Tag: Samsung

Despite significant challenges in getting into the US market, Huawei has become the second largest phone manufacture, measured in phone shipments, in the latest report from IDC.  The shipping of 54.2 million devices in the second quarter of 2018 means that the Chinese manufacture has moved well past Apple, who was number two behind Samsung until this report.  Apple shipped 41.3 million devices in the same quarter.

Overall, Samsung remains the number one phone manufacture in the world, capturing some 20.9% of the global market with 71.5 million units shipping in Q2 of this year.  Huawei has approximately 15.8% of the market share.

Good news this morning for those of you who have the Samsung Galaxy S7 Active on the AT&T network.  Your Android Oreo 8.0 update is now starting to roll out.  The update, according to AT&T, is build R16NW.G891AUCU3CRE7 and it is about 1.5GB in size.   The update brings the April Android Security Update and is version 8.0 of Oreo, not the more current 8.1.

Fundamentally, the update is the same that has been rolling out on AT&T, Verizon and Sprint for the normal Galaxy S7 and S7 Edge which brings all the Oreo updates along with the new Samsung Experience 9 user experience.

Samsung has updated their Android Security Update page and it appears that it is the end of the line for the majority of the Galaxy S6 series of phones.  The Galaxy S6 and S6 Edge will both no longer receive any updates of any type from Samsung while the S6 Edge+ and S6 Active will still get updates – but that’s likely not for long.

The S6 lineup for the most part was introduced in April 2015 and for the S6 and S6 Edge, the last official update they will receive is the February Android Security Update for Android Nougat.  It is likely that one last update will come to the Edge+ and Active but that hasn’t been officially announced.

Mobile World Congress last week was a fantastic event for Nokia.  Not only did they announce five new phones, but according to Twitter Marketing UK, they were the most talked about brand on the first full night of the event.  Everyone assumed that Samsung would take this honor, especially given they launched their new flagship phones, the Galaxy S9 and S9+, the night prior.  But Nokia stole the limelight for a few reasons.

First, Nokia is a brand that people know and love.  Sure, you can same the same thing about Samsung today but chances are, most of you reading this post, started life with a Nokia device or have had one at some point in your mobile life.  That is not necessarily the case with Samsung.

While everyone’s attention this week has been focused on the events at Mobile World Congress, Verizon rolled out a bunch of updates to Samsung devices and a few Moto devices on their network.  The majority of the updates are focused on bringing the February Android Security Update to the Samsung devices as well as other minor tweaks and updates.  The Moto Z devices are getting the December patch.

Here is the rundown of the phones that Verizon updated this week along with the new build numbers.  I’ve linked to the release notes for each build that the carrier has published.

• Galaxy S8: NRD90M.G950USQS2BRB1
• Galaxy S8+: NRD90M.G955USQS2BRB1
• Galaxy Note 8: NMF26X.N950USQS3BRB1
• Galaxy S6: NRD90M.G920VVRS4DRB1
• Galaxy S6 Edge: NRD90M.G925VVRS4DRB1
• Galaxy S6 Edge+: NRD90M.G928VVRS3CRB2
• Galaxy Note 5: NRD90M.N920VVRS3CRB2
• Moto Z Play: NDNS26.118-23-12-7-1
• Moto Z2 Play: NDSS26.118-23-19-3

In all cases, the updates have been released and should be landing on their respective devices via an OTA update this week.

As expect, Samsung has announced the all new Samsung Galaxy S9 and S9+ at Mobile World Congress today.  The two flagship devices are solid upgrades to last year’s S8 series with the S9+ having some unique features over the standard S9.

The S9 and the S9+ are both powered by the Snapdragon 845 here in the US, with the S9 having 4GB of RAM and starting with 64GB of storage.  You can go up to 256GB on that built-in storage on both devices but, the S9+ will have 6GB of RAM on board.

The Galaxy S9 has a 12MP rear facing camera while the S9+ has a dual camera configuration with an adjustable aperture.  The S9 is powered by a 3000mAh battery behind the 5.8″ QHD Super AMOLED display while the 6.2″ S9+ will have a slight bigger 3500mAh battery.