Huawei Mate 20 Pro's first update adds more camera features, October security patches

Huawei's latest flagship smartphone, the Mate 20 Pro, is already getting an update. The first new software rollout for the device since it's been released a few days ago weighs in at 491MB and is currently available in both the UK and South Africa. It should make its way to more countries in the coming days. Once you install it, you'll be running EMUI 9.0.0.126. The update brings with it the October security patches, which are technically still current since Google hasn't released the ones for November yet. Then again, OnePlus is already updating the phones it launched this year to the...

Read More

OxygenOS 9.0.2 is rolling out to the OnePlus 6 with Nightscape and Studio Lighting

At the OnePlus 6T launch it was announced that its predecessor would get the Nightscape camera mode as well, this week even. And sure enough, a couple of days ago this was made available through a beta release. Now, just two days later, the stable update is already hitting OnePlus 6 units in the wild. It's labeled OxygenOS 9.0.2, and aside from the new camera mode it also packs some other goodies. You get the new navigation gestures that debuted on the 6T, the improved UI for the About phone section in Settings, optimized standby power consumption, as well as the November 2018...

Read More

Spotify now has 87 million paying customers

Spotify has published its latest earnings report today, and it has plenty of good news for the streaming service. First off, it now boasts 191 million total active monthly users. What's more, of those 87 million subscribe to its paid tiers. This is up from 83 million subscribers in the previous quarter. Spotify still maintains a lead over chief competitor Apple Music, which is estimated to have around 43.5 million subscribers (although that number doesn't come straight from Apple, so keep a grain of salt nearby when reading it). In the year-ago quarter Spotify posted a €73 million loss,...

Read More

MediaTek is working on a 5G chipset, coming late next year

MediaTek's first 5G modem, the Helio M70, is expected to be in devices in the first half of 2019, says company's CEO. But the company is working on an integrated 5G chipset as well, this one will arrive later - near the end of the year, meaning that the first devices with it should arrive in 2020. The M70 is a standalone modem - meaning it's not part of a chipset. That works quite well for MediaTek's ambitions to supply 5G modems to Apple as iPhones use external modem chips (provided by Intel most recently). Qualcomm's 5G modems are external too. A modem integrated into the chipset...

Read More

vivo X21S unpacked in front of the camera, reveals UD fingerprint reader

This is actually the first time we get to see the vivo X21S in flesh and we have a really good reason to believe it's actually the vivo V1814T, and the V1814A, we know from earlier leaks. The V1814T popped up on TENAA two weeks ago and now the new live photos help us fill in the gaps. vivo X21S According to the new information, the handset's marketing name is going to be vivo X21S and will incorporate an under-display fingerprint scanner, which explains why we didn't see it in the TENAA report. The 6.41-inch large AMOLED display houses a minimalist notch on the top - just for...

Read More

Thunder Purple variant of OnePlus 6 spotted in online listings

Were you disappointed that the OnePlus 6T is available only in Black and Black? There's some good news - it seems that a new color version is on the way. It's dubbed "Thunder Purple" and was briefly up on Amazon Germany for pre-order. The €580 price matches the 8/128GB version in Midnight Black. It was an option on the official support page as well. This will be the first purple in the OnePlus lineup. Besides the usual black and gray-ish colors, we've had Gold, Red and White. The Amber Red version of the OnePlus 6 was unveiled two months after the phone itself, so we may be in...

Read More

Lexar unveils "largest A2 microSD card" at 512GB capacity

Lexar just announced "the world's largest A2 microSD card". No, it's still a 512GB card, but what sets it apart from the previous cards with this capacity is the A2 rating. It stands for Application Performance Class 2. This card is optimized for moving apps and games out of the phone's internal storage and onto the card. In such cases the Input/Output Operations per Second (IOPS) matter much more than sequential reads and writes. The A2 rating guarantees 4000 IOPS for reads and 2000 IOPS for writes, up from 1500/500 for an A1 card. But this new card from Lexar is good for video...

Read More

Samsung W2019 clamshell arriving on November 9

The clamshell smartphone Samsung W2019 leaked a number of times, but now we a date to mark on our calendars. The company has set its announcement for November 9 as evidenced by invitations sent out to Chinese media. The event will take place in Wuxi, a Chinese city near Shanghai. Thanks to a TENAA listing, we know the new device will have two 4.2" Super AMOLED displays, Snapdragon 845 chipset and a 3,000 mAh battery. We also saw there will be a Bixby button on the left side, but the device will lack a fingerprint scanner and a 3.5 mm audio jack., The clamshell W lineup is...

