We're rounding up every rumor concerning every confirmed major MWC 2017 exhibitor, including the likes of LG, Samsung, Nokia, BlackBerry and Motorola.
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Huawei Mate 9 Porsche Design first look: Sexy curves (Video)
Can you still keep a secret in this day and age leading up to a highly anticipated mobile product announcement? Not when it comes to big things, like device images, camera sensors, screen size or resolution, and processor details.
But, and we absolutely hate to admit it, Huawei did manage to catch us off guard today with the name and snazzy look of the Mate 9’s “limited edition” sibling. Forget Mate 9 Pro, and get ready to check out the race car-inspired Huawei Mate 9 Porsche Design in the flesh. A beautiful curved edged, graphite-finished, dark black-colored flesh, aiming to create an “equilibrium of aesthetics and function.”
The only downside to potentially owning an arguably luxurious, yet not overly showy 5.5-inch Android Nougat phone with Quad HD display resolution, 6GB RAM and 256GB internal storage space in tow? You may have to sell a kidney to afford this bad boy, priced at the equivalent of more than $1,500 for a late December European release.
Thinking of saving up or working overtime but perhaps not convinced “one of the most finely crafted premium devices available to consumers” is worth that small fortune? Not interested but still curious to see it manhandled for a few minutes? Here it is, our first encounter with the Porsche-designed Huawei Mate 9:
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Huawei Mate 9 Hands on: Big phone, BIG expectations (Video)
Was it smart of Huawei to wait until this close to the holiday season for the announcement of its iPhone 7 Plus and Samsung Galaxy Note 7 “killer”? Well, since the Note 7 basically committed suicide, chances are things will work out just fine for the increasingly ambitious world’s number three smartphone vendor.
It obviously helps that the Huawei Mate 9 makes quite an impression straight off the bat, despite a mostly recognizable look for people familiar with some of the company’s previous premium designs.
Thanks to a 5.9-inch 1080p display, this is an unapologetically big device, although it manages to slot nicely between the 5.5-inch Pixel XL and 5.7-inch LG V20 in terms of overall size perception. Smoothly crafted from prime aluminum, the Huawei Mate 9 doesn’t follow the questionable headphone jack-annihilating trend, niftily integrating dual stereo speakers, as well as an improved rear-fitted fingerprint reader, and above all, a second-gen dual 12 + 20 MP camera setup.
Powered by Leica once again, this aims to take depth perception and bokeh effects to the next level, which we’ll explore more of in an extensive review coming soon. For the time being, you’ll have to settle for a quick but greatly encouraging exclusive hands-on preview:
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Beta testers are finally treated to Sony Xperia X Performance Nougat previews
Still unsure which of Sony’s frequently discounted Xperia X-series phones to pick up for some pre-holiday cheer? Well, they all seem like sensible choices from a software support standpoint, at least in the short term, but you might be surprised to find out the X Performance gets the first official Nougat taste.
Not the newer, arguably superior and significantly pricier XZ, but the February-unveiled, June-released Sony Xperia X Performance, powered by a Snapdragon 820 processor, 3GB RAM and 2,700 mAh battery, currently going for $500 on Amazon unlocked, US warranty included.
It’s not enough to own one of these to be able to try out Android 7.0 via an over-the-air update delivered between yesterday and tomorrow, as this is still a pre-release beta build whose participants were selected way back in August.
Odds are however that an official, polished, wide-scale goodie pack will follow in a matter of weeks, before spreading to other members of the X family, from the low-cost XA to the diminutive X Compact powerhouse to the full-size XZ flagship. Fingers crossed there aren’t too many bugs crippling this long-awaited Android Nougat beta rollout.
