If you were wondering when brands will finally stop trying to cash in on the Barbie craze, the answer is, somehow, not yet. HMD (or Human Mobile Devices), which has been making Nokia phones for the past few years, announced for MWC that it’s partnered with Mattel to release an official Barbie Flip Phone this summer. It’ll be pink, obviously, with a dash of “sparkle.”
Aesthetically, it sounds a lot like the original hot pink Motorola Razr of the aughts. But while that phone eventually got rebooted as a smartphone for the era of modern foldables, the Barbie phone is keeping things pretty basic. It’ll be a feature phone, not a smartphone, with HMD marketing it as an accessory geared toward “style, nostalgia and a much-needed digital detox.” HMD hasn’t revealed much else about it yet, like pricing or actual photos, but the company says it plans to unveil the Barbie Flip Phone at MWC, so we'll likely see more of it as the week unfolds.
Most people may not be ready to ditch their smartphones entirely just yet, but if you’re looking for a burner, this is probably one of the cutest you could get.
HMD
Catch up on all of the news from MWC 2024 right here!
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/barbies-hot-pink-flip-phone-is-coming-to-the-real-world-this-summer-170805284.html?src=rss
Whether you're looking for a last-minute Valentine's Day gift for your special someone or a pick-me-up as winter rages, discounted AirPods are a solid option. Right now, Apple's third-generation AirPods are down from $169 to $140 – a 17 percent discount. The sale brings these earbuds down to the lowest we've seen them this year.
The third-gen Apple AirPods came on the scene in 2021 as a major upgrade to their predecessor. For starters, they have a comfier design and IPX4-level sweat and water resistance. The third-gen AirPods also offer six hours of playtime (30 overall with the case), wireless charging with a Qi‑certified wireless charger and one hour of juice in just five minutes in the case. Plus, this model has always-on Siri and more accurately detects when the AirPods are in your ear.
Are you looking for just the basics in your AirPods purchase? The second-generation model AirPods are also on sale, with a 30 percent discount dropping the price from $129 to $90. However, they don't have wireless charging and last only five hours, or 24 hours with the case.
If noise canceling is vital to you, then the second-gen AirPods Pro might be the right call instead. They're currently 24 percent off, dropping from $249 to $190 — not far off from the standard price for the classic third-gen AirPods. In addition to noise canceling, the second-gen AirPods Pro offer transparency mode and Adaptive Audio. They also have six hours of battery life and 30 hours with the case. Plus, both the AirPods and the MagSafe case are IP54 sweat, dust and water resistant.
One of Vision Pro's most intriguing features is undoubtedly the EyeSight display, which projects a visual feed of your own eyes to better connect with people in the real world — because eye contact matters, be it real or virtual. As iFixit discovered in its teardown, it turns out that Apple leveraged stereoscopic 3D effect as an attempt to make your virtual eyes look more life-like, as opposed to a conventional "flat" output on the curved OLED panel. This is achieved by stacking a widening optical layer and a lenticular lens layer over the OLED screen, which is why exposing the panel will show "some very oddly pinched eyes." The optical nature of the added layers also explain the EyeSight display's dim output. Feel free to check out the scientific details in the article.
While iFixit has yet to do more analysis before it can give the Vision Pro a repairability score, so far we already know that the front glass panel "took a lot of heat and time" to detach from the main body. That said, the overall modular design — especially the speakers and the external battery — should win some points. As always, head over to iFixit for some lovely close-up shots of the teardown process.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/apple-vision-pro-teardown-deconstructs-the-weird-looking-eyesight-display-083426548.html?src=rss
Apple’s latest smartwatch, the Series 9, is back down to its record-low price in a one-day-only sale at Best Buy. The 41mm Apple Watch Series 9, which normally goes for $399, is just $299 today for the GPS model. The larger version, 45mm, is on sale for $100 off as well, bringing it down to $329. For both sizes, the deal applies to multiple colors, so you can get the watch in Silver, Light Pink, Starlight, Midnight or (Product)Red with either the sport band or the nylon sport loop.
