Android

Going by all available information, the Galaxy S20 phones will be more expensive than their predecessors—in the US at least. While that may sound like a thoughtless move by Samsung, some context is necessary.

8K video recording capabilities are coming to Snapdragon 865-powered flagships this year, even though they will be mostly useless and potentially buggy, at least judging by a showcase video posted by Qualcomm on YouTube. It is important to note that the video was shot in November last year, so maybe Qualcomm managed to fix all these problems in the meantime, so maybe the upcoming Galaxy S20 phones will not be plagued with such issues.

It appears one of the world’s current best-selling smartphones, the Samsung Galaxy A50, could be receiving the expected update to One UI 2.0 soon thanks to the information revealed in a recently spotted Wi-Fi Alliance certification. The Android 10 upgrade will be welcomed by fans of the phone, which dominated sales charts in Europe and other markets in 2019.

Doogee has announced the S68 Pro, another in its long line of toughphones. However, this one also has the reverse wireless charging feature normally found in Huawei or Samsung flagships. This power will come from the device's 6300mAh battery.

Huawei's 22.5 W SuperCharge was class-leading three years ago but the company has slowly lost ground on that front. That could be set to change soon, though, as a new report claims the Chinese company could debut a new 65 W fast-charging technology on the upcoming Mate Xs.

LG looks to be getting better with software updates. The South Korean company is continuing its Android 10 rollout for the G8 ThinQ, and the latest version of the phone to receive the update is the US unlocked model. Both the Sprint and Verizon models already received the update.

Samsung has been linked to an upcoming budget smart speaker since 2018. More recent reports appear to confirm that this device will be called the Galaxy Home Mini and that it would launch on February 12, 2020. An even newer leak asserts that this date has in fact been pushed up a bit.

While many other Kirin 710-powered smartphones have now received EMUI 10 and Android 10, Huawei has frozen out the Nova 3i. The official confirmation that the device will not be getting a second OS upgrade has clearly irked some fans and owners of the handset, with thousands joining forces to demand that EMUI 10 reaches the Nova 3i.

OnePlus is preparing to launch its next-generation flagship smartphones, specifically the OnePlus 8 and OnePlus 8 Pro. While there have been a few reports speculating about the design of OnePlus' upcoming devices, we now have official confirmation that the phones exist.

Behold the majestic camera bump on the Galaxy S20 Ultra model! It is twice as wide as the one from S20 / S20+ and almost half as wide as the phone itself. There is a dedicated mic between the main sensor and the LED, as well. Care to pay US$1,399 for it? Too much? How about US$1,199 for the Galaxy S20+? No? Maybe the US$999 regular S20 is the phone you are looking for, then?

While most details remain sketchy, the teaser that surfaced online earlier this week suggests that the Galaxy M31 will hit the market with a 64 MP main camera and a generous battery able to provide at least 5,000 mAh like the Galaxy M30, maybe even more than 6,000 mAh (Galaxy M30s).

While there have been complaints about how quickly LG and Samsung drop support for their former smartphones, Huawei may be treating to its older handsets differently. The company has now given fans hope that the Mate 9 and Mate 9 Pro will receive Android 10 courtesy of EMUI 10, which would be their third OS upgrade since they were unveiled in November 2016. Better still, they will retain Google Mobile Services functionality, too.

There have been plenty of headlines written in regard to smartphone owners waiting to receive an update to Android 10. However, smartphones are definitely not created equally, as an image of a Google Pixel 2 XL running on an alleged version of Android R has demonstrated. Android R is likely a preliminary name for Android 11.

The Mi Note 10 Pro launched to much fanfare with its penta-camera setup that offered 5x optical zoom and a 108 MP main camera. It's, by all means, a capable camera smartphone and will appeal to hobbyist photographers; but audio looks to be an entirely different issue.

LG and ZTE both issued statements earlier today announcing that the companies would not be attending MWC 2020. Citing concerns over the coronavirus outbreak in eastern China, both companies will not be physically present that this year's conference.

Google has announced that its Google Glass Enterprise Edition 2 is headed to regular retail channels for developers. Although failed as a consumer product, at least in the immediate future, the company has found legs for it in enterprise so much so that demand has warranted its wider availability.

