PARIS -- Huawei launched its P30 series smartphone series here Tuesday, seeking to lure an increasingly saturated market away from Samsung and Apple with rear cameras that can shoot the moon better than its rivals.
The top-end P30 Pro has four Leica-engineered rear cameras with up to 50 times digital zoom, allowing users to capture more detailed images of stars and heavenly bodies. The regular P30 can zoom digitally up to 30 times.
"The Galaxy phone cannot see a Galaxy," Huawei Consumer Business Group CEO Richard Yu said in a jab at Samsung's Galaxy phones, while showing the audience a photo of a star cluster.
The P30 series was unveiled in the French capital just hours after Apple CEO Tim Cook unveiled news and TV services and a credit card that will tie consumers deeper into the iOS ecosystem.
Shenzhen-based Huawei's newest flagships also came a month after Samsung launched the S10, S10+ and S10e, which saw the South Korean giant equip the S line for the first time with triple rear cameras (except for the S10e, which has two) and hole-shaped cutouts on the screen for the front-facing camera.
Huawei and Samsung, the world's number two and number one smartphone vendor in terms of sales, respectively, both unveiled handsets with folding displays and 5G capabilities last February, selling new features to a growing number of customers who are holding on to their phones longer than a year or two.
The quad cameras on the P30 Pro matches the four lenses on the Galaxy S10 5G and improves upon the triple lenses on Huawei's own P20 Pro and Mate 20 Pro from 2018. Apple stuck with dual lenses on the iPhone Xs and Xs Max while Google kept it at just one lens for the Pixel 3 and 3XL.
Huawei consumer business group CEO Richard Yu posted a photo of the moon on his Weibo account weeks before Tuesday's launch, with the blurred watermark hinting at the P30 series.
It's the fourth year of Huawei’s partnership with German camera-maker Leica that started with 2016's P9 series. For 2018's Mate 20 series, Huawei swapped the monochrome lens for a wide angle sensor.
Samsung also included a wide angle lens for the S10 and S10+ on top of the telephoto and standard lens.
Huawei, also the world biggest supplier of telecommunications equipment, is also unveiling new consumer products as it fights allegations of cyber espionage from the US.
Its founder, Ren Zhengfei, has denied that its equipment serve as a backdoor for Beijing. He also described the arrest of his daughter, Huawei CFO Meng Wanzhou as politically motivated.
Meng was arrested in Canada on the request of Washington, who accused of violating sanctions against Iran.
source: news.abs-cbn.com
SAN FRANCISCO -- Samsung Electronics Co Ltd on Wednesday unveiled a nearly $2,000 folding smartphone in a bid to top the technology of Apple Inc and Chinese rivals and reignite consumer interest in a massive consumer electronics category that had its worst sales ever last year.
The Galaxy Fold will go on sale on April 26 and take advantage of new and faster 5G mobile networks. The device looks similar to a conventional smartphone, but then opens like a book to reveal a display the size of a small tablet at 7.3 inches (18.5 cm).
The device "answers skeptics who said that everything that could be done has been done," DJ Koh, chief executive of Samsung Electronics, said at an event in San Francisco. "We are here to prove them wrong."
With the foldable phone, Samsung is trying to take the technology lead on two fronts in the smartphone race, offering an eye-catching new feature with the big, bending screen and the first 5G connection in a premium phone, a feature analysts do not expect Apple to match until 2020.
It also challenges the notion of what a phone can cost, debuting at nearly twice the price of current top-of-the-line models from Apple and Samsung itself.
Patrick Moorhead, founder of Moor Insights & Strategy, said the new folding device could help Samsung stay at the top and lure consumers to upgrade devices that have looked largely the same over the past five years.
"Samsung and Apple go back and forth" to lead the premium smartphone market, Moorhead said. "I think this is Samsung's chance to take back the innovation crown."
And even though the $1,980 starting price is steep, some dedicated Samsung fans said they would pay it. Navneet Kumar Singh, a Samsung enthusiast from India who traveled to San Francisco to watch the launch, is ready to place his order.
"The prices of the flagship models have been a little aggressive in India," he said, "But in the end, if you invest the money you're getting a different experience."
Samsung also introduced several accessories to compete against Apple, including a pair of wireless headphones called Galaxy Buds. The headphones include wireless charging, a feature that Apple has promised to put into is competing AirPods but has not yet released.
Samsung also said that its new Galaxy phones will be able to wirelessly charge its headphones and new smartwatches by setting the accessories on the back of the phone.
Samsung said it had developed new manufacturing processes for the phone's hinge and flexible display to tolerate opening and closing hundreds of thousands of times.
10 TIMES FASTER
Along with the folding phone, Samsung also added new cameras and a 5G version to its Galaxy series of phones.
Verizon Communications Inc will be the first carrier to offer service for Samsung's 5G phones. The networks are expected to be 10 times faster than current ones, improving viewing of live news and sports events.
The 5G smartphones, both folding and rigid, aim to beat major rivals Apple and Xiaomi Corp to market with a next-generation device as Samsung defends a narrowing lead in global handset shipments.
With the 5G versions of its flagships, the Korean electronics maker looks to have beaten Chinese rivals in the 5G race, although the device will operate only on the small number of networks launching later this year. Apple is not expected to release a 5G smartphone until late 2020.
Rival smartphone makers are expected to announce 5G models at next week's Mobile World Congress, the industry's top annual event, in Spain. Samsung said its 5G handset would be available in the early summer.
The Galaxy 10 series needs to appeal to consumers who are reluctant to upgrade for only incremental technological improvements in performance. Such reluctance led to the worst-ever year for smartphone sales in 2018.
All of the Galaxy series of rigid phones except the 5G will be available from March 8, with the S10+ priced from $1,000, the S10 priced from $900 and the smaller S10e from $750.
The mainline S10 compares with $999 for Apple's iPhone XS and $858 for Huawei Technologies Co Ltd's premium Mate 20 Pro.
Samsung is still the global smartphone market leader with about 19 percent share but it underperformed the market, which was itself down.
Huawei and Apple are vying for second place with about 13 and 12 percent respectively.
source: news.abs-cbn.com
MANILA -- Samsung, the world's largest smartphone maker, sought to arrest plateauing sales with an overhaul of its flagship S line, unveiled globally on Thursday.
The Galaxy S10, S10 Plus and a lower priced S10 E were unveiled in San Francisco, California as Samsung attempted to lure premium consumers from Apple while fighting off competition from Chinese firms, including world number 2, Huawei.
The Galaxy S10 series retained the curved edges and shaved off the top and bottom bezels almost entirely, with the front-facing cameras housed in a tiny cutout.
The S10 Plus has a 6.4-inch screen with a 90-percent screen to body ratio. The S10 has a 6.1-inch panel while the S10 E has a 5.8-inch panel.
The S10 line is the first Samsung phones to ship with an in-display fingerprint sensor. The company said its "ultrasonic" technology will work even with oily and damp fingers.
The S10 and S10 Plus have three rear cameras with wide shooting capability to capture landscapes and group shots. The phones can shoot video in ultra-high definition and HDR 10+. The cheaper S10E has dual rear cameras.
The S10's back, given gradient paint jobs this time, can wirelessly charge other phones and other devices including Samsung's answer to Apple's AirPods. The S10 Plus is powered by a 4,100 mAh cell
The S10 and S10 Plus will come with 8GB of RAM and 128GB of storage, with the option to have 12GB of RAM and 1TB storage in the larger model. The S10E will have 6GB of RAM and 128GB of storage.
The S10 white will be available in white for all models, black for the S10 and S10 Plus, green for the S10 Plus and Ceramic Black for the 1TB model.
Pre-orders will start on Friday and will run until March 3. The Galaxy S10 phones will be available on March 8.
COOLING SALES
The innovation would be arriving on a global smartphone scene that has cooled as the devices become ubiquitous and buyers put off upgrading from models they own.
"The industry is in flat to declines and we've reached a saturation point of smartphones," said Moor Insights and Strategy principal analyst Patrick Moorhead.
"What Samsung needs to do, no different from Apple, is give people a reason to get rid of a phone that might be perfectly fine for something different."
The argument for a phone that can fold open to provide a larger screen is an easy one - buyers have shown a preference for "more real estate" to watch videos, play games, work, and more.
Samsung was mocked when it introduced large-screen Note phones, only to wind up giving rise to a "phablet" trend that rivals followed.
"I am expecting there to be trade-offs," Moorhead said of a Samsung foldable phone.
"You can't take leading-edge technology and fold it, and have it not be thicker."
Along with perhaps being a bit clunky, a folding phone could come with a lofty price of $1,500 or so, but the point for Samsung is not to sell truckloads of the handsets but to establish a new category to kindle demand in a global market devoid of growth, according to the analyst.
"Samsung always does better when they have something that Apple doesn't have that is valuable to consumers," Moorhead said.
"This is Samsung's opportunity to take some premium market share from Apple."
GOOGLE ON BOARD
Apple has revealed no sign of pursuing folding screens for iPhones. The Cupertino-based company has stressed efforts to ramp up sales of digital content and services to devotees of its devices.
"I do believe Apple will have a foldable screen at some point, but will wait until they perfect the experience," Moorhead said.
Google has made it clear that it is working to adapt its free Android mobile operating system to Samsung's folding screens so video, apps, and more perform as desired when displays change sizes.
The incentive for Samsung and Google goes beyond what is shown off at Unpacked.
While Samsung is the top smartphone maker in the world, the company makes a lot of money selling components such as screens and chips to other consumer electronics companies.
Igniting a folding-screen craze in smartphones would make Samsung a natural prime supplier of such displays.
Android software is the most widely used mobile operating system, giving Google incentive to ride a folding phone wave.
Samsung is opening three US retail stores to promote its Galaxy line of smartphones.
The move ramps up Samsung's efforts to compete on the home turf of Apple, which has hundreds of retail outlets in the US and around the world.
Samsung remained the number one global handset maker with a 20.8 percent share in 2018 despite an eight percent sales slump for the year, according to research firm IDC -- which said last year showed the worst overall decline in sales for the smartphone sector.
Still, analysts don't see the sun setting any time soon on the smartphone era, seen as a must-have device for many people around the world.
"Mobile phones are here to stay," said Gartner analyst Werner Goertz said, while suggesting that consumers may be waiting for radical innovation in handsets.
"Foldable phones would represent a really nice disruptive feature," he said.
GlobalData research director Avi Greengart believes foldable phones will be a big trend this year.
He was among analysts that expected the challenge to folding smartphones to be on the software side, not with the displays, since applications will have to be designed to adapt to going from phone to tablet screen sizes.
-- with a report from Agence France-Presse
source: news.abs-cbn.com
SAN FRANCISCO -- Samsung on Wednesday is expected to unveil new flagship smartphones including one with a screen that can fold closed like a book as it seeks to boost the moribund market.
Much of what is in store at a Galaxy Unpacked event that the South Korean consumer electronics giant is hosting in San Francisco has been revealed in leaks, including a Galaxy 10 television commercial accidentally aired.
New Galaxy models will mark the tenth-anniversary of the line, and Samsung is to show off wireless ear buds.
However, the spotlight is likely to be commandeered by a handset with a bendable screen that would allow it to fold from tablet-sized to a smartphone form.
The innovation would be arriving on a global smartphone scene that has cooled as the devices become ubiquitous and buyers put off upgrading from models they own.
"The industry is in flat to declines and we've reached a saturation point of smartphones," said Moor Insights and Strategy principal analyst Patrick Moorhead.
"What Samsung needs to do, no different from Apple, is give people a reason to get rid of a phone that might be perfectly fine for something different."
The argument for a phone that can fold open to provide a larger screen is an easy one - buyers have shown a preference for "more real estate" to watch videos, play games, work, and more.
Samsung was mocked when it introduced large-screen Note phones, only to wind up giving rise to a "phablet" trend that rivals followed.
"I am expecting there to be trade-offs," Moorhead said of a Samsung foldable phone.
"You can't take leading-edge technology and fold it, and have it not be thicker."
Along with perhaps being a bit clunky, a folding phone could come with a lofty price of $1,500 or so, but the point for Samsung is not to sell truckloads of the handsets but to establish a new category to kindle demand in a global market devoid of growth, according to the analyst.
"Samsung always does better when they have something that Apple doesn't have that is valuable to consumers," Moorhead said.
"This is Samsung's opportunity to take some premium market share from Apple."
GOOGLE ON BOARD
Apple has revealed no sign of pursuing folding screens for iPhones. The Cupertino-based company has stressed efforts to ramp up sales of digital content and services to devotees of its devices.
"I do believe Apple will have a foldable screen at some point, but will wait until they perfect the experience," Moorhead said.
Google has made it clear that it is working to adapt its free Android mobile operating system to Samsung's folding screens so video, apps, and more perform as desired when displays change sizes.
The incentive for Samsung and Google goes beyond what is shown off at Unpacked.
While Samsung is the top smartphone maker in the world, the company makes a lot of money selling components such as screens and chips to other consumer electronics companies.
Igniting a folding-screen craze in smartphones would make Samsung a natural prime supplier of such displays.
Android software is the most widely used mobile operating system, giving Google incentive to ride a folding phone wave.
Samsung is opening three US retail stores to promote its Galaxy line of smartphones.
The move ramps up Samsung's efforts to compete on the home turf of Apple, which has hundreds of retail outlets in the US and around the world.
Samsung remained the number one global handset maker with a 20.8 percent share in 2018 despite an eight percent sales slump for the year, according to research firm IDC -- which said last year showed the worst overall decline in sales for the smartphone sector.
Still, analysts don't see the sun setting any time soon on the smartphone era, seen as a must-have device for many people around the world.
"Mobile phones are here to stay," said Gartner analyst Werner Goertz said, while suggesting that consumers may be waiting for radical innovation in handsets.
"Foldable phones would represent a really nice disruptive feature," he said.
GlobalData research director Avi Greengart believes foldable phones will be a big trend this year.
He was among analysts that expected the challenge to folding smartphones to be on the software side, not with the displays, since applications will have to be designed to adapt to going from phone to tablet screen sizes.
source: news.abs-cbn.com
