Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge might be the most beautiful Samsung device to date with its beautiful edges and glass front and back, but the question is: Is it also the strongest Samsung device as well? The answer would be no. TechRax, a Youtube channel famous for testing devices, he did a little ‘Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge drop test’, and the end result was not that pretty. See it yourself in the video below:
As both front and back panel are Gorilla Glass 4, I was expecting they will endure the impact, but turns out that a 5 feet drop will most probably smash your Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge. So if you are planning to grab Galaxy S6 Edge, make sure you also buy a strong body case as well. Of course it will decrease the beauty of the smartphone, but taking a risk and going without a case will cost you more.
Were you expecting the same results? Let us know in the comment box below.
Source: TechRax
The post Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge drop test shows unexpected results appeared first on AndroidGuys.
Deciding to put the planet before sales and shareholders, but decidedly on the same level as trendy eco-friendly marketing, Samsung has announced that its Galaxy S6 and S6 Edge smartphones have received eco-friendly certificates from US, UK, Russian, and Brazilian authorities.
According to Samsung Tomorrow (because today is almost over), the phones received Sustainability Product Certification (SPC) from Underwriters Laboratories, an OSHA-approved US organization typically involved with safety certification and the public adoption of electricity standards. Samsung received Platinum certification, UL’s highest grade, after meeting rigorous criteria involving materials, production methods, and recyclability of the product.
In the UK, famed sustainable growth firm Carbon Trust has awarded the phones the CO2 Measured Label, which means that Samsung has accurately measured its carbon footprint from producing the phones.
Russia’s Vitality Lead follows with certification from the Ecological Union. And not to be outdone, Brazil’s Associação Brasileira de Normas Técnicas (ABNT) has given Samsung the COLIBRI award.
Personally, I’m more curious about the custom machinery and associated eco-friendliness involved in producing the S6 Edge’s curved display.
Source: Samsung Tomorrow
Come comment on this article: Samsung Ceases Putting Planet Second, Earns Eco-friendly Certification for Galaxy S6 and S6 Edge
Samsung Display has today announced the separation of its LCD and OLED business units. These units used to be standalone ventures up until 2013, when Samsung decided to unify them.
According to industry insiders, this decision is an effort to reshape the marketing strategies of each division, in order to boost production and increase sales. “Samsung Display’s LCD business focuses on TVs, monitors, and tablet PCs, whereas its OLED company revolves around mobile phones, which means they have different target customer groups”.
As for the future, the firm hopes to make investments in the next-generation of OLED’s for its flagship smartphone of 2016, whilst focusing on both Research & Development of large-screen LCD and OLED panels.
Hit the source link below to view the full report over on Business Korea.
Source: Business Korea
Come comment on this article: Samsung separates LCD and OLED business units
By all accounts, Samsung’s new pair of flagship Galaxy S devices are prepared to take the world by storm. With a combination of premium materials, a lightweight reduction of TouchWiz, and less bloatware than ever, the phones allegedly had over 20 million retailer pre-orders before MWC even ended. T-Mobile made news recently when it announced that pre-orders of the Galaxy S6 and S6 Edge were shipping early and indeed some customers already have them… along with some problems.
Several users on XDA Developers and Reddit have reported a troubling issue involving the screen of the Galaxy S6 Edge having quality control issues. Specifically, there are fine scratches all over the screen and, in the case of Erica Griffin, a crevice deep enough that it can be felt when running a fingernail across it. Some have already gone about returning the products to T-Mobile, only for the second (replacement) to have the exact same problems. User rhcpcjg has posted several pictures:
If you look at the bottom right corner, you can clearly see a circular halo-type pattern of scratches. One user suggested that a pattern-formation is not necessarily a defect, however it was refuted with another user’s claim that their scratches do not adhere to a pattern.
The second picture shows further scratching on other areas of the screen (look around the flash), once again appearing in a circular-like pattern:
The final picture contains a dead pixel, though it’s admittedly hard to see. Look at the horizontal line near the bottom of the screen (above the word “Start”), just above the center-right portion. A small black artifact is there:
It’s difficult to say just what is going on here. One XDA user has suggested that the damage might be due to mishandling with T-Mobile’s shipping couriers, such that particles of dust are trapped under the factory installed screen protector, and due to throwing or dropping packages, the dust is therefore allowed to scratch the surface. Others have suggested there are problems with the individuals assembling these units, or packaging them. Yet another idea is that T-Mobile may have installed its own screen protectors on the devices post-manufacturing by Samsung’s factories, and that might be where the culprit is coming from.
One thing seems to be generally true of these claims however – the scuffs required direct lighting (often sunlight) to view. It remains to be seen just how widespread this is, or if the standard Galaxy S6 will experience similar problems. It’s very possible that only devices in early batches are suffering from this problem, though that’s just speculation. Suffice to say however, if the S6 Edge does have quality control issues, it might serve as yet another justification for a “standard substitute.”
Have you encountered any similar issues on your Galaxy S6 or S6 Edge?
