smartphone News - Page 11 of 74 - CNX Software

June 17, 2020June 18, 2020 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 18 Comments

Looking for an Android Phone with Long Term Support? Fairphone 2 Gets Android 9 Five Years After Launch

When you use a laptop or computer with Windows or Linux, you’re pretty much assured to get regular security updates. That’s partially why I prefer to do things like online banking on my computer rather than a phone, despite banks pushing for mobile apps. Why? Because most mobile phones get limited support. I selected an Android One phone, namely Xiaomi Mi A2, because I would get updates for at least 18 months. When you think about it it’s quite pathetic, but that’s about the best Android has to offer. It’s quite better on Apple side with updates for 4 to 5 years for iPhones, while Google Pixel phones are said to get updates for about 3+ years. How you deliver updates also matter, as I recently heard Samsung users complain about frequent updates, while they had somehow no such complaint about their iPhone. But if you’re not quite ready to […]

June 4, 2020June 4, 2020 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 4 Comments

NexDock Touch Laptop Shell Features a Touchscreen Display, an Optional Magnetic Mount for Your Phone

NexDock is a Motorola Lapdock alternative launched in 2016 with a 14.1″ non-touch display, a built-in battery, and a Bluetooth keyboard. It was followed by NexDock 2 last year with a Full HD display and a USB-C port. The company has now announced they had started manufacturing NexDock Touch based on NexDock 2 but adding a touchscreen display and some other features, and the company has also developed a magnetic mount – compatible with all NexDock models – to conveniently attach your phone to the side of the display. NexDock Touch specifications: Display – 13.3” IPS LCD display with 1920×1080 resolution, 16:9 aspect ratio, touch-screen display Video Output – Full-size HDMI input port Storage – MicroSD card slot User Inputs Edge to edge full-sized keyboard (QWERTY and other country/language layouts are offered) Multi-touch trackpad Audio – 4x 1W speakers, 3.5mm audio jack USB – 1x USB type-C port for smartphones, […]

May 28, 2020June 9, 2020 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 5 Comments

Samsung Exynos 880 SoC Targets Mid-Range 5G Smartphones

5G used to be reserved for premium smartphones, but with processors such as Qualcomm Snapdragon 765G and Huawei/Hisilicon Kirin 820, 5G cellular connectivity is also coming to mid-range smartphones. Samsung Exynos 880 brings another option to the mid-range 5G handsets market. The octa-core Cortex-A77/A55 mobile processor comes with a Mali-G76 GPU, an NPU and a DSP for on-chip AI acceleration, and supports 5G downloads up to 3.55 Gbps, uploads up to 1.38 Gbps. Samsung Exynos 880 specification: CPU – Dual-core Cortex-A77 processor @ 2.0GHz, hexa-core Cortex-A55 processor @ 1.8 GHz GPU – Arm Mali-G76 MP5 On-Device AI – Neural processing unit (NPU) and digital signal processor (DSP) System Memory Type – LPDDR4x Storage I/F – UFS 2.1, eMMC 5.1 Display – Up to Full HD+ (2520×1080) resolution Camera – Single-camera up to 64MP, Dual-camera up to 20MP+20MP Video – 4K UHD 30fps encoding and decoding with HEVC/H.265, H.264, and VP9 […]

April 9, 2020 by Ayo Ayibiowu - 1 Comment

AgVa Phone Ventilator Connects to a Smartphone to Fight COVID-19

With the world at his knees, fighting the current coronavirus pandemic, which has impacted millions of lives around the world psychologically, economically, and physically. Engineers, scientists, politicians around the world are looking for ways to assist in stopping the virus spread, helping the critically ill people, and help restore society to the way it was before. One major highlight during this COVID-19 crisis is the lack of enough ventilators for patients, a piece of critical equipment that greatly affects the breathing of critically ill patients. There are not enough ventilators available in hospitals right now for all of the potential patients who will be struck by the virus, so it is clear we need more ventilators. Makers are joining the call to service with their existing maker tools, and an example is the attempt to make a low-cost, open-source Arduino ventilator device. Another solution is the AgVa phone ventilator produced by […]

April 2, 2020July 14, 2020 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 3 Comments

