Top 10 trending phones of week 52

It's the time for yearly wrap-ups, but the last Sunday of the year is also the day for the final installment of our weekly Top 10 chart. We're witnessing a minor disruption at the top where the Galaxy A8s has regained the number one spot from the Huawei nova 4. The nova, meanwhile, dropped all the way down to fourth. The Xiaomi Mi Play was announced a few days ago and quickly made its way up the chart, even snatching the runner-up spot. The Redmi Note 6 Pro has remained oblivious to the activity around it and keeps the third spot. A trio of phones have slid one spot down, without...

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Weekly poll results: Huawei nova 4 is the punch hole champion

Last week we put the punch hole display pioneers against each other to see which one you guys prefer and now the results are in. It was the Huawei nova 4 vs the Samsung Galaxy A8s and the winner is clear. The nova 4 with 48MP camera got twice as many votes as the Galaxy A8s. The Huawei nova 4 won the poll, despite the Galaxy A8s being the more popular phone in our database. This suggests that it's already gathering some dedicated fans and those are always handy when you are trying to push a whole new design concept.

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Netflix drops in-app purchase option for subscriptions on iOS

Netflix has decided that it will no longer allow iOS users to subscribe to the service from within the app. Customers will henceforth will be required to signup and subscribe for the service from the website. Previously, customers could choose to subscribe to the service through the app itself on iOS. Since this used Apple's iTunes payment and subscriptions system, Apple took a 15% cut from every transaction. Netflix would then pass on this charge on to the customer, who would end up paying more than the standard subscription charges. A few months back, Netflix stopped...

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Citi halves forecast for iPhone XS Max production in Q1

Citi Research published on Friday updated forecasts for the production numbers of Apple's iPhones in Q1. According to the new estimate Apple is expected to manufacture 45 million units for the quarter, down from the 50 million earlier forecast. More strikingly, the brokerage lowered its forecast for iPhone XS Max production in particular by 48%. An analyst at the company states that the updates in the estimates are caused by Citi's belief that the iPhone is entering a destocking phase, which is inevitably going to affect members of the supply chain and their future...

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Smaller/cheaper Galaxy Home smart speaker apparently in the works

Alongside the Galaxy Note9's announcement back in August, Samsung kinda sorta revealed the Galaxy Home smart speaker. Five months later, the product's status is still 'coming soon', but by the looks of it, another one has meanwhile been in development. So far, all that is known is that the new speaker will come in black (surprise there), and that it carries an SM-V310 model designation. Compare that to the SM-V510 number of the original Galaxy Home, and you'd reach the logical conclusion that this mysterious speaker will be smaller and/or more affordable (not that the Home's price has been...

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Essential Phone discontinued, company working on 'next mobile product'

The Essential Phone (or PH-1) from 2017 was created by Android co-founder Andy Rubin and came with impressive hardware, promises for monthly updates, and a notch, among other traits. It lived an eventful life, though it often made the news for bitter reasons like delayed market launch, executives leaving, job cuts, and discounts to help save what's left of the company (not that we mind discounts). Well, the PH-1 is no more. On a positive note, a spokesperson for Essential has released a statement giving hopes that something is in the works. It goes like this: We are sold out of...

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What is RCS and what makes it better than SMS?

SMS has been with us for over a quarter of a century and it won't go away anytime soon. But it's really showing its age and many have moved to instant messaging - WhatsApp, Viber, WeChat, Line, KakaoTalk - for the convenient features these apps offer over plain SMS. Recently Google has started (with the help of carriers) to push RCS - Rich Communication Services. If we had to describe it in three words they would be "iMessage for Android". RCS vs. IM Why not just keep using WhatsApp or one of the others? That's why - SMS is a core feature of mobile networks and every phone...

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