Mobile Devices - Page 72

If there's one area that I'm loving the advancement of technology in for smartphones, it has to be the world of fast charging. Xiaomi has just sped past the competition with its latest 100W charger.

Xiaomi's new 100W charger has been teased, fully charging a 4000mAh battery from 0-100% in just 17 minutes. If we compare this against Oppo's best 50W Super VOOC charging technology, that throws power at 50W to charge a 3700mAh battery in the same 17-minute period. Xiaomi is onto a winner here, especially if it can get 100W of charging working over USB-C (which supports 100W charging) without too much heat and inefficiency.

It's not an official thing from Xiaomi yet, and simply a test of its 100W Super Charge Turbo technology. I hope we see something like this on the market soon with next-gen smartphones throughout 2019 and into 2020 and beyond.

Samsung is gearing up for the release of its first foldable smartphone in the Galaxy Fold, and days after a leak showed that the foldable smartphone had a crease in the middle of its display, Samsung marketing goes into overdrive.

The company has released a new 34-second video of the testing regime that Samsung puts the Galaxy Fold under, in an Ikea-like stress test of folding the phone over and over and over again. Samsung folded a bunch of its Galaxy Fold smartphones over 200,000 times each so that it can provide around 5 years of use to a Galaxy Fold owner, measuring out to around 100 times per day.

Samsung does this all in a week, with over 200,000 folds per phone completed.

There is quite a few popular apps from Nintendo in the mobile market, but is that enough to sway The Big N on making their own gaming handset?

According to a DigiTimes report, Nintendo are reportedly considering jumping into the mobile gaming market with their very own handset. If this is true they will be going up against the likes of Razer, Xiaomi Vivo and some other companies, but is this a good idea considering the Nintendo Switch only released two years ago? The DigiTimes report says that "There have been speculations about Nintendo planning to launch a gaming handset that can integrate with its Switch consoles", and that "the Japan-based vendor has yet to respond to such speculations".

So judging from the source, there is next to no evidence that Nintendo are planning on doing this, just speculation and a lack of response from Nintendo. Lets play with idea before dismissing it though - how realistic is it that Nintendo will join the gaming phone market? Well, with the launch of the Switch, Nintendo are using mobile devices as a means of communication, rankings and some other additional features for online players. Is this app and the five other Nintendo apps worth making their own handset? Probably not. Considering that the global demand for gaming phones is around the 100,000 units per year margin, Nintendo most likely doesn't consider this a vital market to be jumping into.

The smartphones of today already rock incredibly impressive cameras, but what about the phones of tomorrow? According to Qualcomm's Director of Product Management (Camera, Computer Vision, and Video), Judd Heape, set your hype meters to 11, people.

Qualcomm's current Snapdragon 660, 670, 675, 710, 845, and 855 chipsets all support resolutions up to 192MP sensors, but for those dizzying megapixel heights phone maker swill need to disable multi-frame noise reduction and zero shutter lag. This means you'll need to hold incredibly still to get a good shot, but that shot will be ridiculous good.

Right now, even smartphones with 48-megapixel sensors combine 4 pixels into one single 12-megapixel photo. We should expect 64-megapixel sensors to bust out 16-megapixel photos, and higher-end 100-megapixel sensors to blast out 25-megapixel photos which will truly take us to the next level with smartphone cameras.

Samsung has just announced that its new 12GB LPDDR4X chips have entered mass production, ready for the next wave of flagship smartphones and tablets including its own Galaxy Fold.

The new 12GB DRAM chips are the largest capacity mobile DRAM chips in the industry, providing next-gen smartphones with copious amounts of RAM to work with. It'll be even more than most entry-level and mid-range Windows laptops ship with, as they mostly arrive with 8GB of RAM inside.

Why do you need 12GB of RAM in your smartphone though? Well, we have new handsets with larger-than-life displays, 3/4/5 cameras, 5G connectivity, foldable displays, 120Hz refresh rate displays, and so much more. 12GB of RAM might seem ridiculous, but when it's used in ridiculously feature-packed and high-end smartphones it doesn't seem so crazy.

