Samsung Pay delayed until September
Mobile payments are the latest trend to be fiercely contested by mobile OEMs with the likes of Apple and Google offering their own mobile payment systems. Samsung introduced its Samsung Pay mobile payments service alongside the Galaxy S6 at Mobile World Congress in February but has been forced to delay the launch until September.
Samsung Pay was meant to launch next month but Bloomberg reports that the Korean manufacturer has had to push the launch back its initial launch plans. In a call to investors today, Samsung Executive Vice President, Rhee In Jong, said the service will launch with the company’s next high-end mobile device, which is expected to be the Galaxy Note 5. While it is initially launching Samsung Pay in the US and Korea, the company has confirmed that it will start rolling out in other markets – including Europe, China, Australia and South America – later this year.
A look at mobile payment’s big three: Android vs Google vs Samsung
To build its payment solution, Samsung bought LoopPay inc to help develop the technology and built Samsung Pay in conjunction partnership with MasterCard and Visa on the new service. One feature that aims to set it apart from other payment solutions is that it does not require a in-shop contactless payment solution to work and instead, is compatible with 90% of magnetic strip card readers.
Claire Kim, an analyst at Seoul-based Daishin Securities Co, said:
“The new service will likely be deployed on its next Galaxy Note device. The key is how fast Samsung will be able to expand the service to lower-end devices.”
Apple launched Apple Pay alongside the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus in September last year and since then, it has steadily increased its share of the mobile payments market. Apple Pay is limited to the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus – along with the company’s first wearable, the Apple Watch – but despite this limitation, the service is close to owning 10% of the market.
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Apple Pay won’t be the only challenger to Samsung Pay as last week, Google announced Android Pay during its I/O 2015 keynote. The new payment system will launch later this year alongside its new Android M platform and turns any smartphone application into a wallet that can be used in both physical and online shops. Android Pay will be compatible with around 700,000 stores in the US, allowing it to pose a very real challenge to Samsung‘s aims for Samsung Pay.
Google I/O 2015:
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Samsung hopes that 15 to 20 percent of its smartphone customers will use the service and as the largest smartphone manufacturer, these targets should help reverse the company’s financial decline. Whether the delay will prove costly remains to be seen but its compatibility with existing infrastructure should certainly be a positive for the Korean manufacturer.
One Chinese brand makes a quarter of the world’s wearable devices
Which company do you think is the fast-rising upstart in the wearable world? Fitbit? Jawbone? None of the above, if you ask IDC. It estimates that China’s Xiaomi claimed 24.6 percent of the wearable device market in the first quarter of 2015, which is no mean feat when the company didn’t even start shipping its first wrist-worn gadget, the Mi Band, until the second half of last year. That still amounts to just 2.8 million devices, but it was enough to shrink the market share for virtually everyone else, including industry leader Fitbit as well as Garmin, Samsung and Jawbone. And Samsung is the only smartwatch maker on the list, we’d add. LG, Motorola, Pebble and other early entrants are lumped into the “others” group.
As to why Xiaomi did so well? Analysts don’t go into detail, but the Mi Band’s thrifty $15 price no doubt helped, as did Xiaomi’s big presence in the Chinese smartphone space. The real question is whether or not it can keep that spot. While there aren’t official Apple Watch sales figures, IDC believes that it’s likely to become the benchmark for wearables, “fairly or not.” The Cupertino crew won’t necessarily knock Fitbit or Xiaomi out of their top spots, but its sheer clout could easily make it a major contender.
Filed under: Wearables, Mobile, Samsung
Source: IDC
Samsung posts landing page for the Galaxy S6 Active
Despite us not receiving an official announcement from AT&T, Samsung has launched a new page on its website showcasing the design and specifications of the long-awaited Galaxy S6 Active.
Hit the break for the Active’s full spec list.
- 5.1-inch Super AMOLED QHD display
- Exynos octa-core processor
- 3GB of RAM
- 32GB of internal storage (non-expandable)
- Mali-T760 GPU
- 16-megapixel rear-facing camera
- IP68 Dust and Waterproofing
- 2,550 mAh non-removable battery
Unlike the standard Galaxy S6, the Active ships with a dedicated button in the top left-hand corner of the device assigned to the new Activity Zone application, which provides users with a Barometer, Compass and S Health information.
If you’d like to find out more about the Galaxy S6 Active, click the source link below.
