Mobile Devices - Page 68

A new large-scale study has been released showcasing data towards smartphone typing speeds exponentially catching up with physical keyboard typing speeds.

Researchers from Aalto University, University of Cambridge and ETH Zurich conducted an analysis on the typing speeds of tens of thousands of phone and computer users. Anna Feit, a researcher at ETH Zurich, and one of the papers co-authors said "We were amazed to see that users typing with two thumbs achieved 38 words per minute on average, which is only about 25% slower than the typing speeds we observed in a similar large-scale study of physical keyboards."

The researchers also found that while typing on a physical keyboard is certainly still faster, the people who reach the 100 words-per-minute (wpm) mark was actually decreasing. Meaning that smartphone users are slowing bridging the gap between keyboard speed and smartphone speed. The study also found that of the 37,000 volunteers (who varied in age and demographic) that 74% of people type with two thumbs.

Nugget Noggin is a YouTuber that dives to the bottom of rivers to find lost, sunken treasure -- where his latest expedition involved finding an iPhone inside of a trashed waterproof case... and it still worked! Check out the video below:

Michael Bennett is "Nugget Noggin" who has videos on him diving into various rivers to find all sorts of goods, but his latest adventure to the bottom of the Edisto River in South Carolina saw him discovering a sunken iPhone, retrieving it, and returning it to its rightful owner.

Bennett was interviewed by local news outlet WDAM 7 where he said: "I came across something that looked kind of like a rope maybe attached to car keys, and when I pulled it up, I seen a phone inside of a waterproof case and I'm like, 'No way, this is unbelievable!"

Xiaomi is no stranger to pushing the edges (geddit?!) of smartphone displays, and now we're seeing 'waterfall' displays with beautiful edges -- and now Xiaomi is pushing over the edge with its new Mi Mix Alpha smartphone.

The company has used a "surround screen" on the Mi Mix Alpha that wraps literally around the entire phone, right around to the camera module on the back. Xiaomi seems to be going for, and achieving a look of holy-crap-the-entire-phone-looks-like-a-screen look... Xiaomi claims it has a 180% screen-to-body ratio.

Xiaomi taps Samsung's new 108-megapixel camera sensor, something the company collaborated on, as well as other high-resolution sensors from Samsung. When taking photos or videos, thanks to the surround screen you have a gigantic viewfinder to take those 108MP photos.

OPPO's upcoming Reno Ace flagship smartphone is shaping up to be one of the most exciting releases of the tail end of 2019, powered by Qualcomm's new Snapdragon 855+ processor and having a huge 65W fast charging ability.

The new Reno Ace has been teased again in a new post on Weibo, with a waterdrop-shaped cutout at the top of the display versus the shark fin pop-up camera OPPO used in the Reno 10x Zoom and Reno 2 smartphones. OPPO will be using a quad-camera rig on the Reno Ace, with a 48-megapixel primary sensor.

Inside, the Reno Ace will pack the Snapdragon 855+ from Qualcomm, a huge 12GB of RAM and 256GB of on-board storage. The key part of OPPO's new Reno Ace will be the 6.5-inch Full HD+ display with a super-slick 90Hz refresh rate.

Xiaomi has made its new Xiaomi Mi 9 Pro 5G smartphone official in China today, with some pretty tasty specs to go over. The new handset is 5G-capable and rolls out with Qualcomm's super-slick Snapdragon 855+ chip.

The company has teamed with three of China's biggest telecom operators on the 5G side of the Xiaomi Mi 9 Pro 5G, with their own tests showing the phone hits peak download speeds of a dizzying 1.78Gbps. Xiaomi includes its own MIUI 11 software, has up to 24 hours of standby time when the Xiaomi Mi 9 Pro 5G is down to its last 5% of battery.

Xiaomi is including super fast-charging with the new Mi 9 Pro 5G smartphone, with a 40W charger getting the phone from 0-100% in just 48 minutes. If you want to go wireless Xiaomi is offering up 30W wireless charging, with the charging stand fan-cooled for all that power hitting the phone wirelessly.

Huawei has unveiled its new Mate 30 and Mate 30 Pro smartphones with some special sauce camera technology: it can shoot slow-motion video at a I-had-to-triple-check-this-info 7680FPS.

The new camera will have to drop the resolution down to 1280 x 720 to shoot at 7680FPS... but that is still absolutely insane. The new camera can also shoot 12-hour long 4K timelapses (!!!), 960FPS slow-mo video at 1080p, 4K video at 60FPS, and has the ability to add real-time bokeh effects to video.

Huawei is including a 40MP "SuperSensing" camera, a 40MP Ultra-Wide camera, and an 8MP 3x telephoto camera on the regular Mate 30 smartphone, while the higher-end Huawei Mate 30 Pro handset will have even better camera chops. The Mate 30 Pro adds an additional 40MP "Cine Camera" which supports real-time bokeh adjustment and the super-slow-mo 7680FPS.

