Mobile Devices - Page 111

Many of us have used one of Nokia's phones at one point in our lives. The Nokia 3310 is still mentioned as an indestructible phone with amazing battery life. The popularity of Nokia phones is best shown in the sales numbers - both the Nokia 5110 and Nokia 3210 have been sold more than 160 million units.

Compared with today's luxury smartphones, these old models look very modest. Especially if we compare the size of the screen and its resolution. In less than two decades, we have witnessed major changes in the dimensions and quality.

Apple's iPhone 7 Plus has a 514 times higher screen resolution than the Nokia 5110, which was launched in 1998.

Google can't plug the hole that is leaking out all of the details on its upcoming Pixel and Pixel XL smartphones, with UK retailer Carphone Warhouse listing two new smartphones on their website - the Pixel, and Pixel XL.

The website notes that Android 7.1 will include Assistant AI Allo, Google Photos (with unlimited storage for full-sized pics), their new Duo videochat application, and more.

We will see the new Pixel smartphones rocking rapid charging through its USB-C port, but then there's a mention of a microSD card slot - which doesn't sound right.

Google is only days away from unveiling its new Pixel and Pixel XL smartphones, powered by the newly-released Android 7.0 operating system, which debuted on LG's new V20 smartphone. But today, we have the best look at the Pixel and Pixel XL yet, resembling a lovechild of the iPhone and Nexus smartphones.

Rozetked has made some of the most realistic renders of the Pixel and Pixel XL yet, with both of the smartphones looking pretty damn sharp. We should expect four colors on offer: black, silver, gray, and gold. But the varying colors are joined by some design tweaks on the rear - and I have to say, they're looking damn good.

We have rumors that Google will be pricing the 5-inch Pixel smartphone at $649, which is expensive considering previous generation Nexus smartphones were always a cheaper alternative. Google is hosting its media event on October 4.

An Apple customer in Dijon, France was apparently so unhappy with the company's customer service that he decided to smash equipment in his local Apple Store this morning.

In the video below, you can see him in the store using a steel ball like the one used in the French game Pétanque to destroy Macs and iPhones, while talking about his rights as a customer and how poor Apple's customer service has been in his case. It doesn't take long before security shows up and escorts him out, at which point he becomes difficult and later, tries to escape.

It's said police have since taken the man into custody.

Apple announced their new phones this month and the prices are as expected - the iPhone 7 starts at $649 and iPhone 7 Plus at $769. But, do you know how much Apple has to spend to manufacture those phones?

A report from IHS Markit, an analyst company based in London, shows that Apple's total cost to manufacture the iPhone 7 (32GB) is $224.80, which is around 18% more than the cost of the iPhone 6S.

"Total BOM (the bill of materials) costs for the iPhone 7 are more in line with what we have seen in teardowns of recent flagship phones from Apple's main competitor, Samsung, in that the costs are higher than in previous iPhone teardown analyses. All other things being equal, Apple still makes more margin from hardware than Samsung, but materials costs are higher than in the past", said Andrew Rassweiler, senior director of cost benchmarking services.

It wasn't too long ago that we had our first look of the Pixel smartphone, and now we have a clearer shot of the 5-inch smartphone, and the purported new navigation buttons.

VentureBeat has the scoop with the Google Pixel smartphone, the 5-inch variant while the 5.5-inch display will find a home on Pixel XL, but we have a great look of the phone's UI. We can see the new Pixel Launcher, as well as the circular launcher icons and new navigation icons.

The icons are now completely filled in on the Android 7.0-based smartphone, compared to the empty shapes on previous versions of Android. The change in icons could be an exclusive to the Pixel, but overall the smartphone is shaping up to be a nice evolution from Nexus to Pixel, and Android 6.0 to 7.0, so far.

With a newly focused Microsoft aiming for services and devices and beyond successful brands in Windows and Xbox, the Surface range has been quickly making a name for itself against Apple in many ways.

Microsoft tried its hand at the mobile market with Nokia, but it didn't work and it was a massive acquisition that saw Nokia virtually dissolve into irrelevance when compared with how Samsung and Apple have completely dominated and made monopolies of the mobile market, something Nokia was once the ruler of.

With rumors of Surface Phone, the company could be working on its own smartphone to compete against Samsung and Apple, teaming up with Qualcomm on the processor side of things. More information has surfaced on Microsoft's purported smartphone, with a post on Baidu teasing it runs Windows 10 Mobile Redstone 2, packs the Snapdragon 830 processor, a 5.7-inch 2K display, and a 20MP camera.

Samsung is currently busy replacing all of those exploding Galaxy Note 7 smartphones, but the rumors of its next-gen Galaxy S8 just won't go away, with the latest rumor teasing a 4K display for the Galaxy S8.

