Even though the Android N Developer Preview was released yesterday, Marshmallow is only on 2% of devices. The number should only increase as more OEMs release updates to last year’s flagship devices and starting today, Sprint is updating its Galaxy S6 and S6 Edge variants to Android 6.0.
Now that Samsung, LG, Sony and Alcatel have announced their flagship phones for 2016, its competition won’t be far behind. HTC is expected to announce the One M10 soon and Huawei will unveil the P9. While new phones are exciting, perhaps even better news is that last year’s best phones are now available at lower prices, and they’re still great smartphones.
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Samsung has announced officially — at long last — that its Android 6.0 Marshmallow update for the Galaxy S6 and S6 Edge is rolling out from today. This news follows weeks after the company made it available for some Galaxy Note 5 beta testers on AT&T and some UK beta testers with the S6/S6 Edge. The rollout will begin in Korea from today, with other markets and carrier-locked models to come in the near future. Samsung also notes that the software update for other Galaxy models is “soon to follow”…
Samsung is historically a little behind its Android-making competitors when it comes to rolling out major software updates for its smartphones. So it’s no surprise to see that Marshmallow hasn’t yet officially landed on any Galaxy series devices. If a leaked roadmap is anything to go by, that could be about to change…
According to a tweet from renowned smartphone leaker Evan Blass, Samsung is targeting Friday, March 11th as the release date for the Samsung Galaxy S7. The phone’s announcement will almost surely be happening during a press conference before the annual Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain, giving the South Korean company just a couple of weeks to get the phone pushed out to retail after it’s shown off on stage…
Speck is one of the best-known smartphone case manufacturers. Its products normally combine practicality and durability with attractive designs in a way not many other companies manage. Its Candyshell Grip case is one of the most recognizable around, thanks to the grippy, (usually) brightly colored stripes on the outer shell. Now, the company has decided to dive in to the world of virtual reality with its latest product: Pocket VR.
The Samsung Galaxy S6 and S6 Edge will be the first phones on Verizon to get WiFi calling through a software update rolling out now. Other Verizon Android and iOS phones will get WiFi calling early next year. In addition, the Samsung updates also includes other new features and bug fixes.
WiFi calling is a part of Advanced Calling, a branded feature set of Verizon’s LTE network that also includes HD voice calls and video calls over cellular. The feature is available for free to customers calling US numbers through the stock dialer app.
Today’s update to Samsung devices also includes enhanced conference calling, HiFi audio, and Live Video Broadcast. There are also fixes to wireless charging and ALM. Owners of these two phones should head on to Settings > System Update > Check for new to get the new update. Go to Samsung’s page for more details about the update.
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With Verizon’s logo notably absent from the list of Samsung Pay U.S. launch partners, it had been unclear if or when the company might allow its customers to use the service. That uncertainty has now ended, with the app available to Verizon customers in the Google Play store. Customers on other carriers have been able to download the app since August.
You’ll need to have a compatible device, which currently means either a Galaxy S6/edge/edge+ or a Note 5. It is so far supported by cards from American Express, Bank of America, Citi and US Bank … Expand
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According to a report this morning out of the well-sourced SamMobile, the South Korea-based Android OEM is planing to push Android 6.0 Marshmallow to a whole slew of its most popular handsets. Among those making the initial list are most variants of the Samsung Galaxy S5, Galaxy S6, Galaxy S6 Edge, Galaxy S6 Edge+, Galaxy Note 4, and Galaxy Note 5. For good measure, Samsung threw in the Verizon variant of the Galaxy Note Edge and the Galaxy S5 Neo. Why not?.. Expand
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With several companies having recently announced brand new flagship phones in time for the holiday season, you may be tempted to go all out and get the latest, biggest and best phones available. Samsung released the Galaxy S6 Edge plus and Note 5, LG announced the V10, and Google’s Nexus range got an update. But, with those new, shiny phones out at full price comes the depreciation of slightly less shiny and new phones which are still very much flagships in their own right.
