Items tagged with Galaxy
If you own a Samsung Galaxy handset that was released in the past six years, do yourself a solid and check for an over-the-air (OTA) software update. Left unpatched, every Galaxy phone dating back to 2014 is vulnerable to a so-called 'zero-click' bug related to Android's handling of the custom Qmage image format (.QMG). That means millions of Galaxy phones are affected by this, until patched with the latest security update from Samsung. Not to be overlooked, the vulnerability carries the highest 'Critical' rating, and could allow an attacker to run malicious code remotely. Part of the reason for the high severity rating is because vulnerable handsets can be exploited without any user interaction....
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Samsung reported its first quarter earnings for 2020, noting it saw a 7.6 percent decrease in revenue compared to the previous quarter primarily due to weak seasonality of its display business and consumer electronics division. However, the company also blamed the "effects of COVID-19" for the drop in demand, and said it expects the virus outbreak to "significantly impact" sales for several of its core products, including Galaxy phones and TVs. "Sales and profits of set products business, including smartphones and TVs, are expected to decline significantly as COVID-19 affects demand and leads to store and plant closures globally. To address this, the company will leverage its global production...
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Most people have been there at some point; you accidentally drop your smartphone, and the screen shatters. In years past, sometimes that meant it was time to upgrade to a new smartphone and toss the cracked phone in a drawer. With the price of smartphones soaring today, most people opt to fix their devices. Sprint has a deal going on screen repair right now specifically for Samsung Galaxy devices. Sprint will fix the screen on a Samsung Galaxy smartphone for just $49 -- regardless of which carrier you use. That is much cheaper than a regular screen repair costs, often at $100 or more. The fine print says that Sprint will only repair screens at stores with service and repair centers, and that...
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Last year Samsung released the premium Galaxy Tab S3 tablet as an alternative to Apple's IPad Pro, but with its optional keyboard an additional software magic it also set its sights at some lower-end 2-in-1 laptop offerings as well. Samsung is trying to gear the Galaxy Tab series as the go-to option for anyone looking for an ultra-portable computing device, and this year's model ups the ante with a larger display, longer battery life, and a new desktop-like user interface called "DeX". In fact, you have probably heard of DeX before, if you've checked out our coverage of the Samsung Galaxy S9 and again with the Galaxy Note 9 but now it's available with the Tab S4 as well. When comparing the...
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If we were to characterize a Samsung Galaxy Note user in a single word it would have to be "enthusiast." Specifically, we're talking about an Android smartphone enthusiast but regardless, among the vast general populous of smartphone consumers, if you're packing a device like any of the previous Samsung Galaxy Notes, you likely want the most powerful, feature-rich, large format device you can get your hands on. And when it came to the 9th incarnation of the Galaxy Note, the Galaxy Note 9, Samsung spared no expense once again, not only in its design and feature set, but even the venue it chose to launch from last week at the Barclay's Center in Brooklyn, New York. The Brooklyn Nets play here,...
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As we discovered last week, Samsung's Galaxy S9+ is the new Android smartphone to beat in the flagship sector. It looks great, has a crisp screen, is fast, and has a camera capable of capturing some awesome slo-mo video. Like clockwork, the folks over at iFixit have torn into the S9+ and revealed all we need to know about its repairability factor. On a scale of 1 - 10, with 10 being the "easiest to repair", the S9+ scores a lowly 4/10. That's because accessing the battery is needlessly difficult, and removing either the display or glass back can easily result in breakage. Credit: iFixit In the above shot, the phone's biggest chips span the top part of the board, with the second large...
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One of the biggest unveils at this year's Mobile World Congress was the new and highly anticipated Samsung Galaxy S9 and Galaxy S9+, which we were lucky enough to get some hands-on preview time with for you here late last month. Samsung's Galaxy S9 series doesn't look a whole lot different than the previous generation Galaxy S8 and 8+ line. And though the Galaxy S9 and Galaxy S9+ are ever so slightly smaller than their older siblings, with slightly thinner top and bottom bezels, these new Galaxy S devices have been upgraded and re-engineered in a number of ways with some impressive new features and promised performance. Today marks the official embargo lift on full reviews of Samsung's new...
