Latest Tech News

Android 10 is here for the Redmi Note 7 Pro. We would recommend holding off for the time being though, as the build will likely contain a few bugs. The first Android 10 build for the Redmi Note 7 Pro comes just a few days after Xiaomi pushed Android 10 to the Redmi Note 8 Pro, too.

The XL-FLASH non-volatile memory promises to be almost as fast as the DRAM volatile memory, yet its price should still be in the 3D NAND range. Kioxia claims the latency times are 10 times lower than traditional 3D NAND and the transfer speeds along with the IOPS are considerably improved, especially for small files and random read/write operations.

No test results here, just some quick specs. The $0000@ Cooper Lake-SP server-grade model comes with 14 cores / 28 threads clocked at 3.2 GHZ, is coupled with just 8 GB of RAM, and integrates a DG1 GPU. The test system includes a WHITLEY motherboard that is also compatible with 10 nm ice Lake-SP.

WhatsApp is globally rolling out dark mode for Android and iOS users after more than a month of beta testing. The Facebook-owned company says that dark mode is designed to lower eye strain in low light environments. While iOS users get to experience a pure black theme, Android users have to be content with a dark grey environment.

SQFMI has launched a new smartwatch. Called the Watchy, the device is equipped with an E-ink display, four buttons and has a vibration motor. An accelerometer and a real-time clock are onboard too, along with Bluetooth LE and Wi-Fi support.

The constantly growing smartwatch market is getting another competitor, Timex. With the Ironman R300, the company has created a cheap smartwatch that supports GPS and multiple fitness tracking options. Timex promises that the Ironman R300 should last an impressive 25 days between charges, too.

Windows Central has delivered some good, and potentially bad, news for those who are waiting for Microsoft to release the Surface Duo, its de facto smartphone comeback. The dual-screen and Android 10-powered handset will apparently arrive much earlier than expected, but with last year's hardware.

The Samsung Galaxy S10 Lite performed well in our review and despite the low MSRP, it is far from being the smartphone with the hardest-to-accept tradeoffs within the Galaxy S10 series.

Samsung has revealed its new ultra-curved monitors for the office. The new T55 series comes in three sizes and features the same dramatic 1000R curve seen on the gaming monitors it introduced at CES 2020.

Google has officially canceled Google I/O 2020 due to coronavirus concerns. As with cancellations of other events, it is a significant blow as it is the annual software showcase for the company that also usually features some hardware launches as well.

A leaked presentation slide from Nvidia has revealed the relative performance provided by the upcoming GeForce RTX 2070 SUPER and GeForce RTX 2080 SUPER mobile GPUs. It appears SUPER laptops featuring these new GPUs will offer gamers impressive gains over other Nvidia products such as the RTX 2060 and GTX 1660 Ti.

The first 3DMark Fire Strike and Time Spy results of the AMD Ryzen 5 4600H seem to indicate that the new APU could pose a tough challenge for the Intel Core i7-10750H despite the Ryzen 5 4600H having a lower L3 cache and about 700 MHz lower clock. The performance gains with Ryzen 4000 combined with the availability of a capable Vega iGPU may finally give a shot in the arm to AMD's fortunes in the laptop market.

Dell has seemingly confirmed the existence of 10th Gen Intel Comet Lake desktop processors thanks to a promo video the computer manufacturer uploaded to YouTube, which has now been made private. The clip concerned the upcoming refreshed Dell XPS Tower and Dell XPS Tower Special Edition desktop PCs that will feature CPUs from the Comet Lake-S lineup and Nvidia GeForce RTX graphics cards.

Surprise! The first entry in the Halo franchise has been added to the Master Chief Collection on Steam. The PC release of the Anniversary edition features many PC centric options, including UHD resolutions and an unlocked frame rate. Owners of the full collection will receive the game for free, but the Xbox classic can also be purchased standalone for US$10.

Listings of the AMD Radeon RX 590 GME by several AMD AiB partners have started popping-up on Chinese websites. The Radeon RX 590 GME is clocked lower than the non-GME variant and is slated to launch on March 9 exclusively for the Chinese market with prices starting from around US$170.

If you would like to imagine how a Galaxy Z Flip paired with iOS could look, then you should have a look here. While a foldable iPhone is probably a long way off yet, an iPhone Flip, or an iPhone 12 Flip, is already a reality. Digitally at least, anyway.

NVIDIA Ampere may only be a few weeks away, and now someone has spotted a 7,936 CUDA core GPU on Geekbench. The card sports 32 GB of VRAM and a 1.1 GHz clock speed too, whetting fans appetites for what may be launched at GTC 2020 this month.

