Microsoft agrees to changes after criticism of its Windows 10 update practices

Why it matters to you

This ruling should make it more difficult for Microsoft to push Windows 10 updates on users, at least in Germany.

Back when Windows 10 was new and a billion users was its goal, Microsoft was a little gung-ho about updating PCs around the world with its latest operating system. Now, the company has responded to complaints from German users with a pledge to change its ways.

In October 2015, Microsoft came under fire when users started to report that their PCs were automatically starting up Windows Update and downloading Windows 10 — a process that could use up gigabytes of bandwidth and cause some serious problems as a result. Understandably, people and businesses affected by this situation weren’t particularly impressed.

Users in Germany complained about Microsoft’s predatory installation tactics to a local consumer protection group, Verbraucherschutz. It’s taken over a year, but it’s now been ruled that the company was at fault, and will have to sign a cease-and-desist order, according to a report from MS Power User.

Microsoft has agreed to no longer distribute installation files to a user’s PC without their express consent. Of course, the initial push for Windows 10 adoption has long since finished, and it remains to be seen whether the company would ever pursue quite such an aggressive strategy again, given the widespread backlash. Still, it’s good to see users take precedence over big business.

Cornelia Tausch, the CEO of the consumer center in Baden-Württemberg, expressed that she would have liked to have seen the situation remedied sooner, but commended the decision. She referred to it as “a success for consumer rights in the digital world,” according to a translation by Computer World.

Mandatory updates are still a big part of Microsoft’s vision for Windows 10, even though the company has been making changes to give users more control over the process. It’s easy to see why this is the case, as keeping PCs up-to-date has all kinds of security benefits over a landscape where users are still using older, unsupported versions of Windows.

On the other hand, many users are reticent to give up control over their system. Updates can bring about unwanted changes, and some would prefer to have the option to opt out — which is hopefully what this German ruling will offer up.

How to buy the Samsung Galaxy Note 8 unlocked, and on every carrier

The Galaxy Note 8, Samsung’s new Note series flagship, is finally here, and it’s a huge improvement over the ill-fated Note 7. It has an edge-to-edge display, a powerful processor, and the world’s first optically stabilized dual cameras — not to mention an S Pen stylus that lets you doodle all over the screen.

Samsung’s last Note launch may not have gone as swimmingly as the company hoped, but there’s every indication that this time will be different. Intrigued? Here’s how to buy the Samsung Galaxy Note 8, including all the retailers and stores that will carry it.

How to buy an Unlocked Galaxy Note 8

If you’d rather not snag a Galaxy Note 8 through a carrier, good news: Samsung is making unlocked models available through a long list of retail partners. You’ll have to pay full price in many cases, but your Galaxy Note 8 won’t be tethered to a service or payment plan. This is the preferred way to own a phone because you can use it on any service provider and resell it easier.

You can snag an unlocked Galaxy Note 8 from Amazon, Best Buy, eBay, and Target, or from Samsung’s online store. Pricing is forthcoming, but we’ll update this post as soon as new info is available.

Buying from wireless carriers

If you’d rather not pay full price for the Galaxy Note 8, there are always other options. Carriers and retailers offer monthly payment plans for people who qualify, and often throw in bonuses for customers who order early.

The full list of carriers selling the Note 8 includes AT&T, C Spire, Cricket Wireless, Sprint, Straight Talk Wireless, T-Mobile, U.S. Cellular, Verizon Wireless, and Xfinity Mobile. Not all of them have announced pricing and availability, but we’ll continually update this post as new details hit the web.

Here are the carriers who are offering pre-order deals and installment pricing on the Galaxy Note 8:

How to buy a Note 8 on Verizon

Verizon will launch pre-orders for the Note 8 starting August 24, and it’s offering a couple of ways to pay for it.

• Subscribers can sign up for a $40 a month for 24 months ($960 total). Alternatively, they can take advantage of a trade-in deal that offers up to 50 percent off the Note 8’s retail price.

All Note 8 buyers on Verizon are eligible for a Galaxy Foundation kit with 128GB memory card and fast charging wireless pad or Samsung’s Gear 360 camera.

In addition, Verizon’s offering $100 off the Samsung Gear S3 smartwatch with a new two-year activation and $50 off the Samsung Power Bundle, which includes a wireless charging stand, portable power pack, and car charger.

How to buy a Note 8 on AT&T

Not to be outdone by the competition, AT&T has the Galaxy Note 8 for pre-order online and in stores later this week ahead of the September 15 launch date.

On AT&T Next, the Galaxy Note 8 starts at $31.67 for 30 months, and AT&T’s offering up to $200 in trade-in credits in exchange for old smartphones. As an added bonus, you get the choice of a Samsung Gear S2 smartwatch for $1 or Gear S3 for $50 on a two-year agreement, if you want it.

