Sprint and T-Mobile extend merger deadline by another month

Monday, April 29 marks the one-year anniversary that both T-Mobile and Sprint announced their plans to merge into a single carrier. As this day rolls around, the carriers are still seeing both support and opposition for the merger from different parties. According to a report from Reuters, T-Mobile filed an extension with the US Securities and Exchange Commission to a new July 29 deadline for the merger. Makan Delrahim is the head of the US Justice Department's Antitrust Division and told CNBC "I have not made up my mind," he continues with "We've requested some data from the companies...

Google Pixel 3a shows up on Geekbench days before its unveiling

Google's Pixel 3a and Pixel 3a XL are finally going to be made official at the company's annual developer conference, I/O, on May 7. As we get closer to that date they're leaking even more than before, hard as that may be to believe. We've recently seen the Pixel 3a in press renders in white and purple, and today a prototype has made a visit to the Geekbench online database. The phone unsurprisingly runs Android 9 Pie, it has 4GB of RAM, and is powered by a Qualcomm chipset, though oddly enough the board for that is missing in the details. Past rumors said the bigger Pixel 3a XL would have...

Realme 3 Pro gets an important update

Shortly after its announcement, the Realme 3 Pro is getting its first OTA update, which is a pretty important one too. It adds super slo-mo video recording and improves overall system stability. The firmware update weighs only 182MB and it carries a build number RMX1851EX_11_A.12, but April's security patch is nowhere to be found. However, there are plenty of changes that can keep you warm at night. For starters, Realme claims that the new update improves the overall clarity of captured photos while the super slo-mo video recording lets you shoot in 960fps. Improved system stability...

Huawei P30 Pro gets another software update, enables dual-view camera mode

Huawei just won't stop updating the P30 Pro and we are not complaining. While the last update that rolled out in India was mainly focused on improving the user experience, this one revolves around a cool camera feature - the so-called dual-view mode. The feature was advertised during the announcement of the phone but it's only now that we are seeing it reach users. It comes with the EMUI 9.1.0.153 update and as for now, it's only available in China. It will surely make its way outside the country, though. You can see what the dual-view camera mode is all about in the video below, but it...

Spotify reaches 100 million Premium subscribers

Spotify just announced that it reached a big milestone - 100 million paid users. That's almost half of the service's total users. Those listening on the free tier are 117 million. The official launch in India helped a lot last quarter as about million users signed up the first week and that number doubled in the next month or so. Unfortunately, though, even that's not enough to propel Spotify into profiting. The company lost about €142 million in Q1 2019, which is in contrast to December's €442 million in profit. At least it's less than last year's Q1 when Spotify lost €169...

vivo Z3x announced - it is the vivo Z1 with a new selfie camera

Last week another vivo smartphone was spotted on TENAA, and today the device is official. Although it looks a lot like the vivo V9 or the vivo Z1, it is actually called vivo Z3x, despite having almost identical specs. The phone has a Snapdragon 660 chipset, coupled with 4 GB RAM and 64 GB storage. The screen is 6.26" LCD panel with Full HD+ resolution and a notch that some would call retro. The cutout houses the earpiece and the 16 MP selfie shooter, sitting behind an f/2.0 aperture. The front-facing camera is the only hardware difference from the vivo Z1 that has been official for...

First Realme 3 Pro flash sale moved 170,000 units in 8 minutes

The Realme 3 Pro was introduced last Monday and today, as promised, the phone appeared for its first online flash sale. The company posted on Twitter that over 170,000 units were sold in just 8 minutes, with the amount expected to increase even more with a second and flash sales, all scheduled for today. The biggest fans of Realme could purchase the most powerful smartphone of the company in a blind order three days before the official announcement. The Oppo sub-brand also opened its first pop-up store on Saturday, where hardcore enthusiasts could purchase physically the device, as...

Xiaomi Mi 9 enters the UK tomorrow

Xiaomi's mainstream flagship, the Mi 9, has been selling like a hot cake in and outside of China. And no wonder - you are getting top-notch hardware at a reasonable price. Tomorrow, UK fans can get one too. The phone has been launched in other countries in Europe such as Spain and Italy, so it comes a bit late in the UK. Starting tomorrow, you can find the handset at Vodafone, Xiaomi's online Mi.com store and at the offline Mi store in London. The device will be available in two flavors - 64GB and 128GB. The first one will set you back £499 while the beefier version will cost £549....

