Deal: grab a Google Pixel 4a for just $119.99

Even the Pixel 5 is a mid-ranger this year, but Google's most affordable phone is the Pixel 4a. The phone sells for around $349.99 usually, and for some reason Verizon marked that up to $379.99. No need to worry, though, for Big Red currently has a very nice deal going for the phone. If you are okay to use its installment plan to purchase the device, you can get the Pixel 4a for just $5 per month, adding up (with Verizon math) to just $119.99 over the entirety of the two-year monthly payment period. Those are some huge savings you're getting for a phone that wasn't very expensive to...

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Samsung Germany offers up to 200€ off via Samsung Pay rebate when you buy a flagship

Samsung Germany is currently running a “Payday” promotion starting on October 28 through November 18 for any customers who purchase a new Samsung Galaxy flagship phone and register the purchase through the Samsung Members app. Customers can get €200 off when they purchase a Samsung Galaxy Z Flip, or Z Fold 2, €150 off when they purchase a Galaxy Note20 Ultra or S20 Ultra, or €100 off when they get a Note20, S20, S20+, or S20 FE. The discount will be honored as a Samsung Pay rebate, so customers would need to pay the regular retail price and then register for the...

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T-Mobile expands its mid-band 5G coverage, totaling 410 cities and towns in the US

With T-Mobile’s recent acquisition of Spring, the carrier has been working all year to strengthen its mid-band 5G reach. The 2.5GHz spectrum is what T-Mobile calls its “goldilocks” band – which strikes a balance between reach and speeds (low-band 5G doesn’t have the best speeds and mmWave has pretty bad reach). T-Mobile’s mid-band 5G spectrum (2.5GHz) came from Sprint. T-Mobile is announcing its mid-band 5G network has been expanded to reach “nearly” 410 cities and towns all over the US (up from 210 US locations one month ago). The carrier hopes to cover 100 million Americans by the end of...

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AMD announces Radeon RX 6000 series gaming graphics cards

AMD today announced the Radeon RX RX 6000 series of gaming graphics cards. Built on the new 7nm RDNA 2 architecture, these cards provide up to 2x improvement in performance over the previous generation AMD flagship while also including support for the new Microsoft DirectX 12 Ultimate API and will be available starting November. The most important card in this series will likely be the $649 Radeon RX 6800 XT. It features 72 compute units and 16GB of 16Gbps GDDR6 memory on a 256-bit wide memory bus. The 6800 XT can clock up to 2015MHz under load (or Game Clock as AMD likes to call it)...

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Apple iPhone 12 review

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OnePlus Nord gets OxygenOS 10.5.9 with Game Space features

This is the second update for the OnePlus Nord this month and while smaller it still brings a couple of nice new features. The Game Space has been enhanced, while the October's security patch is also part of it. Keep in mind that the OTA update is available only for India and Global variants of the handset while Europe will have to wait a little longer. As we said, OnePlus' Game Space gets a couple of new features and as per the changelog, there are new gaming tools box and switches for Fnatic mode. The notification handling is entirely up to you - text-only, heads-up or just block them...

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Apple increases iPhone 12 production by 2 million units due to strong demand

The iPhone 12 and 12 Pro has been on open sale in some regions for just a few days and so far demand has been quite strong. So strong in fact that Apple has reportedly contacted its supply chain partners to accelerate production for the iPhone 12 by as many as 2 million units. The addition of an OLED screen paired with 5G and the new flat frame design seems to be enough to spark consumer interest. According to Cinda Securities Apple will see demand for the iPhone 12 series to reach the 80-85 million units level. Further estimates predict a whopping 230-240 million shipments in 2021 which...

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Huawei Mate 40 Pro disassembled, have a peek inside

The same Chinese tech blog that gave us a look inside the iPhone 12 and 12 Pro now brings the teardown of the Huawei Mate 40 Pro. The disassembly is the usual process of heating up the phone so that the adhesive holding its glass plate to the frame can loosen and then be pried open with a thin tool. The Mate 40 Pro is naturally modular inside. We can see the main board, the wireless charging coil, the 4,400mAh battery, the USB-C connector and the cameras. The main and ultrawide cameras are connected, while the 5x periscope zoom camera has its own independent housing. The...

