Blackview announces BL8000 - the world’s first rugged smartphone with Dimensity 1200

Blackview is a Hong Kong-based smartphone brand specializing in rugged smartphones at aggressive prices. The company brought the world’s first durable phone with 5G last month with the BL6000 Pro powered by Dimensity 800, and now it says it will bring the first rugged device with the 6nm Dimensity 1200 chipset. The new phone will be called Blackview BL8000. The announcement contained little in terms of actual specifications of the phone. We only know it will have 12 GB RAM and its chipset, which was just unveiled by Mediatek. Instead we get some vague promises that the Blackview...

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Samsung Galaxy A72 4G launch imminent as its support page goes live on official website

Support page for the Galaxy A72 4G (SM-A725F/DS) has gone live on Samsung's official Russian site, suggesting the smartphone will go official soon. Samsung hasn't detailed the Galaxy A72 4G specs yet, but the smartphone was spotted on Geekbench with Snapdragon 720G SoC, 8GB RAM, and Android 11. Machine translated from Russian The Galaxy A72 will have a 5G version as well, which appeared in leaked renders last month with a punch hole display rumored to measure 6.7". The screen is said to have a fingerprint reader underneath for biometric authentication. Leaked render of Galaxy...

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Doogee introduces S88 Plus variant with more RAM and updated main camera

Doogee introduced the S88 Pro back in June and the company is announcing a new variant that brings a couple of hardware updates. The S88 Plus brings more RAM and updated Samsung triple cameras. The S88 Plus is still powered by the Helio P70, still has 128GB of expandable storage, and still has the same huge 10,000 mAh battery. This phone is rated for 3-5 days of normal use. The S88 Plus brings 8GB of RAM instead of the Pro’s 6, and the triple cameras now consist of a 48MP main sensor, an 8MP ultrawide shooter, and an 8MP depth camera. The front-facing camera is a Samsung...

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“Seamless updates” is a great Android feature that the Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra still doesn’t have

'Seamless updates', first introduced back in 2016 and arrived on every Google Pixel phone, allows for firmware updates to be installed to a secondary partition while the phone remains in use. This eliminates downtime between firmware updates to a single reboot, after which the secondary partition becomes the main one and the update has already completed. This also acts as a failsafe in case an update goes wrong – the system can fall back on the previous partition. Update notification on a Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra Google has backed off on this requirement since it’s no longer in...

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Poco M3 is on its way to India

The Poco M3 launched in Indonesia a few days ago, and the next territory it lands in will be India. This was made obvious today when Poco's Indian arm uploaded the teaser video embedded below to its official YouTube account. Take a look. It's a weird teaser, that's for sure, but the point here is that "the real killer" is due to be made official in the subcontinent very soon. Past rumors talked about an early February event to unveil the Poco M3 for India. It's also clear that the phone will make it over there with all its color variants, so you'll be able to pick between black,...

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Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra 5G review

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Blood sugar monitoring is expected to arrive to both Apple and Samsung’s next smartwatches

A report from Korean outlet ET News suggests that both Apple and Samsung are working to get blood sugar monitoring to their next smartwatch models. The report mostly focuses on Samsung, which is expected to announce three wearables at the company’s second Unpacked event of the year. In the second half of 2021, Samsung’s wearables may be announced alongside its new foldable phones lineup. The blood level feature would arrive to either the “Galaxy Watch 4” or the “Galaxy Watch Active3”. Both are tentative names as Samsung has yet to confirm what it’s next watches will be named. The feature...

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GSMArena labs: Our 3D models now let you do size comparisons against a credit card

Last year we started adding 3D models to the Pictures pages of the most popular phones. The models allow you to view the phone from all angles and zoom in for a better look. But they didn’t offer any size reference. They do now – there’s a button that will add a virtual credit card next to the phone to give you a size reference (note: the virtual credit card depends on the size of your screen). With this you can get a sense of how large the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold2 is once opened or how tiny the Apple iPhone 12 mini is. We even have the new Galaxy S21 family so you can get a feel of how big...

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Leak: Xiaomi Mi Band 6 will have a GPS receiver, reworked UI, smart home features and more

The firmware for the Xiaomi Mi Smart Band 6 was discovered in the Zepp app (formerly Amazfit), which revealed the key upgrades over the current Band 5. As usual there are two versions – one for China (XMSH16HM, with NFC) and one for the global market (XMSH15HM, most likely without NFC). The new band will feature a built-in GPS receiver, which will provide accurate speed and distance data for your exercises (the screen is far too tiny for navigation). For faster positioning, the phone app will send A-GPS data to the band. The new band will feature an SpO2 (blood oxygen) sensor, just...

