Latest Tech News

The Fairphone 3 can now be purchased without any Google services or apps pre-installed, courtesy of the /e/ Foundation. This version of the Fairphone 3 is currently only available in Europe for €479.90.

Lenovo recently launched the affordable IdeaPad 5 with Ryzen 4000 processors, and now it has done the same with the IdeaPad 3. Available in 14-inch and 15.6-inch variants with up to a Ryzen 7 4700U, the new IdeaPad 3 series starts at €369.00 (~US$400).

An XDA contributor claims to have "exclusive" access to info on Realme's 2nd-gen wearable. This product will apparently simply be called the brand's Watch, as with other OEM's answer to Apple's device of this category. The new leak apparently consists of renders and several UI snapshots.

In a surprisingly open interview Ren Zhengfei, the CEO of Huawei, has conceded that HarmonyOS will not be overtaking its US competitors for the foreseeable future. Zhengfei does not want to give up working with the US partners, either.

Having received almost US$450,000 in crowdfunding, castAway has expanded from a case with a second screen to a platform of accessories. Featuring a gamepad, a wallet a wireless charger and more, the castAway accessories can give almost any smartphone an upgrade.

45 W Renoir processors are heading to this year's HP OMEN 15, as are multiple NVIDIA GPUs and a complete redesign. Sporting up to a Ryzen 7 4800H and RTX 2060, the HP OMEN 15-en0xxx may give the Zephyrus G14 a run for its money.

Chinese sources report that Samsung has finished development for the 150 MP sensors and started work on the 250 MP ones. The first 150 Mp sensors are expected to launch with Xiaomi's flagship handhelds later this year, while the 250 MP sensor could arrive in late 2021.

Samsung’s Galaxy S20 Ultra was expected to be the Android enthusiast’s smartphone of choice in 2020, however, things don’t appear to be going too well for the high-end handset. Following reports of a range of issues plaguing the flagship handset in the past couple of weeks, a new report indicates cracked rear camera glass is now also emerging as a possible issue.

An Italian retailer has provided a new placeholder price for the PlayStation 5, and at €450 (US$488) it seems to be one of the more sensible estimates made lately for the next-gen console. The same source has provided a potential launch date while a games reporter has offered up yet another PS5 reveal date. New spurious reveal event rumors haven’t fully convinced skeptical fans.

With Google I/O 2020 canceled entirely, there was some uncertainty around the Google Pixel 4a series' release date. Internal documents sourced from Vodafone Germany indicate that Google's upcoming Pixel 4a will hit the shelves on May 22nd. General availability could vary a little, depending on your location.

A Strategy Analytics report indicates that Huawei and Samsung together account for a tremendous 67.6 percent share in the market for 5G smartphones. Vivo, Oppo, and Xiaomi trail far behind. However, with Apple set to launch its own 5G iPhones later this year, things could change.

Samsung recently filed trademarks for the Galaxy Buds X in India, the UK, and the European Union. The trademark filing comes just a month after leaked renders for a new, bean-shaped Buds SKU popped up, indicating that the Galaxy Buds X are likely Samsung's next contender in the TWS space.

A report by China Times indicates that Asus, MSI, and Gigabyte-leading Taiwanese OEMs-are all trying to clear their inventory of NVIDIA GeForce RTX 20 series Turing cards to make way for the arrival of the RTX 3080 and RTX 3070 in Q3 2020.

Some of the highlights for the 10th gen Intel Core desktop CPUs include improved Turbo Boost Max Technology 3.0 with up to 5.3 GHz boost clocks, DDR4-2933 support, new Intel 400-series chipset and 2.5 GbE speeds. Note that the listed prices are only the wholesale ones, so expect retail prices to be at least US$100 higher.

The upcoming quad-core AMD Ryzen 3 3100 CPU has been doing the rounds on synthetic benchmarks lately, where overclocked samples have been chalking up some serious scores thanks to the additional voltage being pumped into them. The fastest clock rate recorded by the Ryzen 3 3100 in these particular tests was 4.60 GHz on Geekbench 5.

T-Series is reportedly negotiating with Netflix India to release eight to ten movies on the platform. With movie theaters remaining shut due to the nationwide lockdown measures, a lot of studios are moving their cinema releases to video streaming platforms.

Rumour has it that AMD will be bringing up to 505 mm² dies to its next-generation "Big Navi" GPUs. Based on the company's RDNA 2 architecture, Navi 21, Navi 22 and Navi 23 all supposedly have larger dies than the RX 5700 XT. The Navi 21 has a larger die than the custom RDNA 2 GPU in the Xbox Series X, too.

