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Galaxy Z Flip rumors: Hideaway hinge and $1,400 price takes aim at Motorola Razr – CNET

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Samsung’s Galaxy Z Flip is rumored to come in purple and black.


Evan Blass via Twitter

Samsung is doubling down on foldable phones. Rumors, leaks and good old-fashioned speculation reveal a compelling look at the foldable flip phone that’s now known as the Galaxy Z Flip, possible code name Galaxy Bloom. (More render leaks on Thursday gave additional insights into the phone’s hinge design.) We’ve known since October that a foldable clamshell design was coming, and as the days get closer to Samsung’s Feb. 11 Unpacked event on Tuesday, the rumors get juicier. There’s already even a $5,000 case for it that you can buy. (Here’s how to watch Samsung’s Unpacked when it kicks off.)

Now we have a good idea what the Galaxy Z Flip will look like, how much it will cost, its camera arrangement and its specs. For example, the Galaxy Z Flip is likely to go down in history as the first foldable phone to introduce an ultra-thin glass screen that bends in half, a design element that promises to fix nearly every problem that befell early review units of the Galaxy Fold.

Any glass that tops a foldable phone has to be thin enough to bend without breaking, but strong enough to protect the electronic display underneath. Ultrathin glass that measures as thick as a strand of human hair is likely to be the first to come to market, with other possibilities down the line, like a foldable glass made of diamond crystal.

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This render imagines how the Galaxy Z Flip phone’s hinge might look with the foldable phone opened up.


Lets Go Digital

With this smaller, and likely cheaper, flip model, Samsung has another chance to hook people who are interested in foldable phones. It also gives the brand an opportunity to prove that it can make a successful foldable phone.

The Galaxy Flip is expected to be smaller than Samsung’s Galaxy Fold from 2019 and rival the Motorola Razr flip phone, which went on sale Feb. 6 and failed CNET’s folding test. The Galaxy Z Flip could unfold into a 6.7-inch screen, unlike the Galaxy Fold, which has a 7.3-inch screen that bends in half to open like a book. 

After only three significant devices in 2019, foldable phones still teeter on the edge of futuristic fancy and reality. Done right, they could double your usable screen space while still closing into a small enough rectangle to carry around. Done poorly, these expensive science experiments could confirm that ever-larger phones are the right way to make a phone.

Read on for everything we know and don’t know about Samsung’s next foldable phone.


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Latest rumored specs

These speculated features are gathered from a variety of sources, including WinFuture, Max Weinbach of XDA Developers, Twitter leaker Evan Blass and LetsGoDigital. 

  • 6.7-inch vertically folding display, possibly with bendable ultrathin glass and 2,636×1,080-pixel screen resolution
  • 1.06-inch external display with 300×116-pixel resolution
  • Two 12-megapixel rear cameras (one main, one ultrawide)10-megapixel front-facing camera with auto-focus
  • Two batteries, one with 900-mAh capacity (other unknown)
  • Hideaway Hinge” that could help keep our dust and crumbs
  • Qualcomm Snapdragon 855 Plus chipset
  • 8GB RAM, 256GB on-board storage
  • 3,300-mAh battery
  • Wireless charging
  • $1,400 price (about $1,070 or AU$2,080) with a Feb. 14 sale date 
  • 4G only; no 5G
  • Android 10 with Samsung One UI 2Colors: Black, purple
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Could the Galaxy Z Flip stand up at a 90-degree angle?


WinFuture

It could be an AT&T exclusive in the US

The Galaxy Z Flip is said to go on sale Feb. 14 for $1,400, according to Weinbach. In the US, it might sell exclusively through AT&T, at least for a limited period of time. The foldable flip phone will also sell unlocked. 

An AT&T exclusive or limited-time exclusive would give both Samsung and the carrier ammunition against the Motorola Razr, which sells exclusively with Verizon’s service in the US.

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The Z Flip would be long and tall when fully opened.


WinFuture

Galaxy Z Flip price: $1,400 makes sense

If the Galaxy Z Flip sells for $1,400 (about 1,500 euros), Samsung will have effectively undercut the Motorola Razr’s $1,499 retail price with a phone that delivers a more comprehensive bundle of specs. 

Industry watchers agree that going with a clamshell style is one of the best ways to make these foldable phones cheaper, and therefore more likely for regular people to buy, not just those with $2,000 laying around.

$1,400 is a far cry from an earlier report by The Korea Herald that Samsung’s foldable flipper could cost $850, according to its sources. But it would still be well under the Galaxy Fold’s $1,980 price. If you’re looking to spend more (because why not), a Russian jeweler is releasing a special-edition case for the Z Flip that costs $5,000.

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The Z Flip could have two cameras on the back and one on the front.