In addition, AT&T’s extending limited-time deals to folks who add DirecTV service when they pick up a Galaxy Note 8:

• Customers who add DirecTV get $500 off a Samsung TV.
• Customers who purchase a Galaxy Note 8 on AT&T Next and add DirecTV get a free Galaxy Note 8.

Finally, new and existing subscribers who pick up a Galaxy Note 8 before September 24 get the choice of either a Galaxy Foundation kit with a 128GB memory card and fast wireless charger or a free Gear 360 Camera.

How to buy a Note 8 on T-Mobile

T-Mobile will offer the Samsung Galaxy Note 8 on August 24 in stores and online ahead of the Note 8’s September 15 launch date. If you’re a new or existing subscriber, you’ve got several choices:

• On T-Mobile’s Equipment Installment plan, the Galaxy Note 8 is $210 down and $30 a month.
• On T-Mobile’s Jump! On Demand, the Note 8 is $0 down and $39 (a total of $930).

As an added benefit for customers who pre-order the Galaxy Note 8 before September 24, T-Mobile’s throwing in a free Samsung Gear 360 Camera (worth $229).

How to buy a Note 8 on Sprint

Sprint has the Galaxy Note 8, and pre-orders go live online and in Sprint stores starting August 24 ahead of general availability on September 15.

Here’s how you can get it:

• Customers who switch from another carrier get 50 percent off the lease price and pay $20 per month for 18 months on Sprint Flex.
• Customers on Sprint’s Galaxy Forever can upgrade to the Note 8 after 12 Sprint Flex payments.

Every new and existing Sprint subscriber who orders a Note 8 through September 24 will receive their choice of free Galaxy Foundation kit with a Samsung 128GB memory card and fast wireless charging pad or free Samsung Gear 360 camera.

How to buy a Note 8 on U.S. Cellular

U.S. Cellular will offer the Note 8 starting August 24 online and in stores.

There’s a pre-order deal for new customers. If you switch to U.S. Cellular from another carrier, you’re eligible for a promotional card up to $300.

In addition, every U.S. Cellular customer who purchase the Note 8 between August 24 and September 24 is eligible for a free Galaxy Foundation kit with 128GB MicroSD card and wireless charging pad or a Samsung Gear 360 camera.

How to buy a Note 8 directly from Samsung

Want to pick up your shiny new Galaxy Note 8 straight from the manufacturer? You’re in luck. Samsung is selling the Galaxy Note 8 to customers online, with pre-orders to start August 24.

It’s offering a lot of goodies to folks who order early. If you reserve a Galaxy Note 8 between August 24 and September 24, you’ll get the choice of free Samsung Gear 360 camera (a $230 value) or free Galaxy Foundation kit, which includes a Samsung-branded 128GB EVO+ memory card and Note 8-compatible wireless charging pad (a $190 value).

Samsung’s extending a special deal to former Note 7 owners. They’re eligible for an instant trade-in rebates of up to $425 when they upgrade their current phone for a Galaxy Note 8.

Samsung says the promotion is only while supplies last, so you’d best order early if any of the extras catch your eye.

How to pick it up in stores

If you’d prefer to buy the Galaxy Note 8 in stores, don’t sweat it. Retailers including Amazon, Best Buy, and Target will kick off pre-orders for the Galaxy Note 8 starting August 24.

We’ll update our guide with new specific store pricing as it becomes available.

Microsoft patent hints at wand-like augmented reality controller

Why it matters to you

Augmented reality has a lot of potential, but still has a lot of growing to do. Microsoft’s new wand controllers could be a major part of that.

Microsoft has been awarded a patent for a new type of augmented reality controller that looks like a cross between a Wiimote and a pen. The wand-like input device features a trigger mechanism, some sort of slider button and a rounded button along its length, as well as a finger guard.

HTC, Valve and Oculus VR might be at the forefront of developing new input mechanisms for virtual reality, but controlling augmented reality might be quite different. If Microsoft’s newly awarded patent (via @h0x0d) is anything to go by, it certainly seems to think so.

Originally filed at the start of June 2016, Microsoft’s “augmented reality input device,” looks quite similar to the Google Draw pen for Google Glass. That appears to be a major inspiration for the creation of Microsoft’s tool, too, as it’s mentioned within the patent text.

However, the way this device operates may be quite different to Google’s pen. In a video dug up by Twitter user @ben3094, and released on the same date as the original patent filing, we see what looks very much like the Microsoft AR input device.

It’s not held as you might expect it to be.