Rumour has it that Nokia, or rather HMD Global, will unveil new smartphones at MWC 2020 later this month. Inconveniently, the event will occur on February 23, one day before MWC 2020 begins in Barcelona. New mid-range handsets and an Android-powered feature phone may be on the agenda, with the rumoured 9.2 PureView not due to appear until later in the year.

For some reason, Huawei is taking its sweet time with the rollout of the Android 10-based EMUI 10 update. The update is still mostly going out to Kirin 980-powered phones; ergo, last-gen premium phones including the Mate 20, P30 and Nova 5T series.

The increasingly convincing leaker Digital Chat Station has hinted that a new Xiaomi Mi Mix is back on the cards. It is possible that this device will be called the 2020, and it could have the OEM's long-awaited 100-watt charging technology. Pair this with the idea of a 120 hertz refresh rate, and that is an extremely speedy hypothetical phone.

Recently, the brand POCO has reportedly started providing OTA updates to Android 10 for its first device, the F1. Now, it seems one for the February 2020 security patch level has followed. Oddly, it seemingly comes direct from Google, a service normally reserved for Pixel phones.

Samsung's newest mid-rangers —the Galaxy S10 Lite and Galaxy Note 10 Lite— are now available for purchase in Spain for €659 and €609 respectively. Both phones come with a 6.67-inch FHD+ Super AMOLED panel, a 4,500 mAh battery and 128 GB of internal storage.

Following on from the Escobar Fold 1, Pablo Escobar's brother has unveiled the Fold 2, another inexpensive foldable smartphone by Escobar Inc. The Fold 2 starts at US$399 for a Qualcomm Snapdragon 855 SoC and up to 512 GB of storage, although Escobar Inc has admitted that the device is a Samsung Galaxy Fold replica. The announcement coincides with reports of Escobar Inc failing to deliver Escobar Fold 1 units and refusing to issue refunds among other red flags, though.

Xiaomi may have started rolling out Android 10 to the Redmi Note 8 Pro, but there are probably many of you out there that are still running Android 9.0 Pie builds of MIUI 11 on your device. Without official confirmation, it seems that many Redmi Note 8 Pro owners are being left in the dark about when their device will receive Android 10.

Huawei is expected to produce a successor to its early-2019 flagship, the P30 Pro, soon. A new leak suggests it will have the curving screen type debuted in the Mate 30 series. However, it may not share this line's wide notch, at least.

This large of a storage capacity is almost unheard of in the mid-range sector: 256 GB of fast UFS 2.1 storage makes the Huawei P30 Lite New Edition almost unique. The summary of our tests reveals whether or not this comes at the cost of something else.

Chinese smartphone maker TCL has announced that it will cease making and releasing new BlackBerry handsets come August 31. TCL started licensing the brand in December of 2016 following BlackBerry’s exit from the smartphone market in September the same year.

Poco won our hearts with the release of its debut phone, the Poco F1, back in 2018. Eighteen months later, the Xiaomi sub-brand is back with yet another offering, the Poco X2. Sadly, this one just ain't it, chief.

The Galaxy S20 phones are billed to be unveiled in a week. A new leak has given us pricing information for the phones across US carriers, and, well, it doesn't sound too good. The base S20 could potentially start at US$999, making it US$300 more expensive than Apple's cheapest iPhone this year, the iPhone 11.

Some leaks have hinted that the next couple of major Xiaomi mobile device launches may lack physical locations. This may mean that the Mi 10 and Black Shark 3 events may be online-only. This may be due to the risks posed by the new coronavirus epidemic in China.

Expectant Redmi fans must brace themselves as a new report throws more light on the upcoming Redmi K30 Pro. There's some good news...and some bad news. The good news first? The phone will be powered by a Snapdragon 865.

A Realme executive has revealed that this brand is working on its own smart TV, and that more details will be available at the next Mobile World Congress (MWC). To date, no specs or features for this upcoming product are known for sure. However, based on this announcement, its first launch may be in India.

The foldable and clamshell nature of the Samsung phone that may launch as the Galaxy Z Flip seems to have been confirmed in a few recent leaks. Now, a new one purports to outline its performance and specs as well. This next-gen device may be powered by the Snapdragon 855 - or 855+ - and run Android 10 with 8GB of RAM.

Nubia is thought to be working on a successor for the Red Magic 3 gaming phone. This generation is touted to have 5G, a 144Hz screen and other potentially ultra-fast attributes. However, a new specs leak suggests that at least one of these may not be as speedy as once thought.