We’ve rounded up some of this year’s flagships, all of which have seen discounts (some more generous than others) with the arrival of the newest devices…
If you don’t want to spend $50 for a case every time you upgrade your smartphone, you still have great options: cases with comparable quality are available for much less money if you do your research. One of the best brands for that is Poetic, maker of many accessories we’ve reviewed in the past and loved, and now the company’s high quality, sub-$20 cases are available for the latest lineup of flagship Android devices including the Galaxy S6 Edge and S6 Edge Plus, the S6 Active, and the new Galaxy Note 5.
The two new cases are updated versions of well-reviewed products that Poetic had available for previous generation devices, so unlike many other affordable cases, we already know what we’re getting into in terms of quality. Expand
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A Galaxy S7 render that’s not real at all
Samsung brought the Galaxy Note5 (sic) and Galaxy S6 Edge+ to market faster than expected (maybe to beat the Apple hype train?), and it looks like they’re pushing the next flagship Galaxy S handset — assumably the Galaxy S7 — through production just as fast. A Samsung device simply labeled as “Lucky-LTE” made its way through Geekbench yesterday, and now a report from the usually-reliable SamMobile claims that the device is indeed an early prototype of the Samsung Galaxy S7… Expand
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Leading up to Apple’s eagerly anticipated keynote presentation last night, Sony had a jab prepared for the iPhone-makers before they unveiled the iPhone 6s, Apple TV and iPad Pro. It seems, however, Sony wasn’t the only manufacturer attempting to rain on Apple’s parade. Arguably Apple’s biggest competitor, Samsung had a few of its own jibes to share with us and took to its UK Twitter handle to publish them…
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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.
After starting to rollout updates to its Galaxy Note Edge and Note 4 variants earlier this week, Verizon today has begun pushing updates to its Galaxy S6, S6 Edge, and Tab 4 10.1 with a fix for the Stagefright exploit in tow. Verizon has shared official update changelogs on its website for all three updates, noting that it bumps the Android OS to version 5.1.1.
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The Stagefright exploit is definitely not a minor problem, and it potentially affects basically any device going back to the early years of Android. But thankfully, Sprint has been pretty on top of pushing out fixes for as many devices as possible. Today, the carrier is pushing out Stagefright fixes, labeled simply as “Google Security Patch (Stagefright),” to a couple Nexus handsets and several of Samsung’s Galaxy-branded phones.
Here’s the full list of devices receiving the patch today, with links to Sprint’s support pages:
As usual, you should expect to see these updates roll out over-the-air over the course of the next few days. “Software updates may be released in stages and can take several days for delivery,” Sprint says. If you want to manually check to see if the update is available for your device, head into the system Settings app. But while Stagefright is not “no big deal” by any means, you’ll probably be fine until your device is updated.
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Motorola Refurb DOCSIS 3.0 Cable Modems: SB6121 $45 (Orig. $100), SB6141 $55 (Orig. $100)
T-Mobile has today released minor updates for the Galaxy S6 and S6 Edge this morning, including some improvements for battery life. Both phones received Android 5.1.1 fairly recently, and now, the “Uncarrier” is releasing a couple of bug fixers. The S6 update notes battery improvements and “various bug fixes and device improvements” for the Galaxy S6, and the S6 Edge adds a “cocktailbar error fix”… Expand
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Samsung’s Galaxy S6, much like previous generations of the S line, is sure to see a few variants to appeal to various segments of the market. The Korean company first launched the outdoors-friendly Galaxy S6 Active on AT&T (check out our full review), and now it looks like we might see a Galaxy S6 Mini at some point down the line as well (via PhoneArena)… Expand
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Sennheiser Urbanite on-ears for $75 or XL over-ears for $130 (Orig. up to $250), more
If you’ve been following the Samsung rumor mill, you know that the Korean company is getting ready to launch at least a couple of new phones later this year. The Galaxy Note 5 is definitely one of the more anticipated Samsung handsets of the year, but it seems pretty clear that the company wants to release at least one variant of the Galaxy S6 line as well. Now we have even more evidence of that, with a photo of a Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge+ dummy unit…
The photo (via AllAboutSamsung) is not anything remarkable, but it is the first time we’ve seen the Galaxy S6 Edge+ branding in the flesh. Other than that though, as you might guess, the S6 Edge+ doesn’t look to be anything more than a big version of the S6 Edge. If recent rumors are correct, Samsung is going with an Exynos 7420 and 3 GB RAM. SamMobile claims that the Samsung Galaxy Note 5 and S6 Edge+ will be unveiled on August 12th.