Regardless of hand position though, the controllers allow for a trigger and thumb-slide interaction. It seems likely that, depending on the game or application being interacted with, the user may be able to hold it in different configurations for different input methods. In the above video, we even see the user put one of them down momentarily to allow for more detailed hand-interactions in the digital world.

In the images within the patent itself, we can also see what looks like charging contact points at the base of the input device. That would suggest some sort of docking system for charging, though there are no hard details in the patent itself about that aspect of its operation.

Microsoft’s big augmented reality strategy is still unclear, but it does seem to be looking to replace the entire computing environment with new display technology and input mechanisms. Perhaps it will be the next big technology that will have us leave our traditional keyboard and mice setups behind.

Samsung Galaxy Note 8 hands-on review

Research Center:
Samsung Galaxy Note 8

Samsung Galaxy Note owners have always been cut from a different cloth. It was the original Galaxy Note that popularized ‘phablets’ back in 2011, and Note owners love their devices so much they refused to return the recalled Note 7, which had a tendency to catch fire and explode.

In a global study with more than 4,000 Note users, Samsung told Digital Trends that 8 out of 10 Note owners used the word “love” to describe their device, with 85 percent saying they were proud to show it off and recommend it, and 74 percent describing it as the best phone they’ve ever owned. Samsung said Note owners are its most loyal and active customers. They use their phone more, take more pictures, watch more videos, and participate more on social media.

But with great “love” comes great responsibility, and Samsung knows it fell short with the critically acclaimed but ill-fated Note 7.

“Our view of it is we’ve learned from it, we’ve applied those learnings to our new products,” Tim Baxter, president and CEO of Samsung Electronics North America told Digital Trends. “We’re going to continue to deliver this: A high level of innovation and bring that to consumers and enterprise users in ways we’ve done it in the past.”

Samsung believes the well-received Galaxy S8 and S8 Plus have dramatically improved the company’s brand values in customer’s eyes, and that brings us to the Note 7’s successor. In our Galaxy Note 8 hands-on review, we’ve found Samsung has played it safe with its latest flagship. Is it worth a jump from the S8? Probably not, but for Note 5 owners, it’s quite the leap.

An edge-to-edge display, familiar design

Put the Galaxy Note 8 next to the Galaxy S8 Plus, and you’ll notice the same edge-to-edge Infinity Display, also known as a bezel-less design. You get far more screen real-estate than ever before on all four sides, while still keeping a reasonably small frame. The S8 Plus has a 6.2-inch screen, and the Note 8 goes a little higher with a 6.3-inch display. It’s hard to call it a phablet when it’s just marginally bigger than 5.5-inch phones like the Google Pixel.

Julian Chokkattu/Digital Trends

Three features distinguish the Note 8’s design from the S8 Plus: The S Pen stylus located on the bottom, the dual-camera setup on the rear, and the classic angular look the Note series have always had over the curvier Galaxy S series.

The edges of the Note 8 are sharper than the S8, making it look more rectangular. It’s the only noticeable difference on the front. On the rear, the dual-camera setup sticks out of the surface ever-so-slightly, and sadly, the fingerprint sensor is still in the same, awkward, hard-to-reach area up top.

The gorgeous edge-to-edge design makes watching movies and TV more immersive.

The headphone jack is still present on the bottom, next to a USB Type-C charging port and speaker grill. The power button is on the right, and the volume rocker is on the left, above a dedicated Bixby button. You can use the Bixby button to call up Samsung’s virtual assistant, which debuted on the Galaxy S8.

Being used to traditional 5.5-inch smartphones, the Note 8 doesn’t seem much larger or uncomfortable in the hand. In fact, since it’s slightly narrower than many, it’s easier to reach the other side of the phone with your thumb.

The Super AMOLED Infinity Display curves into the rear on the sides of the Note 8, and it has a resolution of 2,960 x 1,440 pixels (521 pixels-per-inch). It gets bright and, like most Samsung phones, the colors are a tad oversaturated. Still, it’s vibrant with deep blacks, and the gorgeous edge-to-edge design makes watching movies and TV more immersive.

Top specs, some new software additions

The Galaxy Note 8 packs many of the same specifications found in other 2017 flagship smartphones, namely Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 835 processor (or Samsung’s Exynos 8895 in international devices). Instead of the 4GB of RAM found on the Galaxy S8, though, the Note 8 comes with 6GB. Whether that much RAM is necessary is still up for debate.

In our brief time with the phone, performance seemed smooth and snappy. Apps opened quickly, scrolling through web pages items felt buttery smooth, and multitasking posed no issues, so far.

