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Among the many additions in Android 11 is support for the new emojis included in Unicode 13, announced earlier this year. New emojis are great, but it can take a while for everyone to get them on a system level. Thankfully, keyboard apps can add support at any time, and that’s exactly what Gboard is doing.
Android 11 brings 62 new emoji (117 including variations) and these are now included in the latest Gboard beta. Some of the notable additions include Bubble Tea, a black cat, a polar bear, Mrs. Clause, and a boomerang. Gboard only has initial support for these emoji as you can’t search for them yet, but they are present.
One thing to keep in mind is some of the new emoji won’t work unless you’re on Android 11 beta. The new smiles, in particular, will not appear correctly if they are not supported by the OS. There’s only so much Gboard (and other keyboard apps) can do without support at the system level.
Regardless, if you want to get on board with the new emojis already, download Gboard version 9.6.2.319852869. You can join the beta in the Play Store or download the latest APK from here.
Qualcomm has just announced the new Snapdragon 865 Plus SoC. Following up on the announcement, the company has also announced that the very first smartphones with the new, updated SoC will be the ASUS ROG Phone 3 and the Lenovo Legion. Both of these smartphones are considered “gaming phones” at their core, so it comes as no real surprise that they will be sporting the latest available silicon from Qualcomm.
The ASUS ROG Phone 3 is expected to be launched on July 22 as the successor to the spec behemoth, the ASUS ROG Phone II. Much like the predecessor, the ROG Phone 3 will come with very impressive specifications to attract gamers who are on the hunt for the best set of specifications. Aside from the Qualcomm Snapdragon 865 Plus, the device is also expected to feature up to 16GB of RAM, up to 512GB of internal storage, and perhaps 120Hz refresh rate support at a minimum. This will make it one of the most powerful Android flagships of 2020. Cameras have not really been a focus area for gaming smartphones, but the ROG Phone 3 is still expected to come with decent hardware in the form of a 64MP primary sensor.
The Lenovo Legion is expected to follow along on the same path as other gaming smartphones. This will be Lenovo’s first gaming smartphone, so there’s less of a precedent to build upon, other than this confirmed information of it coming with the Qualcomm Snapdragon 865 Plus. But from previous leaks, we do know that the Lenovo Legion will come with 90W fast charging, two USB Type-C ports, a 5000mAh dual-cell battery design, and a pop-up camera that sits on the side of the phone instead of the top. Further, the device is also expected to come with a 144Hz refresh rate FHD display, as well as a 64MP primary camera. It will also run on Android 10 with Lenovo’s ZUI 12 customizations on top. The Lenovo Legion is also expected to launch this month.
These aren’t the only smartphones expected with the latest Snapdragon SoC, though. We should hear from other OEMs on their Snapdragon 865 Plus adoption plans soon.
At the 2019 Snapdragon Tech Summit, Qualcomm announced the Snapdragon 865, its flagship mobile platform for 2020 flagship Android mobile devices. The system-on-chip has turned out to be the best smartphone SoC so far in 2020, beating the Exynos 990, Kirin 990, and the MediaTek Dimensity 1000L. It has been featured in acclaimed flagships such as the OnePlus 8 series, the Xiaomi Mi 10, the Snapdragon Galaxy S20 variants, and many more. Even though the Snapdragon 865 remains best-in-class in the Android smartphone market, Qualcomm has launched a mid-cycle refresh in the form of the Snapdragon 865 Plus. This follows the template of previous Snapdragon mid-cycle refreshes such as the Qualcomm Snapdragon 855 Plus in 2019 and the Snapdragon 821 back in 2016.
The Snapdragon 865 Plus is a follow-up to the Snapdragon 865. The Snapdragon 865 has powered more than 140 devices (announced or in development), according to Qualcomm. The number is the highest number of individual premium-tier designs powered by a single mobile platform this year (although we haven’t seen most of these designs come to market just yet).
A reference design of the Qualcomm Snapdragon 865 Plus.
The new Snapdragon 865 Plus is mostly the same as the regular Snapdragon 865 with the exception of three points. Firstly, the Kryo 585 (ARM Cortex-A77) CPU’s Prime core is now clocked at up to 3.1GHz, up from the 2.84GHz clock speed of the regular Snapdragon 865. The 3.1GHz top clock speed finally matches ARM’s ideal projections regarding the Cortex-A77. Last year’s Snapdragon 855 Plus had increased the clock speed of its Prime core (ARM Cortex-A76-based) to 2.96GHz. The 3.1GHz clock speed of the Kryo 585’s Prime Core is the highest seen in any Snapdragon SoC so far. The rest of the CPU cores’ clock speeds are unchanged.