Giuseppe Spinelli/LetsGoDigital

Feb. 11 launch date likely, same as the Galaxy S20

In addition to unveiling the Galaxy S20, industry watchers also believe Samsung will use its spotlight to unveil this second foldable phone, which makes sense for two simple reasons. The first is that the unveiling would follow Samsung’s pattern from last year, where it introduced the Galaxy Fold alongside the Galaxy S10. 

The second reason we think we’ll see it Feb. 11 and not, say, at Mobile World Congress (MWC) two weeks later, is because it’s cheaper and easier to plan one big announcement event than two. It’s possible, however, that Samsung will go over the basics at Unpacked and save the details for MWC, the world’s largest mobile devices show.

Name: Galaxy Z Flip, not Galaxy Bloom after all

Speculation is settling on the Galaxy Z Flip as a more likely name for the new foldable phone than the Galaxy Bloom and especially the Galaxy Fold 2. Here’s one good reason to expect that Fold 2 isn’t in the works: The Korea Herald reports that there will be a Galaxy Fold successor (the Fold 2?) in August.

Even without those rumors, it’s clear that Samsung wouldn’t want to make a foldable flip phone part of the Fold family — not when the Galaxy Fold represents a luxury device with an enormous screen. This foldable clamshell phone will have a much narrower display.

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During its annual developer conference in October, Samsung discussed two ways a phone could fold.


James Martin/CNET

It’s suggested that the Galaxy Z Flip will unfold into a tall, slim 6.7-inch display, larger than the Motorola Razr’s 6.2-inch screen. Remember that screen dimensions are measured at the diagonal, but they don’t tell the whole story. The Razr’s usable screen space feels a lot smaller than the Galaxy Fold, and minute compared with the 8-inch Huawei Mate X.

Can the Galaxy Z Flip avoid the Galaxy Fold’s fatal screen flaws?

One thing that isn’t clear in the leaked photos is what kind of design enhancements Samsung has made to sidestep the Fold’s design flaws.

For its second attempt at the Galaxy Fold (the design that eventually went on sale), Samsung used plastic end caps to shrink a gap that could let in dust and debris. It also reinforced internal support for the delicate plastic display, among a few other fixes.

We’ll still need to keep a close eye on this unnamed foldable phone’s screen and hinge to see if there are any potential gaps.

Two cameras on the back and one inside

The Galaxy Fold has a total of six cameras: There are two on the outer “cover” display, one on the inside for video chats and selfies and three on the back. The Galaxy Z Flip could cut the total camera share in half, following a supposed leak from frequent phone leaker Ice Universe (originally from Chinese social media platform Weibo).

Along with some pixelated images, we have seen a more recent video posted by YouTuber and serial leaker Ben Geskin that shows the phone with a clear central hole-punch camera. Photos and the video also show two cameras on the front cover. These would take selfies when the phone is closed, and also serve as your main camera when it’s open.

A smaller screen crease could help fix one Galaxy Fold annoyance

Before all its screen damage overtook headlines, the biggest concern lobbed at the Galaxy Fold was about the center crease where the phone folds in half. Would it ruin the experience, how bad would it look, would it worsen over time?

One of the advantages of a vertical fold like the Motorola Razr is that the part where the screen creases is much smaller than on the Fold. There’s just less screen width to bend with this design.

Support for 8K video capture

8K video capture is a rumor that applies to both the Galaxy S20/Galaxy S11 and the new foldable phone. That’s a potential resolution of 7,680×4,320 pixels for a total of 33,177,600 pixels, or 16 times the number of pixels in a 1080p resolution. There’s good reason to believe this one, too. 

In December, we saw how Qualcomm’s new Snapdragon processors can support 8K video, and how 5G data can help you edit these massive videos online. We’re seeing 8K TVs out now, but the videos to watch on them are more limited. 8K phones, 8K YouTube streaming and 8K screens could converge to help make these superhigh-resolution videos more prevalent. 


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Can the Galaxy Z Flip avoid the Galaxy Fold’s fatal screen flaws?

One thing that isn’t clear in the leaked photos is what kind of design enhancements Samsung has made to sidestep the Fold’s design flaws.

For its second attempt at the Galaxy Fold (the design that eventually went on sale), Samsung used plastic end caps to shrink a gap that could let in dust and debris. It also reinforced internal support for the delicate plastic display, among a few other fixes.

We’ll still need to keep a close eye on this unnamed foldable phone’s screen and hinge to see if there are any potential gaps.

No headphone jack is likely, so are Android 10 and One UI 2

Samsung officially ditched the headphone jack. The Note 10 phones didn’t have them at all, and neither does the Galaxy Fold. There is, however, a USB-C charger port. It’s also all but guaranteed to work with Android 10 and Samsung’s One UI 2 software layer that rides on top of the Android OS.