The Apple Watch Series 9 added some new features for more convenient interactions with your smartwatch. That includes Double Tap, a control option that doesn’t require you to touch the screen at all — you just need to squeeze your thumb and index finger together two times using the hand on the same arm as your watch, and it’ll carry out a designated action. You could use it, for example, to pause or unpause your music.
The Series 9 scored a 92 in our review, excelling as usual at health and fitness tracking, among other tasks. It also tops our list of the best smartwatches you can get this year. Apple also introduced on-device Siri for the Apple Watch with the Series 9, which means the assistant can function when you’re offline or don’t have your phone with you. Apple also said it improved the “Raise to Speak” feature with the Series 9 to wake Siri more efficiently without voice commands. All of this is made possible by its new S9 system-in-package (SiP).
You won’t get blood oxygen monitoring with the Series 9, though, despite the feature initially being among its offerings. Apple removed the feature last month following a patent dispute. But even without that, the Series 9 is a solid device that offers pretty much everything you’d need or want in a smartwatch.
Apple's latest Watch Series 9 is back down to its lowest price ever, just in time to help you keep going with those January fitness goals. You can grab the 41mm Pink model with the light pink sport loop for just $309, for a savings of 23 percent ($90) off the list price. If you're looking for another color, the Midnight and Silver models are on sale for $329, still saving you a substantial 18 percent ($70) off the regular price.
The Apple Watch Series 9 is a solid addition to the lineup, scoring an excellent 92 in our review thanks to new features like Raise To Speak and Double Tap. Raise to Speak allows you to lift your wrist to activate Siri, with requests now processed right on the watch instead of going through another device. In other words, you can still use Siri when offline or away from your phone.
Double Tap is a more interactive feature, letting you tap your index finger and thumb together (the ones on the same side as the watch) twice to complete specific actions. You can use it to answer or end calls or reply with dictation, among other commands — meaning you'll need to touch your watch face less often.
The Apple Watch Series 9 is also powerful for health and fitness — for one, it monitors your heart rate and will send a notification if it notices any irregularities. It also tracks your sleep stages and overall well-being through features like temperature sensing. Plus, it's water-resistant, so you needn't worry about sweat.
There is one downside, as you might be aware. Apple was forced to disable a key new feature, the blood oxygen monitor, due to a patent dispute with a medical company. That issue has now been resolved, though, and you probably won't miss the feature much — especially at those prices.
The Samsung Galaxy S24 isn’t taking Google’s Gemini AI with it to China. CNBCreported Friday that the Chinese version of the flagship phone uses Baidu’s Ernie chatbot to power the phone’s AI-powered features. Ernie arrived last August after reportedly receiving Chinese government approval.
“Now featuring Ernie’s understanding and generation capabilities, the upgraded Samsung Note Assistant can translate content and also summarize lengthy content into clear, intelligently organized formats at the click of a button, streamlining the organization of extensive text,” Baidu and Samsung told CNBC in a joint statement.
Samsung’s description of the Galaxy S24 series on its Chinese website advertises many of the same Google-powered features it debuted last week in its San Jose, CA, launch event. These include a version of Circle to Search, real-time call translation, a transcription helper and a photo assistant. The Chinese Galaxy S24 product pages don’t have any references to Google, which has limited operations in the country.
Samsung
A recent report suggests Apple recently ended Samsung’s 14-year run as the global smartphone shipment leader. In addition, IDC published data this week suggesting the iPhone maker claimed the top spot in the Chinese market (with a 17.3-percent market share) for the first time in 2023. Samsung didn’t make the top five.
Engadget has tried the Galaxy S24 series, including the standard, Plus and Ultra variants. Samsung’s 2024 flagship phone lineup launches in the US on January 31.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/samsungs-ai-features-on-the-galaxy-s24-in-china-reportedly-ditch-google-for-baidu-174503505.html?src=rss
With the launch of the Galaxy S24 family, Samsung is boldly declaring an end to the smartphone camera wars as it moves into the AI era. And the $1,300 S24 Ultra is its torchbearer for this new age of mobile design.