The Mi 9 Lite may be treated as the lesser of the Mi 9 series, but even it has now received Android 10 builds of MIUI 11. Not all handsets have, that is. On the contrary, some are remaining on Android 9.0 Pie for the time being, albeit on a higher version of MIUI 11.

You'll have to drive to the nearest store to pick up the item if you want the latest Microsoft laptop brand new for as cheap as possible.

Lenovo's Comet Lake-equipped ThinkBook 14 can be had for less than $800. It features enough RAM and storage space for the time being, and both can be upgraded retroactively.

The Dongii is a new kind of charger with USB type A and C ports - as well as an HDMI port to connect a Nintendo Switch to the nearest TV. It is described as equipped with up-to-date GaN technology and capable of up to 65 watt (W) charging. It has been launched on Kickstarter, where it is available as a reward.

The Sony WF-1000XM3s are widely regarded as some of the best TWS earbuds out there. However, they do have some discrepancies, one of which is the absence of Qualcomm's aptX HD Bluetooth codec. A new leak suggests that this is to be addressed soon.

The Red Magic 5G is Nubia's upcoming 2020 gaming phone. It is slated to get a 144Hz display, the Snapdragon 865 SoC and up to 16GB of RAM. The OEM has also showed off its AnTuTu benchmarking score, which knocks that of the Black Shark 3 Pro off the top spot.

OnePlus has revealed the non-phone-related new device it has been working on: the OnePlus Snowbot. There are apparently several of these robots, which will be used to play games in which they fire 120 miles per hour (mph) snowballs at each other. They will take place at a special event later in March 2020.

Doom Eternal is clearly designed for PC systems, first and foremost. The 2016 Doom game was already well optimized, but the new idTech 7 engine takes optimization to new levels as the game now scales with existing high-end and even unreleased hardware to deliver 1,000 fps of superfluid gameplay. While current gen console will be capped at 60 fps most likely, the developers hint at some impressive features for the next gen models.

Bloomberg reports that Nokia is coming to an end because of "fierce competition" from the likes of Ericsson and Huawei. The company is currently reviewing various, including asset sales and mergers. Nokia also states that it does not expect a major recovery in profits until next year at the earliest.

This is how the display of the Huawei P40 Pro should look, with it curving into its frame on all four sides. The photo in question has been making the rounds for some time now, but a reliable Huawei leaker has now been able to confirm the quad-curve design. The P40 Pro has a rather thick, pill-shaped, punch hole for its dual selfie cameras, though.

John Prendergast calculated that the CPU part of the APU integrated in the next gen consoles may not be too impressive, because the TDPs need to be kept under 200 W. Thus, we are looking at performance levels in line with an older Ryzen 5 1600 model with a 40 W TDP. The GPU parts will get TDPs in excess of 100 W, on the other hand.

It has not been a good few days for Xiaomi, at least concerning the Mi A3 anyway. Having botched the device's Android 10 update the company now claims that it is working to re-release the OS upgrade "as soon as possible". Convinced? Neither are we.

Huawei has been hard at work developing its own Play Store alternative for quite some time now. The company is reportedly negotiating with Indian app developer Indus OS to create one for the country. Indus OS is an established player in the region and has over 400,000 apps on its platform.

OnePlus smartphone users are reporting that deleting photos from the Google Photos app does not completely remove them from the device. Instead, the photos are moved to the OnePlus Gallery app's recycle bin, which takes up space over time unless the user identifies and removes them manually from the Gallery app.

Is 5.0 GHz not enough for you on a laptop? Well, how about 5.27 GHz? That is apparently what the Core i9-10980HK can operate at, the Comet Lake-H successor to the Core i9-9980HK. The clock speed boost allows the Core i9-10980HK to achieve a multi-core score over 32,000 in Geekbench, eclipsing even something like the AMD Ryzen Threadripper 2970WX.

A new small Sony handset has been certified at the TENAA, complete with a 5.4-inch display and up to 6 GB of RAM, along with 128 GB of storage. The device, codenamed S20A, has a 4,000 mAh battery too. It is unlikely to be a new Xperia Compact, though.

Standford’s Folding@home project has been running for a number of years using the donated idle hours of computers to help undertake complex calculations for researchers. With the advent of the novel coronavirus, researchers are now putting out a call to help develop potential treatments for COVID-19, the infectious disease it causes in humans.

OnePlus will reportedly launch the OnePlus 8 series of smartphones in April, according to a source familiar with the matter. The company is expected to release three devices this year; the OnePlus 8 Lite, OnePlus 8 and OnePlus 8 Pro. OnePlus 8 Lite will be the world's first phone to run MediaTek's Dimensity 1000 SoC.

