Realme GT 5G with Snapdragon 888 is arriving on March 4

Last December, we exclusively reported about the Realme Race (RMX2202) powered by the Snapdragon 888 SoC, which is going to put the start of the new GT series. Today Realme announced it will unveil the GT 5G on March 4 in China at 2PM local time. Realme confirmed that GT 5G will be powered by the Snapdragon 888 but didn't reveal any other details. The GT 5G is likely the retail name for Realme Race, and it will come with Android 11-based Realme UI 2.0, 12GB RAM, and 256GB storage. Realme GT 5G is coming on March 4 The GT 5G was spotted in TENAA's database recently, revealing it...

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Realme Narzo 30A, Narzo 30 Pro 5G, Buds Air 2 officially coming on Feb 24

Realme has officially confirmed the launch date of the Narzo 30 series - February 24. An invitation for a digital launch came in our inbox, telling us we’ll see the Narzo 30A, Narzo 30 Pro 5G, and the Buds Air 2 wireless earphones. The event on Wednesday will occur at 12:30 PM IST / 07:00 UTC and will be live-streamed on Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube. The Narzo 30 Pro will be the first phone from the affordable lineup with 5G connectivity. Realme is touting the device as “the most powerful gaming mid-ranger” due to its Dimensity 800U chipset. The Narzo 30A will be “a powerful...

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MWC Barcelona expects to host 50,000 attendees with Covid-19 testing and restrictions

The last major electronics tradeshow in our industry that was held in person prior to the Covid-19 outbreak was CES 2020. If you recall the timeline, you’ll know that Covid-19 began spreading in December and CES was likely to have caused a major spread of infections in Las Vegas. MWC would have taken place in February 2020, but the tradeshow was totally cancelled due to the Covid-19 pandemic. Mobile World Live reports that the CEO of the GSM Association that organizes the annual MWC tradeshows intends on holding in-person shows this year. John Hoffman, GSMA Limited’s CEO offers that...

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YouTube Shorts launching in the US soon, YouTube videos to add automatic video chapters

In a blog post, YouTube announces some new features coming soon to its product offerings. The first one mentioned in the post is video chapters – which will soon be applied to YouTube videos automatically. Video chapters segment a YouTube video into chunks, making it easier for viewers to find the information that’s relevant to them more quickly without having to skim through the video. We’ve been using video chapters for a while on our YouTube channel, which are seen by the time stamps that we place in our video descriptions. Next up, YouTube is going to launch a redesigned YouTube VR...

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Three new Motorola phones are now available at Google Fi

In a new blog post. Google Product Manager announces that the company’s wireless carrier Google Fi will begin offering three new Motorola handsets. All three devices are under $300, one of which supports the carrier’s 5G signal. Motorola One 5G Ace The Motorola One 5G Ace starts at $279 and is Google Fi’s most affordable 5G offering. The phone is powered by the Snapdragon 750G 5G chipset paired with 4GB of RAM and 64BG of storage. A generously sized 6.7” Max Vision display features FHD+ resolution and a 20:9 aspect ratio. There’s a 5,000 mAh battery for extended use and it comes...

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Deal: grab a Nokia 8.3 for just $379.99

HMD Global launched the Nokia 8.3 5G in the US last year for a whopping $699.99, which is definitely not a price that would make this sell like hot cakes. Fast forward a few months and today you can take advantage of a new deal over at B&H which brings down the phone's price to a much more palatable level. We're talking $379.99, unlocked. This offer is limited-time, however, as it ends on February 20 at 11:59 PM EST, so if you're interested make sure you act fast. The Nokia 8.3 5G boasts a 6.81-inch 1080x2400 IPS touchscreen, the Snapdragon 765G chipset at the helm, 8GB of RAM,...

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Google Maps gains built-in parking payments for over 400 US cities

Back in September, Google Maps announced the option to pay for parking fares from within its Android app. The payments went through Google Pay and the whole process was done in cooperation with Passport Parking. In a new blog post, Google announced the “Pay for Parking” feature within Maps is now available in over 400 US cities including Boston, Cincinnati, Houston, Los Angeles, New York, Washington D.C and coming to iOS users soon. In addition, Google Maps users will be able to pay for transit fares in 80 more transit agencies globally via GPay. Public transport users in select...

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OmniVision's new OV50A sensor has 100% phase detection autofocus coverage

OmniVision unveiled its first camera sensor with 100% phase detection coverage. It uses Quad Phase Detection (QPD) technology where all pixels (in groups of 2 x 2) are used for focus detection. This is similar to Sony’s 2 x 2 on-chip lens system and might prove superior to the Dual Pixel tech used by Samsung (this sensor clearly wants to take on the ISOCELL GN1). QPD enables faster autofocus, especially in the dark. It also improves distance calculations (so bokeh and similar effects will be more accurate). The chip has on-board hardware to do remosaicing of the QPD color filter array,...

