Apple finally acknowledges lower-than-expected iPhone sales

Today, Apple released an open letter to investors revising its guidance for Q1 of this year. The "guidance" is the information a company provides as a way to predict its future earnings. This is a rare occurrence, especially for a company with a status as grand as Apple. Essentially, Apple is lowering its guidance (expected revenue) for the first quarter of 2019 from (previously) between $89 billion and $93 billion down to $84 billion. This is compared to Apple's reported $88.3 billion in revenue for Q1 of 2018. The full letter can be found at the Source link below but here is the key...

LG patents a smart watch with a camera

The consensus ever since the first Samsung Gear was that a smart watch didn't need a built-in camera. We know this because Samsung never put a camera in any other wearable after the first Samsung Gear. To be fair, some kids smart watches have cameras but we're talking about the mass market consumer. Interestingly, this notion could change in the not-so-distant future from LG's point of view. LetsGoDigital reported about a patent that was filed with the USTPO (United States Trademark and Patent Office) by LG for a ‘smart watch and method for controlling same' as the patent is titled. What's...

Xiaomi unveils Mi Home Projector Lite

Xiaomi has launched the Mi Home Projector Lite in China. It is priced at CNY2199 ($320) currently on the company's Mijia crowdfunding platform. It will later retail at CNY2499 ($364). The Mi Home Projector Lite is a compact long-throw projector. It can project a 1080p image between 40 and 200 inches in size with a native aspect ratio of 1.2:1. The projector has a 500 ANSI LED lamp that has a life of 30,000 hours. It supports HDR10. The projector also has a built-in speaker, along with Dolby Atmos and DTS support. It also has built-in Mi TV functionality along with voice control. It...

The Nokia 8.1 uses NEG Dinorex instead of Gorilla Glass

Most recent Nokia phones use Gorilla Glass by Corning to protect their screens from scratches and cracks (as do most smartphones out there). The latest Nokia 8.1 skips GG in favor of another brand of strengthened glass - Dinorex by NEG. NEG is a Japanese company (Nippon Electric Glass) and uses a similar process to Corning - depositing potassium ions on the surface of the glass to toughen the glass. It's already used by several phones including models by ZTE (e.g. the nubia Red Magic Mars), Meizu and BQ. Dinorex is designed for mobile devices • How strengthened glass...

Huawei Y9 2019 to launch in India on January 7

Yesterday, we reported that Amazon had set up a teaser page for the Huawei Y9 2019. The page had a few details about the phone but no information on price or availability. We have now learned that Huawei will be launching the phone in India January 7. The phone will be announced at an event in New Delhi. The company has sent out invites to the media for the same. For more details on the device, check out our story from yesterday. Source

vivo opens up the Android Pie beta for the NEX and X21 phones to all Chinese users

Just before the New Year celebrations kicked off, vivo launched a closed Android Pie beta for its recent flagships in China. That was limited to just 5,000 participants, however. Starting today, the limit has been lifted and everyone who wants in can download the recruitment app and install the latest version of Funtouch OS. Head here for more details (again, this is limited to China). You have until January 6 to join. The update is available for the following phones: vivo X21 • vivo X21 UD • vivo NEX S • vivo NEX A It's a hefty download, 2.71GB in size. Here's the...

Huawei unveils Y5 Lite with Android Oreo (Go Edition) on board

Huawei's second Android Go smartphone is here. The Huawei Y5 Lite offers lowly specs and an entry-level Android experience at a very attractive price. The Huawei Y5 Lite has a 5.45-inch IPS LCD of 1440x720px resolution, a rear-facing 8MP f/2.0 PDAF camera and a 5MP f/2.2 fixed-focus selfie camera. Huawei has equipped the Y5 Lite with 1GB of RAM, 16GB of expandable storage, a quad-core MediaTek MT6739 processor and a 3,020mAh battery with regular charging. Our only gripe with the Huawei Y5 Lite is the fact that it comes with Android 8.1 Oreo (Go Edition) and not Android 9 Pie (Go...

Xiaomi has an event tomorrow, could unveil Redmi 7 or Redmi Pro 2

Xiaomi wants to start 2019 with a bang - today the company announced its first event for the year and it's sooner than you might expect - tomorrow, in fact. But what will be unveiled? The teaser post only promises that good things will happen. The Xiaomi Redmi Pro 2 - which may pack a powerful 48MP camera - has been teased for a while. Also, the Redmi 7 went through TENAA and is probably ready to go. Xiaomi announces an event for tomorrow • 48MP teaser • Redmi Pro 2 teaser What else? There's Redmi Go, Xiaomi's first Android Go phone, which won't be quite so exciting. And it's...

