Lenovo Legion gaming smartphone teased to come with a 144Hz display, liquid cooling

The Lenovo Legion gaming smartphone is not really a surprise. The Legion phone was extensively leaked by us back in May, revealing most major specifications and details about the phone. Still, official teasers serve as confirmation on what to expect out of Lenovo’s first gaming smartphone. The latest round of teasers suggests that the Lenovo Legion will indeed join the rare breed of smartphones to come with a 144Hz high refresh rate display, and will also come with a dual-chamber liquid cooling system.

Lenovo has begun teasing the Legion phone on Weibo. One of the teasers attempts to highlight the difference between gaming at 60Hz and at 144Hz.

The teaser seemingly suggests that the Lenovo Legion will offer a smooth gaming experience because of its high refresh rate display. The higher refresh rate will allow for smoother transitions, which is unlike the jarring transitions experienced on 60Hz refresh rate displays. However, keep in mind that the game also needs to support high-refresh rates for the player to actually notice a difference and not be bottle-necked. Devices like the Nubia Red Magic 5G, Nubia Play 5G, and iQOO Neo3 5G all sport a 144Hz refresh rate display, but the games that can actually take advantage of this specification are few. So with the inclusion of one more smartphone to the list, we hope the list of supported games also grows accordingly.

Further, the teasers for the Lenovo Legion also suggest that the phone will come with dual-chamber liquid cooling. This is passive liquid cooling, which will essentially take the form of a wet vapor chamber.

A lot of smartphones utilize vapor chambers to manage heat dissipation. Lenovo also states that the phone will have “14-point temperature control matrix” which we believe will help in accurate internal temperature monitoring.

The Lenovo Legion smartphone will be launching in China on July 22. The phone has been confirmed to come with the Qualcomm Snapdragon 865 Plus SoC. Our previous leak indicates that the phone will also have 90W fast charging, 5000mAh battery, 2x USB Type-C ports, a notch-less display with a side popup camera, UFS 3.0 internal storage and LPDDR5 RAM, 64MP dual rear camera, and a 20MP front camera.

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Source: Weibo (1, 2)

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Realme C11 and Realme 30W Dart Charge 10000mAh power bank launched in India

Shortly after the launch of the new MediaTek Helio G25 and Helio G35 chipsets late last month, Chinese OEMs Xiaomi and Realme launched a couple of devices powered by the new SoCs. Xiaomi launched the new Redmi 9A and Redmi 9C, featuring large 5,000mAh batteries and HD+ displays with a waterdrop-style notch, while Realme launched the Realme C11 with similar specifications. All three devices were initially launched in the Malaysian market, but Realme has now launched its latest budget-friendly device in India.

Realme C11: Specifications

Specifications	Realme C11
Dimensions & Weight	164.4 x 75.9 x 9.1 mm 196g
Display	6.5-inch HD+ LCD 1600 x 720
SoC	MediaTek Helio G35
RAM & Storage	2GB LPDDR4x + 32GB
Battery	5,000mAh 10W charging
Rear Cameras	13MP f/2.2 primary camera 2MP f/2.4 depth sensor
Front Cameras	5MP f/24
Android Version	Realme UI based on Android 10

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As mentioned earlier, the Realme C11 is powered by MediaTek’s new Helio G35 SoC and features a design that resembles the recently launched Redmi 9C. It features a 6.5-inch HD+ display with a resolution of 1600×720 pixels and a waterdrop-style notch to house the selfie camera. Over on the back, the device has a square camera module, which packs in a 13MP f/2.2 primary sensor, a 2MP depth sensor, and an LED flash. For selfies, the device has a 5MP f/2.4 camera on the front.

The Helio G35 chipset on the device is coupled with 2GB of LPDDR4x RAM and 32GB of onboard storage, which can be expanded further using the dedicated micro SD card slot. The device packs in a massive 5,000mAh battery, which features support for 10W fast wired charging and reverse wired charging.

In terms of ports, the device features a micro USB port for charging and data syncing, along with a 3.5mm headphone jack. Other connectivity options include Bluetooth 5.0 and 802.11 b/g/n WiFi. On the software front, the device runs Realme UI based on Android 10. Realme also claims that the device is splash resistant, but it doesn’t come with any official IP rating for the same. The device doesn’t feature a fingerprint scanner, but it does include support for face unlock for biometric authentication.

Along with the Realme C11, the company has launched a new power bank in the Indian market, which packs in a 10,000mAh battery and supports Realme’s 30W Dart Charge technology. The power bank features a USB Type-A port and a USB Type-C port for charging your devices, along with an LED indicator to show the current battery level, and a power button. While both the USB ports support 30W output, the USB Type-C port also includes support for 30W input to help you fast charge the power bank.

Thanks to the 30W Dart Charge support, the new power bank is capable of charging a Realme 6 from 0-65% in just 30 minutes. The power bank also features a low current mode that can be used to charge AIoT devices like wireless earphones and smartwatches. Along with Realme’s Dart Charge tech, the power bank is compatible with other popular fast charging standards like VOOC, SuperVOOC 2.0, Warp, and Qualcomm’s Quick Charge, which will allow users to fast charge supported devices from manufacturers like OPPO and OnePlus.

