Along with making the Playdate and some Mac apps, Panic is also a well-regarded games publisher with Firewatch and Untitled Goose Game under its belt. However, it's been a few years since Panic released a game outside of titles made specifically for the Playdate. Panic is ramping up its publishing efforts and we'll soon get a peek at what's in the pipeline when the company hosts its first games showcase. You can watch it on Panic's YouTube channel at 1PM ET on August 29th.
The stream will run for around 20 minutes and it will include more details on previously announced games Nour: Play With Your Food and Despelote. In addition, Panic will show off some new games and reveal fresh partnerships. You'll get behind-the-scenes looks at some titles too. “We thought it’d be fun to put on a little show and let the world know about the wonderful games we’ve been working on publishing, from amazing developers all around the world," Panic co-founder Cabel Sasser said.
One thing you shouldn't expect from the showcase is any Playdate news. On a positive note, Panic will show off some of the games featured in the showcase at both Gamescom and PAX West.
Hello! We have a lot to share about the video games we are publishing.
Please joins us for our Panic Games showcase on August 29th at 10AM PT.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/panic-will-host-its-first-games-showcase-on-august-29th-155822871.html?src=rss
Some of the most advanced Roomba robot vacuums are on sale right now. Wellbots has the poop-detecting iRobot Roomba j7+ for an all-time low price of $549. Or, you can opt for our favorite vacuum / mop hybrid, the upgraded Roomba j7+ Combo, for $799. In both cases, you can enter the coupon code ENGROOMBA200 to receive the $200 discount exclusively for Engadget readers.
The Roomba j7+ includes a bundled cleaning station and iRobot’s poop detection tech. The company says the vacuum’s advanced sensors will avoid pet feces — and its “Pet Owner Official Promise” (P.O.O.P.) policy assures you it will replace the device for free if it runs over pet waste within its first year. The self-emptying vacuum also includes an intelligent mapping feature that lets you choose which rooms it covers, and you can schedule multiple cleanings per day in advance. The Roomba j7+ is usually $800, so its $549 discounted price (with code ENGROOMBA200) is worth noting if you’ve been on the lookout for a cleaning machine.
Wellbots’ coupon also applies to that model’s upgraded sibling, one of Engadget’s picks for the best robot vacuums. The Roomba j7+ Combo takes the j7+’s base features (including self-emptying tech and poop detection) and adds wet mopping, letting you transition seamlessly between carpet and floor cleaning. (It can do both simultaneously on hard floors.) It also includes a feature that can help keep your rugs dry by lifting the mop out of reach when it detects it’s on a carpet. The j7+ Combo typically costs $1,100.
Both devices work with the iRobot mobile app. It lets you manage the devices’ smart mapping capabilities, remote startup and scheduling. We find the app to be simple, intuitive and a significant selling point for Roomba robot cleaners.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/irobots-poop-detecting-roomba-j7-is-at-an-all-time-low-price-right-now-130007090.html?src=rss
Instagram now lets you add music to photo carousels. Unveiled in partnership with pop star Olivia Rodrigo to promote her single “bad idea right?”, the feature allows you to pick licensed music to soundtrack your slideshows. In addition, the company announced that you can create Collabs with up to three co-authors and post audience-response prompts to Reels.
The carousel soundtracking feature adds a missing piece already found in TikTok’s Photo Mode, launched last year. “Whether you’re sharing a collection of summer memories with friends or moments from your camera roll, you can now add music to your photo carousels,” Instagram wrote in a blog post today. “Building off our launch of music for feed photos, anyone can add a song to capture the mood and bring their carousel to life.”
Also announced today, Instagram Collabs adds the ability to invite up to three friends (up from one) to help co-author feed posts, carousels or reels. The platform says each contributor’s audience will see the content (perhaps hinting that it could be a handy way for influencers to benefit from each other’s followings) and will feature on each account’s profile grid. In addition, the company says private profiles can still start posts / reels and invite collaborators as long as they follow the private account.
Instagram
Instagram also updated how the Add Yours sticker works. When a creator adds the new Add Yours prompt to a Reel and followers contribute content as a response, the creator can now highlight their favorite posted replies for all their followers to see. “With the Add Yours sticker, a creator or artist can invite their followers to join in on a fun prompt or challenge they create on Reels, and then hand-pick their favorite submissions to celebrate their fans’ creativity.” It essentially sounds like a way to use the human social desire to connect with high-status figures (especially celebrities like Rodrigo) to build engagement for creators and the platform as a whole.
