You have probably heard about Harman International as they are pretty popular around the world for their audio equipments. Samsung has recently bought them out for a whopping $8 billion all-cash transaction and that has led to many speculations and rumors as to what Samsung plans on doing with the acquisition. A recent report from FoneArena is stating that the next flagship smartphone from Samsung has the possibility of sporting speakers made by Harman.

In the official press release, CEO and VC Oh-Hyun Kwon stated,

"HARMAN perfectly complements Samsung in terms of technologies, products and solutions, and joining forces is a natural extension of the automotive strategy we have been pursuing for some time,"

President and Chief Strategy Officer Young Sohn added,

"We see substantial long-term growth opportunities in the auto technology market as demand for Samsung's specialized electronic components and solutions continues to grow. Working together, we are confident that HARMAN can become a new kind of Tier 1 provider to the OEMs by delivering end-to-end solutions across the connected ecosystem."

This of course, clearly indicates that Samsung's main motive behind acquiring the business was a step towards getting into the automotive business. Nevertheless, it wouldn't really be surprising if Samsung took advantage of the newly acquired Harman International's expertise and brand name for manufacturing better speakers for the Galaxy S8.

Saikat Kar (tech-enthusiast)

Samsung is yet to declare the official reason as to why a number of their Galaxy Note 7 smartphones started to explode all around the world which led to two recalls and a subsequent discontinuation of the device. However, that hasn't stopped Instrumental from publishing a report on what they believe is the real reason behind the Note 7's hazardous behaviour.

According to them, it's the race to be the slimmest phone around that got the Galaxy Note 7. Simply put, the capacity of the battery was too big to be encased in such a small and slim casing. Apparently, the two separator layers of polymer found within the Note 7's battery was too thin to keep the negative (graphite) and the positive (lithium cobalt oxide) layer apart from each other, even under normal circumstances like pressure from being in a tight pocket. It is only natural that if the positive and the negative layers ever came into direct contact with each other, that would continue to generate heat until the entire phone exploded into flames.

They also went on to state that the engineers at Samsung definitely knew there would be some risk associated with choosing design over safety here, but went with it anyway. A smaller battery would have been safer, but it wouldn't be enough to power the beastly specs which the Note 7 boasted of. A race to release the smartphone prior to the Apple iPhone 7 might have also contributed to the cause, given that we are guessing the batteries did not go through sufficient testing to be branded as "safe."

Saikat Kar (tech-enthusiast)

All previous reports and rumors indicated that the Samsung Galaxy S8 would be sporting a dual camera at its back, but a new leak right out of China has disrupted those reports. A popular source on Weibo has leaked information which states that the S8 will not sport two cameras on its back, but will instead continue with a single camera sensor as usual. This comes as quite surprising, especially since top competitor Apple themselves have also shifted onto the dual-camera setup from this year with the iPhone 7 Plus.

"S8 two-camera program basically fell through, continue to adhere to the single-camera war 2017." - @ I ice universe

Update: It has also been indicated that the rumoured 6.2-inch version of the S8 will sport the dual-camera setup ditched by the regular variant. If it's true, then this would mean that Samsung is about to follow the same route as Apple, by reserving its dual camera setup for the bigger version.
Now that the rumors regarding the camera of the S8 are in a bit of disarray, we will just have to wait and see if the rest of the rumors like the 6GB RAM, the edge-to-edge display and the surprisingly big 6.2-inch variant of the S8 actually come into existence.

Saikat Kar (tech-enthusiast)

Before you get too excited, let me tell you upfront that the upcoming Galaxy A (2017)-series is probably not going to get the curved display as you might be thinking. To the best of our knowledge, they will sport flat screens just as their predecessors. However, rumors are going around suggesting that at least some of the Galaxy A smartphones which will be introduced in 2017 could very well sport the Super AMOLED curved panels which we have so far only seen on the flagships from Samsung.

Even though it is just a rumor and a very light one at that, if Samsung does actually decide to shift onto curved displays for the Galaxy A-line up, we think we know the reason why they would do that. The answer is competition. Although Samsung still is the global king of smartphones, in certain Asian markets like China, its market share is dwindling. The reason for this downfall is of course, competition from big Chinese brands like Oppo, Xiaomi, Huawei and many others. These Chinese companies are selling phones with hardware similar to those offered by the established brands at half the price. Samsung needs to distinguish its smartphones by endowing them with unique features at a competitive price in order to survive in the low to mid-range market and its brilliant Super AMOLED curved display can definitely give Samsung mid-range phones the "edge" they need.

Saikat Kar (tech-enthusiast)

We know that the Galaxy A5 (2017) is coming, but it isn't official yet. However, that hasn't stopped leaks and rumors from giving us a pretty good idea about what to expect when Samsung does make it official later in this month. We now have a fully-fledged video review from Neil Potgieter on YouTube, where he evidently has access to the A5 (2017). As the model isn't even announced yet by Samsung, we are guessing that he must have somehow gotten access to a prototype of the device. Take a look yourself to know more.

If you are not aware or if you simply don't remember, here's a reminder about what to expect from the Galaxy A5 (2017).

Model number: SM-A520F
Display: 5.2-inch Full HD (1080p) Super AMOLED display
SoC: Exynos 7880 Octa-core processor (Four 1.87GHz Cortex A-72 cores and four 1.3GHz Cortex A-53 cores with Mali-T860MP4 GPU)
RAM: 3GB
Battery: 3,000mAh (probably)
Storage: 32GB internal with expandable micro-SD card slot
Camera: 16-mp front camera (probably) and 16-mp rear camera
OS: Android Marshmallow 6.0.1
USB Type-C, Always-On display

Saikat Kar (tech-enthusiast)