Latest Tech News

Realme has recently confirmed that its next flagship smartphone will be called the GT and will launch on March 3, 2021. Now, one of its executives has posted what is claimed as an AnTuTu benchmarking score for the device. It apparently shows that the GT's Snapdragon 888 SoC has boosted it just past the 770,000 mark in this test.

A Chinese news site claims that Huawei plans to make not much more than 80 million phones in 2021, as opposed to the ~189 million units it shipped in 2020. Meanwhile, other reports suggest it will also cut the P50 series' supply, and also possibly delay their unveiling until later in the year than usual.

ZTE's CEO, Ni Fei, has confirmed that his company will bring the next generation of its under-display camera to the upcoming MWC Shanghai event. This technology, which features in the OEM's Axon 20 5G, enables a selfie shooter to completely conceal itself underneath the display. Its upgraded form might allow for enhanced functionality, Face Unlock included.

Rollme has just launched the Hero, its latest smartwatch with a completely bezel-free display. This is joined by a nano-SIM card slot for 4G/LTE connectivity in this wearable, not to mention up to 4GB of RAM and 64GB of internal storage. Not only that, but it boasts an unusually large 1,600mAh battery rated for up to 10 days on power-save mode.

After sending out the Android 11 update to phones like the Mi Note 10 Lite, Mi 10 Lite, and Mi 10T series, Xiaomi is now seeding the stable beta update to the ever-relevant Redmi Note 8, albeit only in China at the moment. The update should be expanded to other regions in the coming weeks, though.

Nubia has asserted that its upcoming RedMagic 6 gaming flagship phones will "race ahead" in 2021. To this end, it has just pre-empted Asus' ROG Phone 5 by announcing that this new series will debut on March 4, 2021 - right after Asus set its own event for March 10. The first launch is expected to usher in Snapdragon 888-powered devices with improved cooling, Tencent branding and up to 120W charging.

An IGN report indicates that Indian PlayStation 5 fans, already dealing with a US$700 MSRP are actively working to shut down scalpers, both by pressuring Sony and by reporting and initiating takedowns of scalper listings on eCommerce sites.

Pictures of the packaging for the upcoming Intel Core i9 members of the Rocket Lake-S series have leaked online. While some of the top-end parts get typically blue boxes in Intel’s updated livery, the speedy i9-11900K gets unusual packaging that has led some to comment that AMD and Ryzen 5000 has already crushed it.

An Intel Core i9-11900KF processor from the Rocket Lake series has been spotted on Geekbench, where it managed a maximum frequency over 5 GHz. However, despite its fast clock rate, the single-core performance result left the i9-11900KF in the same vicinity as the AMD Ryzen 7 5800X and Ryzen 9 5900X. The Zen 3 Vermeer CPUs are lengths ahead in multi-core benchmarking, though.

Samsung will be refreshing its Galaxy Book lineup this May. The upcoming Galaxy Book lineup will include a 11th gen Tiger Lake processor-powered Galaxy Book Pro and a new Snapdragon 8cx Gen X-powered Galaxy Book Go. The leaked slides indicate up to a 10% faster CPU and a 40% faster GPU performance for the Gen X chip over the original Snapdragon 8cx.

Just because GeForce RTX 30 laptops are available doesn't mean older RTX 20 models are suddenly useless. Users in the market for a new gaming laptop ought to keep an eye out for the inevitable sales on last year's top GeForce RTX 20 sellers.

Improvements over Gen 5 include 40% smaller dies, reduced production costs, 70% more bits per wafer, improved write speeds by 2.4X and lower read latency by 10%, plus increased I/O speeds by 66%. The first SSDs to use these new chips are expected to launch in Q1 2022.

Realme has announced that its second-gen Buds Air will launch in India on February 24, 2021. It has also confirmed multiple leaks about these TWS earbuds in teasing their specs prior to this event. They include the (expected) ANC, as well as the fact that they will have 10mm "Diamond class" drivers, improved battery life and a low-latency Gaming Mode.

Koei Tecmo’s Souls-like finally received some PC love with the addition of DLSS 2.0 support. While cards like the GeForce RTX 3080 were already capable of hitting 4K/60, DLSS 2.0 opens up that possibility to a wider range of RTX cards.

Xiaomi has confirmed that it will announce the Redmi K40 series on February 25. Ahead of next week's launch, Xiaomi has teased multiple details about its upcoming 'double flagships', thought to be the Redmi K40 and Redmi K40 Pro. One teaser may have revealed the front of at least the Redmi K40, too.

Microsoft's FPS Boost for Xbox Series S and Xbox Series X consoles uses Direct3D-level adjustments to deliver improved framerates, according to a new report. Digital Foundry has also shown that FPS Boost can improve framerates by up to 4x in some cases, with the Xbox Series consoles able to maintain these higher framerates consistently, too.