Google has a surprise for its Pixel smartphone owners today, with Beta 1 of Android Q released for early adopters as well as a preview SDK for developers.

The mobile operating system landscape is rapidly changing and this year it will go through the biggest changes in history with both 5G and foldable phones arriving in 2019. Google has made its new Android Q release available in pre-release form very early, but the new OS will have a few cornerstones including improved privacy for users on Android going forward.

Starting with Android Q users will have more control over when apps can get your location. With previous versions of Android, apps can only get location once the app itself has asked your permission, and you've granted it. Android Q changes things by giving users the ability to never give their location to apps, only when the app is in use (and running) or all the time (running in the background).

Corning, the company behind Gorilla Glass, is working on some new glass for the wave of foldable smartphones that are right around the corner, and if they're successful will be the future of mobile technology.

The main issue that we have with the Samsung Galaxy Fold and Huawei Mate X foldable smartphones is that they both don't have truly foldable glass, and instead use plastic polymers which are flexible of course, but they will be hit with scratches, and worse; creases. John Bayne from Corning's Gorilla Glass spoke with Wired, where he said: "In a glass solution, you're really challenging the laws of physics, in that to get a very tight bend radius you want to go thinner and thinner, but you also have to be able to survive a drop event and resist damage".

Corning hasn't made anything official outside of the interview between Bayne and Wired, and that the foldable glass could be here in a few years, which is a very long time away. We could see competitors joining the fray, beating Corning to the punch. We'll have to see how things go with the Galaxy Fold and Mate X, but I'm sure we'll see flexible Gorilla Glass, or Gorilla Flex, sooner rather than later.

It looks like the OnePlus 7 smartphone could be exciting, with its latest leaked images teasing a notch-free design that could be joined by a purported mechanical pop-up camera.

The current-gen OnePlus 6T had a 'teardrop' notch that lots of people didn't like, but the new images from Weibo and Slashleaks show a different picture with the OnePlus 7. The new OnePlus 7 has a smaller bezel, no notch, and a pop-up camera. We've seen other leaked images of the new OnePlus 7 with a curved display and sliding mechanism th at hides the front-facing camera and no notch, but the pop-up camera would be a cool addition to the new OnePlus 7.

While the idea of a pop-up camera sounds great, it hasn't been as well received as the notch or removal of the 3.5mm headphone jack. This could change with a great implementation of a pop-up camera, such as the new OnePlus 7. We should expect to hear more about the OnePlus 7 and OnePlus 7T over the coming months.

We've seen both Samsung and Huawei unveil their respective foldable smartphones in the Galaxy Fold and Mate X, but it looks like LEGO is the first to market with a tongue-in-cheek release of its LEGO Fold.

LEGO Fold isn't quite a foldable smartphone but its own Pop-Up Book that the company takes a dig at Samsung's marketing for the Galaxy Fold smartphone in. The new LEGO Fold is made from foldable plastic, where it features a 5-inch cover that unfolds out to a larger 11-inch storybook screen. LEGO promises that the new LEGO Fold "never runs out of battery" unlike Samsung's Galaxy Fold.

You won't need to spend over $2000 on the LEGO Fold as it will go on sale for just $69.99.

Samsung unleashed a bunch of smartphones just before MWC 2019, with everything you need to know about the Galaxy S10 covered in my article, but what about the new Galaxy Note 10 that should be unveiled later this year?

Now we're hearing new rumors that Samsung's next big thing will include not two or three rear-facing cameras, but a quad-camera rear-snapper setup akin to its Galaxy S10 5G variant that rocks four cameras. SamMobile reports a new Samsung model number SM-N975F, and that'll feature four cameras on the back. We should expect that the new Galaxy Note 10 will feature 5G connectivity, since there will be close to 6 months between now and its release.

We should expect Samsung to slap on an even better Infinity-O panel on the Galaxy Note 10, with the new Galaxy S10 featuring the best display on a smartphone yet. Apple will release its new iPhone in a few months and I'm sure it'll have a great display that might top the Galaxy S10, and then Samsung will be back in the champions chair with the Galaxy Note 10 later in the year, as well as 5G, something Apple won't have until 2020.