PinePhone “Community Edition: UBports” Linux Phone Launched with Ubuntu Touch

PinePhone “BraveHeat” Limited Edition Linux smartphone launched last November as promised for $149.99. As the codename implied, it was for the enthusiasts as the phones that were part of that product batch may have had some defects, and came without an operating system, meaning the users had to flash the firmware themselves. But there’s now a new edition, namely PinePhone “Community Edition: UBports” pre-loaded with UBports with Ubuntu Touch featuring Lomiri user interface. The specifications are exactly the same with an Allwinner A64 quad-core Cortex-A53 processor, 2GB RAM, 16GB eMMC flash, a 5.95″ display with 1440×720 resolution, and 4G LTE cellular connectivity. The only difference is that Ubuntu Touch is preloaded to the device, and the back of the phone should have a marking showing you purchased UBports Edition. What should be noted is that it’s still not considered as a consumer device, as UBports is still beta, and the […]

April 1, 2020 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 1 Comment

Select a Geiger Counter for your Phone to Survive the next Nuclear Catastrophe

It’s time to prepare! No, not for that COVID-19 thingie, it’s too late, but since 2020 has not started the best way we should prepare for all eventualities. It all started badly as I fell off my bicycle on New Year’s eve, and it went south from there, from talks of world war three in January, to the thread of a virus pandemic that could kill millions worldwide, to the start of the first global great depression. 2020 will be the “year of doom“, and we should expect massive earthquakes, once in a hundred-year megatsunami what will wipe entire cities, gigantic locust swarms in southern Europe, climate change induces, and leading famine, a couple of large asteroids hitting the hearth, and so on. But we should not forget the nuclear threat either via nuclear war or damaged nuclear reactors following natural disasters or terrorist attacks. One way to protect yourself […]

March 31, 2020 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

HiSilicon Kirin 820 5G Platform Targets Mid-Range 5G Smartphones

5G connectivity used to be only found in premium smartphones, but there’s now been several 5G SoC introduced for mid-range 5G smartphones including Qualcomm Snapdragon 765/765G and MediaTek Dimensity 800. Huawei now has its own as the company’s unveiled Hisilicon Kirin 820 5G platform found in its latest Honor 30S at a launch event in China. Hisilicon Kirin 820 5G key features and specifications: CPU – 1x Cortex-A76 @ 2.36 GHz, 3x Cortex-A73 @ 2.22 GHz, 4x Cortex-A55 @ 1.84 GHz GPU- Arm Mali-G57 GPU (6 cores) with GPU Turbo and Kirin Gaming+ 2.0 NPU – 1-big Core ISP – Kirin ISP 5.0 with BM3D SLR image noise reduction, video dual-domain noise reduction, and support for 4K video capture at 60fps. Cellular Connectivity 2G/3G/4G/5G modem Dual-mode SA/NSA 5G Process – 7nm The new processor extracts 27% extra CPU performance compared to Kirin 810, a 38% graphics performance boost over Mali-G52 […]

March 30, 2020March 31, 2020 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

Astro Slide 5G Transformer Smartphone Comes with a Slide-out Keyboard, MediaTek Dimensity 1000 SoC (Crowdfunding)

Planet Computers has introduced several smartphones with physical keyboards over the last few years including Gemini PDA and Cosmo Communicator with the later recently received its promised Debian Linux images besides just running Android 9.0. The company is now back with the new model. Powered by a MediaTek Dimensity 1000 processor, Astro Slide 5G Transformer supports 5G connectivity and comes with a slide-out keyboard following on the steps of the company’s previous smartphones. Astro Slide 5G Transformer preliminary hardware specifications: SoC- MediaTek Dimensity 1000 (MT6889)octa-core processor with 4x Arm Cortex-A77 cores @ 2.6 GHz, 4x Arm Cortex-A55 CPU efficient cores @ 2.0 GHz, Arm Mali-G77 GPU, 4.5 TOPS APU 3.0 AI accelerator / NPU System Memory – At least 6GB LPDD4x RAM Storage – 128 GB flash, MicroSD card slot Display – 6.53″ touchscreen display with 2340×1080 resolution, scratch-resistant glass Camera – 48MP rear camera with flash, 5.0MP front-facing camera […]