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After months of leaks and weeks of teasers, Samsung has finally officially pulled the wraps off its next generation flagship smartphones: the Galaxy S9 and Galaxy S9+. If you're familiar with the current generation Galaxy S8 and Galaxy S8+, the designs of the refreshed models should be immediately familiar. However, there is plenty going on under the surface that make these new flagship Android phones worthy of attention. First of all, let's talk about the new, state-of-the-art camera that is featured on both the Galaxy S9 and Galaxy S9+. The primary rear shooter features a Super Speed, Dual Pixel 12MP sensor with optical image stabilization (OIS). The camera features a dedicated image processing...
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Samsung has pulled the wraps off a pair of smartphones that may appeal to the users out there who can’t bring themselves to part with $1,000 for a high-end device. The new devices are the 2018 versions of the Galaxy A8 and A8 Plus. As you would expect, other than the size of the screen the two devices are very similar. Both have metal and glass designs, Infinity Displays, and rounded display corners. Both have an annoyingly-placed rear fingerprint scanner, which is beneath the 16MP main camera. The main cameras on both do have LED flash for better images in low-light. One substantial change to the 2018 A8 flavors is that the bezels are considerably thinner than they were on last year's...
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We've all forgotten a password at some point in our online travails, and have needed to resort to password hints to retrieve or reset said password. In most cases, these hints are easily guessed by nefarious parties using social engineering. As we’re learned over the years, such breakdowns in security chains can have rather disastrous results. A patent filed [PDF] by Samsung, however, looks to take the uncertainty regarding password hints out of the equation with what is effectively a palm reading. Samsung’s smartphone-based system will scan the unique lines that are spread across the palm of your hand. Once your palm is scanned, and you are authenticated as the rightful owner of...
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With Samsung's Galaxy S8 (and S8+) having been on the market for a staggering six months now, it's time to look to the future. In other words: a time when Samsung unveils its Galaxy S9, a phone that's already being hyped to great levels despite the fact that it won't be out for months. In fact, the most tangible evidence we have right now of the S9 (and S9+) is the logo (seen later in the post). Samsung's Galaxy S8 and S8+ Most (or perhaps all) of the information that's come out about the Galaxy S9 has been leaked by respected leaker Benjamin Geskin. He says that the Galaxy S9 will ship with Qualcomm's SDM845, which would replace the Snapdragon 835 found in the S8. Note that while the chip number...
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The Galaxy Note 8 is an important product for Samsung. Not only because the Note 8 is the company’s newest, flagship, large-screen smartphone, but because it also carries the additional burden of righting all of the wrongs associated with the company's Note 7 snafu. For some people, there is a certain stigma attached to the Note series now that could be erased if the Note 8 is a success and resonates well with consumers. We can tell you this up front -- all of the right technology seems to be in place. And from a design standpoint, the Note 8 sure is a looker. But good looks and the right specs don’t automatically make for a killer product. Hopefully, by the time we're done testing and exploring...
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We had the chance to spend some time at Samsung’s Unpacked 2017 event in New York City today, where the brand new Galaxy Note 8 was officially unveiled. If you missed our initial coverage of the announcement, the Galaxy Note 8 features a 6.3-inch Super AMOLED Infinity Display with a WQHD+ resolution (2960×1440) and many design cues borrowed from the Galaxy S8. Here’s a quick hands on to give you a closer look at the device and how it handles... The Note 8’s design is slightly more square in comparison to the Galaxy S8 and Galaxy S8+. We should also mention that the near bezel-less display means that the Galaxy Note 8’s fingerprint sensor is now placed on the rear of the device, beside the dual...
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Hybrid 2-in-1 tablet convertible devices like Samsung's new Galaxy Book 12 are a tough gig. Striking a balance between ultimate portability, performance, and battery life is not easy when it comes to the well-under 2 pound device class of products. That said, Microsoft made a go of it with the very popular Surface Pro series, and since then, even Apple has been trying to catch that elusive upscale large tablet convertible mojo, and mostly unsuccessfully we might add. Further, Microsoft has been asleep at the switch for a while, without a proper Surface hybrid refresh for what is essentially an eternity, when it comes to technology anyway. Though MSFT's next gen Surface was just announced,...
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The Samsung Galaxy Tab S3 may be one of the better-equipped tablets for consumers looking for a device that has it all – multimedia and productivity chops, useful feature adds and good looks as well. With its HDR-ready screen, quad speakers, S Pen, optional keyboard, and all-glass design, the Galaxy Tab S3 has a lot to offer. The Samsung Galaxy Tab S3 features a 9.7-inch Super AMOLED display that supports HDR content, though there are some caveats to this which we’ll discuss later in this review. To further enhance the multimedia experience on this tablet, Samsung has included quad-stereo speakers tuned by AKG by HARMAN. The Galaxy Tab S3 also comes bundled with a Samsung S Pen which enhances...