Samsung is now pushing out the much-anticipated and eagerly-awaited Lollipop update to all unlocked models of the Galaxy Note 4 located in Brazil, India, UAE, and the Baltic region. This 1.1GB upgrade transports the latest build of the Android 5.0.1 operating system, together with a faster ART runtime, a handful of bug fixes, stability improvements and speed optimizations.
Hit the break for the full changelog.
To start the upgrade, make sure you’re connected to a Wi-Fi network. Then, from the home screen, press the Menu key, followed by Settings. Scroll to the bottom and tap ‘About Device’, followed by ‘Software Update and ‘Update Now’.
Come comment on this article: Samsung starts distributing Lollipop OTA in Brazil, India, UAE and Baltic countries
Samsung has been slow at updating the Galaxy Note 4 to Lollipop, only having released the update in a small number of markets, starting in February. Now it looks like the Korean tech giant is ready to speed up the process, with Note 4 users in India, Brazil, UAE, and the Baltic countries reporting the arrival of Lollipop.
SamMobile reports that, for now, Lollipop is hitting two Galaxy Note 4 models in particular, SM-N910C and the SM-N910G. Given that these models are available in multiple countries, it’s likely that the OTA will arrive soon to other regions as well.
So far, the Note 4 Lollipop update has begun in the Baltics, Brazil, Bulgaria, Caucasus countries, Croatia, Hungary, Macedonia, Poland, Romania, Slovenia, Trinidad and Tobago, and the United Arab Emirates.
The update is about 1GB in size. As always, note that unlocked devices may get the update ahead of carrier-branded models, which are subject to extra certification steps. To check manually for the Lollipop update, go to Settings > About phone > Software updates.
Samsung’s implementation of Lollipop brings the new lockscreen notifications, new notification style, new recent activities, improved battery life and performance, as well as a number of smaller visual changes.
Any update notification on your phone? Let us know.
There were pranks held worldwide on Wednesday, but one Galaxy S6 Edge owner was given an unfortunate truth on April Fools’ Day. On Reddit, /r/DrexelDragon93 posted an image of his Galaxy S6 Edge to show that its display was blanketed with scratches. Then, upon receiving a replacement unit, he discovered that he had yet another Galaxy S6 Edge with a scratched display. Others on the subreddit did not report the same issue and some are saying that perhaps it is just the way that the display looks in certain lighting.
Samsung has not commented on the matter and we do not expect them to do so unless this really spreads to a large number of units.
Hit the break to see an image of the handset with scratches on the display.
Come comment on this article: Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge owner receives two units with alleged scratched screens
Feeling jealousy when your friends whip out their fancy new tablets at get-togethers? Smiling through the pain as they swipe through photos of their recent trip to the Carribean while you try to push down the burning desire to throw your laggy old iPad into oncoming traffic? Okay, so maybe that’s just me but surely anyone who wouldn’t want a shiny new Galaxy Tab S 8.4 must be out of their minds — especially when the price is FREE. That’s right, we’re giving away a brand-spanking-new tablet to one lucky AndroidGuys reader! There’s no purchase necessary and entry is quick and easy so make haste and enter now… but let’s just keep all of the Carribean stuff between us, okay?
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Samsung hit the streets of Seoul to find out what random stranger’s first impressions of the Galaxy S6 and Galaxy S6 Edge were. We’re pretty sure that everyone in this video will love the new phones.
Now I am not saying the Galaxy S6 and Galaxy S6 Edge aren’t incredible phones, but I would love to see the outtakes. Hit the break for the short (25 seconds) video.
Click here to view the embedded video.
source: Samsung Tomorrow
Come comment on this article: Samsung hits the streets to find out what people think of the Galaxy S6 and Galaxy S6 Edge because why not
By the time that Samsung actually unveiled the Galaxy S6 at MWC in Barcelona we already knew that it wasn’t going to have Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 810 processor inside. Instead Samsung decided to go with its own in-house Exynos 7420 SoC. This decision prompted a lot of speculation about Samsung’s motives, and inevitably had a negative impact on Qualcomm.
Was Samsung really switching because of overheating issues, as the rumor suggested? Was it looking to reduce dependence on suppliers? Was it paving the way to compete directly with its old partner? Maybe there’s another motive altogether that has to do with the wider smartphone market. Or maybe it’s all of the above.
Just over a year ago we did an article on Qualcomm’s dominance in mobile. The company successfully rode the smartphone wave to the top of the mobile chipset market. But staying at the top in any industry is not easy.
Intel hasn’t made a great deal of headway in the face of ARM’s dominant designs, but the competition between the leading SoC manufacturers working with ARM has been growing fiercer. The short term threat to Qualcomm is coming from MediaTek, Nvidia, and Samsung.
Then there was Apple’s announcement of a new 64-bit A7 chip, which Qualcomm’s chief marketing officer, Anand Chandrasekher wrote off as a “marketing gimmick”, comments he later retracted. That fed into the idea that Qualcomm was slightly behind the curve and maybe it was rushing to catch up.
Not that long ago, Qualcomm was questioning the merits of octa-core chips. Now it’s pushing its own.
At the end of 2014 a rumor popped up that Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 810 was having overheating problems. It was unclear where the rumor had come from, but it was pretty persistent and it eventually morphed into the story that Samsung was ditching the 810 for the Galaxy S6 because of overheating.