Oppo R17 Pro King of Glory Edition debuts

Oppo launched a New Year Edition of the R17 Pro just in time for 2019. Now the smartphone maker is launching another limited version of the phone, this time in green. It is called Oppo R17 Pro King of Glory Edition and is already up for pre-order at the company's online store. Oppo R17 King of Glory Edition The device is different not only on the outside but on the inside as well. There will be special King of Glory theme and the game will be pre-installed. The variant, developed after a partnership between Tencent Games and Oppo, will have only 8 GB RAM and 128 GB...

The Samsung Galaxy Note8 could beat the Galaxy S8 to Android Pie

The Samsung Galaxy Note8 will get the Android 9 Pie firmware update sometime in February while the Samsung Galaxy S8 and S8+ are expected to get it a month later in March. The information comes straight from Samsung's own update roadmap, featured in the Samsung Members app. It's a bit unusual for a Galaxy Note device to beat a Galaxy S device to a major OS update, given their respected market releases. But keep in mind that this specific roadmap regards a specific market, not all markets globally. Samsung Turkey's roadmap has the Galaxy Note8 and the Galaxy S8 and S8+ as in line for the...

Samsung Galaxy S10+ case fits snugly on an S9+ as seen in this video

So, how large will the Samsung Galaxy S10+ be? This video (posted by @IceUniverse) should help give you a good idea of the dimensions. In short, it's the same size as the Galaxy S9+. You can tell that it is because the case for the upcoming flagship fits snugly on an S9+ (and the Note9 is clearly too big). The S9+ has a 6.2" 18.5:9 display and measures 158.1 x 73.8 x 8.5mm. The Galaxy S10+ is expected to have a 6.4" display with a taller aspect ratio and a dual selfie cam inside a couple of punch holes. You can see CAD-based renders of the phone here - they give its dimensions as 157.5...

AnTuTu monthly Top 10 released, nubia Red Magic Mars is above all

AnTuTu released its monthly Top 10 list of best performing Android phones. The undisputable leader in December was the ZTE nubia Red Magic Mars with a score over 320,000, while the Huawei Mate 20 came in a somewhat distant second with 309,130 total points. AnTuTu benchmark results are divided in four components, with the final score being a sum of all four numbers - CPU performance, GPU performance, UX and memory. In addition to the gaming phone that sits on top of the table, we can also see the Xiaomi Black Shark Helo and its predecessor Xiaomi Black Shark take 7th and 9th....

Sapphire Blue Xiaomi Mi Mix 3 is now available

Xiaomi's Mi Mix 3 was unveiled in late October in Black, Jade Green and Sapphire Blue (alongside a limited Forbidden City Edition), and went on sale in China on November 1 but up until now it was only available in Black. Now Xiaomi's online retail store says the Sapphire Blue model is also in stock and available for purchase. You can buy a Sapphire Blue Mi Mix 3 only in 8GB + 128GB configuration, priced at CNY 3,600 (€460). The 6GB + 128GB and 8GB + 256GB are still only available in Black. There's still no word on when the Jade Green Mi Mix 3 could become available to...

WhatsApp support for Nokia S40 phones ended

It's the end of an era - Nokia Series 40 phones have sent their last messages on WhatsApp as support for the platform expired on December 31. That comes after the Symbian S60 app stopped working in mid-2017. To be clear, this change affects only older Nokia feature phones. The current crop of Nokia-branded feature phones run on a mix of different platforms. Some are Series 30 (or 30+), others run Kai OS (8110 4G), Yun OS (3310 4G) or "other" (the 3310 3G software is just listed as "Smart Feature OS"). WhatsApp for Kai OS devices like the JioPhones (and presumable the Nokia 8110 4G) will...

OnePlus 6 gets BT equalizer and camera improvements, OnePlus 5/5T updated too

The Oxygen OS team continues to push out improvements to the older models - the OnePlus 6 got updated to v9.0.3 while the OnePlus 5 and 5T got up to v9.0.1. Here's what's new. The OnePlus 6 got an audio equalizer for Bluetooth headphones, following a similar update for the 6T. The stability of wireless connections (both Bluetooth and Wi-Fi) has been improved as well. The camera software was the other major focus of this update with optimized image processing and better performance of the Nightscape and slow-motion modes. OnePlus 6 phones on the Bouygues France network gained VoLTE. The...

Realme has already moved 4 million smartphones

The Realme 1 arrived in May, marking the start of a new brand focused on entry level smartphones. The Oppo subsidiary eventually split into a different company and then released four more devices. And it grew rapidly, reaching 4 million sales in 7 months, the official Twitter account announced. Realme is having success in every new market it joins. Just two months ago it outsold Samsung and Xiaomi during Singles' Day in China and then repeated the feat in Indonesia on Lazada, the online retailer with divisions in all major Asia-Pacific countries. The sales events helped reach the 4...