Keep checking back for more details as they surface. In the meantime, brush up on all your Galaxy S20 rumors and leaks.

Published in December and periodically updated with new information.

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WinFuture

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Take-Two Buys Gearbox And Its New ‘Borderlands’ Game From Embracer – Forbes

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If you’re a game developer owned by Embracer Group at this point, you are nervous about layoffs, shutdowns or game cancellations after the last few years. But now, there is a somewhat happy ending for one of them, Gearbox.

It’s just been announced that Take-Two, which owns GTA developer Rockstar, will purchase Gearbox for $460 million. This also includes the properties Gearbox owns, the Borderlands and Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands franchises, Homeworld, Risk of Rain, Brothers in Arms and Duke Nukem. The report says Gearbox has six games in development, five sequels, including a new Borderlands game, the not-announced-but-definitely-happening Borderlands 4. Here’s Strauss Zelnick:

“Our acquisition of Gearbox is an exciting moment for Take-Two and will strengthen our industry-leading creative talent and portfolio of owned intellectual property, including the iconic Borderlands franchise,” said Zelnick, Chairman and CEO of Take-Two. “This combination enhances the financial profile of our existing projects with Gearbox and unlocks the opportunity for us to drive increased long-term growth by leveraging the full resources of Take-Two across all of Gearbox’s exciting initiatives.”

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Gearbox has been working with 2K and Take-Two for decades, so it was a logical place for them to land. This is, of course, not a great look for Embracer, who only purchased Gearbox three years ago. The price tag back then was “worth up to $1.3 billion” but there were a lot of strings attached to that where it’s not necessarily the case that selling for $$460 million netted them a ~$900 million loss.

As for what this means for gamers, it would seem something like the Borderlands franchise is now on more stable ground, as it was hard to believe any project at Embracer is fully safe these days. Last year, Embracer quietly cancelled 29 different unannounced games and shut down seven studios in a six month period including Volition and Free Radical Design. That came with around 1,400 layoffs. More recently, Embracer laid off 97 people at Eidos in Janaury and cancelled a Deus Ex game.

Sufficed to say, those at Gearbox probably feel pretty good about this. And as for Take-Two, Borderlands is still a valuable IP, and Tiny Tina’s Wonderland was a surprise hit. There’s a new Homeworld game coming as well. In an era for multi-billion dollar acquisition, Gearbox for $460 million doesn’t seem that bad. That’s probably a third of what GTA 6 will sell on day one next year.

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What's Brewing in the iPhone 16 Rumor Mill? AI, Action Buttons and More – CNET

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As the iPhone 15 settles into the market, the tech community is buzzing with anticipation for Apple’s next-generation handset, which is expected to be named “iPhone 16.” 

We’ve heard whispers about the iPhone 16’s features, which are said to span from a new power-efficient display to larger screens, better zoom lenses, an action button and, perhaps not surprisingly, a suite of new gen-AI powered features.

Read more: Best iPhone of 2024

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However, the iPhone 16 is still presumably six months away and nothing will be confirmed until Apple’s iPhone event in the fall. Still, these rumors could give us an idea of what to expect from the next iPhone.

Here are the most credible rumors for the iPhone 16.

Will the iPhone 16 fold?

Probably not. The newest rumors suggest Apple has been working on iPhone Flip models in two different sizes, though there have been difficulties in making the devices to Apple’s standards. The company may also be working on a folding tablet with a screen around the size of an iPad Mini. Even though virtually every major phone-maker — from Google to Oppo to OnePlus and Samsung — have launched their own bendable handsets, Apple has been characteristically quiet about whether there will ever be an iPhone Flip or an iPhone Fold.

Prior rumors said Apple may not launch its own flexible screen device until 2025. Samsung hasn’t let phone fans forget it — by releasing an app that will let Apple phone owners experience a Z Fold-esque experience by placing two iPhones side-by-side.

iPhone 16 Pro models to get bigger screens?

Apple has maintained the two screen sizes for iPhone Pro models since 2020 when it launched the 6.1-inch iPhone 12 Pro and the 6.7-inch iPhone 12 Pro Max. However, that’s rumored to change with the iPhone 16 Pro models, which might get bigger screens.

Display analyst Ross Young suggested earlier this year that the iPhone 16 Pro models will have larger screens, putting the sizes at 6.3 inches for the iPhone 16 Pro and 6.9 inches for the iPhone 16 Pro Max. That rumor was later corroborated by Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman, who said the iPhone 16 Pro models could grow by “a couple tenths of an inch diagonally.”

