Samsung's Unpacked Event... Unravelled
Galaxy Note 9
Through many leaks and reports, the structure of the Galaxy Note 9 was predicted before its official unveiling. It is an upgrade from the Galaxy Note 8, featuring same shape and display, but there are notable improvements from the Note 8.
The Note 9 emphasizes productivity, and its upgrades from the previous generation clearly illustrate this ambition. For example, the Note 9 comes with a larger battery of 4000mAh to accommodate the larger display and 512GB of internal storage, which added with a 512GB microSD card, will give the phone an insane storage of 1TB. The already-excellent camera is improved by including AI capabilities. For example, its Scene Optimizer will scan the subject and then analyze the surroundings and environment such as streets, food, or other objects. It will then accordingly balance the lighting, brightness, and contrast prior to taking the photo to provide a beautiful result. AI is the future, simply put, and Samsung is planning to invest more in this field in the future as it announced to hire 1000 artificial intelligence researchers. Another feature is Flaw Detection which will alert the user if a shot came out blurry or with eyes closed, which are common pet peeves for many.
Perhaps the biggest enhancement to the Note 9 was its S Pen, now with Bluetooth capabilities. Essentially, the S Pen functions as a remote, allowing people to use it for various tasks and actions, which differ by the app. For example, for the Camera app, the S Pen can take photos. For Powerpoint presentations, it serves as a slide clicker and can move across slides. And it can play your music with a simple push of a button. All of these controls and actions are customizable. Who said styluses are dead? One of the obvious drawbacks for Bluetooth is battery, but fortunately the S Pen houses an internal supercapacitor, allowing for rapid charging when placed in the phone. For one minute of charge, you can use the pen for 30 minutes. And certainly the 4000mAh battery in the phone won't make battery life a concern. Surely, the S Pen will open doors for many creative techniques to bolster smartphone productivity and serve as a potential mini-computer or tablet.
To many, the Note 9 could be a boring smartphone due to its similarities to its previous generation, but it is critical to note that the Note 8 was a monumental upgrade and redesign from the Note 7, which was a disaster, literally; thus, making refinements in the Note 9 one year later is already a difficult task. The Note 9 is astounding for what it offers, including a headphone jack, but that does come at a high starting price of $1000. This only confirms that future smartphones will only get more expensive where $1000 will become the norm, an era initiated by Apple's iPhone X.
Galaxy Home
Samsung is finally entering the smart speaker market, with much delay. And this delay could cost it considerably, considering how Apple's Homepod didn't gain as much market share due to its late release (and lack of smart features). Nonetheless, it is ambitious to effectively compete against other smart speakers, such as Amazon Echo, Google Home, and Apple Homepod, through its reveal of the Galaxy Home. Powered by Samsung's Bixby assistant, the speaker is configured with 8 microphones and 6 built-in speakers. Based by the presentation livestream, several Galaxy Homes can be connected together to provide a louder, richer experience. Furthermore, Samsung shared a new feature called SoundSteer, which would direct the audio in one direction (towards you) when prompted the command "Hi Bixby, SoundSteer".
Then, there is obviously Bixby. That could be the drawback of the smart speaker as the Bixby Assistant doesn't have many capabilities and lacks many strengths that the Google Assistant and Amazon Alexa possess. While Samsung did announce several improvements to the virtual assistant during its presentation, it still lacks much usefulness, which could ultimately remove the "smart" title from "smart speaker".
Samsung also disclosed a long-term partnership with Spotify to integrate the music-streaming service with the Galaxy Home and its other products such as televisions and phones. As a result, Spotify will supposedly be the go-to music service on the Galaxy Home, but further details regarding the integration of the two companies are still unknown.
Additional information regarding the Galaxy Home's price and availability will arrive in November. One can only wonder what future products Samsung will unveil to further infiltrate the smart home industry.
Galaxy Watch
Yes, the long-rumored Galaxy Watch is here, the successive smartwatch to its former Gear S3. It seems as though Samsung is considering to end its Gear brand and match its products to the notorious Galaxy brand. This newest smartwatch will come with LTE connectivity and a high-resolution AMOLED display to rival the Apple Watch. It will also be water and scratch resistant. Having a battery life of 7 days on a single charge, the watch includes 39 fitness exercises and can automatically detect 6, with health being the primary subject for this product. The watch will also come with hundreds of different watch faces, in contrast to the Apple Watch.
Additional information regarding the Galaxy Watch's price will come soon, and it will be available on August 24 in the United States. With limited Android smartwatches out there, this probably will become the most popular and successful, but will it be enough to surpass the Fitbit Versa or Apple Watch, considering their already sizable market share?
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