Category: Cell Phone

Samsung’s Radical New Galaxy Smartphone Revealed

Samsung has had a bad week. First more major Galaxy S11 details leaked, then the Galaxy S10 and Note 10 were caught up in an embarrassing security debacle. And now there’s another reason to skip Samsung’s 2019 smartphones altogether.

In separate reports, acclaimed Korean site The Elec and popular Samsung insider Ice Universe have revealed Samsung will release a smartphone next year with the camera built under the display. Furthermore, it won’t launch in the models you expect. 

“Samsung will launch an under display camera phone next year! Not S11, not Fold 2,” said Ice Universe in a cryptic tweet. 

Adding flesh to these bones, The Elec explained that Samsung calls the technology ‘UDC’ (literally, Under Display Camera) internally and it works by integrating a transparent display over the punch hole. The result is no notch, no punch hole and no need for a pop-up camera. Manufacturing will begin this month with the company “planning to bring in mass production facilities early next year.”

Samsung has also been quite open about its plans in this area. Back in November 2018, Samsung product marketing director Hassan Anjum announced the ‘New Infinity’ display UDC panel and claimed they “are just around the corner, and I can’t wait to tell you more about them.”

Since then, Samsung has been silent but with rival Oppo revealing its plans for similar tech back in June and a recent telling patent from Samsung surfacing earlier this week, plans are clearly afoot. And if it won’t make the Galaxy S11 or the Galaxy Fold 2 (previous generations were announced in February) then it may well debut in the Galaxy Note 11. 

Interestingly, UDC technology would also allow Samsung to get back into facial recognition because the sensors can also be hidden under the display. With pressure here hotting up from Google’s Pixel 4 and Apple’s dual biometric iPhone plans, the New Infinity Display can’t come soon enough. 

All of which makes 2020 a massive year for Samsung. After all, the heavily leaked Galaxy S11 is expected to deliver a groundbreaking camera, upgraded design, major performance increases, next-gen memory, a supersized fingerprint sensor and AI-focused image processing. And that is before the Fold 2, some potentially revolutionary new battery tech and the New Infinity phones. 

Why is Samsung going so far? BecauseApple’s next iPhones will be radically reinvented as well. So 2020 looks like a year where we all win. 

Motorola teases its foldable RAZR phone reveal for November 13th

We heard early this year that Motorola would be bringing back its iconic RAZR handset as a pricy smartphone with a vertically folding screen, and in February the company confirmed it was working on a foldable for this year. Now, as CNET reports, the company has sent out invites for a November 13th event that prominently displays the unmistakable silhouette of a classic RAZR V3 as part of an animated teaser image:

While it’s hard to tell for sure, it certainly looks like we’re seeing the RAZR’s signature hinge pulled away from the edge of the handset to reveal a different sort of hinge underneath — perhaps to better house a true foldable screen like Samsung’s Galaxy Fold.

Motorola appears to have multiple taglines for the event, but they all strongly hint at the foldable RAZR. The invite includes the phrase “You’re going to flip,” and the event will apparently be the “highly-anticipated unveiling of a reinvented icon,” according to CNET.

We may already know what this phone looks like, by the way, courtesy of these leaked images from Weibo.

PIXEL 4 VS. IPHONE 11 PRO: A FIRST LOOK AT CAMERA PHOTO SAMPLES

Google has just unveiled its latest Pixel 4 smartphone, following weeks of leaks. There’s a new face unlock feature, a high refresh rate screen, a faster Google Assistant, and spatial awareness using radar. All of those improvements look great, and you should check out our full hands-on for all of the details. But Pixel is synonymous with photography, so I wanted to see how the Pixel 4 fared against Apple’s iPhone 11 Pro.

Google’s Pixel devices have been the ones to beat in smartphone photography for years, but strong Android competition from Huawei, Samsung, and others has challenged the Pixel’s camera recently. We even called Apple’s latest iPhone 11 Pro camera the best on the market in our review last month, so the Pixel 4 now has some serious competition to beat.

