Browsing: Smartphones
Smartphone news across brands: new launches, displays, chipsets and prices, with comparisons and buying advice that help you pick the right phone.
Apple renamed Wi-Fi Assist to Connectivity Assist in iOS 27 and moved it to the bottom of the Wi-Fi menu, where it is on by default. iPhone owners report screen-on time jumping from 3 hours to 7 after switching it off. Here is what the feature does, why it costs power, and how to turn it off in both places it hides.
Apple has confirmed the iPhone Duo’s inner display carries a cover layer that service centers can peel off and replace, for $19 with AppleCare coverage. It is the most quietly significant detail about Apple’s first foldable, because the crease on a folding phone does not arrive at launch. It arrives in year two, and Apple is the first manufacturer to sell a consumer fix for it.
Apple has confirmed that a small number of iPhone 18 Pro Max handsets on AT&T can lose cellular service permanently, and that no software update will bring it back. iOS 27.0.1 and a new carrier settings file are preventative only. Here is how to tell which side of that line your phone is on, and what to do about it either way.
Samsung raised US list prices across the Galaxy S26 line on October 1, roughly seven months after the phones went on sale, with the 1TB Ultra jumping $200. South Korea got the same increase on the same day. Nothing about the hardware changed, and the widely reported Galaxy S27 price leak turns out to describe today’s numbers rather than next year’s.
The iPhone 18 Pro Max weighs 249 grams, 16 more than last year’s model at identical dimensions. Buyers are noticing, and once a case and a screen protector go on, some are reporting a phone that pushes 300 grams.
A federal health advisory sets daily screen time limits by age, from no screens before 18 months to two hours for teenagers. National estimates say adolescents average seven to nine. Here is what the research on “digital dementia” does and does not show.
Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 6 can run a 30-billion-parameter AI model entirely on-device, no cloud needed, but it launches as memory costs push flagship Android prices past $1,000.
The Xiaomi 18 Pro and 18 Pro Max launched with a hardware level privacy display that narrows the screen’s viewing angle in the panel itself, two 200MP Leica cameras, rear screens that now run AI built mini apps, and batteries up to 8,500mAh. They are also the first phones to split Qualcomm’s new two tier flagship chip.
Qualcomm split its flagship into the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 6 and the 8 Elite Extreme Gen 6. Both are 2nm and both pass 5GHz, but the Matrix Cores and the full 18MB of GPU memory only ship on one of them. Here is every difference that matters.
Samsung Display’s M16 OLED reaches 10,000 nits in a 1 percent window and 2,800 nits full screen. The headline number is the least interesting part. The second generation polarizer-free structure underneath it cuts panel power draw by up to 30 percent, and that is the change you will actually feel.