Articles by Alex Dobie

Would you pay six grand for a OnePlus prototype a few months early?

Update, December 28 (2:30 pm ET): After the initial $3,000 listing was taken down, the OnePlus 9 was relisted on eBay, where it sold for twice the price as was originally requested.

What you need to know

A OnePlus 9 prototype device appeared on eBay over Christmas, priced at $3,000.
The listing was quickly pulled when people noticed the phone’s ID number watermark was visible, but photos showing the design match up with earlier leaks.
The seller relisted the prototype on eBay the following day, where it apparently sold for $6,000.

If you’re testing a prototype of an unannounced future smartphone, it’s not a good idea to leak it onto the Internet. If you do leak it onto the Internet, it’s not a good idea to do so in the form of an eBay listing offering to sell it for a cool $3,000. If you do leak it onto the Internet and offer to sell it for a cool $3,000, it’s not a good idea to include photos in that listing s…

If high-end phones continue to demand $1000+ price tags, superior zoom capabilities are a non-negotiable requirement.

It’s been almost two years since phones like the Huawei P30 Pro brought superzoom capabilities to the mass market. Paired with decent wide and ultrawide cameras, superzoom lenses can transform the way you think about taking pictures with a smartphone. Before 2019, there was simply no way to capture a good-looking photo of something reasonably far away using your phone. Even with a 2X telephoto, of the kind found in most iPhones, anything captured past 4 or 5X would be a blurry, illegible mess.

Phones like the P30 Pro, and eventually Samsung’s Galaxy S20 Ultra, changed that, with optical 5X zoom cameras. Suddenly there was an alternative to “leg zoom” or mushy digital cropping. Though it may sound excessive, true 5-10X optical zoom in a phone camera has countless real-world use cases — everything from shooting wildlife or pets without getting close enough to spook …

Kick-start your smart home this Cyber Monday with two tiny Amazon speakers for the price of one.

If you’re looking to build our your smart home, Best Buy has a great Cyber Monday deal that basically gives you a second Echo Dot free when you buy Amazon’s miniature smart speaker. With improved sound quality compared to previous Echo devices and a slick new color palette, the Echo Dot is a fantastic addition to your nightstand, living room or kitchen counter.

Amazon’s Alexa assistant is, of course, ready and waiting, helping the Echo Dot to connect to a world of other Alexa-enabled gadgets.

Amazon Echo Dot (4th gen) | Two for $49 at Best Buy

S49.98 at Best Buy

The new Echo Dot is an improvement over the previous generation devices in nearly every way. It has a more refined, rounded look, it comes in more color options, and it sounds much better too. It’s available in that beautiful Twilight Blue, and it makes a good second speaker to pair with an Echo Dot with Clock.

Reviewi…

Deals include big savings on Samsung’s latest Galaxy S20 series, as well as more affordable models.

There’ve already been some great deals on Samsung phones this Black Friday weekend, and Cyber Monday sees the savings continue. Samsung’s latest round of Cyber Monday deals has the Galaxy S20 and S20+ down 25% from the list price, as well as bigger savings on the mid-range Galaxy A51 and the Note 10+, which is 33% off the list price.

Samsung Galaxy phones | Up to 30% off at Amazon

Shop at Amazon

Samsung’s unlocked Cyber Monday deals include savings on the high-end Galaxy S20 and S20+, in addition to the Galaxy A51 series and last year’s flagship Galaxy Note 10+. Pick up a new Galaxy this Cyber Monday and you’ll save between 25 and 33%.

The Samsung Galaxy S20+ still ranks as one of the best Android phones of 2020, thanks to its quick performance, manageable size, capable camera aand luxurious 120Hz display. Reviewing the S20+ for Android Central earlier this year, senior …

This $700 off deal is the best value we’ve seen for a big-screen 4K TV.

The Samsung RU8000 82-inch 4K TV is one of the best big-screen 4K deals we’ve seen this year, and now it’s even cheaper for Cyber Monday.

Amazon has the set available for just $1,099, a considerable discount on the $1,799 list price, and $100 off the most recent discounted price over the weekend. That gets you an excellent smart TV with app compatibility thanks to Samsung’s Tizen OS.

The Samsung RU8000 not only delivers streaming content in the highest definition available right now, but is also an excellent addition to your gaming setup. Features like auto low latency mode (ALLM) and variable refresh rate (VRR) make it an ideal companion for the latest game consoles, and Amazon Alexa compatibility helps you turn on the TV by pairing it with an Echo.

