Samsung Galaxy K zoom to cost less than the Galaxy S5? European prices may start at €499

Samsung announced its brand new Galaxy K zoom this morning, saying that it would start selling it in May. While the company didn’t provide details about the price of the K zoom, we’re all expecting it to be quite expensive. After all, that 20.7MP rear camera with 10x optical zoom can’t possibly come cheap. However, it looks like the new smartphone-camera hybrid will be cheaper than Samsung’s Galaxy S5flagship handset.

According to SamMobile, the Galaxy K zoom will be priced at €499 in the Netherlands. At the moment, an unlocked Galaxy S5 costs at least €600 there (and all over Europe, for that matter). 

 

So perhaps the K zoom will be sold for around $500 when it lands in the US - despite the fact that €499 means around $690 at today’s exchange rates.

Besides having a possibly great camera on the back, the Samsung Galaxy K zoom offers all the features that you’d expect from a good mid-range smartphone, including: a 4.8 inch 720p Super AMOLED display, LTE connectivity, hexa-core Exynos 5 processor, 2GB of RAM, 8GB of internal memory, microSD card support, and a 2,430 mAh battery.

The Samsung Galaxy K zoom will be available in three color versions: black, white, and blue. Is anyone looking forward to buying it?

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source: SamMobile

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The Galaxy S5 now has a special bedazzled edition with sparkly crystals

 

When we reviewed Samsung’s next heir to the Galaxy S line, the Galaxy S5, we thought that, while it was held back by some of its software, it was still an excellent smartphone that we would recommend to just about anyone. However, there was one thing that we couldn’t help but notice: it wasn’t blinged out. Sure, it has those dimples, but where are our crystals? Enter Swarovski.

A teaser video posted on YouTube by Samsung Mobile Korea reveals that Samsung will team up with Swarovski to make a “Crystal Collection” edition of the Galaxy S5. The video shows a Galaxy S5 completely covered in Swarovski crystals. The handset will be available in Samsung’s home turf, South Korea, sometime in May. It’s unknown whether Samsung will make the Crystal Collection Galaxy S5 available in other regions.

This is not the first time Samsung has partnered with Swarovski to line its smartphones with the latter company’s crystals. Last year, the same thing was done with both the Galaxy S4 and the Galaxy Note 3, though the Galaxy S4 was sold as a Crystal Edition versus just selling a blinged-out Galaxy Note 3 battery cover. To provide some context, the crystal-backed Galaxy S4 sold for roughly $630, while the crystal-encrusted Galaxy Note 3 battery cover  retailed for $300 when it launched in New York City.

Samsung and Swarovski even gave the Galaxy S3 Mini the crystal treatment. It’s obvious that Samsung loves to bling out its hardware, and this only continues the trend.

digitaltrends.com

Verizon's Samsung Galaxy S5 users run into problems with the camera

Verizon owners with the Samsung Galaxy S5 are running into a major problem with their camera. Even though it works perfectly for the first few days, it eventually starts malfunctioning. Whether you are trying to take a picture for Instagram, or just looking to snap a shot of your cat, the camera refuses to work and reveals a warning message that states: "Warning: Camera Failed."

You can try to restart or factory reset your new Galaxy S5, but it will be to no avail. And at this stage, there appears to be no fix in the works. Your best shot (so to speak) is to bring your Samsung Galaxy S5 back to Verizon, and find a sympathetic ear.

Once word spreads, or the number of such incidences increase, we could expect to see a software update for the device that will fix the camera. And the scary thing is that this is also happening to Verizon customers with the Samsung Galaxy S III.

Are you a Verizon customer with a Samsung Galaxy S5 or another Galaxy S model, and are receiving on-screen notices that the camera has failed? Hit us up with your story by commenting in the box below.

source: XDA, TechRadar

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Use the Samsung Galaxy S5's emergency contact feature

Editor Jessica Dolcourt shows you how to set up an emergency Galaxy S5 tool you'll hopefully never have to use.

