TODAY'S TECH MASALA

Netflix has added the Asus ZenFone 6 , ROG Phone II as well as the TCL 10L and 10 Pro to its list of HD-compatible devices list. In addition, the ROG Phone II and TCL 10 series phones have gained HDR-10 playback compatibility. In order to view HD and HDR content on streaming apps your phone, you need Widewine L1 certification but even some devices with this certification are not eligible if the streaming platform doesn’t explicitly whitelist them as was the case here. Thus it seems Netflix and other video streaming apps have their own criteria for whitelisting phones so its recommended to use a digital rights management (DRM) app to check your phone’s certifications or better yet try to load up HD/ HDR content directly. Source | Via

Nokia launched the 2V smartphone in the summer of 2019 as a rebranded Nokia 2.1 for Verizon. It ran Android Pie (Go Edition) on its limited 1GB RAM. Now the phone might get a successor as a phone called Nokia 2V Tella has been spotted on Geekbench. Nokia 2V Tella on Geekbench The device by HMD Global is running Android 10 OS and has an MT6761 chipset, which is better known as Helio A22 by Mediatek. We are also looking at 2GB RAM, which might allow it to boot the fully-fledged Android OS, instead of having the basic Go version for lower-performing phones. The Nokia 2V Tella doesn’t surprise us with its scores on Geekbench 4.0 at all - 829 for a single core and 2,422 for multiple cores is close to what we reached 1.5 years ago when the Redmi 6A , powered by the same chip, was in our hands. Source | Via

The Samsung Galaxy Buds+ unveiled in February are currently available in a total of six colors - Black, Blue, White, Red, Pink, and Aura Blue. But yesterday we learned that Samsung has partnered with Korean Pop Band BTS to launch special BTS Edition Buds+ in Mirror Purple color on July 9. We also saw a few images of the Galaxy Buds+ BTS Edition which showed off the TWS earphones in the new Mirror Purple shade. Today a new set of renders were leaked by Evan Blass which show off the special edition Buds+ from multiple angles. You can check out the images below. Samsung Galaxy Buds+ BTS Edition Alongside the Buds+, Samsung will also unveil a BTS Edition Galaxy S20+ in the same shade, but the earphones will be sold separately by Samsung in a bid to increase its share in the TWS earphones segment. Source 1 , Source 2 ( in Korean )

Oppo is looking to boost its entry and midrange lineups in India soon with the launch of the A12 and A52 alongside an all-new model dubbed A11k. Tipster Ishan Agarwal revealed the new info alongside a preliminary spec sheet for the A11k. Oppo A12 and A52 It will be the most affordable entry out of the three starting at just INR 8,999 ($119). The A11k will feature a 6.22-inch HD+ LCD with a 19:9 aspect ratio and 5MP selfie cam housed in a waterdrop notch. Around the back, we find a 13MP primary camera alongside a 2MP depth helper as well as a fingerprint scanner. The A11k will run on the MediaTek Helio P35 chipset paired with 2GB RAM and 32GB storage. It will feature a 4,230mAh battery and will boot ColorOS 6.1.2 based on Android 9 Pie. Dimensions come in at 155.9 mm x 75.5mm x 8.3mm and the phone weighs in at 165 grams. The Oppo A11k will be available in blue and silver colors. Pricing details for the A12 and A52 are still not available. All three phones a...

The Samsung Galaxy A31 has made its way to India. It comes in a single 6GB/128GB configuration but it has a dedicated microSD card slot that allows storage expansion by up to 512GB. The Galaxy A31 is priced at INR21,999 ($290/€260) and it will go on sale later today through Amazon.in, Flipkart, Samsung's local site, Benow.in, Samsung Opera House, as well as offline retail stores across the country. The Galaxy A31 is built around a 6.4" Super AMOLED Infinity-U display of FullHD+ resolution with a fingerprint reader scanner underneath and a waterdrop notch up top for the 20MP selfie camera. Around the back, the Galaxy A31 has an L-shaped quad camera, which is a combination of a 48MP main, 8MP ultrawide (123° FOV), 5MP macro and 5MP depth sensor units. Under the hood, the Galaxy A31 has a Helio P65 SoC and the smartphone runs Android 10 with One UI 2.0 on top. Fueling the entire package is a 5,000 mAh battery which draws power at up to 15W through a USB-C...

