Winners and losers: Apple

It was a challenging year for all brands, but Apple ends up an absolute winner. Sure, it ended up a victim of the chip shortages as well and is still having trouble putting all of its devices on store shelves. But those devices are in high demand and when that's said for devices as expensive as Apple's are, you know they are pretty great. Apple grew its sales in much of 2021. Whether it was tablets, laptops, or phones, Apple either was the number one or in the top five among rivals. Couple that with Apple's unmatched high margins and it spells a superb 2021. But it wasn't all wins for...

Samsung Galaxy S20 will get Android 12-based One UI 4 stable update next, no more betas

Samsung's been testing the Android 12-based One UI 4 beta on the Galaxy S20 series for some time now, but the lineup won't get any more beta builds since the Korean tech giant has said that the S20 smartphones will receive the stable update next. Samsung Galaxy S20 Ultra This revelation comes from Samsung Korea's Beta Operations Manager, who said "there are currently no plans to open additional betas" and the company is "preparing to open the official version." While that's undoubtedly good news, the official didn't tell which S20 series smartphone will receive the stable One UI 4...

iQOO 9 and 9 Pro to debut on January 5, leaked poster reveals

vivo sub-brand iQOO is getting ready to unveil its next flagship smartphone duo, comprised of the iQOO 9 and the iQOO 9 Pro. According to a leaked poster that surfaced in China today, these will become official at an event on January 5. As you can see from the image below, the iQOO 9 has a racing stripe design and an unnecessarily huge camera island at the rear. It sports three sensors, and a lot of unused glass - maybe the other half can be used as a mirror? A usually reliable tipster has shared the following image that's said to be of the iQOO 9 Pro, and the design is very similar...

Motorola is working on a new foldable Razr

The foldable smartphone space is definitely heating up these days, with more and more companies announcing more and more such devices. Motorola was one of the pioneers of the space, with the original foldable Razr launched in 2019. The 5G followup a year later made much smaller waves, but the company is undeterred and in fact it's already working on the next generation Razr. This information comes straight from a Lenovo exec, posting on Weibo (Lenovo owns Motorola). He promises that the next Razr will be more advanced in terms of performance, and it will come with an improved UI....

The top stories of 2021: Q1

Welcome to our recap of the top news articles of 2021. We'll start with the main events of the first three months of the year and we'll cover the next quarters in the following episodes of the series. The first quarter of the year was transformative and shaped a lot of 2021. Qualcomm had just announced its Snapdragon 888 in the last month of 2020, and the first phones with the new flagship chipset came out at the turn of 2021. The Xiaomi Mi 11 pioneered the SD888, but notable phones with Qualcomm's new silicon included the Mi 11 Pro, the Redmi K40 Pro+, the Xiaomi Mi 11 Ultra, Mi Mix...

Lenovo Legion Y90 with 144Hz screen and dual-engine air-cooling is arriving on January 1

The first week of January 2022 is turning out to be busier than expected. We know Realme, vivo, and Xiaomi are hosting launch events on 4th, 5th, and 6th, respectively, to unveil their new smartphones. Now Lenovo has announced it will kick off the new year by unveiling a gaming smartphone on the first day of 2022. Lenovo's new gaming smartphone is called the Legion Y90, and while the company hasn't detailed its specs sheet yet, it did reveal a few specs of the phone's display. The Lenovo Legion Y90 will pack a 6.92" E4 AMOLED screen with a 144Hz refresh rate and 720Hz touch sampling...

iQOO U5 announced with Snapdragon 695 SoC and 50MP camera

vivo sub-brand iQOO unveiled the iQOO Neo5 S and Neo5 SE earlier this week, and today the company further expanded its portfolio with the iQOO U5's announcement. The iQOO U5 is powered by the Snapdragon 695 SoC, runs Android 12-based OriginOS Ocean out of the box, and has three RAM options - 4GB, 6GB, and 8GB. It also comes with Memory Fusion 2.0, allowing virtual RAM expansion up to 4GB. The U5 has a single 128GB storage option, but you can still expand the storage (up to 256GB) via a microSD card. The Snapdragon 695-powered smartphone packs a 6.58" 120Hz FullHD+ LCD with a...