There are those features on your phone that you'll probably never use, and then the ones you'll neverwant to use. Such is the case with Safety Assistance, an emergency tool that will alert up to four predetermined contacts when you sound the alarm.

There are those features on your phone that you'll probably never use, and then the ones you'll neverwant to use. Such is the case with Safety Assistance, an emergency tool that will alert up to four predetermined contacts when you sound the alarm.

Here's how it works: In time of need, you would press the power/lock button three times in quick succession. This action sends a series of text messages with your approximate mapped location, a photo from the front and rear-facing cameras, and a short voice recording.

This isn't to replace a call to 911, 999, 000, or other emergency services. Samsung's lengthy disclaimer also states that, since the tool is based on text messaging, it "may not work accurately, continuously, or error-free" depending on network conditions.

Still, for a little peace of mind, Samsung's twist on ICE, or In Case of Emergency, numbers, is easy to set up. Here's how you do it.

1.) Turn it on

Navigate to the Settings menu, then press Quick Settings. Select Safety Assistance from the list of choices, then tap Send help messages, and swipe the toggle to On.

Hop into the settings menu to get started with Safety Assistance.Screenshot by Jessica Dolcourt/CNET

You'll be asked to read through and sign off on a lengthy terms of service that reminds you that this feature won't summon an ambulance, and that also absolves Samsung of personal liability.

2.) Check the boxes

If you want to scale back on the service to keep from inundating your contact with so many texts, you can uncheck the boxes to deselect sending a recording, and photos from the Galaxy S5's two cameras. In that case, triggering the emergency response would send an SOS text with your location.

3.) Set up your contacts

Back out of the help messages window and tap Manage primary contacts to select your emergency recipients. You can have up to four.

You can have up to four contacts on your list. You'll see a notification that the GS5 has sent your SOS.Screenshot by Jessica Dolcourt/CNET

It isn't a good idea to include emergency services here, since most government agencies won't accept texts, or even know who you are in the first place. (This is changing in some places in the US, but isn't widespread by far.)

4.) Test it out

It's worth letting your contacts know that you've added them. I'd also recommend a dry-run test so both sides understand what to expect in the event of the real deal -- may it never occur.

Your recipient sees a series of texts, including a short voice recording, and a map with your coordinates.Screenshot by Jessica Dolcourt/CNET

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New York Times pits Galaxy S5 against iPhone 5s, says competition isn’t even close

Last week, we took an in-depth look at Samsung’s new Galaxy S5 smartphone to see how it compared with the HTC One (M8). While the competition was certainly intense, in the end we called HTC’s new flagship phone the best Android smartphone in the world. In terms of sales, however, the M8 will never compete with the Galaxy S5.Even HTC knows that. Apple’s flagship iPhone 5s is the only smartphone that sits at the top of the food chain alongside the Galaxy S5 when it comes to sales, and The New York Times recently pitted these two leading smartphones against each other to see which one should be called the best smartphone in the world.

Interestingly, the newspaper found that the competition wasn’t even close.

“Although it offers no spectacular advances over the previous version, Samsung seems to have done just enough with the S5 to stay ahead of every other Android phone maker,” NYT columnist Farhad Manjoo wrote. “The only plausible competition comes in the form of the HTC One, which, as my colleague Molly Wood wrote, is prettier than the S5 but not as functional. The upshot of all these reviews is that if you’re looking for the best Android phone, Samsung’s is the one to buy.”

He continued, “But that’s not the whole story. While there are probably some people who go out to shop for the best Android phone, I suspect that most people want to know which phone is best of all, whatever operating system it runs. In other words, how does the Galaxy S5 compare to the iPhone 5S, Apple’s six-month-old flagship device and the champion to beat?”

The answer, Manjoo says, is “not very well.”

According to The New York Times, the brand new Galaxy S5 really doesn’t compete on any level with the iPhone 5s, which is nearly seven months old at this point.

