Remember the vivo S1 that launched worldwide but is different than the vivo S1 in China? The one that is called vivo Y7s at its domestic scene? Well, it is arriving today in Russia with another new name - vivo V17 Neo. It will arrive with 6 GB RAM and 128 GB storage and will cost the equivalent of $315/€285. vivo V17 Neo promo images The phone comes with Helio P65 chipset, housing an octa-core CPU at 2 GHz. The screen is 6.38" Super AMOLED with an underdisplay fingerprint scanner, while the camera is in a waterdrop notch. There are three shooters on the back - an 8 MP...

Samsung is set to hold its Unpacked event next week in New York city where we are expecting to hear about the Samsung Galaxy Note10, Note10+, hopefully a 5G varirant, and a new Samsung Galaxy Watch Active 2 smartwatch. Just Wednesday, Samsung pulled the wraps off of the Samsung Galaxy Tab S6 with S-Pen remote, Snapdragon 855, and 8GB of RAM. Also on Wednesday, Android Headlines released a convincing render of the Galaxy Note10+ 5G, but it isn't like ones we've seen before. This one is a Verizon variant connected to 5G UWB+ and the date on the lockscreen says August 23. This is the same...

The Nvidia Shield TV, launched back in 2015 with Android 5.1 Lollipop, is receiving Android Pie with Software Experience Upgrade 8.0. The update is rolling out to the 2017 version of the Shield TV as well. This software upgrade brings a redesigned Settings menu and a streamlined setup for new users. It also brings Hulu Live TV to the Shield TV in addition to new apps and games. Besides, the update also enables surround sound for Netflix and 4K support for Prime Video. You can head over here to learn more about the new and upgraded apps and games, and check out the full changelog of...

Google launched Google Pay as Google Tez in India back in September 2017, building up heavily on the government’s Unified Payments Interface (UPI) platform for mobile-based banking transactions. Despite being late to the market, Google Tez gained 7.5 Million users in the country within five weeks of its launch. The service was eventually renamed to Google Pay last year , and the service has continued growing in popularity because of its ease of use. However, the ease of use of this app has also given scammers some interesting methods to scam people of their money, because of which Google has now introduced features like notifications and SMS alerts to further reduce scams. One of the highlight features of the UPI platform is the ability to not only send money, but also to send “collect” requests to receive payments. This functionality has been widely abused through different payment services such as Google Pay, PhonePe and the others. Speaking from personal anecdote, scammers have f

Asus went all-in with the specs of the ROG Phone II, and it looks like a lot of people appreciate that - at least in China, where it's already logged more than 2.5 million reservations on JD.com, one of the main online stores over there. These aren't pre-orders, but you do need to reserve in order to be able to then buy a device in a flash sale. The first flash sale of the ROG Phone II happened today and the entire batch of 10,000 devices was gone in 73 seconds. Asus apologized to the people that weren't fast enough to snag one, and promised that its production line staff are working to...

Wireless charging is a feature that has had its ups and downs in popularity over the years, but it looks like its definitely here to stay. Charging wirelessly is no longer as slow as it used to be, with some phones like the Xiaomi Mi 9 supporting 20W fast wireless charging. A few smartphones even pack bidirectional wireless charging coils so they can wirelessly charge accessories or other smartphones. Late last year, Huawei became the first brand to ship a smartphone with reverse wireless charging (as seen in the featured image above). Samsung then followed earlier this year with its PowerShare feature on the Galaxy S10 series , and we’ve now seen evidence in MIUI beta builds that Xiaomi may be next. The upcoming Xiaomi Mi Mix 4 is the most likely candidate for this new feature, but we can’t confirm that yet. Could the Xiaomi Mi Mix 4 support Reverse Wireless Charging? Our ever-reliable tipster, XDA Junior Member kackskrz from the Xiaomi.EU custom MIUI team , tipped us off abou

Apple's iPhone 11 (or iPhone XI, or whatever else the company's going to call it) is apparently going to come with a rather surprising new feature. According to analysts at Citi Research, the next iPhone will have support for the Apple Pencil. Ever since the debut of the original Apple Pencil, the stylus has only worked with iPads. So this would mark a huge shift in Apple's philosophy, if it pans out. And that's a big "if". Citi analysts usually focus on the financials of any given company and don't predict its future products' features, so there's no track record here we can look back...

