Energizer to launch 26 phones at MWC 2019

Having one phone would surprise us enough but Energizer has decided it wants more—they want 26 new phones, in fact. The battery manufacturer is getting into the smartphone game with features like pop-up cameras, a massive 18,000mAh battery, and foldable displays. No, these all won’t be in one phone. According to 9to5Google, Energizer will be releasing four separate lines: Power Max, Ultimate, Energy, and Hardcase. Most of the 26 phones will be part of the Energy and Hardcase lines, which, as you can expect, will be feature phones. The Power Max line will have the 18,000mAh model, while the Ultimate line will get things like the pop-up camera, and teardrop notch displays.

Reports claim that two of the devices part of the Ultimate line are the more premium devices. The Energizer Ultimate U620S Pop and U630S Pop will run on P70 and P22 MediaTek Helio processors, respectively. Both come with motorized dual cameras. The U630S Pop has 16-megapixel main camera with a 2-megapixel depth sensor, while the U620S Pop gets a triple camera setup, with the two other sensors joined by a 5-megapixel shooter. The US630S has a 4GB RAM/64GB storage configuration, while the U620S gets 6GB of RAM and 128GB of storage. The former comes out in June, while the latter comes out in July. We’re going to have to wait until the end of the month to find out what the other phones are going to be. MWC kicks off on February 25 in Barcelona.

Source: The Verge

Huawei set to launch 5G foldable phone on February 24th

Looks like Huawei is all set to launch its newest innovations at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. The company just announced on Twitter that it’s holding an event at MWC on February 24 at 2 p.m. Barcelona time. The company will be introducing its take on the 5G foldable phone. Huawei CEO Richard Yu confirmed this at an investor meeting in Beijing last week. He said, “We look forward to seeing you in Barcelona in February, where we will launch the world's first 5G smartphone with foldable screen.”

Source: Engadget

New render shows what the LG G8 ThinQ might look like

This isn’t the first time we’ve seen renders for the upcoming LG flagship, but coming from the usually reliable XDA Developers team, we want to give it more of a benefit of the doubt than the others. The render doesn’t differ much from the others offered before, which suggests that the design wouldn’t look that different to the LG G7 ThinQ. LG Electronics Head of Global Corporate Communications Ken Hong has previously dismissed the earlier renders as “speculative” and “not real,” so you still need to take these renders with a grain of salt.

According to XDA, an “anonymous source” provided the design templates for these renders but they didn’t reveal new details about the phone’s internals. It’s said to be getting more advanced facial recognition, though. And one other rumoured feature coming to the phone is Sound on Display technology, where the screen’s vibrations will be used instead of a speaker (similar to what the Huawei Mate 20 Pro does). But that means there should be a smaller notch needed, since this could take away the speaker grille, and that is in contradiction with the render. What we do know is hover gestures might be coming to the new phone. LG is set to unveil its newest products at Mobile World Congress on February 24.

Source: TechRadar

The era of ‘hole-less’ phones is here

We’ve lost bezels and the occasional headphone jack as smartphone manufacturers attempt to innovate in their space. Admittedly, the ones who seem to be leading the charge in terms of design innovation now are the Chinese. The latest trend that might look to be the next big thing (aside from foldable phones) are “hole-less phones.” And two Chinese companies have already previewed what their take on this new trend is going to look like. 

Meizu is the first one out of the gate with the Meizu Zero. It has no headphone jack and the speaker grill is replaced by the screen acting as a speaker (similar to the Huawei Mate 20 Pro). It uses a piezoelectric transducer to turn the 5.99-inch display into a speaker. It uses tiny touch sensitive panels on the side to replace the power button and volume rocker, and it has an under-display fingerprint reader, too. Without any ports or holes, there is no SIM tray, so this phone will make use of an eSIM. File transfer and charging will be done wirelessly, too. To compensate for this, Meizu has a new wireless charging standard that promises to deliver speeds of up to 18 watts (which surpasses Huawei’s 15-watt spec). It also supports Bluetooth 5.0 and wireless USB connectivity that’s said to be as fast as USB 3.0. Without any holes, it stands that the Meizu Zero is IP68-certified, too. 

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