Galaxy S

Samsung's new One UI based on Android 9 Pie will be released sometime next year but apparently, that includes only the latest Galaxy S9, S9+, and Note 9 devices. According to a Samsung representative at the ongoing SDC 2018, the Galaxy S8, S8+, and the Note 8 will not be getting the new One UI user experience. However, it is not clear at this stage whether these devices will be getting the Android 9 Pie update separately or not.

Samsung has used its Developer Conference 2018 to introduce its next generation custom Android 9 Pie-based user interface design. Dubbed One UI, the new interface has been designed to simplify the user experience by reducing clutter. ​

Samsung Mobile has uploaded an image of a folding Samsung logo to its official Facebook page hinting at some possible news this week about the much awaited foldable smartphone. This could be an indication of Samsung announcing new details about the foldable Galaxy, or Galaxy X as we know it, at the upcoming Samsung Developer Conference in San Francisco. Details such as a new UI that Samsung has exclusively developed for the foldable Galaxy are expected to be revealed at this event.

Global smartphone shipments for the third quarter have fallen by 6% over the last 12 months, according to data from IDC. The shipment volume for 3Q 2018 stood at 355.2 million units, compared to 377.8 million smartphones shipped in 3Q 2017. Samsung remains the overall pack leader, but Huawei has made significant ground on the South Korean manufacturer.

The iPhone XR scored about 25% better than Android's best in Geekbench 4's multi-core benchmark. While this is impressive on paper (considering that the $750 iPhone XR is cheaper than most Android flagships), there is much more to consider when buying a phone than synthetic benchmarks and raw specs.

The Samsung Galaxy S10+ will be the most impressive device in the upcoming Galaxy S10 lineup. It will also get a bigger battery to power all of that new technology, with sources touting an increase to 4000 mAh.

Samsung was nabbed slowing down devices with its software updates and has been hit with a $5.7m fine in Italy. This comes after Apple was caught doing the same thing earlier in the year, although the American company did have plausible reasons—unlike Samsung.

A leak on Weibo claims that the Galaxy S10 lineup will consist of 4 versions of the phone rather than the usual 2. One of these will be a 5G variant - with 12GB RAM. The Weibo poster also believes that the Huawei P30 Pro will have this spec.

Samsung has teased a device called the Galaxy A8s at a recent launch event held in China for the Galaxy A9s and A6s. An image of the unexpected third smartphone was displayed at the event, which seemed to show a handset with a completely bezel-less and notch-free design. However, it has been rumored that the Samsung Galaxy A8s could utilize a hole rather than a notch for the front-facing camera.

The XDA has gotten its hands on what appears to be the most recent beta for Android 9.0 (Pie) on the Samsung Galaxy S9. This build does not exactly introduce new features, but is reported to have fixed the significant bugs of the previous beta. They include failing navigation gestures and incomplete native night theme.

Samsung may have completed work on the graphene battery with which it have been linked over the last few years. This next-gen power-storage technology may improve significantly on its lithium-ion counterpart in some respects. A well-regarded leaker believes that the Note 10 may be in line for these enhancements.

A leaked image from a private business event held by Samsung in China recently has shown off some of the display technologies that the South Korean company is working on. The four technologies mentioned in this instance are Fingerprint on Display (FoD), Haptics on Display (HoD), Sound on Display (SoD), and Under Panel Sensors (UPS).

A freshly-submitted patent for Samsung may shed new light on how the company plans to handle fingerprint authentication in 2019. The good news is: It is in the display. The bad news is that it may not be the more state-of-the-art ultrasound version bandied about in previous speculations.

There are some phones to be released later this year - as well as some that already have been - with in- or under-display fingerprint (FP) scanners. This technology is based on optical (or light) sensors that act to construct a 2D FP model in order to learn, store and authenticate different prints. However, it seems that next year's versions will improve on this method.

A strong supporter for the 3.5 mm audio jack in the past, Samsung may soon be forced to get with the times and move on to wireless headphones. A recent report informs that at least the flagship smartphone models launching from fall 2019 onward would not get the audio jack anymore, so the Galaxy S11 is most likely to come without it, while the Note 10 might still get one, depending on launch date.

