ColorOS 12 public beta arrives, OnePlus 9 phones first in line to get it

The OnePlus 9 and OnePlus 9 Pro are moving away from HydrogenOS and switching to ColorOS in China, company officials confirmed multiple times. Now we have it on paper, as the designated Weibo account of ColorOS announced public beta is now avaiable, and OnePlus and Oppo users can sign up to get it. This beta follows the closed beta from mid-September. The OnePlus 9 flagships will be accompanied by the Oppo Find X3 and Oppo Find X3 Pro in the process, and they are all getting a different version of ColorOS 12. The OnePlus 9 and OnePlus 9 Pro will get the A.11 iteration, while the...

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Top 10 trending phones of week 39

The Apple iPhone 13 series loosened their grip on the trending chart in week 39, but the 13 Pro Max is still your number one phone. The Xiaomi Civi made a huge leap to capture the second position, while the newly announced Redmi Note 10 Lite took the final spot on the rostrum. The Samsung Galaxy pair of M52s and A52s follow, while long-term leader Redmi Note 10 Pro is in sixth. Last week's medalists iPhone 13 and 13 Pro are all the way down in seventh and eight, while the Xiaomi 11T Pro has also lost five positions and is now ninth. The final spot goes to the Galaxy S21 Ultra,...

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Week 39 in review: vivo X70 Pro series go global, Xiaomi Civi out, Pixel 6 prices leak

We're sending off September with a busy week, so let's recap. Xiaomi unveiled its Civi with a Snapdragon 778G chip, 6.55-inch 120Hz OLED display, 55W charging and a 64MP main camera. The Civi comes in Pink, Blue and Black and is on sale in China from CNY 2,600 ($400/€345/₹30,000). Oppo brought its K9 Pro, featuring a Dimensity 1200, a 6.43-inch OLED that does 120Hz, 64MP main cam and a 4,500mAh battery with 60W charging. The Oppo K9 Pro is out in China, starting at CNY2,199. The vivo X70 Pro and X70 Pro+ are rolling out globally. In India, the vivo X70 Pro will be offered in Black...

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Flashback: The HTC One (M8) had two cameras and two OSes

What comes after One? Well, the HTC One (M8), of course! If we haven’t made our feelings clear, “One” is a terrible name. But we won’t go into that again, the HTC One was a promising phone that did things its own way. The M8 is the sequel to that and introduced a camera feature that is still very popular today. Or should we say “common” since popular implies that people like it. We often mention the HTC EVO 3D (from 2011) as one of the first dual camera phones (along with the LG Optimus 3D). However, that wasn’t very useful since 3D was a gimmick that only seems to work in movie theaters...

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Weekly poll: did you put a screen protector on your phone? What about a case?

With advancements in chemically-strengthened glass scratches are less of an issue these days, but it’s not a completely solved issue. And if you drop your phone, the glass can still crack. Repairing a broken screen could easily cost $200-$300. An out of warranty screen repair on an iPhone 7 Plus costs $169, but you can buy a working 7 Plus for $155 or so. And that’s not an Apple issue either, Samsung Direct (in the US) will charge you $249 to replace the screen on a Galaxy S10 and again you can buy a whole phone for less than that - $234 or so (second hand, of course). Price...

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