Finally, Instagram noted that it’s bringing its music library “to more countries over the coming weeks,” although it hasn’t yet announced specific nations or dates. However, it did mention that Instagram is partnering with Spotify in Mexico and Brazil to showcase 50 of the most popular songs on Instagram Reels on the music platform’s Reels Music Chart.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/instagrams-musical-photo-carousels-are-a-lot-like-tiktoks-photo-mode-174008037.html?src=rss
We’ve all been in Samsung’s position, promising something before quickly realizing we couldn’t, or didn’t want to, actually follow through. But the Korean giant might get a record for the speed at which it walked back its initial pledge. It had intended to give Galaxy S23 owners the chance to beta test several One UI 6 features ahead of launch. Users in the US, Germany and South Korea would be able to see what tweaks the company had added to Android 14 and see what worked, and what didn’t.
Or that was the plan. Not long after the news dropped, Samsung began to walk back its promise. It told Engadget (and the rest of the media) it would delay the launch of the beta test until further notice, but with no justification. The initial announcement disappeared from Samsung’s press site, and everyone’s left mulling what could have been so problematic as to require this sort of scorched-earth approach.
—Dan Cooper
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Star Trek: Strange New Worldsconcluded its second season yesterday with a blockbuster finale. “Hegemony” pits the Enterprise crew against a formidable foe that requires every bit of their collective cunning for them to triumph. I jotted down nine thoughts both about this episode and also about the shape of the second season more generally. Which, it’s easy to say, has cemented itself as the best run of a live-action Trek in the streaming era.
A cynic might say this is to fend off antitrust action.
Amazon is closing the majority of its in-house clothing and furniture brands, including Lark & Lo, Goodthreads and Stone & Beam. Reports say it’s canning 27 out of 30 brands, with Amazon saying the marques haven’t resonated with consumers. A cynic might argue this is Amazon getting its house in order ahead of potential antitrust action by the FTC. The US has previously probed Amazon’s ability to spot popular products made by third party sellers on its platform and produce a homegrown, er, variation under one of its own brands.
Yesterday saw Virgin Galactic’s first private passenger flight successfully take three civilians to the edge of space and back. It included its first paying customer, former Olympian Jon Goodwin, who coughed up $250,000 for his ticket all the way back in 2014. He was joined by a mother and daughter team of Keisha Schahaff and Anastatia Mayers, who won their seats in a fundraising draw. The stream of the event is available and, I’ll be honest, it’s worth a watch just for the chest-tightening moment when the crew starts floating in zero gravity.
Xwitter CEO Linda Yaccrino has announced video chat is coming to the platform as part of its plan to become an “everything” app. The CEO said video calls would bolster work to turn X into a global town square, full of people exercising their right to free expression. Given the sort of free expression the company is currently endorsing, you might want to stick to your free video calling platform of choice — it’s not as if we’re hurting for those right now.
The long-awaited remaster of Quake II wasn’t just announced, it’s already available to play on most platforms. If you own the original on GOG or Steam, you’ll get a free bump to the new edition, with plenty of modern-day quality-of-life upgrades. The remastered edition also includes content cut from some versions and the original expansion packs, as well as a new expansion from MachineGames. Well, that’s your weekend sorted.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/the-morning-after-samsung-flip-flops-on-a-one-ui-beta-test-111536441.html?src=rss
Activision is doing something different with Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III, this year's entry in the blockbuster military shooter series. Rather than starting from scratch and having to rebuild your collection of weapons and cosmetic items, Activision is letting players carry over nearly everything they unlock in Modern Warfare II.
This so-called Carry Forward initiative also applies to Call of Duty: Warzone, given that content is shared between the mainline games and the free-to-play battle royale. Warzone Mobile, which is slated to arrive later this year, will be integrated into all of this too.
For the most part, your unlocked operators, operator skins, bundles, all weapons, attachments and other rewards and cosmetic items will move forward from MW2 to MW3. What's more, if you continue to level up guns in MW2, that progress will be reflected in MW3.
This is a one-way street, though. Any MW3 progress or unlocks won't be replicated in MW2. There's no Carry Back feature.
