Mobile Devices - Page 76

In a world dominated by Apple and Samsung, how can you be any different? That's what Lenovo is hoping to do, especially after its $2.9 billion acquisition of Motorola Mobility from Google.

Lenovo VP Chang Cheng teased the new Z5 on China's Weibo social network, showing off slick screen-to-body ratio of 95%, further teasing the Z5 features four technological breakthroughs that include the use of 18 patented technologies. We have no idea what these technologies are, but the hype is definitely building.

How will Lenovo handle the front-facing camera with a screen-to-body ratio of 95% is a big question. Can we expect the 'notch' that Apple made infamous with its courageous iPhone X? Bezel-less smartphones aren't super-new, but with in-display fingerprint sensors now here, Lenovo teasing four technological breakthroughs and 18 patented technologies definitely has my attention.

Huawei is the world's third largest smartphone manufacturer, behind only to behemoths Apple and Samsung, and have now confirmed they will be forcing Bitcoin Wallets on all of their future smartphones.

The Chinese smartphone manufacturer will be baking-in BTC.com's Bitcoin Wallet into their own App Store, with existing Huawei smartphone owners needing (if they want to) download the app from the AppGallery. The Google Play Store isn't available in China, so Huawei users will need to use AppGallery to get it, but future Huawei handsets will have it by default.

Vice President of Business Operations at BTC.com, De la Torre, told Bloomberg: "It's a good opportunity to tap into the Chinese market. The use of cashless payments with apps is very big and the traditional banking system is lacking, so there's a good use case for crypto payments to grow there".

Apple didn't have the best launch with its iPhone X late last year, and now according to sources of the company they are "disappointed" with the sales of iPhone X as it's not competing against other similarly priced flagship smartphones on the market.

FastCompany is now reporting that Apple wants to "burn off" the inventory of iPhone X smartphones with its resellers, and when mixed with the production of iPhone X being cut down to just 8 million units in Q2 2018, things begin making sense. Apple expected to sell 27 million iPhone X handsets in Q1 2018, now expecting to have sold 14 million units.

We should know more about iPhone X sales on May 1, which is when Apple reports its financial results for the March-ending quarter. Analysts will have their eyes glued to numbers, to see if iPhone sales failed, met, or exceeded their expectations.

LG's new flagship G7 ThinQ smartphone is right around the corner, something that will launch next month. With the early tease, LG has said that the G7 ThinQ will rock a 6.1-inch panel with a native resolution of 3120 x 1440.

The 6.1-inch display has an aspect ratio of 19.5:9, something that includes a notch at the top of the display just like the iPhone X, that most people hate. Evan Blass who goes by @evleaks on Twitter, is behind the new leak (seriously, he gets all the scoops, he's a champ) which gives us two new shots to look at, the first of which is above - the G7 ThinQ itself.

LG is shoving in some serious display chops into the G7 ThinQ and its 6.1-inch QHD+ panel that has up to 1000 nits of brightness, which is retina-busting compared to the 400-700 nits on most flagship smartphones. LG might even be able to market the G7 ThinQ as a display that looks great even outdoors in the sunlight.

Broadcom has its heart set on acquiring Qualcomm so much so that the company has offered a huge $121 billion takeover offer, with Qualcomm denying it, and has now pushed back its shareholder meeting that would've ended with a decision on the Broadcom takeover.

The reason? A request by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) that is concerned about Broadcom's possible acquisition of Qualcomm for national security. Broadcom is a Singapore-based company, which could create national security-related issues if it were to acquire US-based Qualcomm, which has technology inside of billions of communications devices.

Qualcomm was behind the request to CFIUS to review the takeover, with the company saying in a statement: "In compliance with the CFIUS order, Qualcomm will delay its Annual Meeting of Stockholders and election of directors for at least 30 days so that CFIUS can fully investigate Broadcom Limited's proposal to acquire Qualcomm".

Qualcomm has just announced a new range of Snapdragon processors at MWC 2018, with the new Snapdragon 700 series. This new series of chips has been made to fit into devices between the Snapdragon 600 series, and the new Snapdragon 845.

The new Snapdragon 700 series will be used in higher-end devices that aren't the flagship devices that headlines are dominated with, where Senior VP and GM of Qualcomm, Alex Katouzian, explaining: "The Snapdragon 700 Mobile Platform Series will bring premium tier technologies and features into more affordable devices".

Qualcomm is wanting to offer more and more AI in their devices leading into the new world of 5G in 2019 and beyond, with the new Snapdragon 700 series featuring on-device AI technology. There's also plenty of improvements made into the camera, all-round device performance, and energy efficiency over the 600 series.

Microsoft has announced it has teamed with Xiaomi on project that will involve AI, cloud computing, and hardware in order to see the Redmond-based giant get into new markets.

