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Galaxy Fold : Samsung to Finally Launch its ‘Improved’ Foldable in September

Though not required, many of the smartphone development companies have announced their own foldable smartphones Samsung being one of the first to do so. Samsung had revealed that it is working on a foldable smartphone, Galaxy Fold, earlier this year, and even got to launch one. But the foldable from Samsung had numerous problems. This led to many controversies, and it became a fail.

But now the company has again come up with its foldable smartphone Galaxy Fold, and that, according to an announcement made by Samsung, will be launched in September. The company said that it has made all the required improvements to its Galaxy Fold, and it is ready for the launch.

“Earlier this year, we announced Galaxy Fold-Samsung’s first foldable device and the beginning of an entirely new mobile category. Since then, we’ve made improvements to the Galaxy Fold to ensure consumers have the best possible experience.” said one of the spokespersons from Galaxy Fold development division.

Samsung Galaxy fold
Image Source: trustedreviews.com

The main issue with the previous version of the foldable was the cracking of the screen when folded. But now the company has made some good changes to the smartphone that, according to the company claims, will protect the screen.

What are the New Improvements?

The foldable has a protective layer over the Infinity Flex Display. Samsung has extended this very protective layer beyond the bezel of the phone, making it attached to the phone. Thus the user cannot remove it by mere scratching.

The company has added the protection caps to the top and bottom of the hinge area of the smartphone. This way, it becomes even stronger. The company also took time to reduce the space between the body of the phone and the hinge.

To provide extra protection to the screen, Samsung has added an extra metal layer under the Infinity Flex Display.

“Samsung has taken the time to fully evaluate the product design, make necessary improvements and run rigorous tests to validate the changes we made,” said Samsung.

Reportedly, the company is aiming to improve the user experience and has even made some changes to the UX/UI of the smartphone. The company has not specified a particular date for the launch, but before September, it will be undertaking all sort of tests over the new Galaxy Fold.

Samsung Reports the Lowest Quarterly Profit Since 2016

Like every year, Samsung reports its Q1 profits at the end of April, and ahead of that, the company has revealed that it is likely to face 60 per cent of the decline in its quarterly profits compared to the previous year. The company has reported that the decline in the profits is due to the rapid decrease in the sales of memory chips and its display products.

samsung
Image Source: komando.com

Noticeably, the 2018’s Q1 operating profit was reported to be 15.64 trillion South Korean won, which now has fallen to 6.2 trillion won for this year’s Q1 operating profits. According to Samsung, it had already expected a 14 per cent decline in its operating profits for the first quarter of 2019, which was estimated to be around 13.2 trillion South Korean won.

In the past year, the memory chips prices dropped by a surprising rate, and the company too had stated that price drops were “larger than expected.” This report of the operating profits indicates the Q1 2019 profits will be the lowest since the third quarter of 2016 (due to the worldwide recall of it’s over exploding batteries of Galaxy Note 7 in 2016). In past few years, Samsung has been getting hints on the slowing down of the growth of the company, and even the company is aware of that, as the analysts’ reports has been revealing the continuous decrease in the sales of Samsung products.

Samsung though is trying hard to compete with the biggest tech giants like Apple, the main source of its profits has always been the mid-range products. Also, its semiconductor division has been the greatest contributor to its high revenues. So it may be the time when the company should focus on its loyal customers, and the mid-tier products to secure that additional revenue.

But according to the analysts, this decline in the profits will remain for a bit longer, especially in the memory chip division. The price of the memory chips may decrease up to 20 per cent in the coming future, and then in Q2, the semiconductor division may see even lower profits.,

Samsung Finally Released its Next Generation Galaxy 10 Series Smartphones

Samsung has just added three new models to its Galaxy smartphone flagship, the Samsung Galaxy S10, S10+, and S10e. The company launched the phone in its Samsung Galaxy Event on 19 February, held in San Francisco, along with another Galaxy smartphone, i.e. Galaxy fold and other devices including the Samsung wearable, earbuds, etc.

All the four phones are redesigned with the new smart screen, providing the cinematic view to its users. The screen is baseless, and even the front camera is placed within the display, to provide the HD photo quality. By default, the screen resolution is full HD+ and can be changed to Quad HD+ from the Settings.

samsung-galaxy-10
Image Source: cnet.com

The three Galaxy S10 phones are in different screen sizes. The S10 is having a 6.1” screen, the S10+ has got the 6.4” screen, and the S10e has been provided with a 5.8” display. All the three smartphones are having a Quad HD+ and dynamic AMOLED Infinity-O Display. The display is HDR10+ certified, providing the most real display to its users. The AMOLED display is specially built to comfort the eyes, as it reduces harmful blue light by 42 per cent.