The main things that won't progress from the 2022 game to this year's one are cosmetics for vehicles that aren't present in MW3. War Tracks, which are songs that can be played in vehicles, won't move over either. "Some Tactical and Lethal equipment may not be available depending on the removing of those items in MW3, to be replaced with MW3-only equipment," Activision noted in an extensive FAQ.
Even though MW2 and MW3 are handled by different internal studios (Infinity Ward and Sledgehammer Games, respectively), you won't have to jump through any hoops to transfer your weapons and cosmetics either. Activision will handle everything, though of course you'll need to be using the same account or profile for both games.
Activision will release Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III on November 10th. We'll learn much more about the upcoming game at a reveal event, which is set for August 17th.
Meanwhile, following the game's latest trailer, fans are speculating that MW3 will include an updated take on the hugely controversial No Russian mission from the original Modern Warfare II, which came out in 2009. That level wasn't in last year's rebooted version of MW2.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/call-of-duty-players-can-bring-most-of-their-modern-warfare-ii-gear-over-to-modern-warfare-iii-170024613.html?src=rss
The surprisingly emotional and strangely addictive “dystopian document thriller” Papers, Please just turned ten years old and has officially sold five million copies across multiple platforms throughout the past decade. To celebrate the milestone, developer Lucas Pope and his company 3909 LLC released a web game called LCD, Please that allows players to go through certain aspects of the original title.
Just like the real game, LCD, Please tasks you with approving or denying passport and transit requests. As the name suggests, the graphics style emulates those LCD portable devices of yesteryear, like Nintendo’s Game & Watch series. The sound is monotone, the controls are simple and the gameplay is addictive, making it a great way to accidentally waste a few minutes during the work day.
The web game isn’t the only way the developer is celebrating the success of Papers, Please. There’s also an official soundtrack, available now on Spotify and Apple Music, a developer’s log with insider information chronicling the game’s original pitch and a store selling related merchandise. To the latter, you can pick up posters, shirts, stickers and more.
Since the game’s initial release in 2013, Papers, Please has gone on to launch on over 40 platforms, according to the developer. Most recently, the title was released for Android and iOS devices last year. The game’s success also inspired a short film, which was well-received and lauded for capturing the spirit of the source material. Since making Papers, Please, developer Lucas Pope has gone on to create the seafaring whodunnitReturn of the Obra Dinn.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/indie-favorite-papers-please-has-sold-5-million-copies-171537016.html?src=rss
Three point five inches. That’s about the size of the original iPhone’s display. That’s downright tiny compared to today’s smartphones, and it’s hard to imagine typing or using most modern apps on such a cramped screen. But as a secondary panel on a phone that folds in half, even 3.4 inches feels positively roomy. At least, it’s much more useful than the 1.9-inch sliver that we got on last year’s Galaxy Z Flip 4.
With its latest flip-style foldable, Samsung brings a 3.4-inch external display that it’s confusingly renamed the Flex Window (it doesn’t flex, so yes, I’m mad at the name). And that’s about it. The Galaxy Z Flip 5 also has a new hinge that allows for gapless closure when folded, as well as some software tweaks. Aside from those updates, this phone is very similar to its predecessor, with basically the same cameras, water-resistance rating and battery size. It also costs the same as last year’s model and comes with twice the base storage, which is a nice touch. But with greater competition in the US this year, Samsung can no longer coast on being the only player in the space.
Design
One of a few signs that Samsung is coasting? The Flip 5’s design. Setting aside its larger external display, this thing looks pretty much identical to its predecessor, which itself was basically a clone of the version before it. The Flip 5’s frame is the same 6.5 x 2.8-inch rectangle as last year’s model, and it cuts the same 0.27-inch profile, too. It also maintains the same weight, measuring 6.6 ounces (or 187 grams).
Some things have changed this year, though. The external cameras are no longer stacked vertically on top of each other; they’re laid out side by side, presumably to accommodate the new larger screen. The available colors are also different, which I appreciate, since the purple hue on last year’s model was getting a bit stale. This time, you can choose from pink and a minty green, in addition to the standard cream and black. Sadly, our review unit is the basic black version, but the green variant I saw at Samsung’s launch event is worth lusting after.
A notable upgrade on the Z Flip 5 is what Samsung calls its Flex Hinge, which allows the device to fold completely flat and leave no gap between the two halves of its internal screen. This should not only appeal to people who were put off by the asymmetry of the previous design, but it leaves less of a chance that a key in your purse might get lodged in that little opening and scratch the fragile panel.
