Not only is it a direct predecessor to the Galaxy S21, which makes it a prime contender for the update, but T-Mobile USA has also seemingly spilled the beans on Samsung’s plans.

T-Mobile USA has recently updated its Galaxy S20 support pages to include instructions on how to use Director’s View. Of course, the feature is not available yet, so this strongly suggests that T-Mobile has prematurely added these instructions before the update could be released.

There’s also the remote possibility that T-Mobile has made a bigger error and those instructions should’ve never been added to the Galaxy S20 support pages, but it’s doubtful. Samsung has a history of bringing new flagship features to older devices via firmware updates, so perhaps Director’s View will be treated the same way.

As to when the update might become available — if it will — it’s anyone’s guess. One UI 3.1 was released for the Galaxy S20 series last month and the firmware didn’t include Director’s View or other features like Zoom Lock and the Google Discover home screen.

What is Director’s View?

Director’s View is a new camera feature that debuted with the Galaxy S21 series. It’s fairly straightforward and it doesn’t need a detailed explanation, even though it’s a fairly big addition.

In short, Director’s View allows users to view real-time feeds of all the phone’s cameras in the viewfinder. Users can switch between camera lenses by tapping the thumbnails on the left, and they can switch to a close-up view by tapping the thumbnails on the right.

In other words — and as the name implies — Director’s View gives users a lot more control over the cameras they’re using while recording a video, and it can be a very useful feature for content creators. We’ll keep you posted as soon as we find out more about it’s possible release on older Galaxy flagships.

Galaxy S21

• Model: SM-G991B
• Dimensions: Bar: 151.7 x 71.2 x 7.9 mm
  
• Display: 6.2 inch / 157.48 mm Dynamic AMOLED 2X
• CPU: Exynos 2100
• Camera: 12MP

More specifications

Galaxy S20

• Model: SM-G980F
• Dimensions: Bar: 151.7 x 69.1 x 7.9 mm
  
• Display: 6.2 inch / 157.48 mm Dynamic AMOLED 2X
• CPU: Exynos 990
• Camera: 12MP

More specifications

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Samsung’s Portable SSD T7 Touch is selling for under $100 after discount

Samsung’s Portable SSD T7 Touch is now available at a discount and it may have reached the lowest price yet. The T7 Touch SSD with 500GB of storage is now being offered by Amazon for a 20% discount, meaning prospective buyers are looking at a $87 price tag instead of the usual $109.

The deal is also available for the Portable SSD T7 Touch with 1TB or 2TB of storage. The 1TB model costs $10 less ($179) but Amazon is a bit more generous when it comes to the 2TB model, which is available for $329 after a $40 discount.

The latest discounts are mostly available for the Portable SSD T7 Touch in the color black. The silver variant with 500GB capacity is available for the full price, whereas the silver 2TB model was discounted by 5% instead of 10%.

A shock-resistant external SSD secured by a fingerprint scanner

Assuming you’re unfamiliar with the Samsung Portable SSD T7 Touch, the product was introduced last year as a sequel to the Portable SSD T5, and aside from improved read/write speeds (1,050 MB/s and 1,000 MB/s), the T7 model improves security through a fingerprint sensor and AES 256-bit hardware encryption. The hardware components are wrapped in a shock-resistant body.

The Samsung Portable SSD T7 Touch debuted for a starting price of $129.99. Nowadays the external SSD is normally priced at $109 and up when it’s not offered on a limited-time deal. You can refer the links below for more details.

• Buy the 500GB Samsung Portable SSD T7 Touch at Amazon
• Buy the 1TB Samsung Portable SSD T7 Touch at Amazon
• Buy the 2TB Samsung Portable SSD T7 Touch at Amazon

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Listen up: Samsung Free app now also does podcasts

Samsung Free is adding podcasts to its content repertoire as part of a new update that started rolling out worldwide earlier today. By the time you’re reading this, you should already be able to install the new version of the app from the Galaxy Store. And if you have recently made the jump to Android 11, chances are that Samsung Free has been automatically updating in the background ever since.

Either way, if you’re running the newest Samsung Free build, you can access podcasts by swiping to the left from the home screen. Doing so will launch the app  itself, with the new podcasts section being available from its bottom toolbar, aptly called “Listen”.

Can anyone figure out Samsung’s mobile app strategy?

Besides all the latest and not-so-latest smartphones, this new edition of Samsung’s infotainment service is also available on the company’s wearables. The launch-day selection of audio shows is relatively diverse but nothing you haven’t already seen elsewhere. As such, this addition is most likely to please existing Samsung Free users. Or at least it’s hard to imagine that millions of newcomers will be pouring in just because Galaxy devices now offer a native podcasting solution.

Formerly known as Samsung Daily, Samsung Free has been the focal point for much of the company’s content efforts in recent years. On the mobile app front, those endeavors have been a mixed bag of signals, to say the least. While it remains to be seen what Samsung does next on the content front, it’s easy to see how the company might leverage its existing media partnerships to bolster its podcasting content. Especially the ones stemming from the Samsung TV Plus project which has been generating some decent traction lately.

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