Weekly Digest - 2020.07

Weekly Digest - 2020.07

Samsung Unpack

This week Samsung held its Unpacked event and presented new phones:

Samsung Galaxy S20 & S20+

The successors to S10 model have following specification:

  • 6.2-inch 120Hz QHD+ OLED display in S20,
  • 6.7-inch 120Hz QHD+ OLED display in S20+,
  • Snapdragon 865 CPU,
  • 12GB of RAM,
  • 128GB of storage + microSD in S20,
  • 128 or 512 GB of storage + microSD in S20+,
  • 10MP Selfie camera,
  • Triple (12+64+12MP) rear camera system,
  • 5G compatible,
  • 4000mAh battery in S20 & 4500mAh in S20+.

Samsung Galaxy S20 starts at $999,  and S20+ starts at $1199. Both will be available on March 6th.

Samsung Galaxy S20 Ultra

Samsung also revealed the premium model in S20 lineup.

  • 6.9-inch 120Hz QHD+ OLED display,
  • Snapdragon 865 CPU,
  • 12GB or 16GB of RAM,
  • 128GB or 512GB of storage + microSD in S20+,
  • 40MP Selfie camera
  • Triple (108+48+12MP) rear camera system with additional depth camera,
  • 5G compatible,
  • 5000mAh battery.

Samsung Galaxy S20 Ultra starts at $1399, and will be available on March 6th.

Samsung Galaxy Z Flip

Samsung presented another foldable phone -  Galaxy Z Flip,  but it's not a successor to Galaxy Fold. Here is the spec:

  • 6.7-inch FHD+ AMOLED main display,
  • 1.1-inch Super AMOLED cover Display,
  • Snapdragon 855+ CPU,
  • 8GB of RAM,
  • 256GB of storage,
  • 10MP Selfie camera,
  • Dual 12MP rear camera system,
  • 3300mAh battery.

Samsung Galaxy Z Flip costs $1,380 and launched on February 14th.

Xiaomi Mi 10

Despite of the Coronavirus outbreak in China, Xaomi managed to launch, at online-only event, the new flagship phones - Xiaomi Mi 10 & Mi 10Pro. Here is the spec of presented devices:

  • 6.67-inch 90Hz AMOLED display,
  • Snapdragon 865 CPU,
  • 8 or 12GB of RAM,
  • 128GB or 256GB of storage in Mi 10,
  • 256GB or 512 of storage in Mi 10 Pro,
  • 20MP Selfie camera
  • Quad (108+12+8+20MP) rear camera system in Mi 10,
  • Quad (108+12+2+2MP) rear camera system in Mi 10 Pro,
  • 5G compatible,
  • 4780mAh battery in Mi 10 & 4500mAh in Mi 10 Pro.

Xiaomi Mi 10 starts at ~$575 and will be available in China from February 14. Xiaomi Mi 10Pro  starts at ~$715 and will be available in China from February 18.

$450 production cost of PlayStation 5

According to Bloomberg manufacturing costs of the PlayStation 5 are around $450 per unit. The biggest reason for higher cost is limited supply and high prices of DRAM and NAND flash memories.

Image credits: Samsung

Weekly digest - 2019.47

Weekly digest - 2019.47

Tesla Cybertruck

Tesla has revealed its new car. This time it is,  Blade Runner inspired, electric pickup truck called Cybertruck. There will be 3 versions available:

  • Single motor rear-wheel drive with 250 miles of range, 7500-pound towing capacity, and 0-60 mph in under 6.5 seconds. Starting at $39900.
  • Dual motor all-wheel drive with 300 miles of range, 10,000-pound towing capacity, and 0-60 mph in under 4.5 seconds. Starting at $49900.
  • Triple motor all-wheel drive with 500 miles of range, 14,000-pound towing capacity, and 0-60 mph in under 2.9 seconds. Starting at $69900.

All models are made of ultra-strong glass and polymer-layered composite that can withstand even bullets.  Also, all versions come with Autopilot, but "self-driving" costs additional $7000.

Cybertruck is available to preorder, but first models won't be delivered until late 2021.

Image credits: Tesla

Weekly digest - 2019.38

Weekly digest - 2019.38

Apple started shipping iPhone 11 & Apple Watch Series 5

Reviewers started getting their hands on newest versions of iPhone 11, iPhone 11 Pro and Apple Watch.  Long story short, if you want an iPhone, then buy iPhone 11, the Pro version is for photo enthusiast, or people who prefer smaller, OLED screen.

The always-on display in Apple Watch Series 5 is a good step forward, but if you own Series 4 you are good for another year.

By the way, now we have confirmation that all new iPhones have at least 4GB of memory. There are reports that the Pro versions have additional 2GB of RAM dedicated to the camera.

iOS 13.(1)

Together with new iPhones, Apple released iOS 13. Federico Viticci wrote excellent review of new operating systems. Overall iOS 13 is a good step forward, but is has many bugs and issues, which might force Apple to release iOS 13.1 earlier than usual. If the rumors are true, iOS 13 will be the shortest living version of iOS ever.

Pixel 4 event

On October 15th, Google is going to host an event related with launch of Pixel 4. To be honest, I don't know why Google even bother to do this. It's not like we already know almost everything.

Image credits: Timothy Eberly