While it may not look like a ton has changed on the S24 Ultra, there’s one major design update along with a handful of smaller tweaks. The move to a titanium frame (available in four colors: titanium yellow, violet, gray and black) apes what Apple did for the iPhone 15 Pro last fall. The big difference is that, because Samsung’s previous flagship featured an aluminum chassis unlike the heavier stainless steel build on the iPhone 14 Pro, the S24 Ultra’s weight (8.22 ounces) is largely unchanged from last year’s device (8.25 ounces). That means aside from some very slight changes to the texture, there aren’t a ton of outward signs hinting at the S24’s increased durability which includes the same IP68 rating for dust and water resistance.
More subtle upgrades include a new Corning Gorilla Armor panel in back (instead of Gorilla Glass Victus 2 like on the standard S24/S24+), even thinner bezels (42 percent slimmer than before) and a slightly boxier feel. The latter might not be something most people notice, but it’s part of an ongoing trend for Samsung as it’s moved towards phones with flatter screens. On the S24 Ultra, aside from some faint rounding at the perimeter of its display, it’s almost completely rectangular. So for all the people who hate screens with curvy edges, congratulations, you’ve won.
Inside, the S24 Ultra features a Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 chip along with 12GB of RAM and up to 1TB of storage. Samsung says it’s installed a larger vapor chamber that’s almost twice the size of what’s in the previous model to help keep the phone’s thermals in check. The Ultra’s screen is also slightly brighter with a peak of 2,600 nits for its 120Hz 6.8-inch OLED screen. There’s still a storage slot for the Ultra’s S Pen with a springy magnetic attachment system and its core functionality hasn’t changed, so you can expect the same super responsive stylus input.
It’s important to note that the S24 Ultra’s camera setup is largely unchanged. You still get a 200-MP main sensor and a 12-MP ultra-wide, but instead of a 10x lens, the S24’s telephoto camera is now based on a 50-MP sensor (up from 10-MP) with a 5x optical zoom. Samsung says this change was made based on customer feedback and usage patterns, which saw 5x being the most frequently used focal length. While its overall reach has seemingly decreased, the phone uses pixel-binning and AI to achieve what the company is calling a “10x optical quality” zoom while still delivering up to a total 100x Space Zoom. In our limited hands-on time, the Ultra’s telephoto camera still looked sharp even with the shorter focal length, though as before image quality begins to deteriorate quickly past 20x.
Photo by Sam Rutherford/Engadget
Of course, the Ultra’s zoom is just one small application of AI. The entire S24 family has a full suite of machine learning-based features. Similar to what’s available on the Pixel 8, Samsung is using AI to help you edit photos and create new slow-mo footage. You can use the S24 Ultra’s stylus (or your finger on the other models) to draw a lasso around a subject before touching and holding to move it whenever you want. Then, all you have to do is hit the generate button, and the phone uses AI to fill in any missing elements. And this isn’t limited just to moving things around either, as you can delete objects, resize, recompose and more.
Samsung’s photo app can also detect things like shadows and reflections and will ask if you would like to remove them from your shot. This might be my favorite application of AI, as this helps streamline editing while also making more complicated fixes incredibly easy. And while I only got to test this out using sample photos provided by Samsung, it worked astonishingly well. After finding a photo in the gallery app, all I had to do was hit the info button to see a list of suggested edits, which almost instantly transformed a mediocre image into something I would be proud to share on social media.
Samsung’s slow-mo feature was also quite impressive. It works on practically any local clip, not just footage shot by an S24. When playing back a video, you can simply touch and hold. Then the phone looks at the framerate of the footage, multiplies it by four (e.g. from 30fps to 120fps) and uses AI to create additional frames — all on the fly and on-device, so nothing is being sent to the cloud.
