Founded in 1938, Samsung is the largest chaebol in South Korea. The myriad of companies under its brand are some of the biggest in their respective industries, but Samsung Electronics is the most notable. It makes some of the most popular phones in use today, and its flagship portfolio includes the Galaxy S-series and foldable Z-series devices. It also makes televisions, tablets, computers, headphones, and many of the displays, chips, and batteries found in devices from Apple, Sony, and others.
The budget-friendly smartphone is “slimmer and lighter” than its predecessor, and will be available on January 7th. It features a 6.7-inch display with an up to 90Hz refresh rate, along with 4GB of RAM and up to 2TB of expandable storage.
Samsung is also launching the Galaxy Tab A11+ in the US on January 8th, starting at $249.99.
Samsung’s three-panel foldable phone won’t be officially available in the US until next year, but it’s already hit the YouTuber’s durability test table. Its thin frame (that’s different sizes across all three sections) doesn’t deal well with being bent the wrong way, even if Samsung’s hinge technology is pretty resilient, but... it didn’t explode.
Press play for a peek at the test results and a look at all three internal battery cells.
Samsung is rolling out the update this month, and it’s working with Aqara, Eve and Ulticam on Matter cameras. Jennifer Pattison Tuohy called it:
SmartThings will probably jump on adoption. Samsung abandoned its first-party camera hardware years ago, and Matter could provide the platform with the opportunity for broader camera support it desperately needs.
I knew Samsung made lots of money making chips, not just electronics. But Emma’s RAM report puts it in perspective: Last quarter, the company earned nearly twice as much from memory as from its entire TV and appliance business.
Samsung’s mobile biz was still bigger than memory ($22.8B vs. $18.2B), but not by much!
They’re available “starting today,” Google says. And system-level “autospatialization,” which turns 2D content into 3D, is coming next year, Google announced during its Android Show presentation.
Wondering how to use the extra screen space in Samsung’s new Galaxy Z TriFold? Don’t worry, we’ve got it figured out.
airpower:
Finally, a device that lets me watch TikTok, Instagram Reels, and YouTube Shorts all at the same time.
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Samsung promoted its head of consumer hardware to co-CEO, joining Young Hyun Jun, head of the memory business. Roh led mobile since 2020, taking on TVs and appliances in an acting role this year, which is now permanent too.
The shuffle follows the death of former co-CEO Jong-Hee Han in March.
[Samsung Newsroom]
At 218 grams the $109.99 Samsung Smart Keyboard is over 288 grams lighter than Logitech’s MX Keys Mini but can also connect and switch between three Bluetooth devices. It’s powered by a CR2032 coin cell battery and includes shortcuts for accessing Bixby, Gemini, or Copilot when connected to a PC.
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Samsung took heavy inspiration from Apple’s AirPods when it reinvented the design of its Galaxy Buds 3, but is making some tweaks for the next set. Android Authority spotted the Buds 4 Pro in leaked One UI 8.5 animations, with a flatter stem and no light strip.
Aeotec’s $119.99 Smart Home Hub 2 features faster hardware, USB expandability, and support for Bluetooth Low Energy, Zigbee, and Thread. It works as a Matter Controller and prioritizes on-hub communications to keep your smart home up when the cloud is down. It doesn’t support Z-Wave.
The new integration means you can access iFit’s workouts from the “fitness” tab on Samsung’s Health app, with videos spanning high-intensity interval training, Pilates, yoga, strength, recovery, and more. Samsung Health users can access one video per month for free, or pay $9.99 per month for a larger catalog of workout videos.
Samsung and Nvidia just announced a new “AI megafactory” powered by more than 50,000 Nvidia chips, where AI “analyzes, predicts and optimizes” every step of semiconductor manufacturing, from initial designs to final quality control.
The companies haven’t said where the factory will be built, but its tech will eventually be expanded to Samsung facilities worldwide, including Texas.
Disney is one of the last major streamers to support the open-source, royalty-free (and Samsung-backed) competitor to Dolby Vision. Its inclusion now gives people with Samsung TVs access to the dynamic HDR content that other TV owners have been getting from Dolby Vision.
Reporting its best quarterly financials in over three years, Samsung has its chip business to thank. It’s making bank on memory chips for the AI industry, and will focus next year on mass producing top spec HBM4 chips to keep that success going.
Did you know Samsung has never had a company-wide head of design before? I bet you’re not surprised.
Mauro Porcini, who recently led Pepsi’s big redesign, has the unenviable job of making the company’s phones feel like its fridges (ads and all), after becoming Samsung’s first ever chief design officer.
Correction: It is Jony Ive, not Jonny.
And here’s how to opt out.
Brad Lynch, a project manager at EOZ VR, figured out that, while streaming Half-Life Alyx from SteamVR to a Samsung Galaxy XR headset, you can pull up Google Gemini, draw a circle on the screen, and have it spit out English translations of signs for you.
At $1,799 and with an impressive subscription bundle, Samsung is aggressively taking shots at the Vision Pro.
That’s according to app listings that have popped up on Google Play ahead of tomorrow’s launch. Other notable launch apps for the first Android XR headset include Tripp XR, Walkabout Mini Golf, and a new headset-optimized video editor from Adobe.
Bloomberg reports Samsung is finally ready to show off its first trifold phone — well, nearly. It will apparently appear at the APEC summit at the end of the month to demonstrate South Korea’s technological prowess in front of a few world leaders. But will we see it first at next week’s XR headset event?
