vivo iQOO 9SE incoming, alongside global flagship launch
vivo sub-brand iQOO announced today it will bring the iQOO 9 series to India. It will include the already announced iQOO 9 and iQOO 9 Pro smartphones, but there is a third device, that is completely new – iQOO 9SE.
The brand revealed the iQOO 9 Pro and iQOO 9 will be “unleashed soon” with 120W FlashCharge, improving from the 66W solution in the predecessors. According to internal data, the phones will reach 50% charge in just six minutes.
The series will be available through Amazon in India, but pricing details will only be revealed once the official launch comes. We are also yet to hear more about the avialbility in other markets.
From Gsmarena
The biggest Oppo Find X5 Pro leak yet gives us all of the renders and specs
WinFuture reports that the phone is indeed shipping with the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 SoC, along with 12GB of RAM and 256GB of fixed storage. You’re also said to get a 5,000mAh battery with 80W wired charging, which will be an improvement over the Find X3 Pro’s 4,500mAh and 65W combo. The outlet reported the presence of wireless charging but there’s no word on wattage here.
As for the camera experience, the Oppo Find X5 Pro is said to offer a triple rear camera system. This purportedly consists of a 50MP main camera (IMX766), a 50MP ultrawide camera (IMX766), and a 13MP telephoto camera (5X hybrid zoom, presumably 2X or 3X telephoto zoom). This is almost identical to the 2021 flagship with the exception of the micro-lens, which is missing here. A 32MP IMX709 camera in a left-aligned punch-hole cutout handles selfies and video calls.
Other notable features include a 6.7-inch QHD+ LTPO OLED screen (120Hz), Gorilla Glass Victus, an under-display fingerprint sensor, an IP68 rating, and stereo speakers.
The outlet believes that the phone will debut at MWC 2022 with a price tag of more than €1,200 (~$1,376).
From Android Authority
OnePlus teases the launch of new value-focused Y1S and Y1S Edge smart TVs
OnePlus on February 4 teased the launch of two new Y series smart TVs for the Indian market. The new OnePlus TV Y1S and OnePlus TV Y1S Edge will debut at an online launch event “soon.”
Navnit Nakra, OnePlus India CEO, said in a statement:
We are excited to bring in the new OnePlus TVs as part of our OnePlus TV Y Series portfolio, that embody our burdenless technology experience, and provide truly seamless smarter TV experience for our wider community at a highly accessible price range.
OnePlus says the new models will serve as an extension of its Y series portfolio and bring a “more accessible connected ecosystem experience” to users across different screen sizes. Like OnePlus’ best smart TVs, the Y1S and Y1S Edge TVs will have a “bezel-less” design.
From Android Central
OPPO Reno 7 series lands in India alongside the OPPO Watch Free
As expected, OPPO today officially unveiled the Reno 7 series in India. While the Reno 7 series in China featured three models, the company is only bringing the regular Reno 7 and Reno 7 Pro to India, skipping the Reno 7 SE. Alongside new smartphones, OPPO has also launched the OPPO Watch Free in India. Here’s what you need to know.
The OPPO Reno 7 series goes on sale in India starting February 17 from Flipkart and retailers like Vijay Sales. The Reno 7 Pro comes in Startrails Blue and Starlight Black colors and will be available at ₹39,999 for the single 12GB/256GB model. Meanwhile the regular Reno 7 5G comes in a single 8GB/256GB model and is priced at ₹28,999. Finally, the OPPO Watch Free will retail for ₹5,999 but no sale date has been provided by OPPO yet.
From XDA
vivo T1 5G specs leak
The vivo T1 5G is also said to have a 6.58″ FHD+ 120 Hz LCD screen, 4/6/8 GB of LPDDR4X RAM, 128GB of UFS 2.2 storage, a triple rear camera system (50 MP main plus two 2 MP sensors, probably one for depth capture and the other for macro shots), a 16 MP selfie snapper, and a 5,000 mAh battery with 18W charging. There’s a side-mounted fingerprint reader embedded in the power button, and a 3.5mm headphone jack too.
The price is supposed to come in at under INR 20,000, and the handset overall has a “slim & light form factor”, which will undoubtedly be used as one of its main selling points. We’ll find out more next week when the official unveiling is scheduled.
From Gsmarena
There are at least 10 million modern Google Pixel phones in use, ‘Security Hub’ app suggests
After debuting Security Hub on the Pixel 6 and 6 Pro, Google started rolling it out to older phones in late October as a new update in the Play Store. It’s officially available for the Pixel 4/XL, 4a, 4a 5G, 5, 5a, 6, and 6 Pro devices running Android 12.
