Nokia 8 starts receiving Android 8.1 Oreo beta update

After receiving Android Oreo 8.0 update last yearin November, HMD Global has now started rolling out Android 8.1 Oreo beta update for its Nokia 8 smartphone. The Oreo beta update for Nokia 8 has been announced by Juho Sarvikas, Chief Officer at HMD Global on his official twitter handle. The update has version number 4.82A and is 1.55GB in size. It includes the January Android security update along with multiple bug fixes as well.

HMD Global is rolling out the update via the software beta program – Nokia Phones Beta Labs. So, if you are a member of the program, you can log in with the ID and request for the update over the air. Users can go to Settings> About Phone, to check for the latest update. If you are not a member, you can register for a new ID and then download the update.The new update brings a bunch of new features which includes redesigned settings and power menus, the Bluetooth battery percentage display, and the correct hamburger emoji.

To recall, the company launched the Nokia 8 was launched in India in September for Rs 36,999. Recollecting some key specs, the Nokia 8 is powered by an octa-core (Four 2.5GHz Kryo + Four 1.8GHz Kryo) Snapdragon 835 processor with 4GB of LPPDDR4X RAM along with 64GB of internal storage which can be expanded to 256GB.

The flagship Nokia phone comes with a 5.3-inch IPS QHD display with a resolution of 2560 x 1440 pixels which is protected by Corning Gorilla Glass 5 in a 2.5D finish for better aesthetics. As far as the build quality is concerned, it comes in a 6000 series aluminium body in has four colour options– two with the glossy finish and two in Matte Polished Copper, Polished Blue, Tempered blue and Steel.The primary dual-lens camera includes 13-megapixels (Colour + OIS) along with 13-megapixels (Mono) sensors with dual-tone Flash with an aperture of f/2.0, 76.9˚, PDAF and IR range finder. ZEISS powers the camera department. In the front, there is a 13-megapixels PDAF, 1.12um, f/2.0 selfie camera. The IP54 splashproof Nokia 8 comes with 3.5mm ADJ headphone jack (3-mics) and USB 3.1 Type-C. It has a hybrid dual-SIM card slot and is powered by a 3,090 mAh battery.

Apple may launch 6.1-inch LCD iPhone with 18:9 screen this year

Apple is preparing to unveil three iPhones this fall. Ahead of the official launch, rumours and leaks about the handsets have already started surfacing online. Two of the three iPhones will seemingly come with an iPhone X like OLED display, while the third model — which is said to be an entry level device — will come with a more advanced LCD display compared to the previous iPhones, suggests a new report coming from Taiwan’s Commercial Times.

The report claims that Apple may try its hands on Japan Display’s so-called “Full Active” LCD technology for one of the upcoming iPhones. The LCD display iPhone was earlier rumoured to come with a 6.1-inch screen, however, the new report suggests that the screen size could be around 6-inches.

According to Japan Display, its Full Active LCDs are 6-inch displays and comes with a resolution of 2160×1080 pixels and have an 18:9 aspect ratio. This means that the length of the upcoming iPhone may be double its width. This also suggests that the 6.1-inch iPhone may sport a taller display, although not as tall as the iPhone X which comes with an aspect ratio of 19.5:9.

As mentioned, the new report suggests that the device may sport a 6.1-inch display with a resolution of 2160×1080 pixels which is around 395 pixels per inch. This report contradicts what KGI Securities Ming-Chi Kuo had earlier said — that the upcoming 6.1 inch iPhone will have around 320-330 PPI.

Well, this is not the first that a report hinted at Full Active LCD display for the upcoming iPhone. Previously, a report by WSJ also suggested the same. It mentioned that Apple will possibly consider using Japan Display’s advanced LCD panels in some 2018 iPhone models. We have earlier seen Full Active LCDs on Xiaomi’s Mi Mix 2.

Out of the three iPhones that Apple has planned for 2018, one will resemble the iPhone X — basically will be a direct successor to last year’s iPhone X. On the other hand one — as mentioned earlier – will be a cheaper device – it will be the one with the Full Active LCDs. This will allow Apple to sell the 6.1-inch iPhone at a much cheaper price point.

Previous rumours suggested that the upcoming Full Active LCD display iPhone will come with include an aluminum frame instead of stainless steel, single lens camera at the back instead of the usual dual-lens. The device is also expected to not sport 3D touch — as suggested by Kuo.

KGI Securities Ming-Chi Kuo has predicted that the upcoming 6.1-inch iPhone will be a mid-range device and could be priced between $700 and $800.