HTC’s glory days are well in the past, but the Taiwanese company is trying to stay relevant in the smartphone world. As spotted by a vigilant Twitter user, the Desire 20 Pro has been certified at NCC and Google Play Support. Previously the same phone appeared on Geekbench and in leaked schematics . The Google Play Support page mentions the same HTC 2Q9J1000 model number we saw earlier. Seeing how this is a Pro there is likely to be a vanilla version in the pipeline as well, but we haven't heard anything about it. HTC Desire 20 Pro certifications When the phones eventually arrive, they will be a follow-up of the Desire 19 lineup that brought us the Desire 19s and Desire 19+ . Both of them had unimpressive Helio chipsets (respectively P22 and P35) and the main camera was 13 MP f/1.9 with PDAF on both of them. Hopefully, this year’s Desire lineup will get in line with the current trends and introduce big batteries, fast charging, and better cameras if HTC w...

The latest predictions from analysts IDC concerns the global smartphone shipments and they sound properly grim. Total shipments for 2020 are expected to reach 1.2 billion units which would be an 11.9% decline compared to 2019. The new estimate is based on the Q1 shipment results which saw the largest decline in smartphone sales in the history of IDC’s Worldwide Quarterly Mobile Phone Tracker at -14.5%. Looking at the first half of 2020, IDC predicts an 18.2% decline in shipments due to lowered consumer spending. According to IDC’s Sangeetika Srivastava, the main issue now is a lack of demand on behalf of consumers. On a more regional basis, the new report suggests that China will see a single-digit decline in shipments for the current year as COVID-19 restrictions have been lifted and demand is slowly recovering. The situation in Europe is more difficult as countries like Italy and Spain are still actively fighting the pandemic. In the long-term, IDC expects th...

The second-gen Motorola Razr is expected to arrive in September and while Motorola hasn't revealed any details about the Razr 2 (unofficial name) yet, new information coming our way reveals the foldable smartphone will sport displays bigger than its predecessor's. Motorola Razr 2019 According to Display Supply Chain Consultants' (DSCC) CEO Ross Young, the Razr 2 will come with a 6.7" main display, which is 0.5" larger than the current Razr. Young claims that the secondary external screen on the Razr 2 will also have a larger diagonal, but doesn't reveal the exact size. The current Razr comes with a 2.7" secondary display, and Motorola will be looking to maximize the available area on the cover better this time around. The Motorola Razr doesn't support 5G, but rumors have it that Razr 2 will support the next-gen networks - thanks to the Snapdragon 765 SoC at the helm. Other rumored specs include 8GB RAM, 256GB storage, Android ...

We saw the specs of the Redmi 9 family on Monday , and now we have first live pics of what is allegedly the mightiest member of the lineup - Redmi 9 . The device has three shooters positioned vertically and a fingerprint scanner right below them> There is also a fourth snapper and an LED flash on the right side. This whole combo looks a lot like the Redmi K30 and Redmi K30i with its circular design and vertical alignments, although the camera placement with the flash and the fingerprint scanner reminisces more of the predecessor Redmi Note 8 Pro . The Redmi 9 is pictured in two colors on the photo - Teal/Green and Violet. One of the versions has some text right next to the camera, while the other doesn’t, suggesting these might not be actual phones but just mock-ups with different colors. Camera placement of the Redmi Note 8 Pro The leak on Weibo claims the Redmi 9 will have a Helio G80 chipset, which is slightly different than the previous set of specs, sugge...

Nokia today announced a new 43-inch 4K LED Smart TV in India. It runs Android Pie and has a CA53 quad-core processor at the helm clocked at 1.0 GHz. The smart TV has 2.25GB RAM onboard with 16GB storage. The Nokia 43" 4K Smart TV sports an LED panel that has a brightness of 300 nits and a viewing angle of 178 degrees. The screen has slim bezels on the top, left and right sides, and supports Dolby Vision, HDR10 and MEMC technology. In terms of audio, the Nokia 43" 4K Smart TV has 24W speakers onboard and it comes with JBL sound enhancements for deep bass and clean vocal tones. However, the 4K TV also comes with Dolby Audio and DTS TruSurround for a better audio experience. Since this is an Android TV, you can download apps and games from the Google Play Store and it also supports popular video streaming apps YouTube and Netflix, which have dedicated hotkeys on the TV remote along with a key for the Google Assistant. Besides, the Smart TV has Chromecas...

