T-Mobile confirms Oreo for Samsung Galaxy J7 Prime and Galaxy Tab E

T-Mobile has confirmed the Oreo update for a couple of affordable Samsung devices on its network. The devices in question are the Galaxy J7 Prime and the Galaxy Tab E 8.0, with the carrier's website saying T-Mobile and Samsung have agreed to support Android version 8.0 for these handsets. Sadly, there's no information on when the update would start...

Samsung showcased foldable display phones behind closed doors at CES 2018

Trade shows offer a perfect opportunity for manufacturers to gauge user opinion on future products. According to some anonymous industry insider info, Samsung took advantage of this practice at CES 2018 to showcase its progress on the eagerly-anticipated foldable mobile displays concept. There were already quite a few hints at the show floor for...

New Sony Xperia XA1/XA1 Plus update brings Spectre and Meltdown fixes

Sony has started pushing out a new update to its Xperia XA1 and XA1 Plus smartphones. Arriving as build number 40.0.A.6.189 and 48.0.A.1.131, respectively, the update brings along Android security fixes for the month of January. It also includes fixes for the recently-uncovered Spectre and Meltdown security vulnerabilities. The Android version remains...

Huawei Honor 7X review

We've come to accept Honor devices as being great value. Relying on proven technology from its parent company Huawei, the Chinese brand has been consistently focused on bringing very good specs at tempting prices. That's no easy task, yet Honor makes it seem almost effortlessly natural at this point, with devices like the Honor 7X. Source: htt...

Job listing lends more weight to rumors about OLED display on upcoming Sony flagships

In the beginning of the year 2017, there were reports that Sony would start using OLED displays on its 2018 flagship models. And now, lending more weight to these rumors, an official job listing has been spotted that reveals the company is looking for a "Display Engineer" who must be having "OLED experience." The job was posted back in November end...

Android Oreo update to start hitting some LG V30 units shortly

An Oreo update for the LG V30 has been imminent for some time now, no doubt about it. In fact, some LG v300S SK Telecom units are already enjoying Android 8.0.0 v19c software availability. Meanwhile, most other popular market variants of the handset across the US and Europe are still running the latest, officially available v10c Nougat builds. Model...

Google confirms Home Max issue causing WiFi networks to be killed

Google has confirmed an issue with its premium Home Max smart speaker. The problem in question, affected users say, causes WiFi networks to be killed, which means the router/modem requires a hard restart to bring the network up again. Going by reports on the official Google forum, most users who are affected by the issue are using a TP-Link Archer...

Test: iPhone 8 and iPhone 7 performance after the Spectre and Meltdown patches

Sectre and Meltdown shook the tech industry - they allow malicious code to peek at protected data. They do it by exploiting CPU features meant to speed up execution, so the solution is simple but unpleasant - devs have to circumvent those performance-enhancing features. We were prompted by the huge performance hit to the iPhone 6 after the update...

Deal: Sony Xperia XZ1 drops to $543.44 in silver

Sony announced the Xperia XZ1 at IFA last summer, and the phone subsequently made its way to the US in mid-September. It launched over there, in unlocked form, with a price tag of $699.99. In the meantime the price has dropped to $599.99, but today there's an even better deal to be had if you don't mind purchasing the handset in its Warm Silver iteration....

Sony Xperia XA2, XA2 Ultra, and L2 go on pre-order in the US and UK

Sony unveiled three new mid-range smartphones at CES this week, the Xperia XA2, XA2 Ultra, and L2. All three are now up for pre-order in both the US and the UK. Best Buy is the retailer to go to if you want to be among the first people in the US to own one of these handsets. The company will charge you $349.99 for the XA2, $449.99 for the XA2 Ultra,...

BlackBerry Motion is finally available to order in the US for $449.99 unlocked

The BlackBerry Motion got official last October, and has since made its way to Europe, the Middle East, and Canada. Starting today, it's also finally available to order in the US. You can have one for $449.99, and you can pick it up from Amazon or Best Buy. That amount nets you an unlocked device that will work on AT&T, T-Mobile, as well as the...

Xiaomi suspends Mi A1 Oreo update after performance issues

Xiaomi launched the Mi A1 under the Android One program with Android Nougat and promised Oreo by the end of 2017. The update arrived on the last day of the year, but Xiaomi got ahead of itself because users started complaining about unresponsive apps and battery drains. The company acknowledged the issues and stopped the update. The rollout of 8.0...

