Technology - Google News

Galaxy S10 needs to watch its back as sales slow and rivals like Huawei come on strong - CNET

Posted: 13 Jan 2019 04:00 AM PST

samsung-galaxy-unpackd-2019-official-invitation-1920x1080 — Samsung

Samsung may have stolen CES 2019 by announcing the launch date of its upcoming Galaxy S10 (it's Feb. 20, by the way), but it was world's second-largest phone maker, Huawei, that turned out the best phone here at the show. That might not seem like much of a threat when you consider that there were few smartphones to speak of. Yet, the Huawei Honor View 20 has enough unique features on what will be a midprice device to make Samsung look over its shoulder.

Samsung is currently the largest phone brand on the planet by sales volume, but it's hardly sitting pretty. Phones sales are slowing down, with even trillion-dollar Apple warning investors that it hasn't sold as many new iPhones as expected. Samsung will need its 10th anniversary Galaxy S10 to impress if it's going to keep its place at the top.

Huawei's Honor View 20 is more eye-catching than today's Samsung phone.

CNET

Does Samsung really have anything to fear? Huawei, which ousted Apple to become number-two, is in a tight spot. The company, which is also one of the biggest names in telecommunications equipment, has been banned by governments over fears of spying for the Chinese government, despite Huawei's insistence that it adheres to local laws wherever it operates. Since last year, massive carrier and retailer deals dried up and two of the company's employees have been arrested.

Although Huawei's business is imperiled, the handsets themselves are on the rise. The Huawei phones we've seen since last CES have outpaced Samsung's flagship models with three rear cameras, like the Huawei P20 Pro and Mate 20 Pro, an in-screen fingerprint reader and flashy finishes and colors, like the stunning Honor View 20 seen this past week at CES.

(Summer's mid-price Galaxy A9 has three rear cameras, but Samsung has yet to launch a premium phone with the same technology. Then again, Google's top-scoring flagship Pixel 3 retains one rear lens.)

Huawei, too, edged Samsung its AI camera agenda, and introduced photography software that closes the gap with some iPhone features -- like dramatic lighting for selfie photos, and Huawei's version of Apple's "Animoji" that avoids the pitfalls of Samsung's extremely creepy AR Emoji.

Now playing: Watch this: Galaxy S10, 5G and foldable phones make news at CES 2019

12:46

Samsung heads into 2019 with the advantage of rock-solid partner support, but flagging momentum. After its third quarter ended in October, Samsung said in a press release that it "achieved solid sales of flagship models" and that "total smartphone shipments remained flat due to decreased sales of mid- to low-end products." Even though Samsung expects sales to rise in 2019, this is hardly confidence-stirring stuff.

Meanwhile, Huawei's sales have grown despite an almost total US shut-out (the US is the world's second-largest phone market after China), and its devices are innovating faster. Days before CES, Huawei announced that it sold 200 million units across all its divisions, including the mid-level Honor line.

It's into this mix that the Galaxy S10 will answer the ultimate question of whether or not Samsung can catch up in terms of shelf appeal. There's also Apple to contend with. When CEO Tim Cook unveiled the iPhone X in 2017, it was a radically redesigned device that introduced cutting-edge technology like Face ID, a 3D front-facing camera that maps your face for secure unlocking, and gesture controls.

Samsung is widely expected to give its Galaxy S10 phones a similar face unlocking camera, the first "ultrasonic" in-screen fingerprint reader and a "bright night" camera mode for low-light photos (similar to what Huawei phones and the Pixel 3 phones have). The problem is that while Apple's Face ID gave us something no other phonemaker had, versions of all these rumored S10 features have long appeared on other Android phones.

Samsung will have to surpass them all to make the S10 sell big, or deliver something surprising and new.

Foldable Galaxy X: The ace up Samsung's sleeve

That something "new" Samsung's betting on to carry it through 2019 will likely be other phones altogether. Samsung has committed to a foldable phone, rumored to be called the Galaxy X or Galaxy F, by the first half of the year. The design is considered the future.

Foldable phones are poised to shake up a phone industry based on flat, bricklike devices. While only one foldable phone currently exists, the Royole FlexPai, which is currently on back-order, the new designs are already credited with ushering in new ways to use your most personal device.

Phones that open up into larger screen tablets will create more space for people to engage with apps, videos and games. But, as with tablets, they also have the potential to make multitasking easier, or split a screen to give you controls on one side and a viewing area on the other. 2017's ZTE Axon M didn't have a bendable screen -- it connected two separate displays with a hinge -- it showcased different ways to use two displays back-to-back, including a mirror mode that projected the same thing on both screens.

