Modular Land Rover Explore to debut at MWC

Land Rover builds cars for those who enjoy the outdoors in comfort and luxury. The car company is lending its name to a smartphone that will be called the Land Rover Explore. It's a ruggedized smartphone built by Bullitt Group, the same company that makes Ruggedized CAT phones like the S60 . The company announced the phone at ISPO - an outdoor and sports trade show in Munich. Bullitt certainly has experience building sturdy hardware, and it is an appropriate choice to make a phone like the Land Rover Explore. The Explore is targeted to a more broad audience of folks who enjoy hiking and...

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Google flights can now predict if your flight will be delayed

Google's vast collection of data helps the travel industry with Google's Hotel search tool and Google Flights. Google is announcing a couple of new features for its plane-ticket search. Starting with finding cheap flights, Google will begin offering more specific information about cheaper flight fares. New kinds of basic economy flights may not offer a carry-on or the option to pick your seat, so Google Flights will provide this information for American, Delta, and United. Next, Google will be able to predict when you flight may be delayed. Google uses a combination of historic...

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Honor View 10 review

The Honor View 10's launch is a significant one in Honor's history. It was known as Honor's V-series and it was only available in China. Honor's rebranding to "View" series comes at the same time as the company's decision to launch the smartphone outside of China as a high-value or bang-for-buck smartphone.

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Oppo A71 (2018) launches with Snapdragon 450, "AI Beauty Recognition Technology"

The Oppo A71 was quietly announced last September, but it looks like it was a short-lived model. That's because today the Oppo A71 (2018) became official in Pakistan, ahead of a probably imminent launch in India. The A71 (2018) is very similar to its predecessor, but packs in a couple of improvements (and, oddly, 1GB less RAM). It has the same 5.2" 720p display, 16GB of expandable storage, dual-SIM functionality, 13 MP f/2.2 main camera, 5 MP f/2.4 selfie shooter, and 3,000 mAh battery as the original A71. It's even got the exact same dimensions as that, measuring 148.1 x 73.8 x 7.6 mm,...

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Huawei P11/P20 officially coming on March 27

The mystery has been revealed: Huawei isn't introducing its new flagship smartphones at MWC next month. Instead, it will wait until March 27, when it's holding a special event in Paris. That's when the P11 or P20 family should become official - we still aren't sure exactly which name will be used. Regardless of that, it is expected to comprise of at least three members, according to recent rumors: a P11/P20, a P11/P20 Plus, and a P11/P20 Lite. A while back there was also a P11/P20 Pro rumored, even allegedly arriving on the market with an iPhone X-like notch. Keep in mind that at least...

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Beta testers to get Galaxy S8 Oreo a day earlier

Samsung will seed the official Oreo firmware update for the Galaxy S8 and S8+ to registered Beta testers 1 day before the general public. The firmware will carry the new Samsung Experience 9.0 under Android Oreo but there's still no official date for its release. We hope the update is just days away and judging by that announcement it probably is. Thanks for the tip, Pranjal!

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Samsung now making chips for Bitcoin mining hardware

Even Samsung's foundries have been roped into making Bitcoin mining hardware now. The design for the ASIC (Application-Specific Integrated Circuit) was completed last year and it went into mass production this month, according to The Bell. These ASIC chips are headed to an unnamed company in China. An analyst from Samsung Securities stated that producing ASICs takes up only a small portion of the capacity of the company's foundries. So this shouldn't affect the production of other chips. Still, this is a win for Samsung. For example, Bitmain (one of largest makers of Bitcoin mining...

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Asus to announce Zenfone 5 on February 27

Back in September Asus said the Zenfone 5 series should be expected in Q1 2018 and today we have an official announcement date. The company scheduled an event on February 27 at MWC 2018 in Barcelona. The new phones are arriving just five months after the Zenfone 4 versions hit the market. Six devices were announced back in August, followed by some more in September. Some rumors suggest that we might see at least three devices - Zenfone 5, Zenfone 5 Lite and Zenfone 5 Max with massive battery. According to the poster, phones should arrive with Snapdragon chipsets. The event will...

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A Xiaomi store set to open in Romania in February

Xiaomi is expanding its European presence eastward - a Xiaomi store will open in Romania in less than two weeks, following Spain and (more recently) Italy. The announcement was made on Facebook and a site is already up - though it's not hosted at Mi.com. There's not much to see there besides a countdown clock. The store will open in 11 days from now. It's located in Sibiu, which is close to the center of the country, around 275km (171mi) from Bucharest. It will be on Tribunei st. specifically, though most people will likely use the online store. What that store will house is TBD,...