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Sony Xperia shipments stabilize, but image sensor division slipped

Sony has published its financial reports for the three months ending on September 30 and there’s some good news from the mobile division – it shipped 600,000 smartphones, level with the same period last year. It may not sound like great news, but Xperia shipments were on a decline and they hit their lowest point at the beginning of this year with only 400,000 units shipped. So, leveling off is a good sign. Also, the final quarter of the year has historically been the strongest for Sony’s mobile division, so we’ll see if the numbers go up. Actually, there’s no “mobile division” as...

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Analyst: Apple reaches 1 billion active iPhones

Above Avalon is a crowd-funded platform tracking Apple’s performance in the smartphone market since the first iPhone in 2008. According to its founder Neil Cybart Cupertino has reached 1 billion active iPhones milestone in 2020. iPhone active users • New and upgrading iPhone users The pace of growth in the iPhone installed base has slowed due to high smartphone penetration, Cybart wrote. In the past three years, there are also fewer new users to iPhone and in 2020 expectations are 80% to be upgrades of an older iPhone and only one of every five phones to be in the hands of a new...

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Samsung Galaxy Watch Active2 gets Voice Support with latest update

Samsung has begun pushing an update to the Galaxy Watch Active2 smartwatch, bringing security updates and one feature that was exclusive to the Galaxy Watch3 - voice support during exercise. The firmware comes with model number R820UXXU1CTJ5/R820OXA1CTJ5 and is about 61MB in size. Screenshot with the update log in Korean The Voice Support can be turned on or off and it essentially helps during running and swimming by telling you whether to push harder or ease off. It analyzes your pulse, correlates it with pace and other data, and in theory should help for better training with...

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Apple iPhone 12 Pro Ceramic Shield scratches like regular glass, torture test finds

The iPhone 12 Pro is the latest phone to enter the JerryRig durability test and unsurprisingly it passed without issue. What's also not surprising is that the iPhone's new Ceramic Shield front glass scratched at the same level as any regular glass screen - at a level 6 on Mohs' scale of hardness. The scratches do appear fainter, but they're scratches nonetheless. Apple has coated the glass with nanoscale ceramic crystals, increasing the glass' endurance to breaking, not scratching. An interesting side effect of the added ceramic was discovered in the burn test, where the iPhone screen...

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Apple working on its own search engine as Google ties could be cut soon

Apple is said to be working on its own search engine to replace Google. As of now Google pays Apple between $10b and $12b a year to be the main search provider on Apple devices, but that deal will soon expire and a reported antitrust case against Google by the US Department of Justice could prevent its extension. Apple has already made moves for a transition away from Google. Its Applebot, which was first reported of in 2014, has been crawling the web ever since and has allegedly increased its rate substantially recently. Furthermore, in iOS 14's home screen search, Apple has begun to...

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Realme C15 Qualcomm Edition with Snapdragon 460 unveiled

Back in July, Realme unveiled the C15 - an entry level phone with 6,000 mAh battery and MediaTek’s Helio G35 chipset at the helm. Now, Realme is introducing a new Snapdragon 460 version of the C15 dubbed Realme C15 Qualcomm Edition. The only major change here is the chipset while the rest of the spec sheet is identical to the regular Realme C15. The phone retains its 6.5-inch HD+ IPS LCD, giant 6,000 mAh battery and four camera setup. It comes with the same storage variants namely 3/4GB RAM and 32/64GB storage. The 3/32GB trim will sell for INR 9,999 ($135) while the 4/64GB...