Read: CES 2019 shows the foldable phone revolution will be awkward, but essential

Now playing: Watch this: Samsung's foldable phone is coming soon

7:56

While Samsung is expected to introduce the first foldable phone from a major smartphone contender, LG, Huawei and others have also said they're developing foldable prototypes. TCL, which makes BlackBerry and Alcatel phones, TVs and panels to sell to other devicemakers, also said it'd make a foldable device in 2020.

"2019 is about 5G and full display designs," Wayne Lam, an analyst at IHS, told CNET's Roger Cheng. "I would say the market won't get really interesting until 2020."

With Google's support for foldable Android products, you can bet these designs will proliferate.

5G-ready phones are even more important

If the foldable "Galaxy X" phone is the party animal of Samsung's phone business in 2019, Samsung's first 5G phones are the buttoned-up blazer types that will get the job done.

samsung-5g-phone-prototype-ces-2019-2 — Samsung showed off its prototype 5G phone at CES 2019.
Sarah Tew/CNET

Samsung has already pledged four US phones in 2019 to take advantage of the first networks to offer immense 5G speeds with almost zero latency: one each for Verizon and Sprint, and two for AT&T. The hope in having these devices ready even before the networks get going is to make the transition from 4G to 5G networks quicker and smoother than the shift from 3G to 4G.

Read: 6 things you should know about Samsung's 5G phones for 2019

Since the first 5G devices will cost more than their 4G counterparts, expect these handsets to look more like today's Galaxy S9 than a wacky, phone that folds down the center. Samsung won't double up its risk -- or increase the price of an already expensive foldable phone -- by putting them both together at first.

In fact, rumors point to a 5G variant of the Galaxy S10. The tech giant did show a 5G prototype Samsung phone at its CES booth -- behind glass -- but wouldn't tell us which carrier it's destined for, or how its final design might change.

Foldable phones might not pan out, or it could take years for the industry to hone the materials, apps and overall look that works best. But 5G phones are a sure bet that will allow Samsung to remain on the forefront as networks slowly replace LTE with 5G. This transition will take time, and the first 5G phones are expected to be costly.

In the meantime, the 4G Galaxy S10 will be waiting, and so will its fiercest rivals.

Samsung declined to comment on this story.

Galaxy S10 launch date confirmed: Feb. 20 at Samsung's Unpacked event in San Francisco

Samsung 5G phone prototype pops up at CES 2019

CES 2019: See all of CNET's coverage of the year's biggest tech show.

Samsung Galaxy S10

Let's block ads! (Why?)

All the laptops that came out at CES 2019 - Engadget

Posted: 13 Jan 2019 07:00 AM PST

With the latest release of NVIDIA's RTX ray-tracing laptop chips, any manufacturer can make a fast and lightweight laptop. To stand out now, you need to try something new, so this year at CES 2019, the focus was on displays and eccentric designs.

Dell and HP showed that the future of gaming and multimedia laptop panels is both brighter and faster. Alienware's laptop featured an upgradeable CPU and GPU, ASUS unveiled an all-in-one-like ROG laptop and Acer's Predator Triton 900 had a singular hinge and exorbitant price tag. At the same time, there were many excellent-looking new models rocking NVIDIA's latest chips. Without further ado, here's a roundup of everything we saw.

HP

HP Spectre 15 x360 with AMOLED display

When it unveiled the Omen 15, HP thought it was announcing the first ever laptop with a 240Hz display. That wasn't quite the case (more on that in a second), but it was an impressive reveal nonetheless. The Omen 15 (above) will ship in July with a 15.6-inch, 1080p 240Hz panel with G-SYNC, an Intel i7-8750H CPU, 802.11ax wireless and NVIDIA RTX 2070 Max-Q graphics. All of that tech fits into a 5.2-pound body, so it'll be a powerful gaming machine you can take anywhere. We haven't heard the price yet, but cutting-edge tech usually ain't cheap.

HP also announced that it would release the first 15-inch laptop with an AMOLED display, the Spectre x360. It will deliver 33 percent more colors than regular sRGB screens and boast a superb 100,000:1 contrast ratio. That will make it a great content creation PC, and it will also get a high-end Intel 8th-generation CPU and NVIDIA RTX graphics. If portability is more your jam than gaming, HP also released a 4K version of the Spectre Folio, a Surface-like laptop clad in leather rather metal.

Dell and Alienware

Alienware got the jump on HP by unveiling the m15 lightweight gaming laptop, which also has a 240Hz display and will arrive in March, ahead of the Omen 15. It will be lighter and more powerful thanks to a Core i9 CPU and GeForce RTX 2080 Max-Q graphics, and weigh in at just 4.76 pounds. For content creation, it will also be available in March with an OLED display. The 17-inch, 5.8 pound Alienware m17 will be similarly equipped, but without the OLED and 240Hz display options.

