Like a dog spotting a squirrel, I can't help but notice when a fresh text pops up on my iPhone. The little gray notification catches my eye and I'm instantly pulled away from the task at hand. Plus, this one looked important. It was, but only because it helped me identify a very dangerous and pernicious, Amazon shopping scam.

With the holiday shopping season in full swing, such scams are on the rise and most of us are doing at least some gift shopping through Amazon (the retailer reported more than $1B in sales during Black Friday).

It's this yuletide blend of frenzied shopping, excitment, and a low-level fear that someone is going to scam you that, naturally, scammers leverage to worm their way into your privacy and personal technology, all with the sole intent of stealing your identity, data, credit cards, log-ins and more.

While I wasn't successfully phished, I purposely played along with a scammer so I could show you exactly how to identify and avoid a similar attack.

Like other alerts I receive from legitimate sources, this one was brief. It said:

"Your card has charged with $649 for XGIMI Elfin Mini Projector
Order id #EMPY2219 on 05/DEC/2022
N0T ordered by you?
Contact us: +17204813408"

It'll happen to you

I'm fairly certain all of you will receive a text like this before the holidays are over. Take a good look at this one. It has grammatical and typographical errors that include a zero instead of an "o" and a missing word. No legitimate company would send you a text like this.

What scammers rely on is the alarm such a text might trigger. Perhaps you'll be so concerned, you won't read it carefully, and will instead just call the number. But which number? I noticed that the number in the text and the caller ID listed number didn't match.

To be clear, I decided to call the number to better understand the nature of this scam - for science. My goal here is that from here on out, you'll read such a text and understand immediately that Amazon, Best Buy, and other online retailers do not work this way.

I decided to call the number embedded in the text, put the phone on speaker, and waited through, perhaps, two rings before a representative picked up.

He started with, "How can I help you?"

"You called me," I said, "asking about an order."

The rep quickly recovered and asked for my name. I hesitated but realized my name is not exactly a trade secret, plus, I needed to pull him along further so I could understand the endgame.

Oddly, he didn't ask me to spell my name but did follow by asking for the order number, which I dutifully supplied from the text.

"Oh, there's an Amazon order from Ohio and you're in New York," he told me as I listened to the faint background chatter of dozens of scam reps like him trying to reel in other callers.

"Have you been to Ohio?" he asked.

"No."

"Did you share your Amazon account with someone in Ohio?" he asked.

"No."

"There have been multiple orders from Ohio," he added almost sounding concerned for me. This guy deserved an Oscar.

As he talked to me, I logged into my Amazon account on my desktop. No weird orders, just the stuff I've ordered for my wife's Christmas presents.

"I'm sorry," I said, trying to sound confused, "but if someone is ordering on my Amazon account, shouldn't I see those orders in my Amazon account?"

There was a long pause like I nudged him off script.

"Yes......but they're all on hold," he told me.

Now it was time to get down to business. The scammer told me that it was important for them to connect me to "Amazon's Secure Server' to resolve this matter. Throughout the call, he must have said "Amazon Secure Server" half a dozen times.

"Okay," I said, still trying to sound confused, "how do I do that?"

First, he said, we need to know what kind of device you're on. I told him it was an iPhone

"Great, I need you to put me on speaker phone and open the App Store," he instructed.

I told him, "Sure," put down my phone, and started taking notes.

"I need you to download this app. Instead of telling me the name, he spelled it out, giving me a word for each letter, "'A' as in all, 'N' as in Nancy, 'Y' as in yes, 'D' as in dog, 'E' as in every, 'S' as in Sam, and 'K' as in Keep."

My scammer buddy wanted me to download AnyDesk, which he said was for connecting to the Amazon Secure Server, but which I know is remote desktop software. It's the kind of app that lets someone from halfway around the world connect to and control your PC or phone to root around and get all of your stuff.

As we spoke I searched on "Amazon AnyDesk scam" and quickly found a March 22 article that described this exact ruse in detail.

