Author: Alvin Wanjala

Screen technology seems like something we should pay close attention to in 2020. A couple of 2019 flagship phones reminded us of the ultimate need and why we may want higher frame rates for our smartphone displays. In 2020, more companies are jumping on the higher refresh rate bandwagon, and I love to see it. OnePlus CEO, Peter Lau, says the next OnePlus flagship phone – probably OnePlus 8 or whatever they will call it – will sport an OLED display from Samsung with 120 frames per second. This will not be the first phone to feature this capability, but…

Samsung has launched a walkie-talkie smartphone through a partnership with Microsoft. The push-to-talk ready phone is majorly intended at frontline workers and is here to enable “instant communication between the shop floor and the back office.” The new device is known as the Samsung Galaxy XCover Pro. The phone’s push-to-talk functionality is enabled by Microsoft’s Teams app – a chat app for workplaces just like Slack. It followed Microsoft’s last week’s announcement when the company tipped off an upcoming walkie-talkie feature that would be launching in Microsoft Teams, exclusive to limited Android phones. Samsung says the XCover Pro is optimized…

The incredible Huawei’s lower mid-range device, Huawei Y9 Prime 2019, is being seeded out with Android 10. And as usual to Huawei devices, the update ships with the company’s proprietary Android skin (EMUI) splashed on top. The latest EMUI version based on Android 10 is EMUI 10. EMUI 10 is more refined than its predecessor EMUI 9.1 and tops it up with all the goodies Google ships inside Android 10. The company has refined several aspects of the UI, though subtle, they make the phone joyful to use. EMUI 10 has larger app icons implemented continuously across the system, a…

Samsung has reportedly unveiled the clam-shell like flexible display design phone it teased in October 2019. The phone is a successor to the Galaxy Fold and will be known as the Galaxy Bloom and not the Galaxy Fold 2, as previously speculated. The Galaxy Bloom was unveiled in a secret meeting held at CES 2020, according to TechRadar. The phone brings improvements from the Galaxy Fold, including replacement of the plastic screen with an Ultra-Thin Glass (UTG). Plus, of course, the radical design which the company teased last year. According to Samsung’s CEO DJ Koh, the company drew design inspirations…

Xiaomi is already working on a newer version of its custom Android skin – MIUI 12. The company posted an image of the MIUI 12 logo, which is quite different from its predecessor – MIUI 11. MIUI 11 was officially announced in September and has already been rolled out on a handful of Xiaomi devices. The Chinese tech company teased the upcoming custom skin release on the popular Chinese exclusive microblogging platform – Weibo. No further details have been released on the possible changes that await us, but we should expect to know more about this in the near future.…

The authorities behind the development of Bluetooth dubbed Bluetooth Special Interest Group(SIG) have announced a new standard called Bluetooth Low Energy (LE). Under the new standard, Bluetooth will be able to offer a couple of new functionalities that deliver massive improvements from the current standard.  Part of the main new features brought by the new framework includes broadcast audio support. That means that soon, you will be able to connect a single device like your smartphone to several other devices like speakers and even headphones at the same time. Bluetooth LE will also bring multistream audio support natively. Multistream audio…

TV maker, TCL has unveiled its first folding smartphone at CES 2020. The foldable device is, however, still a prototype. It is powered by Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 660 SoC and runs on Android 9.0 Pie. We, however, expect the company to up these specs once the device is ready for commercial launch. The phone’s foldable mechanism is clamshell similar to what is expected to be the form-factor of Samsung’s Galaxy Fold 2. The device bends in half and when opened, reveals a 7.2-inch flexible touchscreen. Now at the ‘functional prototype’ stage, the TCL foldable phone doesn’t even have a selfie camera…

Like other tech companies, who have announced their upcoming products, or concepts, at least, Google has also announced a slew of new features in its voice assistant. The major changes announced include Scheduled actions, household notes, more privacy-focused features and more. Scheduled Actions The first handy feature introduced in Google Assistant is the ability to schedule actions for later execution. ‘Scheduled Actions’ will enable users to switch on/off any compatible device at any time. “Hey Google, run the coffee maker at 6 a.m”. These are the kinds of commands that are now able to be executed by Google’s voice assistant. Google…

At CES 2020, Sony unveiled the new PS5 logo which is nothing new as you’d expect. The company has retained a similar logo to that of the PS4, only changing the ‘4’ to a ‘5’. The company also said the new console would arrive towards the end of the year – the exact time when its competitor, Microsoft, will be releasing its next-gen console, the XBOX Series X. Sony was reserved when it came to providing any useful details on the PS5. The company, however, did say that the console will sport AMD’s Zen 2 CPU and a custom GPU,…

OnePlus graced the CES 2020 show, showing off the new OnePlus Concept One phone. This phone attracted massive attention thanks to its disappearing camera technology. What this does is the sensors appear and disappear when the camera activates. This happens in just in 0.7 seconds, according to OnePlus. The phone has an array of rear cameras placed under a layer of glass, which opaques when you are not taking photos. The glass used here is the electrochromic glass (EC glass), which is not that futuristic since it has been employed in other industries. According to Eric Gass, director of global…