Samsung Galaxy Note 8 Compared To

HTC U11

Asus Zenfone 3 Zoom

Moto Z2 Play

Motorola Moto E4

HTC One Remix

Huawei Ascend Mate 2

Samsung Galaxy S5 Active

LG G Flex

Samsung Galaxy Mega 6.3

LG Lucid 2

Motorola Droid Razr HD

Sony Xperia P

Motorola Droid Bionic

Motorola Photon 4G

Google Nexus S

The Note 8 does have a MicroSD card slot, though the storage option in the U.S. will be 64GB. There are 128GB and 256GB versions for the international market.

There’s NFC (Near-field communication) on board, along with MST technology for Samsung Pay. This means you can pay at stores and restaurants using a bump-to-pay terminals or most traditional magnetic credit card readers. IP68 water- and dust-resistance rating means you can feel safe if you drop the phone in the pool.

Despite Android 8.0 Oreo’s release this week, the Galaxy Note 8 will ship with Google’s Android 7.1.1 operating system. Samsung said it is working on bringing the update to the phone, but it has not shared a timeline. Following the company’s timeline on getting Nougat to the Galaxy S7, don’t expect to see Oreo on the Note 8 until early 2018.

Samsung’s TouchWiz user interface is layered over Android on the Note 8 to pretty it up, and it has succeeded. The interface looks sleek and doesn’t feel sluggish. Multitasking is clearly a priority, as one of the major features Samsung has packed in is called App Pair. This is accessed through the Edge Panel, a slide-out tray on the edge of the home screen you can add apps, contacts, or other items to, for quick access. App Pair lets you set two apps you can launch at the same time in split-screen mode. For example, you can set the calendar to launch above the phone dialer app — all with just one tap.

The iris scanning technology from the Note 7, which is used to unlock your phone, is available alongside facial recognition and the fingerprint sensor, giving you more biometric ways to unlock your phone.

S Pen features

Coming from a Galaxy Note 5, the S Pen stylus has been greatly improved, but keep in mind it’s almost the same stylus as the one on the Galaxy Note 7. That means it has a pen tip that’s close to ballpoint size at 0.7mm, and it supports 4,096 points of pressure. This means the S Pen understands when you want to make a line bold or thin line based on how hard you press (thanks to a pressure sensor in the screen).

Julian Chokkattu/Digital Trends

Julian Chokkattu/Digital Trends

The S Pen is tucked away on the bottom edge of the Note 8, and it’s thin and fun to use. It’s the iconic feature of the Note series, and as such it comes with a fun new “Live Messages” feature. This lets you sketch a message or drawing and send it as an animated GIF to your friends or on social media.

You can pin notes to the always-on display, edit them there, and even add up to 100 scrollable pages. The S Pen can also translate text it’s hovering over, magnify the screen text size up to 300 percent, and more. It’s IP68-rated as well, meaning you can use it underwater (not that you would).

A dual-camera setup

Samsung finally has jumped on board the dual-camera bandwagon. The Note 8 features two 12-megapixel cameras — both with optical image stabilization (OIS). The primary lens is a wide-angle, with an f/1.7 aperture, and the telephoto lens has an f/2.4 aperture.

Many dual-camera phones launched this year, and this one doesn’t break much new ground. There’s a Live Focus mode, which is similar to Portrait Mode on the iPhone 7 Plus. It lets you take a photo of a subject with a lot of blur around it, mimicking a DSLR camera. But Live Focus goes a step above Apple’s implementation because you can control how much blur you want, before and after you take the photo. A Dual Capture mode lets you take a close-up photo and a wide-angle photo at the same time, so you don’t have to choose between capturing one or the other in the moment.

Julian Chokkattu/Digital Trends

One of the more impressive additions is OIS on both lenses. This means that when you jump to the 2x optical zoom or higher, your images are less prone to being blurry due to shaky hands.

The front-facing selfie camera is packed with 8 megapixels, and there are Snapchat-like face masks you can add to your face via the camera app.

A safe battery

The battery capacity is smaller than the S8 Plus, from 3,500mAh to 3,300mAh on the Note 8. It’s likely Samsung didn’t want to push it any higher, especially since the battery was the root cause of the Note 7’s failure. Regardless, battery safety is understandably a concern. Samsung provided us with a quote from UL Consumer, an independent third-party organization that inspected the battery on the Note 8.

The Note 8 has gone through the same 8-point battery safety check process as the Galaxy S8.

“We have been closely working with Samsung to make meaningful advancements in the science of smartphone quality and safety evaluation,” said Sajeev Jesudas, president of Consumer at UL. “As a result, the Note 8 has successfully completed a rigorous series of device and battery safety compatibility test protocols.”

The Note 8 has gone through the same 8-point battery safety check process as the Galaxy S8, and you can read more about the process here.

