Phablet

A bunch of Asus ZenFone 5 manual images surfaced online, and the details that surfaced next to them reveal a few intriguing things. Although this handset sports a main dual camera setup, runs Android Oreo out of the box and features a 5.7-inch display with an 18:9 ratio, there is no USB Type-C connector.

Just in time for this year's Valentine Day, the Honor 7X can now be acquired in red. Priced at US$199.99, it also comes with a free case, but the amount of units available is limited.

According to the new Sony Xperia update policies, the Xperia XZ1 and Xperia XZ1 Compact should get both Android P and Android Q, since they both launched with Android Oreo onboard. Sadly, the mid-range Xperia handsets might not get the same treatment.

Are you an Android user wishes your phone had a huge notch in the display, a la the iPhone X? Chinese OEM Oukitel has you covered. Their new U18, available for pre-order today, is a USD $159 Android alternative to Apple's flagship. However, this notch lacks any obvious utility beyond aesthetics.

Android Oreo is finally rolling out for the Huawei Mate 9 in the US. This update includes the January 2018 security patch from Google and Huawei's EMUI 8.0 custom interface.

Although Google Assistant has been around for a while, it still lacks the ability to use a custom hot word, something that Motorola's Moto Voice introduced back in 2014. Fortunately, it looks like this issue will be fixed soon.

The BLU Pure View was silently introduced last week on Amazon with an 18:9 display, 5V/2A quick charge, face unlock, and a dual front camera setup onboard. However, this 5.7-inch handset is only powered by the outdated MediaTek MT6753 octa-core processor.

The new PowerVR Series8XT GT8540 GPU uses Imagination Technologies' Furian architecture and provides an 80 percent fill rate gain over its predecessor. Even more, it can feed up to six 4K displays at 60 fps simultaneously.

Although the Chinese market recorded a few quarterly drops in the past, 2017 was the first year ever to end with a negative smartphone shipments growth.

The first 512 GB microSD cards are slated to launch this February with reading speeds up to 90 MB/s and support for 1080p video recording.

The Moto Z3 and Z3 Play are apparently both using a 6-inch full HD display, and a third Moto Z3 device with a Qualcomm Snapdragon 845 onboard is expected to arrive after a while with a higher-resolution touchscreen.

Android Oreo beta is now available for the international Huawei P10 and P10 Plus flagships, and it includes EMUI 8.0 with quite a few new features.

Last time, the international versions of the upcoming flagships arrived at FCC. Now, the US versions of the Samsung Galaxy S9 and Galaxy S9+ are being tested and one step closer to being released.

Although the foldable Samsung Galaxy X will probably not hit the market before the end of the year, insiders familiar with the matter claim that an updated prototype has been shown at CES to a few chosen ones.

The purported Samsung Galaxy S9 box image that surfaced on Imgur reveals a 5.8-inch Infinity Display, a "Super Speed Dual Pixel" 12 MP main camera with optical image stabilization, and more.

In India, the 6-inch Samsung Galaxy A8+ (2018) can be pre-ordered exclusively from Amazon starting today and will be fully released in that market on January 20.

The launch date of the Samsung Galaxy S9 lineup is no longer a secret since the president of the company's mobile business DJ Koh confirmed that the official unveiling of the new flagships will take place at MWC 2018.

Although February is not here yet and the situation might change until then, unconfirmed rumors claim that Huawei and AT&T's deal is off and the two brands will no longer team up as expected.

The Huawei Honor View 10 and Honor 7X are both available in the US starting this month, including the limited edition Honor 7X in red which can be acquired in the US for just US$199.

Although the Spectre and Meltdown vulnerabilities are quite serious and Microsoft already issued patches that take care of them, smartphone makers are not that fast. Surprisingly enough, Andry Rubin's Essential Phone is one of the first handsets to get a fix for the two problems mentioned above.

The list of flagships expected to hit the market by the end of 2018 with a Snapdragon 845 onboard includes the HTC U12, Nokia 10, Xiaomi Mi 7, OnePlus 6/6T, Samsung Galaxy S9/S9+, and many more. Obviously, this should be taken with a grain of salt for now.

Amazon India is now taking registrations for the Honor View 10, also known as the Honor V10. The global launch is set for January 8, but the pricing for both India and the United States remains unknown.

The Huawei Enjoy 7S will go on sale outside of China as the Huawei PSmart but without any different specs and features. This 5.65-inch handset with an 18:9 display is powered by the HiSilicon Kirin 659 processor and runs Android Oreo with EMUI 8.0 on top.

The Sony handset with the model number H4233 has visited GFXBench back in September, but now it surfaced on Malaysia's SRIM product certification body, so it will probably hit the market during MWC like its predecessor.

