Samsung Galaxy Grand Prime (SM-G530H) firmware available online

Samsung officially announced the Galaxy Grand Prime, the fourth handset in its affordable phablet lineup, for the Indian market yesterday. The Galaxy Grand Prime is the first Samsung handset to feature a 5-megapixel front-facing camera, and today, firmware for the device have begun showing up online. Based on the regions for which the firmware files are available, it looks like Samsung might be following previous tradition of only launching its Galaxy Grand devices in Asian and emerging markets. Also notable is that the Galaxy Grand Prime runs on Android 4.4.4 out of the box, though it remains to be seen if Samsung will find it eligible for an upgrade to Android L.

For those unaware, these firmware files can be used to manually return to the stock software on the device, and for extracting things like wallpapers, ringtones, and inbuilt apps APKs. You can download firmware for the Galaxy Grand Prime from our firmware section; to get all firmware for the device, enter SM-G530 in the model number search field to get the full list.

Exclusive: Samsung Galaxy S5 Active for Europe

In May, Samsung announced the Galaxy S5 Active, a ruggedised version of the Galaxy S5. But, for some reason, the Korean giant decided to keep it exclusive to the U.S. market, especially on the U.S. network provider AT&T. However, soon the device started to launch on different carriers, and was also made available in Canada. Now, four months after the original launch of the device, Samsung is finally bringing the Galaxy S5 Active to the European soil, as exclusively reported by SamMobile earlier. And, today, one of our elite friends sent us exclusive pictures of the European GS5 Active.

Design and spec-wise, the European variant is exactly the same as the U.S. GS5 Active. There are only two differentiating factors between the two variants, carrier branding and model number. The European variant has no carrier branding and there isn’t a “Galaxy S5 Active” logo on the back cover, it comes with the usual Samsung logo, which is placed under the LED flash and the heart-rate sensor. Plus, there is a change of model number – SM-G870F. The European GS5 Active will be available in two colours, Titanium Grey and Cemo Green, and will come with a sticker price of €629.

The Galaxy S5 Active sports a 5.1-inch Full HD (1920×1080) Super AMOLED display, a Snapdragon 801 SoC with a Quad-core Krait 400 CPU clocked at 2.5GHz, 578MHz Adreno 330 GPU, 2GB of 32-bit dual-channel 933 MHz LPDDR3e RAM, 16GB of internal storage and microSD card slot and a 16 megapixel ISOCELL camera sensor, a 2800mAh battery, and a heart-rate sensor. Unlike the Galaxy S5, the Active isn’t equipped with a fingerprint scanner, but it does come with a dedicated key for accessing the Activity Zone, which offers features like a compass, barometer, stopwatch and flashlight, and for use as a camera shutter button.

The Galaxy S5 Active is also IP67-certified for water and dust-resistance, and compliance with the MIL-STD 810G standard for ruggedness.

PayPal’s relationship with Samsung might have kept it away from Apple Pay

Last month Apple announced its new payments service called Apple Pay. Many were surprised to note that PayPal was nowhere to be seen, even though it had been rumored initially that both Apple and PayPal were in talks regarding a payments service. One would expect PayPal to have been there given that its one of the largest payments service provider but apparently its relationship with Samsung was troubling with Apple, which is why the fruit company decided to go its own way.

Apple and PayPal were reportedly in talks however it is believed that they went south. Now why did that happen? According to one report Apple pulled back when PayPal signed up a deal with Samsung earlier this year that opened up the Galaxy S5′s fingerprint sensor to authenticate PayPal payments. It is now believed to be the reason why Apple Pay doesn’t have support for PayPal and why it is not even listed as an acceptable payment platform in the developer manual.

The same report also claims that then PayPal President David Marcus was opposed to the company signing a deal with Samsung because he believed it would put the company’s relationship with Apple on the backburner but apparently parent company eBay’s CEO John Donahoe went ahead with it anyway. Marcus has since moved on to Facebook and eBay has decided to spin off PayPal as a separate company by mid-2015.

Nevertheless the damage has been done, Apple has given the cold shoulder to PayPal as far as its payments service is concerned, whether or not it’ll soften up in the future remains to be seen.

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Win Galaxy Note 4 by participating in #NotePunIntended contest

Samsung’s advertisements are known for Apple bashing and while that strategy still steams ahead, a few days back the company released a new promo video for the Galaxy Note 4 that was filled with puns. Basically everyone in the video tried using Note at the end of almost every word so that it could be a punny video, no pun intended.

Now Samsung is giving you the chance to come up with your own puns for the Galaxy Note 4. By participating in the #NotePunIntended content its running via Twitter you can try your luck for a chance to win Galaxy Note 4.

To enter the contest reply to Samsung’s tweet with a pun filled tweet and use the #NotePunIntended hashtag. The first entry period has already ended, the second is ongoing and will end on 11:59 am ET on October 1st. The third starts October 2nd oon 12:00 pm ET and ends 11:59 am ET on October 3rd.

For each entry period Samsung will be giving away five Galaxy Note 4 units. Keep in mind that these won’t be unlocked units, winners will have to activate them on either Verizon, AT&T, Sprint or T-Mobile, all four of which start selling the device next month. As you probably may have guessed by now this contest is limited to the U.S.

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Samsung Galaxy S5 Active, Galaxy Note Edge and Galaxy Tab S 8.4 announced for Japan

NTT Docomo, which is one of the key telecom operators in Japan, has announced three new devices from Samsung as a part of their winter line-up; theGalaxy S5 Active (SC-02G), Galaxy Note Edge and Galaxy Tab S 8.4. The Galaxy S5 Active, which was restricted to the North American market, will now be available in the Japanese market starting from October 4. It features a 5.1-inch Super AMOLED display with 1080p resolution, IP67 certification, Android 4.4 KitKat, 2.5GHz quad-core Snapdragon 801 processor, 2GB of RAM, 16GB of internal storage space (along with a microSD card slot), 16-megapixels ISOCELL primary camera with 4K video recording and a 2.1-megapixels secondary front-facing camera. It will be equipped with FeliCa NFC, Xi LTE, and VoLTE support.

The Galaxy Note Edge (SC-01G), which was unveiled before the world earlier this month, will be available to Japanese consumers starting the last week of October. It features a 5.6-inch QHD Super AMOLED curved edge display, 2.7GHz quad-core Snapdragon 805 processor, 3GB of RAM, 32/64GB of internal storage, microSD card slot, 16-megapixels primary camera with OIS, 3.7MP front-facing camera and a 3000 mAh battery. It is also equipped with a fingerprint sensor, heart-rate monitor and an S Pen stylus. Connectivity features include 4G LTE (with Xi LTE and VoLTE support), Wi-Fi ac/b/g/n, Bluetooth v4.1, IR port, FeliCa NFC, and microUSB v2.0 port.

The Galaxy Tab S 8.4 was announced back in June 2014 and will be available in Japan in December. It features an 8.4-inch QHD Super AMOLED display, Android 4.4 KitKat, Exynos 5 Octa 5420 processor, 3GB of RAM, 16/32GB of internal storage space, microSD card slot, 8-megapixels camera on the rear and a 2.1-megapixels front-facing camera. Just like the Galaxy S5, Galaxy Note 4 and the Galaxy Note Edge, the Galaxy Tab S 8.4features fingerprint sensor. It is powered by a 4,900 mAh battery.

All these devices feature One Seg support for HDTV broadcast and Xi LTE connectivity.

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