Tag: smartphones
iPhone 14 Pro Max Dominates Other Flagship Smartphones Including Pixel 7 Pro in Battery Life Tests
The battery test was conducted by PhoneArena and compared some of the most popular flagship smartphones currently on the market, including the new Pixel 7, Pixel 7 Pro, and last year’s Pixel 6 Pro, against each other for battery life. In the first part of the test, each phone was put through a simulator to replicate typical web browsing. The iPhone 14 Pro and iPhone 14 Pro Max were the two winners of this specific test. The full results were as follows:
- iPhone 14 Pro Max: 19 hours and 5 minutes
- iPhone 14 Pro: 16 hours and 18 minutes
- Pixel 7 Pro: 14 hours and 19 minutes
- Pixel 7: 13 hours and 56 minutes
- Galaxy S22 Ultra: 13 hours and 17 minutes
- Pixel 6 Pro: 13 hours and 13 minutes
The second portion of the test included each phone playing back the same YouTube video until they died. Each phone started out at 100% brightness levels, according to the video. The results were as follows:
- iPhone 14 Pro Max: 11 hours and 0 minutes
- Pixel 7 Pro: 9 hours and 39 minutes
- iPhone 14 Pro: 9 hours and 14 minutes
- Pixel 7: 9 hours and 13 minutes
- Pixel 6 Pro: 9 hours and 10 minutes
- Galaxy S22 Ultra: 7 hours and 27 minutes
While on paper it may seem logical that given the results, the iPhone 14 Pro and iPhone 14 Pro Max would have the largest physical batteries out of the smartphone, that’s actually not the case.
The iPhone 14 Pro, in fact, has the smallest battery compared to the Pixel 7, Pixel 7 Pro, Pixel 6 Pro, and the Galaxy S22 Ultra. The iPhone 14 Pro Max also has the smallest battery compared to the other large flagships, despite lasting the longest in all the tests.
- iPhone 14 Pro Max: 4323mAh
- iPhone 14 Pro: 3200mAh
- Galaxy S22 Ultra: 5000mAh
- Pixel 7 Pro: 5000mAh
- Pixel 7: 4355mAh
- Pixel 6 Pro: 5000mAh
This article, “iPhone 14 Pro Max Dominates Other Flagship Smartphones Including Pixel 7 Pro in Battery Life Tests” first appeared on MacRumors.com
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Why are you hoarding your old smartphones?
When will electronics recycling become a priority for consumers, government, and business?
It needs to happen soon, given that if you piled the 5.3 billion old mobile devices currently in people’s homes on top of each other, you’d have a 31,000-mile-high tower — one eighth of the distance to the Moon.
(Don’t) take me to the Moon
The Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) Forum, an nternational nonprofit, estimates 5.3 billion of the 16 billion mobile devices in use today will become e-waste this year. Assuming each phone is 9mm thick (iPhone 14 is 7.8mm), if you piled them together the pillar would be higher than the International Space Station’s orbit.
The best midrange smartphones for 2022
A great smartphone doesn’t have to cost a fortune. Years of commoditization have brought features once exclusive to high-end devices – including big batteries, multi-camera arrays and high refresh rate displays – down to their more affordable siblings. As one of Engadget’s resident mobile geeks, I’ve reviewed dozens of midrange devices. So I’m here to help you figure out what features to prioritize when trying to find the best midrange phone for less than $600.
Engadget’s picks
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Best midrange Android phone: Google Pixel 6a
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Best (and only) iPhone under $600: Apple iPhone SE
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Midrange phone with the best screen: Samsung Galaxy A53 5G
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Ultra-budget option: OnePlus Nord N200 5G
What is a midrange phone, anyway?
While the term shows up frequently in articles and videos, there isn’t an agreed-upon definition for “midrange” beyond a phone that isn’t a flagship or an entry-level option. For this guide, our recommendations for the best phone in this category cost between $400 and $600. Any less and you should expect significant compromises. If your budget is higher, though, you should consider flagships like the Apple iPhone 13 and Samsung Galaxy S22.
What factors should you consider when buying a midrange smartphone?
Buying a new device can be intimidating, but a few questions can help guide you through the process. First: what platform do you want to use? If the answer is iOS, that narrows your options down to exactly one phone. (Thankfully, it’s great.) And if you’re an Android fan, there’s no shortage of compelling options. Both platforms have their strengths, so you shouldn’t rule either out.