Pricing and Availability

The new Realme C11 has been priced at ₹7,499 (~$99) for the 2GB/32GB variant and it will be available for purchase starting from July 22nd on Realme’s website and Flipkart. Buyers will be able to choose from two different color variants — Rich Green and Rich Gray. The Realme Dart Charge power bank, on the other hand, has been priced at ₹1,999 (~$26) and will go on sale starting from July 21st on Realme’s website and Flipkart. The charger will also be available in two color options — black and yellow.

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Snap is testing a TikTok-style vertical swipe navigation for exploring content on Snapchat Discover

Snapchat was launched in circa 2012 with the objective of communicating a full range of emotions through images. May years later, it has a range of features built around conversations originating from visual imagery. Although Snapchat has always been counted among the top social media apps with approximately 230 million daily active users across the world, it has never witnessed a moment of meteoric rise as other apps including Instagram and TikTok. As TikTok’s popularity now appears to be headed towards a downfall, other apps are integrating the vertical video feed. After Instagram introduced Reels last week, Snap Inc. is now seen testing vertical swiping to navigate between videos on the Discover feed.

Traditionally, while Snapchat has been the source of inspiration for design changes on other social media apps, the vertical swiping gestures that made TikTok incredibly popular and hypnotic is now being borrowed by Snapchat.

Snapchat’s new implementation for scrolling can be seen for publically available in the Discover feed and will currently exclude Stories from friends. Users can also exit the full-screen view by swiping left or right, unlike Stories where the gesture is used to go from one story to another.

The first was first reported by Twitter user @artb2668. In one image, the user shares a screenshot of the instructions for swiping while the next tweet in the thread has a video to exemplify how the swiping navigation works.

There is a video of the update (sorry for the bad quality I record it with my phone) pic.twitter.com/gFZXlMFBBJ

— Arthur (@artb2668) July 13, 2020

“We’re always experimenting with new ways to bring immersive and engaging content to our mobile-first Snapchat community,” Snap Inc. told TechCrunch without revealing many details. The company did admit that the feature is currently being tested for a small group of users.

Onn the other hand, ByteDance’s TikTok, which has acquired around 800 million daily active users, is going through a rough phase of trust deficit. After government-ordered restrictions in India, TikTok faces the possibility of also being banned in the U.S., Hong Kong, and Australia and this may prove to another chance for competitors like Snapchat to bounce back.

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Microsoft Outlook is inserting Bing Search into Android’s long-press menu

Microsoft makes some truly great Android apps, but the company keeps finding itself in hot water over how they’re promoting their apps. Last year, Microsoft was inserting ads for OneDrive into Android’s share sheet. The latest tactic involves promoting Bing Search through Outlook on Android.

Some Android users on the Pixel community forum (via AndroidPolice) who have the Outlook app installed on their devices have noticed a new “Bing Search” option in the long-press context menu. What’s troubling about this is that not only do these users not have the Bing app installed but also this Bing search option appears system-wide whenever you long-press on any text. Tapping this option opens up Bing search in the Outlook built-in browser.

Credits: Ilija

We did a brief analysis of the Outlook app to confirm that this behavior does originate from the app. However, it seems that it also requires the user to have Microsoft Edge installed to trigger. Outlook has an intent-filter in its Manifest file that enables it to show up in the long-press context menu when highlighting text. However, this intent-filter is disabled unless the feature flag “Edge Integration” is enabled.

<activity android:configChanges="0x4a0" android:enabled="false" android:label="@string/browser_bing_search" android:name="com.microsoft.emmx.webview.search.SearchBridgeActivity" android:theme="@style/BrowserDefaultLightTheme">
<intent-filter>
<action android:name="android.intent.action.PROCESS_TEXT"/>
<category android:name="android.intent.category.DEFAULT"/>
<data android:mimeType="text/plain"/>
</intent-filter>
</activity>

I was able to get the Bing shortcut to show up after installing Outlook, signing in, installing Edge, and making it the default browser. After I uninstalled Outlook, the Bing search shortcut disappeared. I have not been able to get it to show up again after re-installing Outlook. Thus, we aren’t 100% sure how to trigger the “Edge Integration” feature flag.

Regardless, this is a pretty blatant misuse of the context menu and an inappropriate way to advertise Bing. Using the menu for some sort of Outlook feature would be fine since the user purposefully installed the app. However, assuming a user would want a Bing shortcut because they use Outlook and Edge is a step too far. As mentioned above, Microsoft does have nice products, but this is not the way to get people to use them.

Microsoft Bing Search (Free, Google Play) →

Microsoft Edge (Free, Google Play) →

Microsoft Outlook: Organize Your Email & Calendar (Free, Google Play) →

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Possible Razer Phone 3 prototype shows up on a Chinese marketplace

Razer was one of the first companies to really embrace the idea of a “gaming phone.” The original Razer Phone launched in 2017 and it was followed by the Razer Phone 2 in 2018. However, last year, there was not a Razer Phone 3. It was originally said to have been canceled, but no one really knows for sure. Photos of a Razer Phone 3 have appeared on the internet now, however.

