It’s been quite obvious for the better part of two years now that Samsung is killing the Galaxy Note name, but the company has officially put the final nail in the coffin, fully confirming that the iconic brand is dead.
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There have been rumors swirling that Samsung would skip its usual Galaxy Note launch this year, but the speculated reason was always the growing foldable portfolio. Now, a Samsung executive has said that the Galaxy Note series may not see a 2021 release due to the ongoing chip shortage.
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Samsung is no stranger to experimenting with new technology, but one thing the company has been tinkering in for quite some time has been a foldable smartphone. The tech has been under development for years, but now the company is saying it will be finally ready to bring it to market next year.
It is no secret that Samsung has stepped up its camera game significantly in the past few years. Particularly, starting with the Galaxy Note 4 at the end of 2014, the high-end devices of the South Korean giant have started to truly impress reviewers and customers alike, further cementing this perception with the strong performances delivered by the Galaxy S6 family as well as the latest iteration of the Notes.
Samsung has announced that its mobile wallet service Samsung Pay has been used for more than $30M worth of transactions in its first month in the company’s home market of Korea. The company says that the number “has been beyond our expectations.”
Samsung devices are hugely popular within Korea, and the WSJ notes that the “launch was boosted by a massive advertising campaign,” so this doesn’t necessarily suggest that it will see achieve similar take-up in the U.S. when it launches on Monday – especially given the limited number of Samsung devices that support it …
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In one of the most ambiguous rebuttals of recent memory, Samsung has denied reports claiming it is looking to reduce its workforce by 10%. It’s not reducing its workforce, it says, but “relocating” them. One of Samsung’s high-ranking officials spoke to Yonhap News, claiming that it will “only be relocating workers”, denying rumors that it was looking to move on 10 percent of its management staff in sales and PR. What it didn’t say was what “relocating” actually means, leaving us speculating a number of possible translations for the phrase…
In a blog post this morning, Samsung has announced that it is mass producing the world’s first 12gigabit (not to be confused with gigabyte/GB) LPDDR4 mobile RAM. It’s based on the company’s impressive 20-nanometer process tech and will enable the company to make higher capacity, faster, more powerful chips that fit into the same space as the current crop of flagship RAM modules…
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Samsung has upped the ante on its ‘ultimate test drive‘ program, intended to persuade iPhone owners to switch by offering them a free one-month trial of Galaxy smartphone. For those who end up purchasing the phone, Samsung will give them $100 of Google Play credit which can be used to buy apps and other content.
If they end up trading in their iPhone, Samsung will additionally send them a check for $100 – on top of whatever trade-in deal they were offered by the retailer.
Via Android Central
Yesterday Android communities around the web were ablaze with discussion surrounding a flaw in the design of the stylus eject mechanism in Samsung’s new Galaxy Note 5 smartphone. Put simply, if you insert the S Pen stylus into the device slot from one end, all is well. Accidentally insert the pen from its opposite end, however, and risk permanently breaking functionality key to the Note 5’s power-user selling points — the device will no longer detect when you remove the pen. Samsung has responded quite bluntly.
In a comment to The Verge, the company essentially says that owners should just insert the S Pen from the end they want you to:
“We highly recommend our Galaxy Note5 users follow the instructions in the user guide to ensure they do not experience such an unexpected scenario caused by reinserting the S pen in the other way around.”
Here’s our explanation of the problem from yesterday (emphasis mine):
When working correctly, the S Pen detection feature will launch a note taking app when the pen is removed while the display is powered off. When powered on, the detection feature automatically launches the S Pen menu when the Pen is removed. After inserting the Pen in backwards, however, these detection features no longer work. Our own Dom Esposito fell victim to this flaw and was not able to get his S-Pen detection features working again.
While the obvious solution to this problem is to not insert the Pen backwards, it’s a common mistake that will likely plague a decent amount of Galaxy Note 5 users. The biggest problem is that the Pen goes in backwards with zero added force, meaning that it’s incredibly easy to mindlessly put it in the wrong way.