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Samsung certifies entry-level Galaxy A02s, phone pops on Geekbench

The next Samsung smartphone in the entry-level world was expected to be called Galaxy A02, but a device with the model number SM-A025F/DS was just certified in Thailand as Galaxy A02s, revealing the actual marketing name of the device. This is the third time we see this moniker appear online - first it was certified by Bluetooth SIG, later popped on Geekbench, and today is on NBTC. Samsung Galaxy A02s on NBTC and Geekbench Those listings reveal pretty much nothing about the actual specs sheet of the phone. What we can take out from these listings is the Galaxy A02s will have...

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Apple iPhone 12 dormant reverse wireless charging revealed by FCC

According to an FCC filing, the recently released iPhone 12 family might be hiding a reverse wireless charging feature, much like several of its Android rivals. The functionality has been rumored to appear with iPhone 11 but was then revealed that Apple has removed the feature in the final testing phase. A teardown from last year showed that not all the required hardware was in place. This year, however, the iPhone 12 seems to be rocking all the hardware that's needed to charge an accessory wirelessly. Of course, Apple hasn't mentioned anything about the feature and it's not currently...

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Samsung pushes September security patch for Galaxy S7 series

Despite officially no longer being supported the Galaxy S7 duo is now receiving the September 2020 security patch. The two early 2016 phones were previously on the March 2020 security patch Update changelog The new update is currently rolling out in Canada and the UK and weighs in just under 70MB. The Galaxy S7 gets the G930W8VLS8CTI1 while the S7 Edge comes with the G935W8VLS8CTI1 build number. The new software comes with improved device stability, bugs fixes and performance optimizations. It’s expected to arrive in more regions soon. Via

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Micromax confirms that it will use Helio G chipsets for the "in" phones, teases their design

Micromax’s return to India's smartphone market will begin on November 3. The company has now confirmed that the new phones – the “in” series – will be powered by MediaTek Helio G chipsets with hints pointing to the G35 and G85. India is gearing up to game on with the ultimate performance. And we have the perfect processor for that. Share the screenshot to tell us which one you think it is. #INMobiles unveiling on 3rd Nov, 12 noon.#MicromaxIsBack #INForIndia pic.twitter.com/g4EoKHN7Pr— Micromax India (@Micromax__India) October 27, 2020 The teasers continue with the back of a new phone,...

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Huawei Mate 40 Pro disassembled, have a peak inside

The same Chinese tech blog that gave us a look inside the iPhone 12 and 12 Pro now brings the teardown of the Huawei Mate 40 Pro. The disassembly is the usual process of heating up the phone so that the adhesive holding its glass plate to the frame can loosen and then be pried open with a thin tool. The Mate 40 Pro is naturally modular inside. We can see the main board, the wireless charging coil, the 4,400mAh battery, the USB-C connector and the cameras. The main and ultrawide cameras are connected, while the 5x periscope zoom camera has its own independent housing. The...

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LG Wing and SD845-powered Velvet arrive in India

In the final week of October, LG detailed the rollout of its latest phones in India - LG Velvet (the 4G variant with Snapdragon 845) is scheduled to hit the market on October 30, the LG Wing to follow on November 9. LG Velvet and LG Dual Screen LG has decided to skip on the 5G variant of the Velvet since India has no infrastructure to take advantage of it yet. The 2.5-year-old Snapdragon 845 is still pretty powerful, but it's a 10nm compared to 7nm on the 5G version, meaning it's not quite as power-efficient. The rest of the specs are the same - 6.8” OLED, 48MP main camera,...

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Sony Xperia 1 II with 12GB RAM benchmarked ahead of global rollout

The Sony Xperia 1 II is already out in a special 12GB RAM configuration in Taiwan. Now we get a Geekbench listing for the device which shows out the small performance gains compared to the regular 8GB RAM model. The 12GB RAM Xperia 1 II manages a 908-point single-core run and 3387 points in the multi-core department. For comparison, the standard 8GB RAM model pushes around 895 points in the single-core test and just over 3,225 in the multi-core department. Xperia 1 II with 12GB RAM Geekebnch run The 12GB RAM Xperia 1 II is expected to launch in more regions on October 30.

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