Posts about Samsung

Bought A Groupon, An iPhone 4, Or Coconut Water? These Class Actions Are For You
Have you bought coconut water, pinot noir, a Samsung TV, or an iPhone 4? If you purchased any of these products, plus a whole bunch more, you may be eligible to file a claim in one of these recently settled class action lawsuits. Proof of purchase isn't always required, but lying is bad consumer karma. More »

With Sidekick G4, T-Mobile Casts Me Into Smartphone Replacement Purgatory
Sara really loved her HTC G1 from T-Mobile, and bought the similar-ish Samsung Sidekick 4G as a replacement when its years of loyal service ended. The new phone has not been so loyal. It locks up, won't respond to the touchscreen, and periodically wipes its memory card for no clear reason. Sure, she could back up the memory card content elsewhere, but the non-operational phone is a real problem. Now she's on her third replacement. T-Mobile is happy to send her a replacement, but she doesn't want a fifth phone that will inevitably have the same problems. Sara, welcome to smartphone replacement purgatory! More »

Maybe Your New TV Is Watching You
It's the entire point, really. New smart TVs from Samsung boast video cameras with facial-recognition software and microphones with speech-recognition software. They can tell who's in the room, understand spoken commands, and be controlled with gestures. That's great news for those of us who can never find the remote, but made our friends over at HD Guru wonder: is there anyone behind that camera watching us back? More »

What Is This "Connected Appliance" Stuff All About Anyway?
While much of the buzz at any Consumer Electronics Show revolves around the sexier kids in school — TVs, computers, cell phones — there is a quiet rumble surrounding the impending release of a horde of "connected appliances," which is a blanket term for fridges, washers, dryers, dishwashers, stoves and ovens that communicate in some way with each other and maybe with the outside world. More »

Photos: Behind The Scenes At CES 2012
In a few hours, the folks at the Consumer Electronics Show will fling open the doors to the Las Vegas Convention Center and a crowd the size of a small city will begin gawking and toying with the latest in doodads and whatsthats. But for the second year in a row, me and my trusty camera phone were able to convince someone I had a reason to be on the show floor so I could snap a handful of last-minute preparation pics before anyone caught on to my antics.
More »

Samsung Delighted To Announce Ads On Your Smart TV's Home Screen
Samsung was delighted to announce this morning at CES that they intend to place ads to the home screens of your fancy new Smart TVs. Does this annoy you? More »

European Cell Phone Regulators Worried About War Between Apple And Samsung
Look, Apple, Samsung — your fight over patents and intellectual property could affect all of Europe. Think about that, while you're locked in battle over intellectual property rights! And now you've gone and upset EU regulators. More »

Vote Here For The Worst Ad In America Awards!
You told us which TV ads annoy you the most, now it's time to select the worst of the worst! More »

Samsung Tries To Distance Itself From Worst Ad-Nominated TV Spot
Yesterday, we announced this year's slate of nominees for the Worst Ad In America awards, and among the TV spots slugging it out for the title of Absolute Worst Ad is one that appears to be for the Samsung Infuse 4G... or so you might think. More »

Announcing The 2011 Worst Ad In America Nominees!
For the second year in a row, we asked you to tell us which TV commercials get on your last nerve, and you didn't hold back. After sifting through hundreds of comments and e-mails, we've finally whittled down all those annoying ads to the elite few worthy of recognition in the Second Annual Consumerist Worst Ad In America Awards. More »

Only Samsung Has The Power To Reinstall Windows On Your Laptop
When the hard drive of Joseph's Samsung laptop began to make clicking noises, he thought it would be simple enough to make a backup image of his hard drive, install a shiny new solid-state drive, and put the backed-up image on his new drive. This didn't work, and he's stuck without Windows on his drive. Now he yearns for those long-ago days when computer manufacturers actually shipped copies of the software installed on computers with those computers. More »

Apple Injunction Forces Samsung To Pull Tablet From Trade Show
Apple scored a hit against Samsung in their battle for tablet computer dominance after they won an injunction blocking sales of the new Galaxy Tab 7.7 in Germany. Samsung then had to remove the Galaxy Tab from a big electronics show. More »

Verizon Tech Support: Make Your Smartphone Stupider So It'll Work
Last fall, David upgraded his Verizon Wireless phone to the Samsung Fascinate, That's a decently powerful Android smartphone with a decent processor and the ability to run all sorts of online apps. You wouldn't know that if you were David, though. Even his warranty replacement phone is appears to be having software problems that make it unusable unless he uses it just for phone calls and texts, disabling everything else. That's what Verizon support has advised him to do. Because that's what people buy Android smartphones for. More »