Read More

OnePlus 6T now available online in North America and India

The OnePlus 6T is now available online in North America and India. This puts an end to the short exclusivity of T-Mobile US, OnePlus' partner that (along with Qualcomm) helped it get into the US market. You can go to local versions of OnePlus.com for the US, Canada or India and grab a unit. The North American pages say "ships within 24 hours", the India one just says "in stock". The Old Continent will have to wait - the launch is in 5 days. China too, you can reserve a unit, but the OnePlus 6T won't be available for purchase until November 5. Be sure to click that "check carrier...

Read More

Oppo RX17 Neo gets priced in Europe, enters pre-orders

After being released in Japan, the Oppo R17 Neo makes its way to European shores as well but under a different name - RX17 Neo. According to the Dutch store that listed the handset, the RX17 Neo is, in fact, the same device that launched in Japan the other day. As we've said before, it's actually an Oppo K1 or R15X with almost identical hardware - Snapdragon 660, 4GB of RAM, 128GB of storage, 16MP main camera on the back coupled with a 2MP sensor. The in-display fingerprint reader remains, which is the key selling point of the handset. It comes at a reasonable price as the store...

Read More

Early Snapdragon 8150 results appear in Geekbench

Out of the blue, the first phone with Snapdragon 8150 was announced (the first foldable phone to boot), but we've seen little of the chipset so far. Benchmark runs from it started appearing in Geekbench, giving us an early peek at the performance to come (the results appear to be from a reference device rather than the FlexPai). The 8150 chip should be based on a new generation Kryo cores. Qualcomm is mum on the setup, but rumor has it that it's a 2+2+4 instead of the usual 4+4. The Kirin 980, a competing 7nm chipset that's already on the market, has a similar three tier design and divides...

Read More

MIUI 10 final update now rolling to Pocophone F1

A closed beta ROM for the Pocophone F1 surfaced earlier this week and now the finalized version is rolling out. It updates MIUI 9.6, also known as MIUI for Poco, to MIUI 10 with updated UI features and a "natural sound system". Sadly, it is still on Android Oreo, with Xiaomi still testing Android Pie in a closed group. MIUI 10 The Stable ROM is 592 MB in size and comes with an October security patch. The new MIUI has "all-new full-screen gestures", which remove the need of software buttons on the bottom. We also expect to be able to watch videos on YouTube with pinch-to-zoom...

Read More

iOS 12.1 exploit lets you bypass the lockscreen and access contacts

Apple just released iOS 12.1 that aims to fix some irritating issues such as the "soft selfies" bug on the new iPhone XS and XS Max and also brings the controversial throttling feature for the iPhone X and iPhone 8. But that it also comes with a lockscreen exploit that lets you access contacts without unlocking the phone. Just hours after the release of the iOS 12.1, researchers were able to bypass the lockscreen by using FaceTime's new group feature as shown in the video. The exploit grants you access to the full contact list. This is not the first time iOS has had problems with...

Read More

Lenovo Z5 Pro slider announced, claims highest screen-to-body ratio yet

The Lenovo Z5 Pro is yet another smartphone with a manual slider mechanism following the Mi Mix 3 and the Honor Magic 2. But Lenovo claims to have beaten both when it comes to screen to body ratio and at much cheaper price to boot. The catch is that the Lenovo Z5 Pro is powered by a Snapdragon 710 instead of the top of the line Snapdragon 845 but the rest of it is mostly flagship stuff. The phone is built around a full-screen display with no unsightly notches. It's 6.39" in diagonal and has FHD+ (1080 x 2340) resolution. Lenovo says it's covering more than 95% of the front panel...

Read More

vivo Y93 is official with a big battery and affordable price

Another day, another vivo midranger goes official. The new phone is called vivo Y93 and is the first smartphone with a Snapdragon 439 chipset, built on the 12 nm FinFET process. There is also a massive battery, screen with a waterdrop notch and dual cameras. The vivo Y93 packs a 6.2" LCD with HD+ resolution and 19:9 ratio. There are 4 GB RAM and 64 GB storage, but the official website is keeping mum on microSD availability. The new chipset arrives with eight Cortex-A53 cores, clocked at 1.95 GHz and an Adreno 505 GPU. It supports cameras up to 21 MP, but vivo equipped the Y93...

Read More

New iPad Pro obliterates competition on Geekbench

Apple introduced its new iPads with an A12X chipset two days ago and the first benchmarks already started popping. Two listings on Geekbench revealed that the smaller iPad Pro will have 4 GB RAM, while the bigger will sport 6 GB RAM, but what is more impressive is the multi-core score that is around 18,000. JRGRAPH_EXPANDABLE_VERSION = false; GeekBench 4.1 (single-core) Higher is better Apple iPad Pro 12.9" 5020 Apple iPad Pro 11" 4987 Apple iPhone XS 4823 Apple iPhone XS Max 4777 Apple iPhone X 4256 The iPad Pro...

Read More