Say goodbye to Apple iPhone X: End of life predicted by mid 2018

If you have been saving your hard earned money to buy an iPhone X, here’s a bad news. Apple’s iPhone X will be the first previous year model that might not be retained in 2018. According to AppleInsider, popular Analyst Ming Chi-Kuo has predicted that the Apple’s first generation smartphone — iPhone X will be seeing the ‘end of life’ in the summer of 2018.

Moreover, the report also suggests that the Cupertino based tech giant will ship around 18 million iPhone X units in the first calendar quarter of 2018. Furthermore, KGI also believes that the iPhone X supply has not been as successful in China as expected because of the notch creating an impression that the bigger iPhone 8 Plus offers more usable screen space.Additionally, Kuo has also predicted that Apple will unveil three iPhone models sometime in 2018. Kuo further added that an iPhone X Plus model will soon debut with all the features of the current iPhone X. Also, Apple will apparently see 10 per cent growth for all of 2018 with most growth after the new launch in September.

Mi 6X to be powered by Xiaomi’s Surge S2 octa-core processor: Report

If you remember, the Chinese smartphone maker Xiaomi jumped in the chip market with the release of Surge S1 processor last year. Although the processor was only used in one smartphone – Mi 5C – it seemed like a decent start to Xiaomi’s chip ambitions and attempts to keep more things in-house. Now, the reports coming out of China suggest that Xiaomi is ready with the successor to Surge S1 in the form Surge S2 processor.

According MyDrivers, the Surge S2 will be based on TSMC’s 16nm process and include eight CPU cores in ARM’s big.Little configuration with four Cortex-A73 cores operating at up to 2.2 GHz with the other four Cortex-A53 cores operating at 1.8 GHz. The GPU is going to be Mali G71 MP8. To remind you, Surge S1 was based on 28nm process and includes eight Cortex-A53 cores with four clocked at 2.2GHz and the other four at 1.4GHz. So, the Surge S2 will have a quite decent jump in the overall performance.

MyDrivers adds that the rumoured Mi 6X smartphone is going to be powered by the Surge S2, instead of the Qualcomm chip that was present in its predecessor Mi 5X.

Not much is known about the Mi 6X at this point, but a couple of alleged renders of the phone from a case maker have appeared online. These renders seem to suggest that Mi 6X will have slim bezels and an 18:9 aspect ratio screen. The phone also seems to house a dual-camera setup on the back with a fingerprint sensor.

The Mi 6X is rumoured to be making its debut at the next month’s Mobile World Congress. Given a variant of the Mi 5X was launched as Mi A1 outside China, we might see Mi 6X as Mi A2, but it is pure speculation at this point.

Nokia tipped to reveal smartphone with penta-lens camera setup in first half of 2018

As the Mobile World Congress 2018 approaches, multiple Nokia leaks and rumours are surfacing online. Add to that, HMD Global’s Chief Product Officer, Juho Sarvikas recently tweeted that the company is planning something “ awesome” for the upcoming international event touted to be the biggest mobile tech showcase in the world.

Now, a new report by vtechgraphy suggests that Nokia might be planning to unveil a flagship device with a penta-lens setup at the back. The report cites a Foxconn employee leaking information about the said Nokia device and says that the company might start mass producing the smartphone by mid-2018.

As per the report, Nokia’s penta-lens setup will see the smartphone bearing seven circular cutouts at the back, five of which will house camera lenses and two will house LED flash lights. The five cameras are said to be enclosed together at the back of the smartphone in a shape that resembles a circular shower head, similar to the Lumia 1020.

The report goes on to say that the Nokia smartphone with a penta lens setup will go into mass production by mid-2018, but will be unveiled in the first half of the year. However, there is no confirmation of the said Nokia smartphone showing up at MWC 2018. It could be speculated that this is what Sarvikas was referring to when he asked people to expect something “awesome” from HMD’s showcase at the event scheduled for Februrary 25.

More cameras on a smartphone will be a trend to watch out for this year. As far as Nokia’s rumoured smartphone is concerned, one can expect the device to utilise its penta cam setup to allow shooting 360-degree videos as well as provide for some cool Augmented Reality features.

Apart from leaking details about the Nokia phone with five cameras, the Foxconn employee also said that HMD Global is working to launch a special Blue colour variants with Gold embellishments, of the second generation Nokia 6 or the Nokia 6 (2018) in Asia-Pacific. The same is also expected to be showcased at MWC 2018.