Update 1 (7/31/19 @ 10:22 PM EST): Google has confirmed that Play Pass is now in testing. One user grabbed screenshots showing the in-development subscription sign-up, giving us an early glimpse at what we might see when it goes live. More details below. The original article follows. Since the Google Play Store is so widely used, any changes to the platform can take months to roll out. We haven’t seen any significant changes to the platform in the past few months apart from the Google Play Points program silently rolling out in Japan and the introduction of playable game demos . But now, we’re seeing evidence for a new, paid subscription service in Google Play which may be called “Play Pass.” An APK teardown can often predict features that may arrive in a future update of an application, but it is possible that any of the features we mention here may not make it in a future release. This is because these features are currently unimplemented in the live build and may be pulled at

Samsung is making the Galaxy Watch Active 2 official on August 5, as teased yesterday. In the meantime, how about some newly leaked official-looking press renders of the upcoming wearable? The latest batch comes from two different sources no less. First off, let's take a look at what are said to be all the color versions of the watch - at least initially, upon launch. More options might become available in the future. So there's going to be a black/silver model, a pale blue/grey one, and a pink/gold/beige looking thing too. Next up, there's going to be a special Under Armour edition...

Vivo announced the Z5x a few months ago in China and later rehashed it as the Vivo Z1Pro in India . The smartphone is primarily aimed at young users with high expectations about performance. Today, the company has announced the Vivo Z5 with major improvements in terms of the specifications but without compromising on the competitive pricing for the attractive package . The Vivo Z5 comes with a Super AMOLED display with a teardrop notch, unlike the Z5x which featured a hole-punch display. The Super AMOLED display also features an in-display fingerprint scanner. The display has a screen-to-body ratio of 90% on the Vivo Z5, which is lower than the Z5x. Under the hood, there’s a Snapdragon 712 on the Vivo Z5 – just like the Z5x – but the company has removed the option for a 4GB RAM and instead included an 8GB RAM variant in the lineup. Additionally, there are options for up to 256GB UFS 2.1 storage, which is also an upgrade over the Vivo Z5x. In terms of camera, there’s a 48MP primary

When Samsung first shipped its Galaxy A70 back in April it was missing a dedicated Night Mode resulting in sub-par low-light shots compared to other midrange devices. Now the company has begun pushing the latest firmware fix for the phone which brings the long-awaited Night mode and also adds the July security update. The A705GMDDU3ASG6 update comes in at 367 MB and is already live in India. It should make its way to other countries in the coming weeks. In addition to the Night mode function, Samsung has also added a dedicated QR scanner in the camera interface. Other points of focus...

If you are living in urban India, there is a very good chance that you have already heard about Truecaller. Truecaller markets itself as an app service that provides caller identification, further empowering users to block out spam calls and filter out spam SMS. The original working goal of Truecaller is supposed to be call screening, but the app has evolved into a chimera that offers varied services such as “smart messaging”, smart dialer (identify names of unknown numbers as you dial), voice caller, call recorder…..and a Payment bank, for some reason. One of Truecaller’s latest updates contained a bug that signed up users for the Truecaller Pay payment service without their consent. Truecaller Pay is Truecaller’s UPI -powered platform that competes against the likes of Samsung Pay Mini , Google Pay/Tez and Xiaomi’s Mi Pay service in India. On Monday, users on Truecaller’s v10.41.6 update began complaining that the app had registered them to its payments service, without the users

Yesterday we reported Honor 9X sold in 100,000 units in the first two minutes and today the Huawei sub-brand came out with new information, revealing it managed to ship over 300,000 units in the first day of the sale. The phone is readily available for purchase at all major online retailers in China, which leads us to the assumption the 100,000 initial phones were part of some pre-order deal and the customers who requested the phone went through with the payment in the first two minutes. The Honor 8X set multiple records for the brand, including the fastest reach of 10 million sold...

