Jumat, 31 Agustus 2018

Google says no Pixel Watch is coming this year

In spite of past rumors claiming the contrary, Google will not be launching a Pixel Watch this year. The company has confirmed this through Miles Barr, its director of engineering for Wear OS, speaking to Tom's Guide in an interview today. The Pixel Watch was said to be unveiled alongside the Pixel 3 and Pixel 3 XL smartphones at Google's upcoming event in early October. However, the search giant says it wants to focus on its partners in the wearable space, and on improving Wear OS. It offers input to companies making watches using its platform, the latest of which was regarding the...

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Google Pixel 3 and Pixel 3 XL show up at the FCC

Google's Pixel 3 and Pixel 3 XL have been leaking a lot lately, even though their official unveiling date might be October 9. Today it's been revealed that they have passed through the FCC's certification process already - with most documents filed in early July, though some date back to late June. We're only now finding out about this because the confidentiality period for the technical reports has ended today. The two devices have been submitted to the FCC by Google itself, unlike in previous years when HTC (for both first-gen Pixels), then HTC and LG (for the Pixel 2 and Pixel 2 XL,...

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Sharp Aquos D10 joins the C10 and B10 in its European lineup

Sharp's much anticipated re-entry into the European smartphone market has finally happened this year, and the Japanese company has unveiled a new member of its lineup at IFA today, following the launch of the Aquos C10 and B10 last month. The new model is the Aquos D10, and while it's the highest-end of the bunch, it's still far from a proper flagship. It features a 5.99" 18:9 1080x2160 "Free Form Display" with a claimed 91% screen-to-body ratio, and a rather prominent notch. It's an LCD panel, by the way, no OLED here. At the helm we find Qualcomm's Snapdragon 630, with 4GB of RAM...

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OnePlus will open a store in Paris, France

While it didn't bring any new devices, OnePlus was at IFA, including co-founder Carl Pei. He revealed something potentially even more exciting than a phone - OnePlus will open a brick-and-mortar store in Paris soon. OnePlus has been all about efficiency since its inception, which means focusing on online sales. The OnePlus 6 already has some retail presence in France, due to a partnership with carrier Bouygues (the phone is in around 20 stores now, but will expand to many more). But this will be a true OnePlus store and it will open in time for the next major launch, says Pei, likely...

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Samsung readying Galaxy J4 Prime and Galaxy J6 Prime for launch

Samsung is prepping Prime versions of its Galaxy J4 and Galaxy J6 devices, as evidenced by the support pages it has up on its Vietnamese website. The devices have already been available in non-Prime form since this Spring. The Prime models will likely be powered by Snapdragon chipsets, instead of the Exynos 7570. Both the Galaxy J4 Prime and Galaxy J6 Prime will likely run Android 8.1 and not the Android 8.0 their Exynos-powered counterparts are running. Rumor has it that Samsung will release the Galaxy J4 Prime and J6 Prime this fall in Vietnam and the Netherlands. Source 1 |...

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Another phone with camera slider showcased, this time from Lenovo

The list of smartphones with a slide-out camera is getting bigger by the day. It all started with the vivo NEX and Oppo Find X and now we are hearing that the Honor Magic 2 and the Xiaomi Mi Mix 3 are adopting the slide-out mechanism as well. It seems that Lenovo has been bitten by the periscope-like camera bug as well - the company's vice president just shared a video on Weibo showcasing a still unannounced Lenovo smartphone with extremely thin bezels, small chin and pop-up cameras in Find X style. Moreover, the video reveals that the phone will make use of an in-display fingerprint...

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Hands-on: This is the Galaxy J2 Core, Samsung’s Android Go smartphone

Samsung’s first step into the Android Go segment comes in the form of the Galaxy J2 Core. We were the first to reveal the phone in live pictures ahead of its official announcement, and other than the absence of an AMOLED display, leaked specs were rather spot on as well. The J2 Core, like other Android Go phones, is designed to offer a light and relatively quick Android experience with basic specs, especially low memory. There’s just 1GB of RAM on the Galaxy J2 Core, so it’s up to lighter versions of Google’s official apps and various memory management tools to ensure the phone runs well despite the low-end specs.

