Android

A revealing leaked image of an exhibition poster has shown that Samsung is preparing to unleash another foldable device onto the market. However, this is not about a successor to the now somewhat notorious Samsung Galaxy Fold, as the poster in the photo is actually for promoting the Galaxy W20 5G flip-phone.

A document allegedly filed with the Japan Patent Office (JPO) suggests that Sharp may have a device with a punch-hole selfie camera in the works. Like that of the Samsung Galaxy Note 10 series, it is in the midline of the display. Some renders included in this apparent patent indicates that this phone would also have a relatively large chin, however.

The Mi Mix 4 promises to be one of the most impressive devices of the year and we finally have a launch date. The company has now confirmed that it will release the flagship on September 24, and it could come with a host of impressive features including a QHD+ AMOLED display, 108 MP camera, and 5x optical zoom.

Samsung revamped its budget and mid-range segments this year with the launch of the Galaxy A line. That move appears to have paid off exceedingly well, as three devices in the lineup were in the top seven best-selling Android devices of H1 2019.

The OEM OnePlus has made its anticipated 7T series of phones official, and has also announced dates for its launch around the world. The first of these will be in India on September 26, 2019. The 7Ts will then get a 2nd event in London on October 10. There will also be a third, virtual event for the North American market.

iPhone lovers are always going to anything smartphone out of Cupertino, no matter how questionable its design aesthetic may be. The new iPhone 11 Pro series has polarized opinions with its new triple-camera design but is getting strong early orders nonetheless. However, Huawei and Porsche Design have partnered to show how a top-notch multi-camera array can be integrated into a smartphone in a way that looks undoubtedly gorgeous.

Mentioned for the first time back in November last year, the yet-to-be-confirmed Google "Hatch" Chromebook has just surfaced on Geekbench. The listing in the popular benchmark database confirms that this portable is powered by a 10th generation Intel Comet Lake processor, namely the Intel Core i3-10110U.

Huawei’s Mate 30 line has leaked in full renders thanks to well-known leaker Evan Blass. Leaving nothing to the imagination, we know get to feast our eyes on the Mate 30 Pro, the Mate 30 and the Mate 30 Lite in all their glory.

Seemingly without warning, Verizon has started rolling out Android 9.0 Pie to the LG V30. The update, which should be available over the air (OTA) right now, weighs in at 2.25 GB and is downloadable from LG Bridge too. The rollout is the first we have seen for the V30 since LG pulled the worldwide Android 9.0 Pie release for its former flagship last month.

Huawei unveiled a new line of smart glasses along with the P30 smartphone series. However, nothing has been heard of them since. Now, however, they have reportedly been released to the Chinese market in several different styles and opacities.

Google Assistant had been reported to gain a dark theme at the start of 2019. However, this update did not get to all users at once. Now, it appears that the Mountain View giant is pushing this change again. This new roll-out, which also affects the Google App, has been observed in a small number of countries thus far.

The Google Pixel 4 phones are set for launch next month and a set of leaks have revealed even more about the upcoming flagships, with a focus on some of the deficiencies the devices may come saddled with, as is customary with Google's flagships.

The OnePlus 7T are billed for launch in the very busy month of October. A new leak has detailed the two phones but things aren't looking up for fans of the company who've been patiently waiting for the OnePlus 7T Pro.

The Google Camera app v7 has leaked out and has been torn down. This has resulted in references to a slew of new abilities that may debut in the Pixel 4 and 4XL. They include the Mountain View's versions of Samsung's Motion Blur and Audio Zoom. They may also extend to real-time HDR edits, phone astrophotography and a new form of depth-perception.

Leviton's new duplex wall socket also has in-built USB outputs. These welcome and increasingly welcome upgrades to electrical fittings are type-C ports with the Power Delivery (USB-PD) standard. This means they are rated to charge compatible devices at up to 30 watts.

Android tablets are a dying breed and LG is doing its best to beat that fact into our heads. The South Korean company is apparently set to release a new tablet, the G Pad 5. It will feature a 10.1-inch display, LTE support, and rather bizarrely, a Snapdragon 821.

The OEM OPPO's Vice President, Shen Yiren, has reportedly sent Weibo messages to the effect that a new, improved version of SuperVOOC will be included in an upcoming device, the Reno Ace. This new upgrade will apparently charge at an unprecedented 65 watts (W). The Ace is also said to have a 4000 mAh battery and a 90 hertz display.

