vivo X Fold marketing materials leak revealing more specs
Vivo is getting ready to announce its first ever foldable smartphone, aptly named vivo X Fold. It will become official at an event in China on April 11. In the meantime, a photo of a marketing stand for offline stores has been leaked, revealing a lot of the phone’s specs in the process. Take a look:
The vivo X Fold is thus confirmed to have an 8-inch “2K” internal folding screen with 120 Hz refresh rate and LTPO 3.0 technology for varying said refresh rate, a 6.53″ FHD+ 120 Hz outer display, the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 chipset at the helm, LPDDR5 memory, UFS 3.1 storage, Android 12 on board, and a 4,600 mAh battery with support for 66W wired and 50W wireless charging.
The phone comes with a quad rear camera setup with Zeiss branding and T* coating, with a 50 MP Samsung GN5 main snapper with OIS. The rest of the cameras are a 48 MP ultrawide with 114-degree field-of-view, a 12 MP portrait lens (which we take to mean 2x zoom), and a 60x OIS periscope cam. Wi-Fi 6 and NFC are also confirmed to be inside the vivo X Fold.
The materials additionally mention that the X Fold’s screen has matched or broken 19 DisplayMate A+ records, while the hinge has been certified to work for 300,000 folds/unfolds by TUV Rheinland. As you probably were able to tell from the fact that this is all in Chinese, the vivo X Fold is launching in China first. Hopefully it will make it to global markets at some point, unlike the Xiaomi Mi Mix Fold and the Oppo Find N, but we wouldn’t hold our breath.
It seems like Chinese companies are betting big on foldables, but only for their home market, for reasons that we can’t quite fathom. That’s a shame since it means that globally there’s much less competition in this space than there could be.
From Gsmarena
Motorola Moto G22 launching in India on April 8 with faster charging
The Motorola Moto G22 unveiled last month will debut in India on April 8. This revelation comes from Indian online retailer Flipkart, which set up a promo page on its website for the Moto G22, revealing the smartphone’s specs and color options for the Asian country.
The Moto G22 is powered by the Helio G37 SoC and runs a “near-stock” version of Android 12. It has 4GB RAM and 64GB of storage onboard and a dedicated microSD card slot for storage expansion up to 1TB.
From Gsmarena
Valve aims to ramp up Steam Deck shipments
Valve is saying it’s starting to ramp up Steam Deck production and will be sending more order availability emails every week to those who reserved. It’s currently sending the first set of emails to Q2 reservers and says that no reservation windows have been changed or delayed.
Any of three tiers of Steam Deck ordered now are estimated to arrive in October, or possibly later. According to Valve’s Lawrence Yang in an interview with IGN in February, ramping up of production will happen very quickly – tens of thousands in the first month, hundreds of thousands in the second month.
Having your Steam Deck delayed may be a blessing in disguise as early reviews have reported many issues. Some have deemed the device unfit for gaming, while others say it’s very much a work in progress, but having huge promise. All things in keeping with the Steam Deck’s first-gen nature.
From Gsmarena
Samsung quietly launches surprising Galaxy S20 FE 2022 edition in Korea
Confusing the Samsung smartphone lineup even further, the latest new handset is a surprise re-release of Galaxy S20 FE but for 2022.
Given that Samsung delayed the launch of the Galaxy S21 FE and the recent launch of the Galaxy A33 and A53, a re-issue of the Galaxy S20 FE for 2022 with no hardware alterations seems an odd decision. However, Korean outlet Naver reports that this model will come with a much lower asking price with some omissions from the packaging (via GSMArena).
Although launching in 2022, the Galaxy S20 FE is exactly the same as the device initially launched in late 2020. That means it comes with a 6.5-inch 120Hz AMOLED display, Snapdragon 865 processor, 4,500mAh battery, 6GB of RAM, and 128GB of base storage with microSD card expansion included. This is the base model, and it seems that Samsung will not offer the 8/256GB version this time around.
As this is the same device, all of the other external and internal components remain the same including a 3.5mm headphone port, and a triple camera setup that consists of a 12MP main, 8MP ultrawide, and 12MP telephoto. The selfie camera is rated at 32MP.
From 9to5Google
iQOO 9 gets a new color-changing Phoenix Orange variant in India
iQOO launched the iQOO 9 in India in February in two colors – Legend and Alpha. These are today joined by a third version in the country, dubbed Phoenix Orange. But, unlike the other two variants, this one comes with color-changing technology, making it the fifth smartphone in India after the vivo V23 5G, vivo V23 Pro, Realme 9 Pro, and Realme 9 Pro+ to have a color-changing back panel.
iQOO tells us that the rear panel of the Phoenix Orange iQOO 9, covered with Frosty AG Glass, changes to orange color when exposed to sunlight or other artificial sources of UV light. You can watch the short clip below to get a better idea.
