Articles by Harish Jonnalagadda

Xiaomi’s ultrawide gaming monitor gets a lot of things right, but it misses out on HDR.

Xiaomi makes some of the best cheap Android phones you can buy today, but the brand isn’t just limited to phones — it makes everything from fitness bands to rice cookers, laser projectors, air and water purifiers, routers, security cameras and so much more. Xiaomi is an ecosystem manufacturer like no other, and it regularly makes its foray into new categories, like monitors.

The Xiaomi Mi Curved Gaming Monitor 34 is the brand’s first ultrawide gaming monitor. It debuted in China at the end of 2019, and made its way to select global markets in Q3 2020. Like everything else that Xiaomi sells, affordability is a key trait of the Mi Curved Gaming Monitor, with the monitor retailing for €449 ($545).

The monitor has a minimalist design and features a Samsung VA panel with 144Hz refresh rate and AMD FreeSync. So let’s take a look at what Xiaomi’s first ultrawide monitor has to offer, and if it is …

Samsung is the biggest phone manufacturer in the world, and with good reason — it makes incredible phones, combining outstanding hardware design with handy features that differentiate its phones. The Galaxy S20 FE is the best Samsung phone you can buy right now for its value and hardware, but there are plenty of other devices that hit different sizes and price points.

1. Samsung Galaxy S20 FE: Best Overall

The Galaxy S20 FE fundamentally changes the value equation for Samsung and is one of the best Android phones you can buy right now. The phone offers most of the same features as the regular Galaxy S20, but the fact that it is available unlocked for just $600 makes it a standout value.

While the regular Galaxy S21 starts at $800, you are better off buying the S20 FE; the S21 also has a plastic back, and other than the Snapdragon 888, you are not getting any huge upgrades.

The Galaxy S20 FE is powered by the same Snapdragon 865 chipset that’s in the Galaxy S20 series, and y…

Samsung’s next big version update is now available.

One UI 3.0 — Samsung’s custom interface for Android 11 — is finally starting to arrive. Between official rollouts in most global markets, Samsung’s well underway with its update process for the new software. The stable release is now rolling out to the Galaxy S20, Note 20, S10, Note 10, and dozens of other Samsung phones, and it kicked off for the Tab S7 tablets as well.

One UI 3.0 comes with exciting new features, subtle UI tweaks, and optimizations across the board. Here’s what you need to know about the One UI 3.0 update, the list of eligible phones slated to receive the stable update, and when you’ll get the stable OTA update on your Galaxy phone.

The default choice

Samsung Galaxy S20+

$950 at Amazon
$950 at Best Buy

A great all-round option

The Galaxy S20+ is one of the best phones on the market today, with a gorgeous design coupled with enticing hardware. You get a stunning 120Hz AMOLED panel, global 5G connecti…

It makes perfect sense for OnePlus to merge its R&D resources with OPPO — the two entities already share manufacturing facilities.

OnePlus started out over seven years ago, and in that time it has launched some of the best Android phones we’ve seen. Normally, it isn’t feasible for a new entrant to gain momentum in the smartphone industry without significant capital, and even then there’s no guarantee that things will work out — just look at Nextbit and Essential.

In OnePlus’ case, the company turned to OPPO from the very beginning for its manufacturing needs. While OnePlus dominates the mind share, its annual sales units are still around the 5-million figure. OPPO, meanwhile, has sold over 100 million phones in 2020 — or 20 times more than OnePlus.

OnePlus has always relied on OPPO for manufacturing its phones.

It is OPPO’s scale that has allowed OnePlus to take on Xiaomi and Samsung in the mid-range segment. To this day, all OnePlus phones are manufactured at OPPO’…

WhatsApp backtracks on its privacy policy, but it already broke user trust.

WhatsApp updated its privacy policy last week, with the platform noting that it would mandate sharing user data with Facebook. The move led to a mass exodus, with users flocking to Signal and Telegram.

Signal is actually down right now because of the influx of users making the switch from WhatsApp, and Telegram revealed that it picked up 25 million new users over the course of the last week.

To limit the damage even further, WhatsApp is now delaying the enforcement of the new privacy policy. The policy was meant to go into effect on February 8, and WhatsApp has now stated that the date has been pushed back to May 15.