HMD Global is largely expected to announce the Nokia 9 flagship smartphone, alongside the Nokia 8 (2018) at MWC. The device is tipped to feature a 5.5-inch AMOLED QHD display. It is also expected to sport a Qualcomm Snapdragon 845 and offer 6GB of RAM. In terms of space, the device may be available in 64GB and 128GB variants. Other features that the phone may offer include IP67 water and dust resistance, and possibly the removal of the 3.5 audio jack.

Samsung Galaxy A8+ Review

Nearly a year after the first smartphones with 18:9 screensdebuted at MWC 2017, nearly every manufacturer has jumped on board. This kind of design started out as a novelty, quickly became trend, and is now pretty much a mainstay of smartphone design. It isn’t any surprise, since this is the first time in a very long time that phones have looked any different, and people do feel like they’re getting something better and more modern. Phones with 16:9 screens, (and heaven forbid, actual buttons on the front) do now seem old-fashioned.

Samsung gained an early lead with its Galaxy S8 and Galaxy S8+ (Review) at the beginning of last year (though it went with 18.5:9 which it calls “Infinity Display“) and then released the Galaxy Note 8 (Review) six months later, but didn’t seem think the rest of its range deserved the update. Meanwhile, its competitors were clambering over themselves to make sure they didn’t fall behind the curve. Over this past year, we’ve seen dozens of new 18:9 phones launching across the price spectrum. The most notable example of that is OnePlus rushing to replace its barely five-month-old OnePlus 5 (Review) with the OnePlus 5T (Review), just to make sure it didn’t cede even the slightest ground to its competitors.

That makes today’s review subject all the more interesting – the new Galaxy A8+ (2018) is Samsung’s first non-flagship phone to be graced with an Infinity Display, and it’s priced to go right up against the OnePlus 5T. Is Samsung too late to the party, or has it been worth the wait? We’re about to find out.

Samsung Galaxy A8+ (2018) design

As its name suggests, this is one large phone. Samsung hasn’t launched the smaller Galaxy A8 (2018) in India, which is a pity, because the A8+ (2018) can be a bit of a handful. It’s relatively thick and heavy at 8.3mm and 191g. That weight also feels unbalanced, especially when typing, which requires you to hold the phone from close to the bottom. It will stick out of many pockets and generally make itself felt wherever you try to stash it.

Samsung has listed two colour options for this phone, black and gold. We had a black unit for review and with the removal of buttons from the front face, it looks really plain and monolithic. The front and back are both shiny glass, though only the back curves around the matte black metal frame. While some might like this look, others will prefer the gold version which has a black front face and camera module providing a bit of visual relief.

The front face is broken only by the earpiece and dual front cameras right near the upper edge. When the phone is on, Samsung’s Always-On Display readout is splashed across the screen, taking advantage of the sAMOLED panel’s ability to selectively light up pixels without consuming a lot of power. By default, there’s a large clock, the date, the battery level, and four icons representing your most recent notifications. You can choose different clock styles and hide other information, or only enable the Always-On Display between hours of your choosing.

The power button is on the right, and the phone’s single mono speaker is positioned right above it – an unusual position, but one that Samsung has been using on multiple models of late. On the left, there’s a volume rocker and a tray for the primary Nano-SIM. The second Nano-SIM as well as a microSD card fit in another tray that slides into the top. There’s also a USB Type-C port and a 3.5mm audio socket on the bottom. An advantage of the all-black look is that the antenna lines are barely visible.

The primary camera is in the upper middle of the rear, with a single-LED flash to the side and small, rectangular fingerprint sensor right below it. Unusually for phones these days, the camera doesn’t protrude at all. There’s a surprisingly subtle Samsung logo lower down, and some barely visible regulatory text at the bottom.

One feature that we’re always happy to have is weatherproofing, and the Galaxy A8+ (2018) is certified IP68 for water and dust resistance. The SIM trays are flanged with rubber to prevent ingress. However, there’s no mention of whether the display glass is reinforced, which is concerning.

Samsung’s Galaxy A-series phones are meant to be more affordable versions of the current reigning S-series flagships, in this case the Galaxy S8 and Galaxy S8+. The Galaxy A8+ (2018) inherits many of their design cues, but it doesn’t look quite as slick or refined. It’s a bit too bulky and awkward to handle, and in fact it more closely resembles last year’s Galaxy C9 Pro (Review). In fact, with its pricing and specifications, it serves the same market. In terms of look and feel alone, it doesn’t really stand out compared to the competing OnePlus 5T or Honor View 10 (Review) either.

