Samsung's top-of-the-line Galaxy handsets are typically outfitted with some of the best-performing batteries. That said, you could imagine our surprise when we learned that the battery in Samsung's flagship Galaxy S8+ performed worse than the cell powering Apple's iPhone 7 Plus, as per a new test carried out by review website PhoneArena.
Last week, Samsung announced its newest flagship device, the Galaxy S8. While there are many jokes to be made about Samsung handsets, exploding batteries aside, they are good at some things. Okay, my Samsung dishwasher leaks and the washing machine too (no joke!). Also, my Samsung refrigerator rattles when the compressor is on. Never mind. Jony Ive appliances would be nice.
As I was saying, sometimes Samsung does things right. When the Galaxy S8 launched, I received a lot of requests for the new wallpapers. Thanks to help from Twitter, I was able to round up more than 30 different Galaxy S8 wallpapers. Take a step inside for the details and downloads.
Samsung's newly introduced Galaxy S8 features iris scanning and facial recognition via the front-facing camera. Both these features can be used to unlock the phone for those times when you don't feel like reaching your finger around the back and feeling for its built-in fingerprint reader alongside the rear camera. iDeviceHelp posted a hands-on video with Galaxy S8's biometrics.
They concluded that eyeballs and faces are not as secure as fingerprints because the phone could be tricked into unlocking by scanning a user's headshot.
Wednesday, Samsung fired the first salvo against Apple's upcoming iPhone 8 with the official introduction of its Galaxy S8 and Galaxy S8+ smartphones at media events in New York's Lincoln Center and London's Olympic Park.
But the South Korean conglomerate didn't stop there: they announced a 4K-capable 360-degree camera and other accessories, including a docking station that lets you connect your new Galaxy to an external display and wireless or wired keyboard and/or mouse to use it as an Android-driven computer with a desktop-like interface.
Without further ado, here's a quick recap of everything Samsung announced today.
Samsung today confirmed plans to salvage components from its discontinued Galaxy Note 7 smartphone and reuse some of the parts in the refurbished Note 7 devices “where applicable.”
Prior reports claimed modified versions of the troublesome Galaxy Note 7 would be sold in emerging markets, including India and Vietnam.
According to prolific smartphone leakster Evan Blass, Samsung's regular Galaxy S8 and the rumored Galaxy S8 Plus models will occupy prices between Apple's iterative iPhone 7s and a new premium iPhone 8 model that will likely cost more than $1,000 unlocked. Blass also shared genuine-looking press renderings of the next Galaxy smartphone.
Meanwhile, SamMobile is reporting that Galaxy S8's slow motion video capture mode could blow iPhone 7 out of the water with the ability to capture a thousand frames per second. Apple's camera partner Sony recently announced a new 19-megapixel CMOS sensor (IMX400), built it into the new Xperia XZ Premium, that can capture slo-mo video at 960 frames per second.
Samsung on Monday officially announced Bixby, its new personal digital assistant based on AI technologies from Viv Labs, a startup by Siri co-founders Dag Kittalus and Adam Cheyer that the South Korean company acquired last year. According to InJong Rhee, Executive Vice President and head of R&D, Software and Services at Samsung, Bixby is about completeness, context awareness and cognitive tolerance, aside from other features.
The personal assistant should launch alongside Galaxy S8 and will be “fundamentally different” than Siri, Cortana, Google Assistant and more.
Revered smartphone leakster Evan Blass yesterday leaked out what appears to be a genuine press shot depicting Samsung's upcoming Galaxy S8 flagship.
Not only does the image give us a better look at the device's extra button, said to summon Samsung's new Bixby digital assistant, it's a preview of sorts of the kind of form factor we're expecting from Apple's iPhone 8 when it launches in September.
Mobile World Congress 2017 is underway in Barcelona, Spain from February 27 through March 2, but Samsung won't be taking the opportunity to launch its latest flagship smartphone at the event. Instead, as confirmed today, Samsung will be holding its media event on March 29.
Unpacked 2017 is widely expected to serve as a launchpad for Galaxy S8, the company's upcoming flagship smartphone which already leaked via a pair of hands-on videos.
Ahead of Mobile World Congress, the South Korean company also announced two new tablets—Galaxy Tab S3 and Samsung Galaxy Book—and said that Galaxy devices will gain a new level of audio experiences with the integration of audio technology from AKG by HARMAN. As you know, Samsung and Harman a few months ago entered into a definitive merger agreement, valued at $8 billion.
Samsung is looking to pre-empt Apple's expected monster upgrade cycle stemming from pent-up demand for a cutting-edge iPhone with a new Plus-branded Galaxy smartphone, as was previously rumored. Likely named Galaxy S8+, it should have an iris scanner and a 6.2-inch AMOLED screen with a Quad HD+ 3,200-by-1,800 pixel resolution.
That's according to prolific leakster Evan Blass.
Among other features, iPhone 8 may support AR and 3D image capture/modeling via an improved FaceTime camera and use two-step biometric authentication combining either an iris scanner or 3D facial recognition and a Touch ID fingerprint reader embedded into the display. It's been inferred from a recent KGI report that iPhone 8's 5.8-inch 521 PPI AMOLED display should feature an active display area of about 5.1 inches with a native resolution of 2,800-by-1,242 pixels and the content area of 2,436-by-1,125 pixels.
Apple has apparently signed a deal with Samsung Display, a subsidiary of Samsung Electronics, to build an additional 60 million organic light-emitting diode (OLED) panels for iPhone 8, The Korea Herald newspaper reported Monday. The deal is worth five trillion Korean won, or about a $4.3 billion.
The deal is in addition to an agreement that Apple and Samsung signed last year to supply 100 million OLED display panels for iPhone 8.
You can't make this stuff up: Reuters is reporting that a minor fire broke out at a Samsung SDI factory in the northern Chinese city of Tianjin on Wednesday. What makes this story newsworthy is the fact that the fire was reportedly caused by waste products, including faulty batteries, inside the facility.