Source: Samsung
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New Samsung Exynos 7850 processor surfaces
An upcoming device from TCL appeared on benchmark site GFXBench, revealing the presence of an unannounced Samsung Exynos processor. The handset, which is labeled as P650M, features the Exynos 7850 processor. The octa-core processor is clocked at 1.6GHz and paired with 2GB of RAM.
The Samsung Exynos 7850 is expected to compete with the Qualcomm Snapdragon 615 and MediaTek Mt675x for a place in mid-range handsets. The company has not made any comments regarding the Exynos 7850, but something could be on the horizon.
Hit the break to see the handset’s specifications on GFXBench.
Other specifications for the P650M include a 5.6-inch display (1920×1080), 16GB internal storage, 13MP / 5MP cameras, and Android 5.0.2 Lollipop.
Source: The Gadgets Freak
Via: SamMobile
Come comment on this article: New Samsung Exynos 7850 processor surfaces
Slickwraps sends a Galaxy S6 into space and records the entire journey
Earlier today, Slickwraps took to its official YouTube channel to share a video of a shiny new Galaxy S6 hitching a ride into space dressed in one of its gorgeous natural bamboo skins.
The handset was tied to a weather balloon and travelled 122, 264 feet into the air whilst recording the entire 3-hour journey in full HD. It then descended back to Earth for the footage to be recovered and exhibited.
Check it out in the awesome video below:
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Large smartphones rule the roost in latest consumer satisfaction survey
When Samsung first came out with a large smartphone, the Galaxy Note, it was derided by many as being too big and spawned the term “phablet” as consumers tried to describe a device that seemed to land in between a phone and a tablet. A few years later though we see several companies producing smartphones in this category and even Apple is selling one, the iPhone 6 Plus, now. In a recent survey of 20 smartphones, consumers ranked these large smartphones high with the top three firmly coming from the “phablet” camp.
Leading the way in consumer satisfaction was the Samsung Galaxy Note 4 with a score of 86 out of 100 on the American Consumer Satisfaction Index survey of 70,000 participants. Half of the devices tied for second place with a score of 82 were large smartphones with both the Galaxy Note 3 and the iPhone 6 Plus reaching this position. Close behind in seventh place was the LG G3 with a score of 80. Overall, consumers were quite happy with their smartphones as the industry achieved some of its highest scores ever.
One factor that may have helped these larger smartphones find their way to the top of the rankings is their bigger batteries. Since the devices are larger, manufacturers can pack in heftier batteries that can last quite a bit longer than typical smartphone batteries. Poor battery life is a weak point for the industry according to the participants surveyed, so being able to outlast others helped keep consumers happy.
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Samsung Galaxy Tab S2 8.0 specs leaked on TENAA
In further light of rumours, Samsung Galaxy Tab S2 8.0 has been spotted at China’s Telecommunication Equipment Certification Center (TENAA). The bold successor of last year’s Samsung Galaxy Tab S 8.4 has been labeled with the model number SM-T715C.
Reportedly, it features an 8.0 inch AMOLED display spanning 2048 × 1536 pixels with a 4:3 aspect ratio with dimensions of 198.2 × 134.5 × 5.4 (mm). Weighing at just 260 grams and 5.4 mm thin, the Galaxy Tab S2 8.0 could well be the thinnest tablet on the market.
Talking about hardware specs, it looks to run on a 1.9GHz octa-core CPU (probably an Exynos 7420), 3GB of RAM, and 16GB of internal memory (expandable up to a 128GB). It sports an 8MP main shooter and a 2MP front-facing camera. Connectivity wise, the tablet shows support for LTE networks.
According to the certification, the Galaxy Tab S 2.0 runs on Android 5.0.2 Lollipop but we can likely expect Android M (or whatever it will be called) at the time of launch. Of course nothing can be said until Samsung officially announces it. We can expect it to be available in two screen sizes of 8.0 and 9.7 inches later this year.
Check out the image gallery below. It might not look like much in the images, but then again we know devices look much better in reality than in TENAA’s pictures.
The post Samsung Galaxy Tab S2 8.0 specs leaked on TENAA appeared first on AndroidGuys.
Galaxy Note 4 beats iPhone 6 for customer satisfaction
Owners of the Galaxy Note 4 are the most satisfied consumers according to a new survey conducted by the American Satisfaction Index (ACSI). The latest survey from ACSI reveals that the Galaxy Note 4 tops the chart with 86% customer satisfaction while the Galaxy Note 3 comes joint second with the iPhone 6 Plus, Galaxy S5 and iPhone 6.