I decided to slow things down a bit so I could deliver a message to my scammy friend.

"Wait, I just realized there's another name on the account and I'm worried if you don't have it, this won't work," I told him with what I think was real anxiety in my voice. Where's my Oscar?

Returning the favor

Scam buddy was annoyed. "No, no, just connect to the Secure Server. Download the app."

I told him I wanted to make sure he had this.

"Fine. Give it to me."

"Okay, I'll spell it out. Ready."

"Yes," he said and I could hear the exasperation in his voice.

"'N" as in no, 'O' as in over, 'F' as in fun, 'U' as in under, 'C' as in cable, 'K' as in king, 'I' as in inside, 'N' as in Nancy, 'G' as in go, 'W' as in walk, 'A' as in all, and 'Y' as in yes."

At first, there was no reaction. He spelled it back out but since he'd misheard a couple of crucial letters, it didn't make sense. We went back and fixed them. Then he spelled it out again and there was a moment of silence.

"Why do you say this to me?" he asked plaintively.

"Because this is a scam and you're a scammer."

He didn't argue.

"Yes. yes," he said quickly and then he hung up.

If you ever see a text like this, your first stop is to log into your own account through a trusted PC or phone and check for errant charges. If you see any, contact the retailer or site directly. Never respond to one of these texts and never install any software, no matter what the person on the other end of the line tells you.

Trust me.

You can further protect yourself with some of the best security software of 2022.

Mid-range phone brand Nothing is looking to make its US debut, according to company founder Carl Pei, but is facing some logistical issues – not to mention competition from major rivals. 

In a conversation with CNBC, Pei states the company is currently in “early conversations with American carriers…” but didn’t name a specific one. Each carrier has a specific suite of software it wants to be added to smartphones, plus there is “a lot of additional technical support” that needs to be done, according to the founder. All of that has contributed to Nothing delaying an American launch. It's also unknown if the Phone (1), Nothing’s only smartphone at this time, will be launching or if it'll be something different. But it won't be the Phone (2) as Pei was quick to shoot down that idea on Twitter. He states that Phone (1) will be the company’s main focus as it builds the device’s software, according to the post.

Nothing has had success in the United States with the Ear (1) headphones. Pei states a third of total sales come from the US so there’s at least some interest in the company’s products. It appears that success has given Nothing the confidence to strike out for the Western Hemisphere. 

Speculation and competition

Although it’s unknown what’s releasing, we can look at the Phone (1) to get an idea of what’s possible.

The Phone (1) is a pretty decent mid-range device with CNBC comparing it to the iPhone SE in terms of price and specs. Starting at £399, you get a 6.55-inch Full HD OLED display powered by a tuned (but still kinda old) Snapdragon 778G Plus chipset. The glowing Glyph Interface on the back gives the smartphone a unique look that can be fine-tuned for notifications and calls. Battery life leaves much to be desired, however. You can purchase an unlocked Phone (1) in the US for $489, but it only works with certain carriers.

With regard to iPhones, Pei states it wants to take on Apple in the mid-range game, but that’s some tough competition. Recent reports show iOS devices have effectively taken over the US as more than half of all smartphones in the nation are iPhones. Luring iPhone owners to Nothing's Android-based platform might prove challenging since Apple customers are not only tied to their iPhones but to the deeply integrated App Store (and hosted apps), as well. Nothing founder Pei believes this, too, will be a problem for future endeavors. He noted to CNBC that it’s “going to create a ceiling to our growth.”

Nothing certainly has its work cut out for it. According to CNBC, the company has had to deal with numerous manufacturing issues from covid restrictions in India hampering production to being rejected by Foxconn, "Apple’s largest iPhone supplier,” to make its devices. We asked Nothing if it can tell us what it plans to launch in the US or at least give us a hint. This story will be updated at a later time if we hear back.

If you’re interested in scoping out budget devices, be sure to check out TechRadar’s recently updated cheap phones list. 