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Xiaomi Mi 11 review

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Power outages in Texas force Samsung to shut down semiconductor plant

Samsung has temporarily halted its chip production at its Austin, Texas facilities, due to the power outages in the state after Winter Storm Uri. The storm reportedly left some 200,000 Texans without power. Samsung was asked to pull power at its semiconductor plant by Austin Energy power utility and thanks to the notice was able to take measures so as to not damage the tens of thousands of silicone wafers that are being manufactured in the plant. An unplanned power outage can result in millions in damages. Samsung reportedly manufactures 14nm processors at its Austin fab. Austin...

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Microsoft finally makes its Office app iPadOS optimized

Microsoft has finally optimized its Office app for the iPad and its tablet UI. Up until now iPads got iPhone app that ran windowed, not making use of its enhanced multitasking features, such as split screen. Interestingly Microsoft has the Office app, which encapsulates Word, Excel and PowerPoint, as well as independent Word, Excel and PowerPoint apps for the iPad, which already were optimized for iPadOS. There's no word whether Apple will keep the apps separate or just merge them into the new Office app. Now iPad users will be able to create PDFs, sign documents, convert images...

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Samsung creates RAM with integrated AI processing hardware

A processing unit (CPU, GPU or whatever) and RAM are typically separate things built on separate chips. But what if they were part of the same chip, all mixed together? That’s exactly what Samsung did to create the world’s first High Bandwidth Memory (HBM) with built-in AI processing hardware called HBM-PIM (for processing-in-memory). It took its HBM2 Aquabolt chips and added Programmable Computing Units (PCU) between the memory banks. These are relatively simple and operate on 16-bit floating point values with a limited instruction set – they can move data around and perform...

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Epic Games files for antitrust hearing against Apple in Europe

The ongoing Epic Games – Apple saga is going international yet again as Epic has filed an antitrust complaint against Cupertino with the European Commission. Previously, the Fortnite publisher filed cases seeking damages from Apple in the US, Australia and the UK though the new complaint focuses on fair access and competition for consumers and developers. Consumers have the right to install apps from sources of their choosing and developers have the right to compete in a fair marketplace. We will not stand idly by and allow Apple to use its platform dominance to control what should be...

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Realme 7i next in line for Realme UI 2.0 early access

Realme is working hard on bringing its Realme UI 2.0 to as much devices as possible. Community members on nearly a dozen phones are working on beta versions of the interface, and now another device joins the party - the Indian variant of Realme 7i. To participate in the Early Access development process, owners of Realme 7i smartphones should go to the Software Update sub-menu in the phone’s Settings and then tap the gear icon in the top-right corner. They will be invited to participate in a Trial version, but not before providing some information about themselves. The slots are limited...

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iOS 14.5 Beta 2 now rolling out to devs, adds new features to Music and Shortcuts apps

The second beta of iOS 14.5 and iPadOS 14.5 is now seeding to developers and 9to5Mac and the r/iOSBeta sub-Reddit have compiled a changelog. The biggest upgrades are to the Shortcuts and Music apps and there are a number of smaller tweaks as well. The Shortcuts app gained three new actions – Take Screenshot, Orientation lock (on/off) and Voice & Data mode (5G, 5G Auto, 4G, 3G). The Music app switched to pop-over menus, which don’t obscure the whole UI. A quicker way to tweak playlists was added as well – you can swipe left or right on a track. Options on the left let you move the...

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As supply of Snapdragon 835 chips runs out, the F(x)Tec Pro1-X will switch to the Snapdragon 662

The IndieGoGo campaign for the F(x)Tec Pro1-X smartphone has received over $1 million in funding and the first units were shipped out to “super early bird” backers at the end of January. But now the team has run into supply issues. Specifically, the Snapdragon 835 at the heart of the phone has reached the end-of-life stage and is no longer available, meaning no more phones can be built. This affects both the original Pro1 model (more on that in a minute) as well as the Pro1-X, which was designed for XDA-Developers (both are quite similar and use the 835 chipset). The team has chosen the...