Motorola is currently rumored to introduce the complete next-gen Moto G line-up at MWC 2020. It consists of the G8, G Stylus and G8 Power. The latter may have arrived on the Geekbench 5 website, revealing specs such as 4GB of RAM and Android 10.

While Samsung has adopted a two OS update policy for years, there are still ways of getting new versions of Android on older handsets. The Galaxy S8 and Note 8 are more recent examples of this, but so are the much older Galaxy S II, or Galaxy S2 as it is more commonly known, and the Galaxy Note 3.

Several instances of the Mi A2 Lite running Android 10 have appeared on Geekbench. Android 10 is likely the last OS upgrade that the Android One device will receive, having been released running Android 8.1 Oreo.

The Samsung Galaxy S20 phones will feature new camera hardware but that isn't worth much if the supporting software isn't good enough. Thankfully, Samsung appears to be holding down the fort in that aspect pretty well, if a new trademark filing is anything to go by.

A new image of a full-screen phone with a punch-hole display has appeared on SlashLeaks. Nothing too unusual about that - until one comes to the bit where it is attributed to the Meizu 17. Should this be the case, the OEM in question would need to drop a long-held tradition of engineering ultra-high foreheads as alternatives to either notches or punch-holes.

Motorola has marked its 100,000,000th unit of the Moto G series sold with a special event. It offers up to US$320 off a new phone, depending on the model. Alternatively, a shopper can choose a free accessory, money off, or even a whole other phone, with other listings.

Asus ROG India has issued an open letter to its fans expressing regret that they may face difficulty in buying this OEM's latest gaming phone. This "temporary shortage" is associated with the coronavirus outbreak in Asia, which is currently disrupting the relevant supply chains in the region. However, Asus is confident that its mobile-device stock levels will be back up "soon".

A new video has shown the upcoming Galaxy Z Flip in action, and we have a feeling public opinion on it could be divisive. The clamshell-style foldable phone will be launched on February 11, alongside the Galaxy S20 series.

Realme has made the C3 official via its Twitter feeds. This phone will be powered by MediaTek's new Helio G70 chipset. This upcoming device will also have a 6.5-inch display and dual rear cameras, albeit ones that may improve over those found in the C2 in certain ways. The OEM has also revealed it will have a 5000mAh battery.

The confusion over Samsung’s rollout of the Android 10 based One UI 2.0 for the Galaxy S9 series seems to be settling as users around the globe have been reporting the update’s availability. Owners of the Galaxy S9 and Galaxy S9 Plus from countries as far apart as India, the UK, Slovenia, and Australia have been reporting receiving the new software.

The Asus Zenfone Max Pro M1 was released in early 2018 and is now getting its first taste of Android 10. Android 10 is the second major OS upgrade the phone will get, which is impressive for a phone that had an MSRP of just US$200. Getting it ahead of a number of flagships is icing on the cake.

The JEDEC solid-state assocation has unveiled UFS 3.1, the immediate successor for the memory standard found in some of the most premium smartphones out today. The organization asserts that it will build on its last generation in terms of speed and power-efficiency. It also has a new optional companion standard that may further boost read speeds.

HYPER has put its new charger up for crowdfunding on Indiegogo. Despite packing a maximum rate of 100 watts (W), it is described as even smaller than the MacBook Pro brick with the same kind of port. This is due to its gallium nitride (GaN) technology, which can offer greater power transfer in a smaller footprint.

The European Parliament has announced that it will hold a vote on a motion to write its 2014 Radio Equipment Directive into law. This would probably result in an obligation for mobile device OEMs to fit all products to be sold in the EU with a universal charging connector. Therefore, those companies with in-house ports may have to drop them for that market.

Motorola's rumored new pen-enabled phone is becoming more and more real with each new leak. It seemt that it will be called the G Stylus, and may have 4GB of RAM and run Android 10. A new report claims to flesh it out further with SoC, camera and display details.

There’s been quite a drama between the Pocophone F1 and the popular Android 10 OS. There seemed to be some doubt over whether the ageing smartphone would even get an upgrade to the latest edition of Android, but it now appears a public rollout has begun with users around the world cheerfully commenting on the update.

Samsung has released the Galaxy A51 already. Now, a device that seems like a 5G version of the same has surfaced on the Geekbench 5 benchmarking website. It runs the Exynos 980 SoC instead of the 9611, and has 6GB of RAM.