We wish Samsung would include its 65W GaN charger with its next flagships

Samsung didn't ship a charger with the Galaxy S21, but we can still hope for its next flagships.

What you need to know

• Samsung recently launched the Galaxy Book Pro with a new, smaller USB-C charger.
• The fast charger is based on Gallium nitrate (GaN) and can achieve 65W charging speeds.
• Samsung has stated that it will gradually remove chargers from the in-box packaging of its smartphones, meaning it's unlikely its upcoming flagships will ship with GaN chargers.

Samsung just launched its new Galaxy Book Pro laptops at its recent Galaxy Unpacked event, with impressive design, specs, and mobile-focused features. Both offer thin designs, FHD AMOLED displays, and fairly large batteries. Samsung claims as much as eight hours of battery life from a 30-minute charge thanks to its new 65W fast charger, but the real story might be what the new charger is made with.

Samsung made quite a deal over its new Gallium nitride (GaN) charger at Unpacked. If you're not familiar, Gallium nitride is a chemical compound found in many electronics but only recently made its way into smartphone chargers. The benefit of this is that GaN-based semiconductors can be made much smaller than silicon-based ones while providing the same output. This means a laptop charger can provide a large amount of power at just half the physical size and using fewer materials.

A few years ago, our Jerry Hildenbrand wrote about how important Gallium nitride could be for charging, and it continues to be true now as Samsung highlighted during its presentation, including how its new fast charger can handle power more efficiently.

Following Apple's example, Samsung did not include charging adapters with its latest Galaxy S21 flagships, a move that it says will gradually extend its other smartphones to as part of the company's efforts for more sustainable practices. That means anyone buying the latest Galaxy flagships will have to use chargers they already had lying around or purchase a new one.

While this move could possible affect the rumored Galaxy Z Fold 3 and other 2021 flagships, Samsung did point out during its presentation that its new charger could be used on its latest flagship devices for a quick top-up. Of course, these latest devices only support 25W fast charging, which is admittedly slower than many of the best Android phones that have been launched this year, including the OnePlus 9 Pro. That's not to say that Samsung won't follow suit and up the charging speeds of its next flagships, but that remains to be seen. For now, we can chalk it up to wishful thinking.

If you're picking up one of Samsung's new Galaxy Book Pros, you'll be able to take advantage of the included charger. For anyone else looking for a good charger, particularly anyone with a Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra, we've already compiled a list of some of the best GaN chargers that are available today.

Samsung Galaxy Book Pro

$1000 at Samsung

The new Galaxy Book Pro is one of Samsung's most powerful Galaxy devices. It features a sleek design, a 13 or 15-inch AMOLED display, and plenty of features to connect seamlessly with Samsung's family of Galaxy devices, making it perfect if you already have one of Samsung's newest smartphones.

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'Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart' gameplay reveals what the PS5 can do

'Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart' takes full advantage of the PS5.

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Google Pay expands US transit support, partners with Target and Safeway

These new updates are available in the U.S.

What you need to know

• Google Pay in the U.S now works better with local stores and transit systems.
• The app can now highlight deals from Target and Safeway.
• Google is also adding Chicago and the Bay Area to the list of supported transit systems.

Google today rolled out several new updates to the Google Pay app in the U.S., helping users with the best Android phones manage their money better.

First, the app now offers integration with Safeway and Target. It will surface deals from either store when a user searches for Safeway or Target in the app. Alternatively, enabling location access and passing by these stores should pop up a notification that'll show off weekly deals.

Google's Josh Woodward explained in a blog post:

We teamed up with Safeway to make it easy to find weekly grocery deals from the Google Pay app. You can find deals on thousands of items across more than 500 Safeway stores nationwide. You can also discover similar deals at Target stores nationwide.

Google is also adding support for transit passes in Chicago and the Bay Area. Now users will be able to travel using just their phones via contactless readers or by showing the tickets visually to staff. You'll be able to access this with a new "Ride transit" shortcut on the homepage.

Finally, Google Pay is also going to act a lot more like a smart bank. Google is adding a new "Insights" tab to the app that'll let users see how much they spend and on what. For example, if you search "food," you'll see how much you've spent on food through Google Pay. Counting those calories? Search burgers or pizza, or even Burger King and Pizza Hut. Expense categorization is a useful tool for regular banking apps, and it's good to see Google roll it out here.