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Nord lineup lifts OnePlus sales to record highs in the United States

OnePlus introduced the Nord N10 and Nord N100 phones in October 2020 in an effort to expand its portfolio towards the mid-range and gain some extra market share. According to one report, this proved to be a successful decision, and the company is on track to sell north of 2 million phones at T-Mobile’s Metro alone. The expected 15% market share is not only impressive; it is believed to be the highest OnePlus has ever seen at a single US carrier. The tracking firm Wave7 Research says Metro usually sells around 15-16 million devices per year, and looking at the trends, the 2 million...

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Carl Pei says Essential acquisition was all about the patents

Yesterday news broke out that Carl Pei’s new venture Nothing has acquired the Essential smartphone brand. The details were unraveled in filings with the UK’s Intellectual Property Office and detailed the IP transfer was completed on January 6, 2021. Now, Pei himself confirmed yesterday’s reports and clarified that the whole deal was centered around the patents held by Essential. He further clarified that there is, ahem, nothing to share regarding Nothing’s plans with the newly acquired Esenetial patents. Though with the new evidence, it’s more likely we’ll see Nothing in the smartphone...

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Samsung Galaxy A52 and A72 will launch in India in mid-March, prices leak (again)

The Samsung Galaxy A52 and A72 are a month away from launching in India, according to a new report. Both phones will have 4G and 5G versions, powered by Snapdragon 720G and 750G, respectively. Besides India, the Galaxy A52 will apparently debut in Vietnam as the leaked price is in dong – between VND 9.3 and 9.5 million for the 4G version and VND 11 million for the 5G model. That works out to €330-€340 and €395, respectively. These numbers more or less match the prices from yesterday, which claimed that the two A52 versions will cost €350 and €430 in Europe (where prices are typically a bit...

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Realme Narzo 30 Pro appears, looks suspiciously similar to the Realme Q2

Realme is expected to out the Narzo 30 lineup next week, and the brand CEO for India and Europe has just revealed one of the phones on his Twitter page. Madhav Sheth posted a photo, holding the Realme Narzo 30 Pro 5G, surrounded by the retail boxes of the phone. After a detailed inspection of the image, we can see a triple camera with a 48MP main sensor and a fingerprint scanner on the side - confirming yesterday's reports of this being a rebranded Realme Q2. The phones have also been listed on Flipkart - one of them will be able to “Trigger Ultimate Speed”, while the other will...

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Redmi Note 10 teasers outline key features

Yesterday we got confirmation that the Redmi Note 10 series is due to launch on March 4 and now the landing page on Xiaomi India is giving us some hints about the new phones. The teasers suggest an all-new design that is lighter and slimmer than its predecessors. We can see a punch-hole display in one of the teasers which also mentions Gorilla Glass protection on the front and an IP52 rating. The side profile of the device is also revealed showing a side-mounted fingerprint scanner and the protruding camera hump. The back of the device is curved while the display appears to be...

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Oppo Find X3 pops up on Geekbench with 8GB RAM and Android 11

Yesterday we saw a few screenshots that revealed the Oppo Find X3 bearing model code PEDM00 will run Android 11-based ColorOS 11.2 and have 8GB RAM onboard. Today, the smartphone has popped up on Geekbench with 8GB RAM and Android 11, corroborating those specs. The chipset powering the smartphone is listed as "kona" in the motherboard section, which is the Snapdragon 865 SoC's codename. However, one of the snapshots from yesterday showed us the About page of the Find X3, revealing the smartphone will come with a Snapdragon 870 chip under the hood, which is essentially a Snapdragon 865++...

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Samsung Galaxy Fold, unlocked Galaxy S10 get Android 11-based One UI 3.0 update in the US

The Samsung Galaxy Fold received Android 11-based One UI 3.0 update last month in a few countries, and now it's time for the units in the US (SM-F900U1) to get the latest version of Android. The update comes with version number F900U1UEU4DUA3 and includes the usual Android 11 and One UI 3.0 goodies as well as the February 2021 Android security patch. Samsung Galaxy Fold The new firmware is rolling out over the air and should reach your Galaxy Fold in the US any moment now. But if you can't wait for the update prompt, you can check for the update manually by navigating to your...

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Samsung Galaxy A52 5G appears on Google Play Console, confirms Snapdragon 750G chipset

The Galaxy A52 5G is expected to be the next best-selling midranger by Samsung, but the phone is yet to arrive. It already appeared in multiple leaks, revealing the majority of its specs, and now it has popped up on Google Play Console, confirming the Snapdragon 750G chipset and Android 11 out of the box. Samsung Galaxy A52 5G on Google Play Console The listing also has a frontal image of the phone from which we can see an Infinity-O panel that is most likely AMOLED, given the fact, there is no fingerprint sensor in sight, and the power key is clearly visible. The Galaxy A52 5G...

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