That’s not to say that the Flip 5 is dust resistant. Its IPX8 rating means it can withstand brief submersion in water, but it wasn’t tested for protection from foreign solid particles. That’s a lot of jargon to say the Flip 5 will be fine if you drop it in the tub, but it’s more susceptible to, say, sand, than most modern smartphones. However, the phone’s exterior is likely tougher than its inside, thanks to the Corning Gorilla Glass Victus 2 glass covering its rear and Flex Window.
External display
Regardless of my feelings toward Samsung’s absurd name, the Flex Window is a major improvement over last year’s Cover display. It’s a 3.4-inch Super AMOLED panel with a 60Hz refresh rate and 720 x 748 resolution, and the photos I chose as my wallpapers looked crisp and vibrant. But the biggest upgrade is its size.
The benefits are obvious: A larger canvas means you can see more at once and buttons can be bigger and easier to hit. With the extra space, the Weather widget can display the forecast for multiple days, while the Calendar offers a monthly view.
Photo by Cherlynn Low / Engadget
Unlike Motorola’s Razr+, though, the Flip 5 doesn’t behave like full Android on its cover screen. It runs One UI in a way that’s more like the company’s Tizen OS for its older smartwatches. You’ll swipe left through widgets like Timer, Stopwatch, Samsung Health, Dialer and more, drag down from the home page for quick settings and swipe right to see your notifications. But because the Flip 5 supports up to 13 widgets, rotating through the carousel to find what you need can quickly get tedious. Thankfully, Samsung added a new pinch gesture that lets you zoom out to see all your widgets at once and jump to what you want.
Though you can’t natively run every app in the world on the Flex Window, the company did optimize a handful to work on the smaller panel. You have to go into Settings to enable them, but once you do you can launch Google Maps, YouTube, Netflix, Messages and WhatsApp on the external display. I guess these are the ones Samsung thinks people most want to use when the Flip is closed.
If you’re feeling adventurous, you can install Good Lock from the Galaxy App Store, which lets you run pretty much any app on the outside. It took me a while to figure out that to get this to work, you’ll have to go into Good Lock and download the MultiStar launcher, then add the launcher as a widget on the Flex Window. Once I did, though, I quickly selected apps like Instagram, Chrome, Reddit and Gallery to run on the outside. Each of them ran as expected — that is, as a mini version of itself on an awkwardly shaped screen.
This is a good time to point out that the Flip 5’s Flex Window isn’t a typical rectangle. It’s shaped more like a document folder, mostly square with a small tab on the bottom left. Functionally, that extra space doesn’t get in the way of apps or widgets. Swiping up on it brings you back to the home page, and if you have a timer or song running, a little countdown shows up there.
Photo by Cherlynn Low / Engadget
You don’t have to install Good Lock to find the new Flex Window useful, but it does make for a better experience. For example, when replying to a notification from an app like Telegram, you won’t actually be able to see the message your friend sent. This might be because Telegram notifications are typically hidden anyway, to prevent onlookers from seeing your chats. So if you want to respond to Telegram contacts, you’ll likely still have to open the Flip to see what they said.
That is, unless you use Good Lock to let the app run outside, in which case tapping the notification on the Flex Window will just take you to the conversation in the app. It’s surprisingly smooth and weirdly satisfying to see a non-native experience work so well.
Replying to messages is another improvement over the Flip 4, by the way. Samsung now has room to offer a QWERTY keyboard, and typing on it is an absolute delight. I have relatively small hands, and reaching across this panel to reach letters like Q and A was no trouble, especially with swipe typing. The Flip 5’s software is more refined than the Moto’s, too, since the latter’s keyboard takes over the entire screen and requires an extra tap to actually send your reply. Samsung’s interface also lets you see some of your conversation above the input field, whereas you won’t see any of it on the Razr+.
Photo by Cherlynn Low / Engadget
The larger Flex Window also makes for a far superior viewfinder for the external cameras. With the increased space, I can now see the entire frame when lining up a selfie or setting up a video. Swiping sideways on this viewfinder screen switches between Portrait, Photo or Video modes, while pinching changes the level of zoom and the ultrawide camera kicks in at 0.5x.
