Latest Tech News

The Stratos 3 is a round-faced smartwatch packed with sports modes and also with a dual chipset/OS system that may help it conserve battery life. It also has a display optimized for visibility in sunlight. This wearable is also now to be sold in India, having just appeared on the retail platform Flipkart ahead of its (as-yet unknown) release date.

Google has started the Android 11 beta program. This initial preview ROM should contain changes such as notification bubbles, enhanced permission controls and wireless ADB debugging. It is compatible with newer Pixel-series devices, although other OEMs have announced some of their phones will also get this beta soon.

Alleged promotional posters of the Xiaomi Mi Mix 4 have found their way online and if accurate it appears the Mi Mix 4 could end up being the champion smartphone of 2020. The Huawei P40 killer will apparently feature a Snapdragon 875 SoC, 150 MP main camera, 2K screen resolution, and a gorgeous design that is reminiscent of the Mi Mix Alpha concept.

Following the launch of the Mi Band 5 earlier today, Xiaomi is expected to unveil two other products soon. The first will be a 165 Hz gaming monitor, while the second will be the Mi Power Bank 3, a 30,000 mAh behemoth that succeeds the Mi Power Bank 2i.

Asus is currently said to introduce its third-gen ROG Phone in or around early July 2020. A new leak suggests this event may fall sooner in this time-frame rather than later. It concerns a new document that indicates the mobile-gaming device has been approved for sale in Russia.

Xiaomi has revealed the official name for the global variant of the just-launched Mi Band 5: Mi Smart Band 5. According to the Chinese OEM, the Xiaomi Mi Smart Band 5 will start arriving in foreign markets next month. Unboxing and hands-on videos of the Chinese Mi Band 5 variant have started appearing on YouTube.

Xiaomi has launched its fourth security camera, the Mi Smart Camera PTZ SE. The smart camera has a 110° field of view and can record in 1080p. The camera supports up to 32 GB microSD cards, H.265 encoding and can rotate 360° horizontally. The Xiaomi Mi Smart Camera PTZ SE retails for CNY 149 (~US$21).

An alleged Qualcomm Snapdragon 865 Plus SoC has been spotted on AnTuTu apparently destroying all the high scores set by its Snapdragon 865 stablemate. While the latter processor has managed scores around 600,000 points with devices like the OPPO Find X2 smartphones, the purported Plus variant cruised to well over 660,000 points.

HMD Global will not be announcing the Nokia 6.3, Nokia 7.3 or Nokia 9.3 PureView until Q4 2020, Nokiapoweruser has learned. The three devices were originally slated for a Q3 2020 release, with the COVID19 pandemic being cited for the delay.

Rumour has it that Microsoft could well be planning to use AMD Ryzen APUs for a new Surface product. Codenamed Pollock, the APUs will be low-powered chips. Commits have suggested that Pollock APUs bear resemblances to AMD's Dali architecture.

A new leaked has confirmed the design of the HTC Desire 20 Pro. Published by Evan Blass, the leak is seemingly of a hands-on with the device. The HTC Desire 20 Pro appears to have a carbon-fibre finish, along with four rear-facing cameras, a punch-hole display and a rear-facing fingerprint scanner.

The PineTab will begin shipping next month, PINE64 has confirmed. Priced at US$99.99 for the tablet or US$119.99 for the keyboard bundle, the detachable 2-in-1 tablet is available to pre-order now.

Some of the world's biggest tech companies have recently returned positive gains as stock markets in general start to rebound from the effects of Covid-19. However, Apple and Microsoft were the biggest winners this week, as their market caps now exceed half a trillion US dollars. They are also the first firms to do so in history.

New versions of the Acer Nitro 5 gaming laptops are now available for purchase in India. They are all powered by 10th-generation Intel Comet Lake processors. Choices of CPUs include the Core i5-10300H and Core i7-10750H. On the GPU side of things, one can pick an NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650, GTX 1650TI or RTX 2060. Prices start at INR 72,990($962), and the laptops are available for purchase on Acer's official website.

Colors! Live is arriving on the Nintendo Switch, and with a pressure-sensitive pen. The Kickstarter campaign has already garnered over US$200,000 in funding, while its creator hopes to ship orders to backers in August.

The TTGO T-Internet is a new and versatile developer board that Lilygo has based on an ESP32-WROVER-B module. The single-board computer supports PoE, Bluetooth 5.1, Ethernet and Wi-Fi.

Xiaomi has launched the Mi Band 5. The new fitness tracker not only features a larger display than its predecessor, but also supports other new features like magnetic charging and contactless payments. The Mi Band 5 starts at CNY 189 (~US$26.77) and comes with a choice of eight bands.