Obviously, also consider how much you’re comfortable spending. Even spending $100 more can get you a dramatically better product. And manufacturers tend to support their more expensive devices for longer. It’s definitely worth buying something toward the top limit of what you can afford.
Having an idea of your priorities will help inform your budget. Do you want a long battery life? Do you value speedy performance above all else? Or would you like the best possible cameras? While they continue to improve every year, midrange phones still involve some compromises, and knowing what’s important to you will make choosing one easier.
Lastly, pay attention to wireless bands and network compatibility. If you don’t want to worry about that, your best bet is to buy directly from your carrier. To make things easier, all the phones we recommend are compatible with every major US wireless provider and can be purchased unlocked.
What won’t you get from a midrange smartphone?
Every year, the line between midrange and flagship phones gets blurrier as more upmarket features trickle down. When we first published this guide in 2020, it was difficult to find $500 devices with waterproofing or 5G. Now, the biggest thing you might miss out on is wireless charging. Just remember to budget for a power adapter too – many companies have stopped including them. Performance has improved in recent years, but can still be hit or miss as most midrange phones use slower processors that can struggle with multitasking. Thankfully, their cameras have improved dramatically, and you can typically expect at least a dual-lens system on most handsets below $600.
The best midrange Android phone: Pixel 6a
There’s a lot to like about Google’s Pixel 6a. For one, it features the best cameras at this price. It may not have as many lenses as some of the other options on this list, but thanks to Google’s expertise in computational photography, the 6a delivers pictures that are on par with phones that cost hundreds more. Nighttime photos in particular are stellar thanks in part to Night Sight, which helps brighten up dim environments and bring out more detail.
The Google Pixel 6a has a few other things going for it. Thanks to its large battery and efficient chipset, you won’t have to worry about running out of juice. It lasted just over 19 hours in our battery testing, and Google’s Tensor chipset allows the 6a to run very similarly to the flagship Pixel 6 and 6 Pro handsets. And those who plan to hang on to their smartphone for as long as possible will appreciate that Google plans to support the 6a with software updates for the next five years.
In addition to its solid battery life and performance, the Google Pixel 6a even has some advanced features you may not expect to see on a midrange phone. Its design looks very similar to the flagship models with the striking camera bar on the handset’s rear top half, and it has a 2,400 x 1,080 resolution OLED touchscreen with an under-display fingerprint sensor. You’ll only get a refresh rate of 60Hz on the 6a, but that’s a small sacrifice to make when you’re getting a number of other features at a killer price.
The best (and only) iPhone under $600: iPhone SE
If you can get past its dated design and small 5.4-inch display, the Apple iPhone SE is the fastest phone you can buy for less than $600. No other device on this list has a processor that comes close to the SE’s A15 Bionic. What’s more, you can expect Apple to support the 2022 model for years to come. The company is only just ending support for the first-generation SE after six years. The company hasn’t said how long it intends to furnish the latest SE with new software, but it’s likely to support the device for a similar length of time.
For all its strengths, the iPhone SE is held back by a dated display. Not only is the SE’s screen small and slow, but it also uses an IPS panel instead of an OLED, meaning it can’t deliver deep blacks. Additionally, that screen is surrounded by some of the largest bezels you’ll find on a modern phone. That’s not surprising. The SE uses the design of the iPhone 6, which will be a decade old in two years. And if the SE looks dated now, it will only feel more tired in a few years.
The midrange phone with the best screen: Samsung Galaxy A53 5G
For the best possible display at this price, look no further than Samsung’s $450 Galaxy A53 5G. It features a 6.5-inch Super AMOLED display that is ideal for watching TV shows and movies. Plus the 120Hz panel is the fastest on this list. Other standout features include a 5,000mAh battery and versatile camera system. The A53’s three cameras may not deliver photos with the same detail and natural colors as the Pixel 6a, but it can capture bigger scenes with its two wide-angle lenses.
Like the other Android smartphones on this list, the Samsung Galaxy A53 isn’t the fastest performer. At best, Samsung’s Exynos 1280 is a lateral move from the Snapdragon 750G found in the Galaxy A52 5G. And though the A53 is $50 cheaper than its predecessor, it no longer comes with a power adapter and headphone jack, so the difference may not end up being much.