The most innovative feature that the company has embedded to its latest flagship Galaxy S10 and S10+ phones is the fingerprint scanner, which has been moved from behind to the front screen of the phone. The scanner uses the ultrasonic pulses to detect the fingerprints. For the S10e smartphone, the fingerprint scanner has been moved to the power button of the phone.

Coming to the camera of the new Galaxy smartphones, the S10 and S10+ are having similar back camera frame including three cameras, i.e. wide-angle (12MP), ultra wide (16MP), and telephoto (12MP) camera. For the S10 plus, there are two front cameras embedded to it, a selfie camera (10MP) and an RGB Depth Camera (8MP). Galaxy S10 has one front camera, whereas the Galaxy S10e has two rear cameras and one front camera.

All three phones are designed with the AI features that adapt to the users’ behaviour and learn their daily routine patterns. The Galaxy S10+ has a 4100mAh, Galaxy S10 has 3400mAh battery capacity, and Galaxy S10e has 3100mAh battery capacity. The next generation smartphones are capable of charging the other Qi-certified devices as well, only by placing the devices on the top of the phone. The device that can be charged using those smartphones includes the Samsung wearable, earbuds and wireless chargers etc.

The RAM size of the smartphones has been increased up to 12GB, the S10e having a 6GB RAM size for the basic model, and the S10 as well as S10+ having a RAM size of 8GB for the basic models. The internal storage for the Galaxy S10e, S10, and S10+ has also been enlarged to up to 1TB, which is expandable up to 1.5TB via microSD card.

The Wi-Fi speed has also been increased to maximum 1.2Gbps for both Download and Upload, along with the increased LTE speed 2.0Gbps for the Download and 150Mbps for Upload. All the three Galaxy S10, S10+ and S10e phones are both water and dust resistant.

There are four to six colours available for the three models, including the Prism White, Prism Black, Prism Green, and Prism Blue, which are common for all the three Galaxy phones. The Samsung Galaxy S10, Galaxy S10+ and Galaxy S10e will be available for preorders from February 21, while the devices will become available in stores and online beginning March 8, 2019. The price range for Galaxy S10 starts at $899.99, for Galaxy S10+ starts from $999.99 and for Galaxy S10e starts from $749.99.

Germany Receives the Stable Android Pie Update for Samsung Galaxy 9 & 9 Plus

Christmas has just ended well and with that Samsung has announced that the company is rolling out the Android Pie updates for the Galaxy S9 and Galaxy S9+ users from some countries of Europe. SamMobile reported that the company has started to release the updates in Germany, and later, Samsung announced that the users from countries like Netherlands and Slovakia are also going to get the new Android Pie updates.

Samsung-Galaxy
Image Source: thenerdmag.com

The release has occurred way ahead of its decided date, that was in the late January in 2019, alongside the release of the same update for the Galaxy Note 9. The Android update is a stable update and not the beta one. Right now it is only available in a few countries in Europe.

Earlier this month, Samsung had released the beta version of Android Pie for its Galaxy S9 and S9+ users in UK, France, Poland, and Germany. The users who are having Samsung Experience UX based on Android Oreo, as well as those with the One UI beta on top of Android Pie, are receiving the update, along with the Samsung’s One UI version 1.0. One UI is basically created for the users so that they can easily use the apps on their big screen phones.

The update will change the software version for Galaxy S9+ to G965FXXU2CRLI, and the software for Galaxy S9 will be G960FXXU2CRLI. The size of the update software is around 1.7GB, which is available for download on the Samsung’s download servers. The users can check the availability of updates on the S9/Plus phones from the Software Update option in the settings of their phone.

The early release of the update indicates that Samsung is getting ready for some tough competition in the upcoming year. Although the update had to roll out for every S9 and S9+ users, all around the world, only a few will enjoy it before it gets officially released in January 2019. Till then, we can evaluate the difference between the earlier and the latest Android version on the basis of the feedback from the European Galaxy S9 and S9+ users.