If you’ve been following our thoughts on this year’s flagship smartphones, you know that we think that Samsung’s offerings are some of the best. The Korean company really stepped up their game with the Galaxy S6 and S6 Edge, introducing a much more premium build, a cleaned up version of TouchWiz, and internals that are worthy of 2015. In that vein, the Galaxy S6 Active is pretty much identical. It has a really nice hard plastic body, the same less-horrible TouchWiz, and the exact same internal specifications as its standard S6 brethren. But it’s not perfect, and there are always going to be compromises. Maybe fewer compromises than ever before, but compromises nonetheless… Expand
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Update: It looks like some are having a hard time finding the theme on the Theme Store. It’s not clear if it has been pulled, but we’ll update when we learn more.
If you have one the latest Samsung smartphones, the Galaxy S6 or S6 Edge, you may be waiting for a way to ditch TouchWiz. Because even though Samsung’s skin has definitely gotten better over time and — this year in particular — has seen much-improved visual design, stock Android’s Material Design-based interface can’t really be beat. Now, thanks to developer Samer Zayer, there’s a new Material Design theme available through Samsung’s official Theme Store app… Expand
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Daily Deals: Samsung 40″ 4K Smart TV $550, Toshiba 1TB External HDD $50, more
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Lexar High-Performance MicroSDXC (Up to 95MB/s Read) w/USB 3.0 Reader Flash Memory Card $72.99 (Orig. $159.99)
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Fitbit Charge Wireless Activity and Sleep Wristband for $100 (Reg. $130)
We’ve had quite a few leaks of the device already, and now AT&T has officially unveiled the Samsung Galaxy S6 Active on its website. We’re still waiting for the customary blog post to go up with information on pricing and availability, though, so we’ll update this post when those details goes live.
Update: The press release has just gone out with everything we really want to know about the Galaxy S6 Active. In terms of details we didn’t know about, the phone runs 5.0.2 Lollipop, comes with an Exynos 7420 64-bit octa-core processor, 32GB of internal storage, and the 5.1″ QHD Super AMOLED display has a pixel density of 577 ppi. The S6 Active will be available starting June 12th, as always, as an AT&T exclusive and will be available on the same day both online and in retail stores. Installment pricing with be as such: $0 down on AT&T Next for $23.17 with 30 device payments on Next 24, $28.96 per month at 24 payments on Next 18, or $34.75 per month at 20 payments on Next 12.
“With the Galaxy S6 active, we’re delivering consumers with high durability coupled with the powerful performance of Samsung’s latest flagship smartphone,” said Tim Baxter, President & COO & Mobile Division GM of Samsung Electronics America. “The result is a smartphone that brings ruggedized capabilities and water resistance coupled with the camera, battery and design features that empower our consumers and business users to do more.”
The promotional page for the S6 Active confirms just about every detail we already knew about the rugged device save for battery size – the S6 Active indeed does have a 3,500mAh onboard battery (contrary to belief it might stay at 2,800mAh), as well as Quick Charge and Ultra Power Saving functionality, that together should stretch out use off a cable by quite some time.
The Galaxy S6 Active has an IP68 rating and is certified to meet military standards for water and dust resistance, shock, vibration, extreme temperatures, humidity, and high altitude. It comes in Blue Camo, White Camo, or Gray and as expected has a 5.1″ QHD Super AMOLED display and 16MP rear and 5MP front-facing cameras.
The company has a promotional video for the phone up on its YouTube account:
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Yesterday evening a report emerged that claimed Samsung would release a Galaxy S6 Plus later this year that’s essentially a larger Galaxy S6 Edge. Now, YouTuber MKBHD has shared what appears to be the first image of the Galaxy S6 Plus and as expected, it’s a larger Galaxy S6 Edge.
Samsung revealed a bit of setback today for Galaxy S6 owners hoping to get their hands on Samsung Pay this summer. As Bloomberg reports, the company announced on a call with investors today that it will miss its previous target of July for launching its mobile payment service. According to the Samsung executive, the company is now targeting sometime in September to roll out Samsung Pay in the United States and South Korea. Expand
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