Qualcomm tried to defend itself and all the Snapdragon 810 partners, including LG, Xiaomi, HTC, Motorola, Sony, OPPO, and Microsoft, gave glowing quotes in this press release. The counter to the overheating argument is that the initial problems with the 810 were fixed during development and the processors going out to the public in phones like the LG G Flex 2 have no problems. Though this counter does acknowledge that there was some kind of problem.
Even though Samsung will continue to be a major Qualcomm partner on other fronts, it was notable that the South Korean manufacturer made no move to quash the rumor. Samsung CEO, J.K. Shin, did nothing to dispel the idea that the 810 was dumped due to overheating when he told the Korea Times,
“Samsung previously used more Qualcomm mobile processors, but we are flexible. If Qualcomm chips are good enough, then we will use them. Samsung always uses the best-quality components and materials to differentiate our products from those by rivals.”
That sounds a lot like he’s saying the Snapdragon 810 wasn’t good enough. Why would Samsung do that? We can think of a few reasons.
It’s possible the 810 really does have an overheating problem. But why would Qualcomm’s other partners go along with the denial if this was really the case? You’d think it’s going to be pretty obvious when the next wave of Snapdragon 810-toting smartphones hit the market. Reviews are in for the G Flex 2 and the One M9 and we aren’t seeing lots of overheating reports, though there was a report that the HTC One M9 was overheating and may now have been throttled to cope with the issue. LG did also acknowledge there was a problem with the first batch of 810 chips, but said the issue had been fixed and they felt confident releasing the G Flex 2. There is evidence of fairly aggressive thermal throttling, but that’s par for the course and you can find it in the G3 as well.
Post OTA, the M9 doesn’t heat that much compared to competitors, but questions linger
Phones are going to get hot when you play high-end games for a long time, but that’s true of every phone. Because of the rumor, there’s a real danger of confirmation bias here, some people are looking for overheating evidence, and ignoring the evidence that the 810 doesn’t have a significant problem compared to the rest of the field. If you think there’s no smoke without fire, what about smoke machines?
If the rumor that the LG G4 will use the Snapdragon 808 instead of the 810 proves true, that will be telling, but we need to see a lot more actual evidence of a serious overheating problem when the 810 phones hit the market before we accept that it’s definitely more than a series of rumors.
This is probably true regardless of any other motives. What company doesn’t want to reduce dependence on outside partners? If Samsung can make more stuff itself it can potentially save money and have tighter control over production. Samsung wants to reverse the decline in profit margins and this will reduce its per unit cost. It has a surplus chip-making capacity, so why not take more advantage of it? You could also point to the fact that the Exynos big.LITTLE chips are more mature than Qualcomm’s, because Samsung has been using the technology for a while now, while Qualcomm had to catch up.
Perhaps most importantly, it offers a way to differentiate Samsung’s flagship from the competition more easily because Qualcomm sells to everyone. We’re sure this is one of the reasons.
What better way to boost your own fortunes than to take a competitor down a notch? If the Exynos in the Galaxy S6 is paving the way for a future of Samsung supplying other manufacturers then this move makes sense. It simultaneously says Qualcomm’s processors aren’t good enough and ours are.
But is Samsung looking to supply the market? Consider that it’s still responsible for the bulk of Apple’s chipsets and you can see Samsung has no compulsion about working with competitors if it brings profit. Samsung could well be looking to muscle into the processor market and eat Qualcomm’s lunch. It may be willing to trade off the differentiation for the profit and reputation enhancement that would come from supplying the other manufacturers.
Samsung may be looking to get its Exynos chips in devices from other OEMs
What if Samsung can’t compete? Maybe Qualcomm will come back with a stronger next generation. Worst case scenario for Samsung — it just starts buying Snapdragon again.
By saying the 810 isn’t good enough for the Galaxy S6, Samsung is hinting that all of its competitor’s flagship smartphones aren’t as good. The overheating rumor could easily fall into the FUD (fear, uncertainty, and doubt) category as a strategy to circulate negative impressions about competing phones. It manages to tar all of Samsung’s Android competitors with the same brush and leaves the Galaxy S6 unscathed.
The 14-nm Exynos processor inside the Galaxy S6 is one of its unique strengths
Whether this strategy works, if it is indeed Samsung’s strategy at all, remains to be seen and depends a great deal on how the two SoC’s compare. Early benchmark reports suggest that Samsung’s processor is more powerful, but Qualcomm’s modems may be faster and less power-hungry. There are lots of other points of comparison and we need to see real world performance before we can draw any conclusions on this stuff.
We may never know for certain where the overheating rumor originated, but Samsung is clearly seizing the opportunity to benefit. Whether it’s a forced reaction to a chip with problems, the first step in a play for the high-end processor market in mobile, the latest broadside against the Android smartphone competition, or a mixture of all three, should become clear within the next year or so.
What do you think? Increased competition for Qualcomm could be a good thing. Are there really serious problems with the 810? Is Samsung playing dirty or is this all just business as usual?
AIVAnet 