Cameras
While the experience of using the external 12-megapixel cameras has drastically improved thanks to the Flex Window, image quality itself has not. Samsung uses basically the same sensors on the Flip 5 as those on the Flip 4, and though there’s no generational upgrade, they still take pretty good pictures.
In fact, out of all two flip-style foldables available in the US, the Flip 5 easily gains the upper hand. Its only competition is the Moto Razr+, which has similar sensors on paper but delivers washed out photos in comparison.
My photos of the Metropolitan Museum of Art showed vibrant blue skies and red banners when I used the Z Flip 4 and Flip 5, but the scene seemed pale when I shot it with the Razr+. Though I prefer the rosier hues in selfies I snapped with the Razr+, the ones that Samsung produced had more accurate colors.
Photo by Cherlynn Low / Engadget
At night, cityscapes were pretty grainy across all three phones I tested, but the Flip 4 and Flip 5 were slightly better at exposing buildings amidst all the lights in New York. Though both Samsung phones were neck-and-neck in terms of low-light photo quality, I was pleasantly surprised that the Flip 5 took about half the time of its predecessor when capturing a shot in Night mode. As a result, I didn’t have to hold still for as long, and my selfies from the newer handset were clearer.
I also enjoyed using the Flip 5 and Razr+ as TikTok machines, setting them up with their cover screens facing out to shoot some (hopefully) humorous clips. Video quality was, again, very close across the three devices. In short, don’t write off the Flip 5’s cameras, but you won’t be writing home about the photos you took, either.
As a “regular” phone
You won’t be spending all your time with the Flip 5 using only its external screen. For the most part, you’ll most likely interact with the flexible 6.7-inch Full HD AMOLED panel inside, which is what I did. I’ll admit, I mostly used this phone to scroll Reddit or Instagram and play mind-numbing puzzle games like Goods Sort and Solitaire.
Everything felt as it did on last year’s Flip — even the crease looks the same. My friends’ vacation photos and game graphics were colorful and crisp. At certain angles, content looked slightly discolored under the wrinkle, but it didn’t bother me. I also enjoyed stroking the crease as much as I did before. There’s something deliciously satisfying about repeatedly running my thumb over it.
Photo by Cherlynn Low / Engadget
I also tried a few times to carefully push my thumb into the screen as I started to bend the phone to close it, and I never felt like the panel was going to break. But of course, I’ve only had the Flip 5 for slightly over a week, so long-term use may reveal durability issues. It’s worth noting, though, that compared to Motorola, Samsung has a more established repair and parts replacement system in place. Should you actually damage your foldable, or if you know you’re accident prone, the better company to choose is Samsung.
There are some software updates to Flex Mode that I didn’t spend a lot of time with, mostly because I don’t find them all that useful in daily use. As a refresher, Flex Mode is an interface that kicks in when you bend the phone slightly and have it open at between 20 and 160 degrees (approximately). Compatible apps will split their layout in half, typically showing content up top and controls below. Like on older Flips, apps that work well with this are YouTube, which continues to display the video on the higher half while letting you scroll through comments at the bottom.
This year, though, you can choose to (after first toggling through several hidden settings) display a button at the bottom left of every app. It’ll bring up the Flex dashboard, which offers shortcuts for taking a screenshot, pulling down the notifications shade and more. Some of these, like the two I named, are helpful. But some, like the touchpad that you can enable, are just silly. With the touchpad, you can drag your finger around the bottom half of the screen to maneuver a cursor up top. In some situations, like for people with mobility issues, I can see this being useful. For most other scenarios, however, it’s usually easier to just reach a little and tap the top half of the screen.
Photo by Cherlynn Low / Engadget
Performance and battery life
We’re reaching a point where smaller foldable phones are pretty much as fast as their non-flexible counterparts, which brings them ever so slightly closer to being feasible as mainstream devices. Thanks to its Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 for Galaxy processor, the Flip 5 is on par with flagships like the Galaxy S23+. It also packs the same 8GB of RAM, and this year’s Flip even offers twice the base storage of its predecessor, starting with 256GB.
No matter what I threw at it, the Flip 5 never hiccuped. Granted, I never played a game more demanding than Criminal Minds or CSI: Hidden Crimes on it, but I was also pleased when I realized the phone never really ran alarmingly warm.
The Flip 5’s Geekbench 6 scores of 2,015 (single-core) and 4,972 (multi-core) were about the same as the Z Fold 5, and significantly better than the Pixel Fold, which uses Google’s own Tensor G2 chip.
