Leaks / Rumors

MySmartPrice has reported that the Samsung Galaxy A40 smartphone will be sold in Europe, at a price of €249 (~US$283). The device will be part of the same series as the recently launched A10, A30, and A50 smartphones. The A40 is expected to hit European markets soon and may also be sold in India at some point in the future.

Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo is already letting us in on the details of the upcoming Apple Watch Series 5. Apparently, an expansion of the ECG support feature to include more countries and a return of the ceramic casing is in the cards.

The Samsung Galaxy S10 and S10+ recently went up for pre-order in China. According to the reliable tipster IceUniverse, they raked in twice the numbers in this process compared to their predecessors in a fraction of the same time-frame in this market. This suggests that the 2019 line is being received better than last year's already.

A United States Patent Application made by AMD for variable rate shading (VRS) has been discovered. At present, the little-used technology only features in Turing-based cards from Nvidia; VRS can offer an fps increase in games that utilize it. It has been speculated that AMD plans to incorporate variable rate shading in its upcoming 7 nm Navi GPUs.

There is a rumor that Microsoft will take center stage at E3 2019 by revealing the expected new Xbox consoles. The consoles, codenamed Lockhart and Anaconda, are believed to feature SSDs, custom CPUs based on AMD’s Zen 2 microarchitecture, and custom Navi-based GPUs. However, the release schedule for the latest Xbox hardware is still a long way off: End of 2020.

Meizu's next flagship smartphone, projected to be called the 16s, is linked to new images posted on SlashLeaks. They show a phone with a traditionally-placed selfie camera, but in an ultra-low-profile forehead. The bezels on this device are also minimal, so as to create a decent illusion of a full-screen display.

Although Motorola has not introduced its foldable phone at MWC, the company's VP of Global Product has just confirmed that the upcoming handset — rumored to bring back the legendary RAZR family — has been in development for a long time and will hit the market about the same time as the other such devices that have been recently unveiled by Samsung, Huawei, Xiaomi, and others.

A little bit more information about Nvidia’s GeForce GTX 1650 graphics card has been made available thanks to a Twitter post by Andreas Schilling. The tweet includes some marketing material for the upcoming GPU and there is also a small revelation about how much and what kind of memory the GTX 1650 will have.

At least three new games based on Frank Herbert's sci-fi epic Dune will be making their way to consoles and PC over the next six years. Funcom, the developer behind Conan Exiles and Conan Unconquered, has signed a contract with Legendary Studios to build at least three new Dune games. Exact details are still spotty, but rumor has it that Funcom is currently working on an open-world multiplayer Dune game.

SamMobile claims to be privy to exclusive information that points to a quad-camera set-up for the upcoming addition to the Samsung Galaxy Note line. This is the same number of rear-panel sensors found in the Galaxy S10's 5G variant. In addition, it is possible that the OEM may change its phablet's naming scheme this year.

Some time ago, the Android OEM OnePlus committed itsefl to provide an update to Android 9.0 (Pie) for its 2016 flagships, the 3 and 3T. However, it may have fallen behind in these plans recently. Now, a potentially important piece of evidence that the company has at least started on this project has surfaced.

A report quoting “industry sources” has offered the prices and launch dates for the Nvidia GeForce GTX 1660 and Nvidia GeForce GTX 1650 graphics cards. The GTX 1660 will apparently be released on March 15 with a minimum price tag of US$229. The even cheaper GTX 1650 will purportedly be launched on April 30 at a price starting at US$179.

Real-world photos of the upcoming Huawei P30 Pro have been printed online by Digital Trends. The intriguing collection of images unfortunately does not include a shot of the front of the flagship smartphone as the device in question was an incomplete prototype. The P30 Pro in the photographs has a rear triple camera setup and there is no sign of a 3.5 mm headphone jack.

Some leaks have pointed to the 6.2 as Nokia's first phone to feature a punch-hole camera. However, it appears we will have to wait a while to confirm this. A HMD-focused leaker has asserted that the brand intends to focus on the 9 PureView instead at its MWC event.

The LG V series has a history of including secondary displays, which are often built into their large phablet-scale screens. If a new leak is to be believed, this feature has returned to the V50 ThinQ - sort of. It consists of images showing a case that gives the upcoming LG flagship an entire extra screen.

Meizu has announced that its Note 9 is to be launched on March 6, 2019. This phone will feature a Samsung GM1 48MP camera sensor. It may also have 6GB of RAM, a 6.2-inch FHD display and the Snapdragon 675 processor.

