Samsung puts an end to storage blues and enters Epic territory
• Leading cellphone brand unveils its Galaxy Note 9 with the biggest battery to date
Samsung’s vice-chairman and CEO of Electronics, DJ Koh, smiled broadly as he stood with a bright yellow S-pen in hand at the Samsung Unpacked event.
Koh told the crowd in New York and those streaming the event from across the world that Samsung had laid the foundation to move beyond smart devices to intelligent experiences.
The twice-a-year unveiling of Samsung’s cellphone and smart offerings is always a big deal in the tech world. This time was no different, as the leading cellphone brand unveiled the Galaxy Note 9 with the biggest battery to date — which Samsung promises won’t explode.
Its flagship device was initially seen as a niche offering in 2011 due to its size, but as cellphone screen trends continue to scale up so did the Note’s sales. In spite the firestorm that was the Note 7, the Note 8 had the biggest preorder and sales numbers in South Korea and the US in the device’s history. It is also considered one of the main positive contributors to the company’s first-quarter numbers in 2018.
In spite of Samsung still holding to its number one spot with a 21% market share, the Chinese are hot on its tail. Huawei has ousted Apple (12%) from second spot by taking 16% market share in the second quarter.
Ben Stanton, a senior analyst at Canalys, told Bloomberg: “The importance of Huawei overtaking Apple this quarter cannot be overstated. It is the first time in seven years that Samsung and Apple have not held the top two positions. Huawei’s exclusion from the US has forced it to work harder in Asia and Europe to achieve its goals.”
This announcement was made only a week before Koh took to the stage in New York last week, but if he felt any pressure his smiling face was showing none of it as he presented what he called “the most advanced device for those wanting more”.
The Note 9 still stands tall with its 6.4-inch, diamond-cut screen on which you can tap on with your new brightly coloured S-Pen. The S-Pen has had its first proper revision since 2012, gaining Bluetooth ability and remote control properties. Now you can take a selfie with the simple click of your pen as you stand metres away with no awkward arms outstretched.
The camera sports the S9’s signature dual aperture tech, brought by a dedicated 9 RAM processing chip built into the camera itself. But it takes the smarts a step further by notifying you if someone has closed their eyes or if there is a blemish or finger on the lens, prompting you to take the photo again.
Before the presentation started Samsung played an ad promising that users would not have to worry about phone storage again. True to its word the phone comes not only in a 120Gb capacity but also in a 512Gb, twice the capacity of the largest iPhone X.
When paired with the upcoming official Samsung 520GB SD card, we are looking at the world’s first 1Tb phone. That equates to 4,600 movies or 186,000 photos.
Samsung’s far-reaching artificial intelligence (AI) overlord Bixby also got an upgrade. She can now call you an Uber and perform other functions without even opening the apps. She retains information from previous questions so no parrot-like repetition is necessary, thus coming across more conversational in tone although still not quite as scarily human as Google’s telephone appointment-making AI, Duplex.
Uber is not the only partnership Samsung revealed last week. It has also teamed up with Epic Games to be the first to bring Fornite to Android. Fortnite is the biggest video game in the world and its finally being ported to Android devices is arguably leading news.
It far outstrips the announcement of Galaxy Home, the South Korean giant’s answer to a smart speaker, which local social media jokingly compared to a potjie pot.
Fortnite racks up more than 125-million users across all PC, consol and mobile platforms with its free-to-download Battle Royale gameplay mode.
But don’t let the “free” fool you. Due to in-game purchases Epic games have crossed the billion-dollar revenue threshold less than a year after launch. This is especially noteworthy considering the purchases themselves do nothing to give you an edge on the competition but merely help you make your character and experience more customisable.
Up to now the only mobile devices you could play Fortnite on were Apple products. Bearing in mind that Epic rakes in more than $2m a day from Apple devices, the game finally coming to an operating system with a 77% share of the market can only produce staggering results. This will make the Note 9 preorders even stronger and Koh’s smile all the wider.
The Samsung Galaxy Note 9 will be available in SA on August 24, with the 128GB coming in at R18,999/R799 a month. You can preorder today.
IN SPITE OF SAMSUNG STILL HOLDING TO ITS NUMBER ONE SPOT WITH A 21% MARKET SHARE, THE CHINESE ARE HOT ON ITS TAIL