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Samsung crowned itself the king of the foldable market in repeated remarks recently because it was one of the first companies to adopt the form factor. But the main reason why Samsung outsold competitors had nothing to do with the Korean giant’s ability to manufacture great foldable devices. Samsung simply lacked competition in western markets, and it outspent rivals on advertising by an order of magnitude. That is also part of the reason why the Galaxy Z Flip 5 and Fold 5 might outsell other upcoming foldable phones.
The new Samsung foldables will drop this summer. But, by the time they do, they’ll have to face several competitors. Chinese smartphone makers are coming to Europe in full force, hoping to put pressure on Samsung with devices like the Oppo Find N2 Flip. If you’re a Samsung fan, you can probably thank that competition for some of the best Galaxy Z Flip 5 rumored upgrades.
Like any flagship, the Galaxy Z Flip 5 will get hardware upgrades to keep up with tech advancements. That means a new processor as well as potential RAM and storage upgrades. Add camera and battery improvements to that, and you get a brand-new foldable flagship that’s better than its predecessor. That’s essentially what Samsung has done since the first Flip model.
Oppo Find N2 Flip foldable phone: External display. Image source: Oppo But the Galaxy Z Flip 5 is already rumored to get a larger external display than its predecessor. More importantly, the external display will reportedly be larger than the Oppo Find N2 Flip that the Chinese smartphone maker just launched internationally.
Moreover, the Galaxy Z Flip 5 should feature a brand-new hinge design that will reduce the visibility of the foldable’s display crease. Again, you can thank the same Find N2 Flip for pushing Samsung in this direction.
The Oppo handset features a large 3.26-inch external display that provides a lot more at-a-glance information than the Flip 4’s 1.9-inch cover screen.
Oppo Find N2 Flip foldable phone: New hinge design. Image source: Oppo The Find N2 Flip also rocks a new hinge with a miniaturized design that has fewer components than the first-gen Oppo hinge. According to the company, the hinge is more compact than ever, which leaves more internal space for the battery capacity. The hinge has no gap either when you fold the handset, and it can withstand more than 400,000 folds and unfolds.
Make no mistake, Samsung isn’t designing the Galaxy Z Flip 5 in response to the Oppo handset. Rumors going back to early December said the Galaxy Z Flip 5 would have a much larger cover display, which could measure more than 3 inches. The same leaks said a new hinge design is coming, with Samsung aiming to reduce the visibility of the crease.
More recently, leaker Ice Universe tweeted that he can confirm the Flip 5’s cover display is larger than the one on the Oppo Find N2 Flip. Samsung probably settled on these design changes a while ago. But the foldable phone maker knew its competitors were about to exit China.
Samsung also supplies components for foldable devices, so it might have an idea of what’s coming next from rival companies. Even without supply contracts, the China-bound foldable devices from last year were already great Fold and Flip competitors.
Also, Samsung likely wanted to increase the size of the Z Flip’s external display. The same goes for improving the hinge.
Could it have done all this in time for the Z Flip 4’s release, though? Probably, considering the advancements Samsung has made in recent years, starting with the Fold 3 and Flip 3. But the point is that Samsung never felt the pressure to innovate before. The Fold and Flip were the only foldables worth buying in international markets.
With the Oppo Find N2 Flip’s arrival, Samsung has to impress shoppers this summer when the Galaxy Z Flip 5 arrives. And it must prove that it can innovate in the foldable space at the same pace as rivals.
Don't Miss: $1,200 Galaxy S23 Ultra has a screen defect that Samsung calls normalThe post Why Samsung’s Galaxy Z Flip 5 cover display and hinge upgrades took so long appeared first on BGR.
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The Galaxy Z Fold 4 and Flip 4 aren’t the only new Galaxy gadgets coming from Samsung’s Unpacked event next week. The Korean giant will also unveil new wearables during the show, including the Galaxy Watch 5, Galaxy Watch 5 Pro, and the new Galaxy Buds Pro 2. These devices have appeared in various leaks, but the latest rumor is easily one of the most exciting. The Galaxy Watch 5 will come with fast charging support, allowing it to recharge the battery to nearly 50% in 30 minutes.
That’s a great feature to have on devices with limited battery life. If fast charging on smartwatches sounds familiar, that’s because Apple did the same thing with the Apple Watch Series 7 last year. And it’s a great feature to have to maximize the time you use the Watch.
How the Apple Watch Series 7 fast charging works
The Apple Watch Series 7 can reach an 80% charge in just 45 minutes. Apple also announced that the new Watch needs only 8 minutes of battery charging for the wearable to track your sleep for 8 hours.
Thus, the Series 7 solves a major issue with the Apple Watch. All models that Apple launched so far only deliver one-day battery life. You can stretch it to more than a day, depending on how much you use the Watch. But most people will have to recharge the wearable at night. And that’s a problem if you want the wearable to track your sleep.
Apple Watch Series 7 battery charging speeds, as listed on Apple.com Image source: Apple Inc. That’s why support for fast charging is crucial on devices like the Apple Watch 7 and Galaxy Watch 5. It’s all the more important, the more sophisticated these gadgets get.
