Some Huawei Mate 10 Pro units start receiving Android Pie

Huawei teased the new EMUI 9.0 last month, and we expected the user interface, based on Android Pie, to arrive with the Huawei Mate 20 in two weeks. Looks like the company can't wait anymore and is already pushing the update to some Huawei Mate 10 Pro units with a stable version of Oreo and model numbers BLA-L09 and BLA-L29 which are sold mostly in Europe. According to our source, EMUI 9.0 brings new gesture setup for multi-task switching between apps and a new improved 2.0 version of GPU Turbo. Since Android Pie promotes digital health and wellbeing with a new feature, available in...

Sunday debate: Are phones getting too big?

Ro: Smartphones are getting out of hand. Literally. It almost feels like makers these days are shoving the new trends down our throats these days. First, it was the headphone jack. Apple started it and users rioted. That didn't stop the rest of the OEMs from following suit without giving any real excuse. Then it was the notch. Once again Apple started it, people hated it, but Android manufacturers were fast to jump on the bandwagon. The same goes for the custom launchers and the compact flagships - the results from our polls speak for themselves. All of these aren't...

Week 39 in review: Realme 2 Pro and Xiaomi Redmi Note 6 Pro debut

A couple of phones debuted this week, but you don't have to look further than our top 10 trending chart to know which one was more interesting - the Realme 2 Pro debut is easily the event of week 39. Meanwhile Xiaomi unveiled the Redmi Note 6 Pro, which is hardly a great improvement over its predecessor. It does bring the notch trend to the Xiaomi Note lineup, so it has that going for it, we guess. Meanwhile as an announcement-filled October is on our doorstep we are getting all sorts of teasers and leaks. OnePlus 6T, Google Pixel 3 and 3 XL as well as Nokia 7.1 all made headlines. We...

Top 10 trending phones of week 39

These are turbulent times in our top 10 trending chart as we see our fourth leader in as many weeks - the newly announced Realme 2 immediately shooting to the top. Funnily enough the leaders of the past three weeks complete the top four. The Galaxy A7 (2018) steps down to second, ahead of the Xiaomi Pocophone F1. The iPhone XS Max, in fourth, is the only remaining Apple smartphone in the top 10 after the company got a clean sweep of the podium just two weeks ago. The yet to be announced Huawei Mate 20 Pro is already capturing your interest and you made it the fifth most popular...

Counterclockwise: Huawei bets on Android early and grows big quickly

Huawei is currently the largest manufacturer of telecommunications equipment, but it is a very young company - it was only founded in 1987. And it didn't start making phones until 2003, but it already has ambitions to be the largest smartphone maker in the world, just like in conquered the networking hardware field. The first phone to come out of Huawei's handset division was the C300 in 2004. It was a simple feature phone for CDMA networks. Then came the U626, the company's first 3G-enabled phone (the history of China's mobile networks is quite interesting, but here's not the...

Weekly poll: Realme 2 Pro, love it or hate it?

Realme is going in for the kill - the 2 Pro targets Xiaomi, Huawei, OnePlus and even Oppo's own phones with what could be described as great specs at an insanely low price. It starts at INR 14,000 ($192/€165) for the 4/64GB model. That buys you a capable Snapdragon 660, 6.3" 1080p+ screen with teardrop notch, a 16+2MP dual rear camera and 16MP selfie cam. The 3,500mAh battery sounds good too. Let's compare that to the Xiaomi Redmi Note 6 Pro. The screen is similar (though with a chunkier notch), the chipset is the lower-end S636, the camera story is better (larger pixels on the rear...

LG TONE Platinum SE review

Introduction Headsets and audio equipment reviews are hardly a daily occurrence here at GSMArena, but most of us have deep personal interest in the area. That's why the TONE Platinum SE caused quite a lot of excitement here at HQ and I was nominated to share some of that with it. Heads-up this is going to be more of a personal experience review than a benchmark-filled test. First things first, then. We have used and even reviewed LG Tone headsets in the past, like the LG Tone Infinim HBS-900 and the HSB-730 Tone+. And the basic design concept and form factor are pretty much...

Weekly poll results: Galaxy A7 (2018) and its triple camera get the thumbs up

It seems that Samsung has brought in a winning mid-fielder - the Galaxy A7 (2018) got a 74% approval rating. This is a phone built around its Infinity Display and triple camera and the early response to them is a positive one. As expected, some people wished for more features - a tele camera and a faster chipset were the most commonly requested. We suspect those will be present on the Galaxy S10 instead, so there won't be any in fighting in Samsung's lineup. Plus, this A7 is a €350 phone, so it can get away with those. Samsung Galaxy A7 (2018) One warranted criticism was...

