It was 10 years ago during IFA that Samsung unveiled the Gear VR, a VR headset that used a Galaxy phone as its display and brain. A sequel followed and the company found great success – analysts reported that Samsung was the dominant VR headset maker in 2016. Of the 6.3 million headsets sold that year, 4.5 million were Gear VRs. The company also worked with Microsoft and built a Mixed Reality AR headset in 2017, but it wasn’t long before Samsung pulled the plug on its VR efforts. That’s a lot of history, but it was necessary to explain why Samsung may be cautious to get back in the game....
Samsung posted its financial results for July-September 2024, with both sales and operating profit improving on a yearly basis. The biggest contributor was the DS division, which comprises of the memory, system LSI, and foundry businesses. It saw a 78% increase in sales and a 200% jump in total profit of KRW 3.86 trillion. The MX business, which sells Galaxy phones, tablets and accessories, posted a modest 3% increase in sales but a 14% decline in profit as the market was affected by global inflation. (all units in KRW / USD) Q3 2024 Q2 2024 QoQ Change Q3...
Samsung posted its financial results for July-September 2024, with both sales and operating profit improving on a yearly basis. The biggest contributor was the DS division, which comprises of the memory, system LSI, and foundry businesses. It saw a 78% increase in sales and a 200% jump in total profit of KRW 3.86 trillion. The MX business, which sells Galaxy phones, tablets and accessories, posted a modest 2% increase in sales but a 14.5% decline in profit as the market was affected by global inflation. (all units in KRW / USD) Q3 2024 Q2 2024 QoQ Change Q3...
OnePlus has always prioritized having the latest and greatest chipsets in its flagship phones and it wasted no time announcing the OnePlus 13 with the new Snapdragon 8 Elite. The best OnePlus phone yet also has a flagship BOE display, an IP69 ingress protection rating, and a larger 6,000 mAh silicon carbon battery. While the OnePlus 13 is launched in China first, it will be released in global markets in the coming months. Starting with the screen, OnePlus 13 ditches the curves of its predecessors and moves to a 2.5D quad-curved structure. The display looks flat, but it has...
As iterated several times by noted Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, the baseline iPhone 16 is not attracting much consumer attention. The latest report from Consumer Intelligence Research Partners (CIRP) gives more proof with a detailed breakdown of the iPhone model distribution for the quarter ending in September, which coincides with the 16 series’ first two weeks of sales in the U.S. As per the figures, the baseline iPhone 16 only accounted for 4% of all iPhones - a notable decrease from the 10% share of the iPhone 15 from last year. The 16 Plus did fare slightly better than its...
We finally have our hands on the Pixel Buds Pro 2, Google's flagship wireless earbuds and the successor to the 2022 Pixel Buds Pro. The second-generation model brings with it several changes. First of all, the design of the earbuds has been completely revamped with a much smaller shape that Google says makes them its most comfortable earbuds. The case design, however, remains largely unchanged except for the addition of a small speaker on the bottom. Inside the earbuds is a new Google Tensor A1 chip, which is more powerful than the chip on the Buds Pro and can allegedly...
The global smartphone market is slowly healing, reaching its highest Q3 performance since the pandemic. According to Canalys, companies shipped nearly 310 million units, the best result since July-September in 2021. Samsung remained the best-selling OEM for the third quarter, but its lead really shrank. Apple was just one percentage point behind, while Xiaomi in third is just 4pp behind the leader. Samsung saw a 2 points decline in market share, even though it managed to streamline its entry-level lineup. Apple got close to first place, driven by the debut of the iPhone 16...
Xiaomi unveiled HyperOS 2 in China yesterday, and along with the new software came a list of devices that will be receiving it as an update and a rough timeline of when it will hit each model. Today a purported list of the first international devices to get HyperOS 2 has been leaked. Rather confusingly, the list says all these phones will get the new skin "by Q1 2025" - that may mean "before Q1 2025", in which case it's better phrased as "by the end of 2024", or it could also actually (perhaps more likely) mean by the end of Q1, which is March 31. In that case, there's definitely a...
The OnePlus 13 is getting official in a few hours, and ahead of that a last-minute rumor claims to give us the pricing for all versions. If these prices pan out, then the OnePlus 13 will be CNY 500 ($70) more expensive than its predecessor when it launched last year. The entry-level version will have 12GB of RAM and 256GB of storage, priced at CNY 4,799 ($675), followed by the 12/512GB variant at CNY 5,299 ($745), the 16/512GB iteration at CNY 5,799 ($815), and the top level 24GB/1TB option should go for CNY 6,299 ($885). Obviously do keep in mind that these are prices for the...
According to a new rumor, Google will only launch a new Pixel tablet every two years. The Pixel Tablet 2 is thus coming in 2025, and the Pixel Tablet 3 in 2027. Also in 2027, the company will launch the affordable Pixel 11a. These two devices will theoretically use the same Tensor chip as the flagship Pixel line, but in practice things won't quite be identical. Google is allegedly going to fuse off defective parts of the TPU to save chips that normally would have to be discarded. These chips will then be used in the Pixel 11a and Pixel Tablet 3. Google Pixel 8a Thus, they could...