The photos originally appeared on Taobao, a Chinese online shopping website. Not much is known about the Razer Phone 3, so it’s hard to verify the validity of these photos. It’s clearly a new Razer Phone as the camera module doesn’t match either of the previous models. It also has three cameras, whereas the first two models only had 2 each.

Other than the cameras, it is a very similar device to the Razer Phone 2. The top bezel is slimmer, but it has the same speaker texture and dual cameras off to the left side. The bottom bezel is thinner as well with the same texture. The buttons on the side are in the familiar placement as well. This is likely one prototype of the Razer Phone 3 at the very least. It’s possible there are other designs out there as well.

Unfortunately, that’s all we know about the Razer Phone 3 at this point. Very little information about it has found its way to the internet. Would you be interested in another gaming phone from Razer?

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Source: Taobao

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OnePlus smartphone owners: Here’s how to check the health of your battery

OnePlus, like most other Android device makers, doesn’t offer removable batteries on their smartphones. On a journey to make its smartphones slim as well as dust and water resistant, OnePlus made it really hard for a novice to swap out an older degraded battery for a new one without paying a visit to a service center. However, the company does have a really handy diagnostic app that can give users a clear insight into the health of their battery.

The app is called “OnePlus Diagnostic” with the package name com.oneplus.healthcheck, which comes as no surprise. Community members of XDA have been aware of this app for quite a long time as OnePlus itself published it on their Chinese support site. The app is compatible with both HydrogenOS and OxygenOS, and you can easily take a look at important battery parameters (e.g. capacity, temperature, charging state, etc.) through its clean and clutter-free UI. The screenshots attached below are from XDA Senior Member Some_Random_Username‘s OnePlus 5T which he purchased in December of 2017. The OnePlus 5T supports 20W Dash Charging.

The value of the “Battery state” parameter is particularly appealing because it shows the battery wear level. Upon inspecting the app’s code, we discovered that the app reads the value from /sys/class/power_supply/bms/battery_health. Here “bms” stands for Battery Management System, while this value is reported by a battery fuel gauge IC made by Maxim Integrated. If that value is < 80, the app reports the battery as having a “serious loss” in capacity.

Some OnePlus devices such as the OnePlus 8 and 8 Pro do not report the battery health at the aforementioned path of the sysfs virtual filesystem, so this app will fail to read it and display “no data”. This app won’t work if you aren’t running OxygenOS (or HydrogenOS) because it requires special privileges to be able to read /sys/class/power_supply/bms/battery_health. If you have a rooted phone, though, you can manually check that value by running the following command in a rooted shell or any terminal emulator app running in elevated mode:

cat /sys/class/power_supply/bms/battery_health

It is worth noting that this diagnostic app is different from the hidden suite of hardware diagnostic tests, also known as “Engineer Mode”. In case you want to give OnePlus Diagnostic a try to find out about the battery health of your phone, download the APK from the following link:

Download OnePlus Diagnostic from APK Mirror

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Via: /r/OnePlus

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[Update: Available in Canada] Truly wireless Google Pixel Buds are officially available

Update (7/13/20 @ 11:10 AM ET): The new Google Pixel Buds are now available in Canada.

The second-generation Pixel Buds, which Google is referring to as the “new Pixel Buds,” were announced back in October 2019. Google promised they would be available in “Spring 2020” and here we are. The Pixel Buds 2 can be purchased starting today for $179, but only in one color option.

Unlike the first Pixel Buds, the 2nd-gen are “truly wireless.” There’s no cable running behind your neck that connects the two buds. The design aesthetic is very similar to the first generation, but the shape is different. There’s a wing to help hold the buds in your ears and a rubber tip to create a seal. In general, the Pixel Buds 2 have a more “sporty” shape that should make for a better fit when moving around.

The new Pixel Buds do still allow you to hear ambient noise through a spatial vent underneath the buds. Google has also included “Adaptive Sound,” which dynamically raises and lowers the volume of whatever is playing based on the amount of outside noise. Dual microphones should help make clear voice calls, and an accelerometer allows the earbuds to detect your voice based on vibrations in your jawbone, which could help in windy conditions.

Google claims the Pixel Buds 2 can stay connected through three rooms when indoors and across the length of an entire football field when outside. They can last for 5 hours on a single charge, with the wireless charging case providing a further 24 hours of playtime. Of course, Google Assistant is also present, just a “Hey Google” away. You can also have your notifications read aloud.

The Clearly White Pixel Buds 2 are available now in the US for $179 from the Google Store, Best Buy, and more retailers in the coming weeks. Almost Black, Quite Mint, and Oh So Orange won’t be available until the “coming months.”

Source: Google

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Update: Available in Canada

Nearly 3 months after the initial release, Google has finally launched the new truly wireless Pixel Buds in Canada. They come in Clearly White, Quite Mint, and Almost Black, though white is the only color available right now. You can buy them right now for $239.

Source: Google

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