Living in an industrialized country like the US, we are familiar with many company names – GM, Ford, Chrysler, Heinz, Kodak, Apple, Motorola and so on – but in a country such as South Korea, Samsung is practically the country. In the US we think of them as a smartphone or HDTV manufacturer and maybe a few would mention appliances, but in South Korea, the name is synonymous with everything from electronics, construction, insurance, investments, appliances, cars and even bidets!
Many manufacturers buy parts from other suppliers and assemble a smartphone to their specifications, but Samsung is not simply an ‘assembler,’ but a true manufacturer. They make their own displays, batteries, processors, memory chips, as well as manufacture parts based on other’s specifications – for instance, Apple will be purchasing many of the iPhone’s internal parts. It is in the design of their chips, batteries and cameras that Samsung is constantly striving to improve and perfect their design. Faster chips and memory, as well as longer lasting and faster-charging batteries, and better cameras are always in the forefront of their research and they expect to have many improvements in their 2017 devices.
The battery packs will have a density increase from the current 700Wh/l – where “Wh is the total amount of energy the battery can deliver under certain specified conditions of rate and temperature and Wh/l is the volumetric energy density, a measure of how much energy is stored in a certain amount of space,” – to 750Wh/l by year’s end and 780Wh/l by the year 2017. In a nutshell – Samsung will squeeze more energy output from the same size battery.
Samsung is also working on increasing the voltage in batteries, which will also translate to better battery life. They are about to reach a voltage of 4.40V in the near future and expect to raise it to 4.5V by the year 2017. They are continuing their work in fast-charging batteries and is looking to have an 80-percent charge in as little as 30 minutes. Higher densities, coupled with higher voltage will help Samsung in keeping battery size under control while still maintaining longer times between charges, however, when you do need to charge your battery, the faster charging times will also benefit the user.
How do you make a great camera even better…you reduce its thickness. Samsung is also researching heavily into improving their camera sensors with a new RWB (Red, White and Blue) color pattern sensor, which they claim will lead to “better color fidelity.” They are also looking to reduce the pixel size from 1.12-micron pixels, used in their current 16MP sensors, down to 1-micron pixels. This will reduce the size of the sensor by 23-percent – from 6.5mm thick to 5mm – allowing Samsung to make the camera sensor thinner, with less bulging out the back from the camera.