Galaxy J2 Core hands-on

We were finally able to get our hands on an actual Galaxy J2 Core following its launch in India. We have the phone in blue, and as you can see in the pictures, it looks pretty nice in that color. The J2 Core is priced at ₹6,190, roughly $90, and it’s good to see Samsung is offering at least one funky color option. The back panel – which is removable – also feels different than Samsung’s usual plastic backs for its budget phones. Well, that or we just haven’t used a Galaxy phone with a basic plastic back cover in a while and have forgotten how it feels. It’s smooth and a little slippery, but thanks to the 5-inch display, that shouldn’t be an issue when it comes to handling.

The front of the phone is all black, but sadly, Samsung has also placed its logo below the display. The bezels are also quite big, which is to be expected for a Samsung phone priced so low. And if you are wondering why software navigation keys were needed here, it’s clearly Samsung’s attempt to make things uniform across its Galaxy lineup. After all, now that flagship Galaxies have software keys, it’s only natural for the same to trickle down to lower priced devices. However, that also means unlocking this phone is a chore, since there’s no fingerprint sensor or physical home key.

Okay, now let’s talk about the reason this phone exists: Android Go. While a proper verdict on performance can only be given after a few days of usage, the J2 Core feels quick and smooth out of the box. There has been much contention about the fact that Samsung has slapped its custom interface on the J2 Core, but the company seems to have stripped away many features to keep things lighter than other Galaxy devices. For example, there’s no Advanced features menu in the settings. The recent apps screen, meanwhile, just shows all running apps as separate cards instead of overlapping ones.

But while general navigation feels smooth, browsing isn’t as nice. Both Chrome and the Go version of Samsung’s Internet app skip a few frames when scrolling through a website. That shouldn’t come as a surprise, though, since the J2 Core is running off the entry-level quad-core Exynos 7570 chip. Thankfully, the Go versions of Google’s proprietary apps, such as YouTube and Assistant, seem very optimized as they have a more basic interface than the full-fledged apps. Of course, it remains to be seen how good the phone’s performance remains after a few weeks of usage. Samsung has built in the option to install apps directly to a microSD slot, and an uncrowded internal storage should help matters.

To be frank, our time with the Android Go phone has been rather short at this point. It feels well optimized for the specs under the hood, but we will need to test it out extensively to come to any sort of conclusion. For its price tag, it certainly seems like a better option than Samsung’s Tizen phones, so keep an eye out for our full review in the coming days.

  • Model: SM-J260G
  • Dimensions: 143.4 x 72.1 x 8.9mm
  • Display: 5.0"(126.4mm) TFT
  • CPU: Exynos 7570
  • Camera: 8 MP, CMOS F2.2

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Independent Strategy Analytics survey shows the Sony Xperia XZ3 has the best display

Sony has once again tapped Strategy Analytics to conduct an independent testing of the Xperia XZ3 screen. That's the new P-OLED screen with 1,440 x 2,880px resolution. For the competition, SA gathered what it considered the leading phones on the market. Here's the roster below. Note that the testing was done between August 21 and 23 so the Galaxy Note9 was not available yet. Sony Xperia XZ3 • Samsung Galaxy S9 • Apple iPhone X Sony Xperia XZ2 • LG V30 • Huawei P20 Here's what the 202 consumers that participated saw. The devices were concealed to eliminate...

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HTC U12 life hands-on review

The U12 Life, which is HTC's fancy way of denoting its lite devices, lives up to its name. It is a solid mid-ranger, equipped just well enough to go against some current popular competitors from the likes of Xiaomi or Nokia.

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Oppo F9 Pro now on sale in India in various online and offline stores

Oppo released its gorgeous mid-ranger, the F9 as the F9 Pro in India just last week. Pre-orders started the minute the device was announced and today the smartphone can be found in online and offline stores. Unlike some smartphones from the company, the F9 Pro can be found in more than one retailer - Amazon India, Flipkart and PayTM Mall. All prices seem leveled off and just to remind you, the handset ships with only one storage configuration - 6GB of RAM and 64GB of storage while color variants are Sunrise Red and Twilight Blue. The asking price is INR 23,990 ($338) and all the online...

