Leaks / Rumors

There has been a report suggesting that Dell and HP could be working on new high-end Chromebooks. Currently, there are scant options when it comes to choosing a premium Chromebook for use in the enterprise sector; the Google Pixelbook Chromebook and HP Chromebook 13 G1 are two options. It is claimed the new devices would utilize up to 16 GB RAM and operate with Kaby Lake processors.

The testing of the downvote button continues with a limited number of Facebook users, but now this feature rolls out to those in Australia and New Zealand. Just as before, this button allows the users to provide feedback about the comments on public posts, so the dislike button remains nothing more but a wish that Facebook continues to ignore for the time being.

Ming-Chi Kuo, serial leaker of Apple's product plans, has left KGI Securities. The news could mean a slow down in the number of accurate leaks about Apple's product plans, much to the relief of many an executive at Apple's Cupertino HQ.

Barclay's analyst Blayne Curtis is predicting that Apple will stop bundling the Lightning to 3.5mm audio adapter with the iPhone released this fall. If this prediction comes true, iPhone users that want wired audio would have to separately purchase the adapter at a small (but annoying) additional cost.

LG is set to send out The Android 8.0 Oreo update to the LG G6. Considering the fact that the G6 is the current LG flagship in that series, an Oreo update by this time is rather shambolic. The G5 and V20 are expected to receive theirs in a bit, too.

Although the Xperia XZ Premium supports video decoding at 120 Hz, Sony has chosen to "to strike a balance between power consumption and consumer benefit" and so this display mode has been disabled to ensure an increased autonomy for this handset. In addition to the XZ Premium, it seems that other Xperia handsets have this hidden setting as well.

According to an exclusive report that recently surfaced online, the LG Watch Timepiece runs Wear OS and combines a quartz movement watch with a Qualcomm Snapdragon 2100-powered smart module that features a circular 1.2-inch LCD display with a resolution of 360 x 360 pixels. This wearable could be announced this week and might hit the market in June.

The upcoming Samsung Galaxy A6 and Galaxy A6+ come with mid-range specs and feature a flat Infinity Display panel. Out of the two, the A6+ is the only one with a dual camera setup on the back and a Qualcomm Snapdragon processor. Their official release should take place in early May.

It seems that the delay of the 10 nm Intel Cannon Lake processors and the current pricing of 32 GB memory modules compatible with Apple's requirements are both pushing the launch of the next-gen MacBook Pro to 2019. Two years ago, Apple was afraid that 32 GB of memory would require a different design with reduced battery space, but those fears are gone now.

LG has just revealed that the upcoming G7 ThinQ flagship will feature a "Boombox Speaker" that packs a resonance chamber which allows it to provide 6 dB higher base sound levels and twice the amount of bass that the brand's existing flagships can deliver. The G7 ThinQ will also feature a HiFi Quad DAC and DTS:X 3D Surround Sound.

Shortly after finding out that AMD is working on 7 nm Vega 20 GPUs, the alleged benchmark results for this upcoming product were spotted in the 3DMark 11 database. According to the listing, the Vega 20 with 32 GB of HBM2 memory clocked at 1.25 GHz is about 70 percent faster per clock than the RX Vega 64 Liquid.

There has been a growing wave of people in the community calling the Exklim eX Core a scam. Some feel that the eX Core fills a new niche, some think that it can't achieve the claimed performance, while others believe it doesn't exist at all. We haven't seen any working products and we don't endorse the eX Core, but we did feel it was important to give Edgar the chance to answer some of the communities questions.

Although similar rumors that we heard in the past did not come to fruition, this time we might finally get an LG flagship phablet with stylus support. For now, the only certain thing is that LG has registered the Q Note trademark in South Korea earlier this month, so the upcoming LG Q7 flagship might not launch alone.

Xiaomi has apparently reached a "top secret" agreement with Taiwanese semiconductor company TSMC that will see the latter produce Xiaomi's upcoming in-house Surge SoC on its 16nm manufacturing process.

It has been reported that Huawei is working on a possible replacement of the ubiquitous Android OS. Anonymous sources talking to the South China Morning Post have commented that the Chinese tech giant is developing the alternative operating system in case the company ends up receiving a similar US-imposed ban to the one that ZTE is currently facing.

In the recently announced Q1 2018 earnings report, AMD's CEO Lisa Su mentions that the company is already testing 7 nm Radeon Instinct GPUs, which should be sampling later this year. This GPU series is most likely part of the Vega 20 family that appeared in previously leaked roadmap slides. Spec-wise, the Instinct looks to be a solid competitor for Nvidia's Volta AI GPUs.

