Xiaomi reportedly overtook Samsung as the number 1 OEM in Europe in Q2 2021

Xiaomi is now the best-selling smartphone brand in Europe. According to a recent market study report from Strategy Analytics, the Chinese OEM overtook Samsung to take the top spot in Q2 2021. Although Xiaomi often tops the charts in markets like India, this is the first time the company has shipped more phones than Samsung in the European market.

As per the report, Xiaomi had a 25.3% market share in Europe in Q2 2021, and it shipped just under 13 million units in the quarter. In comparison, Samsung had a 24% market share with 12 million units shipped. The Chinese OEM recorded a YoY growth of 67.1%, while Samsung’s sales declined by 7%. Xiaomi’s tremendous growth in the region can be attributed to strong sales in Russia, Ukraine, Spain, and Italy.

Talking about Xiaomi’s massive success in the region, Boris Metodiev, Associate Director at Strategy Analytics, said, “The European markets for smartphones had a strong quarter driven by Covid recovery, following the crash in 2020. The highlight of the quarter is Xiaomi emerging as the number one vendor in shipment terms for the first time. Xiaomi shipped almost 13 million units on the continent to displace longtime leader Samsung. Xiaomi has seen great success in Russia, Ukraine, Spain and Italy among others and found customers eager for its Mi and Redmi series of feature rich, value smartphones.”

Best Xiaomi Phones to buy in August 2021

Other Chinese OEMs also saw tremendous growth in the region during the second quarter. OPPO, which took the fourth spot on the list, had a market share of 5.6% and 180% YoY growth. Realme also secured a spot on the list with a 3.8% market share and a YoY growth of 1800%, thanks to the success of its Realme 8 series. Apple retained the third spot on the list, with a market share of 19.2% and 15.7% YoY growth. The company managed to ship almost 10 million units in the quarter.

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Xiaomi’s Mi MIX 4 could have a crazy flexible screen and under-display camera

Rumors suggest that Xiaomi is gearing up to launch another Mi MIX device this year. The company revived the lineup earlier this year with the launch of its first-ever foldable smartphone, the Mi MIX Fold, and now it’s reportedly gearing up to launch the Mi MIX 4. We’ve previously spotted evidence of an upcoming flagship-tier Xiaomi smartphone, codenamed “odin,” which will be based on Qualcomm’s Snapdragon sm8350 platform and offer UWB support. The company has now officially confirmed the name of the device and a launch date.

Xiaomi recently shared a teaser on Chinese microblogging platform Weibo, confirming the Mi MIX 4 moniker. The teaser also reveals that Xiaomi will unveil the device in China on August 10th. Although the teaser doesn’t reveal much else about the device, noted leaker Digital Chat Station has shared some info about its display and front-facing camera.

According to the leak, the MI MIX 4 will feature a unique flexible display with an under-display camera. It also includes a short clip of the display (attached below), which reveals the position of the front-facing camera.

As per previous reports, the Xiaomi Mi MIX 4 will likely feature a triple camera setup on the back, consisting of a 50MP primary shooter, a 48MP telephoto camera, and a 48MP wide-angle camera. The device will have a flexible screen that curves on both sides and UWB support. We suspect that the device will feature Xiaomi’s third-gen under-screen camera solution, which the company showcased last August.

At the moment, we have no further details about the Mi MIX 4. But we expect to learn more in the days leading up to the launch. Based on what we’ve seen so far, the Xiaomi Mi MIX 4 is shaping up to be a flagship phone with a couple of innovative technologies, which is exactly what we’ve come to expect from a Mi MIX series device.

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OPPO teases its next-gen under-display camera will be less distracting and take better photos

OPPO today showcased its third-gen under-display camera solution, which could make its way to a commercial smartphone soon. The new under-display camera builds upon the groundwork OPPO laid out with the previous models and promises better selfie camera performance and distraction-free viewing.

OPPO was one of the first smartphone OEMs to showcase its under-display camera technology back in 2019. But while other manufacturers have already brought their under-display camera solution to the market, OPPO is yet to launch a phone with an under-display selfie camera. That might change soon, as OPPO’s new third-gen solution looks more promising.