Alienware took a walk on the wild side with the Area 51M. The 17-inch laptop is about pure power and versatility, giving enthusiasts the rare ability to upgrade both the CPU and GPU. You won't need to do that for a while, though, as it already has stellar specs with Intel's Core i9 CPU and an NVIDIA RTX 2080 GPU. The Area 51M will start at $2,549 when it arrives on January 29th.

Dell unveiled the latest XPS 13 model with a new design. The 13.3-inch will be available with a very bright (400 nit) 4K HDR display that supports Dolby Vision, a first for a Dell laptop. It has tiny bezels, weighs in at just 2.7 pounds, and can go up to 21 hours on a charge. If you're looking for a bigger PC, the XPS 15 will soon pack an OLED display, HP said. The XPS 13 is available today starting at $900, but expect to pay more for the Dolby Vision model.

Dell Latitude 7400 2-in-1 laptop

For 2-in-1 fans, Dell unveiled its Latitude 7400. It's the first model with Intel's Proximity sensor that logs you in automatically when you approach the device. It's tiny for a 14-inch laptop, weighing in at just three pounds, thanks to the tiny bezels and aluminum shell. It'll start at $1,599 when it arrives in March, 2019.

Dell's G-series gaming laptops got a huge boost, with the G7 15- and 17-inch models now packing NVIDIA RTX 2080 Max-Q graphics and up to Core i9-8950HK 6-core CPUs. They come with 144Hz 1080p displays and you can get the 15-inch model with a 4K 60Hz OLED touch display. The latest G5 15/15 SE models, meanwhile, pack up to 8th-gen Intel i7 CPUs and NVIDIA RTX 1070 Max-Q graphics. They'll go on sale January 19th starting at $999 (G5 15), $1,099 (G7 15-inch) and $1,380 for the G7 17-inch laptop.

ASUS

ASUS was the most prolific laptop maker at CES 2019 and the most experimental, to -- even if it wasn't an official exhibitor. It unveiled the ASUS ROG Mothership GZ700, a 17-inch laptop with a truly weird design. At the push of a button, a kickstand protrudes from behind the screen, and you can detach the keyboard completely, like a huge Surface Studio. It packs an Intel Core i9-8950HK CPU that's overclocked up to 4.78 GHz, a 1080p 144Hz display with G-SYNC support, up to 64GB of RAM, and three 512GB NVMe SSDs. There's no price or availability yet, but count on paying a bundle.

Still on gaming, ASUS turned to AMD for its latest TUF laptops. They pack four-core Ryzen 2 3550H APUs and Radeon RX 560X discrete graphics, which should make for decent mid-range performance. Both models have military-spec toughness, and will arrive sometime this quarter. We should know the pricing soon.

On the Chromebook side, ASUS unveiled its first Chrome OS tablet, the Flip C214, with a 9.7-inch QXGA display covered in tempered glass. It packs a rugged exterior, spill-proof keyboard and a 360-degree hinge. ASUS is also introducing the Flip C434 Chromebook with 360-degree hinge that converts into a tablet. It features a 14-inch NanoEdge display, an Intel Core i7-8500Y processor, plus a maximum of 8GB of RAM. Pricing for those Chromebooks has yet to be revealed, other than the Flip C434, which arrives later this year for $570.

The updated 13.9-inch ZenBook S has the "world's slimmest" bezels, ASUS claims, at a mere 2.5mm thick. You can get it with an Intel Core i5-8265U or a higher-performance i7-8565U and up to 16GB of LPDDR3 RAM. Despite those decent specs, it weighs just 2.5 pounds.

ASUS unveiled a variety of VivoBooks in 14-, 15.6, and 17-inch sizes. They come with Intel Core i7 processors and NVIDIA GeForce MX130 graphics for light gaming, and can transform into tablets thanks to the 360-degree hinge. There's no pricing or shipping dates for either the Zenbook or VivoBook models.

If 3D modeling or video editing is more your jam, ASUS unveiled the more serious-minded StudioBook S. The workstation-class machine packs a 16:10 17-inch Pantone-certified 1,920 x 1,200 display that's essentially squeezed into a 15-inch body. And you can get it with professional parts, like a Xeon E-2176M 6-core processor and NVIDIA Quadro P3200 graphics, backed up by 64GB of RAM and 4TB of SSD storage. There's no word on pricing, but it'll ship in Q2 of this year.

MSI

MSI has been killing it of late, with last year's MS65 laptop setting new milestones for lightweight gaming. It continues the trend at CES 2018 with the 17-inch GS75 and 15.6-inch GS75, with RTX 2080 Max-Q and RTX 2070 Max-Q graphics, respectively. The 15.6-inch model weighs just 4.19 pounds, making it one of the lightest gaming laptops you can get. If power is more important, however, there's the GE75 Raider, with a desktop-class GeForce RTX 2080 GPU.