Although there are supposed to be no Samsung phones in North Korea and the country is well-known as a totalitarian dictatorship, smuggled Samsung smartphones are very popular in the country. According to a South Korean news outlet, the number of mobile subscribers in North Korea reached 5 million this year.

The HTC U12 has appeared on Verizon's Open Development page. The listing claims the device will sport a 6-inch Super WQHD LCD display, a 3500 mAh battery, and IP68 certification.

The Samsung handset that surfaced on Geekbench using the SM-J260G model name is expected to hit the market as the Galaxy J2 Core, the brand's first Android Go-driven device. Although nothing is official for now, we expect to see this smartphone launching in the coming weeks.

The successor of the Xiaomi Mi Pad 3 tablet is expected to become the first slate of this popular Chinese brand to use a Qualcomm Snapdragon processor, although it might take a while for it to finally reach the market. According to XDA Developers, the Snapdragon 660 is the chip that will power the Mi Pad 4.

Although we recently heard that the upcoming iPhone SE 2 would drop the audio jack, a set of leaked images shows that the refreshed version of Apple's compact handset will keep this traditional jack around. These photos also reveal a design with a glass back, apparently inspired by the classic iPhone 5.

The ZTE Iceberg concept that surfaced on the iF World Design Guide might have seemed nothing more but another over-the-top design, but now a patent showing a similar device has been spotted online. Now, it only remains to see if ZTE can still launch a dual-notch phone, since the Chinese company has been sailing some rough waters lately.

Rumors of a Samsung Galaxy S9 Mini have been rife of recent but a new source has claimed that the device is, in fact, the S8 Lite—a mid-range device exclusive to the Chinese market. It will be joined by the A8 Star.

The developer channel for Google's Chrome browser ("Canary") is sport a new coat of paint as well as some useful features. While all of these changes may not make their way to the Stable channel, the new design language echoes what we've already seen in early builds of Android P and the leaked Gmail design refresh.

The Nokia X6 will be Nokia's next device. The device is reportedly billed for an April 27 launch and is positioned between the Nokia 6 (2018) and the Nokia 7 Plus in the company's hierarchy of smartphones.

It's been almost five months since the official reveal of Kaby Lake-G and there is only one manufacturer other than Intel currently shipping a Kaby Lake-G product. We put the pieces together to find out why there are so few of these systems in the market and why most manufacturers are staying silent on the matter.

It appears that the phone call related APIs that Microsoft removed from Windows 10 in the Fall Creators Update have been added back again in Windows 10 Redstone 5 Build 17650, which rolled out to the 'Skip Ahead Insiders' channel. This could be another indication of an approaching Surface Phone release date.

Almost one month after the release of the LG Stylo 3, we hear that the LG Stylo 4 is in the making. Sadly, the insiders who talked about it only mentioned that it will hit the US via Cricket Wireless, without saying anything about the specs and features of this upcoming mid-range Android phablet.

Although the upcoming OnePlus 6 flagship has no official launch date or price yet, both have been revealed in India. Last Thursday, MoneyControl published an article about this topic that was removed shortly after going online. According to it, the OnePlus 6 will launch on May 18 and will have a price of around US$602.

Reuters has recently published an article stating that China will be ramping up efforts to greatly enhance its chip-making industry. The hefty seven-year ban on buying parts from US manufacturers that has been placed on Chinese tech firm ZTE by the US Department of Commerce has provided fresh impetus for the Asian state’s efforts in the semiconductor industry.

A recent EEC approval filing revealed that Apple could be preparing to launch a slew of unannounced mobile devices and one of these could be the iPhone SE 2. No specific hardware specs were revealed in the EEC file, but the iPhone SE 2 could come with the A10 Fusion SoC coupled with 2 GB of RAM, up to 128 GB storage and improved cameras, plus the latest iOS 11 version, but would still retain the 4-inch display found on the original model.

A report from Bloomberg has stated that Facebook is creating a chip-making team. Job listings have appeared on the social-networking site’s careers section that seem to point toward this eventuality. Other tech giants, such as Apple and Google, have already started producing their own processors. Facebook-produced chips could be used in hardware or for AI-improvement purposes.

It has been reported that EA Dice is working on a prototype battle royale mode for the upcoming title Battlefield V. The Battlefield series has been a massive success over the years for Electronic Arts, and it makes good business sense for the game developer to work on a battle royale mode and try to capture some of the market before it inevitably becomes saturated.