Prototype phone with OPPP’s next-gen USC

OPPO’s latest under-display camera uses several innovative technologies to overcome the hurdles faced by other manufacturers. The company notes that its next-gen USC (under-screen camera) tech “slightly shrinks the size of each pixel without decreasing the number of pixels to ensure a 400-PPI high-quality display even in the camera area.” It also uses transparent screen wiring that’s 50% the width of traditional wiring to offer a better visual experience.

Smaller pixels over the under-screen camera

Furthermore, the new USC solution features one pixel circuit to drive each pixel, which gives precise control over the screen’s chromaticity and brightness with a deviation of just 2%. This ensures that users cannot see any brightness or color difference between the part of the screen in front of the camera and the rest of it. The 1-to-1 pixel architecture, along with an anti-burn-in algorithm, also increases the screen’s lifespan by 50% compared to the previous solution.

On top of the enhancements to the screen in front of the camera, OPPO’s next-gen USC also uses proprietary AI algorithms to improve the quality of images captured by the camera. The AI diffraction reduction, AWB, and HDR algorithms ensure that the images captured by the under-display camera are better than those captured by the previous solution.

At the moment, OPPO hasn’t shared any plans of bringing its next-gen under-display camera to a production smartphone. But since the new solution successfully solves some of the key issues faced in the previous iterations, the company might include it on a production smartphone soon. We’ll make sure to let you know as soon as that happens.

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Get the Samsung Galaxy Buds Live earbuds for just $70

The Galaxy Buds Live are true wireless earbuds with a unique design, which earned them the nickname ‘Galaxy Beans.’ The earbuds provide good sound quality without in-ear rubber tips, though they aren’t for everyone, which is seemingly why Samsung hasn’t released a sequel by now. The earbuds were briefly on sale for $95 in June, and now you can buy them for just $69.99 from Samsung.

These earbuds have 12mm speakers, a bass duct for enhancing lower frequency sound, and (finicky) touch controls for pausing/skipping playback. The Buds Live also technically offers Active Noise Cancellation (ANC), but it has little to no effect in real-world usage, so look elsewhere if you need earbuds with noise cancellation. Check out our full review for more details. The earbud case uses USB Type-C for charging, or you can set it on top of any Qi wireless charging pad.

Samsung Galaxy Buds Live

Samsung is selling refurbished Galaxy Buds Live through its official eBay store for $69.99.

Buy at eBay

This listing on Samsung’s official eBay store is for refurbished Galaxy Buds Live, and each unit has been tested to work exactly like new. Samsung is even shipping the earbuds in the original retail packaging, which isn’t always the case with refurbished electronics, and you get a 2-year warranty.

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Spotify is testing a cheaper plan with fewer restrictions but still plays ads

Spotify is testing a new low-cost subscription tier supported by advertisements, dubbed “Spotify Plus”. The subscription tier is described as having “unlimited skips and on-demand listening”, while still incorporating advertisements like what is seen on the company’s free subscription tier.

Currently, Spotify’s free tier doesn’t let users skip more than six tracks per hour. Users can also only listen to specific tracks from 15 selected playlists, from editorial-selected playlists to algorithmically generated playlists like your “Discovery Weekly” and your “Daily Mix” playlists. Outside of that, free users can only shuffle tracks. To avoid all of that, you can subscribe to Spotify’s full premium service, though it comes in at $9.99 a month. However, as reported by The Verge, Spotify’s “Plus” tier may come in at just $0.99 a month. Other prices are, however, being tested too.

Spotify confirmed to The Verge in a statement that it is “always working to enhance the Spotify experience and we routinely conduct tests to inform our decisions,” and that they are “currently conducting a test of an ad-supported subscription plan with a limited number of our users.”

The company also confirmed that there’s no guarantee that Spotify Plus will be launched in its current tier, if at all. “Some tests end up paving the way for new offerings or enhancements while others may only provide learnings. We don’t have any additional information to share at this time.”

Spotify likes to test features on end-users, some of which do find their way into the main app. For example, the company announced a new HiFi tier for lossless music streaming earlier this year, which has still yet to fully come to fruition. However, other features, like group listening music sessions were discovered early last year and are now available to all users, so it’s entirely possible that this feature will eventually launch for everyone.

