Samsung to introduce extended warranty for devices via ‘Protection Plus’ plan?

One of the nicer features Apple provides to its consumers is an extended warranty plan, which people can buy to extend the period over which Apple will offer warranty services on a particular device. Now, it seems Samsung might be looking to do something similar with its “Samsung Protection Plus” plan – registered at the USPTO, the plan will offer “extended warranties on consumer electronic products and consumer appliances.”

Samsung vs Apple satisfaction survey in U.S. By J.D. Powers

In a study carried out by J.D. Power its now proved that Samsung And Apple are the most popular brands among Smartphone’s in U.S. market, in terms of consumer satisfaction both the brands secured top spots. The study found that consumers from AT&T, Verizon, T-Mobile, and Sprint were most satisfied with the performance of Samsung and Apple Smartphone’s, though customers of certain carriers liked one over the other. Apple ranked top among Verizon and AT&T while customers of Sprint and T-Mobile were more satisfied with Samsung Smartphone’s.

Samsung launches upgraded ATIV Book 9 Plus in the US

Samsung has given its ATIV Book 9 Plus laptop a nice little upgrade in the U.S.. A new variant has been launched in the country, sporting a Core i7 processor, 8GB of RAM, and 256GB of SSD storage – the original model is still available with a Core i5 processor, 4GB RAM and 128GB of storage, so you now have two models to choose from, depending on your processing and storage needs.

Samsung’s flexible solid state battery won’t burst into flames

The many cases of batteries causing smartphones to explode and cause damage to property and present danger to human lives are never good for a company’s reputation, which holds especially true for a company of Samsung’s reach and popularity. However, a report out of the Korean media suggests that Samsung is working on solid state, flexible batteries, to ensure that exploding batteries become a thing of the past.

Samsung to open R&D center in Silicon Valley

Samsung is taking a huge step in its research and development adventures – the Korean manufacturer is building a brand new R&D center in Silicon Valley, by investing a significant portion of its $187.8 billion sales, setting up shop right where software giants like Google reside. Two new buildings will be set up, taking up approximately 385,000 square-feet over five and six stories respectively, with the entire campus taking up around 8.5-acre of land.

Verizon Galaxy Tab 2 10.1 gets a software update

Verizon Wireless is pushing a new software update for Galaxy Tab 2 10.1 owners. The OTA update I915VRBMH3 brings in three additions to the previous generation Galaxy Tab and now supports the ability to move apps and games to SD card, which could be a boon to gamers.

Samsung’s 12.2-inch tablet was initially envisioned as a Nexus?

A leaked render is all we’ve seen of Samsung’s oft-rumored 12.2 inch tablet, but it’s been talked about in multiple reports in the last few months. Now, the latest report from DigiTimes is once again mentioning the very same tablet, revealing a few new details. Apparently, Samsung was initially looking to launch the tablet as a Nexus tablet in collaboration with Google, but scrapped those plans as Google is currently focusing on the 7-inch form factor.

Galaxy Round’s battery is longer than the iPhone 5s

Samsung’s first smartphone to feature a flexible display, the Galaxy Round hasn’t exactly impressed anyone since it was officially announced, but it sure has people interested in finding out what advantages its curved screen brings to the table. Well, that’s something that’s still a mystery, but while we wait for that mystery to be solved, there’s a nice little unboxing video of the Galaxy Round that is now available online.

Galaxy S4 mini La Fleur Edition coming in red before Christmas

One of our insiders has revealed to us that Samsung is preparing to launch a La Fleur edition of the Galaxy S4 mini before the holiday season. The “flowery” edition will be made available in both single and dual SIM configurations, and in the color red, though other color options might be made available later on. Pricing should remain the same as the non-La Fleur model, though that’s unconfirmed for now, as are details on which markets the device will be launched in.

Samsung Galaxy S5 to be powered by 14nm “Exynos 6″ processor with 64-bit support???

Last we heard, Samsung was working on new mobile chipsets that would use a 20nm manufacturing process, in order to offer better performance and efficiency than is possible with current 28nm chips. Now, a report from DDailyclaims that Samsung might be skipping straight ahead to a 14nm process from 28nm. From what we can glean from the poorly translated Korean, Samsung is apparently doing this to make a “comeback” in the foundry business, in the face of competition from TSMC, which is currently working on 20nm chips as well.