This is clearly flagship-level performance, so you’re not sacrificing much if you pick a Flip over a traditional handset. But one area where foldables tend to fall short is battery life. The Flip 5 delivered very similar runtime to its predecessor, which isn’t a shocker considering its battery is the same 3,700mAh. Sure, it has a larger external screen to power, but precisely due to the Flex Window being more useful, I didn’t have to open up the Flip 5 as much as the older model. So it makes sense that both Flips had about the same endurance.
Photo by Cherlynn Low / Engadget
Wrap-up
Here we are, staring at the fifth generation of Samsung’s Galaxy Z series of foldables and still asking the same question: Are phones with flexible displays ready for the mainstream? With its larger and more useful external screen, the Flip 5 is the best candidate in the category’s history to appeal outside the tech-savvy crowd. It offers excellent performance, capable cameras and — lest we forget — it folds in half! Plus, it combines relatively advanced bendable-screen tech with an exterior panel in a size that’s sure to win nostalgia points, meaning it’ll appeal to experimentalists and sentimentalists alike.
If your existing Flip is falling apart, the Flip 5 is worth the upgrade for the Flex Window alone. But if you’re contemplating adopting a foldable for the first time, just know that you’ll probably sacrifice some camera quality, have to take extra care when manhandling the device and resign yourself to always be charging. In exchange, you’ll get a very capable phone, some cool points and an easy conversation starter.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/samsung-galaxy-z-flip-5-review-still-the-best-flip-foldable-163030055.html?src=rss
Samsung's latest slate of Galaxy devices arrives on August 11, but there's still time to lock in a pre-order to get free perks like a storage upgrade and gift card. The company's new flagship foldable, the Galaxy Z Fold 5, is included in the offer. If you pre-order one, you can get double the storage (jumping from 256GB up to 512GB) and a $200 Amazon gift card at no extra cost. That should take some of the sting out of the $1,800 price.
In our review of the Galaxy Z Fold 5, we gave the device a score of 86. We feel that Samsung is still making the best foldable out there. However, the company could be doing more with the format (such as trying to bring down the price) as its momentum in the space seems to be slowing.
The big change this year is the new Flex Hinge. It's smaller than the hinge in previous Fold devices and it helps make the handset slightly thinner. That's because it allows the phone to close properly and get rid of the gap between the two halves.
Samsung has upgraded many other components. There's a brighter main display and a Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 that helps to improve the performance. Two new gestures could make it easier to get the phone to do what you want. Battery life is solid as well — the Galaxy Z Fold 5 lasted for nearly 20 hours on a single charge in our video rundown test.
Although Samsung has stuck with the same camera setup as last year's model, you can still take good quality photos with the Galaxy Z Fold 5. It's also disappointing that there's no option to store an S Pen inside the device and that it's still fairly bulky. Still, if you're looking for a foldable phone, we reckon this is the best one out there.
In case the Galaxy Z Flip 5 is more compelling to you, there's a pre-order offer for that device too. Again, you'll get 512GB of storage rather than 256GB, as well as a $150 Amazon gift card if you pre-order the $1,000 foldable.
Our review of the Z Flip 5 is in progress, but we felt it had some promise after our initial hands-on. The device has a larger and more useful external display compared with the previous models. It should be easier to carry out actions like controlling media playback and dashing off a text without having to open up the main screen. The Z Flip 5 has the new Flex Hinge as well.
Elsewhere, pre-order the Galaxy Tab S9+ and you'll get (you guessed it) the same free storage upgrade. The tablet — which includes a Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 chipset, a 12.4-inch AMOLED display and protection from dust and water — costs $1,000. Those interested in the Book Cover Keyboard can also save 50 percent when they buy it through Amazon.