A Sony Authorized Dealer has confirmed that the WH-1000XM4 will retail for US$349.99, whenever Sony gets around to announcing its next-generation headphones. The WH-1000XM4 will be sold in black and silver too, just like the WH-1000XM3.

Xiaomi has launched a wide range of affordable laptops for the Indian market. The Mi Notebook 14 is restricted to the 10th-generation Intel Core i5-10210U CPU, while the Mi Notebook 14 Horizon Edition allows users to upgrade that to an Intel Core i7-10510U. Prices start at INR 41,999 ($555) for the base variant and max out at INR 57,999 ($765). Both notebooks will be available for purchase on June 17th on Xiaomi's website.

Asus has added BIOS Support for Renoir desktop processors. AMD is thought to have developed up to twelve APUs that have either 35 W or 65 W TDPs. The Ryzen 5 4400G has been spotted on 3DMark too, confirming several specifications about the 65 W APU.

Opinion Public opinion leans towards the Pixel 3a and 3a XL being Google's most successful phones yet but do the numbers agree? Well, mostly, but it may not be as impressive as most assume. Herein lies an attempt to figure out how many Google Pixel 3a phones the company sold since the debut of the Pixel 3a and 3a XL last year.

It's one of the least expensive 15.6-inch laptops you can find with an Intel Ice Lake CPU. It's no Dell XPS, but it gets the job done if all you need is a 2020 machine for surfing, emailing, and streaming.

Surprisingly, battery life on the Core i7 GeForce option is almost the same as on the Core i5 iGPU option. The $1000 surcharge brings significantly faster graphics performance at the cost of running both louder and warmer in the process.

The affordable smart TV sector is about to get much more competitive now it seems OPPO will be joining OnePlus by offering its own entry-level televisions. The two OEMs will be taking on strong rivals with products such as the Realme Smart TV, Redmi Smart TV X55, and the Xiaomi Mi TV lineup, in markets like China and India.

TCL has released details on a new event that will introduce some more of its TVs to India. The webpage for this launch's live-stream makes it quite apparent that they will be QLED in nature. Accordingly, the OEM may be going for the higher end of this market with this debut.

Listings for the PS5 console have appeared on the pages of Amazon UK. The next-gen hardware was apparently priced at £599.99 (US$764). More surprisingly, this was the same listed price for both a 1 TB and 2 TB variant of the upcoming PlayStation 5 device. A whole host of PS5 games were also listed on the same website.

The Red Magic 5G is the 2020 generation of this gaming phone series. Its most powerful 16GB RAM SKU is finally available to pre-order via the Chinese platform JD.com. It also has a new, "Transparent" rear panel, which may appeal to fans of teardown videos.

After going through the website's rigorous camera tests—and performing impressively—the OnePlus 8 Pro has now also been subjected to DxOMark's audio tests. It is, at the very least, competitive, as it compares nicely to other flagships like the S20+ and Pixel 4.

Xiaomi has announced a new affordable Wi-Fi 6 router in the form of the Redmi AX5. The device has been given a price tag of 229 yuan (US$32) and can be pre-ordered internationally for US$55.99. The Xiaomi Redmi AX5 Wi-Fi 6 router features a Qualcomm chipset and can deliver speeds of up to 1,775 Mb/s.

The BTS Edition of the Samsung Galaxy S20+ is headed to Europe. Leaked earlier this week by Evan Blass, the special edition model comes with 128 GB of storage and in a fetching purple hue. There are plenty of cues that you are part of BTS' ARMY, too.

Samsung will start shipping the Intel Lakefield version of the Galaxy Book S from next month. Powered by a Core i5-L16G7 processor, the x86-based machine will be available in two colours and up to 512 GB of storage.

Acer's latest 14-inch laptop features the AMD Ryzen 7 4700U processor, and boy does it do a job over the Intel competition. The same can be said for GPU performance, with the Radeon RX Vega 7 reaching almost NVIDIA GeForce MX250 levels. The Renoir architecture does not sacrifice battery life for performance, either. There is one downside to the Acer Swift 3 SF314-42, although this is outweighed by the device's many positive aspects.

An alleged Xiaomi Mi Band 5 price for the domestic market has found its way online. According to a post on Weibo, which includes a screenshot of the source, the much-anticipated wearable will cost just 189 yuan (US$27) for customers in China. The Mi Band 5 will be officially revealed on June 11 and will go on sale on June 18.

The Lemfo NY12 is a budget smartwatch that features not only IP certification, but also heart rate and blood pressure monitoring. The Lemfo NY12 is available in two colours and with a choice of four watch straps.

