5G

2021 is expected to be the year in which the reasonably-priced Galaxy A3x smartphone series goes 5G for the first time. This is now all but set in stone thanks to this device's new Bluetooth certification. Its new connectivity is expected to be accompanied by a 6.5-inch display and 4GB of RAM.

iQOO is slated to launch a Snapdragon 888-powered flagship called the 7 shortly. A new Geekbench 5 listing may confirm this. These preliminary scores may show it is capable of matching up to Xiaomi's new phone based on the same platform in terms of specs and performance.

The Redmi Note 9 Pro is all set to hit Indian shores as the Xiaomi Mi 10i on January 5. It boasts an impressive feature set consisting of a 120Hz screen, a 108MP camera sensor, and a Qualcomm Snapdragon 750G. The smartphone is expected to cost around INR 18,000 (US$246) in India.

An upcoming IQOO 7 smartphone powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 888 has made a devastating appearance on the AnTuTu benchmark by clocking over three-quarters of a million points. This puts the IQOO 7, which is to be launched on January 11, beyond the Huawei Mate 40 Pro and Mate 40 Pro+ with their Kirin 9000 chipsets.

An alleged successor to LG's Stylo 6 phablet had previously shown up in renders hinting at a highly original, pen-centric rear panel design. Its latest leak does not bear this out: however, it does purport to reveal a "Samsung Galaxy Note rival" with an appreciably large display and SKUs with a choice of connectivity.

Motorola has been busy teasing an upcoming premium phone with an SoC from the Snapdragon 800 series. It may have surfaced in a new set of benchmarking results that might confirm which processor this is to be for the first time. This leak also points to 8GB of RAM and Android 11 out of the box for this device.

Vivo has made the X60 series official. They are the first phones to rock the Exynos 1080 SoC, and also have up to quad rear cameras with Zeiss branding. They start at ~US$536 for an 8GB RAM/128GB internal storage SKU. However, the OEM has also complicated things with the announcement of an additional Pro+ to debut in 2021.

Samsung’s Galaxy S21 can now be reserved in the US ahead of its official unveiling. With the words “Get ready to jump to the next Galaxy”, Samsung invites customers to put their name down on the reservation list with some added incentives thrown in to encourage sign ups.

Supposed specifications and the price for the Sony Xperia 1 III have leaked online. Unsurprisingly, a Snapdragon 888 processor is onboard and the 6.5-inch 5G smartphone allegedly boasts a 4K OLED panel and 120 Hz refresh rate. The reported price tag is US$1,199, which is the same as the Sony Xperia 1 II’s launch price.

iQOO is a premium sub-brand of the smartphone OEM Vivo. It launched the Snapdragon 865-powered 5 series in 2020. Now, there is an indication that these devices will get successors called the 7s. They may reprise iQOO's 120 watt (W) FlashCharge technology.

OnePlus is expected to launch its Snapdragon 888-powered smartphones in March 2021. A new leak indicates that the OEM will bring its 65 watt (W) charging and 30W wireless charging standards from previous flagships back. However, it will also apparently be included in the vanilla 9 this time.

The Xiaomi Mi 11 smartphone hasn’t even been officially launched yet and it already seems like it will be a great sales success for the company. Over 226,000 people have already signed up for Mi 11 preorders via a single platform. There is some speculation that sales for the Xiaomi Mi 11 series will start in China on January 1, 2021.
Update: The bookings figure has now reached over 400,000.

Details and key specifications for Huawei’s upcoming ARM-based laptop have been leaked on social media. It appears the notebook, which currently has the name Qingyun L410, is powered by the 8-core 5G-capable HiSilicon Kirin 990 chipset. It’s not known if the Huawei laptop will be launched outside of China.

The Galaxy A71 is a Samsung phone with 4G/LTE and 5G variants. Recent rumors suggest that its successor will get the same. The tipster OnLeaks has also posted renders for at least one of them that hint at 4 rear cameras and a 6.7-inch display.