The first quarter of 2019 was an exciting period for Samsung’s mobile phone business as the company raked in profits worth almost $2 billion with the strong demand of the Galaxy S10 series devices. In its earnings call for the second quarter, Samsung revealed that there was a growth in the overall shipment of smartphone units with the revamped Galaxy A series , thanks to the strong demand for smartphones like the Galaxy A50 and the Galaxy A70. However, there was a decline in the revenue from flagship devices which led to a lower profit in Q2. Samsung blamed the stagnant demand for the Galaxy S10 series and the anticipation towards the upcoming Galaxy Note 10 and the Note 10+ for this reduction in revenue. Against the first quarter when Samsung’s mobile unit made 2.27 trillion won (~$1.95 billion), the profit in the second quarter slid down to 1.56 trillion won (~$1.32 billion). Samsung noted the “ growing competition in the mid- to low-end segment and inventory adjustments of older

The Asus ZenFone Max Pro (M1) is receiving a new software update which brings along the Digital Wellbeing feature that lets you keep a track of how much time you spend using an app and help cut down on your phone usage. Additionally, this firmware also fixes an issue related to the dark theme and bumps up the Android security patch level on the smartphone to June 2019. This new update carries version number 16.2017.1906.056 and is rolling out over the air for the ZenFone Max Pro (M1) units having model number ZB601KL. The update should reach your phone in a week or two, but if...

Strategy Analytics and Counterpoint came out with some interesting data for Q2 2019 regarding global smartphone shipments, which to no one's surprise fell year-over-year. And despite the decline, Samsung and Huawei are seeing a modest increase in shipments and market share for that matter. According to Strategy Analytics, global shipments fell 2.6% while Samsung recorded 1.9% increase, Huawei gained 1.7% and Apple lost 0.7% year-over-year. Those figures translate into 76.3 million units sold by Samsung, 58.7 million devices by Huawei and 38 million iPhones. Xiaomi and Oppo follow...

Samsung's earnings report for the April-June period is in and much like the guidance report which came out at the beginning of the month predicted, the company is facing some significant struggles. Most notably Samsung's operating profit fell by 56% year over year to KRW 6.6 trillion ($5.56 billion). For comparison, in Q2 2018 the company saw KRW 14.87 trillion ($13.3 billion) in profits. In addition, the mobile business saw a 42% decrease in profit due to slow sales in the flagship sector despite an increase in total smartphone shipments. Revenue is up 8% thanks to solid sales from...

Nubia, the sub-brand of Chinese manufacturer ZTE, has been gaining popularity with its lineup of gaming smartphones. The Nubia Red Magic 3 ( our review ) feels like a smartphone limited to gamers, primarily because of its aggressive looks and a design which appeals on to a limited set of users. While the Red Magic 3 is likely to get upgraded with a Snapdragon 855 Plus chipset, Nubia is working on another flagship device with the same chipset to appeal to a wider population. The Nubia smartphone, supposedly the Nubia Z20, can be expected to feature OLED displays on the front as well as the back as one of its most exciting features. Other than that, the smartphone will feature Snapdragon 855 Plus and support up to 8K video recording. The Nubia Z20 was recently listed on TENAA, revealing the key specifications of the smartphone. The dual camera is certainly an exciting bit and the dual-screen configuration includes a 6.42-inch OLED panel as the primary display while the display on the b

Samsung launched the Galaxy XCover 4s rugged smartphone last month, and it seems the South Korean tech giant will soon add one more rugged smartphone to its portfolio as an official-looking press render of what's said to be the Samsung Galaxy Active has surfaced. The Galaxy Active is the same phone that was spotted at MWC in February this year and believed to be a ruggedized version of the regular Galaxy S9. It's said to come with an Exynos 9810 SoC and 4GB RAM like the S9. It will also retain the S9's camera setup but will ship with a smaller screen (5.2") and a larger battery (4,500...

Huawei often launches Honor smartphones under the brand of the parent company and now we have another example of rebranding. The globally available Honor 20 that sports a model number YAL-L21 was just certified in Thailand under the moniker Huawei nova 5T, which would also be the first nova 5 smartphone appearing outside of China. Huawei nova 5T certification at NBTC The Honor 20 was initially announced with four cameras on the back and a punch-hole design for the selfie shooter. It is slightly different than the Honor 20 Pro, but still comes with the high-end Kirin 980...

