Galaxy S

Samsung has been taking quite a lot of flak for its semi-custom Exynos 990 SoC as there are some performance differentials between it and the models shipping in its home market of Korea, China and the US, which are fitted with the Qualcomm Snapdragon 865. But is the criticism truly warranted?

Samsung launched the Galaxy S20 series with an improved version of its UI—One UI 2.1. The Galaxy S10 series is now also receiving the One UI 2.1 update with all the software features that debuted on the Galaxy S20 phones.

The Exynos 990 being a significantly worse chipset than the Snapdragon 865—or even last year's Snapdragon 855—may as well be fact at this point. Samsung appears to disagree, though, for what it's worth.

One of the big differences between the Galaxy S20+ and the regular Galaxy S20 is Samsung's inclusion of a fourth rear-facing camera. Does this, the larger display or the bigger battery make much a difference overall, though? From our time with both, we would suggest that at least one of those offers little practical use in daily life.

Samsung's Galaxy S20 series revealed some startling weaknesses in addition to its plethora of pros. We already knew very early on that the 120 Hz refresh rate will only be available in the lower FHD+ resolution. What surprised us were the gaming incompatibilities.

Samsung has launched the AKG N400, a new pair of true-wireless stereo (TWS) earbuds. These accessories, unlike the Galaxy Buds+, have active noise cancellation (ANC). They also hold an IP rating and different color options over the pre-existing earphones.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, Samsung’s Galaxy S20 series isn’t selling anywhere near as well as the Korean tech giant had hoped. A report coming out of its home country says that it has only sold around 60 percent of the volume of Galaxy S10 sales a year ago.

Samsung has launched a refreshed 8-inch Galaxy Tab A that brings a number of notable improvements, particularly with the addition of LTE connectivity. The new model also brings upgrades to its performance, the display and camera but still runs Android 9 out of the box.

Qualcomm has announced that its collaboration with Google to bring upgradable mobile GPU drivers has started to bear fruit. The first smartphones to receive driver upgrades will be the Snapdragon 855 =-powered Google Pixel 4 and Pixel 4 XL along with Samsung’s Galaxy Note 10 and Galaxy S10 with more coming later.

The One UI 2.1 update is finally here for the Galaxy S10 and Galaxy Note 10 series. It adds a host of new features including new camera modes, and Samsung's file-sharing service Quick Share. The update is currently rolling out in Germany and Switzerland. It will be available to users in other regions in the coming weeks.

A few days ago, a discontent smartphone owner created a petition requesting the company to stop using its "inferior" Exynos SoCs. The petition has quickly gained traction, accruing over 11,000 signatures within 48 hours.

When shelling out up to the equivalent of US$1600 for a new phone, one would expect it to be the class-leading in performance, or at least better than last year's releases. Not the Galaxy S20, though, as a new test has shown the Exynos Galaxy S20+ getting absolutely destroyed by a Snapdragon 855-powered S10+ at gaming.

In the first tests it was noticed that the autofocus of the Galaxy S20 models does not work optimally. Samsung is now rolling out the second firmware update for the new series and this time the South Korean manufacturer is also taking care of the auto focus problems.

Samsung announced the Galaxy M21 today. The budget-oriented handset shares many of the same specifications with the slightly more expensive Galaxy M31. However, the Galaxy M21 cuts back on cameras to hit a lower retail price. The Galaxy M21 will launch in India on March 23.

PlayGalaxy Link is a feature of some Samsung Galaxy flagships by which PC gaming can be done on these devices via a streaming connection. Or was, rather: the OEM has announced that it will wrap this resource up by March 27, 2020.

Death, taxes, and Exynos flagship SoCs lagging behind the competition. Most of the world only has the option of the Exynos 990-powered Samsung Galaxy S20 model and they're unlikely to be thrilled by new information that shows the Exynos 990 failing to catch up to the Snapdragon 865 in both performance and efficiency.

Microsoft has announced that those with Samsung Galaxy S20-series devices can also now use their Windows 10 PCs for rich communication services- (RCS) enabled messaging. This feature is apparently available in the latest Insider's Preview Build and to the public in general. The same Preview includes further new Your Phone features.

Samsung has come in for plenty of criticism about its software update policies. With the Galaxy S8 and Note 8 unlikely to ever receive Android 10, it has now emerged that the company may be bringing One UI 2.1 to devices as far back as the Galaxy S9 and Note 9. While not strictly a third OS upgrade, it would be a volte-face for Samsung.

As has become the norm, Samsung has released its latest smartphone and a couple of YouTubers have done their best to destroy it. It appears the Korean giant has noticed this tradition and has made the Galaxy S20 Ultra in a way that its surprisingly resilient.

The Samsung Galaxy S20 series features top of the line camera hardware and generally takes great pictures. However, the phones still appear to struggle with pictures of pets, which has been an age-old criticism of Samsung's cameras.

Netflix has updated its support pages with new mobile devices it is supporting for both HDR and HD playback. Among the list of devices added with HDR support are Samsung’s Galaxy Fold models (4G/5G) as well as Samsung’s new Galaxy S20 range and the Galaxy Z Flip.

Global units of the Samsung Galaxy S20 and S20+ don't only differ from the others by virtue of the Exynos SoC they feature. Apparently, they also use a completely different main camera sensor from the Snapdragon models.

The Galaxy S20 Ultra retails at an overwhelming US$1399 base price point. That's an unreasonable price tag, no? Perhaps. A new report by TechInsights has now provided some much-needed information on exactly how sensible the S20 Ultra 5G's huge MSRP actually is.