Samsung Cites 1968 Movie To Prove It Didn't Rip Off iPad
Responding to Apple's lawsuit alleging it copied designs for the iPad and iPhone, Samsung's lawyers have pulled out video evidence from the 1968 film 2001: A Space Odyssey. In a 1-minute clip, the lawyers imply that the iPad-style form factor predates Apple's devices. More »

Line Your Samsung Oven With Aluminum Foil, Void Your Warranty
Do you line your oven with foil? Rae does. She always has, and her parents always have. It's such a normal thing to do with an oven, it didn't occur to Rae not to do it. She lined her oven with foil, then popped a frozen pizza in there on the first night after it was delivered. The foil melted the interior oven surface, and now Samsung tells Rae and her husband that they've voided the warranty. More »

Google Teams Up With Samsung & Acer To Release Chromebooks In June
After the commercial success of its Android smartphone operating system and the growing number of people using its Chrome web browser, Google has announced that it has made a deal with Samsung and Acer to release a slate of PCs running the Chrome operating system. More »

Samsung, Sued By Apple For Copying iStuff, Sues Apple For Copying Samsung Stuff
Samsung and Apple are now officially entangled in a messy legal slapfight. After Apple sued Samsung for allegedly violating iPhone and iPad patents, Samsung has responded in kind, alleging Apple violated several of its patents. More »

Apple Sues Samsung, Alleging It Copied iPad, iPhone
In the corporate method of waving your hand to tell the teacher the kid at the desk next to you has been peeking at its paper, Apple filed a lawsuit alleging Samsung copied the "look and feel" of its iPad and iPhone. It seems Samsung's Android devices such as the Samsung Galaxy S 4G, Epic 4G and Nexus S drew too much inspiration from istuff for Apple's liking. More »

Samsung Achieves Exciting New Levels Of Excessive Packaging
Welcome to Illustrated Storytime with The Consumerist! Today's picture book is by reader Joergen, who found the excessive packaging of his Samsung printer cartridges so egregious that he took step-by-step photos of the box-opening process. Then the opening of the box within the box. Then the opening of the box within that box. And then.. More »

The Magical Chinese Hard Drive
A customer walked into a Russian hard-drive repair center complaining about his broken 500Gb USB-drive. He had bought it dirt cheap in China but it had a problem. If you saved a movie to it, it would only play the last five minutes. They opened up the case and found inside a 128-MB flash drive working in looped mode. It displays the correct capacity when you plug it in but when you write to it and run out of space, it just overwrites the old data. Two nuts make it feel like it has the right heft. Crafty, crafty counterfeiters! Caveat emptor, if the price is "too good to be true," it is. More »

Samsung Blames Canada For Your Monitor Problems
Miguel writes that his Samsung monitor stopped working, but it has a 3-year warranty. He contacted Samsung to see if they could help him. They could not, but not for any mundane reason. Samsung insists that his monitor is from Canada, and they can't provide warranty service to Miguel because he doesn't live in Canada. Where did he buy his monitor? Um, a Sam's Club store in Missouri. More »

Sprint's Premium Data Plan For Samsung Epic Has Slower Upload Speeds Than Regular 3G Phones
Yesterday, the blog Explain the Fee noted that Sprint customers with the new Samsung Epic 4G, who have to pay an extra $10 a month for a premium data plan, are reporting upload speeds slower than phones they had 3 or 4 years ago—with upload limits seemingly capped at 150kps. More »

Samsung Not Sure Where Its Samsung Apps Will Work
James wanted to buy a new Samsung Blu-ray player that could download and run Samsung Apps, which are widgets that can connect to the Internet or—in the case of the Hulu Plus app—stream video content. He tried to make sure he knew what he was doing before making a purchase, because his whole point for upgrading was to access Hulu, but he still chose the wrong player. Or did he? No, he did. Right? More »

Samsung's Kafkaesque Refrigerator Executive Customer Service Runaround
Jason's story about his Samsung refrigerator seems, for the first few paragraphs, to be a relatively mundane incident involving a customer who is (justifiably) annoyed when some relatively small features of his $2,700 refrigerator kept breaking, requiring repairs. But when the icemaker and the entire freezer began to fail, Jason's story took a different turn. A repairman encouraged him to seek a replacement for the frequently failing fridge, which he did. Now his quest for a new fridge looks more like a part-time job, and Samsung's executive customer service is beginning to look like ... regular customer service. More »