Samsung Galaxy S4 mini not faring well in the market

With the Galaxy S3 mini last year, Samsung started a trend which saw manufacturers such as HTC and Sony release mini variants of their flagships, with Samsung itself following up with the Galaxy S4 mini this year. However, except for Sony’s Xperia Z1 mini, which features powerful and top-of-the-line specs as its flagship sibling, these “mini” devices have mostly been lackluster attempts at cashing in on the flagship’s success, with mid-range hardware that make them completely unexciting and undesirable.

Samsung releases OLED World app to show how superior AMOLEDs are..

Want to show off how your Galaxy S4 or Galaxy Note 3’s display is vivid and boasts an amazing picture quality? Samsung has something for you to support the case. The OLED World app showcases some images taken by renowned photographers like Ashley Vincent, Hougaard Malan, Kwon O Chul and Satoshi Kuribayashi and shows why AMOLEDs can produce better colours, contrast ratio and colour gamut. Sweetening the deal further is the ability to save those high-resolution images to set it as wallpaper.

Note 3 only cores active.Is this a drawback?

 while analysing the phone's real-time performance, you can notice something pretty weird:
During gaming (and benchmarks), about 90-95% of the time, only 2 cores are active.
The only time all 4 cores are active is really during boot-up and loading of any kind.
It's not a big deal but I'm curious to see if you guys heard anything about cores being idle during gaming. It's news..

Infographic shows Galaxy Note 3, Galaxy Gear features at a glance

Samsung has released a nice little infographic that shows off the features of the Galaxy Note 3 and Galaxy Gear. In particular, it shows how the Note 3 is an improvement over the Galaxy Note 2 in almost every way, whether it be the lighter body yet higher performance, upgraded S Pen and its cool new Air Command feature, modern design, better multitasking thanks to the 3 gigs of RAM, longer battery life, and more.

Galaxy S4 zoom announced for South Korea

The camera-smartphone hybrid has now been announced for Samsung’s home market. The Galaxy S4 zoom will sell in South Korea in black and white hues and bring the same set of features that makes the device stand out from the competition. It features a 16 megapixel rear-facing camera, Xenon flash, dedicated camera button but the most interesting part is the 10X optical zoom and the Zoom Ring that allows easy zoom in/zoom out. Moreover, the phone comes with in-call Photo Share to share images during an ongoing call, Photo Suggest, Sound & Shot, Smart Mode Suggest and a 1.9 megapixel camera on the front.

Samsung making rugged editions of the Galaxy Note 3 and Galaxy S5?

Samsung is reportedly working on a rugged water- and dust-proof variant of the Galaxy Note 3, according to ETNews, and is also considering making the Galaxy S5 rugged and tough out of the box, similar to Sony’s Xperia Z and Xperia Z1. Samsung won’t be downgrading the hardware on either device for the rugged variants, which is stark contrast to the Galaxy S4 Active, which saw its specs watered down in exchange for a tougher and resistant build.

Internal KNOX document confirms Android 4.4 for multiple Samsung devices

Document for Samsung’s KNOX security suite, and to our delight, the document confirms that Android 4.4 KitKat will be making its way to a couple of Samsung devices. The document mentions that the Galaxy Mega and Galaxy S4 mini will come with KNOX pre-loaded once they’re updated to Android 4.4, a rather damning confirmation that all three devices (counting both the Mega 6.3 and 5.8) will be enjoying Google’s chocolate-flavored OS at some point of time.

Rooting and flashing custom software on the Galaxy Note 3 causes hardware damage.

Well, it looks Samsung is following in HTC’s footsteps and finding ways to make it hard for users to root and flash custom software on its devices. According to well-known developer Chainfire, the Galaxy Note 3 comes with eFUSE technology for the KNOX security suite. What is eFUSE? Well, it’s a technology that allows reprogramming a read-only memory chip in real-time, even though such chips come with hard-coded code that cannot be generally changed after manufacturing.