Weekend phone talk: Ivan

As the first half of 2018 gets further back in the rear-view mirror it gets easier to see the full picture. These are Ivan's musings on the highs and lows of the first six months of the year as well as his hopes of what's to come in the second half. Paul and Yordan already laid their ponderings for your couch enjoyment but if you missed them, feel free to catch up. Ivan: I'm loving 2018 so far but bring on the real stuff! First half recap Let me preface this by saying that half a year is a long time so this will be a long-ish article. You can still get your money back if...

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Weekly poll results: bring back full bezels until cams go under the screen

Since the advent of touchscreen phones designers have had one persistent goal - how to make the screen take as much of the front panel as possible. Keyboards were the first to go, then the last few buttons, bezels started to shrink and even the earpiece had to go behind the screen on occassion. Only one thing remains - the camera. So whether it's a wide notch like on the iPhone X or a narrow one like on the Essential phone, a lot of new phones have a notch of some kind. And seemingly everyone hates it. Our poll shows that people want phones to go back to full bezels. There's a growing...

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YouTube will no longer discriminate videos with different aspect ratios

YouTube has just announced that the videos with an unusual aspect ratio watched on the desktop - hence on a desktop browser - will no longer appear with black bars. Instead, they will be optimized and stretched to appear bigger. It does so by removing the default 16:9 frame and optimizing the UI to adjust to different screen sizes. Could this change finally make vertical videos less annoying? (Short answer: No.) Anyway, you can see the difference in the screenshots below. Before the update and after the update The change should be gradually rolling out to everyone after being...

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Counterclockwise: the history of Siemens phones and their many innovations

I still remember the first time I saw a Siemens ME45 - a black phone with amber lighting and it was water, shock and dust resistant. It was like a stealthy bat-phone. The ME45 internals are identical to the Siemens S45, the company's first GPRS-capable phone. Both are from 2001. A year later the Siemens S45i came out, it added email support. But we're getting ahead of ourselves. Siemens ME45 • Siemens S45 • Siemens S45i Siemens' history with telephony dates back to the 19th century when the company got into building telephone exchanges (it was building telegraphs before...

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Review: Huawei's GPU Turbo update

What is GPU Turbo? Huawei recently unveiled an interesting software project to the public. It is called "GPU Turbo" and should provide great graphics performance improvements to most recent Huawei smartphones. It definitely sounds like something to get excited about. The enhancement will come as a part of a software update which will start seeding in stages in August. We got the chance to test the update in beta form before the general public and we're happy to share our impressions. But, before we get into our actual test findings, let's explain just what GPU Turbo is about. How...

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OxygenOS 5.1.4 for OnePlus 5/5T brings new features and July security patch

Strangely enough, the OnePlus 3 and 3T got their July security patch before the OnePlus 5 and 5T but the wait is worth it because the last two handsets are now equipped with some brand new features. The OxygenOS 5.1.4 OTA update bumps up the security patch of both devices to July 2018 but more importantly, it introduces a cool new battery-related feature. It's called "Sleep Standby Mode," which reduces the amount of power drained while the device is not used. In the OnePlus forum post, the company explains that the device intelligently tracks your usage patterns and when you are...

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Rumor: 2018 iPad Pros will have smaller footprint and no headphone jack

There's not much info on this year's upcoming iPad Pro lineup except that it should be equipped with the iPhone X's advanced face recognition tech. The latest report confirms that and contributes to the whole story. According to the Japanese website Macotakara, both the 10.5-inch and the 12.9-inch iPad Pros will have reduced dimensions overall. The 10.5-inch model will go from 250.6 x 174.1 x 6.1mm down to 247.5 x 178.7 x 6mm while the 12.9-inch one will get an even more extreme side cut - from 305.7 x 220.6 x 6.9mm down to 280 x 215 x 6.4. Obviously, Apple will shave off the bezels...

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Deal: Samsung Gear S3 Classic and Frontier for $280 with free $100 gift card

Samsung's Gear S3 Classic and Frontier have aged but they are still pretty capable watches and Best Buy's latest offer makes them irresistible. If it wasn't for the huge price cut, we would have suggested that you keep your hard-earned money and wait for the upcoming Galaxy Watch that's supposed to come with the Galaxy Note9. But in this case, if you are in the market for smart wearables, look no further than those two. Best Buy's offer is $279.99 for both variants - down from $349. And that's not all. The deal includes a Best Buy E-Gift card for $100. You can find them in the...

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Here's a render of Samsung's Wireless Charger Duo for the Note9 and the Galaxy Watch

Roland Quandt just tweeted some revealing renders of Samsung's Wireless Charger Duo we showed you last week, which is supposed to come alongside the Galaxy Note9 and the Galaxy Watch. This is how the charger with model number EP-N6100 looks outside the box - it has room for the phone and the smartwatch. But there's more. Another pad with different model number EP-P3100 looks a lot like the pad for the smartwatch on the big charger. The EP-P3100 charger We can't be sure for now whether this is an entirely separate device or we are looking at a modular dual wireless...

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Nokia 5.1 up for pre-order in Germany

HMD Global announced a number of new smartphones coming to Europe back in May and Nokia 5's successor was one of them. Nokia 5.1 pre-order listings Now, the Nokia 5.1 popped up on a German online retail store claiming that the 2GB/16GB memory variant will be here 3 days from now. The price tag is €210 while the more powerful version with 3GB/32GB memory configuration will set you back €238. You can pre-order the latter too but it will arrive in two to four weeks time. Source 1 | Source 2 (both in German)

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Xiaomi Pocophone F1's Bluetooth certification reveals spicy hardware

We've been hearing stuff about Xiaomi's sub-brand Pocophone for some time now, but only this week we got something that's really worth noting. The upcoming smartphone called F1 will boast Snapdragon 845 and it's touted to be the cheapest SD845-powered smartphone on the market. It's expected to hit Eastern Europe and then become available in India under a different name. More importantly, though, the chipset won't be the only key selling point of the device, at least according to the Bluetooth certification document. In it, we find plenty of details about the specs and features of...

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Galaxy J5 (2017) variants will receive Android Oreo, WiFi certification document shows

Samsung isn't famous for its timely updates, especially when it comes to its low-end and mid-range devices. They often need to wait several months to a whole year to receive a major Android OS update, but the latest news about some of the Galaxy J5 models is a breath of fresh air for many owners of the handsets - Android 8.0 Oreo is definitely coming. It became clear after the WiFi Alliance certified a total of 13 Galaxy J5 variants as Oreo-ready, which means that Samsung is almost done with the update. But don't get too excited, though, as not all J5 handsets will get the biscuit -...

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