Research data, created by BofA Merrill Lynch Global Research and shared by Horace Dediu on Twitter, has shown that Apple and its products seem to be succeeding in tempting Android users away from their currently owned devices. For example, according to the statistics in the chart, 19% of Samsung-smartphone owners are considering an Apple device as their next purchase.

Since triple-cam setups are becoming the norm, Samsung is upping the ante with rear quad-cam setups now. Surprisingly enough, the first quad-cam model will not be a high-end device, but a premium mid-range one powered by a Snapdragon 660 SoC coupled with 6 GB of RAM. This model should be officially unveiled on October 11.

How about a new Galaxy S9, S9 Plus or Note 9 for your iPhone X? No? What if you get $600 as well? This is the premise of Samsung USA's new promotion. The company will increase its usual trade-in price, even for Apple products, for a limited time.

Although Samsung has completed the work on its first-generation neural processing unit, it looks like the successor will be employed by the processor of the company's upcoming flagships, including the Galaxy S10. The new NPU architecture is expected to be used by the Exynos 9820 processor, which is supposed to arrive with a 2+2+4 core configuration.

The Galaxy S10 will be the biggest smartphone launch after the iPhone X that was released a year ago, in part due to the triple rear camera setup the device will feature. Details of those three cameras have now surfaced.

According to some core files buried deep in the Android 9 core, Samsung's foldable phone gets an interesting codename, while it looks like the rumors regarding a new naming scheme for the upcoming Snapdragon SoCs were indeed spot on. Moreover, the Galaxy S10 is as good as confirmed to get the Snapdragon version in addition to the Exynos one.

The OnePlus 6T is on a short list of upcoming smartphones mentioned in the ARCore 1.5 APK. This app supports up-to-date Google-provisioned features such as Lens. This feature is also to be included in the Nokia 9, as well as two as-yet unnamed Huawei phones.

Only a week after a woman in New York claimed her new Samsung Galaxy Note 9 went up in flames, a Redditor's S7 Edge has also exploded, and this time the user has substantial proof.

Currently integrated only in high-end smartphones, the triple-camera setup on the back of the Galaxy A7 (2018) may suggest that Samsung is willing to make it a mid-range feature. The Galaxy S10 is rumored to include three rear cams, as well, but it seems like Samsung want to release this feature as soon as possible with the mid-ranger rather than the usual high-end models.

Traditional nano-, micro- or mini-SIMs have dominated mobile connection delivery for smartphones during the devices' rise in the 21st century. Now, however, ABI Research think eSIMs are going to start getting much more popular, mainly as a result of Apple's inclusion of them in their newest iPhones.

Samsung is holding a Galaxy Event on October 11. There are no details provided but the invite reads '4x fun' implying that this could be related to the announcement of the rumored quad-camera Galaxy phone.

Providing health- and wellness-related services to a crowd of over 65 million active users worldwide, Samsung Health has just been updated to version 6.0. This major release comes with a redesigned interface, updated tools, as well as a whole new range of personalization options.

As Samsung pushed hard to introduce the first foldable phone this year, the S10 and Note 10 flagships did not receive significant upgrades, leaving the real innovations for 2019. The Note 10 will be among the first 5G smartphones from Samsung and it could come with a new bezel-less display that integrates an ultrasonic fingerprint reader.

Samsung is promising a foldable smartphone soon, GeForce RTX 2080 for laptops could debut as a Max-Q variant, and the Pixel 3 and Pixel 3 XL are seemingly inevitable at this point. News has slowed back down to normal following an intense week of IFA announcements.

Samsung continues to ignore those still using premium handsets that are far from museum material yet. The latest victims are the Galaxy Note 5 and Galaxy S6 Edge+ — both being barely three years old — which have just been dropped off the list of Samsung devices still receiving monthly security updates.

Samsung claims that it has conducted a series of consumer surveys and it is now confident that there is enough demand for a foldable smartphone, so it decided to move the launch of the Galaxy X from early 2019, to late 2018. The real reason why Samsung is making this move is most likely that it does not want to allow Chinese OEMs like Huawei to get a head start in this emerging market.

Samsung CEO Kim Hyun-suk said that the company is looking at collaborating with Google to help augment its Bixby voice assistant. Hyun-suk feels that Samsung could leverage its dominance in device sales to negotiate with companies such as Google.