Acer

If small and light is what you need, how about this: Acer's Swift 7 laptop has a 14-inch screen that's bigger than the last model, but is just 1.9 pounds and 9.95mm thin. It'll be able to take on most PC chores (other than heavy gaming or graphics), thanks to the 8th-gen Core i7-8500Y CPU, 512GB of PCIe SSD storage, 16GB of RAM and 10 hours of battery life. You'll pay for those tiny bezels and slim form factor, though, as it'll start at $1,699 when it arrives in North America in May.

On the gaming side, Acer flaunted its $4,000 Triton 900 laptop. The headline feature is the unusual hinge that tilts the 4K 17-inch screen in multiple ways, including a stylus-friendly stand mode. It also packs an 8th-gen Intel CPU and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 GPU and up to 1TB of storage. The Triton 500 is a more conventional and much lighter 4.6 pound laptop that also has NVIDIA RTX 2080 graphics and a 8th-gen Core i7 CPU. The Triton 900 will arrive in March, while the Triton 500 arrives in February starting at $1,799.

Getting away from Windows laptops and Intel chips, Acer also revealed the Chromebook 315, its first with an AMD chip. It comes with AMD's A4 or A6 dual-core processors with integrated Radeon graphics, so it should have enough power to run Chrome OS or Android apps. AMD chips are largely untested on Chrome OS, but considering it starts at $269 (and arrives in the US next month), the risk isn't too great.

Lenovo

Lenovo's Legion gaming laptops have retained the subtle design of the last models, but luckily, the performance is now drastically improved. The Y740 15- and 17-inch notebooks are now available with NVIDIA RTX 2070 Max-Q and RTX 2080 Max-Q graphics, respectively, along with 6-core Intel Core i7-8750H 6-core chips and up to 32GB of ram. The 15-inch Legion Y540 packs a still-respectable RTX 2060 GPU and affordable $930 price, while the Y740 will cost $1,750 and $1,980 for the 15-inch and 17-inch models, respectively, and arrive in February.

And while it's not a laptop, Lenovo's 27-inch Yoga A940 all-in-one is a serious rival to Microsoft's Surface Studio and costs hundreds less. It works with Lenovo's Active Pen Stylus and has a tilt-able display for graphics artists and designers. The hinge-mounted Precision Dial lets you swap tools and adjust brush sizes. You get a 27-inch 4K display, Intel Core i7 CPU and AMD Radeon RX560 graphics for $2,350 when it arrives in March.

Samsung

If you're looking for something between a notebook and tablet, Samsung unveiled the Notebook 9 Pen. As the name implies, it's all about the S Pen stylus, for artists and students who need to sketch or take notes on the go. It's pretty powerful for its petite 2.2 pound size, packing an Intel Core i7 chipset, up to 16GB of DDR4 RAM, a 512GB SSD and a 13.3-inch 1080p display. There's no price or shipping date yet.

Samsung has never quite got gaming laptops right, but it's giving it another go with the Odyssey. It boasts very decent specs, running up to RTX 2080 Max-Q graphics, a 15.6-inch 144Hz 1080p screen with G-SYNC and up to 16 GB of RAM. However, most other gaming laptops can do that now, and the Odyssey is a bit, well, homely. It also weighs in at slightly chunky 5.2 pounds. The price has yet to be determined, but it should arrive in early 2019.

The rest

LG's Gram defies convention for 17-inch laptops thanks to its thin profile and incredibly light 2.95 pound weight. With an Intel Core i7 CPU, 16GB of RAM, nearly 20 hour battery life and a 512GB SSD, it'll make the ideal multimedia machine, letting you watch movies all day long. Lightweight and thin comes at a price: $1,699 when the Gram arrives later this year.

Origin's EVO16-S is a 16-inch gaming laptop that weighs a remarkable 4.5 pounds, lighter than many 15.6-inch models we saw at CES. Performance won't be a concern, as it boasts a 6-core Intel i7-8750H CPU, NVIDIA RTX 2080 Max-Q graphics, 1080p 144Hz screen and up to 32GB of RAM. The 17-inch EVO17-S packs similar specs and weighs 5.5 pounds, but if you need more grunt, the EON17-X's Intel Core i9-9900K desktop 8-core CPU and NVIDIA RTX 2080 GPU will do the job. Pricing or availability has yet to be revealed.

Gigabyte has an interesting gimmick this year for its Aero 15-X9 and all-new Aero 15-Y9: It uses Microsoft's Azure AI to optimize gaming performance. If you don't care about that, both models are spec'd to the gills, with up to an i9-8950HK 6-core chip, 15.6-inch 4K X-Rite Pantone certified panel, GeForce RTX 2080 Max-Q graphics (RTX 2070 Max-Q on the Aero 15-X9), 64 GB of RAM and two M.2 NVMe PCIe SSD slots. All of that is packed into a 4.4 pound laptop that won't weigh you down. Pricing and availability are not yet available.

Follow all the latest news from CES 2019 here!