It has been reported that a senior official from Samsung was arrested in South Korea, as he was trying to steal confidential information from Samsung in relation to its 14nm and 10nm technology. The report teased that Samsung is planning to use a 10nm-based Exynos processor in its Galaxy S8 next year, but then SamMobile (who are pretty good with rumors) says they have information which says the Galaxy S8 will rock the Exynos 8895 processor with ARM's new Mali-G71 GPU.

ARM's updated Mali-G71 GPU is 1.8x as powerful as the Mali-T880 MP12 GPU that's used in the Exynos 8890-based Galaxy S7. The new Mali-G71 GPU is powered by ARM's new Bifrost architecture, offering 4K and VR and is compatible with Vulkan, OpenGL ES 3.2, GPU Compute, and Android RenderScript APIs. The GPU is clocked at 850MHz, with the 16nm GPU capable of 27.2Gpix/s, over double what the Mali-T880 is capable of at the same speeds.

Apple caused quite the stir with its iPhone 7 lacking a headphone jack, and with rumors that Samsung will be removing the 3.5mm port on its upcoming Galaxy S8 - but now we have HTC Bolt details leaked, with it lacking a headphone jack.

The render comes courtesy of leaker Evan Blass, with the HTC Bolt to be a Sprint-exclusive for US consumers only. It looks to be shaping up as a mass-market device, something that HTC could use to dip its toes in the 'hey guys, we're going to start removing the 3.5mm jack from our smartphones', testing consumers reactions to the Bolt.

It seems as though HTC has tweaked the look of its HTC 10 handset, with the Bolt to most likely be built from aluminum, double chamfer, and more. The fingerprint sensor is at the bottom, with a USB Type-C connector for charging/syncing.

Microsoft surprised everyone today and announced a new Nokia phone - the Nokia 216, a feature phone with dual SIM capability that will be available in India and Pakistan by the end of October.

For a mere $37 you get a 2.4-inch QVGA screen, 1020 mAh replaceable battery and two 0.3 MP VGA cameras. 16MB of RAM is enough to run the Series 30+ OS, Opera Mini browsers and other pre-installed apps. Storage is basically your memory card which can be up to 32GB.

Microsoft also points out that you can store up to 2,000 contacts.

Seriously, I'm loving all of these leaks on Pixel in the last 24 hours, and now this is the best yet - our first look at a somewhat real version of the Pixel, and its bigger sibling, the Pixel XL. We only just reported that Google will unveil the new Pixel smartphones on October 4, too.

As you can see from the front of the Pixel and Pixel XL, that they have a very iPhone-like style, down to the circular home button. The Pixel XL on the left looks to rock the 5.5-inch panel we've been hearing about, while the smaller Pixel will use a 5-inch panel.

On the back, we have the circular fingerprint reader - making a pattern with the circular home button. We can also see the flush rear-facing camera and LED flash, with some branding by the looks of things in the middle of the Pixel handsets, under the fingerprint sensor.

Can you believe how many problems we're seeing with the Galaxy Note 7 and now the iPhone 7? Samsung is having Note 7s exploding all over the world, while Apple has users enjoying hissing sounds and now - 'no service' bugs when disabling Airplane Mode.

Apple is aware of the issue, which sees cellular service completely disabled after turning off Airplane Mode. The company has talked with service providers, authorizing them to restart their iPhone 7 or iPhone 7 Plus smartphones. If there's still no service, Apple advises its customers to remove, and then re-insert the SIM card.

MacRumors reader Yasser El-Haggan showed the above video of turning Airplane Mode off on his iPhone 7 alongside an iPhone 6S, with the iPhone 7 not having service while the iPhone 6S enjoys two bars of LTE. He explained: "All of a sudden today my iPhone 7 Jet Black model started not getting internet service -- can't make outbound calls or receive calls -- even though it showed 4 bars. I then put it in Airplane Mode, and back off, then it showed no service. It got pretty warm in the top right hand corner".

Google isn't far away from unveiling its new smartphones, that up until recently we thought were going to be called Nexus, just like their predecessors. Instead, rumor has it the new Android 7.0-powered smartphones will be called Pixel, and Pixel XL - and now, we might have found pricing on the smaller 5-inch Pixel smartphone.

According to the rumors, Pixel will start at a rather high $649 for a 32GB variant, while the larger 5.5-inch display on the Pixel XL will cost more. There will also be an accidental damage plan available, providing another year of cover for $99 on Pixel, and $119 for the Pixel XL handset.

Google is expected to unveil the new Pixel smartphones on October 4, which isn't too far away now. Let's just hope they don't have battery exploding or hissing issues like the new Samsung Galaxy Note 7 and iPhone 7, respectively.