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Netflix adopts xHE-AAC variable bitrate audio codec on Android

Netflix is rolling out an update on the Android version of its app that promises to bring "studio-quality" sound to your daily TV or movie watching experience. The company is switching over to xHE-AAC or Extended High Efficiency AAC, which is a newer version HE-AAC that the company has been using so far. It was introduces back in 2012 by Fraunhofer IIS and was primarily designed for use in online streaming and broadcasting services due to its high compression ratio and efficiency, with bit-rates as low as 6kbps for mono and 12kbps for stereo, going up to 500kbps and beyond. It's also a...

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One UI 3.1 update for Galaxy Tab S7 and S7+ makes them better at working with your phone and laptop

The One UI 3.0 update for the Samsung Galaxy Tab S7 and Tab S7+ started rolling out last week. Besides the other improvements, this update significantly changes how the slates interact with your other devices – your phone, laptop and even earbuds. The update allows you to easily copy and paste text and images between your tablet and your phone. And if you have a Book Cover Keyboard connected to your tablet, you can use it to quickly type text on your phone. Continue apps automatically sync Samsung Notes between the tablet and your phone. The tabs you have open in the...

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Huawei: no plans to sell mobile business, will keep making high-end phones

In mid-October Reuters reported that Huawei is negotiating the sale of the Honor brand. This was denied at the time, but eventually proved correct. Now Reuters is saying that Huawei is negotiating the sale of the flagship P and Mate series. In response, Huawei officials have issued a statement to Chinese media that the company has no plans to sell its mobile phone business and that it will continue building high-end phones. The statement does not detail how that will happen, though. Currently, the company has no source of chipsets for its flagship models – HiSilicon is barred from...

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The iPhone 12 magnets might interfere with pacemakers, Apple warns

Apple has updated a support document for the iPhone 12 lineup, saying they may cause electromagnetic interference with medical devices such as pacemakers and defibrillators. The company added that the iPhone and any Magsafe accessories should stay at least six inches (about 15 centimeters) from the medical devices or twice the distance if the devices are wirelessly charging. Apple has emphasized that all accessories (the MagSafe and MagSafe duo) contain radios and their magnets and electromagnetic fields might interfere with the devices. While iPhone 12 models contain more magnets...

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Samsung Galaxy S21+ teardown shows the difference between single and dual SIM models

After the Galaxy S21 and S21 Ultra teardown videos, the third phone of the family received the same treatment - here is the Galaxy S21+ disassembled. In the process of taking the phone apart, YouTuber PBKreivews discovered the distinction between single and dual-SIM models. It’s mostly in the software – all S21 models have two SIM readers, but in single-SIM versions one of them is disabled. It may be possible to flash a different firmware to enable the second reader. You’ll also need a new SIM tray, one that can hold two SIMs. The Galaxy S21+ in the video is the Exynos-powered version...

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Motorola Edge S poster leaks, confirms back design once again

Motorola will launch the Edge S tomorrow- the first phone with the Snapdragon 870. We've already seen real-life images of the Edge S, but now a teaser confirmed the looks of the back panel - four shooters, lined up in a square formation. The image also showcases the launch date January 26, but this was already made official by the company itself. We also know the event will begin at 19:30 local time, which is GMT +8 or 11:30 UTC. The Edge S should bring a 6.7” screen with Full HD+ resolution, a 64MP main camera and a big 5,000mAh battery with some fast charging. It remains a...

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New mid-range Dimensity 700 and 800 chipsets may use an older 10/12nm process

MediaTek unveiled its first 6nm chipsets, the Dimensity 1200 and 1100, for high end phones. Next-generation chips for mid-rangers are on the way too, reports DigiTimes, which will slot into the Dimensity 800 and 700 lines. These will use a more mature node from TSMC, 10nm or 12nm. The focus with these chips will be on power efficiency, sub-6 5G connectivity plus multimedia and gaming performance. We’ll see how that pans out as even the base Dimensity 700 is fabbed on TSMC’s 7 nm node (N7). MediaTek uses TSMC’s 1 nm node for the likes of the Helio G-series, including the budget...

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Huawei reportedly considers the sale of the flagship P and Mate series

Less than a year ago Huawei became the largest smartphone maker in the world. Now its rise has been halted and it had to sell the Honor brand to keep it alive. Reuters now reports that the company is also in talks to sell the flagship Huawei P and Mate series to a consortium backed by the Shanghai government. The discussion has been going on for months, two anonymous insiders claim, but no final decision has been made yet. The company is still holding on to hope that it can replace foreign component suppliers with domestic ones, which will allow it to continue producing phones. The Mate...

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New Sony Xperia Compact is on its way, first renders leak

Smartphone companies have slowly moved away from compact flagships, with only Apple managing to deliver a small yet powerful handset in 2020 - the iPhone 12 mini. According to info from OnLeaks, Sony is about to deliver a compact smartphone and it may well be a member of the premium Compact line. However, a different source from Japan says it may not be a flagship, but rather an entry-level device powered by Snapdragon 480 chipset. Either way we get some live images of the phone. New Sony Xperia Compact The images reveal a tiny device with some key design elements we’ve seen in...

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