Samsung is expected to launch three variants of the Galaxy S10 next year and apparently, all three variants will sport in-display fingerprint sensors with the two higher-end variants housing an ultrasonic scanner and the third lower-end model featuring an optical scanner. The use of in-display fingerprint sensors is expected to define the overall smartphone market next year.

According to market analysts, the new Samsung Galaxy Note 9 is currently on course to outsell the S9. What's more, it would appear that most buyers prefer shelling out over US$1000 for the premium model.

Apple attracted some criticism when it removed Touch ID from the iPhone X. However, a new leak suggests that the company is working on a new form of fingerprint scanning for its next-generation flagships. This new purported system may leave the home button in the past.

Samsung’s foldable device is coming to market soon, but although there have been plenty of leaks and even official information about the device, not a lot is known about what it looks like. If new renders based on all the available information to date are accurate, it is poised to be a fascinating entry into the smartphone market.

Samsung doesn’t look as though it will bring a Galaxy S9 Active to market this year. With the typical launch window for the device passed, coupled with the relatively weak demand for the S9 line generally, it seems as though the Active variant may have quietly slipped off the radar.

Market analysts claimed sales of the Samsung Galaxy S9 was one of the worst ever in the series but Samsung has other ideas, and also believes the new Note 9 will outsell the Note 8.

A recently-released piece of marketing by Huawei Taiwan appears to take the same approach with which Samsung have targeted Apple in the past. The apparently jokey image and text may make fun of the "innovation" involved in the design of the Galaxy Note 9.

Earlier this year two large security exploits known as Spectre and Meltdown were reported to exist on modern day CPUs. While Spectre has been confirmed to be exploitable on AMD, Intel, IBM, and ARM, it was previously believed only Intel, IBM, and a handful of ARM's CPUs were vulnerable to Meltdown. However, researchers have confirmed that at least some ARM processors are indeed vulnerable to Meltdown.

OnePlus overtook Samsung and Apple to become the biggest smartphone brand in India's premium smartphone segment, with the OnePlus accounting for 30% of sales of premium devices in Q2.

The latest approved patents show full color rear displays that could be integrated on future entry-level and mid-range smartphones form LG and Samsung. Samsung's rear screen patent depicts a display half the size of the main one, while LG would only implement a smaller one above the rear camera. The flagship models would get flexible OLED displays that fold into dual screens.

Samsung's new Galaxy Tab A 10.5 may play second fiddle to the Galaxy Tab S4 on paper, but the tablet is specifically marketed at families with children who may be more budget-conscious. The tablet's specs are fairly mid-range for 2018, but the inclusion of a "Kids Mode" and multi-user support makes the tablet well-suited for families.

Thanks to record-breaking P20/Pro smartphone sales and additional support from the secondary Honor brand, Huawei snagged Apple's second place for most handhelds sold in Q2 2018. The Chinese company also aims to break into the U.S. market, a move that could pose some serious problems for Samsung's leading position.

Approximately 23 percent of all current smartphone users in the United States are using a Samsung model. Sales of the latest Galaxy S9 and S9 Plus smartphones, however, have been sluggish with a worldwide userbase that is less than one-third of the iPhone X.

Samsung Electronics has announced its Q2 2018 results and the company has posted operating profits of KRW 14.87 trillion and a Q2 consolidated net profit of KRW 11.04 trillion. Samsung did acknowledge low sales of the Galaxy S9 but wants to make up for it by launching the Galaxy Note 9 early and adopt new technologies in the next Galaxy device including 5G.

Sources in the industry are saying that Huawei is looking to beat Samsung in the run up to launching the first foldable smartphone. The flexible OLED panels for this device will be made by BOE and Huawei is expected to launch such phones in limited quantities much before Samsung in early 2019.

Samsung is bundling both a $200 11.6-inch Chromebook 3 and a $200 256 GB EVO MicroSD card with every new purchase of an unlocked Galaxy S9 or S9 Plus for a limited time.

According to reports from Korean media, Samsung could be looking to merge the Galaxy Note and Galaxy S brands given that the differences between them are minimal. This move can reduce the costs of Samsung's mobile development portfolio and possibly increase profitability amidst the onslaught of Chinese smartphone brands.

The first foldable phone from Samsung will most likely be named Galaxy X, and Wall Street Journal informs that it is supposed to be launched in early 2019 with a flexible 7-inch display that can be folded like a wallet. It can either hide the display completely or split the main display into two smaller screens.