Counterclockwise: modular phones were here, you could even expand their RAM

Google announced Project Ara to much fanfare and it caused geeks to dream of PC-like upgradability that would extend the usable life of their phones by letting them continuously swap out parts for newer, better ones. Excitement eventually collided with reality and Ara was shelved. Here's the thing, though, modular phones were a thing long before the Phonebloks concept inspired Google-owned Motorola to start working on Ara. And the most curious thing about those phones was that they used the CF card slot to add new hardware (later the SD slot). We should fess up - this story is...

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Weekly poll results: manual sliders are the way forward

The Rule of Cool states that people are willing to make allowances for something that's cool. And powered pop-ups like the one on the Oppo Find X and vivo NEX S are certainly quite cool. The final verdict from last week's poll shows that slightly less cool but more practical solution - manual sliders - prevailed. With nearly half the vote, the style of phones represented by the Xiaomi Mi Mix 3 and the Honor Magic 2 are the clear favorite. Reliability seems to be the major concern here and the mechanized sliders have an extra point of failure - what happens when the motor stops...

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Google's Fuchsia OS project adds support for Kirin 970

It's been quite some time since we've heard anything about Google's Fuchsia OS project. The search giant is keeping the lid on the whole endeavor. Still, the odd public official mention here and there and the activity on the Fuchsia repository do signify that the project is alive and work on it is ongoing behind the scenes. In a new development, a path was spotted on said repository, adding support for the Kirin 970 chipset and detailing test for booting the Zircon kernel on the Honor Play, based on said chipset. Looking at the patch and its meta data a bit closer shows that...

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Snapdragon 8150 CPU details surface

As far as technical mobile hardware leaks go, this one is pretty out there, so, we'll just start with a "tl;dr" of sorts. As per current info, the next Qualcomm mobile flagship chipset, dubbed the Snapdragon 8150 will be unveiled on December 4. It has already flexed its muscles quite a bit in early benchmarks, including AnTuTu, Geekbench and ai-benchmark, with its trendy workloads. Besides performance improvements, it also promises a 20% bump in overall efficiency (presumably compared to the Snapdragon 845) and will most-likely include 5G connectivity. The Qualcomm invitation...

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New leak offers closer look at the Galaxy A8s Infinity-O glass and its selfie camera hole

The future of Samsung's mobile display tech is nothing short of exhilarating at the moment, but also equal parts confusing. After the official announcement of the eagerly-anticipated Infinity Flex Display, along with a roadmap for at least four other display designs (Infinity-U, Infinity-V, Infinity-O and New Infinity) the industry and especially the rumor vines permeating it are struggling to put their finger on the exact look of future models. Samsung's constant patent filing for even more solutions for the notch dilemma and slight design variations are only making things worse. It may...

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New Coolpad m3 budget handset gets a quiet China unveiling

Coolpad has been keeping a rather low profile lately, with the possible exception of a recent patent infringement scandal with Xiaomi springing to mind. Still, that doesn't mean the Shenzhen company has stopped releasing devices, mostly potentially interesting budget offers in particular. It's just been doing so without much fanfare. The same is true for the new Coolpad M3, already on sale at JD.com for CNY 799, or just around $115. That budget price tag gets you a 5.85-inch, 1512 x 720 pixel, 19:9 LCD display, complete with a rather sizeable notch, but otherwise, surprisingly thin...

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Samsung's foldable phone could end up costing over $2,500

Let's be frank here, we all knew this was coming. Foldable display tech, arguably the biggest smartphone revolution in years finally reaching end-user viable market status was bound to demand a premium. Especially in its first iteration and from a top dog, name-brand the likes of Samsung. Even so, $1925 - $2565 is beyond eye-watering. It is exuberant to say the least. Wtf 🤑#samsung #galaxy #flex #foldable pic.twitter.com/LgRHWCgeKO— 📱 🖥️ ⚙️ 🔍 🇮🇩 (@bang_gogo_) November 24, 2018 It is clear that the Samsung Galaxy...

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New extensive Realme U1 specs leak leaves little to the imagination

Realme is technically a new kid on the block, depending on how much value you place on its decided branding and PR slit from parent company Oppo. After the somewhat substantial market splash the Realme 1 managed to cause, the start-up has been trying to keep the momentum going at all cost. The latest device in what seems like a constant stream of releases will be the Realme U1, as first confirmed by company CEO Madhav Sheth. Hardware-wise, we already know the Realme U1 will sport a dual-camera setup and will be based around a fairly powerful new MediaTek P70 chipset. Now a new and...

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LG patents Flex, Foldi, and Duplex trademarks - could this be a foldable device?

The latest trend in smartphone manufacturing is the race to develop the first commercially available device with a flexible display that can fold in half. A handful of manufacturers including Motorola, Huawei, and Samsung have already confirmed they are working to develop a device with such a form factor. LG is the latest company to appear to have joined the race. A couple of days ago, LG filed a few names for trademark with the EUIPO (European Union Intellectual Property Office) for three names: Flex, Foldi, and Duplex. The filing was made for class 9 products, which is an umbrella...

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