Oppo has some totally mind-blowing new smartphone charging technology with its new 65W SuperVOOC Fast Charge 2.0 unveiled, as well as its new 30W Wireless VOOC Flash Charge and VOOC Flash Charge 4.0 tech unveiled at the same time.

As you can see in the above video, Oppo shows off its new 65W SuperVOOC Fast Charge 2.0 technology by charging a large 4000mAh battery in just 27 minutes. The new 65W SuperVOOC Fast Charge 2.0 charging tech can also charge up to 27% in just 5 minutes... which is just insane.

Oppo is able to get to these speeds by using Gallium Nitride (GaN) semiconductors, and is keeping things safe with 5 different safety measures built into the wire, adapter, and the smartphone.

Samsung released its yearly Galaxy S and Galaxy Note successors this year, with a family of devices in the Galaxy S10 range as well as a family of handsets in the new Galaxy Note 10 range.

But according to the latest rumors the company could merge the Galaxy S and Galaxy Note lines in 2020, while separating its newer Galaxy Fold -- which will grow into its own family next year following the just-released fixed version of the Galaxy Fold smartphone.

Evan 'evleaks' Blass is back again with the leak according to a "solid source" of his Samsung will "eliminate the distinction" between the Galaxy S and Galaxy Note smartphones. We don't know what this means exactly, but we should expect the phones to maybe join forces in 2020 in a big way.

Google will be launching its next-gen Pixel 4 family of smartphones on October 15 according to media invites going around, with Google changing things up with its first 90Hz display on the new Pixel 4 phones.

The first member of the new Pixel 4 family will be the regular Pixel 4 with a 5.6-inch AMOLED screen and 2280 x 1080 resolution, while the larger Pixel 4 XL should rise up with a 6.2-inch AMOLED screen and 2960 x 1440p resolution. Both of these displays should feature a smooth 90Hz refresh rate.

Google will ship the new Pixel 4 and Pixel 4 XL (and any other members of the Pixel 4 family) with Android 10 as well as 6GB of RAM, and what should be a kick ass camera system. We're being told to expect a dual-camera rig with a 12-megapixel and 16-megapixel snapper on the back and Google's usual camera software magic on top.

OnePlus has teased that it will unveil its new OnePlus 7T smartphone on September 26, with a simultaneous India-based event and then off to Europe on October 10.

The new OnePlus 7T will have a 90Hz display, but other than that the event invitation is quiet. Inside, we should expect Qualcomm's new Snapdragon 855+ chip, out-of-the-box Android 10, faster charging, and more -- all gravy on that 90Hz display.

Around the back, the new OnePlus 7T is expected to catch up in the triple-camera department, a 3800mAh battery on the regular 7T while a larger 4085mAh battery is expected for the 7T Pro.

A super-hot new rumor -- if true, could change things in a big way. Microsoft is reportedly eyeing off custom AMD silicon for its next-gen Surface devices, after years of exclusively using Intel hardware in its Surface devices.

The next-gen Surface Laptop 2 could have AMD hardware inside, and would mark a large change for both Microsoft (to shift away from Intel) and for AMD (to have its tech good enough that Microsoft wants to use it in their products). It makes sense given that AMD is providing hardware to Microsoft for its next-gen Xbox Scarlett, too.

All of AMD's products it will provide Microsoft, be it for the Xbox Scarlett or next-gen Surface products, will be 7nm and use the Zen 2 CPU architecture and Navi GPU architecture.

ASUS announced its new ROG Phone II and then succeeded it before it was in gamers' hands with the even-better ROG Phone II Ultimate Edition... both with 120Hz displays. But what games can you run at 120FPS on it?

The list is continuously expanding, and as I went to get a final list for this from the ASUS forums -- an update on September 12 added a few new games. These new games include DOTA Underlords (can do 60-120FPS), The Wolf Among Us, Bomb Squad, Smashing Rush, Brawl Stars (around 90FPS) and even Google Earth now supports 120FPS.

ASUS does note that you might require "a change in the game settings" in order to enable higher FPS. ASUS is also asking anyone that finds a game that works at 120FPS to let them know, and they'll add it to the ever-growing list of 120FPS-capable games that will make full use of the ROG Phone II.

Nintendo has been selling boat loads of its Switch handheld for a few years now, and it looks like Razer is about to get in on the gaming handheld market with what appears to be a Nintendo Switch-like device.

According to a new patent discovered by LetsGoDigital, a new mobile gaming device is being created by Razer -- a company that isn't a stranger to tablets and gaming. Razer released its Edge pro with its optional Edge Gamepad controller some 7 years ago now, turning a tablet into a gaming handheld.

