Honor 8X Max key specs leak in promo images

Huawei's subsidiary is launching the Honor 8X as a successor of the Honor 7X, but this time a bigger variant will appear as well. It will be named Honor 8X Max and will have a Snapdragon 660, according to an earlier benchmark. Now we know all the key specs of the phone thanks to some leaked promo images. The Honor 8X Max is also listed on the Chinese online retailer JD.com, revealing itself from all sides in the official renders. Honor 8X Max big screen and stereo speakers The phone will have a humongous 7.12" screen with a waterdrop notch for the selfie camera, while the...

Read More

Samsung Galaxy C7 receives Android 8.0 Oreo update

Samsung has started sending out the update to Android 8.0 Oreo to the Galaxy C7 from 2016, specifically the model that was sold primarily in China - SM-C7000. Additionally, a new variant of the Galaxy C5 Pro is tasting Oreo too - we're talking about the one bearing the model number SM-C5018. On the other hand, the Oreo release went out to the SM-C5010 version of the C5 Pro on August 5. If you own a Galaxy C7 (SM-C7000), the new software version is C7000ZCU3CRH3, while for the C5 Pro (SM-C5018) it's C5018ZMU1CRH2. Interestingly, the C7's update packs the August security fixes (the latest...

Read More

Instagram adds new security features, including support for third-party two-factor authenticators

Today Instagram has announced three new security-oriented features, in light of its recent account hacking scandal. First off, an About This Account option will be available on every profile (once you tap on the three-dot menu). This will tell you things such as the date the account joined, the country where it's located, other accounts with shared followers, any username changes in the last year, and any ads it's currently running. This should all help you realize which accounts belong to authentic individuals, and which are just fake news and/or spam bots. In September, people who...

Read More

Google rebrands Tez to Google Pay in India

Google has renamed its UPI payment app in India from Google Tez to Google Pay. While this does bring it under Google's recently consolidated payment services, Google Pay in India will continue to use the UPI protocol instead of the NFC-based system used in other countries. Apart from the name change, Google also announced that Google Pay in India will soon allow users to request an instant, pre-approved bank loan directly from within the app. Customers will be able to request a loan from Federal Bank, HDFC Bank, ICICI Bank, and Kotak Mahindra Bank. Users will be able to choose the...

Read More

Gartner: Huawei sold more smartphones than Apple in Q2 this year

A month ago IDC reported that Huawei surpassed Apple to become the second largest smartphone maker by shipments. Today Gartner came out with a similar statement, but this time measuring the sales. Huawei saw its smartphone sales grow by 38.6% in Q2 this year. The main driving force behind the growth was the Honor sub-brand, which is available in 70 markets. Apple's sales barely changed compared to last year - the difference is less than 1%. Interest in the iPhone X faded quicker than in Apple's earlier top models. The iPhone 8 duo was seen as an incremental upgrade, which slowed the...

Read More

HTC U12 Life will have a Snapdragon 660 chipset instead of a 636

The HTC U12 Life is shaping up to be the company's first phone with a Snapdragon 660 chipset. That's what Geekbench is showing us, along with 4GB of RAM and Android 8.1 Oreo. This is an upgrade over previous rumors that suggested a Snapdragon 636. The RAM is as rumored and while Geekbench doesn't list built-in storage, it should be 64GB. The Life is positioned as a "lite" version of the HTC U12+ flagship. From what we've glimpsed of its design through leaks, the front will look like the U12+ with a 6-inch 18:9 screen (1,080 x 2,160px). However, the back will be very different -...

Read More

LG launches the budget Q7 in India

LG has launched its budget Q7 smartphone in the Indian market. The phone is priced at INR 15,990 ($228) and will be available across retail outlets starting September 1. The LG Q7 is the successor to last year's Q6. It has a 5.5-inch, 18:9 FullVision Display with a resolution of 1080x2160 pixels. It runs on a 1.5Ghz octa-core MediaTek MT6750S chipset with 3GB of RAM and 32GB of expandable storage. The Q7 has a 13MP f2.2 camera on the back with PDAF and a 8MP f1.9 camera on the front, both of which can record 1080p video. The phone is powered by a 3000mAh battery with Quick...

Read More

YU Ace will be unveiled on August 30

YU has been laying dormant since the Yureka 2 launched in September last year. The company's Twitter account started tweeting again a few days ago, teasing an upcoming phone. It will be called YU Ace and an invite sent out to the press shows that it will be unveiled in a couple of days - Thursday, August 30. The company calls the Ace a "game changer". YU Ace teasers The #YUFaceOff teasers promise a large battery, without going into specifics. The Yureka Note and Yunicorn had 4,000mAh batteries, so YU has some experience in that area. The big boxing glove could hint at a...

Read More

ZTE nubia Z18 coming on September 5 with a subtle notch

Information about ZTE's upcoming nubia Z18 flagship has been fairly scarce - only a few live photos and a Geekbench listing revealing some of the key specs have appeared in the last few months. There are also some sample photos from the camera hinting at pretty good low-light capabilities but that's pretty much it. And it looks like there's no time for leaks either - nubia's official Weibo page posted a teaser poster revealing the launch date of the device - September 5. Judging by the image, the smartphone will most certainly come with a minimalist notch similar to the one on the...