Expect the battery to last a day, if not slightly less. The S8 Plus has a bigger battery and we saw just about a full day’s use out of it. We’ll have to test the Note 8 battery, but we’re not expecting it to go past a full day. Like most Samsung flagship smartphones, the Note 8 supports wireless and fast-charging technologies.

Availability

The Samsung Galaxy Note 8 will come in four colors: Black, orchid gray, blue, and gold. Sadly, the blue and gold will only be available internationally. The black and orchid gray variants are being sold via a wide range of carriers and retailers, and they will be available alongside an unlocked model beginning September 15. Pre-orders will kick off on August 24.

Depending on where you buy it, the price will differ slightly. But wherever you go, it won’t be cheap. Verizon is offering the Note 8 for $960 total, or $40 per month for 24 months. Sprint is also charging $960, while AT&T and T-Mobile are $950 and $930, respectively.

If you pre-order the smartphone from August 24 to September 24, you get the choice of a free Samsung Gear 360 camera, or a Samsung 128GB EVO+ memory card and fast wireless charger bundle. The Note 8 is the second Samsung phone to be compatible with the Dex Station, which lets you turn the smartphone into a desktop interface.

You should note that in its marketing, Samsung will be comparing many of the Note 8’s “improvements” to the Galaxy Note 5, a 2015 smartphone. It’s fair because many Note owners are upgrading from a Note 5 (thanks to the recall), but it’s also ignoring the fact that many of these new features and improvements arrived on the Note 7.

There’s no groundbreaking feature on the Galaxy Note 8. It’s a small improvement over the Galaxy Note 7 sans the explosive battery, and it’s similar to the Galaxy S8 Plus. But it is a good phone, and for people coming from a Note 5, it’s most certainly a worthwhile upgrade.

If you’re looking for a phone now, we consistently keep our best smartphones and best cheap phones lists up to date.

Update: We’ve added the latest pricing information.

Facepalming won’t save you from AI-enhanced facial recognition

Why it matters to you

Teaching computers to better recognize hands promises to make facial recognition technology even better.

As evidenced by Apple’s rumored plans to replace Touch ID with facial recognition technology for the iPhone 8, the ability of computers to seamlessly recognize faces is pretty darn impressive these days. The technology is not infallible, however, and there are still things capable of tripping it up. One example? Hands covering faces, which represents a significant challenge, due to how often a particularly animated hand gesture accidentally obscures a speaker’s face. Fortunately, computer science researchers are here to help.

What researchers from the University of Central Florida and Carnegie Mellon University have developed is a method of dealing with the so-called “facial occlusion” problem. Called Hand2Face (which admittedly sounds a little bit like that early 2000s “talk to the hand” meme), they’ve developed technology that can help improve facial recognition technology for a variety of applications — ranging from security to making machines better understand our emotions.

“Recognizing and working with facial occlusions are among the challenging problems in computer vision,” Behnaz Nojavanasghari, one of the researchers, told Digital Trends. “Hand-over-face occlusions are particularly challenging as hands and faces have similar colors and textures, and there are a wide variety of hand-over-face occlusions and gestures that can happen. To build accurate and generalizable frameworks, our models need to see large and diverse samples in the training phase. Collecting and annotating large corpus of data is time demanding, and limits many to work with smaller volumes of data, which can result in building models that do not generalize well.”

Arxiv

A big part of the team’s research involves building a bigger archive of hand-obscured face images for machines to learn from. This meant creating a system for identifying hands in images in the same way that present facial recognition systems identify eyes, noses, or mouths. Larger data sets can then be built up by getting the computer to automatically composite new images by taking hands from one picture and pasting them onto another. To make the synthesized images appear genuine, the computer color-corrects, scales, and orients the hands to emulate realistic images.

That’s not all, though: the method for identifying hand gestures could also be used, alongside facial expressions, to identify emotions. “In a majority of frameworks, facial occlusions are treated as noise and are discarded from analysis,” Nojavanasghari said. “However, these occlusions can convey meaningful information regarding a person’s affective state and should be used as an additional cue.”

As the need for machines to be able to read our emotions grows (consider robot caregivers, teachers, or even just smarter AI assistants like Alexa and Siri), solving problems like this is only going to become more important. You can read an academic paper describing the work here.

Facepalming won’t save you from AI-enhanced facial recognition

Why it matters to you

Teaching computers to better recognize hands promises to make facial recognition technology even better.

As evidenced by Apple’s rumored plans to replace Touch ID with facial recognition technology for the iPhone 8, the ability of computers to seamlessly recognize faces is pretty darn impressive these days. The technology is not infallible, however, and there are still things capable of tripping it up. One example? Hands covering faces, which represents a significant challenge, due to how often a particularly animated hand gesture accidentally obscures a speaker’s face. Fortunately, computer science researchers are here to help.