While NVIDIA has announced plans to scupper the crypto mining capabilities of the RTX 3060, multiple sources are claiming that the company will extend this to the rest of its RTX 30 series product stack. Apparently, NVIDIA may do so be releasing new RTX 30 series SKUs and discontinuing current ones.

Having just confirmed that its flagship Android gaming phone would skip the 4 moniker and proceed directly to 5 in 2021, Asus has now made its debut official. It is to be unveiled on March 10, 2021, as is made very obvious with the timer now maintained on its website. The event to start when it runs down is expected to introduce a Snapdragon 888-powered device with up to 16GB of RAM and an active rear-facing LED display.

OPPO has reportedly finally obtained a certification for the Find X3 (or PEDM00) from the Chinese authorities, suggesting a launch announcement for its flagship series will follow shortly. Its new TENAA images show a phone quite like X3 Pro leaks to date, although it might have a different rear panel and camera arrangement.

The smartphone OEM Vivo has made its brand-new Romanian and Czech websites live, and has announced that it will also start to offer its products in 4 more European countries by the end of 2021. This would make the total number of countries from this region in which Vivo sells its products up to 12, which may thus get access to its flagship X60 series this year.

The GSMA has announced that it is currently considering running its flagship conference live and in Barcelona once again, albeit with up to 50,000 in-person attendees. Meanwhile, its Chinese counterpart, MWC Shanghai, is slated to begin on February 23, 2021 with 20,000 such attendees and in accordance with anti-Covid-19 health checks. Its success may determine whether MWC 2021 will return to something like "normality" this year.

iFixit has attributed DualSense drift to multiple hardware shortcomings with Sony's latest controller, ruling out software as a culprit. Apparently, little can be done to rectify the problem, short of Sony redesigning the DualSense.

Intel's upcoming Core i5-11600K Rocket Lake-S CPU just showed up on Geekbench. Its single and multi-core scores of 1,565 and 6,220 might seem a tad disappointing compared to the AMD Ryzen 5 5600X, but we can attribute it to the test bench running slow RAM clocked at 2,133MHz.

A new leak from Twitter has shed some light on several OnePlus 9 specs. The smartphone will feature a 6.5-inch FHD+ screen clocked at 120Hz, a 4,500mAh battery, 48MP and 12MP camera sensors and more. It is also expected to support 65W fast charging and 8K 30 FPS video recording.

Latest rumors claim that AMD is preparing a March 18 launch for the RX 6700 XT mid-range gaming cards, even though Team Red is among the companies that have been hit the hardest by the global semiconductor shortages. This will most likely be another rushed paper launch to counter Nvidia's RTX 3060 release.

Sony is expected to unveil the Xperia 1 III soon, but CAD renders have already shown what the upcoming flagship will probably look like. Now, LetsGoDigital and Concept Creator have collaborated to create detailed models, which could be mistaken for the real thing.

Lenovo has announced the 2021 Yoga 5G laptop that will operate on the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8cx Gen 2 compute platform. A few initial specs have been offered up in regard to this upcoming second-generation Snapdragon-powered Lenovo Yoga 5G convertible laptop, including that it will feature a 60 Wh battery.

Google SVP Hiroshi Lockheimer has tweeted his excitement at the Chrome OS and Chromebook pipeline for 2021. It comes in the context of an IDC report showing that Chrome OS device sales surpassed macOS device sales in 2020 for the first time.

New Redmi Note 10 teasers have claimed that the upcoming potential midrange smartphone champion will have a display that is as bright as the screen of the iPhone 12 Pro and certainly way beyond that of the Redmi Note 9. The teasers have sparked renewed speculation that the Redmi Note 10 will feature an OLED screen instead of an LCD like its predecessor.

Call of Duty 2021 may possibly be based in a World War 2 setting, according to rumors. The new installment is being developed by Sledgehammer Games, which was also responsible for Call of Duty: WWII in 2017.

The ZTE Axon 20 5G smartphone’s under-display front camera has been found deeply wanting in DXOMARK’s rigorous photo and video tests. The Axon 20’s final selfie camera ranking leaves it 78 points behind the Huawei Mate 40 Pro and second from the bottom overall. The under-display camera had issues with high noise and color fidelity.

The model was quite expensive at launch, but the new sale price is much more reasonable. Users will love the OLED touchscreen, squarer aspect ratio, port features, and overall portability of the system when compared to the competing XPS or ZenBook series.

Fi is Google's own MVNO that offers phones such as the Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra and (naturally) the Pixel 5. Its latest phones are from Motorola, however. The 6.7-inch, Snapdragon 750G-powered and 5,000mAh One 5G Ace is now up to US$120 off its retail price through Google Fi. It is joined by the 2021 Moto G Power and Moto G Play on the network.

