Category: MOBILE

Google’s Pixel Watch 5 might get a custom Tensor chip, giving up on Qualcomm as a supplier. This makes sense since Google is also using Tensor chips for its Pixel smartphones, but interestingly the switch will only happen in 2026, so the Pixel Watch 4 will presumably still use a Qualcomm SoC.

That said, the roadmap document that this leak is based on is itself from early 2023, which means a lot could have changed from then and up until now, keep that in mind.

Google Pixel Watch 3

Now, this Tensor chip’s CPU would have one Cortex-A78 core and two Cortex-A55 cores, according to the same source, while Google is also exploring RISC-V as a potential alternative to Arm. Those CPU cores are positively ancient, with the A55 launching in 2017, but this is a bit of a trend in wearables.

Both Samsung and Qualcomm use older cores in their smartwatch chips – the Snapdragon W5 Gen 1 has Cortex-A53 cores (which launched in 2012), while the Exynos W1000 has one Cortex-A78 and four Cortex-A55, thus being the most similar to Google’s intended design. That makes us think this wearable Tensor might just be a tweaked Samsung chip – in the same way as all of the smartphone Tensor chips so far have been.

What isn’t known is what process technology this new Tensor chip will use, but it could be 3nm. Another unknown is the modem that will be used – if this is a Samsung design then an Exynos modem would make the most sense (it is after all what is used for Google’s smartphones).

Source

Apple’s market share declined in the Chinese market, revealed a couple of reports on the local smartphone shipments. IDC and Canalys both confirmed that vivo was the best-selling company in Q3 2024, with Huawei and Xiaomi also seeing a huge increase in shipments, while their American competitor failed to match its results from twelve months ago.

Smartphone shipments in China during Q3 2024 according to IDC & Canalys

While different analysts take different approaches to gathering their data, the overall picture clearly shows that the market in China is getting tighter. The difference between the first and fifth place is only 5pp.

IDC: Foldable smartphone shipments in total volume and market share

Between July and September 2024, vivo kept covering multiple price ranges to appeal to many consumers. We also had Apple with its latest iPhones; Huawei relied on the patriotic note as faces restrictions due to US sanctions. Xiaomi sold phones at a lower price and a lower margin, while Honor launched the Magic Flip and Magic V3 foldables.

IDC: Smartphone market share by price category

IDC revealed that shipments of phones over (the equivalent of) $600 grew to nearly 30%, while the share of premium devices ($400-$600) sank to 6.6%. This includes foldable smartphones, whose shipments grew 13.6% on a yearly basis.

Canalys: Market performance in Mainland China during Q3 2024

Regarding foldables, Huawei remains the undisputed leader with 41% of all sales in Q3, followed by Honor with 21.9% market share. Xiaomi, Samsung, and vivo completed the Top 5.

Source 1 (in Chinese) • Source 2 | Via

Huawei just ushered in a new page in its history with the official launch of HarmonyOS Next. This marks Huawei’s first operating system built independently of Android and the Linux kernel as it aims to transition its devices to an entirely in-house OS.

HarmonyOS Next is set to power the current and future generations of Huawei devices in China for now, though a global release was confirmed previously. It will work across a broad range of devices ranging from smartphones to wearables, smart home devices and car cockpits.

HarmonyOS Next uses a self-developed microkernel based on the OpenHarmony open-source core. It supports apps via the Huawei Ark compiler with Huawei Mobile Services (HMS) and promises a seamless unified architecture between HarmonyOS Next devices, the cloud as well as interconnectivity across various device form factors.

Huawei Consumer Business Group Chairman, Richard Yu announced that 15,000 apps and services are now part of the HarmonyOS Next ecosystem with more on the way. We also learned that the previous versions of HarmonyOS are currently running on over 1 billion devices globally. This figure includes smartphones, tablets, smart wearables, smart home and car infotainment systems.

HarmonyOS Next comes with a refreshed visual identity with new lockscreen and home screen customization options, redesigned control center, faster animations, and app launch speeds. There are impressive AI features on deck which are powered by system-level AI based on the Pangu large language model.