Read More

vivo X23 appears on official site in three different colors

The launch date of the vivo X23 is set for early September, about a week from now. However, we've been getting plenty of teasers and now there's this - a page for the X23 up on the company's website, even though it's not meant to be publicly accessible. It shows the phone in three colors: Phantom Purple, Magic Night (blue) and Phantom Red. Unfortunately, the specs are price are yet to be filled in, at least beyond what the teasers showed. The phone is going to pack 8GB of RAM and 128GB storage, that much is clear. There's no 6/64GB version, at least not one that we could...

Read More

Oppo completes first 5G tests with Snapdragon X50 modem

We have been hearing about 5G networks since the summer of 2014, but eventually Qualcomm announced their partnership with more than a dozen of OEMs to deliver 5G smartphones by 2019. One of the partners Oppo has reached experimental 5G speeds on a modified retail unit of the Oppo R15 phone, Chinese sources said. The test was based on the 3GPP Release 15 NSA standard with the 10 MHz bandwidth of 4G LTE Band 5 and the 20 MHz bandwidth of 5G NR n78 band. The modem was the Qualcomm X50 platform that was introduced back in February 2018. Liu Chang, President of Oppo Research...

Read More

Pocophone F1 teardown: a closer look at the 'LiquidCool' heatpipe and the face scanner

The Pocophone F1 is the center of attention right now, but what makes it tick? A quick teardown video will satisfy our curiosity. There are two areas of interest on this phone that costs a modest €330 in Europe and as low as €260 elsewhere. POCO F1 Teardown pic.twitter.com/Idqr2SyGnw— 📱 🖥️ 👦 👦 🔍 🇮🇩 (@bang_gogo_) August 28, 2018 First is the premium Snapdragon 845 chipset, which features a "LiquidCool" heatpipe. The pipe takes heat away from the metal heatspreader over the chipset then goes under the battery to connect to...

Read More

Oppo to introduce Realme 2 Pro in September

The Realme 2 was announced in New Delhi earlier today with affordable specs and a price tag starting from $130/€110. During the announcement, Madhav Sheth, CEO of Realme India, wrapped up the event with "one more thing 2 surprise you" in September, giving an obvious hint that a Realme 2 Pro is on its way. The hint was a surprising imPROvisation from Realme Sheth said that next month would be launched another product by Realme, self-proclaimed as market disruptors. The device will be for "those who want better offerings in a little bit higher price segments". While Realme 2...

Read More

Huawei adds 5 more smartphones to the Android 9.0 Pie testing, Honor devices included

After announcing the first Huawei/Honor smartphones going through internal testing for the Android 9.0 Pie at the beginning of this month, the company published a list of 5 new additions. The new phones are all flagships, as expected - Mate 10, Mate 10 Porsche Design, Mate RS Porsche Design, P20 Pro and Honor Play. This adds up to a total of nine devices that are going through the internal testing program. Here's the complete list of models eligible for the beta update. Huawei reminds that the at this stage, the software isn't stable and may cause some issues with some...

Read More

Meizu M8 Lite appears on TENAA

At the beginning of July a mysterious Meizu smartphone with a model number M816Q got certified and we assumed it was the Meizu X8. According to the latest listing at TENAA, this is likely an ultra-cheap phone from the M-series and will probably be called Meizu M8 Lite, an even more affordable option than the Meizu M8c that goes for around €140. Meizu M816Q from all sides The new Meizu will have a chipset with CPU frequency at 1.3 GHz. It could be either the MediaTek MT6737 SoC with a quad-core Cortex-A53 cluster or the Snapdragon 212 with four Cortex-A7 cores. RAM is...

Read More

Oppo Realme 2 review

The biggest mistake anyone could make is to think of the Realme 2 as a sequel to the Realme 1. It's not. Despite what the model name implies, the Realme 2 is more of an alter ego came to be, than a successor to the popular Realme 1.

Read More

Oppo Realme 2 is here with bigger display and battery, dual camera

Just three months after releasing the Realme 1, Oppo is announcing its successor the Realme 2. The second member of Oppo's Realme sub-brand adds a bigger 6.2-inch display with a notch and, interestingly, inferior 720x1520px resolution into a body that's not perceptibly bigger than its predecessor. There's also a 24% larger 4,230mAh battery, which combined with AI Power Manager promises much improved endurance. Oppo claims up to 44 hours of call time, 18 hours of music playback and up to 10 hours of gaming. The Oppo Realme 2 now has a dual 13MP f/2.2 + 2MP f/2.4 camera on the...

Read More

ZTE nubia Red Magic in Flame Red color is up for pre-order

Smartphone makers often adopt a similar strategy when it comes to product cycles - they launch a smartphone generating a lot of buzz in the beginning, but after a while, everyone starts losing interest in the device over the months. So to create a new hype, OEMs announce a new color version of their smartphone in hopes of making it in the news. It's exactly the case with the ZTE nubia Red Magic - a gaming smartphone announced in April this year is currently up for pre-order offering a cool new color called "Flame Red" and it sells only with 8GB of RAM and 128GB of storage. Of course,...

Read More