Back in February, Samsung’s clamshell folding smartphone went on sale. The Samsung Galaxy Z Flip gained a lot of attention for its pretty new design, but to achieve its compact size and design, it needed to cut some corners. One of the most notable places where it did this was in the camera department. Although the cameras are not terrible, they rank lower among other premium smartphones. DxOMark released its review of the Galaxy Z Flip’s front-facing camera, and they were not impressed. It scored 83 overall, which combined a photo score of 82 and a video score of 86. DxOMark says its score was in line with the selfie cameras on the Galaxy A71 , Galaxy S9+ , and the iPhone XS Max . Samsung Galaxy Z Flip This is a 10MP selfie camera with a 26mm-equivalent lens with fixed f/2.4 aperture and foxed focus. Remember, this is the tiny punch-hole camera that’s cut out of the folding display on the inside of the clamshell. Its pixels are 1.2 µm and the camera can record up ...

Microsoft is now rolling out the updated version of its Edge browser on Windows 10 through Windows Software Updates. The update will be available to Windows 10 users running 1803, 1809, 1903, and 1909 builds. Microsoft launched the new version of Edge back in January and until now required you to download manually from the website. The new version is based on the Chromium project by Google, which is also the basis for browsers like Chrome and Opera. While the original Edge ran on EdgeHTML browser engine and Chakra JavaScript engine, the new browser runs on the same Blink and V8 engines, respectively, as Chrome. This, coupled with extensive changes to the UI, has resulted in the new Microsoft Edge ostensibly behaving like Chrome once you look past the UI differences. It has similar performance to Chrome and most of the shortcuts and features work the way they would on Chrome. Most importantly, you can now also install Chrome extensions on Edge. Google's Chrome...

Facebook has been updated with a new feature that lets you hide or deletes your previous posts on Facebook. You can hide your previous posts or can completely delete them and it won’t pop up in your profile ever again. This is a really handy feature to hide all those embarrassing posts from your Facebook timeline. This Manage Activity tool deletes individual posts or you can select multiple posts and delete them at once. The posts you will delete from your timeline will be permanently deleted after 30 days. This feature also lets you sort your posts using a time range. This feature is right now only available on the mobile app but it will soon be available on the desktop website and Lite app. Here is a little guide on how you can delete or hide your previous posts from the Facebook timeline on your profile. Steps to delete Facebook Posts from the Timeline Update your Facebook app to the latest version to make this feature work. Go to your profile page and scr...

HP has updated its OMEN 15 gaming laptop with new design and new specs for 2020, including an option to configure it with an AMD CPU, a first for a OMEN laptop. The OMEN 15 can now be configured with up to an Intel Core i7-10750H or an AMD Ryzen 7 4800H CPU. For graphics, you can now have it configured with up to NVIDIA RTX 2070 Super Max-Q. For memory, you can have it configured with up to 32GB of DDR4-2933 on the Intel model and DDR4-3200 on the AMD model. Storage can be as high as 1TB NVMe M.2 SSD, in either a single stick or dual 512GB sticks in RAID 0 configuration. HP Omen 15 The new model has a 15.6-inch display with 180-degree flat hinge design. You have a choice of a standard 1080p IPS LCD, 144Hz FHD IPS LCD, 300Hz FHD IPS LCD, or 120Hz UHD IPS LCD or OLED, with NVIDIA G-SYNC on select configurations. The OMEN 15 now has a new design, with a new diamond logo with a blue green gradient. It comes in two colors, Mica Silver and Shadow Black with o...