Not long ago, we heard about some exciting design changes that might be coming to the iPhone 15 line, chief among these being curved edges, but now it sounds like that change is far from set in stone.

That’s not to say the previous leak was wrong, but according to LeaksApplePro – a leaker with a respectable track record – talking to Forbes, the move to curved edges is under “strong consideration” but hasn’t yet been decided upon.

Forbes notes that the design of a new iPhone would usually have been finalized by now, so this uncertainty is odd, but could be down to the current uncertainty within Apple’s supply chain, which could make a design change harder to pull off than usual.

In other words then, curved edges could be a change that Apple wants, but one that might be tricky. Still, it sounds like there’s at least a good chance this change will happen.

LeaksApplePro also had some comments on the recent claim that some or all iPhone 15 series models will be clad in titanium.

They clarified that it will just be the sides that use titanium – which is largely what was expected anyway, since wireless charging wouldn’t work through a metal back. Indeed, the back will apparently still be glass.

Of course, we’d still take all of this with a pinch of salt given that the iPhone 15 line probably won’t land until September.

Analysis: believable claims, but don’t count on every model getting titanium

The above leaks all sound believable to us, but in the case of titanium it’s probably only the iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 15 Ultra that we’d think will get it, as that’s a far more expensive material than the aluminum of the iPhone 14 or the stainless-steel of the iPhone 14 Pro.

At least one source has specifically said that only the top models will get titanium anyway, but other sources have been less specific, so it’s worth being clear on that.

As for the curved sides, the consensus so far seems to be that every iPhone 15 model will get them – if any do, and that is believable.

Apple could do with freshening up the design a bit, especially on the base models, which didn’t see any real changes this year, and unlike a change in materials this probably wouldn’t increase the cost, it would just help the upcoming handsets stand out more among the best phones.

The Asus Zenfone 10 could be one of the best phones of 2023, but the company will need to learn from the failings of the Asus Zenfone 9, which was in many ways one of the most disappointing phones of 2022.

It achieved 3.5 stars in our review, which isn’t bad at all, but it’s a massive drop from the 4.5 stars that the Asus Zenfone 8 achieved the previous year. These phones have a lot of potential though, so we’re cautiously optimistic about the next model.

There will likely be a while to wait for it though, and we haven’t really heard anything about the Asus Zenfone 10 yet. Once we do, however, we’ll add any leaks, news, and rumors to this article. But in the meantime, you’ll find our release date and price predictions, along with a wish list of things we want to see.

Cut to the chase

• What is it? The next model in the Zenfone line
• When it is out? Probably around July 2023
• How much will it cost? It's likely to have an upper mid-range price

Asus Zenfone 10: release date and price

There’s no news on when the Asus Zenfone 10 might release but it probably won’t for quite a while, as the Zenfone 9 only landed in July 2022. However, the company isn’t totally consistent with its launches, as the Zenfone 8 launched in May of its release year, and the Zenfone 7 in August of its.

So we can’t say with any confidence when the Asus Zenfone 10 will be announced, but we’d guess around the middle of 2023.

We can’t say how much it will cost either, but for reference the Zenfone 9 starts at $699 / £699 (roughly AU$1,210), so the price of the Zenfone 10 might be similar.

Asus Zenfone 10: news and leaks

While we haven’t heard anything about the Asus Zenfone 10 yet, we know that one or more Asus phones will be powered by the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2, so there’s a decent chance the Zenfone 10 will be among them, especially as the Zenfone 9 was powered by the Snapdragon 8 Plus Gen 1.

The Gen 2 will be the top Snapdragon chipset of 2023 (at least unless and until a Plus version is launched), and it’s likely to be the best chipset found in any Android phone for at least the first half of the year.

What we want to see

The Asus Zenfone 9 left lots of room for the improvement, so the following things are what we most want to see from the Zenfone 10.

1. More cameras

The Asus Zenfone 9 only has two rear cameras, which isn’t very many by Android phone standards. So for the Zenfone 10 we’d like to see at least a third added – specifically a telephoto one.