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Huawei has shipped more than 20 million handsets from the P20 and Mate 10 series

Huawei just announced its next-generation HiSilicon Kirin 980 chipset along with new P20 and P20 Pro color variants and AI Cube smarts speaker and GPS Locator. Yes, we know it's not the most exciting keynote although, the chipset makes it worthwhile to some extent. On stage, Richard Yu, an executive director and CEO of the Huawei Consumer Business group, took the time to boast about the successful P20 and Mate 10 series launch at the beginning of 2018. He revealed that both flagship lineups exceeded the 10 million shipments mark worldwide. Yet, the P20-series milestone is a bit more...

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Qualcomm announces aptX Adaptive; plans to get rid of wired headphones

IFA 2018 announcements are already rolling and Qualcomm joined the party. The San Diego company has just introduced the aptX codec for Bluetooth audio with Adaptive sound. The company introduced the platform with a promise for a robust, hi-res and glitch-free listening experience. The aptX Adaptive standard is designed to adjust depending on the content - be it gaming, video streaming or simply listening to your favorite songs on Spotify or any other music platform. It has simplified UI without extra gimmicky features and configurations. The new aptX version will bring easy...

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Huawei Mate 20 Lite hands-on review

Huawei has been great at bringing the premium features from its flagships to its mid-rangers. The Huawei Mate 20 Lite is practically dripping with AI functions and assists, most of which are photography-related.

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It's official, Huawei Mate 20 and Mate 20 Pro will be unveiled in London on Oct 16

During a keynote at the IFA show in Berlin, Huawei has confirmed that the Mate 20 series will be unveiled at a special event in London on October 16. Amusingly, Huawei has branded the Mate 20 as the first smartphone powered by the newly-announced Kirin 980. The Kirin 980 is no joke - it's the world's first 7nm chipset The Mate 20 series will consist of the Mate 20, Mate 20 Pro (perhaps a Mate 20 Porsche Design) and the Mate 20 Lite, which was announced last week. The Mate 20 will feature a 6.3-inch AMOLED screen with a water drop notch, triple cameras, 4,200mAh battery, Wireless...

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Hands-on with Huawei's AI Cube smart speaker and GPS Locator

Although not really a cube, Huawei's AI Cube smart speaker is an interesting addition to the company's portfolio and an unexpected one. According to analysts, the smart speaker market will reach 220 million in 2020, so Huawei wants to get into the action with a solution of its own. Just like all AI speakers, the AI Cube offers a smart assistant to take care of things you can't be bothered with by using your smartphone or PC. To our surprise, it's not Google's Assistant, but instead, the Chinese tech giant decided to partner with Amazon's Alexa voice assistant. To our question why...

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Huawei announces four new P20 Pro colors - we go hands-on

Huawei P20 Pro was announced back in March during a glamorous event in Paris. When we reviewed the phone, we said it is the Huawei smartphone with the most complete package to date. After four months of heavy usage, we came out with the long-term review and the initial wow effect from the performance was gone. The Twilight color option was the key feature that relentlessly stayed with us. Huawei knows the design is a defining feature among flagships now and decided to introduce four new eye-grabbing color options at IFA 2018, two of them with leather texture. Yes, you read that right - the...

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HiSilicon Kirin 980 is the world's first 7nm chipset, 37% faster than its predecessor

As per tradition, Huawei just announced its high-performance flagship SoC at this year's IFA in Berlin - the HiSilicon Kirin 980 that's expected to power up the upcoming Mate 20-series. The key selling point of is that it's world's first 7nm-based chip (manufactured by TSMC) promising plenty of power and efficiency gains over its predecessor and over the 10nm chipsets by the competition. The Kirin 980 uses an 8-core CPU design with 2x high-performance Cortex-A76 cores and 2x "power-efficient" Cortex-A76 cores. We assume those two power-efficient Cortex-A76 cores are clocked lower than...