I took to the streets of London earlier today to try out the Pixel 4 and iPhone 11 Pro side by side. I took every photo at the same time, as close together as possible to get an identical image just using the automatic mode on both built-in camera apps. These photos were taken mostly in natural light and on a sunny and overcast day.

We won’t be testing the astrophotography feature in Night Sight or the high-quality zoom included on the Pixel 4 as we’ll have a review with these features soon. We wanted to provide some early side-by-side real-world shots for comparison ahead of that full review to get a better idea of what both cameras can do. Stay tuned for a full in-depth review where we’ll dig a lot deeper.

I started off in a typical London park, picking the light between the trees and capturing a stealthy cyclist who just managed to avoid the lens on the iPhone 11 Pro. Both handsets do a great job of capturing the natural light through the trees, the shadows, and a tiny bit of lens flare.

Next up, I wanted to try something with some color mixed with a lot of natural light that floods into Greenwich Market during the daytime. You’ll notice that the Pixel 4 does a much better job of balancing the light from the ceiling here, with far less saturation than the iPhone.

One of the more telling and interesting shots that I’ve taken today is of a simple fluffy yellow cushion. You’ll notice that the yellow fuzz looks a lot crisper on the iPhone 11 Pro (on the right) when you zoom in. On a phone screen, it’s difficult to see the differences until you zoom in.

Next up, it’s time for some human shots of hair and faces. The Pixel 4 does a far better job of capturing my face, beard, and skin detail. The colors are a little cold and dark, but the iPhone’s are far too warm. I prefer the detail and color in the Pixel 4 overall.

When it comes to human hair, we’ll need to do plenty of testing in a variety of lighting conditions, but the Pixel 4 does a better job of getting the correct color in our sample shots. The detail is very similar once you zoom in on both photos, though.

I’ll leave you with a few more images that you’ll really need to zoom in on in order to see the differences. Performance between the two during the day is pretty similar at first glance. Overall, you’ll notice that it’s difficult to pick between the two unless you zoom in for detail. Apple’s iPhone 11 Pro consistently looks more saturated with cooler tones, while the Pixel 4 opts for contrast in most shots and often looks warmer as a result.

We’ll be testing the Pixel 4 fully in the coming days, so stay tuned for a full review and plenty more sample photos.

Google Pixel 4 retail box leaks, confirming included accessories

The last-minute Pixel 4 leaks continue this weekend with retail packaging for the smaller phone dropping Sunday night. Similar in style to years past, the box highlights basic specs and what’s included.

Shared on Reddit, Google again opts for the phone’s rear side — and camera — being highlighted front and center. In this case, it’s the Just Black variant with matching components, save for the bright power button.

A large Google ‘G’ logo is up top with “Pixel 4” underneath. The left edge says “Google,” while the “#teampixel” hashtag is on the back. While early units have clearly emerged in the wild, those devices were just shipped in generic boxes without final branding.

Similar to the Pixel 3a packaging, this box features a product shot of a facedown Pixel 4 in the real world. Resting on a wooden surface, the white lock key really stands out. There are two pull tabs to quickly open.

The last aspect to this leaked Pixel 4 box shows device specifics, including the 5.7-inch screen size and 64GB storage capacity. There’s also a list of what’s included besides the phone: 18W USB-C power adapter, charging cable, and Quick Switch Adapter. As we previously reported, there are no headphones or USB-C to 3.5mm convertor, which is a somewhat odd exclusion.

This particular A4RG020I unit is made in China and features a holographic sticker meant to verify authenticity.

Samsung Reveals Radical New Galaxy Smartphone

Samsung’s heavily leaked Galaxy S11 is already making the Galaxy S10 and Note 10 look out of date. But Samsung may have an even more exciting smartphone planned. 