It would also be good if Asus could improve the shutter speed, as in our Zenfone 9 review we found the phone would often take a while to actually snap a photo, which could lead to blurry shots.

2. A lower price

The Asus Zenfone 9 has an upper mid-range price, but it’s verging on high-end, only sitting a little below the likes of the Samsung Galaxy S22 and iPhone 14. It’s also more expensive than the Google Pixel 7, and the specs and features on offer just can’t quite justify that.

So for the Asus Zenfone 10 we’d like to see either the price lowered, or a significant improvement in the phone itself.

3. A small screen

The Zenfone 9 has a compact 5.9-inch display, and we want the Asus Zenfone 10 to have a similarly small screen. So we’re not asking for changes here – we very much want that aspect to stay the same.

There aren’t many compact phones these days, and especially not ones with fairly high-end specs like the Zenfone 9, so we’d love to see that continued with the Zenfone 10, as there’s surely an audience for them, however niche.

4. A glass back

Despite having a fairly premium price, the Zenfone 9 has a plastic back, which is something we’d more expect from a budget phone, despite Samsung’s attempts to make it acceptable at the high-end.

So hopefully the Asus Zenfone 10 will have a glass back. We can’t imagine it would add a vast amount to the cost, and it would make the phone both look and feel significantly more worthy of its likely upper mid-range price.

5. A bigger battery

The Zenfone 9 has a fairly small 4,300mAh battery, and while that might seem reasonable given that it also has a fairly small screen, it’s worth noting that the Sony Xperia 5 IV is only marginally bigger, yet manages to fit a 5,000mAh battery in.

Regardless, the Zenfone 9 doesn’t have great battery life, so it’s clearly in need of a bigger juice pack, or some optimizations, and we’d like to see life improved for the Asus Zenfone 10. If it is, then that could end up being one of the best small phones.

Without texting, we wouldn't know how to tell people in three letters that something is laugh-out-loud funny (LOL). We wouldn't have a quick way of conveying dismay (SMH), and we wouldn't live in a world where most emotions are boiled down to a single, emotive image like 😉.

The technology, Short Message Service or SMS, all started with a 16-character message, "Merry Christmas.", sent 30 years ago today (December 3) by Neil Papworth, a programmer working on the mobile messaging technology. But it would be almost another decade before texting and emoticons (character combinations substituting for pithy facial expressions, such as  :-P ) would sweep through society.

I think it's fair to say that we have Blackberry to thank for the widespread adoption of texting. Millennials and their idols (oh, hey, Paris Hilton) carried their BlackBerries and other physical-keyboard-sporting feature phones around like talismans.

While the iPhone didn't play a role in the early adoption of SMS culture, it (and Android handsets) helped drive the transformation from a largely text-based SMS culture to one riddled with graphical emojis. 

Now, three decades on, SMS texting has forever changed how humans communicate. A recent study commemorating the first SMS's 30th Anniversary from Infobipuncovered some fascinating details about how SMS has changed our lives. (Note that the survey is only accessible in the US, but we've highlighted the key findings below.)

˚o˚'!

Phone calls are all but dead. The survey of 1,000 US consumers found that just 24% still prefer voice calls over communicating via SMS and other texting proxies, like WhatsApp and instant messaging (41%). Naturally, younger people are even less inclined to pick up calls. 53% of the original texting generation, millennials, would rather text, and 48% of GenZers feel the same. If you're wondering why the kids never call anymore, there's your answer; you are, however, pretty much guaranteed to get a text on your birthday.

Whenever I go for a ride, I take note of all the people engaged in one of the most dangerous habits on the planet: texting and driving. You can't blame SMS for this abhorrent practice. SMS was designed for phones with simple, small screens that you'd be hard-pressed to read while operating a vehicle. Big, screen, high-resolution phones have made it too easy to glance down, read a text, and then quickly tap out a response as you plow into the car in front of you.

