Tuesday, 3 March 2015

You can now rewatch the entire Galaxy S6 and Galaxy S6 edge announcement

The official announcement of the Galaxy S6 and Galaxy S6 edge was probably one of the most exciting in the history of Samsung’s UNPACKED events. The company touted a lot of the two handsets’ features, owned up to the mistakes it has made in the past year or so, and showed us that is ready to go outside its comfort zone in order to up its game in the smartphone market. If you were unable to watch the live stream of the announcement yesterday, you can now make up for it by watching the entire thing on YouTube.
As is usually the case, Samsung has posted the video for the full event, and also a 60 second recap of all the important moments. Like we said, this was one of the best UNPACKED events ever, so it’s best to stop reading and hit those play buttons down below. Oh, and once you are done, do check out our hands-on experience with the Galaxy S6 and Galaxy S6 edge.

Monday, 16 February 2015

Samsung to bet on its homebrew SoCs by reducing dependency on Qualcomm’s chipsets

Samsung and Qualcomm share a unique, long standing relationship. However, the former seems to have changed its mind about being dependent on the latter for its chipset supply. For a good few years now, Samsung has been shipping phones (including its top-tier models) with Qualcomm’s Snapdragon series of chipsets. It turns out that the Korean fabricator just isn’t keen enough on pursuing the arrangement, and for that, it has been prepping its own chipset design. What you might already have heard is that theGalaxy S6 will most likely come with Samsung’s own Exynos 7420 SoC instead of the Snapdragon 810 as previously believed. While the exact reason behind this isn’t yet known, industry insiders have mentioned the Snapdragon 810′s overheating problems as the cause of it.
Qualcomm top-of-the-line SoC’s have gone on to become a de facto standard for almost every flagship in the recent years. And that is perhaps what bothers Samsung. The ‘rebel’ nature of the company was also seen when it pushed the Tizen project much more than any other Android manufacturer out there.
Qualcomm’s chipsets have traditionally included on-board modems, which make them an obvious choice for makers new and established. However, Samsung’s Exynos series chipsets known to power its higher-end phones need additional hardware in conjunction to be able to connect to radio networks and such. That is something Samsung will have to take care of in order to succeed with making its own SoCs… and fresh reports suggest likewise.
What do you think about the whole issue? Let us know in the comments section below.
Via | Source

amsung rolls out Lollipop update for the Galaxy Note 4 (SM-N910C)

Today is the day, Galaxy Note 4 owners! Samsung has finally started updating its latest phablet flagship to Android 5.0 Lollipop, with the update currently making its way to users in Poland. The update is based on Android 5.0.1 (not the latest version of the OS, but we’re guessing Samsung will rectify that in the near future), and includes a new look and feel (that makes TouchWiz look really good compared to what you get on KitKat), faster performance, lockscreen notifications, improved battery life, and a few other goodies that make the Galaxy Note 4 feel as good as new.
The update doesn’t seem to have shown up on Kies just yet, so you will have to wait for the OTA to show up on your device (an excursion into the Settings » About phone » Software updates menu and mashing the Check now button might help you grab the update faster). Do remember that the update might not be immediately available on your Galaxy Note 4 even if you’re in Poland, and it will possibly be a month or so before we see it reach every country/region out there.
Check out some screenshots from Lollipop on the Galaxy Note 4 below, and also see it in action in our exclusive hands-on video right after the screenshots.

Samsung working on Exynos 7890 and 7650 chipsets

The Exynos 7420 is shaping up to a monster of a mobile chipset, but if a LinkedIn profile discovered by PhoneArena is to be believed, Samsung is already working on two more processors in the Exynos 7 lineup. The Exynos 7890 and Exynos 7650 are listed as “14nm” and “first 64 bits” SoCs; the part about the Exynos 7650 being the first 64-bit chip is odd as the Exynos 7420 is also a 64-bit chip and will soon go official with the Galaxy S6, meaning it’s probably a mistake or the Exynos 7650 is a more advanced variant of the 7420.
It remains to be seen if the Exynos 7890 and 7650 are flagship-level chips. The latter probably isn’t, if we go by the naming conventions for Samsung’s Exynos 5 chipsets (the Exynos 5260 is a hexa-core chip, for example), while the Exynos 7890 sounds like it could be an SoC that’s reserved for devices like Samsung’s Chromebooks. At this point it’s difficult to be certain until more information on the two chipsets comes out.
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Galaxy S6 release date rumored

Samsung is going to unveil the Galaxy S6 at its MWC event next month but what many of us would be interested in then would be the release date, exactly when Samsung fans will be able to get their hands on the company’s latest device. If a latest rumor is to be believed then it might not take long for the Galaxy S6 to make its way from the stage to your pocket. This rumor suggests that the Galaxy S6 might be released on March 22nd or just a couple of days after it.
Apparently Samsung employees have been informed of vacation blackout days prior to the launch of a major new product. The blackout period begins from March 22nd and ends on March 30th. Another blackout period starts April 19th and ends April 27th. It is possible that the second blackout period might concern release of the Galaxy S6 Edgethough the purportedly leaked internal memo that has appeared online does not make any distinction based on device model for these blackout dates.
Even if Samsung won’t take too long to bring the Galaxy S6 to the market one must keep in mind that this new flagship won’t immediately be released in all markets around the world. Its home base of South Korea may very well be the first market where the Galaxy S6 comes out either on or after March 22nd, 2015.
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