From Gsmarena
PSVR 2 pre-order date could be announced soon
If you’ve been patiently waiting for Sony to announce a PSVR 2 pre-order date, there’s a strong chance we might hear more about the upcoming virtual reality headset soon.
Prominent insider Tom Henderson(opens in new tab) shared on Twitter that Sony has begun sending out emails titled “Introducing PlayStation VR2”, which could indicate a PSVR 2 State of Play or showcase event is on the way.
Henderson noted that both Greg Miller(opens in new tab) of Kinda Funny and GamesBeat’s Jeff Grubb(opens in new tab) have heard similar rumblings when it comes to PSVR 2, further strengthening the possibility that Sony is indeed planning to give gamers a much-needed deep dive into its new VR headset.
From Techradar
Six-core CPUs finally overtake quad-core processors on Steam
Six-core processors have finally overtaken quad-core chips as the most popular type of CPU for PC gamers.
Valve’s recently released Steam Hardware Survey for March has revealed that the period of domination for quad-core CPUs — at least where gaming setups are concerned — has ended due to the increasing popularity of hex-core processors, which is a system’s CPU that features six cores.
As reported by OC3D, 34.22% of Windows PC owners who use Steam are playing video games on a six-core processor gaming rig. Meanwhile, 33.74% of Steam users have their system outfitted with a quad-core CPU.
The confirmation of the aforementioned statistics shouldn’t be understated; it represents quite an important milestone in the PC gaming space for six-core processors. PCGamesN highlights how quad-core CPUs have existed for over 15 years.
From Digital Trends
Crazy 360-degree foldable phone rumored from Xiaomi
Xiaomi is reportedly working on its next foldable phone in the Mix Fold series, rumored to be called the Mix Fold 2, and this one might turn things around, quite literally. A piece of code taken from Xiaomi’s MIUI Android skin and reported by XiaomiUI mentions a “ReverseFoldedDevice” in one of the strings. The team believes it denotes one of the two folding positions of the upcoming Mix Fold 2 smartphone, so does it?
Based on the snippet of code it is being theorized the device in question will be the first foldable to fold all the way up to 360-degrees and then come back to its original dual-stack form. Essentially, it will adopt both an inward-folding and outward-folding design. Xiaomi’s first foldable, the Mix Fold, followed the same inward-folding design as the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 3.
From Digital Trends
Samsung might fix the Galaxy Z Fold line’s biggest problem this year
The rumor — stemming from Galaxy Club — suggests there could be two notable upgrades to the Galaxy Z Fold 4. The first would be the telephoto lens. It could be the 10MP telephoto on the Galaxy S22, Galaxy S22 Plus, and Galaxy S22 Ultra. That would mean the foldable would have 3x optical zoom, a nice step up over the 2x zoom on the Z Fold 3.The telephoto and exterior selfie camera could see some sweet upgrades.
Elsewhere, one of the selfie cameras (presumably the exterior one) might have the 10MP lens on the fronts of the three Galaxy S22 devices. This is a great sensor that we were happy with on all three Galaxy S22 devices.
It’s unclear if the other three camera sensors — the exterior wide and ultrawide and interior selfie cam — would see any upgrades.
From Android Authority
India wants Samsung to set up a semiconductor plant in the country
As per the latest report by Business Korea, the Indian government wants Samsung Electronics to set up a semiconductor plant in the country to expand its semiconductor production. India has also announced that it will give subsidies to all the interested semiconductor giants willing to set up a semiconductor plant in the country.
Notably, the Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu has requested Samsung to build a semiconductor plant in the country and avail the multiple subsidies that the Indian government has decided to provide to all companies. India had prepared a $10 billion incentive plan in 2021 to promote semiconductor production in the country and also curb the ongoing worldwide shortage.
If Samsung gives a nod to this plan, then it could prove beneficial for them as the company already manufactures phones in India. In fact, it already has the world’s biggest mobile manufacturing plant in Noida, which is spread over a 35-acre area.
Semiconductor consumption is expected to increase from $21 billion in 2019 to $400 billion in 2025 in India, according to KOTRA Mumbai Trade Center and the India Electronics and Semiconductor Association (IESA). Although the Indian semiconductor design market grew from $14.5 billion in 2015 to $52.6 billion in 2020, it doesn’t have sufficient manufacturing plants to produce chips.
While the talks are in their early phases, it will be interesting to see how the talks unfold, as it seems to be a mutually beneficial deal.
From Sammobile