You'll need to be on the new Google Pay app to see any of these features. The new version of the app is only available in a select few countries, but Google will likely bring it to other countries soon.

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The Morning After: Samsung's new family of Galaxy Book laptops

Today’s headlines: iPhone and Mac sales are way up from the start of the pandemic, Samsung unveils a new family of Galaxy Book laptops and CES plans a return as an in-person event in 2022.

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Be the life of the party with the JBL Charge 4 speaker on sale for $130

The JBL Charge 4 is a fantastic portable Bluetooth speaker, and right now you can get it for $129.95 at Amazon. There are several colors available at this price, including black, blue, red, gray, green, and more. Pick your favorite one or buy a couple different colors and link the speakers together. The Charge 4's regular price is $180, and it only drops from that price occassionally. The Amazon deal price is matched at Walmart, although it's not available everywhere.

The Charge 4 is a great speaker whether you're going to use it indoors to chill to your favorite tunes or outdoors at a party or a barbecue or while going on a hike. Keep yourself entertained waiting for those steaks to finish grilling or while enjoying a nice family game night in the living room. The nice thing about a rechargeable battery is that you can take the speaker anywhere, and it has a simple USB cable that can be used to recharge from just about anywhere. You'll get a 20-hour battery life as well so the speaker can stay powered for most of the day. It has advanced drivers and two bass radiators so you get some powerful, thumping sound with lifelike audio.

It's a speaker designed for some harsh environments, too. The Charge 4 can resist impacts and will survive a drop or two. It is also water resistant thanks to an IPX7 rating, which is a higher than normal rating for water resistance. You can use this speaker by the pool or get some sweat on it at the gym or go swimming and submerge the speaker. It won't get damaged and your music will still be as loud as ever.

You can string multiple Charge 4 speakers together, too. If you've got a party spreading throughout the house, pump music into every room. You can even play from multiple sources by connecting two Bluetooth sources at once. The speaker is covered by a one-year warranty.

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PlayStation Now should be the place where indie and AA games thrive on PS5

PS Now is lacking in several ways, one of which being its ability to court new indie and AA titles.

I've written a lot about PlayStation Now the past few weeks, whether because I think it's in desperate need of an overhaul or because I think it could become a serious xCloud competitor. The common denominator that you'll constantly see me compare it to is Xbox Game Pass, Microsoft's all-encompassing game subscription service. This time around, I'll be discussing how PS Now should take a page from Game Pass's playbook and become the perfect place for indies to thrive on PS5.

Indie games can be tough to market and even harder to sell.

Indie games can be tough to market and even harder to sell. They don't have the same type of money behind them as AAA titles do, and many depend on word of mouth to make sales. The fewer people that play your game, the fewer people you have talking about it. But with a subscription service, it's easier to take a chance on games you otherwise normally wouldn't have given the time of day. This is something that Xbox Game Pass does so well.

Back in 2019, Xbox head Phil Spencer discussed the benefits of Xbox Game Pass and how it allowed developers to stay true to their vision (via GamesRadar). With less risk involved and a guaranteed built-in audience (Xbox Game Pass subscribers numbered 18 million in January 2021), developers didn't feel the need to chase service-based models like many AAA games do with recurring microtransactions and seasons of content.

"We see Game Pass as a really critical way to bring new games to new players, with a business model that just has more approachability for many players," he said. "We see players willing to take risks on new games and new genres because when you're already in the subscription, it's as easy as clicking on something, downloading the game, and starting to play. The diversity of content in Game Pass, the genres in Game Pass, the things that people play… I think it's a really healthy part of our industry.

"The nice thing about Game Pass is that it actually wraps the game inside of a service itself," Spencer continued. "So a game can just be a game. And it's nice to be playing games that have a beginning, a middle, and an end. And that, as a subscription, we completely support those types of games."

"People inside of Game Pass play significantly more games."

Speaking on the Gamertag Radio podcast last year (via Gamasutra), Phil Spencer addressed that idea again, saying that developers were finding audiences that would have never been playing their games had they just released at retail.