The Kirin 990 SoC is the latest LTE chipset released by Huawei. A phone that purports to be a new model from this OEM has appeared on the Geekbench results database. It suggest that this new processor is a good match for the Snapdragon 855 Plus.

Following months of speculation, the existence of the Samsung Galaxy M30s as a retail product has been confirmed. It may be exclusive to Amazon India, a site that is currently promoting it as a device with an impressive 6000mAh battery. This new Galaxy M-series variant will go on sale on September 18, 2019.

There is nothing like a sale to get rid of old stock ahead of a new product release. While all the talk has recently been about the huge volume of Pixel 4 and 4 XL leaks, Google is running a sale on all Pixel 3 and 3 XL models. You can take US$300 off across the board, but only while stocks last.

The soon-to-be-released Google Pixel 4 XL is back in a new unofficial video that does not leave much to be discovered at launch. The video shows the upcoming flagship device with a round camera module on the back that makes it similar to the iPhone 11, a 90 Hz display, a Qualcomm Snapdragon 855 processor, 6 GB of memory, and more.

Vivo is arguably one of the most innovative smartphone makers on the market right now. The company pioneered the first true all-screen smartphone as well as the first under-screen fingerprint reader. Now it looks set to deliver the first smartphone with a 99.6 percent screen-to-body ratio.

The Samsung Galaxy M10s now seems to be official. It has appeared on the Android Enterprise database, which reveals it to be a device with 3GB of RAM and 32GB in interal storage. Unlike the original M10, it also has a 6.4-inch display and a fingerprint sensor.

The Motorola One line of smartphones has seen multiple new additions this year. A new phone with a name that fits in among them has just appeared on Geekbench. It may run on the MediaTek Helio P70 SoC and has 2GB of RAM.

The Fairphone 3 received a perfect 10 in its iFixIt teardown. The modular phone is perhaps the most repairable device on the market; most major components are attached to removable modules, making repairs a snap. The back is held in with simple clips rather than adhesives, and the battery can be lifted out of the device and swapped out in less than a minute.

The NanoPi M4V2, as its name suggests, is a new revision of the NanoPi M4, which FriendlyElec launched last year. The Rockchip RK3399 powered single-board computer (SBC) includes 4 GB of dual-channel LPDDR4 RAM, four USB 3.0 Type-A ports, one USB 2.0 Type-C ports and a 40-pin GPIO header. The board also supports Gigabit Ethernet and up to 802.11 ac Wi-Fi. The M4V2 includes power and recovery buttons too. The NanoPi M4V2 is available to order now for US$70.00 from FriendlyARM, which ships worldwide.

Apple and its market machine is in full spin mode following the launch of the iPhone 11 range along with the Watch Series 5 and 10.2-inch iPad. Yes, it is true these devices are new. However, I take exception to Apple labeling them as ‘all-new’ on its website. Not one of its new products is ‘all-new.’

9to5Google claims to have learned that Google has a new Call Screen-like function for the Assistant in the works. It may become known as "Hold my Phone", and will enable a device's AI to handle a phonecall that has gone on hold by itself. This, apparently, will involve alerting the user when a respondent has come back on to the line.

The upcoming Huawei flagship series is linked to a number of highly unusual design choice via its leaks already. One of them indicates that these phones will come with display notches (again). However, a new image depicting a screen protector allegedly made for the Mate 30 shows a different kind of notch this time around.

A OnePlus executive has been spilling more details on its first-gen smart TV, in order to build hype ahead of its launch. The latest of these hints is that its back panel will be finished in a carbon-fiber effect. It will also support Dolby Vision and have a dedicated image processor.

Huawei has announced its EMUI 10 roadmap at IFA 2019, and the company is aiming to deliver its custom version of Android 10 to over 30 Huawei and Honor devices. At least 10 devices including the Mate 30 series will be running EMUI 10 before the end of the year, with the rollout continuing to Q2 2020 and beyond. EMUI 10 will feature Google Services for existing handsets too.

Still holding out on seeing your LG G6 or V20 running Android 9.0 Pie? Well, while LG remains tight-lipped when this month it plans to release the OS upgrade to both devices, but changes to the Android Enterprise Solutions Directory point towards it being soon. Do you reckon that LG will keep to its Q3 2019 schedule for rolling out Android 9.0 Pie to the G6 and V20?