Huawei also managed to achieve a 30% increase in device fluency and 20% lower power consumption in communication between software modules. Huawei Share 2.0 promises seamless connection and file sharing between devices – Huawei says you can transfer a 1.2GB file between two HarmonyOS Next devices in just 8 seconds.

For security, HarmonyOS Next brings a self-developed Star Shield architecture with system-level protection.

Huawei is seeding a public beta version of HarmonyOS Next to users in China. The supported device list includes the Pura 70 series, Huawei Pocket 2 and MatePad Pro 11 (2024).

Source (in Chinese)

It’s time to revisit some old offers as the discounts on select phones have gotten better than what we saw even during the recent Prime Day event. There are also a few offers that aren’t quite as good, but they are worth checking out in case you missed the Prime deals a couple of weeks ago.

We start with the Samsung Galaxy S24. Last week, the base 8/128GB variant was $720. Now you can get the model with more storage, 8/256GB, for just $705 (was $780 last week). Keep in mind that this isn’t just doubling the storage, the 128GB variant uses older UFS 3.1 chips, while the 256GB one is built with UFS 4.0 chips. This means faster read and write speeds.

Next up, Motorola Edge (2024). During Prime Day, this phone cost $450 – now it’s $350 for the same 8/256GB configuration. It’s no match for the Galaxy, but for half the price you get a curved 6.6” 144Hz OLED display with 1080p+ resolution, a 50MP (1/1.5”, OIS) main camera and 13MP ultra wide, 32MP selfie and a 5,000mAh battery with fast 68W wired and 15W wireless charging. The Snapdragon 7s Gen 2 is slow, but it’s okay in this price range.

The Motorola razr (2024) was $600 during Prime Day – as we noted back then, that wasn’t a great deal. But this one is, the 8/256GB model is down to $450. With a large 3.6” cover display, high-quality 6.9” 120Hz LTPO inner display (1080p+), a 50+13MP camera and a 4,200mAh battery with 30W/15W charging, this is a solid pick for a mid-range flip foldable. The Dimensity 7300X is underpowered, but it can handle casual browsing and app usage just fine.

A higher end alternative is the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip6 – a 12/512GB unit will set you back $940. That’s not as good as the $874 price tag from Prime Day a couple of weeks ago, but it’s pretty close. You get a powerful Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 chip with this one but no DeX. The battery is 4,000mAh and supports 25W/15W charging.

Motorola’s actual competitor to the Z Flip is the Moto razr+ (2024). It was $760 during Prime Day, now it’s $800 for a 12/256GB unit. The Snapdragon 8s Gen is a (small) step down from the 8 Gen 3, but you get faster wired charging for the 4,000mAh battery at 45W (wireless is still 15W) and a 50MP 2x camera to go with the 50MP main (the Z Flip has a 12MP ultra wide instead of a tele module, the vanilla razr has a 13MP ultra wide).

The OnePlus 12R was one of the top Prime Day deals – $380 for 8/128GB and $475 for 16/256GB. Now, they are $430 and $530, respectively. Not as good, but still a solid offer for a 6.78” LTPO OLED display (1264p+), Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 and a 5,500mAh battery with 90W wired charging.

We skipped this one previously, but the Moto G Stylus 5G (2024) is a capable 5G mid-ranger, especially now that it costs just $250. It has a 6.7” 1080p+ 120Hz OLED display, which supports a stylus, a 5,000mAh battery with 30W/15W charging, 50+13MP camera, stereo speakers, 3.5mm headphone jack, microSD slot and a faux leather back. The Snapdragon 6 Gen 1 is a fine 4nm chip for this price range, if not amazing.

Amazon unveiled its first-ever color Kindle e-reader. The Kindle Colorsoft Signature Edition has a 7” e-paper display, which achieves 300ppi pixel density when showing black and white content and 150ppi for color content. This is great for reading comic books (Comixology is natively supported) or highlighting text with different colors. It’s not cheap at $280, though.

