Tag: Samsung

After weeks of pre-orders from carriers and Samsung themselves, the Galaxy Note8 is finally available for purchase.  The new phablet, which has been receiving rave reviews and has set a record for pre-orders, can now be purchased directly from Samsung, carriers and Amazon.  It is also available in 42 markets globally with more coming in the next few weeks.

For those that don’t recall, the Galaxy Note8 is a  6.3″ device that renders at 1440 x 2560 resolution with an 18.5:9 aspect ratio.  Physically it is 162.5 x 74.6 x 8.6mm and weighs 195g.  In old money, that’s 6.39 x 2.9 x .34 inches and a weight of 6.87 ounces.   It is powered by the Snapdragon 835 processor here in the US while the international version will be powered by Samsung’s own Exynos 8895 processor.  Regardless of which version you get, it will have an eye watering 6GB of RAM and 64GB of onboard storage.  That storage can be expanded up to 2TB thanks to the MicroSD slot.

Huawei continues to make huge strides in the smartphone market and their surge over the course of 2017 continues.  Counterpoint, a global technology research firm, has just released their latest Market Pulse for July 2017.  In that report, the Chinese manufacture has jumped over Apple to take the number two position in global smartphone sales percentage.  Perhaps even more impressive in this is the fact that they made this jump without a “hero” device like Apple’s iPhone 7 or Samsung’s Galaxy S8.

Samsung is by far the leader in smartphone sales percentage globally with just over 20%.

The July report from Counterpoint is the fifth consecutive month of gains in market share by Huawei and they have distanced themselves from others in the highly competitive Chinese manufacturing market.  Still, as the report points out, the risk to Huawei is their over dependence of their home market and expansion into Europe and North America will need to happen for them to hold on to that 2nd place solidly.

Yesterday during the launch of the new Galaxy Note8, Samsung indicated that there would be a trade-in program for eligible devices if you bought the phone from them directly.  That program has gone live now and it is pretty extensive.

The discount for your trade-in varies depending on the model you are giving up to get in the new Note8.  Here is the breakdown:

• $200 Off:  Galaxy S5, Galaxy S6, Galaxy S6 edge, Galaxy S6 edge+
• $200 Off:  iPhone SE, iPhone 5, iPhone 6, iPhone 6 Plus, iPhone 6S, iPhone 6S Plus
• $300 Off:  Galaxy Note5, Galaxy S7, Galaxy S7 edge
• $300 Off:  Google Pixel, Google Pixel XL, LG G4, LG G5, LG G6, LG V20

That’s a fairly comprehensive list and clearly Samsung is aiming to convert iPhone users over to the Note with these discounts on the older iPhone devices.

This morning, Samsung announced the all new Galaxy Note8.  The new 6.3″ phablet has been one of the more anticipated phones of 2017 and fills the gap that was created with the recall of the Note7 last year.  Samsung has been hard at work, making sure the Note8 is tip-top in performance.

The 6.3″ device renders at 1440 x 2560 resolution with an 18.5:9 aspect ratio.  Physically it is 162.5 x 74.6 x 8.6mm and weighs 195g.  In old money, that’s 6.39 x 2.9 x .34 inches and a weight of 6.87 ounces.   It is powered by the Snapdragon 835 processor here in the US while the international version will be powered by Samsung’s own Exynos 8895 processor.  Regardless of which version you get, it will have an eye watering 6GB of RAM and 64GB of onboard storage.  That storage can be expanded up to 2TB thanks to the MicroSD slot.

After a delay of 3 months, Samsung Bixby is finally rolling out to the Galaxy S8 here in the United States and in South Korea.  The update to bring Bixby to the S8 devices and brings along all of the normal features of a personal assistant along with a few Samsung features too.

Bixby was heavily touted in the lead up to the launch of the Galaxy S8 but expectations fell well short when the device shipped without the assistant.  Indeed, the dedicated hardware button on the S8 phones for Bixby couldn’t even be remapped initially although some developers found ways around it – which Samsung kept knocking down.  Without remapping, you pretty much had a useless button on your phone until now.

For readers who have the either the Samsung Galaxy S7 or the S7 Edge on AT&T, there is a new update heading your way starting today.  The update brings the June Android Security update to both devices.  The update follows a similar update from Sprint and T-Mobile for the phones on their networks.  It does not bring any significant new features and it remains on Android Nougat 7.0.

For the AT&T Galaxy S7, you are looking for build G930AUCU4BQF3 while on the Galaxy S7 Edge, build G935AUCU4BQF3 is your flavor of the day.  The updates are about 300MB in size, so not huge but certainly one you will want to download while you are on Wi-Fi just to make it all a bit faster process.