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Samsung is reportedly readying a new set of smartphones that could come with big displays and some new components.
The rumored Galaxy Note 5 and Galaxy S6 Edge Plus are real and they’re coming to the IFA 2015 conference in Berlin in September, Sammobile reported on Wednesday. The Galaxy Note 5, which will come with Samsung’s S Pen technology for tapping on the screen with the stylus-like digital pen will feature a 5.7-inch screen, the Samsung-tracking site is reporting, citing people who claim to have knowledge of the plan. The Galaxy S6 Edge Plus will also reportedly feature a 5.7-inch screen. The current Galaxy S6 models come with 5.1-inch screens.
The rumored Galaxy Note 5 and Galaxy S6 Edge Plus could provide a much-needed boost to Samsung’s smartphone business. In April, the company unveiled the Samsung Galaxy S6 and S6 Edge flagship smartphones, which launched to critical acclaim. Soon after, Samsung said that it was seeing strong demand for the devices. However, on Monday, Samsung announced that it expected its operating profit in the second quarter to fall for the seventh straight time as competition in the smartphone market continued to halt its hopeful advances.
While smartphones were once accounting for two-thirds of Samsung’s operating profit, the company’s smartphone division over the last year has been challenged by major competitors, like Apple, and prominent China-based companies Xiaomi and Huawei, which have attracted consumers away from the company in that critical country.
Samsung also saw a decline in both smartphone sales and market share during the first quarter of 2015, research firm Gartner reported in May. The Korean electronics giant sold 81.1 million smartphones during the period, down 4.4 million units compared to the same period a year ago. The company’s market share stood at 24.2 percent, a decline from 30.4 percent in the first quarter of 2014.
Samsung has acknowledged its woes, saying last year that it would reduce the number of handsets it would offer in 2015 and spend more of its time, money, and energy on better-performing flagship models. The Galaxy Note 5 and Galaxy S6 Edge Plus would fit into that strategy. Whether they will actually appeal to customers, however, remains to be seen.
In addition to a 5.7-inch screen, the Galaxy Note 5 will reportedly run on a new processor made by Samsung called the Exynos 7422. Current smartphones have multiple components that handle computing (central processing unit, or CPU), graphics (graphical processing unit, or GPU), and other needs. The Exynos 7422 combines the CPU and GPU, as well as onboard memory, storage, and cellular connectivity with wireless networks, on a single chip. The processor would be the first of its kind from Samsung.
The Galaxy S6 Edge Plus would mimic the design of its predecessor, the Galaxy S6 Edge, featuring tapered sides on either side of the screen. Unlike the Galaxy Note 5, the Galaxy S6 Edge Plus will feature the Qualcomm Snapdragon 808 processor, according to Sammobile. The device will feature 32GB of internal storage and a 16-megapixel rear-facing camera, according to the report. The handset will run on Google’s Android 5.1.1 (Lollipop) operating system.
Samsung declined to comment on the Sammobile report.