Secondly, the Adreno 650 GPU features 10% faster graphics rendering. This makes it apparent that Qualcomm has increased the clock speed of the GPU, but the specifics on this weren’t provided in the press release. Last year’s Snapdragon 855 Plus also featured 15% graphics performance improvements over the regular Snapdragon 855, so the level of incremental improvement is similar. It should be noted the 10% increase in GPU performance won’t be enough to match the Apple A13’s GPU, for example, as the delta in peak and sustained GPU performances will still remain too big for a 10% improvement in the Adreno 650’s performance to overcome. The upcoming Apple A14 is also set to widen Apple’s lead over Qualcomm here. On the other hand, the 10% increase in GPU performance will widen Qualcomm’s lead over its SoC competition strictly in the Android market, as none of the other SoC vendors have even matched the regular Adreno 650’s GPU performance so far. The Mali-G77MP11, the Mali-G76MP16, and the Mali-G77MC9 featured in the Exynos 990, Kirin 990, and the Dimensity 1000L respectively have all fared worse than Qualcomm in GPU performance benchmarks, showcasing inferior performance-per-watt as well.
Finally, and most importantly, the Snapdragon 865 Plus features Qualcomm’s new FastConnect 6900 mobile connectivity system for Wi-Fi and Bluetooth. This was announced in May 2020, and the headline features it brings are support for Wi-Fi 6E (Wi-Fi 6 extended to 6GHz) and Bluetooth 5.2. The FastConnect 6900’s top Wi-Fi speeds reach up to 3.6Gbps—the fastest in the industry, according to Qualcomm. The speed improvements have been achieved thanks to the U.S. FCC freeing up 1200MHz of 6GHz spectrum for Wi-Fi. For more information, check out our launch article on the FastConnect 6900.
The Snapdragon 865 Plus also carries over the regular Snapdragon 865’s features, such as the full arsenal of Qualcomm Snapdragon Elite Gaming features, global 5G, and “ultra-intuitive” AI. It’s said to deliver desktop-quality gaming with first-to-mobile features such as updateable GPU drivers and desktop forward rendering, 5G gameplay at up to 144fps, and true 10-bit HDR gaming. Like the regular Snapdragon 865, the Snapdragon 865 Plus features Qualcomm’s Hexagon 698 with Hexagon Vector Extensions and Hexagon Tensor Accelerator, 5th-generation AI Engine, Dual 14-bit Spectra 480 ISP, Snapdragon X55 5G modem-RF system, Qualcomm Quick Charge 4+ charging technology, and more. It’s produced on TSMC’s second-generation 7nm DUV (N7P) process.
The Qualcomm Snapdragon 865 Plus will be featured in the next wave of flagship phones, including the ASUS ROG Phone 3 and the Lenovo Legion. Qualcomm says commercial devices based on the Snapdragon 865 Plus are expected to be announced in the third quarter of 2020, and we know that the first announcements will happen this month.
Thunderbolt is a cross-platform data and power transfer standard developed by Intel. The protocol is often found in laptops and PCs and can be used to connect DisplayPort-compatible devices including external monitors as well as PCI Express (PCIe) peripherals including external graphics cards, hard drives, Wi-Fi or Ethernet connectors, over a USB-C port. The current generation of the protocol – Thunderbolt 3 – supports upstream or downstream bandwidths of up to 40Gbps and serves as the basis for USB4 specifications. Thunderbolt 3 was announced in late 2015 and an update has been long due. Intel spoke of the Thunderbolt 4 while unveiling its Tiger Lake mobile processors at CES 2020 but without revealing any details. Now the day has come and Intel is finally announcing the Thunderbolt 4 connectivity protocol along with new 8000 series controllers for backward compatibility with Thunderbolt 3 and USB 3.1 (and upwards) devices.
The new protocol doubles down on the minimum video requirements as compared to the previous generation and requires support for at least two 4K monitors or a single 8K monitor. The standard also requires a minimum data transfer rate of 32Gbps supported via PCIe and 3,000Mbps for storage transfer speeds.
Intel Thunderbolt 4 branding
Although Thunderbolt 4 delivers data, power, and video signals over a single cable with the same transfer rate as Thunderbolt 3, it does bring improvements over the previous generation. More specifically, Thunderbolt 4 is set to bring improvements in terms of versatility and security and with this, Intel desires to set a new standard for USB connectivity across the PC industry.
Benefits of Thunderbolt 4
Versatility
One of the biggest improvements with Thunderbolt 4 is that it will now support USB extension hubs and docks with up to four Thunderbolt 4 ports as compared to just one with Thunderbolt 3. This essentially means that any PC or laptop with a single Thunderbolt 4 port can support up to four enhancements like external SSDs, external GPUs, monitors, etc. powered by the protocol. To achieve that with previous versions, users had to “daisy chain” Thunderbolt accessories – i.e. connect them in series – one after another.
