Starting with the Galaxy Z Fold3 and Galaxy Z Flip3, the software update will include the Galaxy S21 series,¹ Galaxy A series and Tab S7 FE. The update will extend to even more Galaxy devices, including the S20 series,² Z Fold,³ Z Flip,⁴ Note series,⁵ S10 series,⁶ A series and Tab S series.

Read on to learn more about One UI 4.1 and some of the new features Galaxy users can enjoy.

Collaborate and Connect From Anywhere With Google Duo Live Sharing

No matter where you are in the world, you can stay connected with the Google Duo⁷ app on your Galaxy device. With Google Duo live sharing feature, you can share your screen with friends to view photos in Gallery together and relive your cherished memories, even when you’re far apart.⁸ You can also share your browser screen and collaborate on Samsung Notes while you’re on a video call — great for planning a trip with your friends or for taking productive notes during that important meeting.⁹

Make Every Photo a Masterpiece With Expert RAW

Galaxy S21 Ultra and S22 series¹⁰ users who want to make the most of their smartphone camera can now transform images into magazine-worthy masterpieces with the Expert RAW photo editing app. This DSLR-like experience means you can edit both photos and videos with total precision, satisfying your eye for detail using a comprehensive suite of in-camera editing tools. Plus, the app allows you to save files in both JPG and DNG format, so you can truly edit like a pro. Expert RAW gives you complete creative freedom, from brightening or darkening photos with ISO controls to choosing between multiple lenses to capture any subject or scene.

Reclaim Control of Your Images With Object Eraser

Sometimes, a great photo can be ruined by background objects, people, shadows or reflections, but you might not realize until after the picture is taken. With the more enhanced Object eraser, you can now easily remove not only distracting objects in the background, but also shadows thrown on the subject or even reflections on the windows. Simply tap the ‘Erase shadows’ or ‘Erase reflections’ button when you want to remove them from a photo, and Object eraser will handle the rest.¹¹

Streamline Your Photo Sharing

We know Galaxy users love to share their content as much as they love to create it. That’s why the latest update brings users a more simplified and streamlined photo sharing experience. By automatically optimizing your photos — whether it’s cropping out unwanted sections of screenshots or automatically adjusting the tilt — you can ensure that whatever you send is exactly what you intended. Simply select an image to share and an icon will alert you if your device detects potential improvements. Click on the icon and watch as the image is automatically adjusted, rotated or cropped before it’s shared.

As part of the update, users can also enjoy Quick Share, a feature that allows you to instantly send multiple photos, videos and files at once. Just click the ‘Share’ button and select the desired recipient to transfer anything with ease.

Write Confidently With a Grammarly-Powered Keyboard

Whether you’re chatting with friends or typing up an important email, every word counts. That’s why Samsung teamed up with Grammarly to create a smarter keyboard that goes beyond simply picking up typos. With Grammarly seamlessly integrated into Samsung Keyboard, you’ll automatically receive expert writing improvements as you type to ensure you feel confident every time you press send. You will also have the opportunity to get more advanced suggestions — such as ideas to improve sentence clarity, find compelling synonyms, write with fluency and more — to take your writing to the next level.¹²

¹ Galaxy S21 5G, S21+ 5G, S21 Ultra 5G and S21 FE 5G.

² Galaxy S20, S20+, S20 Ultra, S20 FE 5G.

³ Galaxy Z Fold2 5G, Fold 5G, Fold.

⁴ Galaxy Z Flip 5G, Z Flip.

⁵ Galaxy Note20, Note20 Ultra, Note10+ 5G, Note10+.

⁶ Galaxy S10e, S10, S10+, S10 5G.

⁷ Google Duo is a trademark of Google LLC. Live sharing host is available to Galaxy S22 series and Galaxy Tab S8 series users at time of launch and will be provided to other Galaxy device users with Android 12 OS at a later date. Participants may need to upgrade to the latest Google Duo app to use live sharing. Google Duo app availability may vary by market. Requires optimal network connection.

⁸ Current sharable apps during Google Duo video calls are Google Arts & Culture, Google Maps, Jamboard, Samsung Notes, Samsung Gallery and YouTube.

⁹ Google Duo supports QHD resolution for up to 4 people connected simultaneously.

¹⁰ Expert RAW app availability is currently limited to S21 Ultra and S22 series. Samsung Members notified Expert RAW will become available on Galaxy Z Fold3 in April 2022 and Galaxy S20 Ultra, Galaxy Note20 Ultra and Galaxy Z Fold2 later in this year.

¹¹ The ‘Erase shadows’ and ‘Erase reflections’ features are only supported on Galaxy S10 series and the newer devices. Even if both shadows and reflections are detected in a photo, only one eraser effect can be applied.

