Android

OnePlus devices have always drawn inspiration from OPPO’s offerings and the OnePlus 6T will likely be no different when its released in a few months. There’s a high chance we get a device with tri-rear cameras—a la Huawei P20 Pro—and a spanking new design.

The Essential PH-1 went on sale for just US$280 a few days ago, but is now listed for even less. Surely there aren’t any brand new devices that can compete at this price point?

Sony has released its update roadmap for Android Pie. The company is set to continue its tradition of being one of the first OEMs to send out major updates to its devices.

Samsung’s foldable device is coming to market soon, but although there have been plenty of leaks and even official information about the device, not a lot is known about what it looks like. If new renders based on all the available information to date are accurate, it is poised to be a fascinating entry into the smartphone market.

HTC's mobile division has failed at picking itself up from its dire straits and word on the grapevine claims that the company may be unable to handle production of its next device by itself.

EISA (Expert Imaging and Sound Association) has announced its picks for the best smartphones of the year across different categories, with Huawei and Nokia being the biggest winners.

Huawei is supposedly testing the new Android Pie on four of its devices. The company is likely to rollout out the Android P-based EMUI 9 in the near future.

Samsung doesn’t look as though it will bring a Galaxy S9 Active to market this year. With the typical launch window for the device passed, coupled with the relatively weak demand for the S9 line generally, it seems as though the Active variant may have quietly slipped off the radar.

Amazon is currently flogging the Essential Phone PH-1 for just US$280. Despite being powered by last year’s Snapdragon 835, Essential has already pushed out the official build of Android 9.0 Pie to the device making it a great deal.

In a direct blow to Huawei, Xiaomi, and ZTE, OnePlus could get the backing and marketing resources from one of the largest carriers in the United States for its upcoming flagship smartphone. Rumors are pointing towards a launch price of $550 USD or hundreds of dollars less than the popular alternatives from Apple or Samsung.

Details of Huawei's upcoming Mate trio of devices have surfaced, showing devices with five cameras, wireless charging, and huge batteries.

Market analysts claimed sales of the Samsung Galaxy S9 was one of the worst ever in the series but Samsung has other ideas, and also believes the new Note 9 will outsell the Note 8.

A fresh exclusive report shows the upcoming BlackBerry KEY2 LE in blue/blue black and reiterates the specs mentioned by the latest rumors: Qualcomm Snapdragon 636 processor, 2 GB of memory, 32 GB or 64 GB internal storage, 13 MP + 5 MP dual camera setup on the back, a 3,000 mAh battery, and Android 8.1 Oreo out of the box.

Huawei's latest silicon, the Kirin 980, will debut this October in the Mate 20, according to a press release obtained by Android Authority. The SoC will be the world's first commercially-available piece of silicon based on a 7 nm process. For reference, Samsung and Apple just release 10 nm chips last year.

PUBG Mobile crossed 100 million downloads this month, cementing it as one of the most popular Battle Royales for smartphones and tablets. Despite its success, it still trails behind Fortnite, which hit 100 million downloads last month on iOS only. The new Android version of Fortnite may spell trouble for PUBG Mobile and Tencent games.

Although the Sony Xperia XA2 arrived in January 2018, it seems that its successor will hit the market before the end of the year. A handset that is rumored to be the upcoming Xperia XA3 was recently spotted on Geekbench as the Qualcomm Snapdragon 660-powered Sony H4493. This handset sports 6 GB of memory and runs Android 8.1 Oreo.

An Honor model codenamed ARE-AL00 just got its TENNA certification, and the leaked specs point towards a possible next gen Max version of the Honor 8. Powered by the Kirin 710 SoC coupled with 4 GB RAM and 64 GB storage, the new mid-ranger will feature a 7.12-inch LCD display and a 4,900 mAh to match it. There is a fingerprint sensor on the back, plus an 8 MP selfie shooter and a 16 MP + 2 MP rear dual cam.

Motorola just released their list of phones with a planned update for Android 9.0 Pie. However, the Moto G5 and Moto E4 lines, both of which were incredibly popular last year, are conspicuously absent. On top of that, there is no set date for the update. Rather, it will be pushed "starting this fall."

Asus' main flagship for the year, the Zenfone 5Z is finally making it over to the US. While currently unavailable, it's said to be on pre-order at the moment and will go on sale on August 13 with a bargain price tag of US$499.

OPPO has unveiled its new F9 sub-premium device. The F9 is a solid offering on paper, and continues the new trend of innovative design factors with one of the best notch implementations we've ever seen.

Motorola has launched three new devices in China. The E5 Plus and Z3 are known quantities, so the main arrival is the Snapdragon 636-powered Moto P30.

Xiaomi released the Mi A2 in India last week, with the device being, for the most part, an Android One rebrand of the Mi 6X. It also fails at being a worthy successor to the popular last-gen Mi A1.

Although it will use the same Qualcomm Snapdragon 660 processor as the regular Mi Pad 4, the upcoming Xiaomi Mi Pad 4 Plus is expected to come with a larger display and a higher-capacity battery. Rumored to arrive in black or gold finish, this Android slate should come with 4 GB RAM and 64 GB or 128 GB internal storage.

The Galaxy Note 9 comes with a display that managed to raise the bar "significantly higher" compared to the previous Samsung handsets that were praised by DisplayMate for the quality of their screens. In this case, the display lab claims that the Note 9 sports "the most innovative and high-performance smartphone display" it ever tested.