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Google Maps for iOS adds helpful homescreen widgets and a dark mode

Google Maps for iOS has gotten a set of home screen widgets and a dark mode, quite a while after the feature already rolled out on Android. You’ll be able to use the feature in the coming weeks, simply by going to settings, tapping on dark mode, and then selecting “on”. Google Maps has had a dark mode on Android for quite a while now after the company began testing it last year.

Google says that dark mode can help to “rest your eyes” and may also “save your battery life”, though as we’ve learned recently, the battery life savings may be minimal. Even still, a lot of people prefer dark mode for the aesthetic, and given that it exists on Android, it’s good to be finally rolling out on iOS as well.

On top of that, Google also announced the introduced a set of search widgets that you can add to your home screen, including quick-access buttons such as home, work, restaurants, and gas. There’s also a new nearby traffic widget too so that you can access traffic information for your locality right from your home screen. They’re useful for getting information quickly, especially as Apple only added widgets to iOS in iOS 14, released in June last year].

Google says that to use either widget, you’ll need to make sure you have the latest Google Maps app downloaded from the app store. Once you do, follow these instructions:

1. From your home screen, touch and hold a widget or an empty area until your apps jiggle.
2. In the upper-left corner, tap the Add button.
3. Search for and tap the Google Maps app.
4. Swipe to select a widget, then tap Add Widget.
5. Tap Done.

The app update should be rolling out on the Apple App Store now, and you’ll be able to set them up and try them out right away.

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Code for new Qualcomm wearable chip, possibly the Snapdragon Wear 5100, appears online

Qualcomm’s reputation was dealt a blow these past few weeks. Back in mid-May, the company had to deal with the news that Google is rebuilding Wear OS with a new partner — Samsung. Just yesterday, Google confirmed its upcoming Pixel 6 series will ship with the company’s own silicon rather than Qualcomm’s. After news of Google’s partnership with Samsung broke, Qualcomm later confirmed it still plans to make new wearable chips. Immediately after Google’s Pixel 6 announcement, the company issued a statement stating it “will continue to work closely with Google on existing and future products based on Snapdragon platforms.” While Qualcomm hasn’t elaborated any further on its future plans, we’ve spotted code for a new Qualcomm-made Wear OS chipset that could end up being the Snapdragon Wear 5100.

Last week, Qualcomm uploaded new code to its Code Aurora Forum with the build ID “LAW.UM.2.0-00700-SW5100.0” and code-name “monaco.” “LAW” stands for “Linux Android Wear” (Android Wear was the previous name for Wear OS), while “UM” possibly stands for “Unified Modem.” We speculate that “SW5100” is short for the marketing name of this platform, which could be the Snapdragon Wear 5100.

Digging into the code, we discovered that the platform is currently being developed on top of Linux kernel 5.4, but there’s conflicting information about what Android version the platform is based on. The CAF releases page lists the version as Android 11, but the shipping API level in a config file is listed as “29” which is Android 10. If the platform is actually Android 11-based, we still don’t know if it has any of the changes introduced in the big Wear OS 3 update. Smartwatches running Qualcomm’s existing Snapdragon Wear 4100 platform will get the Wear OS 3 update, though, so we see no reason why this platform won’t as well if it is indeed the Snapdragon Wear 5100.

By analyzing the commit history and board configuration files, we’ve determined that the “monaco” chipset is based on Qualcomm’s existing “bengal” platform. “Bengal” is the code-name for Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 662 and 460 platforms, two 11nm chipsets with four ARM Cortex-A73 and four Cortex-A53 cores. “Monaco”, though, appears to have a quad-core CPU with ARM Cortex-A73 cores, a slight upgrade over the quad-core ARM Cortex-A53 configuration of the Snapdragon Wear 4100.

We don’t have any more details to share about this new wearable platform, but we did spot an interesting reference to “Atherton” wearables in the code. This code-name could refer to reference devices powered by this new platform, or it could be something else entirely. We’ve asked Qualcomm to comment on this story and will update this article if we hear back.

Featured image: Mobvoi’s TicWatch Pro 3 GPS powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon Wear 4100 chip

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