What researchers from the University of Central Florida and Carnegie Mellon University have developed is a method of dealing with the so-called “facial occlusion” problem. Called Hand2Face (which admittedly sounds a little bit like that early 2000s “talk to the hand” meme), they’ve developed technology that can help improve facial recognition technology for a variety of applications — ranging from security to making machines better understand our emotions.

“Recognizing and working with facial occlusions are among the challenging problems in computer vision,” Behnaz Nojavanasghari, one of the researchers, told Digital Trends. “Hand-over-face occlusions are particularly challenging as hands and faces have similar colors and textures, and there are a wide variety of hand-over-face occlusions and gestures that can happen. To build accurate and generalizable frameworks, our models need to see large and diverse samples in the training phase. Collecting and annotating large corpus of data is time demanding, and limits many to work with smaller volumes of data, which can result in building models that do not generalize well.”

Arxiv

A big part of the team’s research involves building a bigger archive of hand-obscured face images for machines to learn from. This meant creating a system for identifying hands in images in the same way that present facial recognition systems identify eyes, noses, or mouths. Larger data sets can then be built up by getting the computer to automatically composite new images by taking hands from one picture and pasting them onto another. To make the synthesized images appear genuine, the computer color-corrects, scales, and orients the hands to emulate realistic images.

That’s not all, though: the method for identifying hand gestures could also be used, alongside facial expressions, to identify emotions. “In a majority of frameworks, facial occlusions are treated as noise and are discarded from analysis,” Nojavanasghari said. “However, these occlusions can convey meaningful information regarding a person’s affective state and should be used as an additional cue.”

As the need for machines to be able to read our emotions grows (consider robot caregivers, teachers, or even just smarter AI assistants like Alexa and Siri), solving problems like this is only going to become more important. You can read an academic paper describing the work here.

Samsung hypes Gear S4 reveal at IFA as it leaks Fit 2 Pro activity tracker

Why it matters to you

Samsung’s newest smartwatches and fitness trackers are on the horizon and you will have your first serious look at them next week.

Most of the Samsung news this week has been focused on the company’s new Galaxy Note 8, but the IFA Conference will play host to more reveals from the South Korean company on September 1. Samsung Mobile president DJ Koh confirmed to CNBC that the next generation of Gear watches, likely including the Gear S4, will debut on stage in Berlin in a week’s time.

That’s not all the news on the wearable front, either. Hours prior to the Note 8 reveal, Samsung published a product page for its unannounced Gear Fit 2 Pro activity tracker. The leak was noticed by Venture Beat’s Evan Blass and surprisingly Samsung has yet to take down the page on its Malaysian website.

Samsung Gear Fit 2 Pro

Samsung

Not much is known about the Gear S4 at the moment. In June, we learned Samsung filed a patent for a special phone case for charging a smartwatch and speculated as to whether it could appear in time for the Gear S4 unveiling. We won’t know for sure until IFA rolls around.

The story is much different for the Fit 2 Pro, as Samsung has confirmed a number of features. The new tracker will sport improved water resistance at roughly 50 meters, as well as a new Speedo app for swimmers, and a revised strap design to help it stay put on your wrist.

In other ways, the Fit 2 Pro carries over many of the characteristics of last year’s model. There is a 200mAh battery on board, promising up to four days on a charge. The 216 x 432 curved AMOLED display remains unchanged, and the same watch faces already available for download on the Galaxy App Store can be used again. Blass has tweeted a hint toward a possible $200 price point. We expect to see it at IFA alongside the Gear S4, if it doesn’t get officially revealed beforehand.

It is not surprising Samsung would choose IFA as the destination to reveal these products, considering when it has unveiled previous Gear watches in the past. Last year, the Gear S3 was launched in August, though it did not begin shipping until November. There was some speculation Samsung would reveal one of the wearables alongside the Note 8 on August 23, though no announcement came.

Keep an eye on our hub for all the news out of IFA as we enter September.

Where to buy the Samsung Galaxy Note 8

Where can I buy the Galaxy Note 8?

You won’t be short of choices when it comes to buying the Galaxy Note 8, no matter what country you’re in or the carrier you’re on.

The Galaxy Note 8 is expensive, for sure, and that means people are going to be cross-shopping a bit to see what carrier or retailer can give them the best deal. Here are all of the most popular places to buy the Galaxy Note 8 around the world, and how much they’re charging.

Note: This post is being continuously updated with new information as carriers and retailers announce the details of their Note 8 sales.

U.S.

