Items tagged with Galaxy
It's almost hard to fathom that bad news surrounding Samsung's ill-fated Galaxy Note 7 still continues to emerge. While the Korean electronics giant sticks to its claim that there is currently no major issue with regard to the safety of customers that own the device, it's becoming increasingly difficult to believe. Last week, we reported that a replacement Note 7 exploded on a Southwest aircraft, which followed other reported incidents. In addition, a few days ago, AT&T began to ponder if it should pull the model from its shelves entirely. Now we have yet another alarming story, of a Kentucky man who woke up in the middle of the night to a hissing sound and smoke-filled room. He had considered...
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Samsung has had to deal with one heck of a headache following the launch of its top-end Galaxy Note7 smartphone. From lost property to a global recall, the whole ordeal has, without question, tarnished Samsung's otherwise impeccable reputation for quality devices. Yesterday, we wrote that roughly half of all Note7s sold in the US have been returned, and that 90% of those who've returned a defective device were pleased to receive a new replacement in exchange, and were sticking with the phone.Unfortunately, as it now appears, it seems that some of the replacement devices are also acting up a bit, although it's much too early to jump to conclusions. Still, Samsung is just trying to put this...
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The sky is most certainly falling over Samsung headquarters in the wake of reports that its hottest new smartphone, the Galaxy Note7, might actually be too hot to handle, literally. Samsung has received at least 92 reports of Note7 batteries overheating in the U.S. alone since its launch, with 26 of those resulting in burns and more than half causing property damage. While officially recalled in the U.S. now, Samsung has been criticized heavily in the media for their alleged slow response and hackneyed initial exchange program. [Image Source: Baidu] Samsung's public relations disaster may actually be the worst in smartphone history. The Galaxy Note7 was released for sale on August 19th. The first...
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Update 4:25PM - Samsung is also now urging customers not to use their Galaxy Note 7 devices, stating: "Because your safety is our utmost concern, we ask you to power down your Galaxy Note7 and exchange it now. We strongly encourage you to take advantage of the U.S. Note7 Exchange Program detailed above." You can find Samsung's notice here and their statements in the FAQ.To say that the launch of the Galaxy Note7 has been less-than-ideal for Samsung would be a gross understatement. Almost immediately following the device's shipment in market, it was discovered that some batteries in certain devices had a design flaw that could cause them to catch fire, or more accurately, explode. News of a recall...
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Samsung announced earlier today that it would be recalling the recently released Galaxy Note7 due to reports of exploding batteries. It was confirmed by Samsung that a small number of Note7 devices (35 at last count) had exploded when charging, and the company quickly moved to recall the phones to ensure customer safety. If you’ve got a Note7, and are wondering how to get your replacement, you’ve got a couple of options. Samsung just sent word that they’ve setup a replacement and exchange program that gives Note7 customers a couple of options. Rather than re-has the details, here is the information direct form Samsung... Samsung Establishes US Product Exchange Program for the Galaxy Note7 Exchange...
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Update - 9/2 - 8:40AM EST: Samsung has issued a global recall and replacement of all current Galaxy Note7 devices and will replace all phones. You can read more about it here. We applaud Samsung for stepping up quickly and addressing the potential battery issue for early customers of the Note7. It's an excellent smartphone and this recall does not change our view of Samsung's flagship device. Once early units are purged from the marketplace, we are confident replacement units will meet customer expectations. We did not experience any anomalies with our test unit so please read on for our full review here... The Galaxy Note line of stylus-equipped Android smartphones have carved...
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Samsung Gear S3 Frontier (Left), Gear S3 Classic (Right)Samsung just wrapped up an event at the IFA expo in Berlin, at which the company unveiled a duo of new Gear S3 branded smartwatches. The new Samsung Gear S3 Classic and Gear S3 Frontier leverage many of the design elements from last-year’s sleek Gear S2, like the rotating control dial, perfectly round screen, and fast wireless charging, but many other aspects of the Gear S3 have received significant upgrades.Gear S3 Frontier Control Dial And ButtonsAlthough they are internally similar, there are a few external differences between the Gear S3 Classic and Frontier. The Gear S3 Classic is the sleeker, more streamlined version of the two. The...