Samsung – 82″ Class 8 Series LED 4K UHD TV

$1,100 at Amazon

This 82-inch 4K TV is an ideal centerpiece for your living room, with great gaming features lik…

Best Black Friday UK deals:

Smart Home
Audio
Phones, Tablets & Accessories
Laptops & PC Components
Gaming
Televisions
Lifestyle & Kitchen

Although the UK doesn’t celebrate Thanksgiving, that hasn’t stopped us from getting in on the festival of consumerism that is Black Friday. Many UK retailers have deals and special offers live right now covering the whole Black Friday period, going right through until Cyber Monday.

And with non-essential brick-and-mortar stores in across the country still closed, the only place to find Black Friday deals is online. That’s why we’ve rounded up the best of Black Friday in the UK for you right here, covering everything from Android phones to tablets, laptops, gaming, TVs and more!

Best UK Black Friday deals at a glance:

Amazon: See all Amazon UK’s Black Friday deals
Carphone Warehouse: Deals on phones and network service plans
Argos: Up to 50% off toys, games and more
Newegg: Black Friday PC part deals galore
Ebuyer: Save on PCs,…

A variety of factors conspired to kill off hopes of a Pixel 5 XL, but 2021 will be different.

With all of Google’s new Pixels now on sale — or pre-order, in the 4a 5G’s case — it’s time to prognosticate on the direction of the series in 2021. One of the many smartphone surprises of 2020 was the lack of a big-screened Pixel flagship from Google. The series instead maxes out with the relatively diminutive Google Pixel 5, our current pick for best Android camera.

But despite this, I’m pretty convinced Google hasn’t given up on larger premium phones, and that we’ll see another one next year.

To understand the case for a Pixel 6 XL, you need to look at why there wasn’t a 5 XL.

To understand the case for a Pixel 6 XL in 2021, we first need to tackle why there wasn’t a Pixel 5 XL this year: Google was boxed in by its chosen price point, the available technology and the state of the market. The Pixel 5 series was designed with a very aggressive price ceiling in mind, especially w…

The design of Samsung’s 2021 flagship has been revealed, and it’s launching earlier than ever before.

What you need to know

New CAD renders from reliable leaker @OnLeaks show the Galaxy S30 design in full.
It’ll reportedly feature a flat 6.2-inch display, hole-punch camera and redesigned triple-camera rear module.
The report also mentions a January launch date for the S30, which Android Central can independently confirm.

Leaks around the upcoming Samsung Galaxy S30 (a.k.a. Galaxy S21) are coming thick and fast. Following recent rumors of the phones entering mass-production earlier than ever, leaker Steve Hemmerstoffer has revealed the design of the Galaxy S30 on his Voice page. Hemmerstoffer, who also goes by @OnLeaks, published CAD renders of an S30 with a 6.2-inch display, hole-punch selfie camera and more uniform bezels than the Galaxy S20. These kinds of renders have proven to be accurate in the past, and Hemmerstoffer has a solid track record.

Around the back of the …

Phones like the LG Wing aren’t great buys for the here and now, but they’ll pave the way for the dual-screen handsets of the future.

This past week I just got done reviewing the LG Wing, which by all accounts is not the best Android phone you can buy for $1000. Reviews from other publications have been mixed too, with some outlets praising the unique form factor and the experiences it enables, and others complaining of the slow 60Hz display and questionable software choices.

You can get a far superior overall smartphone for $1000 (or less) elsewhere, from the likes of Samsung, OnePlus or even LG itself. Even with the support of Verizon in the U.S., I doubt the LG Wing will sell in huge numbers. But despite this, and my own indifference towards the phone as an overall package, I’m glad it exists. The Wing, like the Microsoft Surface Duo, is an example of a manufacturer having the courage to ship an imperfect device that might prepare the ground for more polished products in future.
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LG’s swivel-display phone is a fun science experiment that falls short of being a compelling overall product.

Thanks to an influx of great foldables and dual-screen handsets, 2020 has become the year of — among many other things — new and unusual form factors in phones. And LG, never shy to try out novel and quirky ideas, is pushing ahead with its Explorer Project, designed to test the water for different kinds of foldable, flippable, and slidable smartphones.

The first phone to emerge from this program is the LG Wing, a deliberately oddball handset that transplants the guts of the LG Velvet into a dual-screen design with a swiveling main display. Depending on how you hold the Wing, and how you use its main screen, it’s possible to do things that are simply impossible on most other smartphones.

But the problem with experimental designs is that not every experiment is going to end in success. As unique and fun as the Wing is to use, it’s heavy, feels slower than any $1000 pho…