The iPhone 16 and iPhone 16 Plus models are believed to be sticking with the current 6.1-inch and 6.7-inch sizes. If the size increase is accurate, it would be yet another move from Apple to distinguish its Pro iPhone models from its regular ones.

iPhone 15 screen sizes

  • iPhone 15: 6.1 inches.
  • iPhone 15 Plus: 6.7 inches.
  • iPhone 15 Pro: 6.1 inches.
  • iPhone 15 Pro Max: 6.7 inches.

Rumored iPhone 16 screen sizes

  • iPhone 16: 6.1 inches.
  • iPhone 16 Plus: 6.7 inches.
  • iPhone 16 Pro: 6.3 inches.
  • iPhone 16 Pro Max: 6.9 inches.

iPhone 16 gets more AI tricks

One of the most salient selling points of Samsung’s Galaxy S24 series and Google’s Pixel 8 lineup were each of their souped-up AI tips and tricks, and it wouldn’t be a major shock if Apple went in the same direction. Apple CEO Tim Cook has gone on the record this year confirming Apple sees “a huge opportunity for Apple with gen AI and AI.”

According to Gurman’s Power On newsletter, iOS 18 will feature generative AI technology that “should improve how both Siri and the Messages app can field questions and auto-complete sentences.”

A September report from the Information says Apple plans to use large language models, a crucial part of generative AI, to make Siri smarter. The report said this feature is expected to be released with an iPhone software update next year. 

Read More: iPhone iOS 18: A Possible Big Leap In AI

iPhone 16 design: New action button?

In March, AppleInsider published a collection of photographs purportedly displaying 3D-printed dummy models of the rumored iPhone 16 and iPhone 16 Pro. The images revealed that the iPhone 16 may have a vertical camera stack as opposed to a diagonal one and an action button, similar the one on last year’s iPhone 15 Pro.

iPhone 16 gets more power-efficient display?

Another change that could make its way to iPhone 16 displays is greater power efficiency. Samsung Display is apparently developing a new material set, dubbed M14, specifically for Apple, according to a TheElec report, which says the new technology should arrive on iPhones launching next year. M14 will replace the blue fluorescent technology that’s used now with blue phosphorescence technology, creating an even more power-efficient screen than the current LTPO ones used on Pro models, the report says.

Andrew Lanxon/CNET

iPhone 16 gets better zoom?

Both the iPhone 16 Pro and the iPhone 16 Pro Max could both have 5x telephoto lenses next year. According to Apple analyst Ming Chi Kuo, a tetraprism lens will make its way to both Pro models next year, as opposed to just the Pro Max model. Apple equipped the iPhone 15 Pro with a 12-megapixel 3x optical zoom, while the iPhone 15 Pro Max has a 12-megapixel 5x optical zoom camera, which is the equivalent of 120mm lens on a full-frame camera.

If this rumor is true, it could mark a breakthrough in design. When Apple launched the 15 Pro Max with its 5x telephoto lens, it cited the phone’s bigger body as to why the Pro Max had it, but the Pro didn’t.

iPhone 16 processors: A18 chip for all models?

In a break with the past two years, all four iPhone 16 models will apparently get a next-generation Apple chipset, which will all receive A18 branding. According to a MacRumors report citing Jeff Pu, an executive analyst for Haitong International Securities, all four models will have an A18 series chip with Pro iPhone models getting an A18 Bionic Pro and base models getting a regular A18.

The iPhone 15 and 15 Plus currently have an A16 Bionic, which debuted on the 2022 iPhone 14 Pro and 14 Pro Max, while the 15 Pro and 15 Pro Max run on the A17 Pro processor. Pu says the A18 chip will be manufactured with TSMC’s cutting-edge 3 nanometer process.

Read more: Apple iPhone SE 4 Rumors: iPhone 14 Design, Face ID and More



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Apple announces Worldwide Developers Conference dates, in-person event – CityNews Toronto

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Apple has announced their annual developers conference will take place June 10 through June 14.

The big summer event will be live-streamed, but some select developers have been invited to attend in-person events at Apple’s campus in Cupertino, California, on June 10.

The company typically showcases their latest software and product updates — including the iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch, AppleTV and Vision Pro headset — during a keynote address on the first day.

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Contributing to a drop in Apple’s stock price this year is concern it lags behind Microsoft and Google in the push to develop products powered by artificial intelligence technology. While Apple tends to keep its product development close to the vest, CEO Tim Cook signaled at the company’s annual shareholder meeting in February that it has been making big investments in generative AI and plans to disclose more later this year.

The week-long conference will have opportunities for developers to connect with Apple designers and engineers to gain insight into new tools, frameworks and features, according to the company’s announcement.

The Associated Press

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