As for the Galaxy Watch 6, that doesn't come with a free storage upgrade. However, if you lock in a pre-order now, you'll get a $50 Amazon gift card and fabric band at no extra cost. The deal applies to both the Bluetooth model (which costs $300) and the $350 LTE version.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/samsung-pre-orders-on-amazon-include-free-gift-cards-and-storage-upgrades-144922818.html?src=rss
In 2019, Samsung released the original Galaxy Fold, the first phone with a flexible display (not counting pretenders like the Royole Flexpai). And even though it had more than its fair share of flaws, you could see its potential. Over the next couple of years, Samsung refined its flagship foldable with things like IPX8 water resistance, a more durable design and native stylus support. More recently, however, the pace of innovation has started to slow as more iterative improvements and fewer major upgrades have come to fill out the spec sheet. It's a similar situation on the new Galaxy Z Fold 5: While many of its upgrades including the brighter main screen are nice to have, they’re also kind of superfluous. Even the one big change for 2023 – Samsung’s new Flex hinge – doesn’t really change the way you use the device; it just makes it a bit thinner. When you consider that the price still sits at $1,800, it feels like Samsung’s Z Fold line – and possibly the category as a whole – is losing momentum.
Design and display
The Z Fold 5 was built on the same basic blueprint as its predecessors. It packs a skinny but tall exterior Cover Screen and opens up to reveal a big main display with a fingerprint sensor built into its power button. The major change this year is Samsung’s Flex hinge, which is based on a two-rail internal structure that’s not only smaller than before, but also eliminates the gap between the phone when closed.
This is something Z Fold users have been requesting since the original. In addition to slimming the phone down to just 13.4mm, losing that gap also reduces the chance that dust or rocks can get inside and ruin that fancy flexible screen. But that’s not all. Samsung says its Flex hinge creates a new waterdrop-shaped crease that puts less stress on the display, which is good for long-term durability. It also helps keep the factory-installed screen protector in place, which was an issue on previous models.
The new hinge also makes the device more pleasant to use and hold. The thinner hinge fits better in your hand when the phone is closed and it opens more smoothly, too. I just wish it hadn’t taken five generations to get here. Meanwhile, Samsung managed to increase the brightness of the main display to 1,750 nits, which is the same as the S23 Ultra and brighter than the Pixel Fold (1,450 nits). So while the flexible display on Google’s foldable is good, the Z Fold 5’s is better. It’s the perfect size and orientation for reading ebooks or browsing comics, and I’d argue that Samsung’s flagship foldable is the best device for playing Marvel Snap. You can still use a stylus to draw or take notes and the Z Fold 5’s new S Pen is 40 percent thinner than before. But since there’s still no room inside the phone to stash it when it’s not in use, you’ll probably want to pair it with one of Samsung’s new Slim S Pen cases.
Performance and multitasking
Photo by Sam Rutherford/Engadget
Last year’s model was far from slow, but thanks to a new Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 for Galaxy chip, the Z Fold 5 is now even faster. In traditional benchmarks, it posted notably higher multicore scores in Geekbench 6 than the Pixel Fold (5,362 vs 3,226). The Z Fold 5 feels incredibly responsive and in games, graphics and animations are downright silky. That means if you’re the kind of power user who demands an abundance of speed regardless of what you’re doing, the Z Fold 5 is the better pick over the Pixel Fold, whose Tensor G2 chip reserves more horsepower for AI tasks.
Samsung has also enhanced mobile productivity in three ways. To make it faster and easier to launch into side-by-side app mode, a new gesture lets you swipe in from the side of the screen with two fingers to instantly switch into dual-pane mode. Alternatively, if you want to turn a full-screen app to a windowed one, just swipe diagonally down from one of the top two corners. Both gestures are super handy and they’re a breeze to use. But they’re not on by default, so remember to activate them in the Advanced features tab in settings.
Photo by Sam Rutherford/Engadget
The other update is that the Z Fold 5’s taskbar can now show up to four recent apps instead of two. It’s a simple but straightforward change that takes better advantage of the width of the Z Fold 5’s big main display. My only gripe is that the expanded taskbar and the added gestures are software updates, so we didn’t need a brand new device to get them. That said, compared to the Pixel Fold, which takes a more streamlined approach to multitasking, Samsung’s desktop-like taskbar remains the best for anyone who wants to use their phone like a PC. And don’t forget that Samsung’s handy Dex mode is still around, too.
Cameras
The Z Fold 5 has the same imaging setup as its predecessor: a 50-megapixel main camera, a 12MP ultra-wide and a 10MP telephoto with a 3x optical zoom in the back, plus a 10MP selfie shooter and a 4MP camera beneath the main display. In a vacuum, they’re more than capable of taking a good picture in practically any environment. However, when you consider that the S23 Ultra costs $600 less and comes with a 200MP main sensor and a 10x optical zoom lens, that puts Samsung’s most expensive phone in a weird position.