Photo by Sam Rutherford/Engadget
It’s not all photo tricks, though. The S24 uses its AI powers to help you communicate both on the phone, via the new live-translation feature, and in text, with improved proofreading, summarization and tone-correction abilities. During calls, activating translation is as simple as tapping a button. From there, it will recognize your speech and automatically convert it into whatever the other person is speaking (or you can save a tiny bit of time and select the language yourself). Granted, this does mean that conversations will take a touch longer since you’ll need to pause to give the phone a chance to process and translate what you say. But if you’re in a pinch while traveling, I wouldn’t hesitate to try this out.
As for the S24’s summarizing capabilities, it’s similar to what you get on the Pixel or in services like ChapGPT, Bard and others. You can direct the phone to a website or a file (including those in Samsung Notes) and the phone will condense things into a handful of major bullet points. But the potentially more useful tool is the tone-correcting feature, which in addition to basic stuff like highlighting typos, also gives you some options to rephrase things to make them seem more positive or encouraging.
Photo by Sam Rutherford/Engadget
Notably, because you get a handful of options and the choice to ignore or implement things as you see fit, it feels like less policing yourself and more like adjusting language to get your message across in a more effective manner. Honestly, this is something everyone could probably use from time to time, even if it’s just to prevent sending out an angry text or email.
The one aspect of the S24’s AI powers that isn’t handled locally is a new circle-to-search tool. Developed in partnership with Google, the feature allows you to highlight both text and images before sending a query off to the cloud and returning results. In practice, it feels like combining traditional search and visual lookup aids like the Google Lens app into a single thing. It’s a nice upgrade in terms of general usability standpoint even if it doesn’t revolutionize the way the phone works.
Photo by Sam Rutheford/Engadget
Finally, following a similar move Google made last year with the Pixel 8, Samsung will now provide a full seven years of regular OS and security updates. This is something I’m hoping to see from every Android handset maker, so I’m glad Samsung is stepping up now.
The two gripes I have are that, for a device that starts at $1,300, I think the S24 Ultra’s design is rather plain. It’s just 6.8-inches of phone with a bunch of sensors and camera lenses on the back. Not to mention I don’t think Samsung’s special titanium-hued paint jobs stand out as much as the company hopes they do.
The other issue is the lack of Qi 2 support. The S24 falls in the second half of Samsung’s two-year product cycle, which means we probably weren’t going to get any big facelifts or design changes until next year. But as the largest Android phone maker, it’s pretty disappointing to see a new flagship not adopt what could be an incredibly important multi-platform wireless charging standard.
Photo by Sam Rutherford/Engadget
Honestly I was kind of taken aback by how good its AI features are. I actually had to stop myself multiple times from writing how one of the phone’s latest tools was a pleasant surprise. Unlike Google who has been beating the drum about machine learning for more than a decade, Samsung’s mobile expertise always felt like it lay more in hardware than software. But with the S24, Samsung is showing that it’s taking the transition to the AI era incredibly seriously.
The Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra will start at $1,300. Pre-orders go live today and on Samsung.com will include a free upgrade that doubles the phone’s storage, while official sales are slated for January 31.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/samsung-galaxy-s24-ultra-hands-on-a-fresh-titanium-frame-combined-with-a-big-bet-on-ai-180050005.html?src=rss
Like clockwork, the new year has brought new Samsung Galaxy smartphones. The company announced the new Galaxy S24 lineup today, which includes the flagship S24 Ultra along with the Galaxy S24+ and S24. The handsets will look familiar to Samsung diehards, and the company spent most of its launch event hyping AI features rather than hardware upgrades. The new phones boast AI perks like an enhanced photo editor, a “circle to search” feature, quick summarization tools and more. If you're on the market for a new smartphone, here’s how you can pre-order the Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra, S24+ and S24, along with everything else announced at Samsung Unpacked 2024.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/how-to-pre-order-the-samsung-galaxy-s24-ultra-180028971.html?src=rss
With pre-orders opening later this week, Engadget experienced a more in-depth demo of Apple's mixed-reality headset. Editor-in-chief Dana Wollman and deputy editor Cherlynn Low were fitted with the Vision Pro for some more extensive demos, including immersive video, a little bit of Disney+ and attempts to type in thin air on the Vision Pro’s floating keyboard.