¹² Eligible users can try Grammarly Premium free for 90 days.

Change the Way You Capture

The Galaxy S20 has a camera packed with innovative features for a more professional shooting experience. Galaxy A51 and A71 users can now capture their memories exactly as they happen with such leading S20 features as Single Take.

Single Take takes the burden of choosing a camera mode out of your hands by recording with several camera modes simultaneously. Just by tapping record with the Single Take feature, users can capture up to ten seconds of footage with a wide range of capture modes, including Boomerang, Smart Crop, video and AI filter. Users can then revisit the clips in the Gallery app and choose which capture style they like the best.

Galaxy A51 and A71 users can now also enjoy several Pro Mode functionalities from the Galaxy S20, including Manual Focus and Shutter Speed control. These features give users more control when capturing photos and videos so they can have total command over their shooting experiences.

Users can get creative when capturing after sunset with Night Hyperlapse, and enjoy more personalization with features like My Filters, which lets users create their own personal image filters using existing images in their camera roll.

Share Seamlessly 

The software update brings with it two convenient ways – available originally on the Galaxy S20 series – for users to share media with each other. Quick Share and Music Share make it easier than ever before to stay connected and instantaneously share pictures, videos and music.

When viewing media in the Gallery and looking to share it with friends, users can now harness the Quick Share option to see immediately which users are nearby. Just by tapping the icon, users can then select one or more friends to seamlessly share their media with.

Music Share lets friends connect to a user’s Bluetooth speaker directly via the user’s smartphone. By swiping down on the Quick Panel and tapping on the Music Share icon, users can easily activate or deactivate this innovative feature to instantly enjoy good music with their friends. Users can also head to Settings > Connections > Bluetooth > Advanced to toggle Music Share on or off.

Let Your Device Do the Work

Galaxy A51 and A71 users are already able to do more of what they love with their smartphones, but this update brings even more Keyboard and Gallery functionalities to users that are designed to make their day-to-day interactions with their smartphones as convenient as possible.

When typing in the search bar in the app tray, accessible with just a simple swipe up on the home screen, users will now be presented with a range of predicted Apps, Settings, Quick Panel and Contacts search results before they even finish typing their query, and can then explore even more results by hitting the ‘See more results’ button. Enhanced keyboard functionalities also give users more freedom when typing; users can now translate text directly from the keyboard tray and easily undo and redo their most recent keyboard action with an intuitive swipe left or right with two fingers on the keyboard.

With the Clean View feature, the Gallery will group up to 100 images shot consecutively into one bundle for easy viewing – users can choose their favorite to serve as the group’s thumbnail – and an organized Gallery. Quick Crop lets users trim their photos right from the media viewing screen. When zooming in on an image with two fingers, the icon will appear on the left hand side of the screen for users to instantly save the edited picture to their Gallery.

Updates such as these, bringing flagship features to Galaxy A devices, are part of Samsung’s ongoing efforts to provide all users with the the best smartphone experiences. Samsung will continue to provide Galaxy A users with all the leading functionalities and features they need to make the most of their mobile devices and capture the world just as they see it.

Engineers Michael Kim (left) and Sung-won Ryu, developers of the Galaxy S20’s display

Once you enter the world of high refresh displays, there is no going back. A refresh rate refers to the number of still images that can appear on a screen in the space of a single second, meaning that a higher refresh rate makes for smoother video playback and display motions. In today’s market, most solutions offer displays with 60Hz refresh rates (60 images displayed per second), and any solution with a refresh rate higher than this is referred to as a ‘high refresh rate display’. With its 120Hz refresh rate, the Galaxy S20 is one such solution.

Solutions with high refresh rate displays are optimal not only for gamers, for whom the technology softens and smooth out in-game movements, but also for the increasing number of users who watch videos on their smartphones, since a high refresh rate makes video playback smoother, too. Samsung Newsroom sat down with the developers of the Galaxy S20’s display to learn more about how the innovative 120Hz display is providing users with next-level viewing experiences.

Gamers Driven to New Heights with a Display that Refreshes Every 0.008 Seconds

The Galaxy S20’s high refresh rate is a revelation when it comes to gaming. For fighting games in particular, in which split-second decision making can prove the difference between victory and defeat, a display with a rapid refresh rate can provide users with a vital edge.

“The key to winning in a fighting game is to effectively evade attacks from your opponent while timing your own attacks well,” noted Michael Kim, an engineer from the Display Group at Samsung Electronics’ Mobile Communications Business. “A screen with a high refresh rate displays more images every second, allowing you to pick up the movements of your opponent’s character quicker and act that little bit faster. A 120Hz display shows a new image every 0.008 seconds.” Using a display that features so many changes in a short period of time additionally has applications in underpinning and facilitating 3D gaming.

