BREAKING: Samsung confirms August 11 Unpacked, teases new foldables

The event that many Samsung fans have been looking forward to has been officially confirmed today. The company just announced that it will conduct an Unpacked event on August 11 to unveil new devices.

A teaser for the event has also been released online. It clearly hints at the two upcoming foldable smartphones – the Galaxy Z Fold 3 and Galaxy Z Flip 3. These devices are certainly going to be the highlight of the event.

August 11 Unpacked is going to be packed full of new devices

The August 11 date has been rumored for some time now. Samsung has only just confirmed it today. Like all of its major events over the past year, next month’s Unpacked will also be an entirely virtual affair.

Samsung is going to launch a handful of other devices in addition to these foldables. There’s the Galaxy Watch 4, the Galaxy Buds 2 and we might even get a peek at the Galaxy S21 FE. At least some of the new devices will hit the market on August 27.

Fans certainly have a lot to look forward to from this event. The new Galaxy Z devices are shaping up to the best foldables yet from Samsung. The Galaxy Z Fold 3 might just be the first foldable smartphone to have support for the S Pen.

August is the month in which Samsung has traditionally launched new Galaxy Note handsets. It’s not going to do that this time around. As we have already reiterated, there’s not going to be a Galaxy Note 21 this year.

There’s plenty to look forward to in the new foldable smartphones. They’re expected to be more durable and powerful than their predecessors. The new Galaxy Watch 4 is also the first to run on the new Android-based Wear platform that Samsung has developed with Google.

You can tune into the Galaxy Unpacked event through Samsung.com and the company’s official YouTube channel. It takes place Wednesday, August 11 at 23:00 KST (10:00 EDT / 15:00 BST). As always, we’ll also have complete coverage of the event here at SamMobile. Who’s excited?!

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Crazy fast charging speeds might indeed be a reality for the Galaxy S22

It took a long time for Samsung to leave behind the 15W fast charging standard it had been using for its devices for many years. The company introduced 25W and 45W super fast charging back in 2019, and while the latter wasn’t that much faster than the former, it was still nice to have, even if just for boasting rights.

Unfortunately, Samsung decided to take a step back last year when it limited the Galaxy Note 20 lineup to 25W charging, a limitation that carried forward to this year’s Galaxy S21 series as well. But there have been some hints recently that Samsung might come back with a bang next year by introducing support for 65W charging on the Galaxy S22 lineup. Another credible source is now putting more fuel to the fire.

Twitter Leakster and our good friend FrontTron posted earlier today that 65W charging support is in the test phase for “Rainbow RGB”. For those wondering, Rainbow has previously been claimed to be the codename for the Galaxy S22 lineup, with the R, G, and B denoting the Galaxy S22, S22+, and S22 Ultra.

Now, as was the case with 45W charging, the Galaxy S22 series probably won’t support 65W charging on all models, though Samsung could decide to mix things up next year. What will be interesting to see is just how much faster the more powerful charger will be compared to 25W charging, which itself is quite speedy.

As for whether or not there will be a charger included in the box, well, do we even need to wonder? The Galaxy S21 series doesn’t ship with a charger (or earphones), and that’s likely going to be the case with all future flagship smartphone launches from the Korean giant. Because, you know, profits the environment comes first.

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CEO exposes how Samsung’s supplier contracts oppose the right to repair

iFixit co-founder and CEO Kyle Wiens is speaking out against companies including Apple, Microsoft, and Samsung, for purposefully making their products more difficult to repair, and for preventing third-party repairers from acquiring replacement parts.

We all know that mobile products have become more difficult to repair due to the increased use of glass and strong adhesives but the problem of reparability goes beyond the product’s design.

During a recent Productivity Commission hearing, iFixit CEO Kyle Weins exposed how manufacturers restrict the ability to repair products by making parts difficult to obtain. It turns out that companies like Samsung have special clauses in their supplier contracts that prevent them from selling replacement parts to third parties.

Supply chain contracts can be a loophole to the right to repair

Kyle Weins exemplified how supply chain contracts are used to control the flow of replacement parts on the market using Varta — a battery supplier for Samsung.