Samsung Galaxy A8+ (2018) specifications and software

Samsung usually plays it conservatively with specs outside its flagship tier, but with this launch, it’s hoping to take on upstarts like OnePlus and Honor. The Galaxy A+ (2018) uses Samsung’s brand new Exynos 7885 SoC, which has two high-speed 2.2Ghz ARM Cortex-A73 cores and six supplementary 1.6GHz Cortex-A53 cores, plus an integrated ARM Mali-G71 GPU. There’s 6GB of RAM, and the only Samsung phones to ship with so much before now have been the Galaxy Note 8 and the aforementioned Galaxy C9 Pro.

You get 64GB of storage, of which about 51GB is available to users. MicroSD card support goes up to 256GB. Because of Samsung’s unique 18.5:9 aspect ratio, the screen resolution is 1080×2220, giving you a tiny bit more height than the 1080×2160 that you get at 18:9. It measures 6 inches diagonally but the corners are rounded for aesthetic purposes, so you lose a tiny bit of screen space.

The Galaxy A8+ (2018) also features dual-band Wi-Fi 802.11ac, Bluetooth 5, NFC, GPS, and 4G with VoLTE. There’s a rich complement of sensors, including a barometer and gyroscope in addition to the standard ambient light and proximity sensors. The battery comes in at 3500mAh which is the least we’d expect for a phone this large. Fast charging is supported, but not wireless charging.

This phone and its smaller siblings are Samsung’s first to feature dual front cameras. There’s one with a 16-megapixel sensor and another with an 8-megapixel sensor, and both have f/1.9 apertures. The rear camera is a 16-megapixel unit with an f/1.7 aperture. Surprisingly, video recording tops out at 1920×1080. There’s also no optical image stabilisation for any of the cameras.

Samsung ships the Galaxy A8+ (2018) with Android 7.1.1 which is disappointing in 2018. The Samsung Experience skin on top is beginning to get as bloated as the company’s reviled TouchWiz UI from years past. At first boot, we were allowed to choose which Samsung apps we wanted installed. We were happy to ditch Samsung Email, Samsung Notes, and Samsung Internet Browser, but there was no way to know what exactly Samsung Connect and Samsung Members are. Samsung Voice Recorder and Samsung Pay are optional apps.

On the home screen, there’s a giant My Galaxy widget showing off the phone’s various features and advertising services such as ordering a meal or taxi and paying bills. You need to sign up with your phone number, but when we tried it we didn’t receive the required one-time password by SMS for hours. You have to register for My Galaxy if you want to be able to find a phone service centre and book an appointment, or chat with tech support.

Samsung’s Bixby voice assistant takes up a page to the left of the first home screen and requires you to create a Samsung account which is a separate process. Interestingly, the Galaxy A8+ doesn’t get Bixby as a voice assistant – you only get reminders of your upcoming calendar appointments and panels for things like the weather and news. There’s no Bixby key on the side of the phone, and long-pressing the Home button brings up Google Assistant (or S-Voice if you choose) so Bixby as a feature isn’t the same as it has been advertised on Samsung’s flagships.

There’s more bloat around every corner – Samsung has tried to transform even the humble Contacts app into a social network with sharable status updates and profile pictures. The Samsung Gallery creates “stories” and multiple apps want you to use a “customisation service” which collects your stored contacts and tries to determine which people you are closest to, for undefined reasons. Opera Max and a bunch of Microsoft apps are preinstalled, and can only be disabled but not removed. The default system keyboard is customisable in many ways and supports transliteration into Hindi, Tamil, and Telugu which could actually be useful.

In the Settings app, you’ll find options to manage the full-screen scaling for apps that can’t handle it natively, the on-screen Android navigation buttons, fingerprint sensor gestures, a one-handed mode, “Dual Messenger” apps (cloning apps to allow you to use multiple accounts), Samsung Cloud syncing, and split-screen multitasking.

Samsung Galaxy A8+ (2018) performance, cameras, and battery life

The Galaxy A8+ (2018) has some powerful hardware and for the most part it runs without any problems. Large games load quickly, and the phone doesn’t get too warm at any point. However, there were tiny hiccups on rare occasions, when we felt the UI behave a little sluggishly or touch input didn’t seem to register. Hopefully, periodic software updates will iron these kinks out, because usage was otherwise perfectly fine.