In addition to these improvements, Intel now requires compatible PCs to support at least one Thunderbolt 4 port capable of charging. In addition, a connected accessory like a keyboard or mouse must be able to wake the PC from a state of sleep.
Security
Intel necessitates OEMs or developers adopting Thunderbolt 4 Intel’s Virtualization Technology for Directed I/O (VT-d) technology to fend off any physical direct memory access (DMA) attack. This basically requires tailored capabilities built into the processor to block any unauthorized access to the system memory. This defense is vital as the system memory is shared across a host of PCIe devices – including the ones connected externally via hot-swap plugs (or ports in this case), making the memory vulnerable to physical interception or sabotage.
Thunderbolt 4 uses hardware-level protection supported by kernel-level DMA remapping (DMA-r). The latter means that each peripheral gets access to an isolated block on the system memory such that it is not shared with other devices. This prevents other devices from accessing or reading/writing the memory blocks of other devices. Intel’s VT-d and DMA-r technologies are supported on operating systems including Windows 10 versions 1803 (RedStone 4) and upwards, macOS 10.8.2, and on Linux since Kernel version 4.21.
Expandability
Last year, Intel opened up Thunderbolt 3 as a royalty-free protocol. It was later adopted as the basis for USB4, the upcoming USB transfer protocol that is aimed at replacing standard USB ports with USB Type-C ports for the sake of simplicity and uniformity. As expected, Thunderbolt 4 is also fully compliant with USB4 but increases its minimum performance requirements.
However, Intel says that Thunderbolt 4 will also work without Intel CPUs, thanks to the new 8000 series controllers launched by Intel. These include Intel’s new JHL8540 and JHL8340 host Thunderbolt 4 controllers for OEMs and JHL8440 device controller meant for accessory makers. With the help of these controllers OEMs using non-Intel chips on their PCs and laptop, including AMD and potentially ARM chips for laptops.
This means Apple might still be able to offer Thunderbolt 4 support on its MacBook models even if commences using its custom silicon, as confirmed during the online WWDC event last month.
Thunderbolt 4 Availability
Even though the Thunderbolt 4 is projected to be available across devices with processor by different chipmakers, Intel will reserve the bragging rights for the first PC that comes with support for the protocol. The first set of laptops with Thunderbolt 4 will be powered by Intel’s Tiger Lake processors and available later this year. The catalog will include laptops based on Intel’s innovation model called “Project Athena,” which was announced at Computex 2019 and is essentially a successor to the “Ultrabook” branding. Project Athena presents a set of features and performance indicators for the OEMs to target for a rich and efficient mobility experience.
Thunderbolt 4 developer kits are now available while Intel has also opened certification testing which is mandatory for consistent performance across all devices.
Chinese OEM Realme has seen tremendous growth in the Chinese and Indian markets over the last couple of years. The company has been aggressively launching new smartphones across various price segments in these markets and it has even expanded its portfolio to include smart wearables and AIoT devices. The company has taken a similar approach in the European market as well and has already launched six new devices in the region since the beginning of 2020. These include four mid-range devices in the Realme 6 series, along with two 5G-enabled flagships — the Realme X50 Pro 5G and the Realme X3 SuperZoom. In a bid to make 5G devices more accessible to European buyers, the company has now launched its mid-range Realme X50 5G in the region.
Realme X50 5G: Specifications
Specifications
Realme X50 5G
Dimensions & Weight
163.8×75.8×8.9 mm
202g
Display
6.57-inch hole-punch FHD+ LCD
1080 x 2400
120Hz
Gorilla Glass 5
SoC
Qualcomm Snapdragon 765G
Adreno 620
RAM & Storage
6GBLPDDR4x/128GB
8GBLPDDR4x/128GB
Storage Type
UFS 2.1
Battery
4,200mAh
30W Dart Charge fast charging
Fingerprint Sensor
Side-mounted fingerprint
Rear Cameras
48MP primary sensor, f/1.8
8MP 119° wide-angle sensor, f/2.3
2MP macro camera, f/2.4
B&W portrait lens, f/2.4
Front Cameras
16MP Sony IMX471, f/2.0
2MP portrait lens, f/2.4
Android Version
Realme UI based on Android 10
The Realme X50 5G was the company’s first 5G-enabled device, which was launched in China earlier this year. However, the European version of the device isn’t exactly the same as the Chinese variant. The device launched as the Realme X50 5G in Europe is, in fact, the Realme X50m 5G, which was launched in China in April this year. While the device still packs in Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 765G chipset and a 6.57-inch FHD+ 120Hz LCD display, it features some changes in the camera department.