Here's our first look at the Sharp Aquos S3 in the wild

While we wait for its January 16 announcement in Taiwan, we get to see the first live images of the upcoming Sharp Aquos S3. The live images fall in line with those we saw from the Aquos S3's visit to the TENAA. It has glass on the front and back with a metal frame, sandwitched in between. The phone was also certified by the Taiwanese communications...

Huawei patents touch-sensitive bezel for smartwatches

Huawei patent for a touch-sensitive bezel for smartwatches was approved by the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO). According to the document, the edge of the watch will have eight zones that can send various commands, when triggered in various combinations. It will allow Huawei to adds extra controls without the need for more buttons,...

Here are the new 2018 additions to Google's Android Excellence app list

Truth be told, we rarely find ourselves just aimlessly browsing for new apps, without any particular usage in mind. Still, it doesn't hurt to get some recommendations from time to time, especially when they come straight from Google. The online titan recently updated its "Android Excellence" list with some 2018 entries. That is to say, not necessarily...

Alleged LG G7 render suggests even tinier bezels, dual front cameras

LG said it is discontinuing the G series naming, but the new flagship might be named LG G7 after all. The device is expected to go on sale in April and a first alleged render of the phone appeared. According to the image, the top and bottom bezels will be even tinier than the LG G6, while the ones on the side will be non-existent. The render reveals...

iPhone 6 takes massive performance hit after Spectre patch

We always knew that patching the recently-discovered Meltdown and Spectre vulnerabilities will involve a drop in performance, especially in older devices. The magnitude of the drop is still being examined, but the early results don't look good. In at least one case, an iPhone 6 saw its Apple A8 lose 40% of its CPU performance after going from iOS...

HTC U11 EYEs leaks in full, Snapdragon 652 confirmed

HTC confirmed that the U11 EYEs will make its debut next week on 15 of January but spared any details. Now, thanks to Evan Blass, we get the a comprehensive list of the device's specs. The HTC U11 EYEs will be built around a 6-inch LCD3 screen of 1080x2160px resolution. It will be powered by a Snapdragon 652 with 4GB of RAM and 64GB of onboard storage...

Honor 9 Lite India launch set for next week

We already know the Honor 9 Lite is coming to India this month, and now we have the exact launch date. On its official forums, the company has announced that the India launch event for the phone is set for January 17. It was recently revealed that the device will be exclusive to online retailer Flipkart in the country. There's still no information...

OnePlus 3 and 3T get OxygenOS 5.0.1 with aptX HD, Soft screen calibration

OnePlus 3 and 3T owners were greeted with an update notification this morning - Oxygen OS 5.0.1 has arrived. The full update weighs 1.47GB, though you only need to download a tenth of that if you're already on 5.0.0. Audiophiles who are also wire-phobes will appreciate the addition of aptX HD (aka aptX Lossless). It transmits high-quality audio at...

Leaked Samsung Galaxy S9 retail box unveils specs

The Samsung Galaxy S9 is coming next month at MWC 2018, but some specs might have been outed by an alleged retail box that got pictured. Although most of the specs look similar to the current Galaxy S8, there a couple of interesting additions - stereo speakers and variable aperture for the Dual Pixel 12 MP camera. The box says f/1.5 / f/2.4, meaning...

Hands-on with Razer's Project Linda

Razer has a very good reputation among the gaming community and its die-hard fans. This is a company that focuses on gaming laptops, sharp-looking accessories, services, and now caters to a new niche that was recently defined by Razer: a smartphone made with the mobile gamer in mind. Adding onto the company's vision, Razer took CES to unveil a laptop...

Deal: Grab a Motorola Moto Z Play for $270

The Motorola Moto Z Play has received a solid discount in the US, where retailer B&H has it listed for $270. That's down $180 from the $450 price tag the handset usually carries there. Motorola is officially selling the phone for $400, so you still end up saving $130 if you purchase the handset from B&H. The model on offer is unlocked and...

HTC U11 EYEs arriving next week

Last month, reliable tipster Evan Blass (@evleaks) revealed the upcoming HTC Harmony will be launched as HTC U11 EYEs. Then there were reports that the device has also received 3C certification in China. And now, the company has confirmed the unveiling date for the handset. Through its Weibo account, HTC shared a 'save the date' invite which reveals...

Skype adds Private Conversations with end-to-end encryption

Skype is the latest messaging service to jump onto the end-to-end encryption bandwagon. The Microsoft-owned service has partnered up with Signal in order to enable the new functionality, which is optional and not default for every chat. Thus, Skype's implementation is similar to what Facebook Messenger uses, which has dedicated Secret Conversations...