Samsung Galaxy A50 update adds a couple of new features

Samsung's Galaxy A50 is gaining a lot of traction lately and owners can now benefit from the latest OTA update that just arrived in India. It focuses on the camera, fingerprint reader and Bixby. The new software version is A505FDDU1ASD6 and it's 666MB big. It brings a couple of new camera features like narrow 68-degree field of view for the front-facing camera, more background effects for the Live Focus mode and beauty video mode for the front and back cameras. More importantly, the firmware update addresses the under-display fingerprint scanner issues that some users are...

OnePlus 7 Pro's OLED aces DisplayMate tests

Rumors about the OnePlus 7 Pro's display sound promising and today's tweet from DisplayMate finally gives us some reassurance. It appears that the phone sports an excellent OLED panel, earning the highest test scores. The phone received A+, putting it side by side with flagships by Samsung and Apple. That's a big achievement for a phone that will cost considerably less than the competition, if the rumors are correct. DisplayMate's in-depth Lab Tests of the OnePlus 7 Pro OLED Display have just been completed, earning our Highest A+ Display Rating. Our in-depth Display Shoot-Out will be...

Motorola Razr V4 appears in press renders along with all the accessories

Motorola's take on foldable phones is arguably one of the most interesting of the bunch. The vertical fold, if done properly, could spark the renaissance of clamshell phones. And today's renders give us a pretty good look at the handset itself. The images appear to be in line with what we've heard so far and the retail box looks pretty cool. It could be a special edition package, though, judging by the number of accessories that it contains. We've got what appears to be a wireless charger, earbuds, USB-A to USB-C charging cable, a power adapter and a USB-C to 3.5mm audio port...

Redmi confirms flagship smartphone with elevating selfie camera

We've been hearing about a Redmi flagship for quite some time, and today the company confirmed such a device is arriving. We also expected the phone to have an elevating selfie shooter, and a video, posted by the Xiaomi sub-brand revealed it, ending all speculations and confirming previous spy shots. Redmi posted a short teaser on Weibo, showcasing a partnership with the latest Avengers: Endgame movie, meaning we might see a special version. However, this would clash with the already announced variant of Oppo F11 Pro, so we are eager to see what Redmi has in store for us. The...

Realme teases pop-up selfie camera in a new promo

Realme is officially expanding to China, as the Oppo sub-brand has already set up a local website with a landing page and is already on Weibo. Today the company posted a video at the social network, showcasing a new smartphone with a pop-up selfie camera in the center. The video is less than a minute and consists a repetitive upbeat melody that can easily stick in your head and leave you humming "it's me, it's me, it's Realme" for the rest of the day. It is the official theme song and the clip has young people having fun, taking selfies, dancing and other stuff to hype you about...

Another Honor 20 Pro leaked render confirms periscope camera

The Honor 20 Pro has already been spotted in Green/Blue color, then it appeared in Pearl White, and now a new render in Black confirms one more time the design and the camera setup. The phone will have three main shooters, with the top one being a 10x lens, spotted in the Huawei P30 Pro as well. The sensor sitting behind is likely the IMX600, and the whole setup will have a 3D ToF camera for all the variety of photos you need. The device will be launched in three weeks in London, UK - the exact date being May 21. We expect a non-Pro version called Honor 20 with three cameras -...

Oppo A1k arrives in India

Oppo A1k was made official last week in Russia. The phone with Helio P22 chipset was launched for the equivalent of $150, but now it arrives in India with a lower price tag. The phone is currently available at offline retailers and we're yet to hear if it will be available at the official online store of Oppo. The A1k offers some basic specs like an 8 MP f/2.2 main shooter and 5 MP front-facing camera. The screen is 6.1" LCD with HD+ resolution and tall 19.5:9 ratio with a waterdrop notch on top. There is only one memory option - 2 GB RAM and 32 GB storage. There is no fingerprint...

nubia Red Magic 3 arrives with 8K video recording and monster specs

Nowadays smartphone companies are offering a batch of nice specs, but compromising over others in order to have a lower price tag. ZTE decided to go the other way and threw everything it had to make a monster of a phone, called nubia Red Magic 3. The new gaming device offers flagship chipset and 12 GB RAM, but it stands out with a huge battery, two types of internal cooling, 8K and 1920 fps slow-mo video recording. Everywhere you look, the nubia Red Magic 3 has an impressive set of features. The 6.65" AMOLED display has 90 Hz refresh rate and 240 Hz touch refresh rate. The panel...

Top 10 trending phones of week 17

A bunch of new phones debuted this week, but none of them managed to gain enough traction to seriously stir up our most popular phones' ranking. In fact, only two made the chart and they only took the final two spots - the Lenovo Z6 Pro is ninth, while the Redmi Y3 is tenth. On top we get the Samsung Galaxy A50, which has a comfortable gap to the Xiaomi Redmi Note 7 in second and the Galaxy A70 in third. The Huawei P30 Pro slid to fourth, while last week's runner-up Samsung Galaxy A80 is down in fifth. The Huawei P30 lite and the Redmi Note 7 Pro retain sixth and seventh for the...