Buy Galaxy A53 5G at Samsung – $450
An ultra-budget 5G option: OnePlus Nord N200 5G
If you only have around $200 to spend on your next phone, you could do a lot worse than the OnePlus Nord N200 To start, it features a big 5,000mAh battery that will easily last you a full day. The N200 also has a 90Hz display and 5G connectivity, which are tricky to find at this price. Best of all, it doesn’t look like a cheap phone.
But the N200 is also a good illustration of why you should spend more if you can. It’s the slowest device on this list, due to its Snapdragon 480 chipset and paltry 4GB of RAM. Its triple main camera system is serviceable during the day but struggles in low light and doesn’t offer much versatility beyond a disappointing macro lens. OnePlus also doesn’t plan to update the phone beyond the soon-to-be-outdated Android 12. In short, the N200 is unlikely to last you as long as any of the other recommendations on this list.
Buy OnePlus Nord N200 at Amazon – $240
Chris Velazco contributed to this report.
Qualcomm VP believes smartphones have what it takes to match DSLR image quality
Daily Crunch: Cloudflare rolls out new mobile services to secure employees’ smartphones
Hello, friends, and welcome to Daily Crunch, bringing you the most important startup, tech and venture capital news in a single package.
Daily Crunch: Cloudflare rolls out new mobile services to secure employees’ smartphones by Christine Hall originally published on TechCrunch
First Smartphones With Faster Wi-Fi 7 Coming as Early as 2024
Wi-Fi 7 is able to use 320MHz channels and it supports 4K quadrature amplitude modulation (QAM) technology, ultimately providing up to 2.4x faster speeds than Wi-Fi 6 with the same number of antennas.
Positioned as the next major generational Wi-Fi technology evolution, Wi-Fi 7 is expected to provide speeds of “at least 30” gigabits per second and could even hit 40Gbps, according to the Wi-Fi Alliance. It will offer speeds fast enough for next-generation AR/VR, 8K video streaming, and gaming devices.
Wi-Fi 6 features speeds of up to 9.6Gb/s, and WiFi 5 maxed out at 3.5Gb/s, so WiFi 7 will be a notable improvement when it launches. There is no word as of yet on when Apple might implement Wi-Fi 7, but it is worth noting that Apple has not even adopted Wi-Fi 6E, which has been available since 2019.
Apple devices are still using Wi-Fi 6, and there is a possibility that Apple will stick with Wi-Fi 6 until the launch of Wi-Fi 7, skipping Wi-Fi 6E entirely. DigiTimes suggests that with the launch of Wi-Fi 7 on the horizon, Wi-Fi 6E is “just a transitional technology.”
Wi-Fi 7 will come first to routers and notebooks before making its way to smartphones. In January, MediaTek demoed Wi-Fi 7, and Intel has said that it plans to adopt Wi-Fi 7 in PC laptops by 2024, with the technology appearing in major markets in 2025. Qualcomm is also working on Wi-Fi 7 chip options that are expected to appear in the same time frame.
This article, “First Smartphones With Faster Wi-Fi 7 Coming as Early as 2024” first appeared on MacRumors.com
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The best gaming smartphones for 2022
EU Wants Smartphones, Tablets To Be Repairable For At Least 5 Years
“The steep increase in the demand for smartphones and tablets, combined [with] their increased functionality, has resulted in increased demand for energy and materials needed to manufacture these devices on the EU market, accompanied by an increase in their associated environmental impacts,” Commission President Ursula Von Der Leyen wrote in the proposal. “In addition, devices are often replaced prematurely by users and are, at the end of their useful life, not sufficiently reused or recycled, leading to a waste of resources.”
If adopted, the initiative would also usher in a new energy label for phones and tablets — similar to the ones already in place across Europe for TVs and large household items. The labels would indicate an expected battery life, and include details on water and dust protection, and rate the device’s resistance to drops and scratches. Those manufacturers, meanwhile, that can’t (or won’t) supply batteries for five years must instead meet a set of battery endurance tests that certify devices achieve 80% of a rated capacity after 1,000 full-charge cycles. They’ll also need to ensure software updates never negatively impact battery life.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.