Sam Rutherford/Engadget
What makes things even more awkward is that the Pixel Fold sports a longer zoom (5x vs 3x) and better overall image processing. In my testing, that made the Pixel the more adept shooter across a variety of conditions.
In bright light, the Z Fold 5 captured images with Samsung’s typical rich, saturated color profile. The downside is this sometimes results in a small loss of detail, occasional blown-out highlights and slightly less accurate hues. Meanwhile in low light, Samsung’s Night Mode does a good job of improving exposure without a ton of side effects. That said, thanks to Google’s Night Sight, photos from the Pixel Fold are often just a touch brighter and sharper. A good example is a shot I took of some flowers at night, in which the Z Fold 5’s picture boasts more vivid colors while missing some of the finer texture on the petals.
Battery life
Despite having a smaller battery than the Pixel Fold (4,400 mAh vs 4,800 mAh), the Z Fold 5 lasts longer. In our video rundown test, Samsung’s phone lasted 19 hours and 48 minutes when using its main display and an impressive 23:10 with its Cover Screen. On both counts, that’s better than Pixel Fold, which posted a time of 15:22 with its internal screen and 22:21 with its exterior panel.
Photo by Sam Rutherford/Engadget
The Z Fold 5’s charging speed has stayed the same with 25-watt wired charging, 15-watt wireless charging and 5-watt power sharing (aka reverse wireless charging). That’s serviceable, but once again, the less expensive S23 Ultra can do better, with the ability to go up to 45 watts when plugged in.
Wrap-up
As someone who’s still optimistic about foldable devices and has owned the last three generations of Samsung’s flagship flexible phone, I can't help but like the Z Fold 5. It’s faster and sleeker, with a brighter main display and even longer battery life than before. The question I wrestle with is how many tweaks and updates should we really expect from a device now in its fifth generation.
Photo by Sam Rutherford/Engadget
The Z Fold 5 has matured a lot since that initial concept device came out back in 2019, and Samsung’s new Flex Hinge is an important milestone that people like me have been waiting for. But in the end, there’s not a ton the phone can do now that it couldn’t before. It’s just a bit leaner, as if the old model spent the last 12 months in the gym. And with a price that’s still extremely high, I don’t think the Z Fold 5 is doing enough to woo anyone who's not already sold on foldables.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/galaxy-z-fold-5-review-five-years-in-samsung-is-treading-water-140002461.html?src=rss
Sony has published its earnings report for the first quarter of the year (PDF) ending on June 30th and an adjusted forecast for the fiscal year, and they paint a picture of mixed results for the company. Its overall operating profit for the period was down 31 percent year-over-year, from 364.9 billion yen ($2.54 billion) to 253 billion ($1.76 billion). The company's revenue was up 33 percent, however, thanks to significant increase in sales by its game and network services, music, imaging and financial services businesses.
Sony believes its game and music segments will continue to do well and has raised (PDF) its sales and revenue forecast for the fiscal year ending on March 31st, 2024 by 6.1 percent due to higher-than-expected sales for those businesses. It also expects its net income to be 2.4 percent higher than its previous forecast, from 840 billion yen ($5.86 billion) to 860 billion ($6 billion).
This expected increase in sales for non-first-party titles will be aided by a decrease in costs and expenses. That said, they will also offset by a "deterioration in profitability of PlayStation 5 hardware." Sony has dropped the PS5's pricing in several regions around the world recently. While that translates to lower overall earnings from the console, it could also get people on the fence to finally purchase the PS5, which in turn could lead to more game purchases.
To note, Sony has shipped 3.3 million PS5 units in the first quarter of the year. That's almost half of the previous quarter's sales of 6.3 million units, though that figure was for the holiday season, when businesses typically do better than usual. This is Sony's best-performing first quarter for PS5 sales so far, bringing the total number of units sold to 41.7 million.
Despite adjusting its outlook with better numbers for the year overall, Sony has lowered its expectations for the sales of mobile sensors due to the continuing downward trend in smartphone sales. Sony Pictures' earnings was also down year-on-year despite the success of Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse. The company doesn't foresee a recovery for the business, as well, and believes it will perform worse than what was predicted last April due to the impact of strikes by the Writers Guild of America and the Screen Actors Guild.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/sony-raises-its-annual-forecast-on-the-strength-of-its-playstation-sales-113514305.html?src=rss