T-Mobile

Pricing for the T-Mobile Note 8 breaks down like this: $210 down, and an additional $30 per month for 24 months. Quick math will tell you that’s a full retail price of $930 if you want to buy it outright. If you’re part of T-Mobile’s Jump! On Demand program, you’ll be able to grab it for $0 down, but also spend $39 per month instead. You can choose between black and orchid grey, just like the other carriers.

T-Mobile is of course participating in Samsung’s promotional giveaway for those who pre-order, offering a free Gear 360 camera (regularly $229) or an SD card and wireless charger ($190) when you pick up your Note 8.

See at T-Mobile

Verizon

The big red carrier will have the Midnight Black and Orchid Grey available for pre order beginning August 24th. The phone will be available for $960 total, or $40 spread over 24 months. For a limited time, users will be able to get a bundled 128GB SD card and Fast Wireless Charger (a $190 value) or a bundled Samsung Gear 360 camera (valued at $230). Users will also be able to save $100 on the Gear s3 with a purhcase of the Galaxy Note 8 or S8. Users can also save $50 on a wireless charger, portable charger and car charger bundle.

Verizon will also have the new Gear VR headset with controller online and in stores beginning September 15 for $130.

See at Verizon

Xfinity Mobile

Comcast’s mobile arm will have the Note 8 beginning September 15. The carrier has yet to announce a price, preorder details or bundle information. We will update this section when those become available.

Best Buy

Best Buy will carry the AT&T, Verizon, Sprint and U.S. Unlocked versions of the Note 8 in Midnight Black and Orchid Grey. The pricing is in line with what the carriers themselves are charging, and the unlocked version will be available for $930.

See at Best Buy

AT&T

AT&T will begin preorders on August 24th, and the Note 8 will be $31.67 per month for 30 months, or $950 total. AT&T is also offering a buy-one, get-one free deal on the Note 8 when it is purchased on AT&T Next with a DIRECTV subscription. Customers with DIRECTV will also qualify for $500 off a Samsung TV when they purchase the Note 8. AT&T will also offer the Gear S2 for 99 cents or Gear S3 for $50 on a 2-year agreement when customers buy a Note 8 on AT&T Next. Finally, AT&T is letting customers trade in existing devices for up to $200 in credits.

AT&T also notes the Note 8 will be one of the first devices compatible with its “5G” network.

See at AT&T

Sprint

Sprint has not yet announced pricing, but will open preorders on August 24.

See at Sprint

UK

Carphone Wireless

Carphone Wireless will have the Note 8 in Midnight Black or Maple Gold for £9.99 down and £64, or £869 up front for the 64GB variant.

See at Carphone Wireless

Canada

Telus

Telus has the Midnight Black and Deep Sea Blue 64GB Note 8’s for (finish consuming any liquids) $1299 outright, or $550 or $750 down and the rest of the cost spread over a 2 year contract. Canadian customers are still eligible for the 128GB Micro SD card and Fast Wireless Charger bundle for those that order in the first month.

See at Telus

Samsung Galaxy Note 8

• Galaxy Note 8 hands-on preview
• CompleteGalaxy Note 8 specs
• All Galaxy Note 8 news
• Join our Galaxy Note 8 forums

Samsung Galaxy Note 8 vs. Galaxy Note 5: Should you upgrade?

Is it time to move on to the new Note?

With the quick rise and fall of the Galaxy Note 7, there’s a huge number of people out there with a Galaxy Note 5 today who have been dying to get their hands on something fresh. The Note 5 is, with little argument, still a strong phone today — but with contracts and financing plans coming to an end two years after the Note 5 came out, the upgrade cycle is ready to set those people on to something new. At the same time, early adopters who would have (or actually had) bought a Note 7 have been extra twitchy waiting for a refresh.

Note users, on average, are very likely to want to upgrade to a new Note, not just a new phone. And now the time has come, with the Galaxy Note 8. So is this the right upgrade for a Note 5 user? Or has the time finally come to consider a different kind of phone? Let’s break it down.

What’s changed and improved

The biggest (literally) and most noticeable change in this two-year upgrade is the size of the Note 8. In moving to a new 18.5:9 aspect ratio and going with a larger overall screen, the Note 8 is much taller and heavier than the Note 5. At almost a centimeter taller and 14% heavier, the Note 8 is pretty hefty, even though its curved sides and slightly narrower footprint help a little in terms of grip. Chances are if you’re used to a Note you’ll be able to adapt to the larger size, but know that you will be going considerably larger here.

Bigger, better-specced, waterproof and filled with new little features.