But this new patent is for a "gaming controller for mobile device and method of operating a gaming controller" and published on the 1st of August 2019.

Apple has finally unveiled its new iPhone, moving away from roman numerals and making a move to one-up Samsung by naming the new iPhone as iPhone 11.

The new iPhone 11 family includes three variants: the normal iPhone 11, the higher-end iPhone 11 Pro, and the flagship iPhone 11 Pro Max. The iPhone 11 rocks a 6.1-inch display with the "toughest glass" on an iPhone yet, joined by a new dual-camera system on the back split into a 12MP wide-angle snapper and 12MP ultra-wide.

Apple says that the flash is 36% brighter, while it has a new night mode that taps adaptive bracketing for improved low-light shots. Front-facing camera wise the new iPhone 11 has a 12MP snapper (up from the 7MP snapper in previous-gen iPhones) which is capable of a crazy 4K 60FPS and slow-motion video.

Razer has just unveiled its new iPhone case that will keep the just-announced iPhone 11 line of smartphones cool when gaming, as well as supporting its own in-house Razer Phone 2 gaming smartphone.

The new Arctech and Arctech Slim phone cases use a custom-developed Thermaprene material and perforations that keep 2018 and newer iPhones cool, inclduing the new iPhone 11 series.

Razer compares its new Arctech cases against the competition saying that the iPhone stays in its recommended temperature limits even after a huge two-hour gaming session, versus the competition case which gets hot after 20 minutes.

Samsung is close to re-launching its first foldable smartphone in the revised Galaxy Fold in the coming weeks, and now news is breaking that the company worked with Google on foldable apps for the Galaxy Fold.

Samsung worked with both Google and Android developers in order for "hundreds" of apps to be optimized for the Galaxy Fold, with the likes of Amazon Prime Video, Facebook, Spotify and Twitter all joining the fray. They are some of the largest apps in the world, so it's a big deal that they'll work on Samsung's new halo smartphone.

Also remember that Google has released Android 10 (formerly named Android Q) which has improved foldable phone support, but the Galaxy Fold won't launch with Android 10. We should expect a solid launch that will hopefully only improve moving into Android 10 and the Galaxy Fold 2 in 2020.

We are getting very close to the official reveal of Google's new Pixel 4 and Pixel 4 XL smartphones, with another leak in video form below:

The new video has the larger Pixel 4 XL being shown off in the quick hands-on, showing that the Pixel loses its notch replacing it with a large bezel at the top for the front-facing camera and sensors.

Google will ship its new Pixel 4 and Pixel 4 XL smartphones with its just-released Android 10 operating system, and be powered by Qualcomm's super-fast Snapdragon 855 processor, 6GB of RAM, and faster 90Hz refresh displays.

Samsung is expanding its Galaxy Note 10 family as it launches the handset into different markets, and now there's a blockchain-focused Galaxy Note 10 "KlaytnPhone" exclusive to South Korea.

There is still the normal Galaxy Note 10, Galaxy Note 10+ and 5G-capable versions of Samsung's new Note, but South Korea gets the exclusive "KlaytnPhone" version. KlaytnPhone is the name of a blockchain platform made by Kako, a South Korean messaging company.

Samsung's SK-exclusive Galaxy Note 10 KlaytnPhone will have a crypto wallet built-in, as well as blockchain apps pre-installed. Kako will even be providing a "certain amount" of Klay, its own cryptocurrency, with each KlaytnPhone handset sold.

ASUS already had one of the best gaming smartphones on the market with its just-announced ROG Phone II, but it is already succeeded by an event faster model -- the new ROG Phone II Ultimate Edition.

The faster ROG Phone II Ultimate Edition rocks a huge 1TB of UFS 3.0 internal storage, and LTE speeds that will reach 2Gbps thanks to Cat 20 4G LTE support.

Qualcomm's super-fast Snapdragon 855+ powers the new ROG Phone II Ultimate Edition (and the normal ROG Phone II) that is cherry-picked, as well as a "special" Adreno 640 that is more powerful than the original.

Samsung is launching its updated Galaxy Fold in South Korea starting September 6, and into the US "in the coming weeks" says the company. Samsung will be offering a 5G-ready Galaxy Fold in select countries, too.

With the launch of the Galaxy Fold the company is offering something it's calling the "Galaxy Fold Premier Service" which will give you "direct access to Samsung experts who can provide you tailored guidance and support over the phone any time, any day. This includes an optional one-on-one onboarding session".

Samsung is providing the Galaxy Fold Premier Service inside of the cost of the Galaxy Fold, which will set you back a hefty $1980. So you'd kinda want that one-on-one service and direct access to Samsung with your Galaxy Fold, right?