The survey shows that customers using the Galaxy Note 4 – which was released in October last year – are the most satisfied and despite the handset being several months old, it still ticks all the boxes for customers. Interestingly, the top six positions in the survey are taken by either Samsung or Apple and these two companies top the list for manufacturers.
Looking past the top of the list, both Samsung and Apple still dominate but Motorola, HTC and LG all feature on the list as well. The omission of any Sony devices from the top of the satisfaction survey suggests that Sony’s devices – which are not widely available in the US – don’t satisfy customers as much as its rivals do. Given that Sony’s smartphone sales performance has been dwindling over the past 12 to 18 months, the satisfaction survey reveals that the company has a lot to do to keep the key US market satisfied.
Looking at the list of manufacturers, the swing between Samsung and Apple – resulting in both companies tying for the top spot – could be due to less than stellar Galaxy S5 sales and Apple finally delivering the bigger screen its customers have been asking for.
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Motorola‘s third spot shows that the company’s handsets – and in particular the Moto X, which can be customised to your specification through Moto Maker – offer the package that customers are looking for. BlackBerry‘s sales figures have also been steadily declining over the past few years but the company’s customers are the fourth most satisfied in the US.
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Moving past the top four and HTC and Nokia may not have sold as many devices as their rivals but they came fifth and sixth in the list respectively: for HTC at least it shows that customers certainly do enjoy its HTC One range and for Nokia, it shows that despite Windows Phone being a much smaller OS than Android and iOS, its customers are certainly satisfied.
It’s worth noting that none of the latest flagships – the LG G4, Galaxy S6, Galaxy S6 Edge and HTC One M9 – had been released to the market when the survey was conducted, hence why they do not make an appearance on the smartphone list. The next survey will reveal whether Samsung’s switch in design with its latest smartphones will deliver higher satisfaction than Apple’s handsets.
Samsung Galaxy E7 and E5 to be updated to Android 5.0 Lollipop in Q3 2015
Samsung has been busy rolling out Android Lollipop to its high-end devices and now it looks like the company’s mid-rangers are in for the update treatment too. According to SamMobile, the Samsung Galaxy E5 and Galaxy E7 are scheduled for an Android 5.0 Lollipop update sometime in the third quarter of the year.
The Android 5.0 Lollipop update will include all of the Android features and changes found on Samsung high-end products and will also give the smartphones a bit of a face-lift, thanks to Material Design inspired elements found in the new Touchwiz. Speaking of which, Samsung’s latest iteration of its TouchWiz UI seems quite improved over previous versions, and the mid-range E5 and E7 could benefit greatly from Samsung’s performance optimizations. Although we will probably have to wait until Q3 2015 for the full list of changes heading to Samsung’s latest mid-rangers.
The Galaxy E5 and Galaxy E7 were launched by Samsung at the beginning of the year in India and have apparently been selling rather well in emerging markets. Although the handsets don’t pack in all of Samsung’s cutting edge high-end features, the E5 and E7 do include Ultra-Power Saving Mode, Private Mode and Multi screen software features, along with larger Super AMOLED displays and 5MP front facing “selfie” camera sensor hardware.
Although Google’s new Android M operating system will be close to its official release later in the year, it is promising to see that Samsung is intent on providing substantial updates for its full range of smartphones going forward. Perhaps Samsung could have been a little quicker, but Q3 isn’t that long to wait anymore.
Another picture of the Galaxy S6 Active surfaces
Following on from the leaked photograph and press renders of the Samsung Galaxy S6 Active from last month, Even Blass (aka @evleaks) has posted another shot of the rugged, durable smartphone (see above).
The latest image looks pretty much identical to the other two, heavily suggesting that this is indeed the final design. The more durable case and physical buttons results in a larger overall footprint, as is typical for Samsung’s Active series of smartphones. It also looks like those physical buttons come at the expense of the regular Galaxy S6’s fingerprint scanner, although the heart rate monitor remains placed at the top next to the camera module.
Previously, rumored specifications hinted that the handset will feature a 5.1-inch Quad HD Super AMOLED display, a 14nm Exynos 7420 processor, a 16MP rear-facing camera, a 5MP front-facing camera and a substantial 3500mAh battery. The regular Galaxy S6 only has a 2550mAh battery capacity, so the Active variant could see a large leap in its battery life.
A handset with the model number SM-G870A was spotted passing through the FCC in mid-May, which is likely linked to the handset. As such, we are expecting to hear something official about the Samsung Galaxy S6 Active sometime rather soon, as we are still waiting on price and availability information.
Are you planning on picking one up?
AIVAnet 