Samsung Galaxy M30 in for review

At first glance you may think that the M-phones are just Samsung's entry-level series, but then you risk overlooking the Samsung Galaxy M30, which has all the makings of a sleeper hit. Really, the name is quite misleading - this phone is more capable than the Galaxy A30, even though the A-series is supposed to sit higher than the M-series and be second only to the Galaxy S/Note flagships. Name aside, the M30 is the only one of its siblings to feature a Super AMOLED display. It has 1080p+ resolution and a small waterdrop notch for the 16MP camera. It does face unlock or you can use the...

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Huawei nova 5 stops by Antutu, Kirin 810 outscores Snapdragon 730

Huawei announced the nova 5 family of smartphones yesterday, with the vanilla model ushering in a new in-house chipset - the Kirin 810. Sure enough, the folks over at Antutu got a hold of a nova 5 and tested it, with the charts painting a pretty nice picture of the midrange Kirin. Huawei nova 5 Antutu score The comparisons against the Kirin 710 and the Snapdragon 730, Qualcomm's current best midrange SoC, show that the new Kirin is both a significant leap for the in-house middle tier, and also a cause for concern for Qualcomm's grasp on the segment. The nova 5 scored 237,000...

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LG granted a patent for a phone with a punch hole front camera

The Turkish Patent Institute has granted LG Electronics a patent for a smartphone sporting a punch hole style front-facing camera. That would be the first LG phone with such a solution - provided, of course, that it does materialize. The schematics in the application depict a punch hole in the top left corner of the screen, completely different from Samsung's top-right placement. The back of the phone depicted very closely resembles that of the LG V40 ThinQ, complete with the fingerprint reader. We can then theorize that LG may not be too keen to adopt under-display...

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Huawei nova 5i Pro schematic surfaces with quad camera and a punch hole display

Huawei unveiled its nova 5 series yesterday at an event in China which includes the vanilla nova 5, the 5i, and a Pro variant. The Chinese tech giant was also expected to announce the nova 5i Pro as it was listed on a Chinese retailer's website prior to the launch along with its images, but that didn't happen, and it now turns out that those images were wrong. The images on the retailer's website showed the nova 5i Pro with a conventional notch, a rear-mounted fingerprint scanner, and four cameras - two each on the front and back. However, a schematic of the nova 5i Pro shared by reliable...

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Alleged Samsung Galaxy A10s passes through FCC with dual camera and a 3,900 mAh battery

Samsung launched the Galaxy A10 back in February this year, and then followed it up with the Galaxy A10e last week. Now it seems these smartphones will soon be joined by a third device - the Galaxy A10s. A Samsung smartphone bearing model number SM-A107F, believed to be the Galaxy A10s, has passed through FCC hinting at an imminent launch. The FCC listing reveals that this smartphone will pack a 3,900 mAh battery. The listing also includes a schematic of the smartphone which shows a dual camera setup at the back accompanied by an LED flash and a fingerprint scanner. Furthermore,...

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Redmi K20 kernel source code released

After releasing the kernel source code for the K20 Pro last week, Redmi has now released the kernel source for the vanilla K20 as well, which will let the developers build custom ROMs for the smartphone. You can head over to the source link at the end of this article to download the files if that's your thing. Additionally, the latest kernel sources for the Redmi 7 and Redmi 7A, codenamed onc and pine respectively, have also been released. You can download the kernel for the Redmi 7 from here, and for 7A from here. The Redmi K20 is powered by Snapdragon 730 SoC and boasts a triple...

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Motorola has no plans to update the Moto Z4 with Android R

Motorola launched the Moto Z4 last month with Android 9 Pie, and while the smartphone will naturally receive the Android Q update, it was expected to get Android R as well. But it turns out that won't be the case. Motorola has confirmed that it will upgrade the Moto Z4 to Android Q which is due for a release by Google next month, but it has no plans to roll out Android R which will arrive next year. Of course, Motorola currently not having any plans to upgrade the Moto Z4 with Android R doesn't mean it won't. We are more than a year away from the release of Android R and there could...

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Pocophone F1 64GB variant gets another price cut in India

The Pocophone F1 64GB variant has gotten a second price cut in India. It was launched at INR20,999 ($300/€265) last August and was down to INR19,999 ($290/€250) in December. With this latest price drop, it now costs INR17,999 ($260/€230). You can buy the Pocophone F1 64GB model at a reduced price from Mi.com and Flipkart, but it's currently unclear if this is a permanent price cut. That said, the 128GB and 256GB versions of the Pocophone F1 are sold at INR20,999 ($300/€265) and INR27,999 ($400/€350) respectively, with the Armoured Edition carrying a price tag of INR28,999...

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Xiaomi Mi CC first promo video is out, render of the CC9e too

Xiaomi announced the CC series of smartphones yesterday, aimed at young people. Today the company posted a promo video on Weibo with 8-year-old internet sensation Gavin Thomas taking a couple of selfies with the CC9e. Our Chinese has never been too strong, but from what we gather a company rep is playing with the phone looking at pictures of Gavin waiting for him to come in for a photo shoot. Everyone wants to take a selfie with the kid who broke the internet and so the Xiaomi rep walks in on the official photo shoot for another, 'improvised' one with the CC9e. Meanwhile, an...

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FedEx refused a Huawei phone to the US amidst Huawei ban

The Huawei ban in the US has many American companies afraid to have anything to do with the Huawei. The company was explicitly banned from doing business with American tech companies last month by the Trump Administration due to "security concerns". A frustrated member of PC Magazine tweeted about a situation where a UK-based member of the team intended to send a Huawei P30 Pro for testing to Indianapolis via FedEx, only to find the package was returned to the UK sender. A large note was slapped onto the package, which contained the Huawei phone that read "parcel returned by FedEx, Due...

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Samsung Galaxy S7 and S7 edge aren't receiving quarterly security updates anymore

The Galaxy S7 and S7 edge are more than three years old at this point, but surprisingly enough Samsung still plans to issue security updates for them from time to time. This is anything but the default scenario for Android smartphones - even Google only promises three years of updates for its Pixel line of handsets. While the good news is that the S7 and S7 edge should still get security patches from time to time, the bad news is that they've just been switched to that time frame from the one they were previously in, which meant they'd get such updates every three months. Samsung...

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