OnePlus 6 arrives in June with Snapdragon 845, CEO reveals

Late last year a purported list of smartphones arriving in 2018 with Qualcomm's Snapdragon 845 chipset on board got leaked, and it mentioned the OnePlus 6 would be launching in June. Now in an interview with CNET, OnePlus CEO Pete Lau has confirmed both of those details. "There's no other choice" for his company than the Snapdragon 845, Lau said....

Nokia BH-501 Bluetooth earbuds launch in China for $46

Nokia has outed a new mobile accessory today. We're talking about the BH-501 Bluetooth earbuds, which confusingly share their model number with the BH-501 Bluetooth behind-the-neck headset from 2007. On one hand, that just goes to show how long the Finnish brand has been in this business. On the other hand, we assume another model number could have...

Samsung Galaxy A8 (2018) review

Samsung Galaxy A8 (2018) is not a successor to a particular A-series phone. It's more of a trimmed Galaxy S8 version for the masses with matching design, screen, and the current number 8. Or so Samsung would have us believe. Source: https://www.gsmarena.com/samsung_galaxy_a8_2018-review-1710.p...

$29 battery replacements for iPhone 6 Plus delayed until March or April

Last month Apple came clean about intentionally slowing down iPhones with old batteries. Subsequently, the company has offered an apology to its customers, and as part of that it's lowered the out of warranty battery replacement fee from $79 to $29. This price applies to the iPhone 6 and newer devices, and will be valid until the end of the year....

Nokia 8 gets a poor DxOMark score

While we wait for the oft-rumored Nokia 9 to be announced, HMD Global's current flagship smartphone has been put through the DxOMark testing procedures. The end result is anything but impressive, especially given the Zeiss name on the back of the phone. While the Leica-branded camera in Huawei's Mate 10 Pro has tied it with the iPhone X in second...

Essential is now offering PH-1 accessories on its website

Sales of the Essential PH-1 haven't exactly being in the millions, but the phone enjoys a rather dedicated fanbase. About 50,000 units were sold, in by the middle of last month, although the limited availability plays a large part in that. That does not prevent Andy Rubin and company from launching official accessories on the Essential website. The...

HMD trademarks "Asha", Nokia's former feature phone line

HMD just trademarked "Asha" with the EU Intellectual Property Office. Nokia Asha phones, for those who don't remember them, were a lineup of feature phones that often featured a touchscreen and a focus on online services - Facebook, Twitter and WhatsApp. Asha phones offered smartphone-like functionality at a time when actual smartphones were too...

Huawei P11 and P12 spotted in test pages on Huawei.com

Huawei's web design team is getting ready to put up the next P-series flagship and along the way several test pages leaked. They list both Huawei P11 and P12, though it's pretty clear that these are just placeholders. Still, that calls into question whether the new model will be called P30 as previously thought. Huawei isn't the only company pondering...

Qualcomm expected to get EU's approval to acquire NXP

It's not official yet, but the European Commission is expected to approve Qualcomm's $47 billion acquisition of NXP. Initially the Commission thought that the combination of Qualcomm's baseband processors and NXP's NFC tech will harm competition. It seems that its in-depth investigation has concluded that this is not the case. Both Qualcomm and the...

Xiaomi sells over 1M Redmi 5A units in less than a month in India

Xiaomi launched the affordable Redmi 5A in India on December 7. In under a month, the company managed to sell over 1 million units, according to Manu Kumar Jain, managing director of Xiaomi India. He bragged about the milestone on Twitter to thank the Mi fans and to hand out Mi Band HRX devices to five lucky winners who retweeted the message. The...

Kantar: iPhone X is a bestseller in the UK, Japan and China

Research company Kantar Worldpanel released its report on the smartphone market for the September-November period of 2017. The data revealed a mixed performance from iOS, despite launching three new phones. Share across big five European markets (Germany, France, UK, Spain, Italy) fell by 0.6 percent points to 23.9% and by 3.8 percent points to 39.8%...

Last Samsung Galaxy S8/S8+ oreo beta build begins rolling

Samsung has started pushing out a new Oreo beta build to eligible Galaxy S8/S8+ units. Arriving as software version ZRA5 and weighing in at around 595MB, the update brings bug fixes andthe Android security patch for January. This is highly likely to be the last beta update, as the beta program is scheduled to end on January 15, which will be followed...

Samsung Galaxy A8 (2018) now available in the UK

The Samsung Galaxy A8 (2018) just launched in mainland Europe and is now available in the UK as well... sort of. The phone (A530F) is available on Clove UK, but those are imported European units - meaning they come with an EU plug charger. At a price of £480, you may as well do the importing yourself - the price is €500, which works out to £440 and...