EMUI 10 beta builds are here, but Huawei has not opened the program to all models and variants. Read on to find out which devices are eligible for an early look at Huawei's custom version of Android 10 and how to install it on your handset.

The smartphone OEM BLU has unveiled a new sub-brand, BOLD. It will offer new "premium flagship and flagship-like" devices that buck the trend of rising prices in this market. The first BOLD phone, the N1, is powered by the mid-range MediaTek Helio P70 SoC, and has a 6.4-inch FHD+ notchless display.

It is not something new that more cameras are not always better, but many of those into mobile photography had high expectations from the Nokia 9 PureView. Sadly, Nokia's flagship with five cameras on the back failed to impress and only scored 85 points overall in DxOMark's test — 88 for still photography and 80 for video shooting.

Xiaomi has launched its fastest wireless charging standard yet: Mi Charge Turbo, which powers a compatible device at 30 watts (W). The OEM claims that it needs only 25 minutes to charge an empty 4000mAh battery to 50%. Furthermore, the company also stated that it is working on a 40W upgrade for this new standard already.

After a rather long wait, Vivaldi is finally available for mobile devices. This powerful web browser can be taken for a spin only by Android users for now as a beta piece of code, but it already features private browsing, the Note tool with cross-device sync capabilities also available for desktop users, screenshot snapping, and more.

Realme will soon launch a 5G smartphone powered by Qualcomm's new Snapdragon 7-series 5G Mobile Platform. The Realme 5G phone will support both SA and NSA 5G networks for maximum worldwide band compatibility. Realme is also said to be working on a new device with a 90 Hz display refresh rate for a price that would be cheaper than the upcoming OnePlus 7T.

The upcoming Huawei Mate 30 and foldable Mate X will not ship with Google Mobile Services (GMS) pre-installed due to the ongoing ban on Huawei products by the Trump administration citing national security concerns. However, CEO Richard Yu said that users can still install Google apps on their own and that the company is contemplating shifting to HarmonyOS starting from the P40 series next year if the situation doesn't improve.

Huawei has unveiled the Kirin 990 and the Kirin 990 5G at IFA 2019. The Kirin 990 5G offers a built-in 5G modem, faster CPU clocks, and a new Da Vinci 2+1 NPU architecture. The new SoC also features a 16-core Mali-G76 MP16 GPU and will first be seen powering handsets such as the Mate 30 and Mate 30 Pro.

A tech blog claims to have dug up new renders and marketing material for a new OPPO Reno phone. It is apparently to be called the Reno A, and is powered by the Snapdragon 710 SoC. It is described as having 6GB of RAM and either 64GB or 128GB in internal storage.

Pete Lau, the chief executive officer (CEO) at OnePlus, has confirmed that a new phone with an imminent release will have a 90Hz screen. The use of the eptithet "affordable" also connected to this phone suggests that this device is the 7T rather than the 7T Pro. This, then, may not go down well with those who already own the 7 Pro.

TCL, a name perhaps better known for TVs, has unveiled its latest mobile device at IFA. The PLEX is a 6.53-inch FHD+ phone with a 24MP punch-hole camera. It has triple rear cameras, one of which is 48MP, and AI enhancements for the same. The PLEX also has T-Cast, an app that allows it full control over certain smart TVs from the same brand.

Huawei has taken to IFA to unveil new wireless earbuds alongside the Kirin 990 SoC. They are the latest in the Freebuds line of wearables, and are thus AirPod clones (in their looks at least). These 3rd-gen products have a dedicated dual-Bluetooth chipset of their own, "intelligent" noise cancellation and a unique charging case.

If the recent volume of leaks is anything to go by, then the Pixel 4 series is edging ever nearer to being unveiled. While the bezels and square rear-facing camera housing may put off many people, Google may have a few technological innovations up its sleeve.

Samsung’s Galaxy Fold has already sold out in its home market of Korea just a day after its launch. Admittedly, only around 2,500 units were on sale of the bleeding edge device but it shows that early adopters are keen to try out the latest technology from the Korean tech behemoth.

A device simply called “Huawei Dev Phone” has been spotted on the AI Benchmark, and both the phone and the HiSilicon Kirin 990 5G mobile SoC it features have completely outclassed the competition in the benchmark’s performance rankings. The smartphone’s final AI score was more than twice the amount of its nearest rival, the Honor 20S.