Xiaomi will receive something in return, where Microsoft will provide access to tgheir Azure cloud platform in order to expand their services to more people. Microsoft will also work with Xiaomi on joint marketing and channel support to get Xiaomi laptops into new international markets. Microsoft gets a great deal here, as it gets access to Xiaomi users worldwide.

Cortana will be the AI assistant of choice in the Xiaomi-made products, with the Mi Speaker to be the first with Cortana built-in. The two companies will work on AI technology such as vision, speech, natural language processing, conversational intelligence and more. All of this feeds right into Microsoft's consumer-facing software like Bing, Edge, Cortana, SwiftKey, Skype, and more.

Nokia has announced a refreshed Nokia 8110 "banana phone", the same super-stylish phone that Neo used in The Matrix. At the time everyone, including myself, wanted the Nokia 7110 and its spring-loaded slider - now we can do it again.

HMD is the maker of Nokia-branded smartphones and has delivered the Nokia 8110 with the slider we all loved back in the day, in two versions: black and yellow.

There's no snazzy Android 8.0 inside of the refreshed Nokia 8110 with HMD running with Smart Feature OS, a very bland operating system but there's not much you can expect when it's priced at under $100.

Samsung has officially revealed its new Galaxy S9 and Galaxy S9+ smartphones at their press conference before Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain.

The new Galaxy S9 rocks a 5.8-inch screen while the larger S9+ dons a 6.2-inch screen, Qualcomm's snappy Snapdragon 845 processor while Samsung's own in-house Exynos processor will be featured in the Galaxy S9/S9+ outside of the US.

On the back of the Galaxy S9+ we have an upgraded dual-camera set up that has been teased over the last few months, rocking a dual 12-megapixel rear-facing camera rig that is similar to the Galaxy Note 8. We have one wide-angle lens and one telephoto lens with tools like Dual Capture and Live Focus included on the Galaxy S9+.

Blu has just blown my mind with a new budget smartphone in their new Blu Vivo X which costs just $249, but rocks a huge 18:9 aspect display and 4 cameras.

The 6-inch display rocks a native resolution of 1440x720, with two front-facing cameras in 20MP and 8MP, respectively. The rear-facing cameras come in 13MP and 5MP, providing four cameras in total.

Inside, the Blu Vivo X rocks MediaTek's Helio 8-core CPU at 2.6GHz, which the company says will provide "high-end flagship performance", backed up by a 4010mAh battery that should give you plenty of charge, with fast-charging getting it up to 100% in less than two hours.

Qualcomm has just announced that there are major mobile operators that are prepared to activate Snapdragon-powered Windows 10 machines with 4G/LTE networks.

The company showed off their Always Connected PCs during the Snapdragon Technology Summit in Hawaii in December 2017, with ASUS, HP, and Lenovo now packing Snapdragon chips that will drive the entire Qualcomm Snapdragon Mobile PC platform forward.

Don McGuire, Vice President, Global Product Marketing, Qualcomm explains: "Our collaboration together with Microsoft has continued to build momentum for the Always Connected PC category. With the growing list of commitments from leading mobile operators worldwide, Snapdragon powered Always Connected PCs are engineered to offer consumers a compelling and powerful mobile computing experience, with instant on capability, always on connectivity* and 'beyond all-day' battery life in innovative, thin and light designs".

It looks like Samsung will be taking to the skies in the very near future, with the South Korean electronics giant filing a patent for something they're calling a "flying display device".

LetsGoDigital spotted the patent which was filed in 2016, and describes a drone-like device that would sport a screen and be capable of streaming video. The Verge has a better idea, where this hovering display could be used for huge advertisements that float in the sky.

Samsung's patent would also see the floating display hovering thanks to four propellers, and it would feature a vibration system, an obstacle detection unit that would pack a camera and sensor that would include motion and accelerometer sensors, and more. As for the display it could be anything from a tablet, laptop, or mobile medical device.

It looks like Huawei and ZTE will be dead in the water in the US soon, with six major US intelligence agencies warning Americans about using products and services made by Huawei and ZTE.

The new recommendations were given during the Senate Intelligence Committee, with the heads of the FBI, CIA, NSA, and the director of national intelligence all in session. FBI Director Chris Wray said the US government is "deeply concerned about the risks of allowing any company or entity that is beholden to foreign governments that don't share our values to gain positions of power inside our telecommunications networks".

Wray added that this would give "the capacity to maliciously modify or steal information. And it provides the capacity to conduct undetected espionage".

Qualcomm is an industry leader when it comes to SoC, connectivity and LTE modem technologies and are once again showing their strength with LTE modems. Qualcomm's new Snapdragon X24 LTE modem is capable of a huge 2Gbps download speed, which is quite simply insane.

