Bucket Tech: Samsung Galaxy A17

Samsung Electronics has announced the new Galaxy A17 as the latest addition to its Galaxy A Series range. It’s designed for individuals who are often on the move, running businesses, chasing goals, and managing life on the go. The Galaxy A17 delivers what you need to stay connected and productive.

Whether you’re running your own hustle, engaging with clients, or balancing everything in between, this device is built to keep up with your grind.

Packed with awesome features and built-in safety, security, and reliability, the Galaxy A17 offers a powerful, optimised experience at an accessible price point. Integrated with Awesome Intelligence, it helps you do more, better and faster than the model it replaces, so you can stress less and keep moving forward.

“At Samsung, we understand that your smartphone is more than just a device, it’s an essential tool for people who are constantly on the move and rely on their phones to manage work and life. The Galaxy A17 strikes the perfect balance of innovation, security, reliability, and value. Empowering hustlers to stay productive on the go, and thrive with confidence,” said Justin Hume, Vice President: Mobile Experience at Samsung South Africa.

With Samsung Wallet, the Galaxy A17 transforms your phone into a powerful mobile payment tool. Whether you’re paying for supplies, grabbing a quick coffee, you can Samsung SOS+ tap and pay effortlessly. The Galaxy A17 supports your hustle by making transactions seamless, secure, and stress-free, so you can run much of your business straight from your phone.

The Galaxy A17 was built tough to withstand everyday challenges, which makes it awesome for your daily hustle. As you go about your grind, you can count on the phone’s IP54 rating for dust and splash resistance, which offers durability that stands up to life’s unexpected spills, splashes, and scrapes. Samsung’s defense-grade security platform, Samsung Knox, ensures your private data remains protected from hackers and malware. The device also comes with six years of OS upgrades, and a two-year warranty, giving users lasting protection and performance.

For users’ security and peace of mind, the Galaxy A17 comes with Samsung SOS+, a free-to-use, 24/7 private emergency response service, available exclusively to new Galaxy A Series devices with 12 months of free access. In the event of an emergency, the service geolocates the user and dispatches private security and medical assistance on demand, anywhere in South Africa. For added peace of mind, users can opt into Samsung Care+1, protecting their device against accidental screen damage from just R99 per month.

The Galaxy A17 comes equipped with a 50MP OIS Triple Camera for sharp, blur-free shots – even in motion – making it perfect for capturing fast-paced moments, taking spontaneous selfies and documenting your everyday hustle. Its advanced low-light performance helps photos and videos look stunning, day or night. For Hustlers on the move, the Galaxy A17 offers more than just a camera, it’s a powerful content creation companion. Whether you’re showcasing products, capturing behind-the-scenes moments, or producing professional social media content on the go, the A17 helps you present your brand with clarity, and confidence.

Amongst other awesome features, the Galaxy A17 comes with Circle to Search, an intuitive AI-powered tool that lets you instantly search anything on screen with a simple gesture – unlocking smarter ways to explore and discover. On its large 6.7” Super AMOLED display, content shines with vibrant clarity, delivering an immersive viewing experience.

With 128GB of internal storage, 4+4GB RAM, and expandable storage up to 2TB, the Galaxy A17 ensures that you’ll never need to delete a memory. From playlists and project files to treasured photos and videos, everything you love stays safe in one place.

If you’re looking for an awesome, hustle-worthy device, the Galaxy A17 is built for you. Available in South Africa starting 1 October 2025, at Samsung retail stores, online, the Samsung Shop App, and through leading retailers and network operators, at the recommended retail price of R3,999

Bucket Tech: HUAWEI Mate Series

HUAWEI has been a major player in the smartphone industry and has made significant strides in smartphone innovation in recent years. The latest HUAWEI Mate50 Pro is stunner in all aspects. It’s technological innovation, integration of art, unique visual style and revolutionary photography experience are hard to miss.

While these characteristics, coupled with its outstanding functionalities make the device an attractive option for users who value a premium user experience - it’s not the first time the tech brand has successfully provided users with an enhanced experience.

Looking at the past 5 generations of the HUAWEI Mate Series, innovation has helped the company to remain competitive in the smartphone industry and provide users with cutting-edge devices. Here’s how every generation has evolved overtime:

High-quality design and hardware

The HUAWEI Mate 10, introduced in 2017 features a modern design with a 5.9-inch display, slim bezels and an 18:9 aspect ratio. It also featured a glass back cover. While the HUAWEI Mate 20 had a more striking design with a gradient-coloured glass back cover and a triple-camera setup. It also featured a larger 6.53-inch display with a small waterdrop-style notch.