But for that size change, you get more inside the phone and more of a better screen to look at. The internals have bumped notably, if not considerably — a more efficient and powerful processor, higher base storage of 64GB, an extra 2GB of RAM and a 10% larger battery are all big perks. The display is nicer, for sure, especially in its color saturation and peak brightness — but the Note 5’s display still holds up well today, so you’re probably not scrambling for an upgrade just because of that.

The addition of IP68 water resistance is a huge improvement that everyone can enjoy, as is the move to a USB-C connector — at least after you get over the initial pain of swapping out cables and accessories for the new port. The Note 8 also adds iris scanning and face detection for a more seamless unlocking experience … but in a trade-off, you have to give up your well-positioned fingerprint sensor for one high up on the back of the phone that’s tougher to reach when you do need it — is that worth it? It’s probably a wash.

More: Complete Galaxy Note 8 specs

In the no-compromise addition category is the rear camera improvements. The Note 8’s camera is actually lower resolution, but has a faster lens and larger pixels that together handily beat the Note 5’s shooter (which in itself has aged very well). Then you get the secondary camera, which lets you zoom without losing resolution and also take neat photos that blur the background artificially for a pro-like look.

What hasn’t changed much

Perhaps unsurprisingly, there are many things that haven’t changed much in the Note world in the last two years. Samsung’s S Pen, while slightly improved in terms of tracking, hasn’t made a monumental leap forward from the Note 5 to the Note 8. In the same vein, the new suite of S Pen-focused software is good … but much of it has actually already come to the Note 5 in its Android 7.0 Nougat update. There are just a handful of new software tweaks that you aren’t likely to see on the Note 5, but none of them are game-changing.

The Note 5’s hardware and software actually hold up today — but the future isn’t so certain.

The same actually stands for much of the software experience. Assuming your Note 5 has the Nougat update, you have perhaps 90% of the same experience as a Note 8 out of the box. That’s worth a golf clap in Samsung’s direction for keeping an older device up to date, but it also means you don’t need to go clamoring for the Note 8 just to get new software. That will, of course, change in the near future as the Note 5 is likely at the end of its life in terms of major software updates. The Note 8 will be one of the first phones to get Android 8.0 Oreo, and the Note 5’s prospects of getting much more than a few future security patches are slim.

There’s no doubt that the Note 8’s hardware is great, and we already covered some of the spec and feature differences included in it, but hey the Note 5 is no slouch — even by 2017 standards. The metal and glass found on that 2015 device feels just as solid as today, if not more so considering how much more exposed aluminum there is, coupled with a flat display glass that’s less susceptible to damage.

Should you upgrade?

Samsung does a fantastic job each year in designing its new phones so that they, by and large, are notable upgrades from their predecessors without losing much along the way. Looking at the Note 5 to the Note 8, it’s almost all upside: a larger (nicer) display, better specs, improved cameras, waterproofing, and of course the expectation of future software updates. On the downside, if you could call it that, it is a considerably larger phone and the fingerprint sensor move can be a vexing one.

If you’re a Note 5 owner that’s still proud to have a Note, buying the Note 8 is a clear decision that you shouldn’t hesitate on.

The bigger question, as always, is for those who are happy with their Note 5 but not necessarily in love with it and would potentially consider something different. The Galaxy S8 offers the whole experience, minus the S Pen and dual cameras, in a more compact package for those who have grown tired of the Note 5’s size. Since 2015 the competition from LG, HTC and others has also caught up quite a bit, offering larger devices with great specs and many of the same features — again, sans stylus.

If the Note 8 price makes your eyes water, and you’re not tied to the S Pen, you should look at the field of great smartphones today rather than jump right to the new Note.

Samsung Galaxy Note 8

• Galaxy Note 8 hands-on preview
• CompleteGalaxy Note 8 specs
• All Galaxy Note 8 news
• Join our Galaxy Note 8 forums

You can grab a refurbished Samsung Galaxy S5 for $100 today only

Your focus may be on the Galaxy Note 8 today, but that doesn’t mean this deal from our friends at Thrifter is worth missing out on!

While Samsung’s Galaxy S5 may be on the older side when it comes to smartphones, it is still quite a capable device. Today only, you can pick up a refurbished 16GB version of the device for just $99.99 in your choice of black or white from Woot!. Originally released in 2014, the Galaxy S5 has a 5.1-inch 1080p display, 2GB of RAM, 16GB of internal storage, a 12MP camera and has a removable battery so you can easily swap in a new one if you need additional power during the day.

Being a GSM unlocked unit in refurbished condition, meaning there may be some scratches and dings. The devices have been restored to full working order, and Woot is backing them with a 90-day limited warranty. If you need a new phone for the kids, or want something durable that you don’t have to worry much about, you won’t want to miss out on this deal.

See at Woot

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For more great deals be sure to check out our friends at Thrifter now!