Enjoy a Smooth Screen Flow When Surfing the Web

While a 120Hz refresh rate serves to optimize a user’s gaming experience, the original goal behind developing this high screen refresh rate was to provide a better screen control environment, making it easier for users to touch, scroll and swipe their screens. “When users are scrolling on their display, the smoother the screen will flow, resembling the analog experience, the more comfortable it is to use,” explained Kim. “The resulting effect is that of watching something happen in real life right before your eyes.”

Feeling like you have a good grip on your smartphone is also a sensation closely related to a display’s refresh rate. Many conventional displays will scan a finger scrolling on the screen up to 120 times per second, but the Galaxy S20 goes beyond this by scanning finger movement up to 240 times per second. This instant feedback goes as far as possible to make users feel as if they are manipulating something physical when scrolling on-screen. “A high refresh rate on a display helps give a real, grounded sense of touch to users when they are scrolling,” noted engineer Sung-won Ryu. “You can actually experience that fast reaction speed in real-time on the display.”

The high refresh rate granted by the 120Hz display also improves a user’s experience when they are surfing the web, using social networking services and reading webcomics. When scrolling by pushing along your screen from bottom to top, the consecutive frames of a webcomic can remain hidden until this upwards scroll has been fully completed. “With a 120Hz display, you can see any and all contents on a web page even during the scrolling action,” explained Kim. “This makes for a much more satisfactory user experience.”

A Display that Optimizes the Color Gamut Based on Usage

The color gamut of a display refers to the limited spectrum of color expression within which a given screen or monitor will output content. Generally, the color gamut used for digital appliances is sRGB, first introduced in 1996 for Internet, computer, printer, digital camera and scanner devices. However, the Galaxy S20 harnesses the DCI-P3 standard as well as the conventional sRGB one, a color area formulated by the film industry for digital movies. The benefit this offers users is a darker and richer color gamut as compared to sRGB, and the Galaxy S20 also supports Automatic Color Management which optimizes the color gamut based on the type of content a user is enjoying.

“For the best viewing experience, the color gamut should reflect that of the images being shown on the display,” explained Sung-Won Ryu. “The Galaxy S20’s display will automatically adjust its color gamut from DCI-P3 for HDR videos to sRGB for images. This automatic shift to present the richest color possible is a strength that only the Dynamic AMOLED 2X possesses. Dynamic AMOLED 2X presents users with deeper and darker colors onscreen but also achieves precise color rendering thanks to this control over color gamuts.”

A Careful Balance of High Resolution, High Luminance and High Refresh Rate

“When designing our flagship products, our goal was to offer users the 120Hz display experience within a thin smartphone,” noted Kim. But providing this experience that married high resolution with a high refresh rate was a challenge even for the Samsung developers and their expertise in developing best-in-class technologies for TV, monitors and displays. “TV displays benefit from unlimited power supplies and four to five times bigger pixels compared with smartphones,” noted Kim. “Given that smartphones have more components, from the AP to the 5G chipset to the 5G antenna, the power supply has to be negotiated between all these parts.”

“In theory, having both a high resolution and a high refresh rate on a mobile device is feasible, but given power management and device use time considerations, we have been cautious when implementing these capabilities,” noted Ryu. “We are constantly developing our technological innovations to reduce power consumption by studying many different device use scenarios.”

One of the key determining factors of display performance is brightness. The brightness of a display is expressed with the term ‘luminance’, or the amount of light per unit area reflected from an object. The Galaxy S20’s luminance is a maximum of 1,200 nits, expressing both dark and bright shades in order to showcase images clearly, even during the daytime. “There are many elements to consider when it comes to screen quality, but it is a given that the higher a display’s luminance, the better the display looks,” said Kim. “The Galaxy S20’s display is at the maximum brightness accorded by the greatest possible extent of power management.”

Some users may not be aware of the true strength of a 120 Hz display. “With apps such as YouTube now offering videos in basic HD quality, when you go back and watch older videos on the platform in SD, you realize that the quality is actually much lower than you originally thought,” explained Kim. “The same is true of 120Hz displays. People may have no complaints about a 60Hz display, but once they get used to the quality of 120Hz, they can never go back to 60Hz.”

Bringing 120Hz to More Devices

Galaxy smartphones displays have always brought users new and innovative technologies, from high resolution and high pixels per inch (PPI) to AMOLED technology and Automatic Color Management. Looking forward, both Kim and Ryu are confident that there are still limitless possibilities for innovation when it comes to developing better displays.

“We can improve a user’s display experience by developing optimized device power management,” noted Kim. “We will continue to work hard to provide the best possible experience to all users.”

