smartphone News - Page 26 of 73 - CNX Software

December 4, 2017 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

Samsung W2018 is a Premium Android Flip Phone with Dual Display for the Chinese Market

I can remember using Motorola Razr many years ago, but it’s been a long time since I’ve seen a flip phone. The must still be a market, as Samsung has just unveiled W2018 flip phone in China with many of the premium features found in their Galaxy S8 model such as Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 processor, 6GB of RAM, and up to 256 GB of storage. Samsung W2018 is also said to be the first smartphone equipped with a camera that has an F/1.5 aperture allowing for better low light photo, and the camera can switch to F/2.4 during better lighting conditions. Samsung W2018 (preliminary) specifications: SoC – Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 octa-core Kryo 280 processor up to 2.4 GHz with Adreno 540 GPU System Memory – 6GB RAM Storage – 64 GB or 256 GB storage Display – 2x 4.2″ Super AMOLED display with 1920×1080 resolution; Gorilla Glass 5 D-Pad & […]

November 23, 2017 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 4 Comments

Prologium Lithium Ceramic Solid State Batteries Don’t Catch Fire, Nor Explode

You must have read articles or watch videos showing laptop or smartphone battery explode, and Lithium-ion batteries are considered hazardous enough that they are banned from airplane without the proper paper work. Such batteries can catch fire or even exploded when overcharged, or physically damaged. We have protection circuits for the former, and physical damage seldom happens, so in most cases the batteries are safe, and that’s why they are still used in laptops and phones. However, if you need maximum safety, Lithium ceramic battery (LCB) may be the way to go. Those are still Lithium-ion battery cells, but they replace the liquid polymer separator found in Li polymer battery (LPB) by a solid-state ceramic electrolyte, and you can mistreat them almost as much as you like with overcharge, cut them, bend them, and they won’t catch fire, nor explode. One company that makes such batteries is Taiwan based Prologium […]

November 21, 2017November 24, 2017 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 32 Comments

International Black Friday & Cyber Monday Deals in 2017

Black Friday and Cyber Monday 2017 deals have started to show up on some Chinese e-retailers website, so as every year, I’ll go through a non-exhaustive list with the most popular websites. GearBest’s 2017 Black Friday event offers discount from 8% up to 15% for mobile phone, tablets & computers, and appliances. One example if Alfawise S95 TV Box with S905W/2GB RAM/16GB flash going for $29.99 shipped. They also offer coupons up to 20% or a just amount in dollars. You can purchase lucky bags with a surprise product, some flash sales will be organized, as well as a lucky draw to win Xiaomi Mi 6 smartphone. Aliexpress is ready for both Black Friday and Cyber Monday with some games to win coupons, and deals per category. I have not found any specific yet, but while the games are on, the actual Black Friday sale will only take place between […]

November 16, 2017 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 7 Comments

LEAGOO T5c Smartphone Features Spreadtrum SC9853i Octa-core Intel Airmont SoC

Intel is supposed to have left the mobile and IoT markets, but a few month ago, I wrote about Spreadtrum SC9861G-IA, an octa-core Intel Airmont SoC designed for LTE smartphones. Airmont is the microarchitecture used in Intel’s Cherry Trail and Braswell SoC, so the Spreadtrum SoC is not based on a new microarchitecture, but it still shows Intel decided to still use the technology, just not with their name on the processor. The news was published in February, but so far I have not seen any phone based on the processor. Instead, a similarly specced SoC, namely Spreatrum SC9853i, is now found in LEAGOO T5c 5.5″ smartphone with 3GB RAM and 32GB flash. LEAGOO T5c smartphone specifications: SoC – Spreatrum SC9853i octa-core Intel 64-bit Airmont “Cherry Trail-T” processor @ up to 1.8 GHz (14-nm FinFET process) System Memory – 3GB RAM Storage – 32GB eMMC flash Display – 5.5″ SHARP […]

November 15, 2017November 17, 2018 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 12 Comments

Xiaomi Mi A1 Smartphone Review – Part 2: Android 7.1.2 Firmware

Google recently announced several Android One smartphones, which are supposed to get 2 years of firmware updates, including to the latest version of Android, such as HTC U11 Life and Android One Moto X4. Many of those phones are limited to some specific countries, but Xiaomi Mi A1 will be launched in over 40 countries, and thanks to Chinese online shops is really available worldwide. GearBest sent me the latter last month, and in the first part of Xiaomi Mi A1 review I simply went through unboxing, booted the phone, perform an OTA update, and ran Antutu 6.x on the phone for a quick estimate of performance. Since then, I’ve had around four weeks to play with the smartphone running Android 7.1.2 (still), so I’m ready to report my experience in the second part of the review. General Impressions In the past year, I used Vernee Apollo Lite smartphone powered […]

November 1, 2017 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 6 Comments

2017 Singles’ Day Promotions on Chinese Online Stores

Singles’ day (Guanggun Jie – 光棍节) is celebrated every year on November 11 (11.11) in China, and retailers launch promotions to attract young shoppers, especially online. Last year Singles’ day was even bigger than Black Friday and Cyber Monday in the US terms of (online?) sales,with an estimated 20 billions dollars of goods moved. Online Chinese retailers that cater to overseas market bring their promotions to the international stage, and like last year, I’ve gather some of the Singles’ day promos launched by the most popular e-retailers in China. GearBest 11.11 Sale / Double Eleven promotion will span from November 1 until November 13, with Day 1-7 being the preheat period, abd 8-13 the formal time for the promotion. The event includes flash sales for all sort of items, “lucky bags” where you buy something cheap but do not know exactly what it is…, promotions for top brands (Vernee, Creality, […]

October 27, 2017October 27, 2017 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 5 Comments

Use your Smartphone as an IR Remote Control with ROCK USB Type C IR Remote Control Transmitter

A few years ago, I wrote about ZazaRemote transforming your smartphone into a universal IR remote control. ZazaRemote is a hardware and software solution that combines infrared dongles micro USB port or 3.5mm audio plug, and a mobile app that allows you to control all sort of devices (TV, aircon, etc…) from your smartphone. Over three years later, more and more phones are now deprived from the audio jack, and micro USB ports have given way to USB type C ports, so that solution does not work anymore on newer phones. Some of the recent phones like Xiaomi Mi A1 integrate an IR transmitter, but for others, Zazaremote’s developer (Tiqiaa) has apparently not come up with a USB type C version, but just sells micro USB to USB type C adapters, not the most convenient. Upon further research, I eventually found a USB type C IR transmitter for smartphone sold […]

October 19, 2017 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 13 Comments

Linux on Galaxy to Bring Linux Desktop to Samsung Note8, Galaxy S8 and S8+ with DeX Station

Earlier this year, Linux desktop mobile convergence took a serious hit when Canoncial decided to drop support for Unity and Mobile Convergence in their Ubuntu distributions, focusing instead on the enterprise and IoT market, and replacing Unity by GNOME starting with the just released Ubuntu 17.10. Things started to look better with Purism Librem 5 Linux smartphone, which has now raised $1.8 million dollars, and partnered with well-known members of the Linux ecosystems like KDE, GNOME, and NextCloud. However, the phone will be based on a rather low end NXP i.MX 8M quad Cortex A53 SoC, is scheduled for January 2019 only, and being a crowdfunding campaign, failure is always a possibility. But today, the outlook for Linux phones brightened even more, as Samsung unveiled plans for “Linux on Galaxy” at the Samsung Developer Conference 2017. The solution will leverage the company’s DeX (Desktop Experience) that relies on DeX Station […]