Samsung uses Varta coin cell batteries for its Galaxy earbuds, which means that, in theory, any third-party repairer should be able to acquire this component with relative ease. It’s just a Varta coin cell battery, after all. However, Weins clarified that the contract between Samsung and Varta prevents the latter company from selling replacement components.

“[…] when we go to Varta and say ‘can we buy that part as a repair part?’ they’ll say ‘No, our contract with Samsung will not allow us to sell that,'” added Kyle Weins in an interview with ZDNet.

In other words, it’s nice that the Galaxy Buds are some of the easier-to-repair wireless earbuds on the market, but that doesn’t count for much if replacement parts are virtually impossible to find. It makes for some nice PR, but it doesn’t really help customers.

What’s worrying is that, according to Weins, more and more suppliers are now signing these types of agreements that prevent them from selling replacement parts.

As for Samsung, the company’s been launching its Door to Door repair service in more markets, so there’s that, even though it doesn’t help in ways of third-party repairability.

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Your next Samsung Chromebook could have an NVIDIA RTX GPU

The Samsung Galaxy Book Odyssey is the world’s first laptop to utilize Nvidia’s RTX 3050 Ti GPU, but it looks like we might see RTX technology across a wider variety of notebook types soon. Nvidia has recently demonstrated RTX and other high-end graphical technologies running on the Linux platform with ARM hardware and revealed how demanding games and 3D-intensive apps could have a future with ARM Chromebooks.

More precisely, Nvidia recently tested the RTX 3060 GPU together with the ARM-based MediaTek Kompanio 1200 processor in Linux while running the FPS title Wolfenstein: Youngblood. The Kompanio 1200 is a new MediaTek CPU that’s planned to be utilized by upcoming higher-end Chromebooks.

But it’s important to keep in mind that this is not just a demo — impressive as it may be. Nvidia has already made some of its latest RTX-related SDKs available for the ARM and Chromium environments, so it’s quite serious about giving OEMs the necessary tools to bring the power of RTX to ARM Chromebooks.

Samsung has good reasons to give ARM Chromebooks another try

Samsung’s latest Chromebooks are powered by Intel, which means they’re based on the x86 architecture as opposed to ARM. Nevertheless, Samsung did release a few ARM-based Chromebooks many years ago, such as the ARM Series 3 Chromebook, and the oddly-named “XE303C12-A01.”

Samsung gave up on ARM Chromebooks a few years back, but ARM is making a comeback, especially now after the release of the Apple M1 chip. More to the point at hand, there are plenty of new reasons for Samsung to be considering switching back to the ARM platform. Well, five reasons, to be precise. They are: Nvidia’s DLSS, RTX Global Illumination, RTX Direct Illumination, RTX Memory Utility, and Nvidia Real-Time Denoiser technologies.

According to The Verge, these technologies either have SDKs for ARM, Linux, and Chromium, or they’re planned to be released soon by Nvidia.

There’s no official word on whether or not Samsung will release new ARM Chromebooks in the future, but market watchers estimate that nearly 50% of the company’s global notebook shipments will be covered by Chromebooks. And if Nvidia’s latest RTX demos persuade enough Chromebook OEMs to hop on the ARM bandwagon, chances of Samsung doing the same will be exponentially higher.

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Samsung Display to supply Apple with OLED for the next-gen iPad

Apple’s next iPad is rumored to forego LCD technology in favor of OLED, and industry reports suggest that the Cupertino giant has signed OLED contracts with LG Display and Samsung Display, both of which will be responsible for supplying Apple with OLED panels for future iPad models.

Because of this, Samsung Display is said to have begun reviewing its OLED investment plans. The company is reportedly discussing with Japan’s Dainippon Printing about the supply of fine metal mask (FMM) tensioners required for OLED display manufacturing.

For now, it’s unclear who will be supplying the majority of OLED panels for future iPads — Samsung Display or LG — but whoever gets the bulk of orders will be at a great advantage.

Dozens of millions of iPads are shipped every year

The iPad is by far the most popular tablet in the world, with market tracker Statista estimating that Apple shipped roughly 12.7 million iPads in Q1 2021 alone.