If you plan on sticking with good old black on white print, check out the new Kindle Paperwhite. It is available in regular (16GB) and Signature edition (32GB). The Signature edition adds wireless charging and a light sensor that automatically adjusts the warm front light. Note that the Colorsoft is available only as Signature edition and has the same features. The Paperwhite (including the vanilla version) and Colorsoft are waterproof (IPX8) and have a front light with adjustable color temperature.

The regular Paperwhite is much cheaper than the Colorsoft, but you can go even cheaper with the new vanilla Kindle. Its screen is smaller (6” vs. 7”), but is just as sharp – both panels have 300ppi pixel density and this generation has improved contrast. The reason to get the Paperwhite is the larger screen and the IPX8 rating, but whether those are worth the extra $50 is up to you.

Amazon also upgraded the Kindle Scribe. This one is focused on reading documents and note-taking with its large 10.2” display (300ppi, B&W). It adds new AI features that can clean up your handwriting, convert your notes to digital text and summarize that into bullet points.

We may get a commission from qualifying sales.

Having started taking reservations for it earlier this week, today Samsung has officially launched the Galaxy Ring in India, finally, months after the international unveiling. To celebrate this, it even released its very own official unboxing of the device.

The Galaxy Ring costs INR 38,999 in India and comes in Titanium Black, Titanium Silver, and Titanium Gold. You can also get it for INR 1,625 per month with 24 months No Cost EMI across leading bank cards or financing through Samsung Finance+ and Bajaj Finance. If you buy one until October 18, you also get a 25W travel adapter for free.

Like everywhere else, if you’re unsure which of the nine different sizes to pick, then you can first get a sizing kit from Samsung to figure out what your best fit is.

The Galaxy Ring is available from Samsung’s online store and will also be listed by Amazon and Flipkart soon.

If you’re interested in learning more about the Galaxy Ring, don’t miss our in-depth review of Samsung’s newest wearable.

Samsung unveiled the Galaxy A16 5G with a record-breaking for the segment 6 years of Android version updates and security patches. Galaxy A16 5G comes in Midnight Blue, Turquoise, and Gray colors. The phone costts €249 in its 4/128GB trim in Europe and shipments are already underway.

We saw photos of the Galaxy S25, S25+, and S25 Ultra’s display assembly, giving us an idea of the lineup’s fronts. We also saw a render of One UI 7’s new control (command?) center on the Galaxy S25 Ultra.

MediaTek announced the flagship 3nm Dimensity 9400 SoC. It’s built on TSMC’s 3nm N3E node, has a Cortex-X925 prime core running at up to 3.63GHz, and three Cortex-X4s at 3.3GHz. The GPU is Immortalis-G925, which was announced earlier this year. It runs at 1612 MHz frequency, promising 41% performance improvement, 40% faster ray tracing performance, and 44% power savings. The AI is handled by the NPU 890, which should consume 35% less energy than its predecessor. MediaTek is already shipping Dimensity 9400 chips to OEMs. We expect to see the flagship platform in the Oppo Find X8 and vivo X200 series this month.

Vivo’s upcoming X200 series was all over the news this week. The X200 Pro and X200 Pro mini will adopt the vivo X100 Ultra’s 200MP periscope shooter. The series will feature the aforementioned Dimensity 9400.

Speaking of chipsets, we heard the Exynos 2500 is facing yield issues and could force Samsung to use only Snapdragon chips in the Galaxy S25 series.

Redmi’s flagship K line is due for a refresh in the coming weeks, and today we have some scattered tidbits of information about it from various sources. First, Redmi’s Wang Teng teases the fact that the Redmi K80 series have been “greatly upgraded”, not just in terms of performance, but also in another area that he hasn’t yet revealed. In this mystery area, the K80 devices will be better than many devices from competing brands, which will be released first.

He also hints at the K80 family’s release date by saying that people who want to change their phones at the end of the year should wait for Redmi’s new flagships.