From these comments it doesn’t appear that Samsung has any intention of recalling customer devices or fixing the problem in new units in any way at all. It also seems, however, that the company was well aware of this problem before the phone’s consumer release, since a cautionary warning about the issue is right there in the device’s user manual (we haven’t been able to determine whether or not the manual included this prior to the controversy or was updated afterwards):
The service may not be launching until next month, but owners of Samsung’s Galaxy S6 and S6 Edge are now receiving an over-the-air update which includes support for Samsung Pay. The update, which you’ll need approximately 303MB of free storage to install, includes some other additions as well.
For starters, there’s support for live video broadcasting over YouTube, which has been a highly-requested ability from the video hosting platform ever since the launch of the competing Meerkat and Periscope apps. This is possible thanks to WatchMe, an open-source project by Google that allows app developers to integrate with the YouTube Data and YouTube Live Streaming APIs, among others. There’s also higher quality audio output to Samsung headsets (those new Level On headphones, perhaps?), UI updates, and the usual bug fixes.
Samsung Pay is Samsung’s mobile payments app and service that is different from other solutions from Google and Apple because it includes the ability to pay at nearly any credit card terminal. It does this through the use of MST technology, the same thing used in the magnetic strips on the back of all credit and debit cards.
While Samsung Pay is expected to work in far more places than Android Pay and Apple Pay currently do, Verizon Wireless here in the States is still evaluating whether or not to allow the service onto the Samsung devices it sells, according to a representative from the company speaking to 9to5Google.
The update could take several days to hit devices. You can check manually by visiting Settings > About phone > System updates.
McDonald’s has been circulating an update to its staff relating to changes in its mobile payment offerings. If the details being sent internally to employees are accurate, Android Pay could be available to customers from August 26th (two days away). Android Pay, of course, was one of the big announcements made at Google’s I/O conference last month and was unveiled alongside Android M, which we now know is 6.0 Marshmallow.
There are reasons to be skeptical about this date. Mostly, the two communications shown by Android Police state that McDonald’s is rolling out Samsung Pay support on August 21st (last Friday). That date, we know, is incorrect. Friday may have been the release date for the Galaxy Note 5 and Galaxy S6 Edge+, but Samsung’s mobile payment solution isn’t expected until next month. This could simply be an honest mistake. If so, it seems strange that we’ve heard nothing about McDonald’s higher-ups not informing staff of its error. Another explanation is possibly that the company is rolling out support way ahead of launch to make sure they’re ready. After all, they have some 14,000 stores in the U.S. alone.
There is a chance that the Android Pay launch date is accurate even if the Samsung Pay one isn’t. If it is accurate it would come as something of a surprise. We’d initially expected that Android Pay would be publicly available around the same time as Android 6.0 Marshmallow to tie the two launches together. In fact, Google stated as much when it was announced. Saying that, it was also announced that Android versions from KitKat and later would support it, suggesting that it would at least be possible to launch Pay before Marshmallow, even if it isn’t probable.
If I had to guess, I’d say McDonald’s got its dates wrong by about one month. Still, I’ll be delighted if Android Pay does launch this week.
After first unveiling its new phablets five days ago, Samsung will start selling the Galaxy Note 5 and Galaxy S6 Edge+ smartphones this week. Some carriers will be selling it already, while others are waiting for the official August 21st release date. Chances are, you don’t want to take any risks with damaging your precious and ludicrously expensive smartphone. It may fare better than the S5 in drop tests, but it’s probably best for you not to test that, on purpose or by accident. With that in mind, check out some of the cases already announced by some of the best accessory makers around.
If you’re eagerly awaiting the chance to get your hands on Samsung’s new Galaxy Note 5, a new PhoneBuff drop test suggests that – like the Galaxy S6 – you’ll either want to be confident you won’t drop it, or start looking for cases …
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Samsung pushed its first Galaxy Note 5 TV commercial to YouTube today, and no surprise, it’s all about what you can do with that S-Pen. Set to a fast-paced percussion soundtrack, with speedy cuts in the edit, it has been designed to make you excited at all you can do with the stylus as well as convey a sense of productivity and speed.