It has been reported that Xiaomi is working on two new 5G smartphones that will soon be released as the Redmi Note 10 and Redmi Note 10 Pro. The two devices will apparently feature processors from MediaTek’s Dimensity 800 series and should eventually find their way onto global markets, including China and India.

The Exynos 990 used on the global Galaxy S20 phones has come under fire for poor sustained performance and efficiency, and it would seem that Samsung plans to ditch it. The South Korean company is reportedly working on a 6nm Exynos 992 for its next flagship phone, the Galaxy Note 20.

A page from the digital version of the latest edition of Official PlayStation Magazine (OPM) has whipped many PlayStation 5 fans into a frenzy in regard to the potential of an upcoming reveal event for the next-gen console. While many believe the page’s text and magazine’s publishing date point to a PS5 reveal in May, others have decided to err on the side of caution.
Update: OPM refutes fan claims but new source suggests June 4 reveal event.

A few months after delisting the Mate 10 and Mate 10 Pro from its security update schedule, Huawei has now given its other Kirin 970-powered phones, the P20 and P20 Pro, the same treatment. The devices are missing from the company's official security update bulletin for May and do not appear on either the monthly or quarterly sections.

Often labeled as the best game in the Total War series, Shogun 2 was published by Sega in 2011 and this week can be obtained for free from Steam. To keep it forever — without the eight DLC and unit packs that can be acquired for 75 percent off during this period — those interested should get it before May 1, 7 PM.

QNAP Systems has debuted its new 1.7GHz TS-x31K series for network-attached storage (NAS) of a residential or private magnitude. It comes in 1- to 4-bay SKUs, each of which supports Gigabit Ethernet and SATA 6Gb/s. They also all have AES-256 bit encryption and lockable bays.

Some new TWS earbuds from Apple have passed through Federal Communications Commission (FCC) testing. These products are not new AirPods, however: their new certification lets their Beats branding slip, in addition to the fact they closely resemble the existing Powerbeats Pro. Therefore, they are most likely to be a 2nd generation of the same.

Initially slated for late Q2 2020, rumour has it that the OnePlus Z has slipped into Q3 2020, instead. Likely arriving a few months before the OnePlus 8T series, the OnePlus Z is expected to be based on the Dimensity 1000, MediaTek's flagship chipset.

The LarkBox measures just 2.4 x 2.4 x 1.7-inches and will cost US$199 when it goes live on Indiegogo in May. The mini-PC will feature 6 GB of RAM, 128 GB of storage and an Intel Celeron N4100 processor.

In what must be one of the most lowkey announcements of 2020, Xiaomi has confirmed that the Mi Note 10 Lite is on the way. Arriving on April 30 alongside the Redmi Note 9 series, the Mi Note 10 Lite appears to be the Mi Note 10 without its 108 MP camera.

Following a lengthy wait, Amazfit has released its first smartwatch with a curving display onto the market. Well, more or less: it is being offered as a reward as part of a new Indiegogo campaign. The device starts for US$149 and is currently slated to ship in August 2020.

The Android 10 rollout for the Nokia 6.2 has begun. Originally slated for Q1 2020, Android 10 is the first OS upgrade for the Nokia 6.2. The rollout is being staggered in waves, so it may be a few weeks before you receive an OTA on your device. You can download the update manually now, though. Android 10 has made its way to Nokia 7.2 handsets in the US, too.

Hot on the heels of yesterday's launch Xiaomi event comes the Mi 10 Lite Zoom, another Snapdragon 765G-powered smartphone. Accidentally confirmed by Qualcomm in a press release about Quick Charge 3+, the Mi 10 Lite Zoom is seemingly the global edition of the Mi 10 Youth Edition.

The FCC has confirmed that the Surface Book 3 will feature Wi-Fi 6 connectivity. Spotted by Windows Latest, the listing includes references to the device having an Intel Wi-Fi 6 AX201 modem, which supports up to 2.4 Gbps transfer speeds and Bluetooth 5.1 connectivity. The Surface Book 3 may cost as much as US$1,699 at launch, according to past leaks.

With an estimated price of only US$185, the NANOTE mini laptop offers modest specs like an Intel Atom x5-Z8350 quad-core CPU, 4 GB of RAM and 64 GB of eMMC storage. Unlike the more expensive models from GPD and One-netbook, however, the NANOTE comes in a convertible form-factor with a 1920 x 1200 touchscreen.

