Though 2020 will be remembered for many things, one of the year’s noteworthy smartphone device trends — broad availability of “120Hz” screens — could slip under the mainstream radar, mostly because average consumers have no idea what Hz (“Hertz”) means. Displays targeted at gamers and creative professionals adopted 120Hz technology several years ago, sometimes referring […]
Tag: phone
The Motorola Fusion+ is a pop-up camera phone with a blemish free display
The Motorola Fusion+. Motorola It’s kind of a shame it’s an LCD, but look at that big, beautiful, blemish-free display. Motorola The back, which is actually plastic. Motorola The side. Motorola You get four rear cameras and a front pop-up camera. Motorola Pop-up camera phones aren’t dead yet. After the release of the Motorola One […]
Huawei’s temperature-taking smartphone is the most 2020 phone of 2020
Point the phone at someone’s forehead, get a temperature reading. Huawei The IR temperature sensor apparently lives in the bottom left corner of the camera block. Huawei It’s interesting that there’s no labeling for the IR sensor on the camera block. According to the previous image, it lives under the “40MP” text. Huawei A picture […]
Vivo shakes things up with new gimbal-equipped X50 Pro camera phone
Smartphone innovator Vivo has announced the X50 Pro, a camera-centric device with a shake-eliminating gimbal in the camera that’s ready to take super steady photos and video regardless of the conditions, day or night. While we are used to seeing optical image stabilization, digital stabilization, and even artificial intelligence (A.I.) used to minimize blur and […]
iPhone SE (2020) vs. iPhone 11: Can Apple’s budget phone beat a flagship?
With rumors flying that Apple might delay its next-gen iPhone, and recent issues threatening to put a significant damper on $ 1,000+ smartphone sales, it might come as no surprise that Apple dug deep into its existing hardware vault and cobbled together a beefed-up iPhone 8 — er — we mean iPhone SE. Apple has […]
Android’s Live Caption feature reportedly coming soon to phone calls
Android’s Live Caption feature, which was introduced by Google on the Pixel 4 with Android 10, will reportedly soon work on phone calls, according to code discovered on the mobile operating system. Live Caption, first revealed at Google I/O 2019, uses Google’s speech recognition to provide captions for almost any form of content with audio, […]
Press 1 for frustration: Customers run into record phone waits as companies grapple with worker safety
The pandemic has caused a perfect storm of customer service issues, with companies and government agencies struggling to keep up while keeping their employees safe, and customers struggling to keep their cool. Writer Tom Cheredar spent three hours trying, and failing, to reach his cable company Spectrum two weeks ago. He called when he realized […]
Turn your phone into a webcam with the best iOS and Android apps
Like it or not, most of your human interaction probably takes place in front of a camera now. As social-distancing rules have shuttered workplaces, theaters, and bars across the world, homebound people are flocking to apps like Zoom and FaceTime to work from home, watch movies together, and remotely share a cold one. But good […]
How to find a lost phone
Losing your smartphone can evoke existential panic — way beyond losing your wallet or house keys. That’s because, in addition to its monetary value, your phone packs so much critical and private information about you and your family in one handy place. The idea of a stranger accessing this personal information is chilling. And yet, […]
The Humble Phone Call Has Made a Comeback
Alyssa MacKenzie, 32, rarely used her smartphone to make phone calls, apart from the occasional conversation for her work as a disability rights advocate. But when the lockdown for the coronavirus set in, Ms. MacKenzie could no longer pop by her mother’s house a few minutes away in New Canaan, Conn. So she has called […]
Teardown of Huawei flagship phone finds US parts despite blacklisting
Enlarge / The Huawei P40 Pro. Huawei Huawei is still using components made by US companies in its newest flagship smartphone, a Financial Times teardown has found, despite the US all but blacklisting the Chinese telecoms equipment manufacturer. On Thursday, Huawei launched its P40 smartphone—one of the first flagship devices the company has launched since […]
Nokia 8.3 is the first global phone with an integrated 5G modem
The Nokia 8.3 5G. HMD The front and back of the device. You can see the fingerprint reader location on the right side. The back. That camera bump is something else. HMD A close-up of the camera bump and its four lenses. HMD The fingerprint reader. HMD Nokia is taking the wraps off its first […]
Facebook’s new design turns your PC into an enormous phone
Enlarge / The new design does at least include a dark mode. I generally prefer bright layouts, but if you have a bad habit of Facebooking in bed late at night, this is less likely to prevent sleepiness. Jim Salter Sometime last night, Facebook’s new design layout rolled out to my personal account. It assured […]
Government efforts to track virus through phone location data complicated by privacy concerns
This is a central dilemma as officials in the United States and other nations seek troves of data that might help fight the devastating coronavirus outbreak but also could raise fears that their government is spying on them or gaining access to information that could be used against them later, after the health emergency has […]
Israel seeks treasure trove of sensitive phone data to track coronavirus cases
The Israeli government is looking to use a secret trove of people’s cellphone data to decide who should be quarantined based on if they crossed paths with someone who has the coronavirus, officially known as COVID-19. The New York Times reports that the classified dataset that would be used is normally meant to combat terrorism. […]