Smartphones
This week Samsung Electronics and Synopsys announced that Samsung has taped out its first mobile system-on-chip on Samsung Foundry's 3nm gate-all-around (GAA) process technology. The announcement, coming from electronic design automation Synopsys, further notes that Samsung used the Synopsys.ai EDA suite to place-n-route the layout and verify design of the SoC, which in turn enabled higher performance. Samsung's unnamed high-performance mobile SoC relies on 'flagship' general-purpose CPU and GPU architectures as well as various IP blocks from Synopsys. SoC designers used Synopsys.ai EDA software, including the Synopsys DSO.ai to fine-tune design and maximize yields as well as Synopsys Fusion Compiler RTL-to-GDSII solution to achieve higher performance, lower power, and optimize area (PPA). And while the news that Samsung has developed a high-performance SoC using the Synopsys.ai...
Google Updates Docs Apps With Improved Functionality and Touch ID Support
Today Google has issued an update to their Docs, Sheets, and Slides applications on iOS and Android. These productivity apps were some of the first to receive Material Design...
1 by Brandon Chester on 1/21/2015Google Updates Chrome for iOS With Material Design and Handoff
Google has updated Chrome for iOS to version 40, specifically version 40.0.2214.61. With it comes a number of improvements that definitely justify the major increase in version number. The...
14 by Brandon Chester on 1/20/2015Samsung CES Booth Tour: Tablets, Phones, and Core M ATIV Book 9
Perhaps the most interesting aspect of Samsung’s booth is what they weren’t showing: laptops. They had exactly one laptop on display, the new ATIV Book 9 with Core M-5Y10c...
45 by Jarred Walton on 1/19/2015Microsoft Launches Two Additional Low Cost Lumia Smartphones
The Lumia brand has a couple of new additions to compliment the already dizzying array of devices launched in the last year. Those waiting for a new flagship to...
14 by Brett Howse on 1/14/2015Samsung Announces the Galaxy A7
The smartphone space is not as it was a few years ago. There's increasing competition from vendors based in countries like China and India who can put out high...
9 by Brandon Chester on 1/12/2015A Quick Look at Keyssa: Contactless USB 3.0
While we often don’t discuss startups, at CES we found a company called Keyssa that claims to have the technology to do away with wired connectors entirely. Normally, these...
18 by Joshua Ho on 1/9/2015LG G Flex 2: Hands-on Impressions
With the announcement of the LG G Flex 2 at the LG Press Conference, we finally saw the launch of a device with Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 810 SoC. While the...
24 by Joshua Ho on 1/9/2015Microsoft Demonstrates Updated Lumia Camera App At CES
Last night I got a chance to meet with Juha Alakarhu, head of the Lumia Imaging technologies, to get a demonstration of the updated Lumia Camera app that will...
17 by Brett Howse on 1/8/2015MediaTek Demonstrates 120 Hz Mobile Display
While we often don’t deeply discuss MediaTek as a company, they are a major force in the mobile space. Their SoCs are widely used in the mid-range and budget...
31 by Joshua Ho & Brandon Chester on 1/7/2015HTC Announces the Desire 826
Yesterday at CES, HTC announced the newest device in their lineup of Desire smartphones. Years ago, HTC's flagship devices fell under the Desire brand. In recent years, the Desire...
40 by Brandon Chester on 1/6/2015HP Sells Palm Brand To Alcatel OneTouch
We haven't heard much from Palm since they were purchased by HP in 2010. The Palm Pre 2 was unsuccessful, the Pre 3 was cancelled, and after the failure...
21 by Brandon Chester on 12/31/2014Samsung Launches the Galaxy Note 4 LTE-A
Note: An earlier version of this article stated that this version of the Galaxy Note 4 used Qualcomm's Snapdragon 810. This is not the case, and the article had...
56 by Brandon Chester on 12/28/2014Understanding Brightness in AMOLED and LCD Displays
While we generally avoid going into deep detail when it comes to our display testing, in light of statements that seemingly contradict our testing it becomes important to contextualize...
85 by Joshua Ho & Brandon Chester on 12/22/2014T-Mobile Announces Uncarrier 8.0: Data Stash
Today in a live interview T-Mobile CEO John Legere has made his eighth major announcement in their line of Uncarrier programs that try to differentiate them from the business...
36 by Brandon Chester on 12/16/2014Best Windows Phones: Holiday 2014
The end of 2014 is quickly approaching, so this is a great time to look back at the year that was in Windows Phone, and give our recommendation on...
38 by Brett Howse on 12/3/2014The Huawei Ascend Mate 7 Review
It's been a while since I got the Mate 7 at IFA in Berlin and I have been using it on an off since then. As a new member...
72 by Andrei Frumusanu on 12/2/2014The Android 5.0 Lollipop Review
Google has been very busy with their expansion of Android as a platform this year. At Google IO we saw the announcement of endeavors like Android TV and Android...
126 by Brandon Chester on 12/1/2014Nokia Lumia 830 Review
The Lumia 830 was launched by Microsoft at the IFA trade show in September. As seems to be the norm for most Nokia phones, it has taken a short...
98 by Brett Howse on 11/25/2014Encryption and Storage Performance in Android 5.0 Lollipop
As alluded to in our Nexus 6 review, our normal storage performance benchmark was no longer giving valid results as of Android 5.0. While Androbench was not a perfect...
93 by Brandon Chester & Joshua Ho on 11/20/2014