Samsung’s $300 Bixby Smart Speaker to be Launched by the End of the Year

Samsung Galaxy Home Speaker
Image Source: hiconsumption.com

Following the lead of its rivals, Apple, Microsoft and Google, Samsung has announced the launch of its new smart speaker Galaxy Home powered by Bixby. Bixby was released by Samsung last year, which is a voice robot embedded in a few of the smartphones and home appliances of Samsung, which is similar to the Google assistant and Apple’s infamous Siri. The automated smart speaker by Samsung will provide a surround sound and can be controlled manually or by voice commands.

1. Design: Since the announcement of the Galaxy Home speaker there has been a chaos about the look of the speakers. Some have compared it with a witch’s cauldron, a fondue pot and also with a backyard grill. It has a three-legged stand and is equipped with eight far-field microphones, to take the commands from the user. It has full-range speakers and an onboard subwoofer for surround sound, with a sound steering and audio tuning by AKG. The size of the Galaxy Home is considerably space-age and larger than Google Home and Amazon’s Alexa.

2. Cost: As Galaxy Home is competing with its contemporaries Google, Apple and Amazon, that are already are at the higher end of the prices ranging from $250 to $400. The price of Samsung Galaxy Home is yet be announced but is expected to be around $300. Before galaxy Home, Samsung has launched the Alexa-powered Samsung VL350 that cost $250.

Samsung is ready to give a tough competition to its competitors now in the music and speaker industry. Also, it has announced a partnership with Spotify and will add the live music streaming to Galaxy Home. The other features, launch date and the price of the Galaxy Home smart speakers will be announced in its Developer’s conference in the November month of this year, until then we can only guess what it will bring different from other smart speakers.

Features of Freshly Launched Samsung Galaxy Note 9

Samsung Galaxy Note 9
Image Source: theverge.com

After the launch of Android Pie on 7 August 2018, now Samsung has come up with the launch of its flagship Smartphone, addition to its Samsung Galaxy 9 family. The smartphone was launched at the Barclays Center in New York. The online booking of the phone is already started and will be available in the market from the 24 August 2018. It is the last member of the Samsung Galaxy 9 family and costlier than the previous editions of the Samsung phones. The cost for the 128GB / 6GB RAM model will start from $999 (Appro. INR 68000) and 512GB / 8GB RAM version for $1,250. (Appro. INR 86000) Yes, you read it right. I don’t know what attracted your attention more the price or space, but both are too high. Along with the increased space, Samsung has launched its new baby with the following features added to it:

Look, Size & Color: The new Samsung Galaxy Note 9 is quite a colourful range including Midnight Black, Metallic Copper, Ocean Blue, and Lavender Purple. The famous S Pens of the Note series are of the same colours as the phone, except the Ocean Blue phone is having a yellow stylus. Now talking about the look of the phone, likewise, Note 9 is no different than the Galaxy 8 and 9 series which is a disappointment, but, the size of this phone is little bigger comparatively.

Camera Added With New AI Features: Except the new AI features embedded in it, its camera is no different from the Note S9 camera. It still has the 8-megapixel selfie camera, with the dual 12-megapixel camera on the back. But AI has enabled it to detect what you actually need to capture and bring that thing into focus. It has also got a Flaw Detection feature that prompts when there is a flaw in the captured image, like the blink of the eye. Also, it has got a scene optimizer to adjust the white balance, saturation and contrast. Also, it can identify 20 scenarios like snowflakes, fire, food, pets, sunsets, plants, cityscapes, etc.

Bluetooth Stylus: The Note 9 SPen is all similar to the other SPens of the Note series with an addition of Bluetooth to it. With the help of the Bluetooth, the Stylus is turned into a remote control which can be used to click pictures, slide the presentations, play/pause your music apps and also, you can use it to open any app by creating a shortcut for the apps.

DeX software embedded to Note 9: Now this time the DeX software resides inside the Note 9 phone itself, so you can connect the phone to monitor independently using a USB, for the desktop-experience without a dock.

Samsung has claimed to replace the laptops with their Galaxy Note 9 by including with a high-performance processor, Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 processor and battery is also bigger than before i.e. 4,000-mAh. The position of its Fingerprint reader has also moved to below the camera whereas it was on the side of the camera in the S8 and S9 series. Samsung Galaxy Note 9 will be the last of its series as Samsung has announced the launch of Galaxy S10 by the month of March next year. Till then Note 9 will be their latest innovation of 2018. Though it is on the high end due to its price maybe it will be able to grab customers with its new features.