The Xiaomi Mi A3 has made its way to Malaysia. It's priced at RM899 ($220/€195) for the 4GB/64GB model and you will have to shell out RM100 ($25/€20) more for double storage. The Mi A3 will go on sale in Malaysia from August 3 through online retailers Lazada and Shopee, as well as through Mi Stores. Xiaomi Mi A3 Alongside the Mi A3, Xiaomi also launched the Mi Band 4 under the moniker of Mi Smart Band 4 in Malaysia. It's priced at RM149 ($35/€30) and is immediately available for purchase through Lazada, Shopee, and Mi Stores in the country. Source 1 | Source 2

Over the years, ASUS has shifted its device strategy greatly. No longer do their phones have a heavy, bloated UI, like they used to before . Instead, new ASUS devices like the ZenFone 6 and the ROG Phone II are using much lighter takes on ZenUI, resembling stock Android Pie functionally and cosmetically. Devices like the ASUS ZenFone Max Pro M1 have greatly benefited from this shift as the phone presented itself as an option for a clean Android experience in a price range that is notorious for monetized UX skins. The phone was expected to receive Android Pie, and indeed, it did . Despite being an early mid-range device at best, the phone nowadays still enjoys frequent updates, which serves as a testament to ASUS’s improved mobile strategy. ASUS ZenFone Max Pro M1 XDA Forums Now, a new update is rolling out for the Asus ZenFone Max Pro M1. The biggest improvement within this update is the addition of Digital Wellbeing , a feature that made its way to Android with Android Pie and

Mediatek released yesterday its gaming chipset, called Helio G90 and Helio G90T. One of the people who attended the launch was Lu Weibing, the brand director of Redmi. Later, he went on Weibo and confirmed the Xiaomi sub-brand will come with the Helio G90T and it will be available globally. Lu Weibing, Redmi Brand Manager While we know practically nothing about the device, we can extrapolate some specs, looking at the chipset itself. The device will have a performance CPU cluster of two Cortex-A76 units and six Cortex-A55 cores to complete the package. They will be coupled by the...

An unknown nubia device bearing model number NX627J, said to be the upcoming Z20, has appeared on TENAA with its full specs. The smartphone is powered by an octa-core processor clocked at 2.95 GHz which is likely the recently announced Snapdragon 855+ SoC. It will come in three RAM options - 6GB, 8GB, and 12GB - while storage will be 128GB, 256GB, and 512GB. That said, the most interesting bit about the Z20 is that it will sport two OLED displays - one each on the front and back with a resolution of 2340x1080 pixels. The main screen on the front will measure 6.42" diagonally, while the...

On Tuesday, Apple released its Q3 earnings report with a quarterly revenue of $53.8 billion, just a 1% hike over the same quarter of 2018. This has been Apple's most successful June quarter yet, as per the company. While services revenue has reached an all-time high, a significant boost of wearables revenue also factored into this quarter's success. Although overall sales have increased in the US to $25.1 billion (up from $24.5b in Q3 2018), Apple has seen revenues drop in China ($9.2b vs. $9.6b in Q3 2018) and Europe ($11.9b vs. $12.1b in Q3 2018) as a result of increased competition....

The OnePlus 7 Pro represents OnePlus’ biggest ever leap in camera hardware. It has the 48MP Sony IMX 586 as its main rear camera alongside an 8MP 3X zoom telephoto camera and a 16MP 117° ultra wide-angle camera. In our review , we noted how much more versatility these extra cameras afford, but the camera quality at launch was average at best. Through post-launch updates , OnePlus has improved the image quality, and we’ve also learned that they plan on adding new features in further updates. With the Android Q DP3 update, the OnePlus Camera received a version bump to 3.8.1, adding a new “tripod long exposure” setting and laying the groundwork for a new “Focus Tracking” feature. An APK teardown can often predict features that may arrive in a future update of an application, but it is possible that any of the features we mention here may not make it in a future release. This is because these features are currently unimplemented in the live build and may be pulled at any time by OnePlu

Samsung has cut a few of its lines of mid-range smartphones this year, leaving just the A and M families, but the company just can't stop launching phone after phone, which is resulting in the A series becoming more and more crowded. A Galaxy A30s is coming soon as a slightly improved version of the A30 that has only been on the market since March. Unlike that model, which has a dual rear camera system, with a 16 MP primary sensor and a 5 MP ultra-wide snapper, the A30s is said to employ triple rear cameras. Samsung Galaxy A30 Today's rumor doesn't detail what the third camera is...