The next-gen Exynos chip will launch during an official event that is scheduled to take place on January 4, 2018. The headline of this even is "Beyond a Component" and there are no details for now, but more should be unveiled in the week to come.

Although Samsung might take a while to ensure the batteries inside the new Galaxy flagships are safe, the international Galaxy S9 and Galaxy S9+ models have been already certified by the FCC. Sadly, there is no official launch date set yet.

Powercast has just announced that its latest wireless charger to get certified by the FCC can deliver power to small, low-power gadgets at distances of up to 80 feet.

According to multiple Galaxy Note 8 users, their high-end phablets simply died after the battery ran out, refusing to charge and boot up. For now, Samsung is investigating the problem and advises all those affected to contact its customer support service.

Although we already heard that Huawei will enter the US market via AT&T and Verizon Wireless with the Mate 10 and Mate 10 Pro, now we also know that the smaller of the two is scheduled to hit AT&T in February.

In an interview to Digit, Microsoft India President, Anant Maheswari, did not deny the existence of a Surface Phone but also did not reply in the affirmative. He also touched upon some points about the broader availability of Microsoft products and services in the Indian market.

Energous Corporation has just certified a technology that allows the manufacturing of wireless chargers with a range of up to 3 feet. It supports multiple devices at once for contact and non-contact wireless charging and is compatible with virtually all small electronics, including tablets.

A set of Olixar cases for the upcoming Samsung Galaxy S9 and Galaxy S9+ can be already pre-ordered from MobileFun, and the UK online store also mentioned a February 28 release date for these accessories.

Only one year after the catastrophic failure of the Note 7, Samsung managed to bounce back with the Galaxy Note 8 and the "Flagship Smartphone of the Year" award it has just received in India proves that the Galaxy Note lineup is doing great.

In just a year, Xiaomi managed to go up from 6 percent to 22.5 percent of the Indian smartphone market. To get there, the Chinese brand expanded at the expense of local brands, but now they are going for Samsung's slice of the pie.

A team of researchers from the University of Tokyo has just developed a new type of glass that could finally allow phone manufacturers to build handsets like the iPhone X or the Galaxy Note 8 with shatter-resistant back covers.

The 6-inch Huawei Mate 10 Pro phablet will reach the US via multiple carriers in 2018 and, according to Richard Yu, the details will be unveiled next month in Las Vegas.

The highlights of the new Galaxy A8 and Galaxy A8+ include a dual camera setup for selfies, IP68-rated protection from water and dust, as well as support for Samsung's Gear VR (a first for the A series).

The i-Memory AI720 includes a Lightning connector at one end and a USB 3.1 connector at the other end. It comes in 32/64/128 GB capacities and can easily handle UHD 4K video playback thanks to the 90 MB/s transfer speeds. The OTG functionality allows users to save videos and pictures directly on the stick, in order to save up space on their devices.

Huawei Nova 2S is expected to debut tomorrow as an improved version of the Nova 2. Its list of unconfirmed specs and features includes the octa-core HiSilicon Kirin 960 processor, dual cameras on both sides, as well as Android Oreo with EMUI 8.0 on top.

The teardown of the Huawei 10 Pro by iFixIt revealed that replacing the display involves the removal of almost every component, and fixing the front camera requires switching the whole display, including its frame.

The new Samsung 512 GB eUFS embedded memory is about eight times faster than a typical microSD card, providing up to 860 MB/s sequential read speeds and up to 255 MB/s writes.

Apparently as a response to the recently discovered (and patched) KRACK exploit, Samsung added a VPN service to the Galaxy Note 8. Known as "Secure Wi-Fi," this service encrypts all outgoing traffic to provide safe browsing while connected to unsecured public networks.

Although the so-called "Microsoft Edition" Galaxy S8 has been available in the Microsoft Store for a few months, Samsung finally decided to let the world know that these flagships sold by the Redmond giant's store are not special at all.

The latest OTA update for the phones of the popular US-based BLU Products apparently managed to brick a lot of phones and a lot of people are (very) angry about it. Sadly, there is no official solution for this problem that does not involve a factory reset.

The Oppo F5 Youth is a lighter version of the selfie-centric Oppo F5. It still has a full HD+ 6-inch display but uses a MediaTek Helio P23 processor, runs the Android 7.1-based ColorOS 3.2 firmware, and features a 16 MP camera for selfies.

With the Lumia handsets dead and gone, the Devices section of the Microsoft Store is now hosting smartphones by other brands, and the latest to arrive is the Microsoft Edition Galaxy Note 8. This handset is a regular Note 8 with a set of pre-loaded apps by Microsoft, including Cortana and Microsoft Launcher.