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Samsung Galaxy A8 Star review: A solid mid-range offering

The Galaxy A8 Star is the most costly Galaxy A smartphone Samsung has launched in recent history of the mid-range lineup. But unlike other A series phones, the Galaxy A8 Star isn’t widely available. It was initially launched in South Korea and China, and it has now made its way to India with a price tag of ₹34,990 (roughly $495). We have already given our opinion on some of the A8 Star’s strengths, which are its high-resolution rear cameras, impressive performance, and excellent battery life. Today, we bring you the rest of our Galaxy A8 Star review and our final verdict on the device.

Galaxy A8 Star review: Design

The Galaxy A8 Star initially caught everyone’s attention for its iPhone-like design. To be more precise, it’s the way the dual rear camera module is set up that makes the iPhone inspiration so apparent. And, well, with iPhone lookalikes a big hit in the Chinese market, it wasn’t an entirely surprising move to see from Samsung. The design of the A8 Star is, however, classic Samsung in other aspects. It’s got glass on the front and back and metal on the sides for a premium feel, an Infinity display with small bezels and no notch up front, and a rear-mounted fingerprint sensor that’s placed higher than it should be. There’s no water resistance on this phone, though.

The A8 Star also comes with a hybrid SIM slot, so coupled with those high-resolution cameras and big battery, it might be the lack of internal space that forced Samsung to put the fingerprint sensor so high. But it’s becoming inexcusable at this point, because the A8 Star has the fingerprint sensor just too high for it to be convenient for even those with big hands. You shouldn’t have to move the phone around in your hand to access a fingerprint scanner, and it’s just a shame that Samsung hasn’t yet found a solution. Perhaps the company is doing this on purpose, but even if it isn’t, it’s high time it’s fixed.

The Galaxy A8 Star is special for being the first mid-range Galaxy to sport a dedicated Bixby key. Somehow, I’ve rarely pressed the Bixby key accidentally on the A8 Star compared to the flagships, so rare that I had nearly forgotten the button exists. If you have been skeptical of Samsung pushing Bixby on its devices, that should come as good news. Those who want to give Bixby a chance can do so now without having to spend a premium on one of Samsung’s flagship phones.

Display, Sound

The 6.3-inch Super AMOLED Full HD+ (2220×1080) Infinity display on the Galaxy A8 Star is pretty good, as expected. Deep blacks, vivid colors, and wide viewing angles are all here, with the option to shift to have more lifelike colors by switching to the Basic display mode. The bezels, however, aren’t as low as one would like, especially on the top and bottom. It’s the same story with other mid-range Galaxy phones with Infinity displays, and while Samsung is steering clear of notches, the competition has been stepping up its game and that might require the Korean giant to come up with an even more compact design. Hopefully, that will happen sooner rather than later.

Before you ask, yes, the software navigation keys are customizable. The area around the home button isn’t pressure sensitive like it is on Samsung’s flagships, so the fingerprint sensor is the best way for you to quickly unlock the phone despite its problematic placement. You also get facial recognition, but that remains somewhat flaky in poor lighting conditions.

The Galaxy A8 Star’s audio performance is pretty average, at least on the single bottom-firing loudspeaker. It’s fairly loud but lacks bass and also distorts a bit at highest volume. Thankfully, Samsung is bundling good quality earphones and also Dolby Atmos support for wired and Bluetooth audio. Dolby Atmos makes a difference to both the richness and loudness of audio, while also increasing the separation between the left and right channel for a surround sound support.

Cameras

My opinion of the dual rear camera setup hasn’t changed, so you can take a look at our article about the cameras, performance, and battery life to see how they fare. For the front camera, you can take a look at our Galaxy A6+ review, which has the same selfie camera both hardware and software-wise. The A8 Star does get the new camera app from the Galaxy S9, with various camera modes including dedicated night, beauty mode and basic Pro modes for the rear camera and support for stickers. You can take Selfie focus pictures on the front camera for a bokeh effect, which does well enough in good lighting but not so well at other times. A few samples from both front and back cameras can be seen below.