Never mind the ugly notch, the Pixel 3 XL is going to be a big deal

In less than three weeks, on October 9, Google will unveil the Pixel 3 and Pixel 3 XL to the world. I've marked that day on my calendar and I can't wait. Here's why I think the Pixel 3 XL, in particular, will be a big deal (and likely my next phone). Before we start, a few introductory words. I'm an avid Google Pixel fan and former Pixel 2 XL owner. I like the camera, the software experience, the feel and the stereo speakers (in that order) of the Pixel phones. And I've always found they have that special X factor that most other phones lack. The Google Pixel 3 XL will almost certainly...

Best Buy accidentally sold a 3rd generation Chromecast to a customer

We all know Reddit is a source of pretty strange stuff. This one we came across isn't exactly strange, but it's a rare one indeed. A customer walked into Best Buy with the intention of buying a second-gen Chromecast but walked out with a still unreleased third generation. The OP (original poster) as redditors like to call it, clarifies that Best Buy must have put out the new device by mistake. When the cashier tried to scan the item, the Chromecast didn't appear in the database, but since the customer already had it in his hand and the price was identical to the second generation...

Some iPhone XS and XS Max units refuse to charge until woken up

With iPhone XS and XS Max units making their way to more and more people, an unpleasant charging issue has come to light(ning?). Numerous users have reported on the Apple discussion boards that their phones wouldn't automatically start charging when the Lightning cable is connected - in some cases a tap on the screen was needed to wake up the phone and start charging, others required an unplug-and-plug-back-in type of procedure. Y U no charge? We did try ourselves with the units we have at the office, but for better or worse ours charge just fine, both with the bundled charger and...

Oppo is launching a new series of smartphones and we think we know how it looks

Remember the three Oppo devices that got certified two weeks ago? Well, according to the latest report, they could be part of a whole new lineup and have nothing to do with the Oppo R17 as previously thought. A teaser poster has popped up on Oppo's official website inviting us to join the unveiling of a new lineup of smartphones on October 10. Looking at the poster, we can't stop thinking of an in-display fingerprint and a full-screen notch-less design. The shape of the handset appears to be quite similar to the Oppo smartphone listed on TENAA. The PBCM30, PBCM10 and PBCT10...

Samsung Galaxy P30 gets certified at TENAA

The supposedly China-only smartphone from Samsung just got certified by TENAA and we finally get to see what it looks like. However, the listing is still incomplete so we will have to wait a little bit longer for the full specs to be revealed and for now, we only have some tiny bits and the photos to work with. The listing shows a 5.99-inch device with an LCD panel and a 3,300mAh battery powering it all. The photos also reveal the rear-mounted fingerprint reader, the notch-less screen and a dual camera setup on the back. Apparently, this is not the phone that was previously thought to...

Still no Pie in the Android distribution chart

There's a huge segmentation in the Android OS versions distribution and updates never come soon enough - there's little to dabate here. Every now and then, however, a new distribution chart comes out so we can muse on the trends and numbers. The latest edition puts Oreo at just under 1/5 of the market (19.2% total between v8.0 and 8.1), a 4.6 percentage points increase from the last time we checked. Nougat's piece of the pie is still the largest, but there's a slight drop (29.3% vs. 30.8%) so a bit of the Oreo gains have probably come from updates, not just new releases. Speaking of...

Alleged Nokia 7.1 Plus visits TENAA for certification

Finally some solid info on how the upcoming Nokia 7.1 Plus would look like as well as some juicy details about the specs. This one comes from TENAA and confirms the back design we saw a few days ago. It's hard to tell whether the handset has a notch or not from the TENAA photos so yesterday's mystery remains largely unsolved. Then again, according to the specs sheet, the Nokia X7 (7.1 Plus) comes with a 6.1-inch panel featuring 1080 x 2246 pixels resolution hinting at a wide notch on the top of the display. Further down, the table reads an octa-core CPU clocked at 2.2 GHz, which...

New iPhone XS Max ad doubles down on its size

Apple has released a new video ad today, and this one's all about the iPhone XS Max. The biggest iPhone ever made is already outselling its smaller sibling, so it looks like people do prefer larger handsets. And Apple isn't at all apologetic about how big the iPhone XS Max is. In fact, this ad is all about the company unashamedly pushing the phone's size, doubling down on this trait that may not be to everyone's liking. Then again, people who do love big phones will probably enjoy the iPhone XS Max very much. It helps that it has the best display on any smartphone ever (at least...

Google opens its own repair center in the US for mail-in service

Google doesn't have physical locations to perform service on its devices like Apple has Apple Stores all over the US. Google's warranty service website has recently been updated with referenced to an in-house Repair Center where Google will officially be performing repairs. After all, Google should be taking care of its own MadeByGoogle hardware. Mail-in repairs could take anywhere from 7-10 business days after shipping your device to the Repair Center. Currently, the Pixel, Pixel XL, Pixel 2, or Pixel 2 XL are all supported. If you have a Pixel Book, you'll have to take it into a...

