Counterclockwise: Samsung's pre-Android smartphones were multimedia beasts

Samsung Mobile is best known for its Galaxy phones today, but the company has been in the phone game long before Google launched Android. Back in the Dawn of Samsung Galaxy post we hinted that the company's early Android devices were mid-rangers playing second fiddle to the Omnia flagships. Time to meet the failed ruling class of Samsung phones. Samsung saw early on that the underlying OS was less important that the user experience. Most Omnias were based on Windows Mobile (later Windows Phone) and there was a Symbian entry too. Yet, they all had TouchWiz as the dominant interface, a...

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Huawei's new 1TB drive will back-up your Mate 20 automatically

Huawei pretty much went all out at the Mate 20 announcement event. Not only did the Mate 20 and Mate 20 Pro make a first appearance, but so did the extravagant Mate 20X and the Mate 20 Porsche Design. The Huawei Watch GT and Band 3 Pro were kind of the icing on the cake. Now, we'll be the first to admit that Mate 20 family stirred up its share of controversy. Most-notably the new NM storage cards. But there's no denying that the sheer amount of released premium hardware is impressive. That being said, it appears that Huawei isn't done quite yet. Enter the "ST310-S1" - an...

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The Xiaomi Mi 8 Lite could be getting a new color and 8GB RAM trim

Xiaomi is clearly no stranger to the "spray and pray" approach to mobile phone lineups, growing increasingly popular in recent years. The Mi 8 family is now sprawling, with models including the Mi 8 Explorer, Mi 8 Pro, regular Mi 8, Mi 8 SE and the proverbial runt of the family, so to say - the Mi 8 Lite. According to a recent TENAA filing, the latter might be getting a new coat of paint, along with a memory upgrade up to 8GB of RAM. We won't really get into the merits of the latter on a mid-range device, but we will note that the "M1808D2TT" looks quite impressive in what we can only...

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Samsung W2019 clamshell flagship poses for the camera

We first heard about Samsung's flagship flip-hone back in July and since then, the intel has been pretty limited. So the latest hands-on video and photos are more than welcome. We've got an aluminum + glass design, two screens and two rear-facing cameras. The handset also appears to be pretty thick, but given the 3,000 mAh battery and 4.2-inch AMOLED screens, it's understandable. It also seems to be perfectly sized for handling with one hand. Head over to the source link below to watch the video. Samsung W2019 As per rumors, the devices should be available only in China so no...

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Google wiil charge OEMs for pre-loading its GApps

And it's happening - Google is forced to charge its OEMs for distributing its GApps in the EU after being fined with €4.3 billion. Sundar Pichai did confirm that the company has to start charging Android manufacturers for pre-installing apps like Play Store, YouTube, Drive, Maps, etc., but Google's search and Chrome will remain free of charge as the company says the last two generate enough revenue on their own. For the distribution of its apps, Google will start collecting royalties from 28 European countries including Iceland, Norway, Switzerland and Lichtenstein based on pixel...

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A Honor smartwatch is incoming

Earlier today the upcoming Honor Magic 2 Fullview display, slider smartphone was teased yet again, reminding us of its upcoming October 31 release date. As per a newly uncovered banner, it turns out the Magic 2 won't be the only Honor device to be unveiled at the event. Clearly, the banner doesn't reveal much about the Honor Watch, but with some extrapolation and pixel-peeping, there might still be a few predictions to be made here. Most of these revolve around the recently announced Huawei Watch GT. It doesn't really take much more than a silhouette to spot the resemblance between...

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Two new vivo phones stop by TENAA

Shortly after the vivo Z3 launch, the Chinese vendor is prepping up another release for the mid-range segment. Actually, a TENAA listing tells a story of two devices with different model numbers (V1818A and V1818T) and identical specs. Supposedly, one of them is aimed at a carrier. A 6.22-inch IPS display with 720 x 1520 (HD+) resolution takes up most of the front panel. We can also see a fairly thick chin and a familiar earpiece grill, hinting at a waterdrop-styled notch, housing the 8MP front-facing camera. The device is powered by an octa-core CPU clocked at 1.95 GHz, which could...

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Samsung Galaxy A9 (2018) listed on TENAA

Usefulness, justification and your personal feelings on the matter aside, the Galaxy A9 (2018) officially holds the "the world's first quad camera smartphone" title and for better or worse has its sales pitch all lined up out of the gate. Now, all that remains is for Samsung to expand availability further and hope the hook works. The process is clearly already in motion, since the "SM-A9200" is now listed on TENAA. This, naturally, means that its release in China is imminent. In case you missed the official announcement from a few days ago, here are some basic specs on the Galaxy...

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Nokia 8.1 spotted on GFXBench, rocking a Snapdragon 710

HMD Global has been on somewhat of an announcement spree lately, unveiling the Nokia 7.1, Nokia 3.1 Plus and, most recently, the Nokia X7 (7.1 Plus) in a matter of weeks since the beginning of October. Now an intriguing GeekBench listing appears to detail yet another upcoming HMD device - the Nokia 8.1. It's a pretty fresh test run as well, dating October 19 and, better still, a surprisingly detailed one. Instead of a codename, the device appears with its full market moniker. Some other hardware details include the Snapdragon 710 chipset, also properly reported with a legible model...

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Yet another Honor Magic 2 teaser video pops up online

The Honor Magic 2 is still shrouded in quite a bit of mystery, in the absence of any detailed specs leaks or a TENAA listing. Honor has, however, already made it abundantly clear that it intends to mount an online "Viral Marketing" campaign for the handset to the best of its abilities. We can't really attest as to how well it's actually working out so far, but the upcoming Fullview display smartphone, with a camera slider, a la Oppo Find X, has now been teased over and over again. The latest such clip appears to come from the TikTok social platform and is executed in a style very much...

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