Samsung’s round Galaxy Gear A smartwatch delayed
While there hasn’t been any news on a product launch just yet, sources at SamMobile allegedly revealed that Samsung’s next Gear smartwatch, the rounded Gear A, has been delayed until later this year.
SamMobile says that the Gear A will be launching alongside the Galaxy Note 5 at IFA later this year, which makes sense, since Samsung’s smartwatches have a history of launching alongside major devices. However, the publication does say that a launch time frame is still in discussion. That said, launching alongside the Galaxy Note 5 is not set in stone, yet.
If the rumor is true, Samsung is making a wise decision, as it would do the Korean tech giant no good to launch the Gear A around Apple’s smartwatch debut.
Keep in mind that this is just rumor, and is by no means a confirmation of a guaranteed launch at IFA. The only thing we really know for a fact is that it’s in the works, and it’ll be interesting to see what the Gear A brings to the table, especially with Googles recent Games in Motion sample.
Smartwatches are quickly becoming the norm to see in the news. Do you have one? What do you think of it? Let us know in the comments.
source: SamMobile
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Get a limited edition set of Avenger-themed cases when you purchase a Galaxy Note 4
Samsung is well-known for having a well-funded marketing department, the results of which were seen in the latest Marvel movie, the Avengers: Age of Ultron which saw the Galaxy S6 on display. Now, Samsung has leveraged the movie again, except this time, it’s offering a complimentary set of 4 Avengers-themed limited edition cases with every Galaxy Note 4 purchased.
The limited edition cases have a retail value of $200, and so long as your Galaxy Note 4 purchase is dated between May 4th and June 1st, you will be eligible to receive the Avenger themed cases. The other main requirement is that you must reside in the US. In case you were wondering, the 4 cases are themed after the Hulk, Ironman, Captain America and Thor. Black Widow and Hawkeye did not receive any love from Samsung for this promotion.
All you have to do is enter your email address and fill in the required details to claim your set of Avengers-themed cases. Remember that this is a limited offer with a limited amount of stock, so the sooner you submit your details the better. Click the source below to get started.
Source: SamsungPromotions
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Buy a Note 4 in the US, get four Avengers-themed cases for free
Samsung’s and Marvel’s co-branded marketing campaign is in full swing. Both companies have blockbusters products on the market right now and both want to milk as much profit as possible out of them. We’re still waiting for that red Iron Man special edition of the Galaxy S6 Edge, but Samsung and Marvel haven’t (completely) forgot about the Galaxy Note 4 either.
If you’re major of age and residing in the US, buying a Note 4 will net you a set of Avengers-themed cases for the stylus-equipped phablet. The four free cases are said to be worth $200 and feature artwork related to Iron Man, Captain America, Thor, Hulk, and presumably the other superheroes in Marvel’s Avengers lineup.
To qualify for the promo, you need to purchase a Note 4 by the end of June 1, 2015, and then submit your information on this site. Only 4,300 case sets are available, so you may want to hurry if you want to clad your Note 4 in superhero attire. Within 30 days of your submission, Samsung will check and approve it, and then ship your free case pack. The fine print for the promo is available here.
We wouldn’t be surprised if Samsung had similar promos for the Galaxy S6 and S6 Edge, the stars of its current lineup. Regardless of that, you will be able to buy Avenger accessories for your device. The Korean company already has a series of Avengers themes in its S6 theme store, so you can style your phone after your favorite superhero both inside and out.
Qualcomm talks Samsung, the Snapdragon 810, and overheating issues
Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 810 processor has been the hottest processor to talk about this year, no pun intended. But despite all of the rumors about overheating issues, the company has remained mostly silent about what was going on with their flagship CPU. Qualcomm’s VP of marketing, Tim McDonough, has finally stepped up to try and explain their side of things and exactly what’s going on behind the scenes with these chips.
According to McDonough, there were never any problems with overheating in commercial devices that used the 810. The keyword there is commercial: nearly every device that has ever been on the market has gone through some bumpy testing stages, whether we’re talking about phones, tablets, TVs, video games, you name it. Sometimes you’ll get some general bugs and glitches, sometimes you’ll run into strange performance issues, and other times? Yep, overheating problems. That’s probably one of the most common issues test devices will face at one point or another, and 95% it’s ironed out before launch.
That’s exactly the point Qualcomm is trying to make here. Two major devices, including the HTC One M9 and LG G Flex 2, are both notable for experiencing heat problems. Most reviews on the internet point this out, but according to Qualcomm, most of those devices weren’t running software builds made for consumers. It’s a pretty credible argument, since one of HTC’s software updates fixed the massive overheating problems that the device had, but it did so at the cost of performance over sustained loads. The Snapdragon 810 is a very, very fast processor, so that’s not something that’s immediately noticeable from day-to-day use, but newer benchmarks have noted that the processor throttles much more aggressively over longer periods of time, which isn’t a perfect solution.
