Daily Authority: New Galaxy 🌌

Samsung’s Unpacked event presented its new Galaxy Z Fold 3, Flip 3, its new Galaxy Watch 4 and Galaxy Watch 4 Classic as well as the Buds 2.

We don’t have full reviews yet – just first impressions, but there’s some hope here.

Folds 3:

• The third generation of the best Samsung has left its prototype roots in the original fold behind. The Fold 3, for example, masters water with an IPX8 certification against ingress of water, which means everything is sealed and more metal and glass than ever before.
• I wouldn’t swim with it, but it’s pretty cool that it can withstand a dip or a coffee soak. There is also a little more trim.
• The outer cladding is all sorted out. The Fold 2 was fine, but the newest one is now 120Hz, and opening and closing should feel smoother now.
• The selfie camera under the display is a nice implementation: no cameras visible. Samsung’s setting is different and uses a pattern of the top of the hole. When you need the camera, the display above the camera turns off so you can see where to look. Otherwise the large display is full screen.
• This large display is protected by a new PET plastic, which is more durable and less scratch-resistant.
• The Galaxy Z Fold 3 supports S Pen and that’s either great or more depending on your setting. At least it seems more useful on the big old 7.6-inch display.
• It now goes for $ 1,799.
• Truly, Samsung once again has just such a range of offers from its own store and through wireless carriers to bring that price down: trade-in bonuses, credits, inclusions.
• It depends on your region, but all I saw on Twitter yesterday was friends and coworkers amazed at how much they could make by trading in old and even broken phones.

Flip 3:

• The Flip 3 is now the “affordable” foldable one and it has received a number of robust improvements, the exterior display is much better and it is also IPX8 protected against water splashes.
• I also liked the merging of the outer display with the camera body, and Samsung did a good job of making it more useful.
• When you open it, you’ll find a 6.7-inch AMOLED indoor screen that runs at 120Hz. There’s a seam, but it’s less obvious.
• In both the Flip and the Fold, Samsung has more custom software and works with big app developers like Spotify and Netflix etc. to do things like split screen and multiple apps at the same time.
• What’s interesting is that Samsung is gently positioning the Flip 3 as the less masculine and more fashionable option, but my hands-on tech pals thought it might be more interesting than the Fold 3, in part because it’s now the same price as the S21 Plus , depending on the final config.
• It has similar internals, with the Snapdragon 888 chip being the key, but the battery is much smaller at 3,300mAh – however, keeping it closed and mostly using the outer screen will give you a longer lifespan.
• At $ 999, it’s $ 400 cheaper than last year, and here too, deals make it even cheaper.
• T-Mobile offers the Flip 3 when you purchase it to receive a free offer if you can use two phones at the same time.

Watch 4 and Galaxy Watch 4 Classic:

• New chipset, new Wear OS, new health tracking features, the Watch 4 and Watch 4 Classic have more and better things to offer, including software improvements that look interesting.
• The physical rotating bezel feature that everyone enjoys returns to the Watch 4 Classic, and there are two sizes, 42 and 46 mm, as well as LTE options.
• The Watch 4 starts at $ 250 – the Watch 4 Classic adds some class and that bezel costs $ 350.
• Both devices have the same processor, RAM and memory, with the Watch 4 being the lighter, sporty version with an aluminum bottom, while the Watch 4 Classic is made of stainless steel and weighs a little more.
• I’d love to see reviews on this, but Samsung added a body composition monitor that gives more insight into your meat sac: it shows your skeletal muscles, basal metabolic rate (BMR), water retention, and body fat percentage, all with a wrist sensor.
• All other health tracking (heart rate monitor, EKG, activity tracking, SpO2 levels, sleep, stress, etc.) have been improved, but ratings here are crucial to understand exactly how far Samsung has improved the competition.
• In addition, it is not compatible with iOS and some features are only available with Galaxy smartphones. And strangely enough, you can’t track blood pressure in the US or Canada and some other regions because the health authorities require approval.

Galaxy Buds 2: After all the coverage and leaks, these look handy, but now Samsung has really messed up their lineup:

• Samsung’s better, more robust flagship earbuds remain the Galaxy Buds Pro. The Buds 2 are priced at $ 150, but the Buds Pro are regularly available for just $ 20 more.

⚖ Senate bill would force Apple and Google to loosen their control over app stores, but a long way from Senate bill to bill and a lot of lobbying too (Android authority).

♻ WhatsApp to finally enable the migration from iOS to Android, but initially only on two Samsung phones (Android authority).

🔜 Android 12 is now close to a stable release as Beta 4 was released yesterday (Android authority).

📸 Google Pixel 6 camera and chipset details in the latest Android 12 beta (Android authority).

👉 Motorola’s newest G-series phone is the G60S, and it is aimed directly at the Brazilian market (Android authority).

👩‍🏫 Zoom’s new focus mode could prevent students from distracting each other: only see the teacher, no other students (The edge).

📨 Mailchimp is reviewing a sale with a valuation of more than $ 10 billion: Interestingly, it never raised outside funding (Blümberg).

🍄 Mushroom-based meat alternative from Australian startup Fable Food raises $ 4.8 million and is now going to the United States (TechCrunch).

🐤 Yes, Twitter changed its font to something called Chirp (The edge).

🔋 Ford is delaying Mach E orders due to global chip shortage (Engage).

⛓ Lionel Messi has received a “large number” of crypto fan tokens as part of his PSG package. Probably marketing rather than substance as the exact number was not given … (The block).

🤔 “I think an AI is flirting with me. Is it okay if I flirt back? ” (Wired).

🐲 Almost a Dragon: A rather terrifying flying dinosaur was found that definitely terrified Australian creatures in the ancient inland seas (CNET).

💉 2021: Russian marketing firms tried – and failed – to smear weak Planet of the Ape memes on vaccines. Real users ridiculed the whole thing. (Ars-Technica).

😷 “Why did we switch from a delta variant of COVID directly to Lambda? What happened to epsilon, zeta, eta, theta, iota and kappa? “(R / question science)

💪 Fun: Here is the hydraulic press compared to the Nokia 3310 (r / gifs).

The first e-mail message from space was sent this week in history, on August 9, 1991, by the crew of the space shuttle Atlantis mission. The shuttle carried an Apple Macintosh Portable and communicated via AppleLink.

This e-mail:

“Hello earth! Greetings from the STS-43 crew. This is the first AppleLink from space. I wish you a great time, wish you were here … send Kryo and RCS! Hasta la vista, baby … we’ll be back! “

• “Cryo” means cryotechnology, that is: air and supplies (which in my opinion was a joke …)
• And CS stood for the Reaction Control System, which calls for more rocket fuel to maneuver the shuttle, which means they wanted to stay up a little longer.
• It’s like emailing summer camp to say you never want to go home!
• The Mac did a few other things, but one fun one is that it acted as an alarm clock for performing certain experiments.
• And the crew wore “custom WristMac watches” connected through a serial port.
• It’s like today, only everything was a bit clunky. Imagine what we will have in 30 years! Hopefully more and different than the Apple Watch 36 or Galaxy Watch 34 …

Just don’t think it’s the year 2051

Tristan Rayner, Managing Editor.