Update: Samsung has informed The Verge that the listing of 128GB versions was a mistake, and that they do not have plans to sell either the Note 5 or S6 Edge+ with 128GB of storage.
While Samsung’s launch of the Galaxy S6 Edge+ and Galaxy Note 5 mentioned only 32GB and 64GB storage options, a number of people noted that Samsung’s U.S. website is also listing 128B versions of both devices …
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I think Samsung saw OnePlus do something unique for its recent product announcement and said, “We can do something like that too!”
If you haven’t already noticed, technology sites across the web have been blanketed in advertisements promoting Samsung’s Unpacked product event where it just unveiled the much-anticipated (and much leaked) Galaxy Note 5 and Galaxy S6 Edge+. But there’s something unique happening here.
These advertisements have the Unpacked livestream embedded within themselves. Yes, no tricks here — it’s the actual YouTube stream, 100% in-sync and all. It does end after about 30 seconds, though, and directs you to continue on YouTube or Samsung’s website.
These unique banner ads are also similar to OnePlus’s VR-based product unveiling (read: shenanigans) in that they’re pretty annoying and unnecessary. Nobody likes banner ads as-is, but autoplaying video ads incite an even different level of rage. Even better is that sites like ours already had the stream embedded in posts.
Samsung is set to announce the brand new Galaxy Note 5 alongside the Galaxy S6 Edge+ at an Unpacked event on Thursday, this week. Although the company hasn’t officially shed any light on what it intends to reveal, we’re pretty certain by now that the aforementioned phones will be shown off. With the number of leaks, including the most recent retail photos, it’s hard not to be confident of that fact. What we weren’t entirely sure of was the exact retail launch date.
Thanks to some sharp eyes from Dutch Samsung blog, Galaxy Club, we can see that the French Samsung site accidentally revealed the pre-order time frame, before promptly removing the information. Roughly translated, Samsung’s site says the phone will be available to pre-order between August 21st and September 3rd, perhaps suggesting a September 4 retail launch. What’s more, there’s a special where customers get a free pair of Level On headphones and three months of Google Play music with the Galaxy S6 Edge+.
While this leak seemingly confirms the pre-order date for French customers, it doesn’t reveal anything pertaining to its global launch schedule. We’re yet to discover if the US, UK and other nations will all receive their devices on the same date. Although we’d hope Samsung would synchronize the launch multi-nationally, we can never be sure with the giant Korean tech giant. It has prioritized Europe often in the past. Thankfully, we only have two days left to wait before Samsung reveals all.
Samsung’s Note 5 and S6 Edge+ are expected to share similar specifications, including a 5.7-inch QuadHD AMOLED display, an octa-core Exynos processor and 4GB RAM alongside a 16MP main camera and wireless charging. The one feature that should set the Note 5 apart from its sibling is the redesigned S-Pen, which will again act as the unique selling point for Samsung’s flagship phablet.
Samsung’s upcoming Galaxy Note 5 has been leaked in full, showing the device from almost every angle, complete with packaging and compared alongside the iPhone 6 Plus to show its relative size. As you can probably tell from the images, the photos were snapped by a retail worker. A Samsung rep had been in to his store with the two unreleased phablets (Note 5 and S6 Edge+).
Not long after he leaked the official press renders for the Galaxy Note 5 and Galaxy S6 Edge+, Evan Blass let us in on the next Samsung phablet’s likely specification list. The device code-named Samsung Noble, model SM-N920 will supposedly feature a 5.66-inch QHD display, 4GB RAM and an octa-core Exynos 7420 processor made up of two quad-core chips (2.1GHz plus 1.5GHz). Alongside those, it’s predicted Samsung will pack in a 16MP rear camera, a 5MP front camera and run it on Android 5.1.1.