The next generation, the HUAWEI Mate 30 came with more futuristic design, thanks to the circular camera module on the back cover. It featured a larger display than the HUAWEI Mate 20. The Mate 40 features a more refined version of the HUAWEI Mate 30's design with a more prominent camera module and a larger 6.76-inch display.

Today, the HUAWE Mate 50 Pro, comes with a remarkable classic design. The smartphone radiates charm in every way, with its iconic symmetrical form, and intricate pyramidal Clous de Paris pattern, which draws you in to the sophisticated camera module. The screen is designed with the powerful Kunlun Glass and keeps the screen from breaking and cracking. The Kunlun Glass has the first-ever five-star glass drop resistance certification from Switzerland's SGS, thanks to its overall drop resistance that is boosted by 10 times.

Advanced camera capabilities

The HUAWEI Mate Series has consistently pushed the boundaries of smartphone photography, introducing new technologies and features with each iteration.

In 2017, the HUAWEI Mate 10 came with a dual-camera setup like the Mate 9, but this time with a 12-megapixel RGB sensor and a 20-megapixel monochrome sensor. The front camera was upgraded to an 8-megapixel camera with autofocus. Introduced in 2018, the HUAWEI Mate 20 Series came with triple Leica cameras, making photography more professional. Enter the HUAWEI Mate30 in 2019, this smartphone packs a rear-facing ultra-sensitive Leica movie quad-camera lens that delivered powerful and revolutionary photography and videography capabilities, gradually becoming a choice for many photography enthusiasts.

In 2020 the HUAWEI Mate 40 featured a triple-camera setup with a 50-megapixel main camera, a 20-megapixel ultra-wide-angle lens, and a 12-megapixel telephoto. The front camera was upgraded to a 13-megapixel camera with autofocus.

The latest HUAWEI Mate 50 Pro, launched in 2022 features XMAGE, a new camera system, with an exceptional periscope lens for even better zoom capabilities.  XMAGE is the super-optical variable camera, first introduced with the HUAWEI Mate 50 series. The camera uses XMAGE technology with a variable aperture that can achieve a 10-stop adjustable aperture, making it a technological breakthrough in three optical systems. Thanks to XMAGE, this smartphone brings new colour enhancements that is suitable for various real-time photography scenarios.

Power-saving technologies and an optimized battery life

The HUAWEI Mate Series has seen a consistent improvement in battery technology, with larger battery capacities, faster charging times, and better power management features. The AI-powered battery optimization features in the more recent models have made the battery life even more efficient and user-friendly.

The HUAWEI Mate 10’s inception came with a 4000mAh battery with SuperCharge technology that allowed for fast charging times. It also had improved battery management features, including an AI-powered system that learned user habits to optimize battery life. Following this series was the HUAWEI Mate 20 with even faster charging technology, allowing the phone to be charged up to 70% in just 30 minutes.

On the hand, the HUAWEI Mate 30 and HUAWEI Mate 40 improved its fast-charging technology and its wireless charging capabilities.

The HUAWEI Mate 50 Pro is even more powerful and efficient, with a longer battery life. You can now go for hours with your favourite films and games, thanks to its 4700 mAh large capacity battery,⁠ 66W Wired Multi-channel HUAWEI SuperCharge⁠. The Low-Battery Emergency mode intelligently enables SuperEnergy Boosting when the battery level falls to 1%, ensuring that the remaining power supports 3 hours of use or up to 12-minute call time.

Boosted performance

Lastly, the performance of the HUAWEI Mate Series has advanced and made significant improvements to its user interface. The latest version, EMUI 13, on the HUAWEI Mate50 Pro offers a clean and streamlined design that is easy to navigate. The HUAWEI Mate 50 Series phones are the first to run EMUI 13, which streamlines daily interactions with effortless one-touch navigation. SuperHub allows users to temporarily store images, documents, and text, and share them in batches, with free and easy transfers between apps and devices.

The evolution of Mate Series is the story of smartphone innovation. The Mate Series products are designed with an uncompromising attention to detail and represent HUAWEI’s commitment to serving its users. To check out the latest Mate Series, the HUAWEI Mate50 Pro, visit the HUAWEI online store today.