A new alternative to the Raspberry Pi has been presented. Called the Kimχ Micro, the Raspberry Pi Zero-sized micro SBC has a quad-core processor and a mPCIe slot for adding PCIe cards.

Apple promised that WWDC 2020 would be big, and the latest set of rumours suggest that this year's conference will not disappoint in that regard. An ARM-powered MacBook and an iPad Pro-inspired iMac may be joined by Air Tags and the AirPods Studio, too.

Surprise: The Lenovo ThinkPad E14 with AMD CPUs will support dual-channel RAM after all, as Lenovo adds additional soldered RAM to the ThinkPad E14 Gen 2. Also, the new model has a backlit keyboard & a second SSD slot instead of the 2.5 inch HDD bay.

Prolific leaker Digital Chat Station states that Xiaomi will release five Qualcomm Snapdragon 865-powered smartphones in the coming months. The phones are codenamed J20, J21, J1, J1S, and J1T, two of which could be Redmi devices. The leaker further adds that the phone codenamed J1S is already in the production line.

Intel has finally detailed the Lakefield family of processors based on the Foveros 3D packaging tech. The current Lakefield lineup includes the Core i3-L13G4 and the Core i5-L16G7, which are 7 W penta-core parts featuring a 10nm Sunny Cove and four 10nm Tremont cores. Intel Lakefield is available in the Samsung Galaxy Book S and will also power the upcoming Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Fold and the Microsoft Surface Neo.

Android 10 has started rolling out to Moto G7 Power handsets in Brazil. Motorola later confirmed the update schedule, saying that the update would come to Brazil first before arriving in other regions. The company also confirmed that it is working on updating the Moto G7 Play to Android 10, though it did not give a concrete date for the update.

Samsung first used ultra-thin tempered glass (or UTG) in the Galaxy Z Flip, which was supplied to it by the German company Schott. Now, a Korean media outlet claims the OEM has turned to Corning instead for analogous flexible protection that is to be incorporated in its true next-gen smartphone/tablet flagship, the Fold 2.

Xiaomi Spain has officially listed the Redmi 9 on its website ahead of the phone's June 25 release. The phone will feature a MediaTek Helio G80 SoC coupled with 3/4GB of RAM, 32/46GB of internal storage, a quad-camera setup, a 6.5-inch FHD+ screen, and a 5,000mAh battery that supports charging at up to 18W. It will retail for €149($169) in Spain.

Huawei has launched the MatePad T8, its latest budget tablet. Sold as the MatePad C3 in other countries, the MatePad T8 is an 8-inch tablet with 2 GB of RAM, up to 32 GB of storage and a 5,100 mAh battery. The device is available for £99.99.

Dell Canada has launched the WH-1000XM4, confirming a June 23 release date. The retailer has confirmed that Sony's next-generation headphones will not support the aptX or aptX HD Bluetooth codecs. Additionally, Sony has made no battery life improvements from the WH-1000XM3 and continues to use its last-generation QN1 noise-cancelling processor.

HTC has yet to be heard of in the context of new phones in 2020. However, the OEM has just confirmed that it will change this with an upcoming June event. According to recent rumors, the devices to be launched may be called the Desire 20 series, one of which could also be 5G.

Intel has undoubtedly had more than its fair share of chipset security issues over the past couple of years. However, the end to the company’s security woes doesn’t yet seem to be in sight after yet another vulnerability has been discovered, this time deep in its silicon’s built-in security measures.

The highly-anticipated One UI 2.1 update is finally making its way to Galaxy Note 9 users in Germany. It brings forth all the key features such as Single Take Mode, Pro Video Mode, Quick Share, and Music Share. The software will be available globally in the coming days.

Danish high-end audio maker Bang & Olufsen has announced a partnership with Microsoft for the launch of the Xbox Series X console. Although not yet specifying exactly what it will produce as a result of the new deal, the company promises a ‘new audio proposition catered for the high-end segment within gaming”.

LG has released a 4G model of its Velvet smartphone. Featuring a Qualcomm Snapdragon 845 chipset, the device appears to be receiving an international release and will apparently retail for 20% less than its 5G sibling. Three new colour variants have joined the LG Velvet roster too, with Aurora Blue, Aurora Pink and Aurora Red now available to order now too.

Reports from a few weeks ago claimed that Samsung would finally ditch OLED's made by Samsung Display in favor of ones supplied by Chinese manufacturer BOE. That plan may now be dead in the water, however, as new information claims BOE's OLEDs failed to pass Samsung's quality tests.