Latest Google Camera mod enables Super Res Zoom and Astrophotography for Pixel and Pixel 2

One of the most interesting features of the new Pixel 4 duo is the Astrophotography mode. With it, you can shoot nightscapes with impressive detail, including stars. Thanks to the developer community over at XDA-Developers, those with older Pixel phones will be able to try it out, along with the Super Res Zoom feature that debuted last year with the Pixel 3. GCam is a community developed app that ports features for the newer Pixels to older Google Pixels with support for a bunch of other non-Pixel devices as well. The latest update to Google Camera Mod 7.2 brings support for...

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Microsoft's Surface Duo will have a "world-class camera", says Panos Panay

Microsoft Germany invited devs and journalists to an event and Panos Panay, the company's Chief Product Officer, attended. As you can imagine, there were many questions about the Surface Duo. Panay didn't give away much, but he did reveal that Microsoft is "working on a world-class camera". Surface Duo renders • Surface Duo prototype The prototype that was shown off earlier featured only a single selfie camera. There was a large round indentation on the back as well, presumably a placeholder for where the camera module would go. But again, just one. There's a full year...

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Huawei founder says the company will ship 270 million handsets this year

Earlier this week, Huawei announced via Social media that it shipped 200 million smartphones in 2019, 64 days earlier than the same milestone in 2018. Considering the ongoing China-US trade battle and Huawei's ban in the US, the company still manages to keep growing in smartphone market share. This is also thanks to huge discounts in China when the Mate 30 and Mate 30 Pro launched. Following the milestone announcement, Huawei Founder Ren Zhengfei revealed to European media that Huawei expects to ship 270 million smartphones this year, 20 million more than originally speculated by...

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Realme X2 Pro review

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Reason behind Pixel 4's 90Hz mode issues discovered in code commit comments

Pixel 4's 90Hz screen drops back to 60Hz when its brightness drops below 75%. Google promised to fix it, but hasn't offered an explanation why this was necessary in the first place. The code commit comments might have managed to fill us in though. It seems that the display uses different calibration profiles for 60Hz and 90Hz modes. And the display maker hasn't matched them perfectly, which leads to slightly different brightness levels. Slight, but still enough for people to notice it when the screen goes from 90Hz to 60Hz or vice versa (and it does switch fairly often, e.g. there's no...

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Netflix is working on variable playback speeds for its Android app

Netflix has begun testing variable playback speeds on its Android app. The feature allows users to slow down their content at 0.5x or 0.75x its original speed or speed it up to 1.25x or 1.5x. It appears the new playback speed feature will be present next to the audio & subtitles toggle. Playback speed toggles have traditionally been reserved for podcast and audio-book apps as some users prefer to consume that kind of media in a faster manner. On the video front, YouTube has had its playback speed control which ranges from 0.25x all the way up to 2x for several years. As of now,...

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The Hydrogen Two is canceled after RED founder retires

Remember the RED Hydrogen One smartphone that was launched 1.5 years after its announcement? It is currently sold in the a total of two countries (the United States and Mexico) and the company has now confirmed that it's shutting down the entire project. The RED founder Jim Jannard has just announced on the company forum that he is retiring because of "a few health issues" and is shutting down the Hydrogen project. I have spent the past 45 years building "inventions wrapped in art". Just now turning 70 and having a few health issues, it is now time for me to retire. I will be...

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Google added 4K @ 60fps support to the Pixel 4 during development, then removed it

It turns out that the Pixel 4 and 4 XL could have featured support for 4K video recording at 60fps - this was briefly enabled during the development phase and pulled just a couple of days later. Editor-in-Chief of XDA Developers, Mishaal Rahman, discovered this in the commit messages for the Pixel software. The change was simply reverted with no comment as to why. There could be several reasons - for one, as Google itself pointed out, 4K @ 60fps uses up to 500MB of storage per minute. And the Pixels only have 64GB as standard, 128GB if you pay extra. The way Google painted it, the...

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Android 10 beta for Note10 series is now live

After several teases, Galaxy Note10 users are finally starting to receive Samsung's Android 10 beta complete with One UI 2. As of now, the beta has been confirmed by German users (version N975FXXU1ZSJF) but it should also be live in the US and South Korea. This build is identical to the second Android 10 beta for the S10 series which was pushed today. The update comes at nearly 1.8GB and also brings the November security patch. As usual, those who want to try out this beta need to sign up via the Samsung Members app. Once approved the update will appear in the Settings app. Via

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Huawei Enjoy 10s launched in China as rebranded Honor 20 Lite (Youth Edition)

Early on in the week Honor unveiled its Honor 20 Lite (Youth Edition) and now parent company Huawei brought the phone to its own lineup as the Enjoy 10s. Upfront, we have a 6.3-inch OLED FHD+ display with a waterdrop notch for the 16MP selfie cam and UD fingerprint reader. Around the back, there's a triple camera setup with a 48MP main shooter, 8MP ultrawide lens and 2MP depth helper. Under the hood, we have the Kirin 710F paired with 6GB RAM and 64GB storage which can be expanded via the microSD card slot. The battery compartment features a 4,000 mAh cell with 10W fast charging...

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CR: Xiaomi lead growing Indian market in Q3, Realme gained the most

Counterpoint Research just posted its analysis on the Indian smartphone market in Q3. Despite the global slowdown, it managed to grow breaking the shipment record with 49 million sold units. According to the analysts, the significant expansion of the portfolio of the top brands right before the Diwali festive season, which is often associated with discounts on various products, is one of the main driving factors for the record-high shipments. It appears that the Chinese brands like Xiaomi, vivo and Realme got the most out of the Q3 shopping frenzy. Xiaomi continues to lead the...

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Moto G8 Play arrives as a cheaper alternative of the G8 Plus

Moto fans had a field day on Thursday with the launch of two new phones, while the One Macro went global. If you liked the Moto G8 Plus but the price is a bit too steep, the company is having a more affordable solution, already available in major Latin American markets. The phone is called Moto G8 Play and will start from BRL1,099, or about $272/€245. For this relatively low price, Moto has put a Mediatek Helio P70M chipset in the G8 Play. The LCD panel measures 6.2" in diagonal and has HD+ resolution. RAM is just 2 GB, while storage is 32 GB, but there is a microSD for up to...

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Samsung pushes second Android 10 beta for Galaxy S10 series

Yesterday we saw Samsung expand the availability of the first Android 10 beta for the Galaxy S10 series to India, France and Poland and now the company has begun seeding its second release. Users in South Korea (version G97*USQU2ZSJF), the US (G97*NKSU3ZSJF) and Germany (G97*FXXU3ZSJF) are the first in line for this update. Update changelog The patch comes in at just over 600MB and brings a fix for the notorious fingerprint issue on the S10 and S10+. Other notable additions include improved battery management as well as several bug fixes for the camera, Bixby routines, gallery and...

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