Best phones of 2020: The Winners

Time to pop the champagne – here are the best phones of 2020 as determined by you after two rounds of voting. Thank you to everyone who participated, now without further adieu allow us to present the winners in each category and the runners-up. #review-body .bestof2020 { border: none; } .bestof2020 td { background: none; border: none; width: 50%; } .bestof2020 td:nth-child(2) img { transform: scale(0.9); transform-origin: bottom; } Best Flagship of 2020 – Samsung Galaxy Note20 Ultra 5G Congratulations goes to the Samsung Galaxy Note20 Ultra 5G,...

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Top stories of 2020: Q1

As the year winds down it's a great time to reflect on the top stories of the past 12 months. This is the first of four installments where we look at the stories that shaped this year. Welcome to our yearly recap of the top stories of 2020, broken into quarters. Below we've listed the top stories of Q1, from January 1 through to March 31. This was the exciting time of the first flagships of the year. High-refresh rate screens were a big trend, each phone had a 5G added to its name (and a modem added to its innards), the Snapdragon 865 was the hot new thing everyone wanted to have. But...

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Flashback: the social networking phones built for Facebook and other such oddities

Phones are tools for communication. The early ones only supported one-to-one calls (and were wired to the wall), but the Internet bred a number of social networks, which popularized the idea of sharing everything with large groups of people. Friends, family, coworkers, even strangers, you could post messages and photos for all of them to view (and like). Being Internet-based also meant that the social networks were primarily used from PC browsers, desktop PCs at that. You can’t bring those to a party or on vacation and post photos of your experiences as they happen. You need a social...

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Week 51 in review: Galaxy Note here to stay, Galaxy S21 leaks aplenty

Welcome to another week's recap. Samsung took over the news reel the past week thanks to a series of Galaxy S21-related stories. We saw a number of renders of the Galaxy S21+ and Galaxy S21 Ultra, solidifying previous leaks and showing off all color options for the upcoming devices. The camera details of the future flagships also surfaced. All three will gain autofocus on their ultrawide cameras. Otherwise the sensors themselves appear unchanged - 12MP resolution, 13mm wide with 1.4µm-sized pixels from a 1/2.55-inch sensor. The Galaxy S21 Ultra will have two 10MP zoom cameras - a 3x...

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vivo V20 (2021) key specs revealed by Geekbench

vivo announced the V20 in September, and it will soon follow it up with the V20 (2021) that has been certified by multiple regulators. We are yet to hear anything from vivo about the V20 (2021), but the smartphone has passed through Geekbench, revealing key specs in the process. The V20 (2021) that ran the benchmark test had 8GB RAM on board with Android 11. The smartphone has SM6150 mentioned in the motherboard section, which is associated with the Snapdragon 675 SoC. Geekbench doesn't reveal any other specs of the V20 (2021), but you can expect it to come with some improvements...

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Apple iPhone 13 to come with Wi-Fi 6E

The iPhone 12 lineup introduced this year comes with Wi-Fi 6, but Barclays analysts predict the iPhone 13 series coming next September will support the Wi-Fi 6E standard. Wi-Fi 6E comes with the features of Wi-Fi 6 but extends into the 6Hz frequency band, offering increased bandwidth and less interference for supported devices. The analysts over at Barclays also indicated that some iPhone 13 models will have a new power conversion chip provided by Cirrus Logic. Additionally, the analysts believe that Apple has no plans to launch another iPhone SE in the coming months and are...

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Sprint's Galaxy Note20, Note20 Ultra 5G start receiving Android 11-based One UI 3.0 update

The Samsung Galaxy Note20 Ultra 5G locked to AT&T, T-Mobile, and Verizon's network has already received the Android 11-based One UI 3.0 stable update, and now it's the Note20 Ultra 5G locked to Sprint's network that's getting a taste of Samsung's newest custom Android skin. The vanilla Note20 5G on Sprint's network is also receiving Android 11 with One UI 3.0. The new builds for the regular Note20 and Ultra models have version numbers N981USQU1CTL2 and N986USQU1CTL2, respectively. The One UI 3.0 update is rolling out over the air and should reach all the units in a couple of weeks....

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Honor V40 gets 3C certified with 66W charging

Honor is expected to unveil the V40 next month, which is reportedly codenamed YORK and has model designation YOK-AN10. There's no official word from Honor about the V40 yet, but the smartphone has been certified by 3C, revealing 66W charging support in the process. The V40 was initially rumored to have two versions - one powered by a Kirin SoC, and the other having a Mediatek chipset at the helm. But the company is said to have scrapped the Kirin version and the phone will likely have Dimensity 1000+ under the hood. The V40 is also rumored to pack a 120Hz screen and feature four or...

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