Month: June 2019

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  The Samsung Galaxy A50. [credit: Samsung ]

Samsung's flagship smartphone lineup comes to basically every carrier and every country on Earth, but the company is much more selective when it comes to cheaper devices. Today Samsung announced that its midrange smartphone lineup will be coming to the US this summer, starting with the $349.99 Samsung Galaxy A50. The A50 was originally announced in February and is just now making its way to the US.

You won't find Samsung's trademark "hole punch" camera cutout from the Galaxy S10 here; the company is instead going with a teardrop notch for the 25MP front camera, which makes the A50 look a lot like the OnePlus 6T. It's certainly not as distinctive as cutting a hole in the display, but it is more space efficient, allowing the A50 front camera to fit inside the normal Android status bar. The Galaxy S10 front camera is so deep into the display that it requires a double-height status bar to surround it.

On the back is a triple-camera setup, featuring a 25MP main camera, an 8MP wide-angle lens, and a 5MP depth sensor. There's no rear fingerprint reader because the Galaxy A50 features an in-display fingerprint reader, which is quickly becoming the norm for Android smartphones. While the S10 has an ultrasonic fingerprint reader, this device has an optical reader, just like a OnePlus phone.

Enlarge / An Electrify America charging station. (credit: Electrify America)

At the risk of sounding like a stuck record (or perhaps a looped .mp3 file, since this is 2019), infrastructure matters when it comes to getting people to switch to an electric vehicle. The best electric vehicle in the world is still just a paperweight on wheels if you can't recharge it before you get to your destination, after all. It's something that Tesla has excelled at with its Supercharger network, both in geographical coverage and also ease of use.

Life with an EV from any other OEM is a bit more complicated when it comes to public chargers. There may be many more CCS and CHAdeMO DC fast-charging locations in the US than Tesla Supercharger stations (according to data from the US Department of Energy) but they're split across multiple different service providers. That usually means signing up for multiple accounts and carrying multiple RFID fobs, particularly if you're trying to drive long distance.

But on Tuesday, things got a little easier. ChargePoint and Electrify America, two of the leading US EV charging networks, just announced a roaming partnership. Starting later this year, if you're a ChargePoint member, you can use that account to charge at Electrify America chargers, and vice versa.