Samsung Galaxy M21 gets One UI 3.1 Core update

The Samsung Galaxy M21 announced last March with Android 10-based One UI 2.0 received One UI 2.1 in September and One UI 2.5 in November. The smartphone then picked up the Android 11-based One UI 3.0 update in January, and now it's receiving the One UI 3.1 Core update. The new firmware includes the March 2021 Android patch and improves the Galaxy M21's security while also improving the camera and overall device performance. But aside from that, you can also expect it to bring new editing tools, Eye Comfort Shield, and improved stock apps to the smartphone. Samsung Galaxy M21 One...

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Microsoft shuts down Cortana app on Android and iOS

Microsoft’s Cortana apps for Android and iOS have officially reached their defunction on March 31 2021. Microsoft’s voice assistant alternative to Google Assistant and Siri will continue to function on Windows 10. As explained in Microsoft’s Cortana support page, the mobile app is no longer supported as of Wednesday this week. Lists and reminders will no longer be available through Cortana apps on mobile. These reminders and lists can still be accessed through Cortana on Windows 10 and Microsoft’s To Do apps, available for both Android and iOS. The shutdown was originally...

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Huawei posts strong revenue in 2020 despite US ban

Huawei’s 2020 annual report has been published and the company reports that the numbers are in line with what was forecasted: “marginal growth”. Huawei’s sales revenue weighed in at CNY 891.4 billion ( $136.7 billion) with net profit CNY 64.6 billion ($9.9 billion). Revenue is up 3.8% YoY and profits are up 3.2% YoY. This is despite US sanctions that were set in 2019 by the Trump Administration. Over the past year, we’ve held strong in the face of adversity. We’ve kept innovating to create value for our customers, to help fight the pandemic, and to support both economic recover and social...

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Xiaomi Mi 11 Ultra stars in its very own video teardown

This Monday Xiaomi unveiled its top of the line flagship smartphone for 2021, the Mi 11 Ultra, alongside many other products. The Ultra is the successor of the widely praised (including by us) Mi 10 Ultra from 2020, which sadly never got an international release. The Mi 11 Ultra rectifies that error, albeit for an eye-watering price. If you were wondering whether what's inside the handset might warrant all that dough, a Chinese YouTube channel has the answer for you, in the form of a video teardown. Obviously it's in Chinese, but you can see what's important - and you may also want to try...

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vivo X60t surfaces with Dimensity 1100 chipset

vivo's X60 family already has quite a few members, but soon another one will join, and thanks to a China Telecom listing, we have a lot of details about it. It's called X60t, and unlike all the other X60 series models which use Exynos and Snapdragon chipsets, this one has a MediaTek Dimensity 1100 under the hood, paired with 8GB of RAM and 128GB of storage. Its model number is V2085A, it runs Android 11 (we assume with Origin OS on top), and it has a 6.56-inch 1080x2376 OLED display. The phone measures 159.63 x 75.01 x 7.4mm and weighs 175g. On the front, in the centered...

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Xiaomi Mi 11 Lite 5G in for review

Xiaomi announced a whole bunch of smartphones this week and the Mi 11 Lite 5G is the first phone on the market to boast the brand new 5nm Snapdragon 780G chipset. Our own review unit came by and these are our early impressions before the review team puts it through its paces. The first thing you notice about the Mi 11 Lite 5G is just how light it actually feels in the hand. It weighs just 159 grams despite packing a respectably sized 6.55-inch screen upfront. The panel is AMOLED and boasts FHD+ resolution, 90Hz refresh rate and HDR10+ support. Bezels are quite slim and uniform and...

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Motorola Moto G100 review

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New Samsung Galaxy S20 FE 4G surfaces on Geekbench with Snapdragon 865

When Samsung announced the Galaxy S20 FE last year it gave people a choice – a Snapdragon 865 chipset with the S20 FE 5G model, even in countries that normally get Exynos in their S-series, or an Exynos 990 with the 4G model (which was cheaper). Now it looks like things are about to become a bit blurred. The NBTC certified an SM-G780G / DS, labeled as Galaxy S20 FE, and certified only for 4G operation. There’s even a support page for it on Samsung.com (multiple support pages, in fact). That exact model number can be seen in Geekbench with the motherboard listed as “kona”. This is the...

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OnePlus 9 Pro 5G is now on sale in most regions

The OnePlus 9 Pro is now available, following the launch of its vanilla sibling a few days ago. It is in stock in multiple regions, ready to ship within 24 hours, though that is not the case everywhere. You can buy a 9 Pro today in the following countries: the UK, Ireland, France, Spain, Italy, Hungary, Poland, Sweden, Denmark, Finland and a few others. Before you part with your hard-earned cash, make sure to check out our review. Keep in mind that while you can buy the OnePlus 9 Pro from the company’s official site, it’s also available elsewhere. For example, in the UK you can find...

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Canalys: Global TWS and wearables sales jumped 15% in 2020

The past twelve months have been turbulent for smartphone manufacturers, but the world of wearables and smart audio devices has been a positive beam in the world of technology. According to Canalys, the global market grew throughout 2020, with Apple being the leader in both fields. Strong consumer demand and health-conscious users drove the increase in sales, the research agency says. The market has quite a low barrier to enter, and that allowed manufacturers to flood the market with “vast shipments”, also assisted by the companies’ mature supply chain. Both established vendors...