Redmi K70 Pro

According to prolific Chinese leakster Digital Chat Station, the Redmi K80 series will come with price hikes, and the Pro’s price will rise the most. That’s not great news, but on the other hand he also revealed that the K80 line’s top model will use Qualcomm’s next flagship chipset (which is looking more and more likely to be called Snapdragon 8 Elite), a 6,000 mAh battery, as well as 100W fast wired charging. So perhaps the price increases will be deemed worth it by a lot of people.

If you’ve read this far wondering why you’ve never heard of the Redmi K series before, it’s because it’s only sold in China under this name. Internationally, devices in this line often get rebranded as part of the Poco F series, and the news regarding price hikes certainly doesn’t bode well for the next Poco F models.

Source 1 (in Chinese) | Source 2 (in Chinese) | Via

The OnePlus 13 is coming, and it will support magnetic wireless charging, but with a twist. The twist being that it’s apparently not going to have magnets inside, but will instead rely on magnetic cases to hook up to magnetic wireless chargers.

This information comes straight from a OnePlus exec on Weibo, but since the original text is in Chinese, we have to rely on machine translation and that can always go awry, so do keep that in mind.

OnePlus 12

So there’s still a chance that the phone itself will have the necessary magnets to make this work, we can’t be 100% sure right now. If it’s going the case route, then it will be a similar system to those already offered by a myriad case makers that have built products that can turn your regular wireless charging phone into one compatible with MagSafe chargers.

The exec in question has also confirmed that OnePlus will launch wood grain design cases for the OnePlus 13, although the wording strongly hints at these not being made out of real wood, instead simply emulating the look of wood.

The OnePlus 13 is launching later this month with the Snapdragon 8 Gen 4 at the helm paired with insane amounts of RAM.

Source (in Chinese)

Verified checkmarks used to be a status symbol before Elon Musk ruined everything by allowing the plebs to purchase said status. Google, however, might be bringing back the status symbol nature of verified checkmarks, as it seems intent on introducing them to its search results.

This is only a test at the moment, which only a limited subset of Google users are seeing. But what they are seeing will definitely seem familiar to anyone who’s been on a social media site in the past few years.

The checkmarks are blue and show up next to business links, which makes this a case of good news/bad news. The good news is the plebs don’t have access, the bad news is that influencers and “media personalities” don’t either. At least not right now.

Obviously, the checkmarks are meant to indicate that you’re dealing with a genuine link for the company in question, and that’s definitely a needed new feature given how spam-infested the Google search engine is. Then again, rather unsurprisingly, Google plainly states it “can’t guarantee the reliability” of a business or its products.

Google public affairs spokesperson Molly Shaheen told The Verge:

We regularly experiment with features that help shoppers identify trustworthy businesses online, and we are currently running a small experiment showing checkmarks next to certain businesses on Google.

AI is the buzzword of the year for sure, and it’s also something a lot of smartphone makers (hi, Apple) are trying to gatekeep, only making it available on their latest devices. Samsung is kind of playing the same game too, it seems, but far less egregiously.

Still, it’s worth noting that the update to One UI 6.1.1 which brought new AI features to newer foldables is now rolling out to the Galaxy Z Fold3 and Galaxy Z Flip3 without those new AI features like Sketch to Image and PDF Overlay. There’s also no Instant Slow-mo either.

The update is a 2.2GB download, is identified by a string which ends with XH9, and will also give you the September 2024 security patch level. Despite its lack of new AI stuff, it does bring some new features, like a new way to answer incoming calls, the ability to double-tap the right side of the screen to move forward in videos, and a more powerful Auto Blocker with better protection against malware and security threats. You can even move a picture-in-picture window to split-screen view by dragging it to the side you want it on.

The changelog also highlights a lot of Samsung Health-related improvements, with a more detailed sleep analysis, new Wellness tips, and the ability to create your very own workout routines.

The new update is currently rolling out in Europe, and will surely expand to more markets in the coming days and weeks.

Source | Via