“By developing our high refresh rate technology, we are confident that 120Hz technologies will one day be available not just for the Galaxy S series, but across various other device lines, too,” affirmed Ryu.

I’ve followed this saying over the last 57 days when we were locked inside our homes, with loads of time at hand.

My job requires me to spot interesting stories, shoot stuff and then go through multiple rounds of edits, before I can put it up on my channel.

Now, without the services of a dedicated camera person, I was at a loss through this period, and that is when I decided to turn this adversity into an opportunity. An opportunity to acquire a new skill.

Much to the chagrin of my videographer friend, I decided to don the role of the cameraperson, but the mighty DSLR isn’t easy to navigate. The ISO settings and ‘f’ values look like algebra to me.

That’s when the Galaxy S20+ came to the rescue.

Abhishek Telang: I decided to don the role of a cameraperson

Smartphones are handy, easy to use and you can download plenty of apps which are very helpful for ‘not so talented’ novices like me. And then, to make a good video or a vlog using a smartphone, all you need is a tripod, that’s it.

The smartphone’s features and the dozens of built-in AI tricks take care of everything else. No stress of figuring out the ISO or aperture settings. The auto setting on the camera app takes care of pretty much every other detail. What I loved most about the Galaxy S20+ is the almost magical audio recording.

The phone allows me to shoot videos in 4K resolution, and sometimes even in 8K, giving content creators like me a lot of freedom to experiment.

Through this lockdown, I have created 70 videos for my YouTube Channel, using my Galaxy S20+. The total DSLR videos I have shot so far are 21!

In fact there is one more video that I am already working on, about my latest hobby, of making kulfi at home. When Samsung Newsroom India first spoke to me to write the article, I planned to make a video about how to make kulfi at home in my Samsung refrigerator, but I gave up that idea as it became difficult to procure all the right ingredients to make the perfect kulfi for this summer, with all the right flavours. I promise to come back with my video on my kulfi making attempt soon. And I will use the Galaxy again.

I know my cameraperson friend isn’t going to like this. Sorry buddy, I have found new love, in my ‘cameraphone’. And I just can’t get over it right now.

[Abhishek Telang is a former Tech Editor turned YouTuber who has been covering technology since 2007. He wrote this piece at the request of Samsung Newsroom India]

We want users to enjoy our technology and innovations without a worry, which is why Galaxy devices come with a wide range of industry-leading security solutions to protect personal data. Samsung Knox protects, isolates, and secures data from the hardware chip up, while Secure Wi-Fi provides a safe environment for internet browsing on public wireless connections. And in case of loss or theft, the Find My Mobile service enables users to remotely locate the smartphone, as well as backup and protect data stored on the device.

For the Galaxy S20, we continued to build on this solid security foundation. At the heart of the enhanced system is the secure processor, which is engineered to ensure your data is protected even against advanced hardware attacks.

Enhanced Hardware Security

Just like the way locksmiths can use tools to get past a locked door, malicious actors can manipulate components (physical attacks), provoke hardware errors (fault attacks), or analyze heat and electromagnetic emissions (side-channel attacks) to breach smartphone security. These attacks, also known as hardware attacks, can only happen if the hacker gets hold of the device physically.

The Galaxy S20’s secure processor is Samsung’s solution to counter against hardware attacks. The component is a physical chip that provides an isolated space to protect confidential data in the device. In addition to the continuous scrambling and encrypting of confidential data, it employs a physical shield to guard against physical attacks. The component can also detect invalid voltage or temperature changes and is equipped with security algorithms to thwart side-channel attacks.

An Extra Level of Protection for Your Data

The secure processor protects a wide range of valuable data on your smartphone, starting from the lock screen. It ensures that your lock screen PIN, pattern, or password are not susceptible to guesses by making it almost impossible for attackers to reset the error counter, which monitors the number of failed unlock attempts.

In addition to lock screen data, the secure processor can also process blockchain private keys, which are similar to banking passwords for crypto-currency wallets. The component even supports Strongbox Keymaster, meaning it provides hardware protection for private keys or sensitive data on third-party apps.

As a part of Samsung Knox’s multi-layered security platform, the secure processor will not only keep your data protected on the go but also enable safer, more convenient mobile experiences in the future.

For more information about the Galaxy S20, visit news.samsung.com/galaxy, www.samsungmobilepress.com or www.samsung.com/galaxy-s20.

* Details may vary by market.

The Galaxy S20’s groundbreaking camera is built on the Galaxy S series’ legacy of innovations. The flagship series has been pushing the boundaries of mobile camera capabilities right from the start, bringing technological breakthroughs to everyone.

Check out the infographic below to learn more