Following that wider availability, the app hit 5+ million downloads on Google Play. That was the count as of November 2021 and up until a few days ago. But as of Thursday, the Play Store reports over 10 million installs of the Security Hub. Google usually obscures this information for first-party apps (like Camera) that are exclusive to the Pixel.
It’s not the best measure, but 10 million gives a rough approximation of how many modern Android 12 Pixel phones are out there in use. The Pixel 4 and newer versions offer the company’s latest features, like the new Google Assistant, Continued Conversation, and Material You. Of course, this does not include the Pixel 3, which is due for one more update, or the popular and actively-supported 3a/XL, both of which also run Android 12.
Google has never provided exact sales figures for Pixel phones, though it did just report a “quarterly sales record” after the 6 and 6 Pro launch.
From 9to5Google
Apple extends lead over Samsung in the premium segment — and it’s all down to 5G
Apple rounded off a resurgent 2021 by becoming the number one handset manufacturer globally in Q4 2021. Although the overall market witnessed a marginal decline of 3.2% from 2020 — accounting for 362.4 million shipments in total, according to IDC — Apple led the way with 84.9 million shipments.
While those figures are less than the 87.5 million units it managed during the same period in 2020, there are a lot of positives. For one thing, a bulk of Apple’s sales in this segment were in the iPhone 13 series, with IDC noting a corresponding increase in the average selling price of iPhones. The numbers bear that out: Apple just posted an all-time quarterly revenue record of $123.9 billion, an 11% year-on-year increase.
From Android Central
Amazon Set to Increase Prime Membership Fee By 17% for US Customers
According to the company, the fee for a Prime subscription is set to increase for the first time in four years, rising to $15 per month (up from $13), or $139 per year (up from $119).
The price hike, representing an almost 17% increase, will go into effect for new customers starting February 18, 2022, while current members will see their plans go up after March 25, 2022.
Amazon says the increase will pay for the “continued expansion” of Prime perks, along with higher employee salaries and more expensive shipping costs. Amazon hasn’t said whether the Prime price change will apply in other countries.
An Amazon Prime subscription includes “free” one-day shipping on purchases made on Amazon, access to Prime Video, Prime Music, and other Amazon digital platforms and services.
From Macrumors
AMD RX 6950 XT could land in April to combat Nvidia RTX 3090 Ti GPU
AMD’s Radeon RX 6000 refresh could arrive earlier than previously rumored, but will only consist of a new flagship GPU, if the latest from the grapevine turns out to be correct.
We’ve heard a fair few rumors around the supposedly incoming RDNA 2 revamp, and this fresh nugget is from hardware leaker Coreteks on Twitter, who directly replied to a leak we covered yesterday courtesy of Greymon55.
As you can see, the theory here is that the refresh only consists of a new RX 6950 XT to take over from the 6900 XT at the top of the Radeon tree – with no overhauled GPU further down the range, like a 6850 XT – and that it’ll arrive in April, earlier than the June or July potential launch timeframe Greymon floated.
Greymon also told us that this refresh would not come on a new process, and drop to 6nm as some other chatter has theorized, and Coreteks didn’t disagree with that.
From Techradar
NASA Proposes Sending Spacecraft to Measure Mysterious Dark Matter
Scientists can’t yet see dark matter, but they may soon be able to measure it in a fascinating new way.
The stuffy-sounding Monthly Notices on the Royal Astronomical Society journal has published an intriguing study outlining a future experiment that could measure the force of dark matter by sending a spacecraft far from Earth.
The idea would be to study “galactic force” — which is not, as the name suggests, of a new subdivision of NASA’s Space Force nor an Xbox game — which according to a NASA writeup of the research is the entire gravitational force of normal matter and dark matter from our entire galaxy, combined.
That figure is relatively simple to calculate, if you have access to the right data. As NASA outlined in its writeup, one way to gather that data could be a deep space mission designed to probe the mysteries of dark matter.
Belbruno and Jim Green, a NASA advisor and co-author of the study, said that a spacecraft could travel as few as 100 astronomical units — that is, 100 times the distance between the Earth and the sun — to start properly detecting the galactic force.
The probe would carry a reflective ball that would be dropped once it reached a sufficient distance and would measure only galactic forces, NASA explained. The spacecraft itself would be subject to both galactic forces and thermal forces from the radioactive isotopes at its core, so by subtracting thermal forces, “researchers could then look at how the galactic force relates to deviations in the respective trajectories of the ball and the spacecraft.”
From Futurism