A new leak indicates Huawei will add a new variant to the Mate 40 series. Despite looking like its higher-end siblings, it may be a more affordable version of the same. For example, it is rumored to have an older chipset. Then again, it also clearly has wireless charging.

The Vivo X60 series of smartphones will launch on December 28, 2020 - also known as tomorrow. However, its specs may have been spilled ahead of this event. The leaker Digital Chat Station claims to have dug them up on the TENAA website.

The smart-looking Samsung Galaxy Book Flex2 5G has appeared in a couple of official videos from the South Korean OEM, including an unboxing video. The Galaxy Book Flex2 5G is the new name for the Galaxy Book Flex 5G, which was actually launched in September. The convertible features an Intel Core i5-1130G7, i5-1135G7, or i7-1165G7 chip.

The reliable leaks site Winfuture.de has published a new post which apparently contains every last detail on the Galaxy S21 offerings for the European market. This includes the pricing structure for these sub-Ultra variants, starting at about US$1040 for the base model.

Both the Xiaomi Mi 10T Lite and Xiaomi Mi 10 Lite bring a lot of phone to the table for very reasonable prices, but it can be a tricky process choosing between the two. While the Mi 10T Lite delivers a 120 Hz refresh rate and 64 MP main camera sensor, the Mi 10 Lite has a beautiful AMOLED panel that helps justify its higher price tag.

MediaTek has overtaken Qualcomm to become the world’s largest smartphone chipset vendor in terms of market share for the third quarter of 2020 (Q3 2020). MediaTek has been busy this year with its Dimensity series appearing in numerous budget and midrange smartphones. Qualcomm has remained strong in the 5G and high-end segments though.

OPPO has launched the Reno5 series' flagship, confirming its premium attributes compared to the rest of these smartphones in the process. They include its Snapdragon 865 SoC and new 50MP main camera module in the process. It starts at 3999 yuan (~US$612).

The Xiaomi Mi 10 Ultra reveals many strengths in our test. One feature of the Xiaomi smartphone stands out in particular: The fast-charging technology.

New year, new Xiaomi Mi-series flagships...plus the company's highest-end charging tech, it seems. However, the latest leak on this subject suggests that this 120 watt (W) standard will be reserved for the upcoming series' Pro variant. Furthermore, something even better may be coming for a subsequent release in the second half of 2021.

The Galaxy A32 is said to become Samsung's new lowest entry-point to a 5G phone in 2021. However, some of its leaks have failed to support this idea. This, according to the latest tip on the device, is because it also has a 4G/LTE version, destined for the Indian market at least.

Realme's upcoming top-end smartphone, officially code-named Race, has been leaked in terms of its design. Its rear panel as depicted is certainly above the run of the mill, although its rear cameras are a little more conventional. This phone is expected to launch with Qualcomm's most premium early-2021 silicon.

The Samsung Exynos 2100 has left quite an impression on the Geekbench. Alongside the Galaxy S21 Ultra, the chipset consistently managed to post single-core scores of ~1,100 and multi-core scores of ~3,600, putting it on par with the Qualcomm Snapdragon 888.

The Xiaomi Mi 11 has made yet another appearance online. At least one variant is confirmed to feature a 108MP camera sensor, with three sensors in total. It shouldn't be long before we figure out these images' authenticity, as Xiaomi will launch the Mi 11 series on December 28.

A report from South Korea claims Samsung will be releasing a ~US$180 5G phone to compete against the influx of affordable Chinese smartphones, particularly in markets such as India, Asia and the South Pacific.

With its official starting price of 280 Euros (~$343), the Xiaomi Mi 10T Lite belongs to the most affordable 5G smartphones. The rest of the equipment is also impressive, such as the IPS display with 120 Hz and the fast Snapdragon 750G.

