Exclusive: This is the iQOO 12 design story

Less than 24 hours before the iQOO 12 launch in China, we’re bringing you a sneak peek at the design process that went into the upcoming flagship. Speed, functionality and elegance are the three cornerstones of the iQOO 12 design with each contour and detail on the phone being meticulously crafted to the company’s high standards.

The signature design detail on the iQOO 12 is its camera island inspired by ship portholes used on the hull of ships to let in light and air. It features eight subtle arcs and a 3D curved glass which undergoes a hot-bending process. The camera island is...


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vivo X100 Pro appears in more hands-on images and teaser video

The vivo X100 series is launching next week and we’ve already seen several specs and design teasers so far and vivo’s official Weibo page shared some more hands-on images of the X100 Pro alongside a teaser video.

vivo X100 Pro

The X100 Pro is shown in its blue and orange colors with the former featuring a frosted glass back with white elements inspired by star trails while the latter gets a textured vegan leather back.

The new teaser video goes over the X100 Pro’s key specs which include a 1-inch type main sensor working in tandem with vivo’s self-developed...


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XREAL Air 2 review

Introduction

If you've been following the AR space, you've probably come across the Nreal brand. The company has been one of the most successful in actually commercializing AR glasses, reaching 100,000 sales in 2022. The company's Air glasses are thus a rather popular product in the growing space.

Following a trademark dispute with Epic Games, Nreal rebranded to XREAL and has since been expanding its portfolio, putting out the Beam accessory that extends the functionality of the Air glasses and now a new pair of Air models - Air 2 and Air 2 Pro. The two models are actually nearly...


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Week 42 in review: Apple's M3 chip is here, Galaxy S23 gets Android 14

Samsung's announcement of the Galaxy Z Flip5 Reto - an ode to the Samsung E700 from 2003 - was the most popular story of this week. Flip5 Retro features the same iconic indigo blue and silver colors as the E700 and comes with some nostalgic pixel graphics UI tweaks and cityscape animation on its Flex Window cover screen. The phone is available in limited quantities in South Korea from November 1 as well as in the UK, France, Germany, Spain, and Australia from November 2.

Samsung started rolling the One UI 6 update to select Galaxy S23 series along with Android 14. There's a new design with...


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Weekly poll: can Xiaomi 14 and 14 Pro's powerful chipset and cameras tempt you into buying one?

Just a couple of days after Qualcomm lifted the veil off the new Snapdragon 8 Gen 3, Xiaomi announced the Xiaomi 14-series – the first phones to use the new flagship chipset. They will launch with HyperOS, the company’s next-generation software that will replace MIUI going forward. That means several major “firsts” happened on Wednesday this week when the two phones launched in the Chinese market (the first flash sale sold out pretty quickly).

They will go global too, of course, though it will be a couple of months until then. For now, we will have to work with the pricing for China – the...


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Flashback: the Nokia N86 8MP was the last of the great Symbian sliders

The Nokia N95 was a high point for Symbian, but as we noted in our previous Flashback article, its success was never replicated. It was also the end for this form factor – the Swiss army knife slider phone.

The original N95 came in early 2007, followed a few months later by the much-improved N95 8GB. Our destination for today’s story is the N86 8MP, but we have to take a twisty path to get there.

2007 also brought the more affordable Nokia N81. It launched in two versions – one with basically no built-in storage but with an included 2GB microSD card and one with 8GB of built-in storage...


http://dlvr.it/SyPZct

vivo X100 shows up in a live photo

The vivo X100 series is about to debut later this month and numerous leaks of the design showed us what to expect at launch day, but we've never seen a vivo X100 out in the wild until now. Well, a Weibo user shared a live image of what appears to be an X100 from the back.

The device shows up in a light blue color, which we've already seen in leaked renders, but the sparkly, concentric pattern isn't as obvious as the renders would make you believe. The wavy forms of the back glass seem in line with the renders, though.

vivo X100

The camera island is as expected, except for the...


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OnePlus 12 shows up on 3C certification with 100W charging

According to previous rumors, the OnePlus 12 is just around the corner as the company is gearing up to launch the handset earlier than expected. In fact, we could see the handset appear by the end of this month in China and the latest 3C certification can attest to that.

The handset popped up on the Chinese 3C website with a 100W-capable wired charger, confirming the initial rumors that there won't be any change in the charging speed. The listing shows a charging brick with 11V/9.1A, which is exactly the same as the OnePlus 11.