Bucket Tech: Apple Event 2021

If you're a fanboy of the tech giants based in Cupertino, California, last nights Apple Event did not disappoint with the company launching a host of new devices, one of which was the highly anticipated iPhone 13. So lets jump straight into what the 13 has to offer, just like the previous model the 12, the iPhone 13 comes in four models:

• iPhone 13 mini - $699
• iPhone 13 - $799
• iPhone 13 Pro - $999
• iPhone 13 Pro Max - $1099

Some of the standard out characteristics and features on the 13 mini and normal 13 include five new colours to suit the users style and personality, of which include New Pink, New Blue, New Midnight, New Starlight and New Red which is the show stopper. The device has a ceramic shield, which makes it tougher than any smartphone glass at the moment. Screen sizes on the 13 and 13 mini measure in a 6.1" and 5.4" respectively and are Super Retina XDR display. The new flat-edge design of the devices make it more durable and robust than previous generation phones from the brand and also they are water resistant. Apple redesigned the camera lens architecture on these devices to make the housing of the lens at a similar size to the previous generation but adding a larger lens, this was achieved by arranging the lens in a 45 degree to fin in. This camera system with its biggest Wide camera sensor also includes a sensor-shift optical image stabilization. The Ultra Wide camera also features a faster sensor helping you focus on the subject more quicker than ever. On the video side of things, the camera has a cinematic model which automatically creator beautiful depth effects and focus transitions.

Taking a quick look at the big boys, the Pro and Pro Max, Apply have gone all out with these two, in keeping with the design from the smaller two 13's, the Pro and Pro Max come in four colour variants, namely Sierra Blue, Silver, Gold and Graphite. The Pro and Pro Max are both manufacturer from Surgical-grade stainless steel which can be seen on the side profile of the device, giving it that more elegant and modern feel to it. Both devices also get the Ceramic Shield Apple claim is tougher than any smartphone glass on the market this protects a custom OLED screen that is 25% brighter outdoors. . The Pro and Pro Max are also both IP68 rated, which makes it dust and water resistant. The camera system on the devices have received the biggest upgrade ever, with next-level hardware that captures so much more detail. With this in mind, the Macro photography has been enhanced thanks to its redesigned lens and powerful autofocus system, with the new Ultra Wide camera focusing on a subject at just 2 cm, making even the smallest details seem epic. With the new camera ,they've also highly focused a lot on low light, with the wider aperture and the large sensor, it leverages the LiDAR Scanner for Night mode portraits, additionally the Telephoto camera now benefits from night mode as well, it features a 77mm focal length and 3x optical zoom which Apple say is great for classic portraiture or shooting clearer photos and videos from far away. It also has the Cinematic video feature which can be recorded with the Wide, Telephoto or TruDepth camera. Cinematic mode in the Pro and Pro Max supports Dolby Vision HDR. There's a lot more features to the camera with multiple photographic styles on hand to try and master. They also made it much more easier to edit photos and videos using their own built-in apps and don't worry about storage limitations and as the iPhon3 Pro is the first iPhone with 1TB or storage!

All devices are powered by Apples new A15 chipset which is a 5-core GPU which delivers up to 50% faster graphics performance than any other smartphone chip. The new CPU performance and efficient cores powe through complex tasks and preserve battery life. Overall the GPU is 30% faster than anything else on the market and is capable of running 15.8 trillion operations per second. All iPhone 13 models will be run on iOS 15 which will be available as a free software update from Monday, September 20th for all iOS users. Devices will be available locally from 8th October, local pricing yet to be announced. 

Bucket Tech: Huawei's new EMUI 9.1

Huawei announced last week that it's latest EMUI 9.1 operating system upgrade, which will have multiple benefits for its customers, will now be available for selected Huawei devices from July 2019. Some of the impressive features will include:

1. Enhanced Performance

• GPU Turbo 3.0, which energises your device's gaming performance while reducing lag and power consumption by 10%. This upgrade will also see the number of compatible games increasing from 6 to 25, including the popular games PUBG Mobile, Fortnite and Kings of Glory. 
• EROFS (Extendable Read-Only File System) which improves the reading performance of your device by approximately 20% - up to 63.3MB/s - while also saving more than 2GB system storage. This ensures there's more room on your phone for whats really important!