Benchmark shows one of the Huawei P20 models will have an 18.7:9 screen

The Huawei P10 Plus and Mate 10 (vanilla) feature screens with QHD resolution, however an early sighting of the Huawei P20 suggests that the company is still not ready to fully commit to leaving 1080p behind. An HTML compliance benchmark recorded the EML-AL00 - one of the P20 variants - will have 1,080 x 2,244px resolution. That is an aspect ratio...

Hands-on with vivo's in-display fingerprint scanner

Vivo has worked in conjunction with Synaptics to make the first smartphone with a fingerprint scanner integrated into its display. The company just unveiled the near-final product and we were shown a demo unit at CES. This gives us a good idea of what we can expect from the new fingerprint solution. Vivo first showed off its under-screen fingerprint...

New update hitting Samsung Galaxy A5 (2017)

Samsung has started pushing a new update to its Galaxy A5 (2017) smartphone. Arriving as firmware version A520FXXU4BRA8 and weighing in at 22MB, it's a security update that brings the January security patch. The update is currently hitting units in Europe (the Netherlands to be specific), although it's reasonable to assume that other regions will...

Lava Red OnePlus 5T goes on sale in India on January 20

Initially, the January 26 date was being rumored, then reports pointed to January 23. However, the Lava Red color option for the OnePlus 5T will be available in India even sooner. Amazon India has confirmed that it has exclusivity over the model in India, where sales will begin on January 20. The variant will carry a tag of INR 37,999, which currently...

T-Mobile launches new BOGO deal for iPhone 8, Galaxy S8, LG V30 and more this Friday

T-Mobile is getting ready to launch a new Buy One, Get One free (BOGO) deal of sorts this Friday. You'll be able to grab two for the price of one if you choose the 64GB iPhone 7, 7 Plus or 8, Samsung Galaxy S8, LG G6, V30, or V30+. Whichever combination of two units you pick, you will receive a mail-in rebate that covers the cost of the lower priced...

Panasonic announces GH5s mirrorless camera for $2499

Panasonic has launched the GH5s, an even more video-focused version of the popular and already video-friendly GH5. The new camera comes with a bunch of changes, most of which are under the hood. For starters, the GH5s has a new 12.5MP sensor with 10.2MP usable resolution. The extra pixels allow the camera to maintain its diagonal field of view when...

Upcoming alcatel 3C leaks in press renders

At CES a couple of days ago, alcatel teased a full revamp of its smartphone roster. Gone is the Idol branding, and in are tall 18:9 displays across the board. The brand will fully unveil its 1, 3, and 5 series devices at MWC next month. Yet we've already seen the alcatel 5 in a leaked press render. And now one of its lower-end siblings, the alcatel...

Sony posts official hands-on video of Xperia XA2 Ultra and its two other CES phones

Sony unveiled three Android phones at CES: the Xperia XA2, Xperia XA2 Ultra and Xperia L2. We spent some time with them and posted our hands-on impressions but Sony has now published an official hands-on video. The video covers the highlight features of each phone, though the tone is a bit... overly upbeat. It really doesn't spare any compliments...

LG ThinQ WK9 combines Google Assistant, awesome speakers and an 8" screen

Earlier LG unveiled ThinQ smart speakers with Google Assistant and today it is expanding that lineup with a smart display - the LG ThinQ WK9. It has impressive stereo speakers of its own, tuned by Meridian Audio, but it stands out with an 8" touchscreen. It has Chromecast functionality built in so you can cast to it from other devices. With the camera...

Lenovo Mirage VR headset and camera hands-on

A standalone VR headset developed jointly by Lenovo and Google was announced back in June 2017. The product made its way to CES 2018, and now it's official - meet the Lenovo Mirage Solo. The Chinese manufacturer also introduced the Lenovo Mirage VR streaming camera with two 180-degree lenses for immersive 3D. The Mirage Solo headset is based on the...

Deal: HTC 10 now €300 in France

HTC moved away from metal bodies and 3.5mm jacks, but you can relive those glory days with an HTC 10 - currently €300 in France, sold by Rue Du Commerce (A Carrefour company). Available in Silver (the other colors are too pricey), the phone comes with 4GB of RAM and 32GB storage. Units will start shipping on Friday, January 12, so you can't get it...

Motorola announces a health monitor and a keyboard Mod

Motorola has announced two new Moto Mods for compatible devices, the Lenovo Vital and the Livermorium Slider Keyboard. The Lenovo Vital is easily the more interesting of the two. It is a health monitor that can be slapped on the back of your phone and measure your heart rate, respiratory rate, oxygen saturation, core body temperature and for the...