The CEO of Huawei’s Consumer Business Group, Richard Yu, has uploaded a photo of the moon to his Weibo account that was more than likely taken with a P30 Pro smartphone. Huawei has been busy promoting the zooming qualities of its upcoming P30 series on Twitter, but the zoom shot of the moon certainly takes some beating.

A leaked image of a promotional banner has confirmed the name of the upcoming foldable 5G smartphone from Huawei: Mate X. The picture doesn’t reveal details about pricing or hardware, but it does show the foldable device in three different forms that give a clear idea of what the Huawei Mate X will look like.

According to what appears to be a Staples employee training document that has recently surfaced on Reddit, the upcoming HP Omen Obelisk 875-0xxx series desktop will feature the yet-to-be-announced NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1180 as its top video card option. While this could be a typo, it could also be the name of a non-RTX flagship product.

A new rumor about the expected Sony Xperia XZ4 flagship smartphone has stated that the device could be renamed the Xperia 1. This follows the news that the Xperia XA3 and XA3 Plus are to be rebranded the Xperia 10 and 10 Plus, respectively. There also seems to be a fresh leak about the type of display the Xperia 1 will be fitted with.

A set of leaked Nokia 9 PureView renders have appeared on Twitter ahead of the device's expected unveiling on February 24. HMD Global may release the Nokia 4.2, Nokia 3.2, Nokia 1 Plus at MWC next week too.

As a GTX 1050 successor, the GTX 1650 GPU is rumored to integrate a TU-117 core clocked at 1.48 GHz, faster Turing shaders, and 4 GB of GDDR6 VRAM. The number of CUDA cores and the TDP are not yet known. Launch date should be close the end of March and MSRP is believed to be around US$179.

Lenovo's ThinkPad division gets hit by another leak, as a reddit user has published data-sheets for most of the upcoming ThinkPad business laptops. Though there is no way to verify the specs at this point, the specs of the T490 do line up with the already announced special T490 Healthcare Edition.

At first sight, the Intel Core i9-9900KFC seems to be an unlocked 8-core, 16-thread processor that does not feature an integrated graphics card. However, Intel previously used the "C" suffix for chips with eDRAM cache for the higher-end Iris Pro integrated graphics parts, so this new chip is a mystery for now.

Renders of a foldable iPhone have been created and published by LetsGoDigital. The images are based on a patent application Apple made with the USPTO. Unlike many recent foldable offerings, the smartphone does not turn into a tablet-sized device. The standout feature of this potential foldable iPhone is that it can fold inwards and outwards.

Razer has had to cut around 2% of its workforce due to “realignment.” It’s believed many of the staff that have been let go were involved with the company’s smartphone products. The cuts could mean that any progress on the Razer Phone 3 device has been halted while the manufacturer streamlines its operations.

It has been reported that owners of unlocked Razer Phone 2 handsets can expect to start receiving updates to Android 9 Pie from February 27. Those with carrier devices will have to wait a bit longer. This will be a relief to some as it seems the American-Singaporean company could be having some internal issues.

Google announced today that it would be holding a special event at the Game Developer Conference (GDC) next month on March 19th. The announcement offers few details, but many are guessing that Google will announce something related to Project Stream, the search giant's in-browser game streaming service. Google has been working on Project Stream for months and might be developing the service to compete with the likes of Nvidia, Sony, Microsoft, and Amazon.

A recent video made by XDA based on a leaked version of Android Q from January 2019 does not have a 'back' option in its UI navigation functions. The user must now swipe to the left using the 'pill' to return to a second-most recent app. This Q build also has smoother animations for app-switching.

The Mi 9 will offer a mouth-watering specifications sheet including an AMOLED display, IR blaster, triple rear cameras, a Snapdragon 855, and up to 12 GB of RAM. All of that comes with a caveat, though: Prices also see a massive hike.

In the same Weibo post where he discussed the design features of the upcoming Mi 9 Explorer Edition, Xiaomi CEO Lei Jun also delivered a rather startling morsel of information: The smartphone will feature 12 GB memory. This would put the device on the same RAM amount level as the top-end variant of the Samsung Galaxy S10+.

Xiaomi is set to unveil its newest flagship, the Mi 9, in a few days. The Mi 9 is said to feature wireless charging—the first time a Mi flagship will have that honor—and will further take things up a notch with 20 W wireless charging support. Wired fast charge comes in at a massive 27 W.