Samsung has had another incident with a Galaxy Note 7 catching fire in China, after it had said Note 7 units sold in China wouldn't be affected, as the batteries in the Chinese model were sourced from a different supplier - and now, we might have found the reason behind the Note 7s issues.

According to a report from Bloomberg, managers at Samsung started hearing rumors on what the new iPhone would have - and that it wouldn't feature many new innovations. They also knew that the new iPhone wouldn't look any different, which gave Samsung an opportunity to strike - and it did, with a damn mighty fine smartphone in the Galaxy Note 7.

This goal pushed Samsung mobile boss D.J. Koh to launch what would become the Galaxy Note 7, dazzling consumers and capitalizing on the opportunity knowing Apple's new iPhone 7 was going to be more of the same. The Note 7 featured an iris scanner, a beautiful dual edge display, super-fast internals, USB Type-C connectivity, wireless charging and so much more... but it wasn't without error.

If the $26 billion wiped from its shares and the US government led recall of the Galaxy Note 7 - and that's amongst the countless incidents around the world of Note 7 smartphones catching fire or exploding, the company is now carrying out an "internal review" following a Note 7 catching fire in China.

A spokeswoman reached out to Reuters, saying: "We immediately referred this case to Samsung and they are conducting an internal review". Caixin, a Chinese online financial site reported that a user reported their Galaxy Note 7 they had purchased from JD.com had caught fire. This might not sound any different to the Note 7s blowing up or catching fire around the world, but there's a big difference.

Samsung had previously said on September 14 that any Note 7 smartphones purchased after September 1 were not at risk of battery-related issues if sold in China, as the Chinese versions of the Note 7 had batteries supplied from a different company. Samsung continues to melt into its own pool, T-1000 style.

The latest leak on Google's upcoming smartphones is here, with the purported Pixel and Pixel XL smiling for the camera from their display assemblies and cases.

Starting with the display assemblies, we have 5- and 5.5-inch displays for the Pixel and Pixel XL, respectively. We don't know what differences there'll be on the front of the Pixel and Pixel XL that will make them different, so we have to wait for Google's official unveiling in October.

There were also some cases for the new Pixel smartphones that surfaced, with the rear of the cases lining up with previous reports that we'll see a rear-placed fingerprint sensor, with Google and HTC using a unique rear design on the Pixel and Pixel XL handsets.

Samsung is busy enough with the global recall of its sometimes exploding Galaxy Note 7 smartphone, and now Apple is in the firing line with iPhone 7 owners reporting 'hissing' iPhones during certain loads and use.

Some users are putting this down to 'coil noise' or 'coil whine', just like we get on some graphics cards. But when the new iPhone 7 is under load, the hissing sound is there, and it's enough to make people who have spent around $1000 on a new iPhone, well - justifiably mad.

There's absolutely no way to fix this issue if it's a hardware-based issue, which begs the question: will the new iPhone 7 be recalled over this issue? Samsung pulled an unprecedented move with its recall on the Note 7, seeing $26 billion wiped from its market value.

Apple didn't really push the boundaries with its new iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus smartphones that were revealed earlier this month, so it's time to get excited about the new iPhone that will probably be mostly the same thing as we have now - but what if it's not?

When Apple announces the new iPhone in 2017, it will have been 10 years since the original iPhone that started it all - completely changing the smartphone industry and much of the tech industry. The new iPhone has plenty of rumors behind it already, so let's line them up and see what could work, and is exciting.

5.) iPhone 8 will have an edge-to-edge display

Xiaomi is often referred to as the 'Apple of China' with its massive sales and growing following in the China, but now a report from Thijs Broenink has surfaced that has Xiaomi the AnalyticsCore.apk that arrives pre-installed on all Xiaomi smartphones, which allows the company to install code onto the smartphone without you noticing, with total access to every single bit and byte of your data.

It gets better, as this backdoor calls back to Xiaomi every 24 hours, sending the user's "IMEI, MAC address, Model, Nonce, Package name and signature". This data gets analyzed, and told which apps to install - as it can overwrite your signed, pre-installed apps with modified versions of them.

The report reads:

If there's one thing you can say about Samsung over the Galaxy Note 7 battery problems, its global recall and then the intervention of the US government with an official recall, is that the company is handling it in a great way.

Samsung Electronics America President and COO, Tim Baxter, recently took to a video apologizing about the battery problems on the Note 7 smartphone. The video reiterates all of the issues, and that Note 7 owners should immediately stop using their smartphone, turn it off and return it.

Baxter notes that new Note 7 without the battery fault will be in stock "no later than September 21", which is next Wednesday. Personally, I'm still using my Note 7 like usual with no change, and it's fine. It's a damn good phone, and I really don't want to have to return it. Sigh.