Counterclockwise: wireless charging came first, but fast wired charging is more popular

The Palm Pre was ahead of its time - it introduced the mobile world to wireless charging. Unfortunately, for all its innovation, the phone didn't catch up. In fact, manufacturers would ignore wireless charging up until 2013 when they started pushing it more actively. "Fast" wired charging was born relatively late in the game - 2014. There's no firm definition of the term, so we're counting phones that can go above the 10W provided by plain USB. We've chronicled the fight between wireless charging standards before. Spoiler: eventually Qi by the Wireless Power Consortium emerged as the...

Week 17 in review: Samsung delays the Galaxy Fold, OnePlus 7/7 Pro are coming

Week 17 was circled on many a calendar because it was the week when you could pre-order a foldable phone for the first time (while in the US you could even have received one). Samsung's Galaxy Fold was finally coming but sadly due to some issues with the early devices Samsung decided to delay the release of the foldable phone until those issues are dealt with. It's a smart move, despite the outcry it faced. Samsung doesn't want another recall like the infamous Galaxy Note7 one so it's pulling back the Galaxy Fold before it gets into consumer hands. Hopefully it will be released soon and...

Weekly poll: will you buy a 5G phone this year?

EE announced that it will run a trial 5G network at the Glastonbury festival - a record 200,000 people are expected to attend, which might have been a great stress test that will show off the increased capacity over 4G. Except how many attendees will actually have a phone that can connect to a 5G network? A couple of weeks ago, Swisscom launched its 5G network in Zurich. Verizon and AT&T are operating 5G networks in the US. Telstra and Optus in Australia already have 5G networks too. SingTel in Singapore is running tests. 5G networks are here (or at least near), but are there any phones to...

Huawei P30 Lite in for review

This year with its P series smartphones Huawei did things differently. Whereas before the Huawei P20 Lite and P10 Lite preceded their more capable counterparts by a month, the P30 Lite comes a month after the P30 and P30 Pro. And unlike the Lites of old, this Lite is sits closer to its regular and Pro siblings. But before we compare them, let's take a look in the box. The Huawei P30 Lite comes with earbuds (3.5mm ones, as the Lite has an audio jack), USB-C cable and an 18W wall charger. Interestingly there's no complimentary case in the box, though it looks like there is an empty space...

Weekly poll results: the rear camera is all that counts, front cams get little love

Last week's poll produced one of the most definitive answers we've had in a while - rear cameras are more important then selfie cameras, the vote was nearly 10:1 in their favor. However, we went through the comments to get a feel for how people use their phones and found that the world is not ready for a world without front-facing cameras. Some use them for video calls - not shooting video, just video calls. Others like the option of face unlock. And, yes, some people do take selfies, but by the sound of it, they wouldn't be too mad if there was a way to just use the rear camera for...

Interview: Realme's Madhav Sheth talks 5G, Europe expansion and foldable phones

We got a chance to speak with Realme CEO Madhav Sheth about the future of the brand and its upcoming expansion plans - both geographically and launching new models. Realme is expanding to China but has plans to launch in Europe and even the US. In fact, Realme phones should be available on the Old Continent by the end of June, kicking off with an online store selling directly to consumers. Besides smartphones, you can expect to see Realme-branded smart accessories later this year too. That covers the most immediate plans, but Sheth also talked at length about what's to come. The...

Telegram X gets a major update, introduces Notifications 2.0

Telegram X - the advanced version of Telegram with a couple of experimental features and more granular control over your settings just got updated today. And the update is a pretty big one too. Notifications have been built from scratch and the developers team introduces Notifications 2.0. Now notifications have vastly improved behavior, reliability, added customization and more importantly, they go easier on the battery. There are a couple of new privacy-oriented notification settings and better notification grouping as well. In addition to the notification improvements, the...

Samsung Galaxy Note10 Pro to have a 4,500 mAh battery

So far the only thing we've heard about the mythical Galaxy Note10 Pro is that it is planned to launch alongside the normal Galaxy Note10. Today's leak, however, tells us a bit more about the handset. An alleged photo of the battery appeared online showing off a 4,500 mAh unit, which is precisely 500 mAh more than the previous generation Galaxy Note9. If you look closely enough, you can also see the model number EB-BN975ABU of the battery, which in turn can be linked to the SM-N975 model number corresponding to the Galaxy Note10 Pro. Although nothing is confirmed and this is the...