Articles about Phablet

The Galaxy Note8 is the most important smartphone that Samsung launches this year. Its predecessor nearly killed the high-end series, which is why Samsung cannot afford to make any mistakes with its latest flagship: the Galaxy Note8 has to be great. No pressure there, right?

The good news is that the Galaxy Note8 does not disappoint: it has all the right features that you expect from a high-end smartphone and a clear edge over the Galaxy S8, which is unquestionably the best smartphone Samsung sells today.

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After the disastrous launch of the Galaxy Note7, Samsung is surely hoping that the Galaxy Note 8 will be rather more successful and rather less fire-prone. The handset is due to be revealed later on today, and you can watch the event live so you get the news as soon as it breaks.

As is usual for any major phone launch, there have been the normal round of leaks and rumors surrounding the Galaxy Note 8 (or Galaxy Note8, if Samsung retains the previous naming scheme), and we're expecting to see a Bixby-loving 6.3-inch phone with dual camera and optical zoom.

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The iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus look great in any color, but the black, silver and gold variations aren't exactly the most eye-catching finishes around. However, if you fancy something different, Apple now has just the thing for you.

That's because, for the first time on an iPhone, Apple is now making red available as a color option for its flagship smartphones. The (Product)Red Special Edition, as it's officially called, is offered only for the 128GB and 256GB models.

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Android or iOS? Or both? It’s a question anyone who’s been involved in building a mobile app will have asked. Android is still the major player in the development world, due to the simple fact of the size of the market, but it’s foolish to write anything that’s grown from Apple off.

As with just about every trend in technology, it appears that flexibility and fluidity is the choice route. Here are five things developers will need to consider to stay relevant in 2017 and beyond.

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If you want your latest and greatest smartphone to stand out from the crowd probably the best thing that you can do is not announce it at a major show like MWC. That's because many manufacturers will be fighting for the public's attention, as they will unveil dozens of devices in the span of a couple of days.

So, LG is trying to get ahead of everyone else by sharing some juicy details about its upcoming G6 flagship now. The highlight is the 5.7-inch QHD+ display that is said to fill the front of the device "almost entirely".

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Samsung is expected to introduce the successors to the hugely popular Galaxy S7 and Galaxy S7 edge soon. Considering that new devices in the series were introduced during Mobile World Congress in recent years, this year's event seems like a safe bet as to when the unveiling will take place.

However, an official announcement from Samsung indicates that the Galaxy S8 and Galaxy S8 edge will actually make their debut later in the year. Samsung is still expected to present them during an Unpacked event, but it will no longer take place during MWC as it did before.

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Smartphones have replaced tablets and traditional computers for millions of users as the preferred -- and often only -- way to access the internet.

While the initial waves of devices were nothing more than souped-up feature phones, the past couple of years have seen the arrival of models that are not only far more sophisticated but also significantly more powerful than their predecessors.

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In 2014, Apple introduced the first big iPhone, the iPhone 6 Plus. Since then, the company has offered a phablet version for each new incarnation of its hugely successful device. While Apple doesn't say how many buyers prefer it over the standard model, reports show that it accounts for a significant portion of sales.

In US, the Plus models have gained considerable traction, with Consumer Intelligence Research Partners saying that they made up 35 percent of the iPhone installed base as of 31 December 2016. And their popularity is growing, as a year prior that figure stood at 25 percent.

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Apple edged Samsung to take the top spot in the smartphone market in the final quarter of 2016, thanks to very strong iPhone shipments. The Cupertino, Calif.-based vendor moved 78.3 million units, having a share of 17.8 percent, while its South Korean rival only managed to ship 77.5 million smartphones, which equates to a market share of 17.7 percent. Total shipments for the quarter were 438.7 million units, according to a Strategy Analytics report.

This is not the first time that Apple beats Samsung, but it is rare for it to happen. Samsung usually has a comfortable lead over its rivals, including Apple, but thanks to the Galaxy Note7 recall it failed to repeat that performance last quarter. You can follow the saga here, but the gist of it is that the company had to pull millions of devices as a result of its mistakes, and that had a serious effect on its showing in the last part of 2016.

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Security researchers from Context IS have uncovered serious vulnerabilities in a number of premium Samsung Galaxy phones which allow attackers to crash devices using a single SMS message and initiate ransomware attacks.

The report is part of a series which aims to show "how, even in 2017, SMS-based attacks on Android phones are still viable". As longtime readers might recall, iOS too was vulnerable to such attacks -- but that was nearly two years ago. While the report focuses on Samsung's Android handsets, the researchers suggest that the vulnerabilities could be found in other vendors' smartphones as well.

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OnePlus has been busy lately, rolling out the Android Nougat update for its 3T flagship killer just hours before passing into 2017 and working hard to make the smartphone more readily available to ship to potential buyers in major markets.

The OnePlus 3T is available to consumers without an invite, but not everyone has been able to get their hands on the smartphone. OnePlus did not always have it in stock, but that is about to change from now on.

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Samsung started the Android Nougat roll-out for the Galaxy S7 and Galaxy S7 edge last week, but only members of the Galaxy Beta Program could get it right away. That changes today, as Samsung is finally making the much-awaited update available to more users, starting in China and UK.

After installing the hefty Android Nougat update on my Galaxy S7 edge, it became immediately clear that Samsung has put in a lot of effort to deliver a much more user-friendly experience. Its skin is much improved over what we had before on Android Marshmallow, packing lots of nice changes, both visual and under the hood. It is not perfect, but there is lots more to like now.

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Samsung announced in late-December that it would release Android Nougat for the Galaxy S7 and Galaxy S7 edge in January. And it has lived up to its promise, as the much-awaited software update is now rolling out for the two flagships.

At the time of writing this article, the official Android Nougat update is only available for Galaxy S7 and Galaxy S7 edge users who joined the Galaxy Beta Program, but it is expected to be rolled out to more customers in the following days.

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HTC has a serious problem: it cannot deliver a flagship worth getting excited about. A while back, the company at least tried to do things differently, to get consumers talking, but lately it seems happy just to have a new high-end smartphone on the market -- even if everyone knows it's way behind the competition.

Last year's flagship, called HTC 10, was better than its most-recent predecessors, but it failed to stand out against devices like Apple's iPhone 6s and Samsung's Galaxy S7. So no one cared about it. This year's HTC U Ultra is no different -- it's probably the most uninspiring device in its segment. How disappointing.

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Apple traditionally enjoys very strong iPhone sales after it launches new smartphones. And this is certainly true of the three months ending November 2016, when the iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus topped the sales charts in US and helped iOS close in on Android in Great Britain.

In US, it is actually an all-iPhone podium, with the iPhone 6s joining the newer models in the top three, according to a new Kantar Worldpanel ComTech report. Apple saw its share rise to 43.5 percent, while Google's Android dropped to 55.3 percent of the market.

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