Performance, Battery Life

Since our initial verdict on performance, things haven’t changed. Galaxy A8 Star continues to be smooth, quick, and mostly stutter-free. The Snapdragon 660 is a good chip, and Samsung phones have always done better with Snapdragon chipsets in the mid-range and budget segment. The 6GB of RAM helps, of course. Outside India, the base variant comes with 4GB of RAM, but Indian consumers get the 6GB variant, no doubt because the OnePlus 6 also offers the same amount of RAM on the base variant. As I had said earlier, gaming is particularly impressive on the A8 Star, with some usually intensive high-end games running without any issues.

Battery life has also kept up extremely well. One fine day, with 4 to 5 hours of usage on mobile data (and two SIM cards active), including 45 minutes of navigation, the A8 Star lasted for nearly 22 hours with a screen time of 6.5 hours. On Wi-Fi, this thing refuses to die in less than 24 hours and has 15-20 percent charge left the next morning. Add fast charging to the equation, and the A8 Star is a monster when it comes to battery endurance. Top marks in this regard.

Software

The Galaxy A8 Star comes with Android 8.0 Oreo and the Samsung Experience 9.0 UX. Most features are similar to those found on other mid-range Samsung phones, including Secure Folder, themes support, Dual Messenger, Multi Window, Always On Display, and fingerprint gestures. What the Galaxy A8 Star doesn’t have is Samsung Pay, at least here in India. It’s clear Samsung had to make a few trade-offs, and the high-resolution cameras and large battery made the cut while stuff like Samsung Pay didn’t. A good thing, then, that you have other options from the company, like the Galaxy A8+ (2018). The A8+ might not have dual rear cameras, but you do get a dual front camera and Samsung Pay. Again, it’s all about trade-offs and up to what your preferences are.

As for Bixby, this is the same version of Samsung’s virtual assistant that is found on the company’s flagships launched before the Galaxy Note 9. Bixby 2.0 should arrive at some point in the near future, hopefully with the option to disable the Bixby key intact unlike the Note 9. As far as software updates are concerned, you can expect to get two major updates, which would be Android 9.0 Pie and whatever next year’s version is called. However, security updates may not be as regular compared to the globally available mainstream A series phones.

Conclusion

Without Samsung Pay, the Galaxy A8 Star had a tough job going up against the likes of the OnePlus 6, as it’s one feature that can easily sway the decision in Samsung’s favor when it comes to smartphones at mid-range prices. But it doesn’t fizzle out like you would expect. The battery life and cameras are impressive, as we have already said before. You also get a microSD slot to expand storage, something the OnePlus 6 doesn’t have. And Samsung’s software holds its own when it comes to user-friendly features, with fine performance despite a mid-range chipset inside (and yes, you can expect performance to not deteriorate much over time, another benefit Snapdragon chips seem to bring to Galaxy devices).

I know the OnePlus comparisons above are a bit heavy-handed, so where does the Galaxy A8 Star stand in Samsung’s own lineup? Well, it depends on what you’re looking for. The Galaxy A8+ is great for those looking for a large display, good battery life, dual selfie cameras, water resistance, and Samsung Pay. The A8 Star gets you an admirable dual rear camera, better performance, even better battery life, and a slightly bigger screen in a sleek body. The price could do with being lower by around ₹2,000 (roughly $30), but if that doesn’t matter to you, the Galaxy A8 Star should be on your list if you’re out shopping for a new smartphone.

Pros Cons
Beautiful, sleek design Bezels can be smaller
Excellent AMOLED display Fingerprint sensor is in a horrible location
Solid performance Hybrid SIM slot
Rear cameras perform well, especially for bokeh pictures Loudspeaker is average
Front camera produces clean selfies No Samsung Pay (only Samsung Pay mini)
Battery life is amazing No water resistance

 

  • Model: SM-G885F
  • Dimensions: 162.4 x 77.0 x 7.6mm
  • Display: 6.3" (160mm) Super AMOLED
  • CPU: Qualcomm Snapdragon 660
  • Camera: 16 MP, CMOS F1.7 & 24MP, CMOS F1.7

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