Unlike the Chinese X50 5G, which features a 64MP primary sensor, the European Realme X50 5G features a 48MP f/1.8 primary sensor, coupled with an 8MP ultra-wide sensor, a 2MP macro lens, and a B&W portrait lens. Over on the front, the European variant retains the 16MP primary selfie shooter but replaces the 8MP ultra-wide lens on the Chinese variant with a 2MP depth sensor.
Other specifications, including the 4,200mAh battery with 30W fast charging support and the side-mounted fingerprint scanner, remain the same. For connectivity, the Realme X50 5G offers 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac dual-band WiFi, Bluetooth 5.1, NFC, and dual-mode 5G. In terms of software, the Realme X50 5G runs Realme UI based on Android 10 out of the box.
Along with the Realme X50 5G, the company has also launched its latest TWS earphones — the Realme Buds Q — in the European market. The Buds Q are Realme’s most affordable TWS earphones so far and come with 10mm drivers. The in-ear style earbuds weigh about 3.5g each, with the pill-shaped case weighing in at about 28.2g.
The Realme Buds Q feature touch-sensitive capacitive buttons on both earbuds for playback controls, and much like the Realme Buds Air, the Buds Q gives users the option to customize the gestures using the Realme Link app. The earbuds are equipped with 40mAh batteries each and the charging case features a 400mAh unit that have a combined playback rating of 20 hours. The earbuds also come with an IPX4 rating for dust and water resistance, however, there’s no such protection for the case. Realme has also added its signature low-latency gaming mode to offer users a better experience while gaming.
Pricing & Availability
The Realme X50 5G has been priced at €349 (~$394) for the 6GB/128GB variant and will be available for purchase on Realme’s website starting today. Buyers will be able to choose from two color variants — Ice Silver and Jungle Green. While Realme’s website mentions that the Realme X50 5G will also be offered in an 8GB/128GB variant, we currently have no information on its pricing and availability.
The Realme Buds Q has been priced at €29.99 (~$34) and it’s also available for purchase on Realme’s website starting today. The TWS earphones are available in three color variants — Quite Yellow, Quite Black, and Quite White. The company has announced a special launch offer for the Realme Buds Q, which will net buyers a discount of €10 if they purchase the TWS earphones along with any Realme device.
The OPPO Reno 10x Zoom was announced back in April 2019 as the first flagship phone in the OPPO Reno series. It had fairly good specifications for the time consisting of the Qualcomm Snapdragon 855 SoC, 6GB/8GB of RAM with 128GB/256GB of storage, and a 6.6-inch notchless Full HD+ (2340×1080) AMOLED display. robust triple rear camera setup consisting of a 48MP primary camera, 8MP ultra-wide-angle camera, and a 13MP periscope telephoto camera. A 16MP front camera and a 4,000mAh battery ensured that its specifications presented the right quality of compromises. In terms of design, it distinguished itself by having a unique shark fin popup front camera and by not having a rear camera bump. In terms of software, it shipped out of the box with ColorOS 6 on top of Android 9.
The Reno 10x Zoom is interesting in that it hasn’t actually received a successor yet. The OPPO Find X2 and the Find X2 Pro (first impressions) are much more premium phones with significantly higher price tags than the Reno 10x Zoom, which was positioned as a comparatively affordable flagship in 2019. The Reno series has since then transitioned into a mid-range series with phones such as the OPPO Reno2 (review), Reno3 and Reno3 Pro, and the upcoming Reno4 series. Some may say the Realme X50 Pro (review) performs a similar job as the successor of the Reno 10x Zoom, but the X50 Pro lacks a periscope telephoto camera and also has a significantly smaller display. The Reno 10x Zoom, therefore, was one of a kind in some respects. I praised its versatile camera capabilities in my review. At that time, however, OPPO didn’t let you take videos from all three rear camera lenses. You could take video from the primary camera and the periscope telephoto camera at 5x zoom, but not with the ultra-wide-angle camera or with digital zoom at 2x.
This was quite a disappointment as ultra-wide-angle video recording is a fun, useful feature that has been adopted by vendors such as Samsung, LG, OnePlus, and others. The ColorOS 7 (review) update for the Reno 10x Zoom didn’t fix this limitation, but now, OPPO has started rolling out ColorOS 7.1 to the Chinese variant of the Reno 10x Zoom. The ColorOS 7.1 (review) update finally brings support for recording with all three rear cameras. This means videos can now be recorded with the ultra-wide-angle camera, and they can also be recorded at 2x zoom, 5x zoom (periscope telephoto camera), and 10x zoom. The 2x zoom and 10x zoom are digital zoom levels. This was verified by XDA Junior Member Subzuda, who also posted a sample video showing off the new video recording capability. This video can be viewed below:
