This week, on our weekly news roundup: the Samsung Galaxy A8s is the first Samsung phone that comes with the Infinity-O display and without a headphone jack, Google CEO gets asked by the Congress to explain why Donald Trump comes up when you type "idiot", and more!

Things are looking bad for Samsung on the mid and low-range market

As you've probably already heard, for the past few months, Samsung keeps on losing market share while other manufacturers like Huawei and Xiaomi are gaining on them. According to the latest information that we've received, things aren't looking that much better on the low/mid-range spectrum.In the last year, Samsung went from selling 83 million units down to 72 in just one year. We're talking about a loss of more than 10 million units here.Why? It's definitely hard to say with confidence, but we assume that manufacturers like OnePlus, Huawei, and Xiaomi are one of the main reasons that Samsung is losing ground now. At this pace, Huawei may be able to eventually overcome Samsung.And to be honest with you, it's not that much of a surprise. When it comes to affordable smartphones, it's tough to compete with manufacturers like Xiaomi. Just look at the Pocophone F1. How can you possibly offer a better value than that?In fact, not too long ago, we talked about the best affordable smartphones that you can grab in 2018 and guess what? We just couldn't include a Samsung device in there because Samsung simply doesn't offer anything nearly as good for the price point.Does that mean that this will be the fall of Samsung? Of course not. Despite their shortcomings, 72 million units are nothing to laugh at.Samsung is still the king and we love their devices - especially their flagships. Just look at the Note 9. It's a very unique phone for sure - tough to match its build quality and overall performance. Linus Tech Tips have rated it as the "zero compromises" smartphone - a title that has never been given to any other handheld before.Samsung may be having it tough recently, but they are still the king.

Samsung India tweets a Galaxy A9 promo... by using an iPhone

As we've mentioned above, Samsung is definitely not having their best moments right now with their market share declining and everything. And as if that wasn't enough, their team members are just the situation tougher by using their competitor's devices.On the above tweet, Samsung India posted a photo that was allegedly shot with the Samsung Galaxy A9, but they used an iPhone for tweeting the image. So, we suppose that certain Samsung's members actually prefer Apple's devices?No matter the case, this was a kinda silly move from their side. If you are a Samsung employee and wish to use a different device on your personal life then it's all good. But, you don't want to be seen doing that on the public cause it's just bad marketing.It seems like the specific Tweet is now deleted because we can no longer find it. Samsung probably realized that this was a goofy mistake and fixed it.Though, to be fair, the Galaxy A9 is only a mid-range device while Apple generally creates smartphones for the flagship market. So, it kinda makes sense that a person would prefer a flagship over a mid-range device no matter the brand.But, again, if you work for a specific manufacturer, you don't want to be seen using another brand. Especially when it comes to working with it.

Google tries to explain why Donald Trump appears when you type "idiot"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o6zfp6lRw2ENot too long ago, if you were to type "idiot" in Google under the "images" category, you would get pictures of Donald Trump. For that reason, Google's CEO, Sunder Pichai, was asked by the Congress to explain why that happens and how things work.Pichai explained in the fastest, simplest, and shortest way possible by saying:
"Any time you type in a keyword, as Google we have gone out and crawled and stored copies of billions of  pages in our index. And we take the keyword and match it against their pages and rank them based on over 200 signals — things like relevance, freshness, popularity, how other people are using it. Based on that, at any given time, we try to rank and find the best search results for that query. And then we evaluate them with external raters, and they evaluate it to objective guidelines. And that’s how we make sure the process is working."
In a slightly sarcastic tone, the Congresswoman replied by saying: "So it’s not some little man sitting behind the curtain figuring out what we’re going to show the user?"And Pichai answers: "Every single day, 15% of the searches Google sees, we've never seen them before. So, this is working at scale. And we don't manually intervene in any particular search result."

Websites choose Apple - but users choose Samsung

Just a few minutes ago we were talking about Samsung and how it keeps on losing market share and how that didn't matter much as Samsung still makes some of the best phones out there, if not the best.Real-life users seem to agree with this, but some websites not. Now that 2019 is right around the corner, Phone Arena recently announced the iPhone XS and XS Max as the Smartphone of the year with the Note 9 being the runner-up.However, this is where it gets interesting. The vast majority of the people in the comments section seem to still prefer Samsung over Apple despite the opinion of the website crew.So, we guess that Samsung is still your favorite manufacturer? Let us know how you feel about all this in the comments section down below! Do you still love Samsung? Or do you prefer another manufacturer?

Samsung announces their first official phone with the Infinity-O display and no headphone jack

So, this is the Samsung Galaxy A8s - the first phone by Samsung that comes without a headphone jack and uses the Infinity-O display.It definitely looks nice, but the hole on the left side of the display will definitely throw off a lot of people. We'll need a bit of time to get used to it.Depending on how you look at it, this is just another kind of notch, isn't it? True, it's an entirely new design compared to what we are used to, but the concept remains the same.Other than that, there's also the fact that we no longer have a headphone jack. This is the first time ever that Samsung decides to release a phone without one.Is this going to be the end of the headphone jack for Samsung devices? Probably not. The A series has always been a sort of playground for Samsung where they can experiment with new ideas and receive user feedback about them without touching the traditional S and Note series.With that being said, the A8s is only available in China right now. And come to think of it, this could be the device that we've been looking at for the past few weeks with the Infinity-O display leaks/rumors and not the S10. Lots of people will probably be overjoyed if that turns out to be true.Last but not least, one more thing that surprised us is that this phone doesn't seem to have an AMOLED panel, but an LCD one. But, is it even possible to drill a hole on an LCD panel without breaking it? Not sure what's going on here. Tech-savvy users, if you've got knowledge on this stuff, now is your chance to shine in the comments.

Specifications

Specification wise, this is what the Galaxy A8s has:
  • OS: Android Pie
  • Chipset: Snapdragon 710 (10nm)
  • CPU: 8 cores with 2 360 Gold cores at 2.2 GHz and 6 Kryo 360 Silver cores at 1.7 GHz
  • GPU: Adreno 616
  • RAM and storage: 128 gigs of storage and 6 or 8 gigs of RAM
  • Cameras: Triple setup with a main 24 MP sensor, 10 MP sensor for optical zoom, and a 5 MP depth sensor
  • Battery: 3400 mAh
Overall, it looks like a solid device. And the fact it comes with Android Pie out of the box is awesome. Still, the fact that it comes with a disguised notch and without a headphone jack is definitely something that will piss off a lot of Samsung fans.How do you feel about all this? Let us know in the comments.Feel like we forgot something important? Got something wrong? Then let us and everyone else know about it in the comments section down below!Like what you see? Then don't forget to follow us on Facebook and Twitter for the latest news, reviews, listicles, apps, games, devices, how-to guides, and more!
SOURCES: PHONE ARENA 1, 2BGR, PBS NEWS HOUR, GSM ARENA

View Comments

What's my model number?

There are several ways to locate your model number:

Option 1
On your device, go to Settings, then "About device" and scroll down to "Model number"
Option 2
Often times you can view the model number inside the device, by removing the battery
Option 3
Using Samsung's model/serial number location tool

Looks like you're using an ad blocker.

We get it: ads aren't what you're here for...

But ad revenue is our only way to manage this site. Without ad revenue we won't be able to continue to provide quality content and free firmware downloads.

Please disable your ad blocker or whitelist Updato.com in order to continue into Updato's ad-light experience.

Thanks for your support!