Infobip's survey found that an alarming 52% of millennials admitting to texting and driving. Maybe for SMS's birthday, someone will develop an OS-level auto lock that makes in-car texting, at least by drivers, impossible. No, I don't know how, but it's worth thinking about.

凸(¬‿¬)

Texting almost everywhere is a legacy of SMS. We text during:

• Meetings
• Funerals
• When using the bathroom
• When we have nothing else to do
• 45% of respondents admitted to drunk-texting and regretting it.

SMS texting is also the language of love. We meet on dating apps, and then measure the success of that first date by how soon after our date texted us. The entire concept of 'ghosting' comes from texting. More than a quarter of men reported being dumped over text (and just under 19% of women). It's amazing how much romance, happiness, and sadness are tied to this technology.

Texting technology has advanced to the point that it can trigger anticipation. If you text someone something important, you're usually staring at your screen waiting for them to text back. Now, of course, you can see when they've started to type, and when they've stopped – it's a rollercoaster of emotions.

° ͜ʖ ͡°

It's only natural that something that's become so deeply ingrained in our culture would also become a forum for one of the most basic human activities – 63% of millennials reported sending sext messages, and perhaps to make it less awkward, people adopted relatively benign emojis as stand-ins for body parts and sex acts.

It might be argued that SMS texting has had a bigger impact on our lives than smartphones and social media. Sure, we're always on our phones, and there's a lot of drama on social media, but what do we do most with our phones? When you want to communicate with friends, family, or lovers, you text them, don't you?

Happy 30th SMS. I guess we're stuck with you.

If you care about charging speeds above all else then the Realme GT 3 is for you, as this new mid-ranger charges at a remarkably fast 240W.

That’s almost ten times the charging power you’ll get with a Samsung Galaxy S23, and while that’s the headline feature of Realme’s new phone, it’s not the only thing worth talking about.

Below then, you’ll find all the information on the Realme GT 3, including how much it costs, when you’ll be able to buy it, and its various specs and features.

Cut to the chase

• What is it? The latest powerful mid-ranger from Realme
• When is it out? Hitting stores soon
• How much will it cost? $649 (roughly £540 / AU$960)

Realme GT 3: release date and price

The Realme GT 3 was announced on February 28, 2023 at MWC 2023, though confusingly it’s actually a rebadged Realme GT Neo 5, which was unveiled in China a couple of weeks earlier on February 9.

In any case, the phone will be sold globally as the Realme GT 3, and we know it will be going on sale in Europe soon, though there’s no exact date yet. It may well land in Australia as well, but details of a launch there haven’t been confirmed, and we wouldn’t expect to see it in the US.

Despite that, oddly the only price we have for it is in dollars, with the Realme GT 3 set to cost $649, which equates to around £540 or AU$960.

Realme GT 3 design and display

The Realme GT 3 has 6.74-inch 1240 x 2772 AMOLED screen with a very high 144Hz refresh rate, 451 pixels per inch, and a peak brightness of 1,400 nits.

It has a matte glass back in a choice of white or black shades, and it also strangely has a huge camera block, which for some reason additionally houses a fake Snapdragon 8 Plus Gen 1 chipset visible under the surface. It’s an odd design, and part of the camera block can also light up to alert you to notifications.

There’s a punch-hole camera in the top-center of the screen, and the Realme GT 3 comes in at 163.9 x 75.8 x 8.9mm and 199g.

Realme GT 3 camera and battery

You get a triple-lens camera on the back of the Realme GT 3, made up of a 50MP f/1.9 wide camera with optical image stabilization, an 8MP f/2.2 ultrawide with a 112-degree field of view, and a 2MP f/3.3 microscope camera, for extreme close ups and tiny subjects. That’s one of this phone’s more unusual features.

The phone can also shoot video in up to 4K quality at up to 60fps, and there’s a 16MP f/2.5 camera on the front.

Moving on to the battery, and that’s 4,600mAh, which is a middling capacity. However, as noted above it supports 240W wired charging, which is ridiculously fast. That’s enough for it to go from zero to 100% in just 9.5 minutes according to Realme.