The Redmi Note 7 Pro is expected to feature a Snapdragon 675 and Sony's 48 MP IMX586 sensor, the same module used on the Honor View 20. Initial reports claimed the Note 7 Pro would be launched in February but that's looking increasingly unlikely, and new information touts a March release instead.

The Android phone-maker OPPO had previously teased its new camera-tech breakthrough: 10x lossless zoom, facilitated by a prism and an extra series of lenses that can fit into a typical phone chassis. The OEM's vice president has announced that it is prepared to mass-produce these components. This should start by about June 2019.

A while ago, a series of Tweets from a smartphone case-maker presented the possibility that the Samsung Galaxy S10 and S10+'s fingerprint reader placement would make using screen protectors on these phones much more difficult than normal. Now, a 2nd accessory firm has released a video reiterating this line of speculation.

According to a review by Android Authority, the Honor View 20's main camera setup can provide excellent low-light performance, realistic colors, great image stabilization, as well as "amazing detail" but also lacks in the HDR area and its selfie shooter can be improved. The conclusion is that the View 20 beats the Huawei Mate 20 Pro.

Xiaomi is now known as one of the very few Android OEMs who have released the most modern take on the slider phone. However, it also appears as though it wants to get into the pop-up camera game as well. A company executive has hinted that this may be the case should demand for that kind of device remain high.

According to new reports, Huawei's upcoming flagships, the P30 and P30 Pro will feature 1080p displays. Both devices are expected to have some impressive specifications sheets, and the listed display resolutions are somewhat disappointing.

A report from CNET mentions that TCL Corporation could be busy working on up to five different foldable devices. It seems two of the devices are tablets, two are smartphones, and one appears to be a combination of a smartphone, smartwatch, and bracelet. The Chinese company is apparently planning to release a foldable device in 2020.

It has been anticipated that the OPPO R17 would be replaced by the R19, a phone that may have a punch-hole selfie camera, in 2019. However, the vice president of the Android OEM, Shen Yiren, has taken to Weibo to disrupt this line of speculation.

Apex Legends has now been played by over 25 million people in the first week of its release. There is a rumor that Tencent Holdings is interested in becoming the official distributor of the battle royale game in China. Tencent is already involved in similar genre titles such as Fortnite and PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds.

Apple will release red versions of the iPhone XS and XS Max, but only in China. At least, this is what a new post on Weibo claims. It cites the OEM's declining fortunes in the country in this apparent marketing decision.

The LG K40 is one 2019 device that may launch at MWC 2019. However, this exciting attribute is somewhat tempered by its direction at the budget end of the OEM's business-to-business devices. Then again, it may be supported for 3 years under Google's Android Enterprise initiative.

According to IceUniverse, Xiaomi has announced that the release of its next flagship, the Mi 9, will take place on February 20. However, the event at which a similarly-tiered device, the Galaxy S10, will be unveiled on the same day by Samsung. This shows what could be considered a great amount of ambition on Xiaomi's part, at best.

The Qualcomm Snapdragon 835-powered Samsung Galaxy Tab S4 has been around for just six months, it seems that its successor is already in the works and could hit the market in just a few months. The leaked renders show "April 5" on this tablet's display, so this might just be the launch date of the Galaxy Tab S5e.

Renders and specifications of the Sony Xperia L3 smartphone have been published online. Unsurprisingly, the details are underwhelming, although this is only an entry-level device from the Japanese manufacturer after all. It does seem that the latest entrant into the L range will at least exhibit a revised design language though.

LetsGoDigital has taken another shot at creating renders of Samsung’s upcoming foldable Galaxy smartphone. Since the “accidental” leak of the Samsung Vietnam Unpacked video there have been some question marks raised over what the foldable device will actually look like, as the smartphone shown in the video is vastly different to the one shown at the 2018 Developer Conference.

The existence of the TU116 GPU, which exists to deliver Turing-level performance without ray-tracing, has been established at this stage. Today (February 14, 2019), VideoCardz has posted what it describes as exclusive images of this chipset. It also has pictures of what may be the MSI Ventus XS 1660 Ti, a card purportedly based on the TU 116.

SamMobile has reportedly spotted security updates for the Samsung Galaxy S6, which should bring its patch level up to January 2019. This is not hugely unusual, except for the fact that this phone is now nearly 4 years old. It joins a very short list of devices this age to still receive official software support from its OEM.

According to the recently leaked specs sheet, the upcoming Galaxy A50, A30, and A10 all come with a plastic design and Exynos processors, but there are quite a few differences between them as well. Most specs confirm certain previous rumors, such as the in-display fingerprint reader of the Galaxy A50.