Top 10 trending phones of week 37

This week Apple introduced its 2018 iPhone lineup and they immediately took over our popularity chart. The new trio shot straight to the top, occupying the entire podium. The iPhone XS Max ended up the most popular family member, followed by the XS and finally the XR. The long-standing leader Xiaomi Pocophone F1 has to settle for a very distant fourth, ahead of the Xiaomi Mi A2 Lite and the vivo V11. Galaxy Note9 is the best placed among the Samsung smartphones, taking seventh, ahead of the last week's runner-up - the Oppo F9. In ninth we find the now discontinued Apple iPhone X,...

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Counterclockwise: the Apple iPhone makes history

Apple went from a garage, to an influential computer brand, to the brink of bankruptcy, to being the biggest tech company in the world. Many books have been written about it and we've talked about it plenty of times. We've traced Apple's history from its first dip into the phone market, we've recounted the updates to iOS and, of course, told the story of the iPhone. That last one ended with the iPhone 6s, it's time for a sequel. Or perhaps a do-over, it's hard to cover everything about each generation of iPhones in just a few paragraphs. Project Purple 2 In 2005 Steve Jobs had an...

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OxygenOS Open Beta 3 on Android 9.0 Pie arrives on the OnePlus 6

OnePlus just released the new Open Beta 3 Android 9.0 Pie-based software update for OnePlus 6 devices participating in the open beta program. The patch is mostly fixing bugs and improving overall stability, although there are a few other interesting improvements as well. The changelog says that users can expect better face unlock and fingerprint scanner behavior and there's now added support for Google Assistant or other third-party assistant apps. You can launch the assigned assistant by holding the power button for 0.5 seconds. OnePlus also extended the support for Parallel Apps...

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Xiaomi puts up the XR, XS and XS Max for sale, and those aren't just phones

iPhones have never been what you'd call affordable and this year is no different with the iPhone XR, XS and XS Max. In China in particular, the latest Apple smartphones start at CNY 6499 ($946), CNY 8699 ($1266), and CNY 9599 ($1397), respectively. But in China, there's also Xiaomi, and Xiaomi has its own XR, XS, and XS Max to offer. In a clear dig at Apple, the Chinese maker has put up electronics bundles named like the latest iPhones, and priced them the same as what Apple charges for them. Xiaomi XR bundle So for the price of the least expensive 2018 iPhone, Xiaomi's XR...

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Silver Samsung Galaxy Note9 will be stepping outside the US

A few days ago a rumor flew by suggesting that there's a silver-colored version of the Galaxy Note9 headed to US shores. It looks pretty nice and the S Pen matches the device's color as well. But if you're disappointed by the limited availability because you really liked the color, you might be in luck after all. The latest report claims that the handset will step outside of the US and will be made available to a lot of other markets. However, it remains unclear whether the silver option would be available on the 128GB and 512GB model or just on one of those. Here's the supposed...

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Xiaomi with another teaser video of the Mi 8 Youth Edition

Xiaomi seems to be hyping up for its September 19 event when yet another alteration of the original Mi 8 will be announced. The Mi 8 Youth is expected to be even cheaper than the Mi 8 SE with a price tag hovering around CNY 1,999 ($290) and most of the specs are already known. And judging by the teaser from yesterday and today's one, the design would be the key feature. Yesterday's teaser showed a mesmerizing gradient-colored glass back while today's video showcases the device in stylish gunmetal gray, although the video is pretty much the same. Source (in Chinese)

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Samsung Galaxy S7 and S7 edge get Google's September security patch

Samsung's developers' team may not have Android 9.0 Pie planned for the Galaxy S7 and S7 edge seeing as they're more than 2 years old now, but there's still some software love for the two. The latest OTA that the company is pushing, delivers the September 2018 security patch and some stability improvements to the OS. Te build number is G930FXXS3ERHD and it's been only spotted on the Galaxy S7 but will surely hit the S7 edge in the following days as well. And just like the Galaxy Note8 patch the other day, the September fix resolves 9 critical security issues and 18 that affect...

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Samsung Galaxy A6, J3 and J7 hit US stores, Galaxy Tab A 10.5" tags along

Starting today, Samsung is expanding its mid-range portfolio on US soil by introducing three new affordable smartphones and a 10.5-inch tablet. The phones in question are the Galaxy A6, J3 and J7 while the tablet is the recently released Galaxy Tab A 10.5". All three smartphones have been released on the global market for quite some time now, but it's good to see them pop up in US stores as well because the Galaxy J7, for example, offers good value while the J3 is a decent low-end smartphone. They are all available on Samsung's official web store with prices of $359 for the A6, $169...

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Pocophone F1 spotted on GeekBench running Android 9 Pie

You can't have missed the Pocophone F1 (or just Poco F1 in India) - the super affordable phone with flagship-grade hardware from Xiaomi that got us pretty impressed. Predictably, Xiaomi isn't just content with putting it out there and raking in cash, it's also hard at work on supporting the F1 from a software standpoint and an Android 9 Pie update is in the pipelines. A Pocophone F1 has shown up on GeekBench running Google's latest OS version. Pocophone F1 on GeekBench running Android 9 Pie Now, both the single-core and multi-core test results are lower than what our review...

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