AIB variants of the Nvidia GeForce RTX 2070 SUPER and GeForce RTX 2070 top the GPU sales list for Mindfactory this week, with the GeForce RTX 2080 Ti not too far behind. There are several instances of AMD’s Radeon RX 5700 and RX 5700 XT cards making reasonable sales, but the newer RX 5600 XT has not prevented AMD’s overall market share decreasing for this particular retailer.

AMD’s Ryzen 7 4800HS mobile SoC has been spotted on another benchmark, in this case 3DMark’s Fire Strike Extreme. The Renoir APU’s results were compared with those of the high-end Comet Lake Intel Core i7-10750H and the Ryzen 5 4600H. Although the Intel part offered the highest 3DMark score and graphics score, the Ryzen 7 4800HS’s physics score was way beyond the chosen rivals.

Once again AMD has enjoyed healthy sales in regard to information taken from sales data from Mindfactory. Leading the charge for Team Red is the Ryzen 5 3600 and Ryzen 7 3700X, followed by seven more processors from AMD. However, overall share of CPU sales shifted slightly in Intel’s favor, although AMD still commands 84.36%.

Update: Despite an announcement only days prior, GTC is now being moved to an online only format, due to coronavirus concerns.
Original story: NVIDIA has confirmed its annual GPU Technology Conference is on schedule, despite the spread of COVID-19 coronavirus. It has been rumored that this could be the launch place for Ampere. In regard to the virus outbreak, the company says it is taking "precautions" and will monitor the situation closely.

A vetted industry insider has been dishing up some interesting information about the upcoming next-gen consoles. It appears there will be Pro versions of the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X after all. Apparently, the base PS5 can boast of 9 teraflops of GPU power, while the Pro model will be closer to the 12 TFLOPS of the Pro variant of the XSX.

Xiaomi's current highest rate of commercial-grade wireless charging is found in the Mi 10 series. It can power a phone at 30 watts (W). However, the OEM has also just demonstrated its next generation, a 40W system, that can charge a phone in as little as 40 minutes.

Two possible NVIDIA Ampere GPUs with high CUDA Cores and memory capacities were spotted on the Geekbench 5 OpenCL benchmarking site. One of the GPUs with 7,552 CUDA Cores and 24 GB RAM scored 184,096 points in OpenCL beating the Titan RTX by nearly 39%. These GPUs are likely to be datacenter parts and are specced lower than the full GA100 Ampere chip.

The Black Shark 3 series is thought to be the next upcoming generation of Xiaomi's gaming phones. New tips spilled onto Weibo indicate how the rumored Pro variant may differ from the base model. Apparently, these variations will mainly concern screen size and resolution.

The Mi 10 and Mi 10 Pro have proven immensely popular for Xiaomi, but so has the Redmi K30 series. The Redmi K30 4G and Redmi K30 5G have only been available for a month and two months respectively, but the series has already exceeded 1 million sales. With the Redmi K30 starting at CNY 1,599, that equates to at least US$230 million in sales. These figures do not include the POCO X2, either.

The Android 10 rollout for the Mi A3 has been catastrophic, with Xiaomi pulling the initial build just a few days after unexpectedly releasing it over the weekend. If you are one of the unlucky few to have upgraded your Mi A3 to Android 10, then you are probably encountering plenty of bugs. There is a workaround for getting a functional fingerprint scanner back though, if that is any help.

The Pimoroni Picade Console turns the Raspberry Pi into a particularly convincing retro console. The assembly should be particularly easy and is pretty inexpensive, too.

While the Redmi Note 7 is yet to receive Android 10 builds of MIUI 11, someone may have been trying out MIUI 12 on one unit. Spotted on Geekbench, the rogue Redmi Note 7 claims to be running Android 11, currently known as Android R. While it is not unheard of for devices running pre-release software to appear on popular benchmarking tools, we have our doubts about this.

Base stations are crucial pieces of hardware for mobile networks, particularly 5G ones. Huawei is now reportedly in a position to sell versions of these devices based on their own proprietary chipsets, rather than those made by US companies as before. Therefore, this country's administration's efforts to lock this OEM out of the 5G market appear to have been thwarted, at least in part.

The Redmi K30 has already proven hugely successful, but Xiaomi is not done with the series yet. While the Redmi K30 Pro may be one of the worst kept secrets in smartphone tech at the moment, XDA Developers has uncovered that a third model is on its way, too. While both are expected to be 5G handsets, only one is likely to feature a dedicated telephoto camera.

Google has released a blog post explaining why nearly 600 apps have just been removed from Android's Play Store. These apps were deemed guilty of "mobile ad fraud", which contravenes the Mountain View giant's policies. The apps in question include all those associated with the company Cheetah Mobile.