This week, Google once again defied expectations by confirming two major features of its upcoming Pixel 4 smartphones: Soli radar gestures and face unlock . Google says the upcoming Pixel’s facial biometrics will be secure enough for mobile payments, and sure enough, the latest version of the Google Pay app hints at support for authenticating payments with your face. Version 2.94 of the app also prepares to add a built-in SafetyNet checker, a tool which will alert the user if their phone cannot be used for payments because it fails attestation. An APK teardown can often predict features that may arrive in a future update of an application, but it is possible that any of the features we mention here may not make it in a future release. This is because these features are currently unimplemented in the live build and may be pulled at any time by Google in a future build. Verify SafetyNet Attestation Before Purchases In order to use Google Pay on Android, your phone must pass sever

Sony has proudly announced that it sold 3.2 million PS4 consoles in the quarter that ended on June 30. That means that, by the end of June 2019, the company has sold 100 million PS4 devices in total. The console has been out for five years and seven months before it hit the 100 million mark, being the fastest home game console to reach that milestone, according to Daniel Ahmad, Senior Analyst at Niko Partners. It's managed to outdo the PS2 and the Nintendo Wii in achieving that goal. 50 million of those 100 million units sold have been purchased in the last three years. Sales of the...

Samsung's Galaxy Fold has been long delayed since April and last week, Samsung finally gave word of the changes that Samsung made to improve the Fold's design. In addition, Samsung confirmed that it will be releasing the Galaxy Fold sometime in September. Although we still don't have a specific date, a report from Korean outlet The Investor claims the Galaxy Fold will be released in South Korea on September 18, 19, or 20 according to Korean telecom communications with Samsung. This launch event does fall right in the middle of the span that Apple would normally have between the...

Today, Google released a blog post outlining a bunch of new changes coming to vehicles with official Android Auto support. To start, there's a new app launcher. It is streamlined with more apps are visible at once. The most frequently used apps can be found at the top row. In addition, new Google Assistant badges will give you pertinent information on your calendar or news, for instance, without having to take your eyes off the road. Once connected to Android Auto, your device could now automatically resume whichever song or podcast was being played earlier. The app must...

Samsung seems to be on a quest to endlessly diversify its mid-range Galaxy A and Galaxy M series of smartphones, adding derivative models left and right. The next one in this regard might be the M20, which is reportedly soon getting an M20s sibling. The Galaxy M20s is rumored to come with a huge 5,830 mAh battery, which dwarfs even the M20's already impressive 5,000 mAh cell. The M20s' model number is allegedly SM-M207, and the gigantic battery it packs will have the product code EB-BM207ABY. If the 5,830 mAh value is the 'rated' capacity, then the 'typical' capacity could actually be as...

Samsung is going to spend a lot of time talking about the Galaxy Note 10 at its scheduled Unpacked event next week, so much that it’s going to announce two other products separately before we get to August 7 . In a teaser posted this morning, Samsung said that it will preview two products at separate digital events prior to showing off the Note 10. They didn’t name the products, but the video (below) shows a new tablet and watch floating about in the shadows. Because Samsung products leak in full weeks before they are ever official, we know these two products to be the Galaxy Tab S6 and Galaxy Watch Active 2 . If we take the video layout as its shown, we should see the Galaxy Tab S6 on July 31 followed by the Galaxy Watch Active 2 on August 5. Both products will be revealed on Samsung’s website rather than through flashy on-stage performances. What do we know about each? The Galaxy Tab S6 might be a true flagship tablet with high-res AMOLED display, Snapdragon 855 processor, 7040

Another quarter, another disappointing result for the mobile business at LG Electronics. The company posted its financial report for the past three months and the Mobile Communications Company said sales were down 21.3%, compared with the same period last year. At least they went up 6.8% on a quarterly basis, but the reason for the poor results are the competitors from China and their "aggressive pricing". Speaking in numbers, the Q2 2019 sales were KRW1.61 trillion ($1.38 billion), while the operating loss was KRW313 billion ($268.4 million) due to the higher marketing investment...