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Google Pixel Buds A in the works as more affordable TWS entry in Google’s lineup

True Wireless Stereo (TWS) headphones are all the rage these days and Google is looking to bring some variety and more importantly affordable alternatives to its Pixel Buds lineup. According to a new report from 9to5Google the search giant is working on a pair of new affordable earbuds called Pixel Buds A. Like Google’s Pixel A-series smartphones re-use designs of the more premium Pixel phones, the Pixel Buds A are said to copy the design of the flagship Pixel Buds but with new colorways. These include an all-white color and a forest green option. The core design of the Pixel Buds A...

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ARM announces its next-gen ARMv9 architecture: focus on security, AI and vector processing

The ARMv8 architecture was announced in 2011, a full decade ago. It was a massive change as it moved from 32-bit to 64-bit. Over the last 5 years there have been more than 100 billion ARMv8 devices. The company is now looking at the future – ARMv9 will be the architecture that will be at the heart of the next 300 billion ARM chips. The focus now is on security, vector processing and machine learning. Version 9 introduces the Confidential Compute Architecture, CCA. It is a hardware-based secure environment that protects to code and data from even privileged software. To keep...

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Kuo: iPhone 13 Pro Max to have f/1.5 main lens, whole lineup to use 7P glass

In a note to investors, renowned analyst Ming-Chi Kuo has revealed that the iPhone 13 Pro Max will have an outlier main camera compared to the rest of the 13 lineup. The iPhone 13 Pro Max will use a slightly brighter f/1.5 lens on top of its main sensor, whereas the iPhone 13, 13 mini and 13 Pro will use an f/1.6 lens for their main cameras, which will either have a similar or identical to the current main imager on the iPhone 12, 12 Pro and 12 mini. There's no word on any differences to the sensors behind those cameras just yet. All iPhone 13 models will have a 7P lens (that's...

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ZTE Watch GT and LiveBuds SE unveiled

ZTE held a launch event in China earlier today where we saw the debut of its S30 series phones. Alongside those, ZTE announced its Watch GT smartwatch and a new pair of TWS earphones called LiveBuds SE. ZTE Watch GT The Watch GT comes with a traditional round watch casing and a 1.2-inch AMOLED display. The lightweight aluminum alloy build and helps the Watch GT tip the scales at just 30 grams. The casing features a brushed look while the silicone watch straps come in black, gray, orange, yellow and blue colors. Watch GT can track your heart rate as well as blood oxygen levels,...

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Realme V13 5G is official with Dimensity 700 and a big battery

Realme introduced the GT Neo today with a Dimensity 1200 chipset, but it wasn’t the only phone on the stage - we also saw the launch of the Realme V13 5G. This new affordable midranger has some specs to get enthusiastic about - a big 5,000mAh battery, 90Hz refresh rate and ample storage for the class. The chipset of the Realme V13 5G is Dimensity 700 - an SoC, built on the 7nm process technology, and having two CPU cores running at 2.2 GHz (the other six are at 1.8 GHz). It is coupled with 8GB RAM and either 128GB or 256GB storage. On top of that, there is also a dedicated microSD...

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ZTE S30 Pro comes with SD768G and 144Hz AMOLED display, the S30 and S30 SE switch to Dimensity and LCD

ZTE unveiled a trio of mid-range 5G phones with the new S30 series. Besides next gen connectivity, the three phones share a passion for display quality, photography and fast charging, it's just that some are better at those things than others. ZTE S30 Pro The clear leader of the pack, the ZTE S30 Pro derives its power from a Snapdragon 768G chipset. It comes with 8GB of RAM and 256GB storage as standard and runs MyOS 11, a ZTE skin over Android 11 (all three phones run the same software). The S30 Pro is powered by a Snapdragon 768G with a heat pipe that keeps it cool A heat...

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Realme GT Neo arrives with a Dimensity 1200 chipset in a familiar body

Realme GT Neo just made its official debut with a Dimensity 1200 chipset and bold design of the back panel. The phone is almost identical to the Realme GT 5G, down to the measurements, cameras and screen. The Realme GT Neo is built around a 6.43” Super AMOLED screen with a punch hole in the right corner. It has Full HD+ resolution, 120Hz refresh rate and 360Hz touch sampling rate. The 6nm Dimensity 1200 chipset by Mediatek is coupled with three RAM options - 6GB, 8GB and 12GB - and two UFS 3.1 storage choices - 64GB and 128GB. The Realme GT Neo has a 64MP main shooter on the...

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Samsung Galaxy S20 FE 5G arrives in India

Samsung announced the Galaxy S20 FE in India last October, and after five months, the company has launched its 5G variant in the South Asian country. The Galaxy S20 FE 5G comes in a single 8GB/128GB memory configuration in India priced at INR55,999 ($765/€650) but early birds can have it for INR47,999 ($655/€560). You can buy one in Cloud Navy, Cloud Mint, or Cloud Lavender colors from Samsung's official India site, Samsung Exclusive Stores, Amazon.in, and leading retail outlets across the country. Unlike its 4G counterpart powered by the Exynos 990 SoC, the Galaxy S20 FE 5G has the...

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More evidence suggests Samsung's upcoming smartwatches will run Wear OS

The first time we heard of Samsung planning to go back to Wear OS-running smartwatches was back in 2018 when some company employees were spotted wearing watches with Google's operating system instead of Tizen. Yet the company stuck with its in-house operating system for all of its smartwatches since. Last month a reliable tipster claimed an Android Watch may finally be coming, and we later saw evidence backing those claims. Now an APK teardown of the latest version of the Galaxy App wearable app suggests that Samsung's next-gen smartwatches will indeed run Google's Wear OS. The source...

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