Samsung Sues Journalist For Satirically Pointing Out That Its Chairman Keeps Getting Convicted Of Crimes
Did you know that the chairman of Samsung, Lee Kun-hee, was convicted in 2008 for tax evasion in South Korea? Or that he was convicted in the 90s for bribing politicians? A British journalist, Michael Breen, wrote a satirical column in a South Korean newspaper last December, and now the electronics giant is suing him for libel. If found guilty, Breen could face jail time. More »

3DTV Can Make You Sick, Samsung Warns
As if the burden of having to wear dorky glasses in your living room weren't a big enough strike against would-be-next-big-thing 3DTV, now Samsung warns that watching can give you a feeling akin to motion sickness, Digital Home reports. More »

New 3D TVs To Cost You $1K Per D
Colin Boyd of Get the Big Picture put together a roundup on the upcoming home entertainment craze of 2010, 3DTV. The verdict: New bigscreen, 3D-capable TVs in the 46 to 50-inch range from Panasonic and Samsung will cost about $3,000. And the early industry standard seems to be that the sets will come with two pairs of glasses. Additional glasses, required for watching in non-blurry vision, will cost an extra $150. More »

Virgin Mobile Isn't Quite Clear On The Meaning Of "Playlist"
Jennifer writes that she bought a new phone, a Samsung Mantra, based on the features listed for the phone on Virgin Mobile's web site. The problem is that the phone doesn't actually seem to have the advertised features that led her to buy the phone in the first place. More »

Best Buy Sells Shattered TV In Time For Super Bowl Party
On this, the holiest of all American TV-watching days, we'd like to share with you the horrific story of a Florida family whose Super Bowl viewing party will be a lot less intense than they had planned. The new, expensive HDTV they purchased from Best Buy was somehow shattered inside its box, and the retailer claims that it's the family's fault. More »

Firmware Update Borks Man's Samsung Blu-ray Player, Samsung Says Too Bad
Maybe manufacturers need to rethink how warranties work when it comes to firmware updates. Justin's Samsung Blu-ray player recently alerted him that there was an update available, so he told it to proceed. What he ended up with was a dead player. Now Samsung says because it's out of warranty for repairs he has to pay them $90 to get it working again. More »

Samsung's Repair Service Can't Seem To Fix My Blu-Ray
Matthew raves about Samsung's Twitter customer service (@samsungservice), but is incensed about the repair process itself, which he says has failed to stop his Blu-ray from freezing up like Sean Suisham. More »

The Tale Of Lowe's And The Refrigerator From Hell

—>Reader Buddy has a lemon of a fridge that he purchased from Lowe's with an Extended Warranty. The store keeps sending people out to fix the appliance, but nothing seems to work.  More »

Top 25 Best Global Brands — Samsung, Microsoft Beat Apple

  More »

Study Rates Cell Phones By Radiation Emitted

—>The jury is still out on whether cell-phone radiation is something consumers should worry about. Scientists disagree on whether the low levels emitted are enough to cause brain tumors or other health problems in the long-term. Nevertheless, the Environmental Working Group has analyzed radiation emissions from 1,268 cell phones to see how the levels stand up against government standards.  More »

Samsung Customer Service Won't Exchange Three-Month-Old Broken Monitor

—>George's Samsung monitor got the three-month itch and went kaput. When he started dealing with the customer's service, he found that the monitor wasn't the only thing that was broken.  More »

Samsung Customer Service Operates At Knuckleball Speed In Replacing Bluetooth

—>Despite what that rascal Shakespeare would have you believe, all that ends well isn't necessarily well. Example: When your Bluetooth headset breaks and Samsung wouldn't warranty it out for several weeks, denying you your basic human right to roam hallways talking loudly into your own ear.  More »

Reach Samsung Escalated Customer Service
Tier 3: Case Management: 1-888-685-1358  More »

Samsung Stalls And Lies For A Year Over Broken Photo Frame

—>Dave bought his mother a Samsung digital photo frame for Christmas—Christmas a year ago, and it stopped working after just a few weeks. Since then, Dave has tried regular customer service and executive customer service, he's waited on hold for up to 2 hours at a time, and he's waited patiently for RMAs that are promised but never sent. Now it looks like he's throwing in the towel: "I no longer have the time or energy to waste with them." You win this battle, Samsung! But you do realize that Dave—a small business owner who has made large Samsung purchases in the past—will never buy another one of your products, right?  More »

TVs Will Be Cheap, But Will Anyone Buy Them?

—>Everyone seems to agree— this year will be the year of the cheap big-screen tv. The only question remains... will anyone buy them?  More »

Ex-Best Buy Employee Regrets Selling Warranties Now That He's A Customer

—>We just got an email from reader Mike, who claims to be a former Best Buy employee who regrets selling all those extended warranties now that he's actually trying to use the one that he purchased.   More »

Morning Deals

• Banana Republic: 30% off today only with coupon code HAPPY30 or printable coupon
• Sears: Free Masterlock with printable coupon
• MusiciansFriend: AKG Handheld Condenser Microphone for $100 + free shipping. Today only.