Sony Xperia XZ4 with Snapdragon 855 tops AnTuTu with 395k score

An unofficial Sony phone has popped up on AnTuTu with a model number I8134 and a score of 395K. This most likely is the upcoming Xperia XZ4 and the chipset it's running is the Snapdragon 855. The score of 395K is higher than the 360K we've seen from an earlier Snapdragon 855 AnTuTu test but points to a reasonable average. It's also higher than the Huawei Kirin 980 (~270K) and Apple A12 Bionic (~350K) scores we've seen. From what we know so far the Xperia XZ4 will have a notchless 21:9 screen, meaning it's taller than current 18:9 and 19:9 screens. We also know the Xperia XZ4 will...

Huawei planning to launch a red Mate 20 Pro

Although the new 2019 is already here, China is still preparing for its holidays in February. Huawei is joining in, and sources from China revealed the company is preparing to launch a Mate 20 Pro variant in Fragrant Red, as well as in Comet Blue, meaning the phone will be available in at least seven different colors. The red version appeared on Weibo with celebratory graphic ornaments around it, meaning it is highly likely to debut right in time for February 5, the Chinese New Year. While there is a visualization of the red option, the Comet Blue was only seen in source codes,...

vivo NEX gets a price cut in India

The vivo NEX S was introduced in China in the first half of 2018, eventually making its way to more markets in July. One of them was India, where the phone was marketed as vivo NEX and priced at INR47,990, but actually sold for INR44,990 ($650/€560). Its price has been lowered once again with the start of the new year, with a current price tag of INR39,990, which is a $75/€50 cut. According to sources, the reason behind the discount is simple - vivo is preparing the market for the NEX Dual Display. The dual-screen phone was launched at the same price the vivo NEX was introduced...

What were the best-looking phones of 2018?

.inline-image.left{ margin: 20px 0px 20px 25px; min-width: initial; border:none} hr {max-width: 100%; margin: 30px; border: none; border-top: 1px solid #b6b6b6;} #review-body .author-name { padding-top: 2.8em; padding-left:10px;} Introduction Just as we see the year 2018 in the rear-view mirror we decided to take a somewhat different spin on it and try and find the most beautiful phones it brought. Ignoring pricing and feature sets we'll only focus on looks here. A quick comparison of the last two years shows that while 2017 brought mostly grey, black and white phones with...

Amazon India teases Huawei Y9 2019 availability

Amazon India has set up a teaser page for the launch of the Huawei Y90 2019 smartphone. The teaser doesn't mention the date of the launch and prefers to keep it vague with a "Coming Soon!". However, you can register to get an email from Amazon when the phone is available for purchase. The Huawei Y9 2019 is a budget smartphone from Huawei. It has a 6.5-inch IPS display with a resolution of 2340x1080. It doesn't have any of the fancy teardrop notches and instead a more traditional looking one but it justifies it to some extent by having a dual front camera. The Y9 2019 is powered by...

Top 10 most popular reviews of 2018: Q4

Closing off our most popular reviews series it's time to take a look at the final three months of the year. Coming in as the most read review in Q4 is non other than the OnePlus 6T. OnePlus' latest flagship got a lot of things right, like the great screen with a reduced notch, the in-display fingerprint scanner, the improved camera and most importantly with the better battery life. In second is the Huawei Mate 20 Pro. If there was a phone this year that tried to upset the Galaxy Note9 as the most feature-packed phone of the year, it was the Mate 20 Pro. From the AMOLED display, the...

Top news of 2018: Q4

Premium prices should come with premium quality. There are always issues with large scales mass production though and the Huawei Mate 20 Pro was the latest to experience it - its screen had a green glow seen in the dark. That wasn't the company's biggest headache this year, however, as the USA pushed its allies to drop its products. When the Xiaomi Redmi Note 6 Pro arrived at the office readers were eager to see it unboxed and reviewed. The launch of the Mi Mix 3 was Xiaomi's other win in Q4 in terms of most-read articles. However, Samsung dominated the field, creating a ton of buzz...

Xiaomi drops prices for its televisions in India

Xiaomi has announced that it is slashing prices on select television models in India. The Mi LED Smart TV 4A 32 will now be available for INR 12,499 ($179), down from the previous INR 13,999 ($201). The Mi LED TV 4C PRO 32 will now be available for INR 13,999 ($201), down from the previous INR 15,999 ($229). The drop in prices is due to the change in government levied taxes on televisions up to 32-inches in size from 28% to 18%, and Xiaomi is passing on the savings to the customer. Xiaomi also dropped the price of the Mi LED TV 4A PRO 49 from INR 32,999 ($473) to INR...

The Top 20 most popular phones of 2018

We are sending away 2018 and we look back and see what were the most popular phones over the past year. While there are 20 phones in the yearly selection, the list of manufacturers is scarce. To be more precise, two out of every three devices come from either Xiaomi or Samsung. Samsung brought us 7 of the most popular phones in 2018 - hardly a surprise that the world's largest manufacturer dominates the popularity chart. Somewhat less expected is that Xiaomi got 6. Last year, the number for the Korean manufacturer was the same, but the Chinese maker is up by one, showcasing...