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A couple of days ago, notorious mobile leaker Evan Blass took to Twitter to reveal the official naming of Samsung's next phone: Galaxy Note 7. Despite the phablet moniker being thrown around a lot with this phone, it's actually only a 5.7-inch device.As you might have guessed, we now know the specs as well thanks to Mr. Blass. In a follow-up tweet, he revealed that the phone has a QHD (2560x1440) super AMOLED display, includes both 64GB internal memory and a microSD slot for external storage, and sports a 12-megapixel camera at the back, as well as a 5 megapixel one up front.Samsung's Galaxy Note 5One of the more alluring parts of the phone might be the fact that it's IP68 compliant....
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Samsung is testing a very big TouchWiz redesign in China and Korea right now. A “New Note UX” redesign on the Galaxy Note 5 is part of the new Samsung Galaxy Beta Program. The test makes several changes to the original design. First, it eliminates the app drawer. Supposedly users in Eastern Asia prefer smartphones without an app drawer. The redesign places apps instead on consecutive home screens. This redesign has been seen previously on ZTE’s Axon phone, LG’s G5’s, the Huawei Mate 8 and various Lenovo products. Whether or not you feel this is a good move of course is up to your personal preference. Second, all of the icons have rounded square shapes or rounded square backdrops. The Dialer...
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It looks like Microsoft’s grit is paying off. After years of shepherding its Surface tablets, Microsoft seems to have convinced its partners that there is a market for premium, Windows-based ultra portables. HP’s Spectre x2 caught our attention late last year and Dell’s XPS 12 and Lenovo’s Yoga (technically a convertible) impressed us more recently. Now Samsung, another major Android tablet maker, has taken the wraps off its own Surface alternative, the Galaxy TabPro S. The tablet runs Windows 10 Home and features many of Samsung's key mobile innovations, like a gorgeous AMOLED display. All of the tablets we just mentioned mimic the Surface’s 2-in-1 design by including a keyboard. You trade away...
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The Samsung Galaxy S7 and S7 Edge don’t officially launch for a few more days, but some carriers appear to have shipped pre-orders early and some phones are already in consumers’ hands. A few commenters on our hands on video mentioned receiving their phones early, and we are aware of a number of industry contacts that have already gotten their devices as well. One early Galaxy S7 Edge owner, who reported his findings in this thread over at the XDA Developers forum, appears to have tested his phones’ water-resistance already and uncovered another new feature in the process. Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge The user submerged his Galaxy S7 Edge in water and snapped a photo, then about four hours later plugged...
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Samsung announced its latest flagship Galaxy S7 and Galaxy S7 Edge smartphones, along with a slick 360-degree portable camera dubbed the Gear 360, yesterday at its Unpacked event at Mobile World Congress. If you’d like to check out the original announcements, you can find our coverage of the Galaxy S7 and S7 Edge here and the Gear 360 right here. Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge (Top) and Galaxy S7 (Bottom) To quickly reiterate, Samsung’s latest flagships are both packing a Qualcomm 820 SoC (up to 2.1GHz) with Adreno 530 graphics, 4GB of RAM and 32GB of internal storage. Both phones also have 12MP rear and 5MP front facing cameras (f/1.7), built-in fast wireless charging, microSD expansion...
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Samsung has done very well with a couple of key design elements in their previous smartphone offerings, curved displays and the larger format Galaxy Note line. The Galaxy Note series has done especially well for the brand, with a user base that doesn't mind a bit more heft in exchange for more screen real estate, as well as other unique functionality that comes with the Note series. So too have Samsung "Edge" devices like the Galaxy Note Edge and Galaxy S6 Edge, which offer curved glass styling that turns heads and offers some additional differentiating functionality of its own. Samsung is intent on capitalizing further on those successes in both their larger 5.7 inch Super AMOLED displays...
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Join Marco, Dave and Jason today for our Two And A Half Geeks Webcast! We be kick around our Intel IDF coverage, the brand new Galaxy S6 Edge+ and Note 5, DirectX 12 graphics performance with Ashes Of The Singularity, the hot Asus ZenPad S, gaming on Windows 10 and more... Show Notes: 01:40 - Intel Skylake Architecture Preview Quick Take From IDF 2015 - Intel Skylake Gen9 Series Graphics Architecture Unveiled - He Pours Liquid Nitrogen On An Intel Skylake CPU At IDF. What Happens Next... - Intel Demos Project Tango Smartphone And Ultra-Fast 3D Xpoint Optane Drive ...