They discuss the fitting process, the attention to detail in Disney+’s viewer app and where there's room for improvement with keyboards, comfort and utility. This is the company’s first new product for a while — and I had strong feelings about its last one. Early impressions suggest Apple seems to have made a fluid, intelligent headset experience — but are you willing to spend $3,499 on it?
— Mat Smith
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When a PS5 remake of the 2013 title The Last of Us Part I launched, it was hard to stomach the $70 price tag. Yes, the game looked incredible, there were some new modes, but the level design and gameplay were identical. It was, for all intents and purposes, a money grab.
With The Last of Us Part II Remastered, that seems less true. First, it’s a $10 upgrade for people who bought the PS4 versions (or $50 outright). Second, there’s a new roguelike game mode called No Return, which may be worth that upgrade price on its own. Nathan Ingraham, TLOU die-hard, explains.
Yamaha is a pillar of the electronic music-making world, but it’s perhaps best known for its stage synthesizers and studio monitors. Now, it’s taking Teenage Engineering with the SEQTRAK groovebox. Stylistically, it seems heavily inspired by TE.
The SEQTRAK includes a drum machine, sampler, FM and sample-based synthesizers and that semi-eponymous sequencer along with a built-in battery (three to four hours expected playtime) plus a built-in speaker, so it works without plugging in anything else. The SEQTRAK is available to pre-order at retailers for $399, which undercuts the heady pricing of Teenage Engineering’s similar product.
Both IDC and Canalys’ most recent analysis of smartphone shipments shows Apple has beaten Samsung to roll out more smartphones than any other company. IDC’s preliminary data said Apple shipped 234.6 million units in 2023, equal to 20.1 percent of the market share. In comparison, Samsung shipped 226.6 units for 19.4 percent of the market share. This is the first time Samsung has fallen from the number-one spot since 2010.
The year 2023 turned out to be a big one for Apple's iPhone. First, it got rid of the longstanding lightning port, and now reports indicate that Apple overtook Samsung for the title of most smartphones shipped globally. The International Data Corporation (IDC) Worldwide Quarterly Mobile Phone Tracker's preliminary data found that Apple shipped 234.6 million units in 2023, which is equal to 20.1 percent of the market share. In comparison, Samsung shipped 226.6 units for 19.4 percent of the market share. Canalys, a global technology market analyst firm, shared findings that mirrored those from the IDC.
This instance marks the first time Samsung has fallen out of the number one spot since 2010, when Nokia was in the lead and Apple didn't even crack the top five. In 2023, Xiaomi, OPPO and Transsion took the remaining three spots with 145.9, 103.1 and 94.9 million smartphones shipped globally, respectively.
The shift is notable given the crowding and continued regulations in the smartphone industry. "Apple certainly played a part in Samsung's drop in rank, but the overall Android space is diversifying within itself. Huawei is back and making inroads quickly within China, Brands like OnePlus, Honor, Google, and others are launching very competitive devices in the lower price range of the high end. And foldables and increased discussions around AI capabilities on the smartphone are gaining traction," Ryan Reith, IDC's Worldwide Mobility and Consumer Device Trackers group vice president, explained in a statement. "Overall, the smartphone space is headed towards a very interesting time."
Notably, overall smartphone shipments declined by 3.2 percent in 2023 but increased by 8.4 percent in quarter four. However, Apple is struggling to compete in China, with quarter four sales in the region 11 percent lower than the previous year, the Wall Street Journal reports. The company has cut its iPhones by the equivalent of about $70 ahead of Lunar New Year, a time filled with presents. Discounting its most recent iPhone, in this case the iPhone 15, is a rarity for Apple but could have a payoff in a struggling market.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/apple-ends-samsungs-decade-plus-as-global-smartphone-shipment-leader-121413711.html?src=rss
