Author: Alvin Wanjala

Xiaomi Mi 11 series, the company’s latest flagship phone, is now global. Xiaomi MI 11 packs Snapdragon 888 chipset, 120Hz 6.81’’ WQHD+ AMOLED DotDisplay, 108MP triple camera setup, 50W wireless charging, 55W wired charging, 4600mAh battery, and 5G support. It has a 20MP punch-hole front camera. The MI 11 will be selling in two memory configurations, 8GB memory and either 128GB or 256GB of internal storage for €749(~Ksh 99,000) and €799(~Ksh 106,000) in Midnight Gray or Horizon Blue. Besides the MI 11, the Chinese tech company also unveiled its latest update to MIUI ROM, version 12.5. MIUI 12.5 strongly focuses…

Chinese smartphone companies like Xiaomi and Oppo have a well-documented history of showcasing products in their concept and prototype phase to create hype. It’s thus pretty normal once in a few months to see a futuristic concept or prototype technology from them. Xiaomi made the news last week with its “remote” true wireless charging prototype, and they’re back with another futuristic technology concept. Xiaomi has today announced a new smartphone concept with a curved display on all four edges – “a quad-curved waterfall display.” The 88-degree waterfall display around the phone’s four edges gives it an almost all-screen design when…

Samsung has really improved its Android update rollouts in the past few years, and best of all, it pledged to offer three years of support to some of its devices. With the vast number of smartphones the company releases each year, it constantly updates its documentation pages detailing which phones are no longer supported. The latest update has nixed five 2017 Galaxy A series smartphones from its list. These include Galaxy J3 Pop, Galaxy A5 2017, Galaxy A3 2017, and Galaxy A7 2017. In retrospect, it’s been over three years since these five phones were launched. That was still when…

2020 was a good year for streaming platforms. Video-on-demand platforms like Netflix enjoyed a good ride, and the music streaming category also benefited. Spotify’s latest earnings report shows that the music streaming platform now has 155 million paying subscribers. That’s a huge 24 per cent jump from a year ago, exceeding the company’s expectations. Spotify’s music streaming numbers are not just numbers but are also “firsts” for the industry. Spotify is the world’s leading audio streaming subscription service with presence in 93 territories. The music streaming platform added a record 30 million net premium subscribers for the whole of 2020,…

Google is rolling out a new update to Android TV. The new update includes a revamped User Interface, one which brings Android TV UI close to Google TV which was announced last year. The new UI includes a couple of changes – like the Apps section is now atop your display, alongside a new Discover tab – and content is now taking more screen space. Menus have been moved to the top; Home, Discover, and Apps tabs can now be found on the upper side(see featured image). Relative to the current UI, Android TV’s icons and content tiles are more…

Instagram is considering to change the course of its Stories feature, which is borrowed from Snapchat, to feature TikTok-style navigation. The original Stories navigation, which involves horizontal taps and swipes, was heavily inspired by Snapchat. But since its Stories feature is more mature now, Instagram only plans to change how users navigate from one story to the other. By adopting a vertical TikTok style, navigating Instagram Stories will be arguably easier to use. I believe there’s a reason why users navigate web pages vertically and not horizontally. Besides, vertical stories navigation will be similar to Reels; Instagram’s TikTok inspired feature…

Huawei has, to date, launched two foldable smartphones. The first, Huawei Mate X, came out in November 2019 but was limited to China’s home market at launch. The original Mate X’s souped version, dubbed Mate Xs, followed a few months later with upgraded internals in March 2020. The company is prepping to launch a successor, the second-generation to its foldable smartphones series, which will be called Huawei Mate X2. According to a teaser on the company’s official Weibo account, Huawei Mate X2 will be first launched in China on the 22nd of this month. The Mate X2 launch teaser doesn’t…

Sony sold 4.5 million PS5 consoles in its first quarter of launch despite the continued shortage of supply issues to meet the massive demand. The company revealed the information alongside its Q4 2020 earnings. The impressive sales figures were expected after multiple reports from the company that indicated massive demand, pre-launch, and after launch. The PS4 is still selling too, but demand has continued to contract as people seek to upgrade to the new PS5 console. In the quarter, Sony sold 1.4 million PS4 units, a slight decrease from the 1.5 million shipped in the quarter prior despite the holiday…

The gaming industry was booming in 2020, many thanks to sheltering in place orders worldwide to contain COVID-19. And with the release of Microsoft’s next-gen Xbox and Sony’s PS5 consoles, the demand has been massive, with companies failing to meet market demand. Part of the shortage has been caused by a disruption in supply chains caused by the pandemic. But the shortage issues don’t seem to end anytime soon. To those who have been planning to grab Microsoft’s Xbox Series X/S consoles sooner than later, don’t expect to get them for their worth. Because the demand is still high and…

Sony, with its American rival Microsoft launched their next-gen console hardware last year, but Apple had not yet added support for their accompanying controllers. However, a new iOS and iPadOS update available in the future will bring the pending support that Apple promised in November last year. iOS 14.5 and iPadOS 14.5 add software-level support for PS5’s DualSense and Xbox Series X/S’s controllers. The new software updates have just arrived in the beta channel, so it might take a while before everyone can play their games using the latest controllers on the iPhone or iPad. In addition to controller support,…