It can also hit 20% in just 80 seconds, and a 30-second charge is enough for up to two hours of use the company claims.

For reference, the Samsung Galaxy S23 only supports 25W charging, the Galaxy S23 Ultra tops out at 45W, and even most genuinely fast charging phones fall well short of this, with the OnePlus 11 for example charging at up to 100W.

Realme has also said that the battery should hold on to over 80% of its original charging capacity for at least 1,600 charging cycles, which is notable since fast charging can sometimes wear a battery out faster.

There’s clever tech on board which likely helps with that, as the phone can use AI to detect the situation in which you’re charging it and adjust accordingly. If you’re charging it overnight for example then it will hold at 80% until just before you wake up, while if you’re away from home it might judge that you need charge quickly, and go straight to 100%.

However, there’s no wireless charging here, so it’s not a complete charging win.

Realme GT 3 specs and features

The Realme GT 3 is powered by a Snapdragon 8 Plus Gen 1 chipset. That’s one of the most powerful chipsets from 2022, but not as good as the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 that we’re seeing in most 2023 flagships. Of course, this is more of a mid-range phone, so that tracks.

That chipset is joined by a choice of 8GB, 12GB or 16GB of RAM, and 128GB, 256GB, 512GB, or 1TB of storage. At the top end that’s more storage than most phones offer, and up there with the most RAM you can get on far more expensive handsets.

The Realme GT 3 also supports 5G, has an under-display fingerprint sensor, and runs Android 13, overlaid with the company’s Realme UI 4.0.

Android devices will be getting new features as part of a December update courtesy of Google. On the surface, the changes seem totally random, but that's because each one is aimed at a specific type of user.

For example, Google is adding a new Reading Mode app to help the visually impaired read text on their phones. It works by integrating itself into your phone’s quick settings and can be activated by selecting a new book tab that appears on other apps. The page then transforms into a more readable form complete with colored text on a black background for high contrast. Customization options are available, according to the announcement, where you can change the color of the text, its font size, and the level of contrast. Reading Mode also has a text-to-speech option for users who struggle the most or just want to relax and listen. An in-app slider allows you to adjust the reading speed.

The other big feature is the ability to share your digital car key but only between Pixel devices and iPhones. Compatible keys are sent via a phone’s digital wallet app (just make sure you can trust the other person). Google has plans to expand the digital key support to “select phones with [Android 12] and up”, but didn’t give an exact date other than “soon”.

Besides that, everything else coming to Android phones is much smaller in scale. Going down the list, you have a new YouTube Search widget to look up videos right from the Home screen. Google Photos’ collage editor has two new artistic designs: a cartoonish style by husband and wife duo DABSMYLA with another by watercolor artist Yao Cheng Design. And finally, casting content from the Google TV app to a compatible display can now be done with a single tap. 

Wear OS changes

Wear OS has a few tweaks coming. New tiles are being added that’ll tell you when you can watch either the sunrise or sunset on any given day and give quick access to your favorite contacts. Select workouts on the Adidas app can be accessed via Google Assistant voice commands starting December 5. Apart from that, it’s unknown exactly when any of the other features will roll out. We asked Google if it could give us a concrete date, but it’s been nothing but radio silence at the time of this writing. We’ll update this story if we hear back.

Be sure to check out TechRadar’s recently updated best Android smartwatch list if you're thinking of picking one up for a last-minute Christmas present. Plus, we’ve heard through the grapevine that multiple Google Workspace apps may be making their way over to WatchOS. If this comes true, it’ll give Android smartwatches a boost in productivity. 

With the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 4, Samsung almost perfected the clamshell foldable phone, but there are still a few notable issues, and at least one of them might be resolved with the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 5.

According to Ross Young – a leaker with a solid track record – the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 5 will probably have a cover display of over 3 inches. In a reply to the tweet where they made this claim (spotted by GSMArena) they got more specific, saying that it will likely be around 3.3 to 3.4 inches.

