You’ll never guess which phone won Samsung’s flagship smartphone battery test

Samsung has posted a new video online in which it conducts a battery test on flagship smartphones. The company’s Galaxy S7 and Galaxy S7 edge go up against the Huawei P9, Apple iPhone 6s, HTC 10, Sony Xperia X and the LG G5. All devices are said to have been tested on equal terms, the same video is being played over and over again on all handsets. Which phone do you think won the test?

The LG G5 is the first to bow out after 6 hours 31 minutes and 49 seconds followed by the Huawei P9 which lasted 6 hours 51 minutes and 43 seconds. Sony Xperia X lasted 7 hours 15 minutes and 35 seconds while the HTC 10 kept fighting for 8 hours and 3 seconds. The iPhone was next to throw in the towel after 8 hours 13 minutes and 57 seconds. Unsurprisingly, it’s Samsung’s flagship smartphones that beat all of its competitors. The Galaxy S7 edge lasted for 10 hours 30 minutes and 14 seconds while the Galaxy S7 nearly made it a full 11 hours – it died after 10 hours 59 minutes and 11 seconds.

There’s no doubt about the fact that the Galaxy S7′s 3,000mAh battery and the Galaxy S7 edge’s 3,600mAh battery is more than capable of keeping up with users’ rigorous demands but the test isn’t really indicative of real world usage. It doesn’t take in a lot of factors like individual users’ screen brightness preferences or how much time they spend on call or online streaming videos. Your mileage is bound to vary if you stream a lot of videos on your Galaxy S7 edge while your friend with an iPhone 6s only uses the handset for emails and text messages. Nevertheless, you can get the point Samsung is trying to make here, which is simply: Buy the Galaxy S7.

Press renders of the Galaxy Note 7 and the new Gear VR leaked

There’s no stopping Galaxy Note 7 leaks. Even though we’re only a couple of days away from the official announcement the leaks just keep coming in. The official press renders of the Galaxy Note 7 and the new Gear VR headset have now been leaked online. We saw a blurry photo of the new Gear VR just yesterday but this render is crisp and clear so we get a really good look at the upcoming virtual reality headset.

As previously reported, the big difference between the existing Gear VR Consumer Edition and the new Gear VR is the color, aside from the USB Type-C port. The new headset is all black yet it retails the design of its predecessor. It doesn’t appear to have been changed in any major way but Samsung will have made some tweaks under the hood. The accompanying report mentions that the new Gear VR measures 207mm x 122mm x 98.5mm and that it offers 110° field of view as opposed to its predecessor’s 96°. Despite having a USB Type-C port the new headset remains compatible with the Galaxy S7 and the Galaxy S6 series. I don’t really need to explain the Galaxy Note 7 renders because they’ve been leaked so many times that you are all quite familiar with Samsung’s upcoming flagship handset by now. The report claims that the new Gear VR will be available next month while the Galaxy Note 7 will be released in France in early September. Another report today claimed that the Galaxy Note 7 will be released in Amsterdam on August 16.

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Galaxy Note 7 release date in Amsterdam said to be August 16

Samsung is going to unveil the Galaxy Note 7 on August 2. Previous reports have suggested that the company might release the handset on the very same day. A new report has surfaced which claims that the Galaxy Note 7 release date in Amsterdam is August 16 which means that the handset will be launched there a full two weeks after it’s unveiled in New York City.

Even though the report only mentions August 16 as the release date for this handset in Amsterdam, there is a possibility that the Galaxy Note 7 might be released on this very day across much of Europe. As far as the U.S. release is concerned it’s still believed that the handset could be released on August 2. T-Mobile is one of the carriers that’s expected to start taking pre-orders from next week while pre-orders in Dubai have already begun. From the looks of it, Samsung might release the Galaxy Note 7 in a handful of markets on August 2 and will make others wait until August 16. None of this has been officially confirmed as of now so take it with a grain of salt.

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Samsung files for ‘Gear S3 Frontier

We exclusively reported yesterday that Samsung’s next-generation smartwatch is going to be round and that it’s going to be unveiled in September. The Gear S3 is going to have a rotary bezel just like the Gear S2 and Samsung will announce it at IFA in Berlin this September. The company has now filed a trademark for “Gear S3 Frontier” in South Korea, the significance of the word “Frontier” is unknown at this time.

The trademark does deal with a wearable device as the details mentioned under the Designated Goods section of the application include “Smart watches,” “Smart watches to make mobile payments,” “Wearable computers,” “computer interfaces, namely, software interfaces with multi health devices to record health conditions,” among other similar descriptions. If these details are anything to go by, the Gear S3might offer improved health and fitness tracking features and might even be compatible with Samsung Pay right out of the box. We will continue to hear more about Samsung’s next smartwatch until it’s announced at IFA 2016 and might even see some leaked photos and renders before it’s made official.

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Samsung’s Q2 earnings show just how big of a hit the Galaxy S7 series has been

Samsung is most certainly enjoying the fruits of its labor with the Galaxy S7 and the Galaxy S7 edge. The company announced its earnings for the second quarter ended June 30 2016 today. Revenue touched KRW 50.94 trillion ($45 billion) in the quarter which is an increase of KRW 2.40 trillion year-over-year. As expected, the company’s operating profit for the quarter hit KRW 8.14 trillion ($7.17 billion) registering a growth of KRW 1.24 trillion year-over-year. This is actually the highest operating profit of any quarter since the first quarter of 2014.

Samsung’s IT & Mobile Communications (IM) Division was a clear winner in this quarter. It saw its operating profit jump 57 percent to KRW 4.32 trillion while operating margin for the handset business jumped to 16.3 percent which is now at the highest it has been in two years. The company itself says that this substantial improvement in earnings is led by sales of the Galaxy S7 and the Galaxy S7 edgewhile a streamlined mid to low-end lineup also contributed to the improved profitability.

The component business did come under pressure this quarter. Overall earnings declined 28 percent year-over-year primarily due to the fall in average selling price of display panels and chips. The company did note that demand for mobile semiconductors and SSD increased during the quarter.

Samsung expects its solid performance to continue in the second half of 2016 primarily driven by an earnings increase in the component business due to sales growth in high value-added products as well as stable demand and supply conditions. The mobile division forecasts that its marketing expenditure will increase over the coming months. Samsung expects the component business to maintain good performance as demand and supply conditions for memory chips and LCD panels improve.

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