Samsung’s new mid-range processor is fairly powerful, and delivered scores of 78,359 in AnTuTu, 5,192 in PCMark Work 2.0, and 1,525 and 4,349 respectively in Geekbench’s single-core and multi-core runs. 3DMark’s Slingshot test gave us 1,069 points, and GFXBench’s T-rex test ran at 31fps. We can definitely see that this phone isn’t on the same level as the similarly priced OnePlus 5T and Honor View 10, but it should still be able to handle most apps and games without any problems.

The Infinity Display doesn’t look quite as “infinite” on this phone as it does on Samsung’s flagships, because instead of glass curving around the sides of the phone, there are still distinct edges. Even so, it’s immersive and vibrant. Brightness isn’t a problem even outdoors, and all kinds of content look pretty crisp and enjoyable. The odd placement of the speaker turned out to be a good thing, because it’s hard to block when holding this phone in any orientation and it doesn’t get muffled with the phone lying on soft surfaces. Sound is loud and voices are clear, but music comes out a bit too harsh for our liking.

One feature of the Galaxy A8+ (2018) that Samsung is promoting heavily is face recognition. This isn’t the same as the iris recognition feature on Samsung’s top-end phones, but is much more like what you’d get with the OnePlus 5T. In our experience, it just didn’t work well, either failing completely or taking more than five seconds to unlock the phone every time we tried it. This was despite trying to enrol our faces multiple times to account for poor lighting or angles. There’s an option to make recognition quicker by reducing the security threshold, which we obviously do not recommend.

The camera app has stickers (some of which are live and animated with sound), filters, and Bixby Vision for object and place recognition. It isn’t immediately clear how you’re supposed to switch between the two front cameras – there’s a Live Focus mode shortcut right within the viewfinder which lets you take shots with background blur, and then there’s a Wide Selfie mode in the hidden menu that you have to swipe right to see. In both cases, there doesn’t seem to be much of a difference in the composition of frames when using the secondary camera. In Wide Selfie mode you still have to physically pan the phone from side to side, whereas some other phones have a wide-angle lens that just gives you a wider frame.

This might be Samsung’s first phone with dual front cameras, but there really doesn’t seem to be anything that really takes advantage of the second sensor. Live Focus gave us some fairly decent-looking results, and the phone lets you adjust the degree of background blur from the gallery app long after taking a shot. As far as the promise of low-light performance goes, we couldn’t see much of a difference there either.

As for photos taken with the rear camera, results were a bit weak. If there was even lighting, the Galaxy A8+ (2018) managed well, though we would still have liked to see better handling of details and exposures. Objects at even a slight distance came out looking artificial, with noisy textures, rough edges, and overblown whites. At night, things took a drastic turn for the worse. If there wasn’t a lot of artificial light falling directly on a subject, the phone could barely pick out any details whatsoever. Even on the phone’s bright sAMOLED screen, it was clear that there was a ton of noise, and that you just couldn’t see things even if you were standing right in front of them. We weren’t expecting camera quality to be on par with that of the Galaxy S8, but this was totally disappointing.

Video recording only goes up to 1080p with the rear as well as front cameras. You can choose the slightly wider custom resolution of 2224×1080, which at least doesn’t crop your frames in order to fill the screen, but Samsung decided not to make this the default selection. There is digital stabilisation but not optical.

Battery life was good overall, and we were able to get through a full day of normal usage with about 15 percent left over. Our HD video loop battery test ran for 12 hours, 52 minutes which is not too bad for a phone with a screen this size to light up. We found that the phone charged up to 50 percent in slightly over half an hour, which is also good. Wireless charging isn’t supported, in case you were wondering.

Verdict
The Galaxy A8+ (2018) is in a bit of an awkward position. It isn’t very convincing when seen next to the OnePlus 5T (Review) and Honor View 10 (Review), especially because of the features and capabilities that Samsung still reserves for its flagships. We don’t think the new Galaxy A8+ it’s strong enough to fend off the OnePlus 5T at exactly the same price. Camera quality is severely disappointing, and the implementation of dual front cameras just leaves us confused. Despite its Infinity Display, the phone’s design doesn’t really scream for attention. While the performance is good, it’s let down by software bloat. On the other hand, high-quality sAMOLED screen is great, and the battery life is excellent.

With that said, Samsung needs to figure out how to give its phones at this price level a strong identity and build on unique capabilities such as Samsung Pay, because the Galaxy A8+ (2018) definitely can’t compete on specifications and cost. Right now, Samsung’s own Galaxy S7 looks more attractive thanks to its lower price. The Galaxy S8 is also soon to be replaced, which means it will become more affordable as well.