The Galaxy Z Flip 5G is Samsung's refreshed premium clamshell foldable. It is also one of the latest devices to start to see the One UI firmware upgrade. Then again, this new OTA is reportedly only pushed to global units sold in Switzerland as yet. However, more widespread availability for others with this cutting-edge phone should follow shortly.

OnePlus' Cyberpunk 2077 Special Edition may have to step aside: it has a new sibling with even more advanced and futuristic features. This 8T Concept has a rear panel with color-changing technology, designed to both indicate notifications and sync with the user's breathing using the device's also-next-level mmWave radar.

MediaTek is expected to launch a new flagship 5G-ready SoC by February 2021. A new leak suggests that the chipset's Cortex-A78 core is clocked at 3.2GHz, which is significantly higher than that of the similarly-specced Exynos 1080.

ZTE has launched the Axon 20 5G via its global site, albeit to a selection of countries. It is priced at US$449 for an 8GB/128GB SKU. However, buying it involves a certain hoop to jump through that may be aggravatingly familiar to OG OnePlus fans.

The Samsung Galaxy A31 was launched back in April. Samsung already has the successor to that phone—the Galaxy A32—in the works and it has now surfaced on Geekbench posting performance numbers that soundly eclipse its predecessor's.

The OnePlus 9 series is expected to launch with triple to quad rear cameras in its higher-end variants. Now, a new tip suggests that these sensors will also be enhanced with Leica technology. This will represent a new brand-partnership for the OEM that could lead to coveted critical acclaim in the area of mobile photography.

Samsung's mid-range smartphone proves to be fast and well-equipped in the test. However, the Galaxy A42 also has a big flaw that we don't want to leave out...

With its Dimensity 1000+ chipset, 120Hz display and 65W charging, Realme's X7 Pro is a potentially compelling choice of 2020 smartphones. Unfortunately, it has never emerged beyond the Chinese market. However, that has changed with its latest debut in Thailand.

Honor's first post-Huawei flagship phones are expected to be known as the V40 series. They are also predicted not to launch with a premium Kirin processor as its forebears did. However, it now looks like they might do so with one holdover from its past as a Huawei subsidiary: 66W charging out of the box.

The Italian telecomms company Fastweb is one of a number of European firms that are early adopters of 5G mmWave-based fixed wireless access (FWA) as services for customers. It has announced that the consumer premises equipment (CPE) that delivers this new kind of "broadband" will be based on the Qualcomm Snapdragon X55 modem.

Reviewer Random Stuff 2 on Youtube managed to play with the upcoming Samsung Galaxy S21 Plus for more than a month and included his impressions in a short video. He specifies that the reviewed unit is a pre-production device, so some things could differ on the final product, but even so, the phone may be one of the best models of 2021.

The OPPO A53 emerged in 2020 as the first phone to have the Snapdragon 460 SoC. Now, the OEM has announced a new version of this device. It is much like the original, except it exchanges its platform for a 5G-capable MediaTek Dimensity 720. It also starts at the equivalent of US$199 in China.

The Galaxy A32 is predicted to be Samsung's cheapest 5G phone of 2021. It is also said to have a design rather different from other rumored devices from this OEM. A product that might match its description has been certified by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), suggesting that it will launch in the US at least.

Samsung's highly-awaited Exynos 1080 SoC has made its first appearance on Geekbench. It manages to outperform the Qualcomm Snapdragon 865 with a single and multi-core score of 888 and 3,244, respectively. The chipset is expected to make its debut alongside the Vivo X60 series on December 28.

Samsung has officially confirmed that the Galaxy Note 21 launch is not in question, dismissing earlier rumours about the series' discontinuation in 2021. However, industry insiders are of the impression that there will be only one variant of the phablet this time around.

The Galaxy S21 Ultra is expected to launch in just 2 colors, as its predecessor did before it. However, the latest leaks suggest that Samsung will add further options throughout the year. Meanwhile, other new tips purport to provide more evidence that it will be compatible with a new S Pen in 2021.