Week 47 in review: Samsung dominated the headlines with its S10 and A8s

It was another week of Samsung-themed conversations in the tech world. Samsung's next flagship Galaxy S10 was again a regular in our news section. This week the Galaxy S10 talk is that Samsung will bring back the "flat" display for the entry-level model (quotation marks because the screen will likely still taper off to a 2.5D curve) while retaining the prominent edge curve for the higher-end Galaxy S10 models. Those same higher-end Galaxy S10 models could swap out the rear glass for ceramic, which will provide added scratch resistance to the phones while retaining the wireless charging...

Source: https://www.gsmarena.com/week_47_in_review_samsung_dominated_the_headlines_with_its_s10_and_a8s-news-34374.php

Weekly poll: are screen holes better than teardrop notches?

The tide of smartphone design may be shifting - the screen notch flooded the market, but a slightly less obtrusive option is on the horizon. Screens with holes cut out for the selfie camera sacrifice fewer pixels than the classics notch and could be nearly invisible with a black status bar. It looks like Samsung will lead the charge with Infinity-O screens on the Galaxy S10, but also with mid-range offerings like the Galaxy A8s as seen in these concept renders. There are some other ideas, like Huawei cutting a slot for the earpiece (the company also has designs selfie cameras as...

Source: https://www.gsmarena.com/weekly_poll_are_screen_holes_better_than_teardrop_notches-news-34376.php

Counterclockwise: modular phones were here, you could even expand their RAM

Google announced Project Ara to much fanfare and it caused geeks to dream of PC-like upgradability that would extend the usable life of their phones by letting them continuously swap out parts for newer, better ones. Excitement eventually collided with reality and Ara was shelved. Here's the thing, though, modular phones were a thing long before the Phonebloks concept inspired Google-owned Motorola to start working on Ara. And the most curious thing about those phones was that they used the CF card slot to add new hardware (later the SD slot). We should fess up - this story is...

Source: https://www.gsmarena.com/counterclockwise_modular_phones_were_here_you_could_even_expand_their_ram-news-34370.php

Weekly poll results: manual sliders are the way forward

The Rule of Cool states that people are willing to make allowances for something that's cool. And powered pop-ups like the one on the Oppo Find X and vivo NEX S are certainly quite cool. The final verdict from last week's poll shows that slightly less cool but more practical solution - manual sliders - prevailed. With nearly half the vote, the style of phones represented by the Xiaomi Mi Mix 3 and the Honor Magic 2 are the clear favorite. Reliability seems to be the major concern here and the mechanized sliders have an extra point of failure - what happens when the motor stops...

Source: https://www.gsmarena.com/weekly_poll_results_manual_sliders_are_the_way_forward-news-34367.php

Google's Fuchsia OS project adds support for Kirin 970

It's been quite some time since we've heard anything about Google's Fuchsia OS project. The search giant is keeping the lid on the whole endeavor. Still, the odd public official mention here and there and the activity on the Fuchsia repository do signify that the project is alive and work on it is ongoing behind the scenes. In a new development, a path was spotted on said repository, adding support for the Kirin 970 chipset and detailing test for booting the Zircon kernel on the Honor Play, based on said chipset. Looking at the patch and its meta data a bit closer shows that...

Source: https://www.gsmarena.com/googles_fuchsia_os_project_adds_support_for_kirin_970-news-34388.php

Snapdragon 8150 CPU details surface

As far as technical mobile hardware leaks go, this one is pretty out there, so, we'll just start with a "tl;dr" of sorts. As per current info, the next Qualcomm mobile flagship chipset, dubbed the Snapdragon 8150 will be unveiled on December 4. It has already flexed its muscles quite a bit in early benchmarks, including AnTuTu, Geekbench and ai-benchmark, with its trendy workloads. Besides performance improvements, it also promises a 20% bump in overall efficiency (presumably compared to the Snapdragon 845) and will most-likely include 5G connectivity. The Qualcomm invitation...

Source: https://www.gsmarena.com/snapdragon_8150_cpu_details_surface-news-34383.php