Huawei has just unveiled its new foldable smartphone, with the Mate X being unveiled at MWC 2019 in Barcelona, Spain - taking some pot shots across the fold at Samsung and its just-unveiled Galaxy Fold.

There are some small but important differences between the Huawei Mate X and Samsung Galaxy Fold, with the Mate X featuring a single display on one side of the device. Huawei has the Mate X folding in a different way to the Galaxy Fold, with one side of the phone larger than the other when it's folded, and massive when its unfolded.

Better yet, Huawei has used a grip-like side that I really dig.

Samsung has just finished up with its Unpacked 2019 event where the company unveiled one of the most ambitious and game changing phones since the original iPhone with its first foldable smartphone in the Galaxy Fold, but the company also unleashed a trio of new Galaxy S10 handsets that are sure to impress, too.

The new Galaxy S10 family of phones are the first to feature Qualcomm's new Snapdragon 855 chip, which is an 8-core beast that will find its way into the US variants of the Galaxy S10 phones. Qualcomm's new Snapdragon 855 is made on the 7nm node, while the Exynos 8920 will find its way into the international versions of the Galaxy S10 phones and is made on the 8nm process.

Samsung's new smartphones come in the entry-level Galaxy S10s, the normal Galaxy S10, and the flagship Galaxy S10+ smartphone.

Samsung has finally made its foldable smartphone official with the announcement of the Galaxy Fold, which the company teases it a "one-of-a-kind luxury device" and it sure is with its technical prowess and massive price.

The new Galaxy Fold smartphone is a foldable smartphone with two displays, the primary display is the flexible display inside of the device which when flexed out is a huge 7.3-inch Infinity Flex Display with a native 2152 x 1536 resolution (4.2:3 aspect ratio), while the secondary display is a 4.6-inch (21:9) panel with a resolution of 1960 x 840. Not too bad at all, as the large 7.3-inch panel will act as a tablet.

Samsung is making the flexible display work with an interesting hinge mechanism that features a bunch of interlocking gears, showing that Samsung is putting some serious engineering effort into the Galaxy Fold.

Huawei is preparing for its next-gen P30 smartphone launch, tweeting out the official launch date of March 26 and by the tweet it seems that the company will be taking to France for the unveil.

The company showed off images of Eiffel Tower, Arc de Triomphe, and Notre-Dame de Paris and also teased "rules were made to be rewritten", which seems like bad timing considering the turmoil Huawei is having with the US and President Trump. Huawei CEO Ren Zhengfei has called Trump a "great president" in between all of this hoopla, but I don't think it'll water down the P30 announcement next month.

Now, what we do know is that Huawei will be showing off some crazy camera advancements th at the P30 should have since the tweet included a video of some hotspots in France that it zoomed into. This leads us to believe that the Huawei P30 should have some ridiculous zooming abilities, an area that the company has been pounding with its phones for a while now: camera advancements.

Samsung is hosting is massive Unpacked 2019 event tomorrow, where we will be formally introduced to the new family of Galaxy S10 smartphones as well as as few surprises.

One of which should be Samusng's first foldable smartphone which according to Evan 'evleaks' Blass will be called the Galaxy Fold. Blass took to Twitter with a simple tweet that read "Samsung Galaxy Fold" which is enough on its own. Samsung has been teasing it in various advertising spots on the internet, on TV and even at the movies (I saw it teased yesterday at the cinema when I saw Cold Pursuit).

I prefer the name Galaxy Fold over Galaxy F, as it lines up with the Galaxy Note (which is a Note-style phone) like the Galaxy Fold is a foldable phone. Whatever happens, we'll know for sure tomorrow. I'll be picking one up no matter what because I'm a technology and smartphone addict, and I can't wait.

Samsung will be celebrating in a big, big way with its next-gen Galaxy S10 family of smartphones that will feature a 'Limited Edition' model of the flagship Galaxy S10+ that will roll out with a huge 12GB of RAM and even larger 1TB of storage.