However, the renowned tipster DIgital Chat Station on...


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Samsung announces the 50MP ISOCELL GNK sensor with improved dynamic range and video capabilities

Samsung announced its new 50MP ISOCELL GNK sensor boasting improved video recording capabilities and wider dynamic range for stills. The sensor is a direct successor to the 50MP ISOCELL GN1 that other OEMs and Samsung itself widely use.

Spec-wise, the GNK is identical to the GN1. The 50MP imager is 1/1.3" in size and offers 1.2µm pixels. But to improve the sensor's performance, the company used other smarts. For instance, the Dual Pixel Pro autofocus ensures sharp photos of moving objects as the focus time is greatly improved.

Additionally, the sensor can capture images with a...


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WhatsApp to soon roll out email verification

Some users using the beta branch of WhatsApp are prompted to verify their accounts using their personal emails. It looks like a limited rollout of the feature, though, as only a handful of beta users report the novelty.

Screenshot from the email verification prompt

There were early reports regarding email verification, suggesting that the WhatsApp team has been working on an email verification system since August. The new verification method aims to apply another layer of security to users' accounts. It's going to make hacking into accounts a tad more difficult.

Even though the...


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The Huawei P30 and Mate 20 series will get HarmonyOS 4 in Q1 of 2024

Huawei just announced that it will update the Huawei P30 and Mate 20 series to HarmonyOS 4 in the first quarter of 2024.

The update will only be seeded to Chinese units, but still it's a surprising development, as neither series was in the official supported list of devices. The Mate 40 and Mate 50, and the P50 and P60 series are the current generational flagships for Huawei.

HarmonyOS 4 was unveiled in the summer with a faster and more efficient Ark Engine engine, new widgets, a customizable lock screen, a Dynamic Island-esque Live Window, and more. The software is made for a...


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Samsung files a complaint against BOE

In late October this year, Samsung filed a complaint against BOE in the United States International Trade Commission, accusing BOE of unfair competition and using stolen intellectual property of Samsung to produce OLED display modules.

The two tech giants have a history. A couple of years ago, Samsung Display tried to stop the wholesalers from dealing with OLED panels in the US, as it claimed they are illegally produced in China using stolen technologies. This wasn't a direct attack on BOE at the time, but BOE responded by footing the bill for the wholesalers. These actions prompted...


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Qualcomm CEO confirms Exynos-Snapdragon split for S24 series

Qualcomm CEO Cristiano Amon has mostly confirmed reports that the Galaxy S24 series will feature both Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 and Exynos 2400 chipsets.

Speaking at an earnings report conference call, he said that Qualcomm will hаve the majority market share of the Galaxy S24 series, that is coming soon. It likely means that the reports that the Galaxy S24 Ultra will exclusively use the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 (for Galaxy), independent on market, are true.

He didn't elaborate further, but it's as official a statement as can be expected. The majority of the market share makes sense, given that...


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The Apple M3 Max matches the M2 Ultra in Geekbench

Apple's just-announced M3-equipped MacBooks are in the hands of reviewers and the Geekbench scores are pouring in. They revealed the potential of the M3 Max chip - it scores around 3,000 in single-core and around 21,000 in multi-core on Geekbench 6.

Those numbers put the M3 Max close to the M2 Ultra inside the Mac Pro and Mac Studio, which scores around 2,800/21,000. The M2 Ultra is a 5 nm, 60 W chip with 24 cores (16 performance, 8 efficiency), while the M3 Max is a 3 nm, 30 W chip with 16 cores (12 performance, 4 efficiency). The M2 Ultra has a 76-core GPU, while the M3 Max does with...


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Oppo Find X7 Pro coming with Sony LYT-900 sensor, Xiaomi 14 Ultra and vivo X100 Pro+ to follow

A new report from the famous Chinese tipster, Digital Chat Station suggests the upcoming Chinese flagships Oppo Find X7 Pro, Xiaomi 14 Ultra and the vivo X100 Pro+ will come with an upgraded 1-inch Sony sensor called Lytia LYT-900.

According to the leak, all three companies are already testing the new hardware and the results are promising. The sensor will introduce a new DCG (Dual Conversion Gain) technology, which probably refers to the new stacked design that Sony has been pushing for the past year. So far we've seen smaller imagers that claim to match the performance of a 1-inch...


http://dlvr.it/SyKQDD