Highlights From Dealhack

• Timbuk2: Save up to 60% off Messenger Bags, Backpacks, & More
• New York & Co.: Extra 20% off Store-Wide Women's Apparel
• Office Depot: Viewsonic N3235w 32-inch LCD HDTV $470 & Free Shipping
Highlights From Buxr
• Staples: Samsung CLP-300 Color Laser Printer for $69.98 w/ Free shipping
• Staples: Mio DigiWalker C230 Portable GPS for $99.99 w/ Free shipping
• Amazon: Bill Cosby Himself (Comedy Album) - MP3 Download for $1.99
  More »

For all six of you Americans out there who use a Symbian phone, SymbianGear is offering one free app per day for 10 days. You've already missed days 1 & 2, but they've got 7 more to go if you're interested. (Today is Texas Holdem). [SymbianGear via Symbian-Guru.com]  More »

Applying Samsung Updates Will Void Your Warranty

—>  More »

I Have 6 Kids And, For The Fourth Time, A Broken Fridge. Thanks, Best Buy.

—>Reader and Flickr Pool member Steve has 6 kids and no fridge thanks to Best Buy. He's currently waiting around the house for his 4th repair guy in 8 months.  More »

Motorola may stop making cellphones after all its customers bought iPhones and Samsung phones. [Bloomberg]  More »

The Case Of The Disappearing Samsung Television, Will It Ever Be Found?

—>What do you do when Samsung is supposed to ship you a replacement TV, but all you get is a list of excuses?  More »

Blu-Ray DRM Rendering Some Discs Unplayable

—>Remember when DVD-type players didn't require "firmware updates?" Ahh, those halcyon days of um, last year...  More »

Lawsuits Of The Week

—>Sutton vs McDonald's Corporation (PDF) Frank Sutton orders a Mickey D's Chicken Sandwich on August 8th, 2005. Bites into the sandwich and hot lava grease exploded on his lips. When approached about the matter, the McDonald's worker says something to the effect of, "This is what happens to the sandwiches when they aren't drained completely." Sutton wants $2 mil for his damaged puckers. While that might seem steep, McDonald's should make be making sure their employees are properly draining the chicken sandwiches.  More »

Upset With Cellphone Service, Man Smashes Mercedes S500 Into Company Doors

—>A man upset with his cellphone provider's inability to get his new phone to work out vented his rage by driving his friend's Mercedes S500 into the company's office doors.  More »

Recalls: Attack Of The Unsafe Washing Machines!
Hazard: Water leakage onto the electrical connections to the washing machine's thermal sensor could cause an electrical short and ignite a circuit board, posing a fire hazard to consumers.  More »

Samsung: Do Not Return Your Defective TV

This note was probably due to the fact that consumers often do not know how to properly hook up HDTVs, and return them thinking they are defective. In Shawn's case, the TV really was defective. So did Samsung help him? Of course not.  More »

Reach Samsung Executive Customer Service

1-800-SAMSUNG not doing it for you?   More »

Samsung Parts Department Can't Tell Left From Right

—>Peter's fridge rail cracked. Samsung sent him the wrong rail, then told him he should've purchased a "technical parts book" for $35 before placing his order. Samsung refuses to refund his shipping or part, and want to charge him for return shipping, as well as for the proper left rail and shipping.  More »

Best Unlocked Phones

The recent Copyright Office ruling on unlocking GSM phones puts some much-needed power back in the hands of you, the wireless consumer. This means you can now bring your Cingular phone over to T-Mobile, or vice-versa. You also have the right to switch between prepaid and postpaid service on the same phone. And when you travel abroad, you can pop an international SIM card into your phone for much lower rates.

  More »

UPDATE: Surfing On Our Free Sprint Cellphone

—>We just called Sprint to check on our coverage for this weekend's trip into the Poconos and experienced something bizarre.  More »

Surfing On Our Free Sprint Cellphone

—>  More »

Pith & Vinegar
• Even still, look over our shoulders as we do a private beta demo of Farecast, a service that lets you know when and where from to buy airfare, plus spiffy graphs, similar to Flyspy.  More »

Samsung T-809 Gets Skanky All Up Inside Its Camera Crack
s mud in your eye: Victor got Samsung T-809 camera phone and loves it, except for the gap underneath the camera that allows dust to easily get into and underneath the LCD screen.  More »