When it comes to flagship smartphones, consumers certainly don’t suffer from a lack of choice, but on the flip side, with so many great options available, it is quite difficult to select which device is best suited for you. In today’s comparison, we pit two of the hottest smartphones in the market right now, and they couldn’t be more different from each other.
On one hand is the Galaxy S7 Edge, with Samsung continuing to refine and improve what it started last year with its predecessors.
David Imel / Android Authority
Things are heating up in the sub-flagship space. Two big entries are the OnePlus 8T and the Samsung Galaxy S20 FE which start at $749 and $699, respectively. Which comes out on top when it comes to the cameras? Find out in our OnePlus 8T vs Samsung Galaxy S20 FE camera shootout!
Be sure to cast your vote on the winner in the poll at the end.
Update: A Samsung spokesperson reached out to us with the following comment: “Reports that Samsung is considering to acquire a stake in Best Buy are not true. There have been no talks whatsoever regarding stock acquisition of either company.”
Back in April, Samsung inked a deal with Best Buy for the creation of 1,400 Samsung Experience Shops, but it looks like their partnership isn’t ending there.
On Wednesday, Samsung’s vice chairman Lee Jae-yong spoke to the Korea Times, indicating that he sees Best Buy as critical to the Korean giant’s plans to further increase market share in the United States.
The physical keyboard of the BlackBerry KEYone is its defining feature and one of its biggest selling points. But, if you live in a part of the world that doesn’t use the QWERTY keyboard layout, you’ve been out of luck until now.That’s changing today. Now, BlackBerry is opening up its European online store and will now offer the KEYone with the standard QWERTY keyboard layout, but also the QWERTZ popular in Europe and the AZERTY layout popular in France.
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Counterpoint Research revealed some statistics surrounding the Google Pixel 3. Research suggests that less than one-fifth of Pixel 3 owners previously owned an iPhone, while over half formerly owned a Samsung device. This must be disappointing to Google because it shows the Pixel is generating interest from users already in the Android ecosystem. However, according to Counterpoint Research, the number of consumers who are leaving Apple for Google pales in comparison to the number of users leaving Samsung for Google.
MediaTek has been working with Google to port Android TV onto its MT5595 processor. The result is Sony’s latest generation of Bravia TVs, the world’s first Ultra HD TV platform running Android TV.MediaTek’s MT5595 is a quad-core big.LITTLE SoC which includes two ARM Cortex-A17 cores and two ARM Cortex-A7 cores. The SoC also supports Google’s VP9 codec and the HEVC (H.265) codec, both of which are designed for 4K2K content streaming at 60 frames per second.
The Samsung ARM Chromebook is ubiquitous to the lineup. It was the first to be offered at an attractive price point, and opened many of us up to the possibilities and benefits of Chromebooks, and Chrome OS. While not without its issues (Netflix, anyone?), The ARM Chromebook continues to pace the market.
Though powerful, the ARM Chromebook has its limitations. Handling multiple tabs can be a chore, causing older tabs to refresh without provocation.
Good news for all you Android developers – Google has rolled out the new version of the Android Developer Console. There’s a sexy new interface that’s fast to load and easy to navigate and search. You’ll also find more statistics to help you analyze your app’s performance and the app publishing workflow has been streamlined for clarity.
It was first shown off back at Google I/O earlier in the year, but it has been tested, tweaked, and almost perfected since then.
Storage is one of the things that can make or break a device. Inadequate storage is a limiting factor in the apps and data you can load on your smartphone or tablet. Additionally, slow storage will also result in a less fluid user experience. Storage in mobile devices is constantly improving, although to reduce cost, device manufacturers will usually still use Flash-based storage systems instead of faster SSDs.
Microsoft, for one, recognizes the need for better storage systems, and has come up with a system called exFAT (which stands for Extended File Allocation Table).
One thing that custom ROM’s don’t benefit from, the way stock ROM’s do, is a good way of checking for updates on your phone and then being able to update the ROM with the latest version from there. If this were to be done easily and painlessly, I think a lot more people would be interested in using custom ROM’s for their phones.
Some use custom ROM’s just because they like being on the cutting edge, even if they already have a phone with the latest version of Android.