Though they also note that they heard the Galaxy Z Flip 4 would have a 2-inch cover screen, and it actually came in at 1.9 inches, so they’ve acknowledged that they might be slightly out.

In any case though, if the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 5 has a cover display that’s roughly between 3 and 3.4 inches, then it will be significantly larger than the Z Flip 4’s cover screen, and that could make it a lot more useable and useful.

It will still be too small for any serious interactions, but don’t forget – early iPhones only had 3.5-inch screens, so this could be almost as big as that, while still having a much larger foldable display too.

But that’s not all, Young also claims that the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 5 will have a different hinge design which will reduce the visibility of the seam in the foldable display. So if Young is right then it sounds like the Z Flip 5 could be in for some significant upgrades.

We haven’t heard much else about it yet, other than the believable claim that it will use the new Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 chipset, but we’d expect to hear plenty more rumors as we get closer to the launch – which will probably happen around August 2023.

Analysis: other needed upgrades

Increasing the size of the cover display would make for a substantial improvement, but that’s not the only area where Samsung’s Galaxy Z Flip line needs work.

The battery life has so far been a low point, the cameras, while solid, don’t include a telephoto lens, and while Samsung has impressively added water resistance to the Z Flip 4, there’s no dust resistance.

These issues may be hard to fix, especially while keeping the price somewhat palatable, but there’s definitely room for improvement in the Galaxy Z Flip 5, and with the Motorola Razr 2023 likely to offer significant competition, improvements will probably be needed for the Z Flip 5 to rank among the best foldable phones.

The Xiaomi 13 and Xiaomi 13 Pro were supposed to be getting unveiled today (December 1), but in a last-minute announcement, the company has now delayed the launch.

The reason for the delay wasn’t given, with the news – posted on Weibo and spotted by NotebookCheck – simply reading “We regret to inform you that the launch of the new Mi 13 series will be postponed. We will notify you as soon as the new release date is confirmed. Thank you for your understanding and support.”

However, it’s been speculated that the delay is to honor former Chinese president Jiang Zemin, who just passed away.

The big question is when the launch will now happen; with this post providing no hint at a new date. However, assuming the delay is for the reason above, we can;'t imagine it'll hold things up for too long, so there’s a high chance the Xiaomi 13 series will still be unveiled before the end of the year.

In the meantime, a major new leak has emerged, along with some teasers from Xiaomi itself, which combined mean there might not be much in the way of surprises at the 13 series' launch anyway.

First up, Xiaomi has revealed – in posts spotted by Sparrow News – that the Xiaomi 13 Pro has a 1-inch sensor for its primary camera, and that both the Xiaomi 13 and Xiaomi 13 Pro have a 75mm (3.26x optical zoom) telephoto camera, which uses an unusual ‘floating lens’ design, shown off in the teaser video above.

The company also shared some impressive camera samples on Weibo, taken using these two lenses, a couple of which you can see below.

As for the leak, a hands-on video of the Xiaomi 13 Pro – reuploaded to YouTube by Sparrow News – which you can see below, shows how the phone probably looks, complete with a large camera block and a design that matches previous unofficial renders.

This leak also provides a glimpse at the settings screen, which lists 128GB of storage and Android 13. We also already know from Xiaomi itself that the Xiaomi 13 line uses the powerful Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 chipset.

Analysis: a while to wait for the rest of the world

While there’s a high chance the Xiaomi 13 and Xiaomi 13 Pro will still be unveiled before the end of 2022, this initial launch is just for China, so other countries probably won’t get the phones immediately.

That’s typical of Xiaomi, with the Xiaomi 12 series, for example, being unveiled in late December 2021, but not going on sale in the UK or a number of other regions until April of this year.

So there could still be months to wait before you can actually get hold of a Xiaomi 13, and if you live in the US then you probably won’t be able to get one at all – unless you import, as Xiaomi phones aren't sold there.