Pocketnow Daily: NEW MacBook Pro: Apple Experiments With Materials? (video)

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Galaxy S21 combos, Smart TVs, Chromebooks and more are also on sale

Sony headphones, Amazon’s Fire TV Stick and more are on sale today

Come on, say it with me, the official news today begin with deals. Yes, the Galaxy S21, S21+, the Ultra and every product we got at Unpacked is still available for pre-orders with huge savings but, you only have 2 days left to pre-order it. So, if you get the Galaxy S21, it is available for just $99 and the S21+ for $299, if you have an eligible device for trade-in and you also get $100 or $150 respectively in instant credit for accessories and 6 months of Spotify Premium. When it comes to the S21 Ultra, that one is available for just $499, with up to $200 in instant credit, a smart tag, and 4 months of YouTube Premium. Also, don’t forget that we have a 15% discount on the Award Winning UB from SUPCASE. Use promo code POCKETNOW15 on SUPCASE.com or promo code 10POCKETNOW on Amazon to get 10% off. Now for the old faithfulls that are still awesome deals, the Galaxy Z Flip is available for just $299, while the Z Fold 2 is still available for $1000 if you have an eligible device for trade-in. If you’re looking for some headphones, Sony’s WH-1000 XM4’s are currently $72 off, leaving them at $280. The AirPods Pro are also $49 off, leaving them at $200. Finally, if you want a Fire TV Stick Lite, it’s currently $8 off leaving it at just $22. We have more deals on other headphones, earbuds and more in the links below, and don’t forget we’ve partnered with SUPCASE to give away a Galaxy S21 and Galaxy S21 Ultra, so follow the first link in the description and enter promo code POCKETNOWGALAXY to enhance your chances to win.


 

Sony Xperia Pro finally comes to the US market with an eye-watering $2,500 price tag

Let’s stick to some official but crazy news, you’ll see why, like how much are you willing to spend on a smartphone? See, we know that a lot of you guys are fans of Sony phones as, they pack some pretty neat but pretty niche features. Well, the Sony Xperia Pro which was announced nearly a year ago is finally making its way to the US in all of the mainstream retailers, but sadly not for the mainstream audience. This is sort of a higher end variant of the Xperia 1 II, which brings a 6.5in 4K HDR OLED Display, in Sony’s typical 21:9 aspect ratio. For those of you who don’t know, what makes this phone so special is that it brings a dedicated HDMI port at the bottom, next to the USB C charging port. The reason that HDMI port is there is for you to plug in the phone to your camera and use it as a View Finder, in addition to take advantage of 5G to “allow you to livestream the footage being captured to platforms like YouTube and Twitch.” The reason why I say it’s crazy, well it packs the Snapdragon 865, 12GB of RAM, and 512GB of storage but it costs $2500. So yeah, $2500 for a “camera companion” that’s also your phone, for that price, a newer flagship and a dedicated monitor sounds like kind of a better deal. I highly recommend you watch Michael Fisher’s review which just went live for more of an idea of what you’re really buying into.

Samsung Galaxy S21 shipments may not be as great as its predecessors

Last year was a rocky year for everybody but, Samsung had a rough patch at the beginning of the year with the S20 Series where the pricing, the pandemic and a lot of factors contributed to that. This year, the company is being extremely aggressive with those pre-order deals, and a better price tag for much better phones but, it looks like they don’t want to get their hopes up too high. According to a new report, Samsung is estimating a total of 26M Galaxy S21 flagships sold by the end of 2021 which is on par with what the Galaxy S20 Series sold last year. For context, Sammy was originally expecting 35M units shipped last year but 26M is as far as they got. Now, apparently the main driver this year will be the regular Galaxy S21 with 10M units, and both the S21+ and S21 Ultra are expected to sell 8M units each. And of course, sales and shipped units are two different things but they are interconnected so even if the shipments are lower that doesn’t mean that they expect to sell less. We’ll see what ends up happening as Samsung’s new price tags and pre-order perks are kind of irresistible.

OnePlus camera could get Moon mode, Focus Peaking, Tilt-Shift and more features

OnePlus 9 series won’t feature a periscope camera

Moving on to OnePlus, we’re getting closer to the OnePlus 9 Series which is reportedly coming out sometime in late March. So far, we’re expecting 3 different phones, the 9, 9 Pro and the 9 Lite. For the 9 we’re expecting a 6.55in display with a flat design and 120Hz refresh rate, it’ll be powered by the Snapdragon 888 5G, running Android 11 out of the box. When it comes to the cameras, a new tweet from Max Jambor claims that the OnePlus 9 and 9 Pro will not bring a periscope lens like the one we get on phones like the S21 Ultra or P40 Pro. We also have some new screenshots of the Android 11 Open OS beta for the OnePlus 7T which shows several new camera features which could be coming with the 9 Series. First we got Tilt-Shift mode which allows you to make scenes appear much smaller than they actually are. Next up we have Stardust which let’s you point the camera at a bright source of light, like the sun and it let’s you see an actual star-shape and not just a dot. Finally, you also get Moon Mode, to capture night shots with the OnePlus 9 Series. Apparently other features that might make the cut include Hyperlapse and Focus Peaking. We’ll see how rumors evolve, like if we’ll be getting these on all 3 phones and other things so let’s see.

Story of the day:

Apple is experimenting with Titanium for making MacBooks and iPads

And finally, for the hottest news today, let’s move on to Macs as, well we’re expecting some major redesigns and upgrades to most of Cupertino’s line up, but now things seem to evolve even further. Focusing on the new MacBook Pros, Apple just filed a new patent titled “Titanium Parts having a blasted Surface Texture”. This patent explains that the anodized aluminum used in the current MacBooks and iPads is not as hard or durable as titanium, and well, science agrees. The problem with titanium is that it’s difficult to “etch”, so it is often described as aesthetically unattractive. If you remember, back in 2001, the PowerBook G4 which preceded the MacBook Pro actually had a titanium variant. Now, this patent provides a different solution by outlining a blasting, etching and chemical process to give a titanium enclosure a more attractive appearance. Apple is describing the surface as including “peaks separated by valleys” but don’t worry, the rest of the process will allow it to retain a high-gloss surface finish. Now, we know Titanium has made a comeback with Apple, as the Apple Watch Edition has a Titanium casing option. However, this new process could allow for titanium cases for other Apple Watches, iPads and even the iPhone. Last month Apple was granted another patent for a Matte Black MacBook Pro and, it looks like they are finding other ways to get rid of the anodized aluminum and make Macs more durable. Sadly, there are no rumors for this to come to the Macs we’re expecting this year but, we hope it eventually comes out.

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The post Pocketnow Daily: NEW MacBook Pro: Apple Experiments With Materials? (video) appeared first on Pocketnow.

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