"The thing that we're seeing in the service is that people inside of Game Pass play significantly more games, they buy more games than they were before they were Game Pass subscribers, and the subscriber numbers are continuing to grow," Spencer said. "The third parties are finding players that would never be playing their games if they were solely relying on retail as the only way for people to find their games."

This is a huge boon for indie developers, and it's more important than ever with AAA veterans going solo in the industry at increasing rates. Xbox Game Pass already supports these developers wonderfully, something that PS Now lacks.

Indie developers themselves have praised Game Pass (via GamesIndustry at GDC, describing it as a simple path to profit. No More Robots founder Mike Rose even took to Twitter to discuss the impact Xbox Game Pass had had on Descenders sales.

"I cannot stress how incredible Xbox Game Pass has ended up being for Descenders," he said. "It's elevated the game to heights we couldn't have imagined.

"If I take the month before we went into Game Pass and compared it to sales of the game last week, we're now selling around 5 times as many units each week as pre-Game Pass, on a weekly basis. Since we went into Game Pass, our total Xbox sales have tripled."

I've hardly spoken about PS Now yet in this article, but that's because I wanted to lay out how good Game Pass is for indies. It isn't just speculation. There's hard evidence to prove it. If Sony wants to take PlayStation Now seriously as a subscription service, I think it should court more indies and AA titles. Become the place on PS4 and PS5 where these games can live and find an audience.

We've seen games like Bugsnax, Rocket League, Fall Guys, and Oddworld: Soulstorm release into PlayStation Plus, but the downside here is that they're only free for a month. In particular, Fall Guys and Rocket League became massively popular and successful after their launches. PlayStation Now needs a bit of work before it could provide the same level of success — its subscriber numbers are nowhere near that of PS Plus or Game Pass — but the idea is that it could become that service for indies and AA games with the right support from Sony.

There's no denying that PlayStation Now is an all-around weaker service than Game Pass. It lacks new games, it lacks exclusives, and it lacks a diverse indie offering. Sony needs to improve all of those categories to succeed and perhaps even surpass Game Pass.

Microsoft and Sony seem to be going in opposite directions with their subscription strategies. Where PlayStation is bolstering PS Plus and letting PS Now slowly drown, Xbox's approach is to bolster Game Pass as much as possible, lumping Xbox Live Gold in with it. That is a successful strategy when you're thinking about long-term plans. It strengthens indie and first-party offerings. PlayStation Now should follow suit.

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Do you like the One UI version of Google Messages?

Chatting with the AC forums.

With rumors that more and more of the best Android phones soon to be running Android 12 will see an updated user interface that more closely resembles Samsung's One UI, it's not really a surprise to hear that Google and Samsung have been working together to get apps like Google Messages to look and feel more native on high-end Galaxy devices.

The update is still rolling out to S21 users, and we expect that it will later roll out to Samsung's other high-end phones like the Note, Flip, and Fold series, and possibly even the A series. Several of our enterprising and impatient AC forum members have already tried to sideload the update.

mustang7757

04-27-2021 09:04 PM

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Google messages on s21 should see One UI server update. https://ift.tt/3eEmvqu

Reply

ABOSWORTH007

04-28-2021 06:05 AM

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I saw this last night. If I'm reading this correctly, I think it will only be for the S21 models that had the Google Messages app pre-installed.

Reply

bhatech

04-28-2021 10:01 AM

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I think those which had pre installed like the international models already had this. But I believe this is for those in countries like US which didn't have this at launch. Still unclear though and we will have to wait and see if it's the case. As of now my Google messages on S21 Ultra still looks like Google messages. We will have to wait few days to weeks before server side rollout is complete....

Reply

bhatech

04-28-2021 03:43 PM

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Uninstalled the play store Google messages with old design and installed the APK version will the one UI style Google messages. Not that much of a difference but there is a redesign. Though says chat features unavailable Needless to say uninstalling and going to back to my play store Google messages

Reply

We want to hear from you — If you have a Galaxy S21, have you gotten the One UI/Google Messages update? Do you like it? Let us know!

Join the conversation in the forums!

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