The Samsung Galaxy S10 Lite performed well in our review and despite the low MSRP, it is far from being the smartphone with the hardest-to-accept tradeoffs within the Galaxy S10 series.

Samsung has launched its latest high-end smartphone display panel. So far, it has been tested by the eye-safety authority SGS and validation specialists UL, and found to have reduced blue-light emissions and energy-consumption values respectively compared to its predecessor. Therefore, the OEM asserts that this new product is ready to take the 5G era on.

The combination of Snapdragon 865 and a 5G external modem was always going to hurt battery life, even with a 5,000 mAh battery. Perhaps unsurprisingly then, the Samsung Galaxy S20 Ultra falls short of its peers like the Apple iPhone 11 Pro, the Samsung Galaxy Note 10 Plus and even the Galaxy S10 Plus. Now, Tom's Guide has demonstrated just how poorly the S20 Ultra fares, especially with its display running at 120 Hz.

Samsung has definitively confirmed that neither the Galaxy S8 nor the Galaxy Note 8 will receive an update for Android 10 and One UI 2.0. There was some confusion in regard to whether these devices would receive the latest operating software upgrades, but it’s now official that they will not. Both the Galaxy S8 and the Note 8 were released in 2017.

Samsung is apparently testing out an Android 11 update for the Galaxy S10+. An S10+ running on the new operating system was recently spotted on Geekbench. While Android 11 won't even be released until May 2020, this indicates that Samsung's making a strong push to get the OS on the Galaxy S10 series as early as possible.

Samsung has announced that it has started to mass-produce DRAM chips of 16GB in size and LPDDR5 in quality. This next-gen mobile-device memory is capable of approximately 1.3 times higher speeds than the nearest LPDDR4X module made by this OEM. It may now find its way to 2020 or 2021 premium phones.

Samsung's newest production line is unique among the OEM's fabricators in that it is dedicated to the extreme UV lithography (EUV) process. This means that it is capable of making chipsets of the up-to-date 7-nanometer (nm) variety - and beyond. The company has announced that it is now open for mass-production.

The Galaxy S20 and S20+ both have 3x optical zoom, right? Well, not quite. A quick look at the phones' official technical specs reveals that they likely offer just 2.5x optical zoom, with some image cropping done to reach the 3x lossless mark.

DisplayMate has concluded that the Samsung Galaxy S20 Ultra's display is "visually indistinguishable from perfect" and has awarded no less than 12 awards to the phone. The publication gave the Galaxy S20 Ultra's display an A+ rating and notes that it has "text book perfect calibration accuracy and performance".

Reading comments on forums and elsewhere, one aspect of the new Samsung Galaxy Book S that appears to be giving some potential buyers pause is Samsung’s less than detailed description of the display panel it has incorporated into the device. We’ve done a little digging and believe its TFT LCD panel has been supplied to Samsung by BOE and utilizes and uses Advanced Fringe Field Switching (AFFS) technology, derived from IPS technology, to deliver wide viewing angles and a wide color gamut.

A new 5G variant of the Galaxy A71 was recently spotted on Geekbench. Sporting the Exynos 980, Samsung's first 5G-integrated SoC, the Galaxy A71 5G delivered better single and multi-core scores than the vanilla Galaxy A71.

In a conversation with a prospective Galaxy Home Mini buyer, a Samsung rep stated that the company has no plans to sell the Galaxy Home Mini on a standalone basis. This makes a Galaxy S20 pre-order the only way to get hold of the smart speaker.

Fresh leaks about the upcoming Samsung Galaxy Fold 2 indicate that the device's display is likely to be made of ultra-thin glass like the recently launched Galaxy Z Flip. The Fold 2 is also tipped to feature an under-display camera and is expected to launch sometime in July, around the same time as the Galaxy Note 20.

The Samsung Galaxy Z Flip has received much criticism owing to its highly fragile display. While durability tests do not show any indications of the display being made of glass, a closer examination does confirm the company's claims of using ultra-thin glass under a protective plastic layer. However, Samsung's marketing gives the impression that the Galaxy Z Flip's glass display is as reliable and scratch-proof as any other smartphone.

The Samsung Galaxy Z Flip's default keyboard seems to have a bug that automatically lowercases any letter typed in uppercase and this behavior is persistent even after fiddling around with the settings. It is not a big deal-breaker though, as users can still install third-party keyboards such as Gboard or SwiftKey.

Some recent leaks have asserted that the second-generation Find X flagship phone from OPPO will have a 120 hertz (Hz) refresh rate at a QHD+ resolution. The freshly-launched Samsung Galaxy S20 series has similar properties - however, they don't co-exist in real-world devices. In addition, the X2 is rumored to have some new Sony camera sensors.

The Samsung Galaxy S20, S20+ and S20 Ultra were launched in their new Cloud- or Cosmic-themed colorways on February 11, 2020. However, other reports have revealed that they have drastically different options on the South Korean market, one of which is Aura Red. A leaker now asserts that these SKUs are also on their way to Europe.

Instead of ending production of the Galaxy S10 series, Samsung will keep making them and selling them officially with a US$150 permanent price drop. That could have an interesting effect on the support lifespan of the phones, and their resale value.

Samsung has opened up its Galaxy S20 series trade-in program for reservers and there looks to be a few issues with it. For one, owners of the Galaxy S10e get the short end of the stick.