The latest leaks come from GSM Arena that are reporting most of the details on the Galaxy S10+ and they are tasty. We are expecting a large 6.3-inch 'Infinity-O' display with a native 3040 x 1440 resolution, up to 12GB of RAM and 1TB of storage. The difference between the normal Galaxy S10 and the Galaxy S10+ are small, but significant. The Galaxy S10 will feature an ultrasonic fingerprint sensor under the display, and not one, not two, but three rear-facing cameras.

Samsung's limited edition Galaxy S10+ will include the standard 10-megapixel f/1.9 sensor up front as well as a second 8-megapixel f/2.2 Live Focus, Dual Pixel 4K sensor. Around the back, we're looking at a triple camera rig that will consist of 12-megapixel f/2.4 telephoto, 12-megapixel f/1.5 DA, 16-megapixel f/2.2 UW. Alrighty then, Samsung.

Google seem to be experimenting with adding the 'dark mode' feature to Android devices on the Google Chrome app, screenshots have revealed the feature in beta form.

In the latest beta testing for Chrome (Chrome 74 beta), Google seem to have added the start of the extremely popular night mode to Android devices. For users that don't know what 'night mode' is, it's an option that browsers and many websites have picked up recently to ease eye strain for their user-base. Websites such as Twitter and Reddit have already adopted this feature and it has proven quite popular among its users, with some users just leaving the feature on even when its day time.

9to5Google has found that Chrome 73 beta now comes with this feature, but it's still in its quite early stages. The above image shows a side-by-side comparison between the mode being turned off and turned on. According to 9to5Google, this feature is only available when Android Pie's 'night mode' setting in the 'developer options' is set to 'always on'. It should also be noted that this feature has only been spotted in menus, and as shown in the above image is it's lack of completion for the time being, as the text still appears black even though it should be white to contrast the effect.

Samsung has been reportedly building an exclusive gaming smartphone for a while now, but new reports suggest the company could unveil its first foldable smartphone at its Unpacked 2019 event on February 20 alongside the new Galaxy S10 handset.

The new reports show a patent from Samsung that was filed in the end of 2017, which would see the world of a hybrid smartphone/tablet with hidden, but physical controllers. Yeah, you are reading that right - a physical D-Pad and six trigger buttons that would be used for playing games. When the phone isn't being used for gaming, that part of the device flips over. The buttons don't need to be gaming exclusive, but if they're designed for gaming use and then usable with other apps and functions, it would be a game changer... pun intended.

Samsung has just teased its next-gen Galaxy S10 smartphone with its unveiling at the Samsung UNPACKED 2019 event on February 20, but what will we find inside that'll be completely new? A cryptocurrency wallet would be one of those things, and that's what the Galaxy S10 is rumored to have.

The Korea Herald is reporting that Samsung will unveil a new version of Samsung Pay that will feature blockchain technology and support for cryptocurrencies, so that you can use crypto to pay for things with ease - all on your new Galaxy S10. An industry official was quoted: "The arrival of the new Samsung phones could start popularization of the cryptocurrency wallet system in Korea".

Samsung will reportedly have a hardware wallet (cold wallet) that will store Bitcoin, Ethereum and other coins there will be an internet-conneccted wallet for transactions.

The world of foldable smartphones will begin this year in a battle between Samsung and Huawei but the real champion would be Microsoft if it were able to strike lightning with the release of a Surface Phone that looks like this:

These photos are courtesy of LegsGoDigital that found a patent filed in 2017 by Intel that shows a phone-like device (a large phone, small tablet, or something new) that folds out into a large tablet, or more importantly, a PC. The single device would start off small and chunky, but would later fold out into a phone that is twice as wide (where you could have another app, chat app, calculator, live stats, etc) or into a larger almost 3-screen phone or tablet.

You can see here that some of the designs would be slick, especially if the bottom display that is touching the ground was disabled and so too the back display - it would be a built-in kickstand for your phone. I think we'd definitely need some super scratch resistant screens at that point, though.