Perhaps the least surprising specification, but most disappointing, is the purported lack of expandable memory. Like the Galaxy S6 and S6 Edge launched earlier this year, Samsung is going to go with internal storage only and not offer Micro SD card support.
Rains->Pours. Samsung Noble (SM-N920/self-reported): Exynos 7420 SoC (4×2.1GHz+4×1.5GHz), 5.66″ 2560×1440, 4GB/32GB, 16MP/5MP, 5.1.1, no SD.
— Evan Blass (@evleaks) August 1, 2015
Samsung is expected to announced the Galaxy Note 5 and its curved sibling at a press event on August 13. Let’s hope we have at least a few surprises from the Korean tech giant when the next Unpacked event kicks off. Right now, we seem to have a pretty clear picture of the next devices coming our way.
Barely a week goes by when we don’t get another piece of the puzzle to add to the ever-clearer image of what Samsung’s going to announce in two weeks time. We’ve seen leaked schematics, unofficial 3D renders and photos as well as the usual rumors on release date and specifications. Now, what looks like an official press render has leaked out courtesy of Evan Blass on Twitter.
For some time now it’s been predicted that Samsung will skip the noise of IFA in September and choose to launch the Galaxy Note 5 in August. We had heard previously that Sammy was planning an event for its flagship phablet on August 12th. Business Korea, however, stepped in this morning with its own information claiming the Note 5 is being launched just a little later than that.
According to the publication’s sources, Samsung will host an unveiling event in New York City on August 13, during which it will announce both the Galaxy Note 5 and Galaxy S6 Edge Plus.
Samsung’s Galaxy Note 5 is the upcoming flagship phone to be excited over, and one which we’ve heard a lot about in recent times. From what’s been posted online over the past few weeks, it seems almost certain that Sammy is going to launch an oversized version of the Galaxy S6 Edge alongside the Note 5 on August 12th. Today’s leak shows some very minor differences between the S6 Edge and S6 Edge Plus…
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While there are tons of phablets on the market now, Samsung still manages to remain unique by equipping its Note series handsets with the versatile S-Pen. In my experience, it’s been great for making quick notes or grabbing quick screenshots to edit and share. It goes without saying then, that the Galaxy Note 5 will also ship with the advanced stylus. Judging from these most recent leaks, it’s going to be much shinier than previous versions and could have a press-able, or clickable end at the top.
Take a look at the pictures below. They were originally shared on Chinese social media site, Weibo and picked up by Steve Hemmerstoffer at NWE. If you look closely at the two images showing the top end of the S-Pen, you’ll clearly see that the gap between the end and the main shaft of the stylus is bigger in one than the other.
If I had to guess as to why it was designed this way, I’d suggest that it’s almost certainly to help release the S-Pen from its silo. The way the phone has been designed (based on leaks) suggests that the stylus sits flush with the metal chassis of the smartphone. Case leaks have suggested that there’s not going to be any special room left for you to pry the stylus out with your fingernail. So, perhaps the end of the pen — when pressed — clicks and extends, so that you can easily remove the S-Pen from the body of the phone.
Other possibilities are easily eliminated. It’s clearly not replacing the Air Command button, since that’s still built in to the shaft of the pen. And it doesn’t extend the tip of the S-Pen either, since that’s ever-present, and visible in the photos, regardless of whether or not the top end is extended.
Rumors so far have indicated we’ll see this new Galaxy Note 5 launch alongside a Galaxy S6 Edge+ at the end of August. Both devices will essentially look like the S6 and S6 Edge, except much larger and with the inclusion of this redesigned stylus.
By now we’ve heard multiple rumors and reports on Samsung’s next generation phablet. In today’s latest report from SamMobile, the publication claims that it knows when the Samsung Galaxy Note 5 and S6 Edge+ will be unveiled and released to the public. Citing its “insiders”, the report states that the Galaxy Note 5 will be announced on August 12th and be available to buy shortly afterwards on August 21th.