Unlike GPD's Win Max mini laptop, the OneGX1 from One-Netbook is a bit more compact since it does not integrate game controller buttons, but it may also prove a bit faster as it is supposed to integrate Intel's Tiger Lake CPUs. The design appears inspired by Dell's Alienware Area-51m, and this is also said to be the first mini laptop to offer 5G support.

Xiaomi's gaming-focused series of phones, Black Shark, run on an Android skin called JoyUI. Today (April 28, 2020), its latest stable version will start to appear as an OTA worldwide. This will occur on the brand's 2020 flagships, the 3 and 3 Pro, as well as their predecessors.

Apple’s iPhone 12 will launch this year, but mass production said to have been pushed about a month due to the COVID-19 outbreak. According to the Wall Street Journal’s sources, the phone is still on schedule to launch this year, but an October reveal is all but confirmed.

The Realme Buds Wireless are of the 'neckbud' form-factor. Now, it seems the brand has a Pro variant of the same ready to go. A product under this name has been spotted in the hands of Singaporean and Taiwanese regulators ahead of their launch.

Samsung is one of the leading mobile device panel makers in the world, so it came as a bit of a surprise to learn that it is using BOE to supply the displays on its sleek Galaxy Book S. A new report points to Samsung potentially using BOE to supply OLED panels for its Galaxy smartphones as well.

Rocking the design of its contemporaries, the LG Velvet has been confirmed to support styluses and LG's Dual Screen accessory. Sadly, the LG Dual Screen and Stylus Pen accessories will be sold separately. The South Korean company's famed Quad DAC is apparently not making an appearance on the LG Velvet either.

DigiTimes has offered up another vague report, this time about TSMC's development of 2 nm nodes. Reported last year by TechWeb, DigiTimes now claims that "progressing in research and exploratory studies" for after 2 nm, too. Either way, we are not going to be seeing 2 nm chipsets for a while yet.

As reported last week, sales of the Raspberry Pi are current going gangbusters due to COVID-19. One cool and simple project that you can set up with your new found time and your new Raspberry Pi 4, Pi 3 or other compatible SBC is join the fight against COVID-19 by joining the Fold for Covid project using balenaEtcher, a balena OS image and a microSD card.

Canalys, the international tech market research firm, has released its latest market share stats for the Indian smartphone market. They have noted that the Indian market grew from Q1 2019 to Q1 2020. The data doesn't track the impact of the Indian COVID-19 lockdown on sales.

Huawei uses a massive 1/1.54" sensor on its ultra-wide-angle shooters, but has been unable to pair it with a lens that can provide an industry-competitive field of view. Things are expected to change with the upcoming Mate 40 Pro, however, as a new leak claims the phone will sport a new, innovative lens type.

The AMD Ryzen 3 3300X has been spotted on 3DMark’s Fire Strike racking up a healthy Physics Score that should please anyone considering a future purchase of this budget desktop CPU. The Ryzen 3 3300X managed to surpass the upcoming Intel Core i3-10300 and scored higher than the Intel Core i7-7700K that we have tested several times.

Geekbench 5 results of the Intel Lakefield Core i5-L16G7 5-core 5-thread processor have surfaced indicating good benefits in single-core over a Core i5-L15G7. However, the score also indicates that the small Tremont cores may hinder overall multi-core performance.

Xiaomi continues to support the aging Mi A1 with software updates, but this month's security patch does not include any new features. Sadly, this confirms that any chance to receive Android 10 via the official channels is now gone. However, a stable Android 10-based LineageOS build for the Mi A1 should arrive this summer.

The manufacturer promises sequential read rates of up to 3500 MB/s across all SKUs ranging from 250 GB up to 2 TB. When compared to the older KC2000, the KC2500 series offers about 500 MB/s faster read rates.

DJI has officially launched its eagerly anticipated Mavic Air 2 drone. The new device features a host of new and improved features and functionality while keeping the same user-friendly approach to shooting high-quality aerial footage and still photos.

In January, Lenovo announced a new ThinkPad keyboard accessory that features the iconic red TrackPoint. Four months later, the keyboard is finally available for order.

Leaked by Dell France alongside the XPS 17 9700 today, the XPS 15 9500 will be a significant upgrade over the XPS 15 7590, for the most part. The reduction in maximum battery capacity to an 86 Wh battery does not feel like an upgrade though, nor does the absence of all the innovations that Dell has seemingly reserved for the XPS 17 9700.

The simple swap in graphics has resulted in half the starting the price. If you want a professional laptop without the professional GPU, then the 15.6-inch Asus StudioBook 15 H500 or 17.3-inch H700 can serve as an alternative to the Razer Blade Studio or MSI Prestige.