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It was only yesterday that we gave you a close-up look at some of Samsung’s hottest new gear at the Samsung Unpacked 2015 event. The Galaxy Note 5 and Galaxy S6 Edge+ were stars of the show with sleek exteriors and high-end guts. Then, things got a little weird. If you followed the coverage yesterday, you know that both smartphones will be available with 32GB or 64GB of storage, depending on the size of your budget. Today, Samsung threw everyone for a loop by putting a 128GB model on its website. Speculation that the company was quietly rolling out 128GB models (after Samsung denied that 128GB models would be offered only yesterday) quickly swamped the Internet and probably caused some...
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We just left Samsung’s Unpacked 2015 event in New York City, at which the company unveiled its latest flagship, big-screen smartphones, the Galaxy S6 Edge+ and Note5. Immediately following the on-stage presentations and big reveals, Samsung opened up a demo area featuring the new devices and we got to spend some hands-on time with each of them. A video of both devices in action is embedded below. Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge+ Home Screen Before we dive into the video, we should point you all towards our existing coverage. We’ve got additional details regarding the Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge+ available at this URL. And the Galaxy Note5 announcement is available here. To reiterate some of the details, both...
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If the multitude of companies telling us are to be believed, mobile payments are going to be a huge part of our future. It's not exactly hard to understand why. Most of us tote around a phone at all times, and in some cases, it might be easier to take out of a pocket than a wallet. But, with most things that are convenient, there are some caveats to be aware of. In this case, the biggest one is security. While Samsung has proven in the past that it doesn't mine compromising its users' security, where money's concerned, it means business. So, to prevent possible exploitation, it's been discovered that Samsung Pay will simply not work on a rooted phone, or "unauthorized modification" as Samsung...
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With the growth of mobile gaming refusing to slow down, and with our mobile devices continuing to become faster and faster, it's about time we began putting all of that extra power to good use. Samsung hears us loud and clear, and has released an app to do just that. It's called Game Recorder+, so it doesn't take much imagination to figure out what it's all about, but it does bring a couple of cool tricks to the table. At the forefront, and similar to NVIDIA's SHIELD game recorder, users can customize both the bitrate and resolution of recorded video. Afterwards, and with the same app, you'll be able to trim the video to cut off useless slack. Where this technology becomes really flexible is...
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About a year ago, we were in a similar spot. We had the latest Galaxy smartphone in hand, rand were comparing it to rivals from LG, Motorola, Apple, and Sony (just to name a few). Twelve months have passed, and as fate would have it, we've got yet another pair of Galaxy phones in the labs. This time, however, Samsung's got something that clearly stands out for previous generations. After years of success, Samsung's profits began to lag right around the launch of the Galaxy S5. The press largely criticized it for being too plasticky, not innovative enough, and not fast enough to set it apart or justify its price tag. Many wondered if the company's next flagship Galaxy would get Samsung back on...
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Samsung's Galaxy S6 and Galaxy S6 Edge — the very essence of HOT hardware in the smartphone space today — will go on sale in Japan this Thursday (April 23) without the company's logo on the devices, and will instead sport the monikers 'Docomo Galaxy' and 'au Galaxy', named after their Japanese telecom carriers. Samsung made the decision to white-label their raging new entries into the smartphone space amid persistent rumors that the company was planning to entirely pull its smartphone business out of Japan. The company has had a difficult time trying to establish any kind of a foothold in the Land of the Rising Sun, and with only a sliver of the Japan's smartphone market share...
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This is one of those times when it feels great to finally see a product get announced, as it feels like we've been waiting forever for this one. Today, at Mobile World Congress, Samsung took the veil off of its much-anticipated Galaxy S6, and also the Galaxy S6 edge. As has been heavily rumored, the S6 foregoes the plastic shell of its predecessor and integrates metal and glass instead, resulting in a far more premium feel, a thickness of 6.8mm, and a weight of 138g on the normal S6 and 132g on the edge. Samsung made it a point to mention that the metal it uses is 50% stronger than other smartphones - a bendgate jab, perhaps? Both the S6 and S6 edge share the same hardware, which includes a 5.1-inch...
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With the expected unveiling of its Galaxy S6 less than a month away, Samsung is experiencing an unexpected shakeup up its smartphone marketing department. Kim Seok-pil, who headed up strategic marketing, stepped down from the position today. The smartphone manufacturer turned to its business in Russia for Kim’s replacement: Lee Sang-chul. Samsung at Showstoppers during CES 2015.Given Samsung’s 64-percent slide in profits for its mobile business, it’s reasonable to wonder whether performance played a role in Kim’s departure. But a report from Reuters suggests that the executive stepped down strictly due to health concerns. Samsung has already axed three executives and is attempting to turn around...
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