The Galaxy Note Edge and its cool curved screen is out on November 14

The Galaxy Note Edge is one of the most exciting phones we’ve seen this year. Its spec sheet closely resembles the Galaxy Note 4, but it comes with an always-on curved screen section down the right-hand side, spilling the display over the edge of the phone. It incorporates shortcuts, handy tools, and a notification bar. It
also means the Note Edge looks like no other phone on the market.

Updated on 11-03-2014 by Andy Boxall: Added in confirmation of the Note Edge’s release in America, plus details on its price and availability.

The unusual Note Edge is now ready to go on sale in America, and you’ll be able to buy it on November 14. Best of all, it’ll be sold through Samsung’s own stores in Best Buy, plus on the AT&T, Sprint, Verizon, T-Mobile, and U.S. Cellular networks. The Galaxy Note Edge was revealed in September, and initially thought to only get a limited release.

AT&T has confirmed it’ll be putting the phone up for pre-order on November 7, and that it’ll cost you $400 with a two-year contract. It’s not cheap, but you’re getting a phone that’s unlike anything else on the market. You could select an AT&T Next option instead. The Next 12 plan is $27.50 per month, or it’s $22.92 on Next 18.

If you’d prefer to buy the phone through Sprint, there’s no down payment with the network’s Easy Pay plan, provided you sign up to pay $35 per month for two years. It’s also quick to point out the Note Edge qualifies for its $60 per month unlimited plan.

T-Mobile and Verizon have both put up a pre-registration pages for the Note Edge, but haven’t published any pricing details yet. It’s all quiet over at U.S. Cellular, but expect details to be made public before November 14.
Hints of the Note Edge’s arrival spread from Japan

Japanese network NTT DoCoMo released its winter 2014 schedule showing which new smartphones would be sold over the coming months, and the most exciting addition to the catalog was Samsung’s Galaxy Note Edge. Proudly displayed on the DoCoMo website, the launch date was somewhere between late October and mid-November, depending on the color you choose.

Prior to this a report from Korea indicated Samsung would struggle to produce enough Galaxy Note Edge devices for a major launch, and that the phone would be a limited edition, perhaps only with a local release. This was also the impression given when the phone was revealed during the IFA show at the beginning of the month, and Samsung employed the same limited run strategy with the curved Galaxy Round.

UK online retailer Clove Technology stated the Edge wouldn’t be receiving much of a European release, and Samsung has said the device will get a release in Canada, after its U.S. launch. Samsung’s U.S. web portal has a promo page up for the Note Edge, ready for its arrival.

Scared of breaking your phone? Samsung offers an extended warranty program — for a price

No matter how well we take care of our smartphones, accidents still happen. While your brand new smartphone may come with a warranty, reading the fine print reveals that accidental damage is not covered. Even though there are multiple phone insurance services out there, including ones from your carrier, Samsung brought a new option to the table with its Protection Plus Mobile Elite extended warranty program.

The program covers all kinds of accidental damage, which can include drops, spills, and cracked screens. It also covers any electrical and mechanical failures, as well as other issues that might crop up. Samsung guarantees that if you break your device, it will be replaced in two business days or less. You can even file up to three claims over the two-year period.

However, the price of the extended warranty program could make people pause — it isn’t exactly cheap. For Galaxy S users, the program costs $100, while Galaxy Note users will have to cough up $130. In addition, you’ll need to pay a service fee of $75 or $95, respectively.

Currently, the extended warranty program is only available for the Galaxy Note 4, Galaxy Note 3, Galaxy S5, and Galaxy S4. If you decide to pay for the program, you’ll have to wait 15 days for the warranty to go into effect. Make sure you don’t break your phone before then.

There are officially more mobile devices than people in the world

If data from the GSMA, which represents the global mobile phone industry, is correct, there is a very good chance there are now more mobile phones in the world than people. At the time of writing, the GSMA’s real-time tracker is about to reach 7.230 billion mobile connections, while the United States Census has the worldwide population at
7.197 billion.

While this astonishing statistic highlights the impact mobile telephony has had on the globe, it doesn’t tell the whole story. The GSMA measures the amount of mobile connections, and although we can assume most of those are attached to a single mobile device, dual-SIM (and even triple-SIM) devices are popular in many developing markets.

We should also take into account that anything from a tablet to a smartwatch, and even some portable games consoles have a SIM slot today, and may be responsible for a percentage of these connections. The data is also confusing, because it’s not one mobile phone for every person on the planet. It’s estimated half of the population doesn’t own a phone.

These things aside, it’s proof we adore our phones.

The dramatic rise of the mobile phone has impacted fixed line telephones around the world. Research shows that in the U.S., fixed subscriptions peaked in 2005, and numbers have been dropping since. In the same report, it’s shown that in Africa out of 100 people, only 1.4 have a fixed phone line, while there are 63 mobile connections for every 100 people.

There’s little sign our love of the mobile phone will decrease in the same way anytime soon. According to IDC, in the three months leading up to the summer in 2014, 301 million smartphones were shipped, breaking all previous records, and crossing the 300 million mark for the first time.