The new Snapdragon X24 LTE modem is the world's first modem built on the 7nm FinFET process, with Qualcomm providing support for Category 20 LTE with 7x carrier aggregation, and 4x4 MIMO on a maximum of five aggregated LTE carriers.

Qualcomm explains: "As the world's first announced Gigabit LTE modem to achieve speeds of up to 2 Gbps, the Snapdragon X24 LTE modem sets a major mobile industry milestone, designed to provide enhanced mobile broadband and deliver an extremely important gigabit coverage layer for commercial 5G networks and mobile devices that are expected to start launching in 2019. Further expanding on the use of 4Ã-4 and LAA capability, the Snapdragon X24 packs a powerful array of the most advanced 4G LTE technologies commercially available, helping mobile operators to fully mobilize their spectrum assets and maximize the capacity of their Gigabit LTE networks, and mobile device makers to offer consumers a tangible glimpse of our 5G future".

Samsung isn't far from announcing its new Galaxy S9 with more hype behind it than Apple's biggest iPhone release since the original iPhone, with the iPhone X not really turning that many heads.

The new Galaxy S9 might rock a similar feature to the iPhone X with a purported Animoji competitor on Samsung's latest flagship handset. The 15-second clip shows their face with an animated overlay, similar to the iPhone X and its Animoji feature that uses the front-facing camera for animated characters that respond to facial movements.

The next video really displays the big tease that Samsung have in store for low-light abilities on the Galaxy S9 camera.

HTC continues to fizzle out from its tumulous last few years, and just over a week from Mobile World Congress, HTC smartphone boss Chialin Chang has resigned.

Chang resigned as HTC's President of Smartphone and Connected Devices Business, with HTC explaining it was part of his "personal career plan", with the company not providing any details on who will replace him, or when.

HTC provided Engadget with a statement, where they said "We can confirm Chialin Chang has resigned from his position as President of the Smartphone and Connected Devices Business at HTC. We thank him for his dedication to the Company for the last six years and wish him well in his future endeavors".

Razer lit up the mobile gaming world with their Razer Phone last year, a gaming-focused smartphone the featured a crown jewel: a super-smooth 120Hz display.

The latest rumor is that ASUS will be teasing a new gaming smartphone during MWC 2018, inside ASUS will be using Qualcomm's Snapdragon 845 with a cooling system that will let the Snapdragon 845 hit max clocks and not throttle. We should expect a beautiful Zen-like design, 6GB or more of RAM, and more.

ASUS could call it the ROG Phone, keeping its first gaming-focused smartphone under the Republic of Gamers branding would be a nice nod to PC gamers that love ROG products. We'll hear more at MWC 2018, and report back with the latest as it happens.

Microsoft has been rumored to be working on a Surface Phone for a while now, but the latest rumor should get most people excited no matter if you're using an iPhone or an Android smartphone.

The latest rumors tease that Surface Phone could have the ability to run desktop-grade apps natively, which would see Microsoft turn their Surface Phone into the ultimate power device. The entire enterprise and business industry would flip to Surface Phone in an instant, like most of them have away from the iPad and into the arms of Surface.

Running desktop Windows 10 apps natively on your smartphone would open up the worlds of truly portable gaming, but there will always be limitations on mobile, at least at first. Microsoft is reportedly working on two application layers for the Surface Phone, called RAIL and VAIL. RAIL is Remote Application Interface Layer, while VAIL is the Virtualized Application Interface Layer.

While we're waiting for Samsung to impress us with their 'redefined' camera set up on their upcoming Galaxy S9, it might be Chinese smartphone giant Huawei that truly blows us away.

New rumors tease that Huawei's upcoming flagship P-series smartphone might rock a triple-lens camera that would be capable of snapping 40-megapixel photos with up to 5x zoom. Notorious mobile leaker

Evan "@evleaks" Blass took to Twitter late last month where he tweeted "Is the next Huawei P-series going to be an imaging powerhouse? A digital artist at one of the company's creative agencies added these "PCE Series" ads to their portfolio -- claiming 40MP, 3 lens rear (5x hybrid zoom) + 24MP selfie, all Leica-co-developed".

Qualcomm dominated the 4G modem game getting LTE technology inside of virtually every smartphone on the market, and now the company is going to be even more dominant when it comes to mobile technologies next big thing: 5G.

Qualcomm announced that its super-fast Snapdragon X50 5G NR modem family has received support by a bunch of OEMs, with these companies launching 5G-based products next year, with trials beginning later this year.

Qualcomm announced partnerships with the likes of ASUS, Nokia, HTC, LG, Netcomm, Netgear, OPPO, Samsung, Xiaomi, ZTE, and others on the hardware side. As for the 5G ecosystem on the telco side, Qualcomm is teaming with AT&T, China Mobile, T-Mobile, NTT DoCoMo, Orange, SK Telecom, Sprint, Telstra, Verizon, and many more.