McDoNough’s second point touches on LG’s choice of processors for their flagship phones. As we all know, LG opted for the Snapdragon 808 over the 810 in their G4, which was a very coincidental move after the G Flex 2’s overheating rumors. Apparently, those things are completely unrelated, though, as Qualcomm typical works with manufacturers about 18 months prior to the launch of a phone. LG decided to go with the 808 because it was designed for 2k playback, while the 810 scales for 4k playback. Why they would build for the G Flex 2 to playback 4k natively but leave that feature out of their “flagship” G4 is beyond me, but that’s Qualcomm’s answer and they’re sticking to it. We’ll honestly probably never know what actually went on behind the scenes with LG’s crop of 2015 devices and their choice of processors.
All of this explaining really makes you wonder how these rumors got started in the first place if there was no basis in reality for any of them. McDonough speculated that if another manufacturer was planning on launching on a major device with their own, in-house processors, they would stand to gain quite a bit from seeing the competition suffer from “overheating issues.” He didn’t explicitly say anything Samsung related, and refused to be drawn into any rumor-mongering, but, you know. The writing’s on the wall.
What are your thoughts on Qualcomm’s defense of their Snapdragon 810 processor? Are you buying it, or do you think it’s some mid-year damage control? Personally, I think that while some of the issues have been overblown, it’s pretty obvious that were some performance and heat issues that Qualcomm, LG, and HTC knew about. It’s acceptable to send out review units with pre-release software builds, but it’s usually a good idea to iron out the major kinks a device will have ahead of time, since they’ll have the most impact on early buyers. I don’t really buy LG’s excuse for using the 808 for 2k playback, either, especially since HTC went with the 810 on a device with a lower resolution screen. Tough to say whether or not Samsung had anything to do with the rumors spreading, but they’ve clearly been itching to use their own Exynos chips in all of their devices for a few years now. But then again, I’d bet that most consumers are buying the Galaxy S6 in droves because of things like the camera and design of the device, and I doubt that HTC is struggling with the M9 because of choice of processor. Sure, it might sway a handful of consumers that did a little research before heading to the store to pick out their device, but not enough to cause the disparity we’ve seen so far this year.
Maybe Qualcomm should just try to poach some of the guys from Samsung’s marketing team.
source: Forbes
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Giant phones are finally a big deal in the US
Extra-large phones have been hot stuff in some countries for a long while, but not so much in the US. The country must have had a change of heart in the past few months, however. Kantar Worldpanel estimates that gigantic devices jumped from 6 percent of American smartphone sales in the first quarter of last year to 21 percent in early 2015. Why? If you ask Kantar, the launch of the iPhone 6 Plus was partly responsible — it racked up 44 percent of all supersized phone sales despite being just a few months old. The analyst group isn’t saying much in public how other brands were doing, although it’s safe to say that category pioneer Samsung grabbed a large slice of the pie thanks to high-powered behemoths like the Galaxy Note 4.
Android still rules the roost worldwide, although there’s signs that this is changing ever so slightly. Google’s mobile OS was the top choice in the five biggest European countries with a 68.4 percent share, but the iPhone grew its stake by 1.8 percent. The biggest leap was in China, where Apple’s gangbuster iPhone sales saw it grow from 17.9 percent of the market in early 2014 to 26.1 percent a year later. Reportedly, that’s due in part to Apple courting more than just well-off buyers. While Android still dominates the budget space (35 percent of European Android buyers said price was a major factor), it doesn’t have the free rein that it enjoyed in the past.
Photo by Will Lipman.
Filed under: Cellphones, Mobile, Apple, Samsung
Source: Kantar Worldpanel (1), (2)
What does the color of your new Galaxy S6 say about you?
The Samsung Galaxy S6 and Galaxy S6 edge were released in five colors initially which, outside of Motorola’s Moto Maker devices, is a relatively wide variety. With this many options, Samsung hopes buyers will find a color they are attracted to which may make sales a bit easier. A buyer’s color choice could also reveal a little bit about their personality according to British psychologist Donna Dawson.
Dawson recently provided brief profiles of the type of person who might select each of the colors Samsung makes available. Some of the highlights include:
- Gold Platinum – “People who choose gold as their preferred color are striving for prosperity, financial success and general contentment. They tend to be luxury-loving and enjoy the finer things of life, indulging whenever they can (sometimes even when they cannot!). They are outgoing, warm, and enjoy the company of others. They also tend to have strong intuition.”