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If you've been eagerly anticipating the release of Samsung's Galaxy S8 and S8+ smartphones, we've got some good news for you. Apparently, a shipment of Samsung's new top-end devices are going to ship early, courtesy of T-Mobile. Outside of actually shelling out the cash for a new high-end phone, the worst part of a pre-order is waiting for your new device to arrive. Someone at T-Mobile seems to understand that and the company jumped the gun with initial shipments. According to reports from some customers, T-Mobile has begun shipping out S8 and S8+ units five days ahead of April 19, which was the day all pre-orders were originally expected to be shipped out. Even that day would...
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Despite recent rumors, Samsung claims that they will not be releasing a folding galaxy phone anytime soon. The Korean conglomerate stated that bendable devices would be available no earlier than 2019. Kim Tae-woong, Samsung Display’s principal engineer remarked at the Display TechSalon in Seoul, South Korea that “Because the bezel-free display currently sells well, we still have enough time to develop bendable display. The technology is expected to be mature around 2019”.Chung Won-seok, an analyst at HI Investment and Securities, further noted that “Samsung Display is expected to commercialize bendable phones in 2019 because the company does not need to sell the new hardware because it is already...
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We all know that Samsung makes some of the most gorgeous displays in the smartphone world. The South Korean electronics giant has long been praised for its Super AMOLED displays, and those accolades continue with the Galaxy S8 and Galaxy S8+. There are some notable physical changes to the display this time around, with Samsung going with an 18.5:9 screen ratio, a nearly bezel-less design, and Gorilla Glass 5 to protect the display from damage. Sporting a resolution of 2960x1440 and peak brightness in excess of 1,000 nits, the Galaxy S8’s display can now represent 100 percent of the DCI-P3 color gamut and it becomes the first smartphone to gain UHD Alliance for Mobile HDR Premium certification....
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We spent the better part of this morning at Lincoln Center in New York City attending Samsung’s Unpacked 2017 event, where the company unveiled its brand-new Galaxy S8 and S8+ smartphones and a few new accessories. If you missed our early coverage of the event, you can check out the initial announcement here and the new Gear 360 Camera, cool DeX Dock, and Gear VR right here. While at Unpacked 2017, however, we also got some hands-on time with both devices that we wanted to share with you. Take a look... The Samsung Galaxy S8 and S8+ are virtually identical, save for their screen sizes. The S8 features a 5.8” QHD+ screen, while the larger S8+ has a 6.2” screen. Other than the screen size though,...
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For whatever reason, Samsung had only been doling out security updates to unlocked Galaxy devices every three months in the United States. Given the growing threat landscape and attention being paid to mobile, that meant a Galaxy device owner could conceivably wield an insecure device for a quarter of a year, leaving him or her vulnerable to whatever exploit(s) might exist. Well, good news—Samsung is moving to a monthly schedule. Samsung's mobile security division is now telling inquisitive owners of unlocked Galaxy devices to let them know of its new policy. In its letter, Samsung explained that "various circumstances" were to blame for the previous three-month roll-out schedule for security...
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If you thought Samsung was going to fold after its Galaxy Note7 debacle played out, you'd be partially right. As has been rumored for quite some time, Samsung has been hard at work on a new smartphone concept that would allow its users to fold it up to save on space. We're not talking flip-phones here, but a phone that literally folds up like a wallet, thanks to its bendable display. Now we have even more proof of this concept, as Samsung has filed a patent which shows rendered images - and, for the most part, it looks exactly as you'd expect: As seen in the render, the middle of the phone is essentially a hinge that allows the entire device to fold in half - but not perfectly. When folded, you'll...
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Following the debacle that was the Galaxy Note7, Samsung has a huge PR fire to put out, and looks towards a challenging future as it tries to regain trust with its customers. But given the sheer magnitude of its mobile recall, making people forget its past transgressions is going to prove quite the exercise. However, we are now find out one of the company's plans that could help get the public back on its side: infusing its Galaxy S8 with an incredibly powerful AI assistant. If this sounds familiar, it's probably because Google's Pixel features the same functionality - AI that's built into the OS, rather than as an add-on. Samsung's goal would be the same as Google's: to give people a useful...
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