Rumors about a BlackBerry KEY2 Lite smartphone are have just been refueled with TCL's teaser of a new model that will be announced at IFA 2018 on August 30. The Lite version should keep the same appearance as the regular version, complete with the QWERTY keyboard, but some key hardware components like the SoC, memory, camera setup and battery would be downgraded.

According to the official Twitter handle of Poco India, the Xiaomi Poco F1 is all set to launch on August 22. While no specifications have been revealed, we do know that the Poco F1 is Xiaomi's shot at the affordable flagship category.

India remains a solid market for the Chinese smartphone brand, as Xiaomi accounted for no less than 10 million units sold in Q2 2018, which translates to a market share of 29.7 percent. Samsung got the second place, while Vivo and OPPO came in third and fourth. The Indian market grew by 20 percent since the same period of 2017.

After it impressed everyone with the sophisticated Find X, OPPO now presents the R17 mid-range handheld with outstanding premium features. Besides being the first OPPO model integrating an in-display fingerprint scanner, the R17 comes equipped with the Snapdragon 670 SoC coupled with 8 GB of RAM and 128 storage. It also features a notch, but this one seems less intrusive.

The race for the first foldable smartphone to hit the market might involve LG and a few others as well, but it looks like Samsung and Huawei are the strongest brands in it. According to DJ Koh, the company focuses on making the foldable smartphone a popular product from the first try, but this does mean it will wait for Huawei to steal the start.

Although the release date is not public yet, HTC has just confirmed that Android Pie will reach the U12+, U11+, U11, and U11 Life (Android One) handsets. The company also revealed that the timeframes will be announced in a timely manner, so it is rather safe to assume that the update will not arrive too soon.

Samsung Galaxy Note 9 is finally coming, next generation GeForce 11xx/20xx details continue to leak, and AMD is slowly but surely making a comeback on desktop. Catch up on some key topics in the industry you may have missed over the past week here.

Google is expected to miss out cashing in on the Fortnite craze due to Epic Games' decision to distribute the Fortnite Mobile APK outside the Play Store. App Store intelligence firm Sensor Tower projects that Google might stand to miss out on more than US$50 million in platform fees for the remaining part of 2018. Circumventing the Play Store might have a slight impact in overall downloads of the game but its revenue potential stands to remain fairly unaffected.

Epic Games is now accepting invitation requests for installing Fortnite Mobile on non-Samsung devices. Once signed up, users have to wait for a confirmation email before Epic activates the account for playing Fortnite. However, developers have found a way to modify the APK so that any phone can be spoofed to be the Galaxy Note 9 in order to instantly play the game.

Preorders for the Galaxy Note 9 have already started. The prices associated with this event confirm what has been suspected for months: the new Samsung phablet will set you back considerably. The prices also compare well with those of the iPhone X.

This light version of the PUBG Mobile game received an update to version 0.5.0 and now features a new sniper rifle, clans, and a new War Mode. Sadly, this title is still not available in many markets, although it made its debut on Google Play back in March. PUBG Mobile Lite uses Unreal Engine 4 and can run on devices with rather low specs.

The upcoming Pocophone F1 is more than just another Xiaomi handset because this will be the first smartphone by POCO, which is a new sub-brand of the Chinese company. POCO's first effort focuses entirely on speed and sports a Qualcomm Snapdragon 845 with liquid cooling, an IR blaster, and a generous 4,000 mAh battery.

TCL might be taking the Palm brand name a bit too literal with the newly leaked 3.3-inch model that will be available only in the US from Verizon later this year. Insider sources claim that this model will be powered by a Snapdragon 435 SOC and will integrate 3 GB RAM with 32 GB storage. To keep things ultra-light, TCL will only equip this model with an 800 mAh battery.

The Fortnite beta is coming to Android after all. However, it is invite-only, and those who own the Galaxy Note 9 will be the first to have access to these invites. On the other hand, the other restrictions on the game's availability have not been confirmed - yet.

The Samsung Galaxy Note 9 has been officially released. Its specs and appearance match those found in its leaks, some of which were committed by Samsung themselves. The company emphasized the advantages offered by its new S Pen, battery and storage capacity in its introduction.

Android 9 brings support for gesture-based navigation but current phones can choose to retain the conventional navigation buttons. While OEMs making Android One devices are still free to choose whatever navigation UI they deem fit, Google says that future Pixel phones will only feature the new gesture-based UI.

Earlier this year two large security exploits known as Spectre and Meltdown were reported to exist on modern day CPUs. While Spectre has been confirmed to be exploitable on AMD, Intel, IBM, and ARM, it was previously believed only Intel, IBM, and a handful of ARM's CPUs were vulnerable to Meltdown. However, researchers have confirmed that at least some ARM processors are indeed vulnerable to Meltdown.

A week ago, we heard that Samsung is pushing the Oreo update for the Galaxy A, J, and C handsets to December. Sadly, it can get even worse: the new Oreo roadmap says that most of those devices are scheduled to get Oreo — not Android Pie, but Oreo — in January 2019. In the end, it would not be surprising to find out that Samsung cancels the update.

New images and an unboxing video of a production unit of the Google Pixel 3 XL have surfaced online. The Pixel 3 XL appears to run on Android 9 Pie and features the Qualcomm Snapdragon 845 SoC with 4 GB RAM. While the Pixel 3 XL lacks a headphone jack, Google appears to have compensated for the same by bundling a set of USB-C earphones in the box.

Evan Blass has received images of a desktop-like Android-based environment that has been in development at Motorola. Blass received a tip, including supporting images, from a graphic designer who has been working on the project.