An ad in China has revealed what appears to be HMD's next device, the Nokia X. Details of the device aren't in circulation at the moment, and rumors claim it will be a mid-ranger instead of the flagship its name tag implies

The upcoming Samsung Galaxy S flagship, although still many months ahead of us, is rumored to lack a foldable display. On the other hand, this handset is expected to feature a 3D camera, as well as an Infinity display similar to those that Samsung already used for the Galaxy S9 and Galaxy S8 handsets.

The render of the upcoming — and officially confirmed — LG G7 ThinQ Android flagship reveals a thick metal frame similar to that of the LG G6, a display with curved corners, as well as a rather wide notch at the top. All the details should be official in less than a month since the launch event will take place on May 2.

Three “clues” have been unearthed that all seemingly point toward the development of Watch Dogs 3. Watch Dogs was released by Ubisoft in 2014 and was a huge commercial success. The sequel landed in 2016 and also received favorable reviews. Unsurprisingly, Ubisoft has not commented on the rumors in regard to a possible third title in the series.

Recently, there have been reports of what appeared to be a Samsung Galaxy S9 Mini. More details of that device have been revealed and it would seem that we've been bamboozled yet again, with the device apparently a Galaxy S9 variant designed exclusively for the Chinese market.

British tabloid newspaper The Daily Star has reported that Sony may be planning to discontinue the PlayStation Vita handheld game console, possibly this year. The device was launched in 2011, and although it’s believed it has sold 10 to 15 million units, it just hasn’t managed to keep up with the fierce competition from Nintendo.

After Razer and Xiaomi, Asus could become the third big brand to hop on the gaming smartphone bandwagon. The rumor has been around for a while, but the device did not arrive at MWC 2018 as mentioned. Now, the company's CEO Jerry Shen also confirmed that a gaming phone by Asus can be expected, but did not reveal any details.

Although there is no official announcement yet and last year's Galaxy Xcover 4 was only released in Europe and Canada, a Galaxy Xcover 5 was recently discovered on Samsung New Zealand's website. Since the webpage was taken down in the meantime, it is rather safe to assume that it was all an accident and this rugged phone will be unveiled soon.

Although most leaks and rumors that we heard so far mentioned a Qualcomm Snapdragon 660 as the heart of the upcoming Moto G6 Plus handset, this mobile device features in fact the Qualcomm Snapdragon 630 chip, which is listed by Geekbench as a Snapdragon 660 due to a bug. Other features apparently include 4 GB RAM and a 5.93-inch display.

Intel might be looking to retire its 'Kaby Lake-X' series of chips in late 2018 and focus instead on a 'Skylake-X' Refresh ranging from 6 to 18 cores. Also in tow is a new Solder Thermal Interface Material (STIM) for the Integrated Heat Spreader that can offer up to 200 MHz boosts on base and turbo frequencies. On the other hand, 'Cascade Lake' might get delayed till Q2 2019.

A patent that is over one-year old reveals what appears to be a Switch tablet without the controllers, but it can also show a way to play games on more than a single display, similar to the Sifteo Cubes "intelligent game system" which has been discontinued more than three years ago.

The upcoming Gmail design update aims to bring the desktop user experience closer to that provided by the email service on mobile devices. The list of features currently being tested includes smart replies, snooze, a new sidebar, as well as a special mode that stops email recipients from forwarding certain emails.

A firmware teardown by XDA-Developers has revealed details of Xiaomi's upcoming device, the Mi 6X. The Mi 5X—also the Mi A1—was an immensely popular device but the Mi 6X could fail to match its success, with what appears to be a downgrade in battery capacity, and the lack of a headphone jack.

A report from Kotaku about the video-game company Hangar 13 has mentioned the development of a new BioShock game. BioShock Infinite was the last release in the popular series from 2K Games, and that title came out in 2013. There has been no official announcement about the game yet, which is apparently codenamed “Parkside.”

According to rumors, AMD's Navi-based GPUs, which are slotted for release in 2019, may compete with Nvidia's GTX 1080 but not supersede it. This could spell trouble for AMD; the GPU shortage caused by the cryptomining craze particularly hit AMD's stock, and the lack of a competitive GPU next year may cause a loss of market share.

Not long after a Samsung device with the model number SM-G8750 surfaced on Geekbench with a Snapdragon 660 onboard, the SM-G8850 hits TENAA with a Snapdragon 845 inside. Nothing is official yet, but insiders familiar with this matter claim that the handset should be unveiled in the coming weeks.

ETNews has claimed that Huawei will announce a truly foldable phone in November of this year. According to the South Korean news outlet’s sources, the Shenzhen-based company will show off the device to the public for additional research purposes, but it won’t be immediately available for purchase. It would be quite a coup for Huawei to beat rivals such as Samsung and Apple in this particular race.