Apple releases watchOS 5.0.1 with bug fixes

Apple has issued a new update to watchOS shortly after the major 5.0 release last week. Version 5.0.1 is a bug fix release and fixes some of the minor issues in 5.0. Of the three mentioned fixes, two relate to fitness tracking. The third issue has to do with charging. These problems may not be affecting everyone (we didn't notice anything) but if you did then you'd be glad to know they are fixed. At 37.3MB, it's a quick download although as usual, the watch will take its own sweet time installing it and will require you place it on the charger.

Facebook security breach affects 50 million accounts

Today Facebook has announced that earlier this week it discovered a security issue that affected almost 50 million accounts. This was tied to a vulnerability in the code that impacted "View As", a feature that lets people see what their own profile looks like to someone else. Attackers exploited that vulnerability, and that allowed them to steal Facebook access tokens which they could use to take over people's accounts - 50 million of them. Access tokens are the equivalent of digital keys that keep people logged into the social network so they don't need to re-enter their password every...

The redesigned Wear OS 2.1 by Google is finally rolling out to smartwatches today

It's been a month since Google announced the newest redesign of Wear OS (previously known as Android Wear). And today Wear OS 2.1 is finally starting to roll out to a smartwatch near you. It's currently being pushed to all compatible wearables. If you're wondering what those are, the list is huge - any device that was released after the announcement of Android Wear 2.0, and even those that got updated to Android Wear 2.0. It's easier to list the wearables that won't be getting the new update, and those are the LG G Watch, Samsung Gear Live, Moto 360 (1st gen), Sony Smartwatch 3, and the...

Non-plus Nokia 7.1 colors and price revealed

A renown tipster on Twitter just offered a plausible explanation about the confusion surrounding the upcoming Nokia 7.1 Plus smartphone. A tweet from Roland Quandt popped up that can be interpreted in two ways - that the phone is going to be launched as the Nokia 7.1 without the Plus version or that there are actually going to be two smartphones coming to the 7-series. Nokia 7.1 (4/64GB) Blue or Steel, 399 Euro. No Plus in that name.— Roland Quandt (@rquandt) September 28, 2018 Given the contradicting rumors about the Nokia 7.1 Plus' front panel lately, our bet is on the second one....

Huawei quietly launches MediaPad M5 lite tablet with four speakers, 10.1-inch display

Without any fuss, Huawei added a mid-range tablet on its website - the MediaPad M5 lite. It boasts an aluminum unibody and a quartet of speakers. The MediaPad M5 lite is built around a 10.1-inch 16:10 display with 1920 x 1200 pixel resolution and it's driven by a rather outdated Kirin 659 SoC. The memory variants are two - 3GB + 32GB and 4GB + 64GB. The iconic feature, however, appears to be the quad Harman/Kardon-tuned loudspeakers that work with Huawei's Histen 5.0 sound system to mimic 3D surround sound. An ample 7,500 mAh battery ensures long multimedia and gaming sessions,...

OnePlus 6T teases the in-display fingerprint reader

The OnePlus twitter account has been focused on the 6 until now, but the first teaser tweet for the OnePlus 6T just came out. It features the hexagonal "T" logo of the upgraded model and almost certainly hints at the in-display fingerprint reader (which was already officially confirmed). You can see "Unlock The Future" flash quickly, almost as a subliminal message. This isn't the first teaser, an ad even showed a glimpse of the phone. OnePlus 6T. It's coming. pic.twitter.com/Wrdt9sCdIs— OnePlus (@oneplus) September 28, 2018 The reply tweets below the teaser are about what you...

Samsung announces the Galaxy Watch Golf Edition

Samsung just announced a new version of its recently released Galaxy Watch called Galaxy Watch Golf Edition. As you've probably guessed by its name, it's directly aimed at golf fans. Galaxy Watch Golf Edition The Galaxy Watch Golf Edition is a follow-up to last year's Gear S3 Golf Edition and is only available in South Korea initially. The watch itself is essentially the same as the vanilla Galaxy Watch plus the smart Caddie app that makes navigating through golf courses a lot easier. Additionally, the app can do record and shot tracking so you can track your progress. The...

New Huawei Mate 20 teasers focus on the Kirin 980 chipset

"A higher Intelligence is coming." No, this isn't a sci-fi movie, it's the tagline of the latest Huawei Mate 20 Pro teaser. It extols the performance of the Kirin 980 chipset (like this teaser) and LTE speed (world's first to support Cat. 21). The second new teaser is... bizarre. Even more bizarre than the piano and typewriter one. We'd say it's something about Qmoji, but the text at the end reads "master the past and control the future". As the October 16 event draws near, we guess we will see more teasers that focus on the camera. The Kirin 980 is cool and all, but Huawei P20...