Samsung Introduces New Phones, Samsung Pay and Periscope Competitor

Samsung is now promising it has the best mobile payments and live-streaming capabilities.

Roughly a month before Apple is expected to introduce its latest version of the iPhone, Samsung on Thursday morning announced its two latest phones -- or phablets -- the Galaxy Note 5 and the Galaxy S6 Edge+.

Samsung used the Thursday event to announce Samsung Pay, its entree into the mobile payments space, and Live Broadcast, its play on the live-stream craze.

Samsung positions the Note as a more business-oriented product while the Edge+, executives said Thursday, is an "entertainment powerhouse" for those who favor video and photos, among other things.

Both phones have 5.7-inch displays, four gigabytes of RAM and run on Google's Android 5.1 operating system. The camera is largely the same as the one in the S6, but this time Samsung is pitching its camera as a way to get into the live-streaming world that the likes of Periscopeand Meerkat have been dominating.

Samsung's new live-streaming capability, Live Broadcast, is being positioned as is easier to use than competing services because it requires no additional app download. Instead, people can just start a live YouTube broadcast by accessing the camera app, executives said at the event.

Samsung's been investing in its cameras lately. In March when it introduced the Galaxy S6 and S6 Edge, many for the first time consider the cameras comparable to Apple's.

The company is also now getting into the mobile payments space with the launch of Samsung Pay. Much has been said of the hurdles of wide implementation of mobile payments, namely that not all retailers are set up to handle the requisite near-field communications, or NFC, and even if they are, there's been talk of hiccups that make payment a hassle.

Samsung Pay partners include American Express, Visa, MasterCard, Bank of America and U.S. Bank, the company said.

The phones will be available Aug. 21 with preorders starting today.