- Green Emerald – “People who choose green as their preferred color tend to be balanced, loyal, hard-working, honest, benevolent and concerned for others. They tend to be (or aspire to be) good citizens with a highly-developed moral sense and a desire for simplicity.”
- Blue Topaz – “People who choose Samsung’s Blue Topaz as their preferred color are self-confident, fastidious, discriminating, sensitive, exacting, and intuitive. These people really need to be loved, and also long for personal security. The brightness of the color will attract people who are already self-confident.”
- White Pearl – “People who choose white as their preferred color tend to be status-seeking extroverts. Because white contains all the other colors, it is the other dual-natured color apart from black. It can represent wisdom, honesty and purity; but also brashness, an open nature and over-confidence.”
- Black Sapphire – “…the person who chooses black as their preferred color is striving to be recognized for their individualism, independence and their ability to stay aloof from the crowd, to play their cards close to their chest, and to be a leader. They are also hinting at their sexual allure and power, as well as their hidden depths.”
Based on your color preference for a smartphone, do you think Dawson’s descriptions are accurate?
source: Samsung
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Samsung PRO Plus and EVO Plus memory cards to launch this month
Samsung announced two new SD and microSD memory solutions, the PRO Plus and the EVO Plus. Both are set to launch some time this month.
The company’s PRO Plus memory solution is designed to handle high-res photos and 4k content from all of your usual devices–DSLRs, smartphones, tablets, and almost anything that can use a SD or microSD card. This particular card only comes in 32GB and 64GB models, but has excellent read and write speeds up to 95MB/s and 90MB/s, respectively.
As for the EVO Plus memory card, it is similar to the PRO Plus, but is lower spec’d. It is equipped to meet your day-to-day use–photos, video content, you name it. However, the read and write speeds are a lot slower at 80MB/s and 20MB/s, respectively. The EVO Plus cards are available in 32GB, 64GB, and 128GB models; perfect for the traveler who doesn’t have access to a consistent Internet connection.
There was no word on pricing, but they will launch this month. Both seem like excellent solutions for expandable memory, especially the PRO Plus and its ability to efficiently store and transfer 4K content.
What do you think of Samsung’s new memory solutions? Let us know in the comments below!
source: Samsung Tomorrow
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Samsung starts pushing out Lollipop OTA for the Galaxy S5 in Austra, Czech Republic & Italy
If you own a Galaxy S5 and live in Austria, the Czech Republic or Italy, you may want to pin your ears back as Samsung has just started pushing out the long-awaited Android 5.0. update to the handset. In terms of added functionality, this upgrade transports the latest build of Lollipop to the handset, in addition to a truckload of bug fixes and stability improvements.
All the changes you’d expect to find are bundled into this upgrade, including support for multiple accounts, improved notifications, a smoother multitasking experience and the recently-announced Material Design guidelines.
As is customary with all manufacturer updates, the upgrade is being rolled out in stages, but if you don’t feel like waiting for a notification confirming that it’s ready for your device, you can search for the update manually. To do so simply follow the four steps below:
- Open the Settings app
Scroll to the bottom and tap on “About Device”
Hit “System Updates”
Tap on “Check for update”
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Samsung’s Galaxy S6 uses ‘several’ different camera sensors
When Samsung unveiled the Galaxy S6, you might have noticed that the company stopped touting its in-house ISOCELL camera tech. Was it using relying on someone else’s sensor instead? As it turns out, the answer is yes… sort of. The Korean firm has confirmed owners’ discoveries that the rear sensor is alternately made by Samsung or Sony. There are “several different vendors” making S6 cameras, a spokesperson says, although there’s no mention of how Samsung distributes those components. Not that you’ll need to be worried, apparently. The company insists that they all meet “strict global quality and performance standards,” and SamMobile has conducted tests showing that the practical differences are slight. In short, you’ll likely get quality photos regardless of whose imaging hardware is under the hood.
Filed under: Cellphones, Mobile, Samsung, Sony
Source: XDA-Developers
Samsung’s Galaxy J1 headed to Verizon’s network
Samsung’s Galaxy J1 is a mid-range device, and one that typically doesn’t see its way onto many US carriers. However, it looks like the budget-friendly phone will find a home on Verizon’s network at some point this year. Interestingly, the normally 3G-only device appears to have 4G connectivity. Of course, you shouldn’t expect Verizon to launch any phones in 2015 without their signature 4G LTE branding, but it’s worth noting that this model will be slightly different than what Samsung has previously released.
Other hardware will probably be the same, including a 4.3-inch screen, 5 megapixel camera, and 1.2 GHz dual-core processor. It won’t blow you away, but it’ll also probably be pretty cheap, too. There’s a pretty good chance that this phone makes a solid addition to Big Red’s prepaid lineup.
source: Techno Buffalo
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