It goes without saying that Samsung Display has an opportunity to sell millions of OLED displays for iPads every year. However, it won’t be alone in this, and LG Display will want a piece of that pie.

In other news, Samsung is also rumored to be the main supplier for Nintendo’s latest Switch OLED revision, and this should help the company’s bottom line, given the console’s popularity.

All in all, OLED displays are becoming increasingly popular across multiple market segments, and Samsung Display is in a very favorable position as the world’s leading OLED display manufacturer.

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Samsung brings 360 Audio to the Galaxy M51 with a new firmware update

Samsung began updating the Galaxy M51 with a new security patch last week, but the initial release happened in Russia and Ukraine. Now, the firmware update is reaching the Galaxy M51 in India, and the changelog represents more than the usual boring affair. It mentions enhanced Quick Share, Google RCS (Rich Communication Services) integration, and the addition of 360 Audio.

The new Galaxy M51 firmware update sounds similar to an earlier update that was released for the Galaxy A70 back in May. Same as before, the addition of 360 Audio will allow Galaxy M51 owners who use the Galaxy Buds Pro to replicate multi-dimensional surround sound through Dolby Head Tracking technology.

Improved security is par for the course

The June 2021 security patch is included in this latest release. It addresses 47 issues found within Google’s Android operating system and 19 issues affecting Samsung’s own software. A few critical issues have also been addressed.

The new firmware update for the Galaxy M51 in India can be identified by firmware version M515FXXU3CUG1. As always, the update should be accompanied by a notification on your phone, but Galaxy M51 users can try to trigger the update process from the Software update menu inside the Settings app.

SamMobile readers can circumvent this by downloading the latest Samsung firmware update from our database and installing it manually on the Galaxy M51.

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Apple wants LG stores in South Korea to sell iPhones around Unpacked

It looks like LG’s retirement from the mobile industry will spell bad news for Samsung on its home turf. It turns out that Apple could end up selling iPhones and other fruit-labeled products in South Korea through LG’s expansive retail infrastructure, after all, and thus becoming a much more significant threat to Samsung in the process.

LG will formally finalize its exit from the mobile market later this month. LG Electronics will maintain its focus on computers, home appliances, and other household products, but the company is no longer manufacturing and selling phones under its brand. With no new LG smartphones being planned to be sold in South Korea, Apple sees this as an opportunity to occupy those empty spaces on the shelves with iPhones, iPads, and Apple Watches.

Apple to sell products at 400 LG Best Shops nationwide from August

According to a new report from the local media, LG has agreed to sell Apple products, including iPhones, iPads, and Watches, through its wide retail network nationwide starting August. Its network comprises 400 LG Best Shops, so Apple’s products will be almost ubiquitous.

Now, as you all probably know by now, Samsung will host its next major Galaxy Unpacked event on August 11, where its latest foldable phones and wearable devices will be unveiled. So, the fact that Apple wants to increase its retail footprint through LG starting August might not be a mere coincidence. It’s more likely that Apple wants to take the fight to Samsung and oppose the company’s push into the era of foldables as much as possible.

To avoid a conflict of interests, Apple won’t be selling iMacs or Macbooks in LG’s stores, as the latter company continues manufacturing PC components and laptops of its own.

Is LG going against the National Mobile Communication Distribution Association?

LG’s decision to partner with Apple has caused some controversy in South Korea, as this new business plan might be going against an earlier “win-win” agreement established by the National Mobile Communication Distribution Association.

The Distribution Association initially claimed that the LG-Apple alliance goes against the “win-win agreement for small and medium enterprises” signed in 2018. However, this early conclusion is now being re-evaluated because of LG’s new position in the market. LG’s role is not the same as it was back in 2018, and because it has retired from the mobile industry, the company could be in its rights to sell Apple products at its stores.

Whatever the case may be, Apple’s aggressive push into South Korea doesn’t spell good news for Samsung, and it’s odd to think that LG’s demise might have a huge negative impact on Samsung’s domestic mobile business in the long run.

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