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An 18:9 Sony Xperia Compact certified by the FCC

This could be interesting - a Sony Xperia Compact with a tall aspect ratio screen. This is just conjecture based on dimensions from an FCC certification, but the numbers are lining up beautifully. The Xperia in question has a 5" screen (126mm) and measures 135.43 x 64.63 mm. For comparison, an Xperia XZ1 Compact is 129 x 64mm - same width, but shorter. The FCC only gave the display diagonal, not its aspect ratio or sides. However, check out what happens when we compare a 4.6" 16:9 screen (like that of the XZ1 Compact) and a 5" 18:9 screen: Would it be too optimistic to think...

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alcatel 5 leaks in press renders and promo video

The upcoming alcatel 5 popped up on Amazon France, revealing some specs. Today the famous leakster Roland Quandt posted on Twitter a promo video, additional press renders and a complete specs sheet, including pricing and availability. The alcatel 5 will have a 5.7" IPS LCD with 18:9 ratio and HD+ resolution. The phone is equipped with the unimpressive Mediatek MT6750 chipset with eight Cortex-A53 CPU cores, clocked at 1.5 GHz. The phone will have 3 GB RAM and 32 GB storage, but there is microSD to store all your multimedia. Since the phone screen takes most of the front, the...

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CAD schematics highlight the miniscule design changes for the Galaxy S9

The Galaxy S9 will be a generation for refinement rather than revolution. The exterior design of the new phones has barely changed - comparing CAD schematics for both makes it plain to see. For the most part, the S9 phones - both the small one and the Galaxy S9+ - will be differ by fractions of a millimeter compared to the S8 generation. The biggest change seems to be that the S9+ model will be 1.7mm shorter than its predecessor (we've included a table with dimensions at the bottom). The screen position, even the thickness of the earpiece have been nudged ever so slightly. There...

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Oreo update now rolling out to OnePlus 5T users

The OnePlus 5T may be the company's latest device, but it is also the last to receive Oreo. The beta testing is complete and OxygenOS 5.0.2 is rolling out over the air. The update brings a new design for Quick settings as well as new versions for some system apps. It squashes several bugs, the biggest fix being mitigation for Spectre-style attacks. OnePlus 5T gets stable Android 8.0 Oreo As for the system apps, the Launcher was bumped up to v2.2 (includes goodies like dark theme), the gallery to v2.0 (tabs and Maps integration), Weather to 1.9 and the File manager to...

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2014 Redmi Note also gets MIUI 9

Yesterday the 4-year Xiaomi Redmi 1S got MIUI 9 and now the Redmi Note, also from 2014, followed suit. Once again though, the latest Xiaomi user interface runs on top of Android KitKat and the security update is dated as far back as October 2016. The version for the Redmi Note is MIUI 9.2.2.0.KHIMIEK, while it's Prime variant receives MIUI 9.2.3.0.KHKMIEK, both with a size between 150 and 200 MB. The update is rolling out in phases and should arrive to all units by the end of the week. With upgrading to MIUI 9, Redmi Note users will get UI design changes, new features like...

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UFS 3.0 announced with double the speed

Phone storage is an often overlooked factor in performance, but JEDEC has the cure for slowness - the new UFS 3.0 standard. It promises up to 2x the bandwidth while using lower power to boot. A single lane can carry up to 11.6 Gbps, twice what the UFS 2.1 standard could manage. For more speed, two lanes can be used for a total of 23.2 Gbps. The new version of the standard has moved to 2.5V operation while the previous generation worked on 2.7V to 3.6V. Anyway, JEDEC also added support for extended temperature range (-40°C to 105°C) to appeal to the automotive market. A refresh...

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Honor 7X promo comes in partnership with Lords Mobile

The Honor 7X is officially available since December in major European and Asian markets, but starting yesterday it arrives with some incentives. The Huawei subsidiary announced a partnership with Lords Mobile that lets you get gift cards and free cases. Women case • Men case • £75 Gift card Purchasing the Honor 7X with 4 GB RAM and 64 GB storage in the UK will cost £270, discounted from £355. The phone in either Blue or Black arrives with a £75 card that will enable unique Lords Mobile gift pack. There is also a selection of two cases, branded with heroes from the mobile game...

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Samsung Q4 report: strong high-end smartphone sales, decline in the low end

Samsung posted its Q4 report, showing $61.8 billion earnings and an operating profit of $11.49 billion. That's a 24% and 73% respective increase over last year's Q4. The positive results are spearheaded by profitable display and semiconductor businesses as well as growing high-end smartphone sales. That higher demand for Samsung's top-tier smartphones was able to offset slowing lower-end phone sales, although Samsung needed to increase its marketing cost to promote said top-tier phones. Samsung's display business was lifted in the final quarter of 2017 thanks to increased demand for...

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