We won’t know for sure until Apple’s WWDC hits the Web later this month (this year it’s online-only), but there’s mounting evidence that the upcoming iOS 14 will support every device currently running iOS 13 . The Verifier came to this conclusion based on clues found in early development code from iOS 14 as well as an unnamed trusted source. Here’s the list of all devices headed for the next iOS version: iPhone SE (2020) iPhone 11 iPhone 11 Pro iPhone 11 Pro Max iPhone XS iPhone XS Max iPhone XR iPhone X iPhone 8 iPhone 8 Plus iPhone 7 iPhone 7 Plus iPhone SE iPhone 6s iPhone 6s Plus iPod touch (7th gen) It’s impressive that the iPhone 6s from late 2015 is still getting major updates. Same goes for the slightly younger iPhone SE, which recently got a long-awaited successor. This is the end of the road for both phones, however, they won’t see iOS 15. The iPhone 7 and 7 Plus are in better shape and can expect to receive updates for the next two years, according to the so...

Android 11 Beta 1 was supposed to be delayed , but some users received it anyway, which offers an early look at the new features. These include a “Bubble menu” (similar to Facebook’s chat heads), a new Power menu and updates to the Pixel Launcher (obviously, the Beta arrived on Pixel phones first). There’s more. Music playback controls can now be put into the notification shade by enabling the “Media resumption” option. It has a collapsed view, sharing a couple of rows with quick toggles, and an expanded view, which looks just like a music player widget. Music controls in the notification shade Also, new icon shapes for the home screen are now available: Pebble (an irregular circle), Tapered Rectangle (square with the corners cut off) and Vessel (square-ish with some side detail). These three are in addition to the two from Developer Preview 4 (Hexagon and Flower). New icon shapes: Pebble, Tapered Rectangle and Vessel Wi-Fi enhanced MAC randomization is now a...

Realme unveiled the X3 SuperZoom last week, but kept the vanilla X3 under wraps. The phone does exist, however, it even showed up on the Google Play Console, which posted some of the key specs. The Realme X3 is powered by the same Snapdragon 855+ as the SuperZoom. It gets less RAM, 8GB instead of 12GB. The Play Console doesn’t say it, but it’s unlikely that this has 5G connectivity. The display will have a 1,080 x 2,400px resolution. It’s not clear if it will be a 120Hz display like on the SuperZoom, however. The phone will come with Android 10 out of the box, no surprise here. Realme X3 (RMX208L1) specifications on the Google Play Console There are three X3 versions (possibly regional variants): RMX2081L1, RMX2085L1, RMX2086L1. They all have the same specs, at least the specs revealed by the Play Console. All three were certified by India’s BIS, other than that there’s not much info on when and where the X3 will launch. There were rumors of 5G-connected X3 model...

Samsung is expected to launch the Galaxy Note20 lineup in August, and rumors are already starting to get very specific. According to prolific leakster IceUniverse on Twitter and Weibo, the Galaxy Note20+ smartphone will have a 108MP sensor, while the ToF will be replaced by a laser focus sensor, assisting the main cam. The sensor will be the 1/1.33" Samsung Bright HM1 - the very same seen in the Galaxy S20 Ultra . The additional laser focus sensor will assist the main camera, instead of having a static ToF sensor that analyzes the foreground and background. The sensor behind the ultrawide-angle lens will be a 12MP ISOCELL Fast 2L3, which is 1/2.55” in size and comes with PDAF. According to the leakster, there will also be a periscope telephoto lens, but it have a 13MP Samsung Slim 3M5 - official numbers say it is 1/3”, while Universe Ice suggests it is 1/3.4”. With the smaller sensor compared to the Galaxy S20 Ultra the zoom will be limited to 50X - Samsung won...

The Oppo Find X2 and Find X2 Pro unveiled back in March will debut in India on June 17. Oppo hasn't revealed the duo's Indian pricing and availability yet, but it did confirm that the pair will be sold through Amazon's local web store. The Find X2 and Find X2 Pro are both powered by the Snapdragon 865 SoC, pack 6.7" 120Hz QHD+ AMOLED displays with in-screen fingerprint readers, and sport 32MP selfie cameras. But that's where the similarities end. The Pro variant comes with a slightly larger battery and the triple camera setups on the back are also different. Oppo Find X2 Pro The regular X2 features a 48MP main camera joined by a 13MP telephoto and 12MP ultrawide units, whereas the X2 Pro sports a 48MP primary snapper which is accompanied by a 48MP ultrawide module and a 13MP periscope unit. You can head over here to check out the detailed specs of both smartphones .