2. Exciting New Multimedia Options

• Huawei Vlog , which allows you to easily share highlight videos and create and share 10-second videos using Huawei's video editor rather than having to use a third party app. This feature also gives users the opportunity to customise music and special effect settings for Spotlight Reel, Highlights, Portrait, as well s take slow-motion and fast motion videos. 
• Huawei Video Ringtone, where users are able to have more fun with their incoming calls by setting up their favourite video as their default ringtone for their contacts.

3. Smart Functions

• Huawei Share OneHop, where a simple tap from your phone to your Huawei computer can send pictures, videos and documents to your other device in seconds. You can also efficiently copy and paste between devices. 

4. New User Experience

• One Hand Gesture Navigation, which allows for the screen to be resized on command to enable easy reach-ability of tough-to-reach menu buttons during one-handed operation.
• A More intuitive and simplified user interface, with 20% fewer configuration items than EMUI 9.0.

The EMUI 9.1 system upgrade, which is at no cost to Huawei customers is available for the majority of Huawei's latest devices and will be implemented over the next three months. As with all Huawei smart devices, customers will be sent a notification of the pending upgrade which they can then download. Once the device upgrade is activated, they can start enjoying the many enhancements made to their devices. 

Bucket Tech: iPhone6 - First impressions

Disclaimer: I do not belong to any affiliation of mobile device type or make, I own a god damn Blackberry, yes, its 2014 and I still have one, deal with it. I don't hold preference to any brand or OS, I'm just a tech observer, not a guru but I know enough to know what makes a device good or shit.

So if you are on Twitter or follow tech updates on various other channels, you would have known that Apple have launched their new mobile device, the iPhone6, along with an iPhone6 Plus which has a larger screen display. Like most of their other mobile phones, they are available in various memory size, being 16, 64 and 128gig. Whilst most Apple fanboys were, lets us a Netflorist expression here, "creaming their pants" while watching the live stream reveal, most other onlookers didn't seem to phased. Most of the stuff Apple have added to their new flagship device has been on other competitors devices for over the past year and in some cases more than 2 generations of phones!

The phone to me didn't surprise me, there was no "wow factor" and instead of giving specifications of the phone, they kept comparing it to the original iPhone, why?! We don't give a shit about how much better it was to your mp3 player that could make a phone call, we want to compare it to the other market leading devices! Then some of the features of the phone didn't make sense, they still opted to go for an 8 megapixel rear camera which has optical image stabilizer. That's nice, Sony and LG have 13 megapixel rear cameras with that and laser focus. Health App? That trick is old now. Apple Pay, which allows you to make purchases with your phone? Really? Even beep bank invented that before you! Steve must be thrilled... not Jobs. #JustSaying 

Don't get me wrong, its not a crappy phone, it seems pretty much on par with the others that are available on the market, its just not mind blowing like what we've come to expect from Apple. What I do like about Apple is their build qualtity, many of the new Android devices are good but feel like cheap toys from the Chinese bazar. Apple's devices feel like they're worth the money you paid for them and while my only gripe would be the non-removable battery, my hope is that they have improved on the life of it.  iOS8 seems promising and will be released to iPhone5S devices later on this month, sadly there will be no Android crossplatform usage interms of applications. 

Now the phones were not the only devices being launched on the night, as predicted, Apple Watch made its debut. They had to launch such a device seeing that Samsung and now recently LG have one on the market but for me this was the show stopper. Compared to their competitors, the watch kicks ass, besides it looking cooler and available in various styles and wrist bands, the functionality is so much more than seeing who is calling or previewing incoming messages and emails. It makes use of a digital crown which uses technology simlar to that of the track wheel from the original iPod to navigate around and select apps. It makes use of a force touch command to enable user preferences and theres a host of other things that it does all this and tell you the time.

You got to give it to them though, even though they've lost the creative guru that was Steve Jobs, their brand still holds great value and the hype around any of their events is nothing short of news stopping. So I honestly don't think they are in a state of demise as other people might be saying but of course when it comes to things Apple, it would be different and expensive... very expensive. It's almost like they want to have this false sense of exclusivity.

Which brings me to my next point, they still remain in their own "clique", which allows intergration with only their devices with the help of blody iTunes, down the line  this would end up being a pain in the ass. In this day and age with various mobile ecosystems, it will be hard for every user to have a preference. In a basic house hold everyone would have their own taste when it comes to these things but streamless sharing and connectivity may prove to be a problem if companies like Apple continue this way in the future. Sure, their brand was once highly regarding as the forefront of innovations but what they must come to realise now that others are beating them in that race now so its time, not to concede defeat but rather join the party.