Picked up by the eagle-eyes at Tiger Mobiles (via BGR), Samsung has published a new patent revealing work on a radical new smartphone with a bezel-less design and triple front-facing cameras. Moreover, these cameras are unlikely to look or operate how you expect. 

While the filed patent images (below) show the oval-shaped alignment you would consider essential for a triple-front-facing smartphone camera array, Samsung has already shown us this is not the direction the company is headed. How? Because after using a dual front-facing array in the Galaxy S10 Plus, it pulled this design from the Galaxy Note 10 (a more expensive phone) to go back to a less-obtrusive single lens. So increasing the cut-out to three cameras is not an option. 

Instead, the answer has been sitting out in the open for some time. Back in November 2018, Samsung product marketing director Hassan Anjum revealed the ‘New Infinity’ display – a notch-less, bezel-less panel which hides the cameras under the display. At the time he said New Infinity displays “are just around the corner, and I can’t wait to tell you more about them.”

While the tech missed the 2019 Galaxy S10 and Note 10 launches, “just around the corner” puts it in line for 2020. Personally speaking, I would be blown away if it hits the Galaxy S11 but I suspect it may launch instead in a concept device or even the Galaxy Note 11 at the end of the year. 

But why would you need triple-front-facing cameras? You don’t. You need the extra slots for cutting-edge facial recognition. In 2019 Samsung walked away from its poor implementation of the tech seen in previous devices but with Apple, OnePlus and soon Google’s Pixel 4 ramping up the pressure, Samsung now has to respond. 

Yes, if this tech makes it into the Galaxy S11 it will be a game-changer because we already know the phone packs a groundbreaking camera, upgraded design, major performance increases, next-gen memory, a supersized fingerprint sensor and AI-focused image processing. It could also contain revolutionary new battery tech. 

OnePlus shares Android 10 rollout schedule for OnePlus 6T, 6, 5T, and 5

The official rollout of Android 10 has already started for the OnePlus 7 and 7 Pro, but older OnePlus devices are still without the latest software. That won’t be the case for too much longer, though, at least for some phones. OnePlus has shared a tentative schedule of when the OnePlus 6T, 6, 5T, and 5 will see the update, and it’s as soon as this month.

The OnePlus 6T and 6 are scheduled to get an Oxygen OS Open Beta based on Android 10 sometime in the next couple of weeks, before the end of October. A stable build is expected to follow in November. The 5T and 5 won’t be getting Android 10 Open Betas at all, but a stable update is planned for the second quarter of 2020 — that’s sometime between April and the end of June.

In a forum post, OnePlus notes that “software development requires rigorous development and meticulous testings,” and reiterates that the above dates are approximations that assume there aren’t any hiccups in development. Considering how quickly the 7 Pro moved from Open Beta to stable, though, it seems likely the 6 and 5 families will stay on track.

Google Camera 7.1 is Here With a Fresh UI, New Features

During that initial wave of Pixel 4 leaks in early September, a new Google Camera app surfaced with a refreshed UI, new features, and a jump in build number to 7.0. That wasn’t an officially released build and the app was a little buggy, but you may as well forget about the poor experience and grab a stable build that is going live now on Google Play this week as Google Camera 7.1.

Google Camera 7.1 features a new pop-over UI for the individual mode settings, a level meter to help you frame your shots, suggestions for better pictures (like moving away from subjects to pull a proper focus), and a quick share menu for pictures you just took through socials and messaging apps. There may even be the new astrophotography mode when you have Night Sight activated and you point your phone at the sky.

I’d tell you to run to Google Play this minute and grab the update, but it’s 2019 and Google would hate for us to all have fun together like we once did. Instead, I’m assuming this is a slow rollout aimed to hit full availability once they have announced the Pixel 4 next week. So yeah, you’ll probably not see this on your Pixel phone for weeks. Feel free to go find a place to sideload it, apk bros, gals, and pals, since that’s what we’re reduced to now in Android. Super secure and legit. Good times.