However, for fast charging to work, wearable devices need USB-C chargers. That’s the only way to enable fast charging on the Apple Watch Series 7. And the same goes for the upcoming Galaxy Watch 5.
Galaxy Watch 5 charging speed
A leaker posted on Twitter images of the new Galaxy Watch 5 fast charger. It features a USB-C connector and supports 10W charging. The person also listed the speed estimate. The new smartwatch will reach 45% battery after just 30 minutes of charging.
The 10W charger is an upgrade over the 5W charger that shipped with the Galaxy Watch 4 last year. According to Samsung, that device needs 110 minutes to reach a full charge. It’s unclear why Samsung doesn’t support even faster charging, considering that the Apple Watch Series 7 uses a 20W charger for faster charging.
Assuming the estimate above is accurate, the 10W charger should do the job in over an hour. The Galaxy Watch 5 is also getting a larger battery than its predecessor. A larger battery and fast charging support should improve the Galaxy Watch 5 experience.
It’s unclear how long the Galaxy Watch 5 will last on a charge. Samsung will also launch a larger Galaxy Watch 5 Pro alongside the regular models. The Pro should feature an even larger battery, as it’s larger than the Watch 5 models. And it’ll likely support 10W charging as well. The Pro could offer multi-day battery life, but that’s just speculation.
The Galaxy Watch 4 offers a theoretical battery life of 40 hours. But daily charging might be needed for more active users.
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Samsung has allegedly cancelled the Galaxy S22 FE. The Fan Edition of Samsung’s latest flagship was expected to arrive sometime this year. However, new reports point towards Samsung dumping it in favor of meeting the demands for the Galaxy S22 Ultra.
Samsung Galaxy S22 FE cancelled, new reports claim
The Samsung Galaxy S22 FE would have included the same chip as the S22 Ultra, which is shown above. Image source: Samsung Reports of the Galaxy S22 FE cancellation were first noted by TheElec. That original report, which was translated from Korean, says that Samsung cancelled the Galaxy S22 FE in order to expand on supply for the Galaxy S22 Ultra.
The S22 Ultra is the company’s current high-end flagship. With the ongoing chip shortages, the company has reportedly been struggling to keep up with demand for the device. TheElec says that Samsung originally planned to produce around 3 million units of the Galaxy S22 FE model. However, the S22 FE would have used the same chip as the S22 Ultra. Instead, Samsung decided to save supply for the Ultra.
Samsung has yet to share any official notes about the Galaxy S22 FE being cancelled. There were previous reports about Samsung swapping the FE version to a Mediatek chip. However, that doesn’t seem to be the case now. The chip shortage has had an immense impact on the mobile industry for the past several years. And it looks like the Galaxy S22 FE is simply another victim of that shortage.
The Fan Edition returns in 2023
The last Fan Edition to hit the market was Samsung’s Galaxy S21 FE. Image source: Samsung While Samsung has most likely canceled the Galaxy S22 FE, it will return with the Galaxy S23 FE in 2023. Hopefully, by then much of the chip shortage will have returned to normal. According to reports, Samsung plans to manufacture 3 million units for the S23 FE. However, we’ll need to wait and see how everything pans out in the long run.
The unprecedented success of the S22 Ultra during a time when chip shortages are still affecting the mobile industry is notable. And it makes sense for Samsung to push its manufacturing supply toward the higher-end device. Still, there is a lot of love out there for the company’s Fan Editions. And the Galaxy S22 FE’s cancellation may be disappointing for many. But, keep in mind that this is not official news.
All I can recommend right now is to wait for additional confirmation from Samsung on the cancellation. It’s still possible that the device could drop in the coming months. Or, these reports could prove true, and the S22 FE may never see the light of day.
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Make your app a Web Share Target to enable
This was a feature I had set aside an afternoon to implement but in the end it only needed a moment and made the experience significantly better.
Web Share Target allows your Web App to receive URLs from the operating systems just like native apps do.
In the video below I use the share button in Samsung Internet to share the website’s URL with my Web App, which then retrieves and displays the associated feed information from the website.


You add a Web Share target by adding the information into the Web App Manifest:
"share_target": { "action": "/feed/", "method": "GET", "params": { "title": "title", "text": "text", "url": "url" } }, When it’s shared, it will open your WebApp at the following URL /feed/?url=[share url]&text=[share text]&title=[share title]. Not all of these get filled out, depending on what is being shared and what is sharing it.
When sharing web pages to the app sometimes, the URL was in the text field rather than the URL field. So if you are expecting a URL you should probably check there as well.
const { search } = new URL(req.url, "http://example.com"); const params = new URLSearchParams(search); const sharedURL = params.get("url") || params.get("text"); There are more options you can add to the share_target, for advanced features like sharing files, you can find out more information in the great article on web.dev:
Receiving shared data with the Web Share Target API
Note: At this writing, the Web Share Target API is implemented in some browsers (notably Chromium-based browsers like Samsung Internet) but it is still considered experimental and in “incubation” within the W3C. Make sure you take this into account when incorporating Web Share Target into your development plans.
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