“By just about every major measure you’ll care about, from speed to design to ease of use to the quality of its apps, Samsung’s phone ranks behind the iPhone, sometimes far behind,” Manjoo wrote. “If you’re looking for the best phone on the market right now, I’d recommend going with the iPhone 5S.”

Manjoo says the Galaxy S5′s three biggest advantages over the iPhone 5s are slightly longer battery life, water-resistance and the phone’s larger display. The first two are minor advantages according to Manjoo, and the display size discrepancy will reportedly disappear later this year when Apple launches a larger iPhone 6 and an iPhone phablet.

The columnist concludes that Samsung’s Galaxy S5 is the best smartphone with a large screen that money can buy right now, and that will continue to be the case for the next few months. But Manjoo says that once Apple launches its larger iPhones, “Samsung’s smartphone ascendance may look a bit uncertain.”

http://bgr.com/

Galaxy S5 draws rush of trade-ins from Samsung phone owners; iPhone users uninterested

New flagship smartphone launches are often accompanied by a rush of users trading in older phone models as they upgrade, and data surrounding which models saw increased trade-in volumes can give us a good idea of where business is coming from as people purchase new phones. If data provided to BGR by Gazelle is any indication, early Galaxy S5 buyers were already Samsung device owners in large part, with a comparably small amount of new business coming over from the iPhone.

According to data from leading gadget trade-in service Gazelle, the volume of used Samsung phones being sold using the company’s site exploded on April 11th, the day Samsung’s Galaxy S5 went on sale at all four nationwide U.S. wireless carriers. The firm’s data shows that Samsung device trade-ins were up 69% over the Galaxy S4′s launch day and 209% over trade-in volumes on the day the Galaxy S III first went on sale in 2012.

In terms of attracting new business from the iPhone camp, however, things didn’t look as impressive.

Gazelle saw iPhone trade-in volumes drop 35% compared to where they were last year on the day the Galaxy S4 launched in the U.S. Interestingly, the Galaxy S4 didn’t even go on sale at all U.S. carriers on the same day last year, so the Galaxy S5 saw fewer trade-ins from a much larger group of potential customers.

Of course, this is just one data point and it doesn’t necessarily tell the whole story. We’ll have to wait for usage tracking companies to start releasing mobile traffic share data and other similar statistics for a more comprehensive look at whether or not Samsung’s latest flagship phone might have stolen a good amount of business away from Apple.

As for which older Samsung models users traded in most during the S5′s launch, Gazelle says Verizon’s Galaxy S III and S4 trade-in volumes spiked 114% and 82% during launch weekend, respectively, compared to the prior weekend. AT&T Galaxy S4 trade-ins were up 250% over that same time period, and T-Mobile Galaxy S3 trade-ins ballooned 175% on April 11th compared to the prior day.

http://bgr.com/

White Samsung Galaxy S5 gets price cut in India

When the Samsung Galaxy S5 launched in India, it was priced at 51,990 Rupees without a contract ($860 USD). But on Monday, the HTC One (M8) was released in the same market for a price of 49,990 Rupees ($827 USD). With HTC undercutting Samsung in the battle of flagship devices, at least one Indian retailer has cut the price of the Galaxy S5 by at about 10%.

Now, the white version of the Samsung Galaxy S5 is priced under the HTC One (M8) in India at Flipkart. The model is wearing a price tag of 46,450 Rupees ($767 USD). With the HTC One (M8) launching today in the world's third largest smartphone market, cutting the price of the Korean manufacturer's flagship model keeps some of the attention off of the just released HTC flagship.

The discounted white Samsung Galaxy S5 can now be ordered from Flipkart, and it is almost a certainty that the black model will also be discounted. If Indian retailers start cutting the price of the HTC One (M8) over the next few days, we could see a price war between the two models.

The Samsung Galaxy S5 in white, has its price cut in India

source: Flipkart, SamMobile,via BGR

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