New phones of the week

The deluge of new phone announcements continues in what used to be a slow season in our line of work. For the third week in a row, we have a whole bunch of new releases, spanning all market segments. High up top, we have the Xiaomi Mi 8 - the company's commemorative 8th-anniversary handset. 6.21-inch notched AMOLED display, the latest Snapdragon 845, and a tricked out dual camera, what else can you ask for? How about a transparent back and an under-display fingerprint scanner? That's where the Mi 8 Explorer edition comes in. Less exclusive, but equally intriguing, the Mi 8 SE...

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Week 22 in review: Xiaomi Mi 8 is official alongside Mi 8 SE, Mi Band 3 and MIUI 10

Last week saw the peak of the hype before Xiaomi's 8 year anniversary event and this week the event finally revealed all Xiaomi had been working on. Xiaomi announced the Mi 8, the Mi 8 Explorer with an under the display fingerprint scanner and the first Snapdragon 710 smartphone, the Mi 8 SE. It also showed MIUI 10 and the Mi Band 3. Nokia had an event of its own this week. The Nokia 5.1, 3.1 and 2.1 all went official in Moscow, refreshing the company's entry-level and mid-range lineup. LG unveiled the V35 ThinQ - a V30s with a Snapdragon 845 chipset. The rest of the hot stories...

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Sunday debate: Classic 16:9 vs. Taller screen ratios

Remember when LG G6 and Samsung Galaxy S8 arrived with an unusually tall screen? Fast forward one year later and now its the norm. Yordan & Ivan discuss if a classic 16:9 ratio display or a tall solution is better? Yordan: If it ain't broken, don't fix it. First there was the Motorola DynaTAC - a massive mobile phone that wasn't attached to a cord going in the wall. From then on phones started getting smaller and smaller while getting smarter. But with great media availability came great responsibility, so screens started growing in size. Manufacturers tried to find the...

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Weekly poll: which Xiaomi Mi 8 version is your favorite?

Xiaomi unveiled three new phones this week - the mainstream flagship, the "dressed to impress" model and a more compact, more affordable version. Now that you've had a few days to let their specs settle in, what do you think? The base Xiaomi Mi 8 features a 6.21" Super AMOLED display with HDR10 and DCI-P3 support. There's sizable notch in it that houses Xiaomi's own face scanning technology. The dual 12 MP camera on the back of the phone is rated highly - DxO says it takes better photos than the Galaxy S9+. And it can record 2160p video at 60 fps. Not bad for a phone that start at CNY...

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Top 10 trending phones of week 22

Plenty of commotion in the top 10 chart this week, mostly due to the eagerly-anticipated unveiling of Xiaomi's new flagship device. The Mi 8 is only part of the story, as the Chinese OEM also took the wrappings off the Mi 8 Explorer and Mi 8 SE. The latter comes with a different design and with a more attractive price tag. The Xiaomi trio clearly made a big splash in the rankings, with the two flagship variants, taking the first and second spots. The Mi 8 SE also made the list, securing 7th place. Meanwhile, the Redmi Note 5 Pro managed to climb up the food chain to the third...

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Counterclockwise: Windows on phones evolves but can't fight off Android

Mobile OSes went through a Cambrian explosion and then there was an inevitable mass extinction. The two survivors - Android and iOS - date back to 2007 and they completely dominate the field. Android is on 9 in 10 phones while iOS lives in concentrated pockets around the world. Probably the last big OS to fall was Windows. We look back to the PocketPC days and Windows Mobile. Back then, the UI tried to imitate the mouse and keyboard-driven desktop Windows and let's just say that it wasn't great. Then there was the Windows Phone whose UI was inspired by the Zune players. This time...

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