[Most Recent Entries] [Calendar View]
Thursday, October 13th, 2016
- Exchange your current Galaxy Note7 for any Samsung smartphone and replacement of any Galaxy Note7 specific accessories with a refund of the price difference between devices
- Obtain a refund at your point of purchase
| Time | Event |
| 8:00a | The Huawei Honor 8 Review Huawei’s first foray into the US smartphone market was with the Honor 5X, a lower-cost device with a well-balanced design. Encouraged by its initial reception, Huawei is back with a new device for the US—the Honor 8. While the Honor 5X hits a lower $199 price point, the Honor 8 costs twice as much but significantly improves performance and features. In many ways, it’s a restyled, less-expensive version of Huawei’s P9. |
| 11:00a | Update: Samsung Officially Halts All Note7 Sales & Exchanges, Now Recalling All Devices
Update 10/13: After earlier asking customers to stop using the Note7, today the company has expanded the matter to a full recall in the United States. All Note7s, originals and replacements, are now being recalled by the company. As most users are expected to want to swap to another phone, the actual processing of the recall is being handled by both Samsung (for direct sales customers), and retailers/carriers for remaining customers. Meanwhile, along with the refunds/partial rebates being offered by retailers to either cover the cost of the phone or the price difference between it and its replacement, Samsung has also announced that they are expanding their US bill credit program. In short, customers who stay with Samsung will receive a $100 bill credit, while customers who replace their Note7 with another manufacturer's phone or opt for a full refund will receive a $25 bill credit.
Update 10/12: Seemingly set to put an end to this saga, the Wall Street Journal is reporting that Samsung has informed South Korean regulators that it intends to permanently cease production of the phone. Given the issues Samsung has experienced, it goes without saying that this is not surprising, and this will mean that the Note7 will not get a third shot in the market. Samsung made it official today that it is suspending all sales and exchanges of its beleaguered Galaxy Note7 smartphone, and it is also asking all partners to do the same. After reports of several phones catching on fire after it initially went on sale, Samsung initiated a global recall while it investigated the source of the problem, which traced the issue to defective batteries from a specific supplier (Samsung sources batteries from more than one supplier). With the problem seemingly solved, Samsung initiated an exchange program where customers could trade in their defective Note7s for new, supposedly safe, ones or a new Galaxy S7 or S7 edge instead. Unfortunately, it did not take long for fresh reports of battery fires to surface. Several of the replacement Note7s have caught fire too, including one that forced a Southwest Airlines flight in Louisville, Kentucky to be evacuated on October 5th. Another replacement Note7 caught fire in a Farmington, Minnesota girl’s hand on October 7th. Here's Samsung's official statement:
These new incidents suggest that the Note7’s issue is not limited to a single battery supplier like Samsung first thought. The Note7 is clearly a safety risk at this point, and we recommend that anyone that currently owns a Note7 heed Samsung’s advice and immediately power down the device and store it in a fire-safe location until it can be returned or exchanged. |
| 1:30p | HP Introduces HP ENVY 13 Laptops with Kaby Lake, USB-C, New Battery, $849
HP has introduced its new ENVY 13 premium laptops based on Intel’s Core i-series Kaby Lake processors. The notebooks resemble their predecessors featuring Skylake CPUs, but naturally offer all the advantages that Intel’s latest chips have, including higher performance and better energy efficiency. Other notable enhancements over the predecessors are a new battery and a USB Type-C port. In addition, HP reduced the starting price of the ENVY 13 to $849, down from $899 in case of the previous-gen model. The HP ENVY 13 2016 uses exactly the same chassis as its predecessor released a few years ago. The PCs feature lifted hinge design to enable more comfortable typing (says HP, others may disagree) and are made of machined aluminum and magnesium. As for weight and dimensions, they are up to 12.95 mm thick and they weigh up to 1.49 kilograms (3.3 lb) depending on the actual configuration. Display panels of the ENVY also remained the same: HP offers a choice between a QHD+ (3200×1800) IPS panel (with or without touch support) and an FHD (1920×1080) IPS panel. Internally, the HP ENVY 13 also resembles its ancestor with 8 GB of DRAM (optionally upgradeable to 16 GB), 128 GB SATA AHCI or 256 GB/512 GB/1 TB PCIe NVMe SSDs. The new HP ENVY 13 is also equipped with a 802.11ac 2×2 Wi-Fi + BT 4.1 controller, a backlit keyboard, a webcam and so on. Among external ports, the ENVY 13 offers one USB 3.0 Type-C, two USB 3.0 Type-A, an HDMI output, a TRRS connector as well as a microSD card reader. The key improvement of HP’s ENVY 13 over previous-gen model is its processor: the manufacturer offers to install either the Intel Core i7-7500U or the Intel Core i5-7200U with Intel’s HD Graphics 620. The new CPUs feature higher frequencies, considerably improved video encoding/decoding engine, refined graphics as well as Speed Shift v2 technology, which should make the new ENVY 13 snappier and more responsive in general. It is also noteworthy that HP uses hyperbaric chamber cooling for its premium notebooks (ENVY 13, Spectre, etc.), so, everything should run more or less cool and quiet.
Yet another improvement of this year’s ENVY 13 is the new 57.8 Wh battery, up from 45 Wh on the previous-gen models. The higher battery capacity along with improved energy efficiency of Intel’s new CPUs will naturally prolong battery life of the new ENVY 13 laptops: HP claims about up to 14 hours, but everything depends on actual configuration and usage model (a notebook with a QHD+ display will not last that long). Finally, HP decided to lower the price of the entry level ENVY 13 (Core i5-7200U, 8 GB of RAM, 128 GB SSD, an FHD panel, etc.) to $849, down from $899. The machines with higher performance and better displays will naturally retail at higher price points, when they hit the market in the coming weeks. Source: HP via Lilliputing. |
| << Previous Day |
2016/10/13 [Calendar] |
Next Day >> |