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Google Allo Hands-On Preview: Because Google Assistant’s on preview
Our first taste of what the Google Assistant can do for us in our everyday lives is within the Google Allo messaging app that got released today. Now, you can get your undergarments scrunched up about all the chat apps that Google has floated out, but we’ll save the debate for another post.What got released today for both Android and iOS seems to be an attempt to become what
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Chromecast Preview Program is not a beta test
Google’s always gotta be cookin’ up some new features for something they’ve already released. And every so often, the company realizes that a little public input can help improve those features’ usability and even popularity.And so, the Chromecast team is deciding to harness the public preview to its advantage and start up a Preview Program. No, it’s not a beta — the features being ...
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LG V20 vs LG G5 quick comparison: The V20 doesn’t need any ‘Friends’ (Video)
Flying solo to a market in desperate need of a non-exploding hero device may have been the right call for LG after the colossal G5 and Friends flop, with the V20 at least seemingly building on V10’s undeniable strengths while keeping gimmicks to a minimum.Of course, any early comparison, in lack of rigorous testing and lengthy real-life examination, can ...
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Huawei Nova Plus first look: Premium pretty at a mid-pack price
Instead of employing just one generic design across its many high-end and mid-range Android smartphone families, with minor build quality differences and the most significant distinctions left to the internal department, Huawei seems to understand the meaning of the words “diversity” and “choice” at a much deeper level than other OEMs.The Nova and Nova Plus, for instance, might be sharing a name, but they actually go in opposite directions in terms of aesthetics. Well, not as much ...
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IFA 2016: What to expect (spoiler alert: a lot)
With the already hugely successful Galaxy Note 7 unveiled early to get a head start on the iPhone 7 (or 6SE), LG feeling confident enough in the G5-similar sequel to the surprisingly popular V10 to give it its own
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SONY Xperia X Performance: Impressions a weekend later (Video)
Smartphones come with a lot of expectations. Sony’s move away from the Xperia Z, and some of the more outlandish specs delivered on the Z Premium, was advertised as an appeal to common sense smartphone computing. Sony was going to focus on what mattered, and that’s how the Xperia X was born.This is an admirable goal, and we’ve praised many manufacturers which have taken a “back to basics” approach to manufacturing. Sony however faces an onslaught of competition from other top tier flagship devices, and from a new collection of budget busters aiming to deliver ...
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Wallet 2.0 for Windows 10 Mobile avails NFC Tap to Pay
Microsoft is finally going to catch up to the Joneses on the mobile payments frontier with the release of its Wallet 2.0 app for Windows 10 Mobile. There’s one big addition that arguably should’ve been working since 1.0 and that’s the ability to Tap to Pay using NFC.Windows ...
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Apple WWDC 2016 preview: what to expect (and not to expect)
It’s one thing to wish for a major imminent VR breakthrough from the world’s most profitable tech company, but it’s an entirely different kettle of fish to realistically expect Apple’s Daydream answer at the 2016 Worldwide Developers Conference next week.Let’s face it, it’s not going to happen. Not so soon, at least, and not at an event described as a “snoozefest” by our own Adam ...
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Boost+ is a cleaning app you can get on the HTC Preview program
If you’re in HTC’s new Preview program, you’ll be able to find the Boost+ app. It’s an app that scrapes other apps off your RAM and trash temporary files (as well as some of those other files, too). There’s also an app locking feature, though unlocking your questionable app does require a lock pattern on the bottom half of the screen and, occasionally, an ad on the top.Dime a dozen these things are, we ...
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Windows Camera shoots slow-motion video for a few Lumias
Nokia saw the need for an optimal optical option in the smartphone market and decided to take apart each step of the picture process for a mobile device. It had the optics; all the optics. But while you can have a nice glass and rack some cool bokeh, it means nothing without translation, without ...
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iOS 8 will bring more integration with the Mac through iCloud
As rumors come and go about Apple’s plans for the future of OS X, it’s clear that the company has done a lot of progress in trying to merge both platforms as much as it can. We’ve even seen the OS X and iOS teams merge together recently in order to reach this goal, and today’s earlier leaks even show iOS 8 might include Preview and TextEdit apps as part of the update. We were all left with some confusion over why these apps are making it to the mobile ...
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