A Weibo-based tipster has posted what is claimed as an official Huawei poster for the impending Mate X2 flagship foldable device. This phablet has long been rumored to ditch its predecessor's form-factor, in which its flexible screen is on its outer surface, for a more book-like effect similar to that developed by Samsung. The new leak appears to support this idea.

It turns out that ZOTAC has been selling both its RTX 3060 cards before NVIDIA's release embargo on February 25. Now, the ZOTAC GeForce RTX 3060 Twin Edge OC Edition has popped up in a video about mining Ethereum. However, it seems that the RTX 3060 can tell that it is mining cryptocurrencies even without software drivers being installed, which points to NVIDIA having baked something within the BIOS, not just its drivers.

OPPO is slated to launch its 2021 flagship Find X3 smartphone series, in accordance with a slew of leaks that have proceeded in the mystifying absence of a vanilla variant. However, it may have just emerged in a recent tip that suggests it will have the Snapdragon 870 processor rather than the 888. New Geekbench listings appear to confirm this.

Sennheiser has announced that it wants to leave the consumer headphone and speaker markets, and has put its corresponding division up for sale. In the future, Sennheiser wants to focus on professional products going forwards.

The Asus ROG Phone has arguably been the benchmark for Android gaming-focused powerhouses since the debut of its series in 2018. Therefore, it will see its fourth generation in 2021. Despite this, the OEM has confirmed rumors that it will be called the 5 rather than the 4.

Fans of open-world FPS titles will be pleased to know that Avalanche Studios and id Software-developed Rage 2 is free on the Epic Games Store. It can be redeemed before February 25 and will be yours to keep forever.

AMD and NVIDIA may have new 8 GB cards on the way, albeit versions of ones that they have already released. For one reason or another, an NVIDIA board partner has registered an RTX 3060 with 8 GB of VRAM with the RRA in South Korea, while a retailer claims that people can pre-order desktop PCs with an 8 GB version of the RX 6800.

The next Galaxy Z Fold is very likely to a reworked inner display, according to a renowned leaker. Reportedly, Samsung plans to ditch the punch-hole camera from last year's Galaxy Z Fold2, which was an improvement on the Galaxy Fold's notch, itself.

Multiple details about two new Samsung tablets have leaked, both of which are Lite models of versions that the company released last year. Not only does the leak confirm multiple specifications about the Tab A7 Lite and Tab S7 Lite, but it also confirms their release dates and offers a look at marketing renders.

A new leak from Max Jambor says that the OnePlus 9 Pro will come with an LTPO display. Therefore, its 1440p 120Hz AMOLED screen could likely support dynamic refresh-rate adjustment. There is no word about the OnePlus 9 series release date just yet.

Nvidia has announced in an official blog post that the upcoming GeForce RTX 3060 graphics cards will feature drivers that limit the GPU’s performance if the board is used for crypto mining. At the same time, Team Green has also revealed the CMP HX processors that are specifically designed for digging up digital coins.

Realme is all set to launch its new flagship smartphone, the Realme GT, in China on March 4, 2021. Some of its expected specifications include a Qualcomm Snapdragon 888, support for 120W fast charging and a 160Hz AMOLED screen.

Samsung has started the roll-out of the One UI 3.1 update for the Galaxy S20 phones, Galaxy Note20 devices, and the Galaxy Z range. While these Samsung Galaxy smartphones will receive many of the features Samsung One UI 3.1 has to offer, there will be no support for Google Discover, which is available on the Galaxy S21 series.

We recently tested the Aorus 15G XC. The gaming laptop has been updated from an RTX 2070 to a new RTX 3070. In exchange, the manufacturer seems to have made a surprising number of cuts and removed a number of the predecessor's popular features.

The new Z series is only available in Japan for the time being and features three variants. The more affordable one includes an FHD display and the Core i5-11300H CPU, plus a 53 Wh battery that may last up to 34 h. VAIO also supplies more expensive variants with Core i7-11370H and i7-11375H CPUs that get FHD as well as 4K display options. Battery on the 4K display variants may last up to 17 h. All models come with light carbon fiber chassis that weigh around 1 Kg.

According to a new report, Apple will announce at least three new products at its next hardware event. Supposedly scheduled for March 16, the event is expected to showcase the iPad mini 6, AirTags and a 2021 refresh of the iPad Pro series. The 12.9-inch version of the latter should have some impressive hardware upgrades too, including a new SoC that will rival the Apple M1.

Apple M1-native malware has been discovered by an independent macOS security researcher. The GoSearch22 Safari browser extension, which is linked to the infamous Pirrit adware family, can run on any M1 silicon-based device, such as the late 2020 models of the MacBook Air, MacBook Pro, and Mac Mini.