Skip to main content

Posts

Showing posts with the label smartphone

Samsung Galaxy S8 costs more but should be less than last year’s S7

Aside from  stress tests ,  IFixit teardown , comparisons, and  reviews , we always look forward to that teardown by research firm IHS because it tells us how much the Samsung Galaxy S8 really costs. The phone starts at $720 for the 64GB models and can go high up to $850. This is really  more expensive than the S7  which started at $669 last year. The IHS Markit’s analysis of the Galaxy S8 has revealed the phone costs around  $301.60 . It goes up to 307.50 once the manufacturing costs are included–higher than the Galaxy S7 and S7 Edge. Inside the Galaxy S8, you will see a 10-nanometer (nm) system-on-chip, CAT-16 LTE modem, radio, Snapdragon 835 (US and China) or Exynos 8895 for the international version. According to IHS Markit, the CAT-16 LTE radio can handle three carriers up to 20 megahertz each. It can reach 1Gbps, making Gigabit LTE as the highest standard in 2017 flagship phone as per one analyst. It will still depend on the mobile carrier so hope and pray tell there’s no thro

Samsung said to be developing display wth four curved sides

The  Infinity Display  on the Galaxy S8 is impressive to say the least. Its sleek curves set it miles apart from the competition. According to a new report out of South Korea, Samsung is now working on a new kind of display panel which will have curves on all four sides, meaning that even the top and bottom edges would be curved. The report mentions that this display panel would allow for a screen-to-body ratio more than 98 percent so the front of the device will essentially be a big slab of glass. The handset would have no top or bottom bezels and would look unlike any other smartphone on the market right now. However, the report does caution that there are some difficulties in the lamination process that have to be eliminated first before we can see these displays in consumer devices. The current lamination process won’t allow the display’s four corners to register the user’s touch thus making them essentially useless. This challenge has to be addressed first before we can have sm

Korean regulators looking into whether Google’s Android hurt Samsung’s Tizen

As the huge company that it is, Google tends to have a way of seeping into things through means you aren’t aware of. Yes, even into (or out of) Tizen OS. The  Korean Fair Trade Commission , though, is aware of a couple of stipulations between the firm and Samsung and is investigating some antitrust concerns it has. Specifically, it is looking into the Mobile Application Distribution Agreement and the anti-fragmentation agreement signed. The first agreement basically ensures that manufacturers  pre-load Google Mobile Services apps  like YouTube, Drive and Gmail onto their devices and also mandates  Google’s search engine as the default  — leaving competitors feeling edged out and regulators mad. Why? Unlike  minimum hardware requirements  that ensure an impressibly decent experience, dictating which web services a manufacturer’s phone must have as an irrevocable default allegedly deprives users of choice for such things — you can’t just Bing things from the intrinsic search bar on t

Xiaomi boldly announces development of 2nd gen Mi Mix smartphone

The  Mi Mix  smartphone felt like  an experimental phone  when it launched, because its party trick was something very few manufacturers have done. That is, it had an almost bezel-less front display that covered 91% of the whole front face of the phone. But  Xiaomi CEO Lei Jun  is feeling bullish enough about the concept phone to announce that a 2nd generation Mi Mix is being developed. Lei Jun announced via his Weibo page that  Xiaomi  will be collaborating with French designer Philippe Starck for the development of the  Mi Mix II , which will probably try to follow the bold design aesthetics seen in the original model. See the beauty of the Mi Mix below, if you don’t remember it. We doubt that you’d forget such a stunning piece of technology. To remind you, the Mi Mix sported an unorthodox 6.4-inch bezel-less display with FullHD (1080p) resolution and an unusual 9:17 aspect ratio. That was powered by a robust Qualcomm Snapdragon 821 processor, supported by either 4GB RAM with 1