In that time, WhatsApp says it will “clear up the misinformation” around how privacy and security works on its platform so that users have a better understanding of the data that will be shared with Facebook:

We’re now moving back the date on which people will be asked to review and accep…

The S21 series costs much more than its predecessor, and that’s all down to 5G — which you can’t even use.

Samsung has unveiled the Galaxy S21 series, and the exciting news is that all three models cost $200 less than their Galaxy S20 counterparts — at least in the U.S. Samsung was able to bring down the costs by switching the S21 and S21+ to FHD+ screens and getting rid of the charger and earbuds in the box, and in doing so it made the S21 series that much more affordable.

But that’s not the case in India. Unlike other global markets, the S21 series costs considerably higher in India, and that’s because of one factor: 5G connectivity. Samsung released 4G-only versions of the Galaxy S20 series last year in India, and by not offering 5G, it was able to be aggressive with the pricing. Here’s the breakdown of Galaxy S20 launch prices last year:

Galaxy S20: ₹66,999 ($916)
Galaxy S20+: ₹73,999 ($1,012)
Galaxy S20 Ultra: ₹92,999 ($1,272)

Here’s the Galaxy S21 pricing in Ind…

Galaxy S21 Ultra

The ultimate flagship

$1,200 at Samsung

Pros

QHD+ AMOLED with 120Hz dynamic refresh
Snapdragon 888 with global 5G
Android 11 out of the box
Compatible with S Pen
Quad cameras, 40MP front lens
Great 5,000mAh battery

Cons

No microSD slot
Costly

The Galaxy S21 Ultra is an absolute beast of a flagship, offering a stunning 120Hz QHD+ AMOLED panel with dynamic refresh rate, the latest internal hardware with 12GB of RAM as standard, and global 5G connectivity. It works with the S Pen, has Wi-Fi 6E connectivity, a 5,000mAh battery, and quad cameras that deliver truly outstanding photos.

Galaxy S21+

Missing a couple features

$1,000 at Samsung

Pros

120Hz FHD+ AMOLED panel
Snapdragon 888 with global 5G
Android 11 out of the box
Great battery life with 4,800mAh capacity
Fantastic cameras
Slightly more affordable

Cons

No QHD+ panel
No microSD slot
Doesn’t work with S Pen
No wide-angle lens

The Galaxy S21+ is by no means a bad phone, but it misses out i…

OnePlus’ first wearable has a lot of features, but it is nowhere as polished as Xiaomi’s offering in this segment.

OnePlus makes some of the best Android phones you can buy today. But the Chinese company wants to be more than just a phone manufacturer; back in 2019, CEO Pete Lau outlined his vision to turn OnePlus into an ecosystem label.

We saw the first results of that with the OnePlus TV Q1 series, which debuted in India at the end of 2019. OnePlus followed the Q1 with the U1 and budget-focused Y1 series, and it has carved out a niche for itself in India in this category.

In 2021, OnePlus is making its foray into the wearable segment. The company is working with Google on a Wear OS smartwatch, but its first wearable is the OnePlus Band, a budget fitness band that is going up against the Xiaomi Mi Band 5. In short, OnePlus has to get everything right to be able to stand a chance against Xiaomi. Its Chinese rival dominates the budget wearable market, and OnePlus is now looking to…

WhatsApp is doing the exact thing it said it wouldn’t do when it was acquired by Facebook seven years ago.

Facebook acquired WhatsApp back in February 2014 for a staggering $19 billion. At that time, the service had 500 million users; it now boasts over 2 billion users today.

Facebook tried a lot of methods to monetize WhatsApp over the years, introducing business accounts to allow brands to chat with customers and even turning the platform into an e-commerce destination. That said, the app was left as its own entity, and Facebook didn’t meddle too much into the core service itself.

That’s changing now. WhatsApp has updated its privacy policy, and the new terms requires users to share data with Facebook as well as its associated companies, including Facebook Payments, Onavo (a web analytics service and controversial VPN), and CrowdTangle (a social analytics tool). The data that will be shared with Facebook and its companies as part of the new terms includes the following:

Profil…

OxygenOS 11 brings a new visual layout and dozens of features.

OnePlus has delivered the Android 11-based OxygenOS 11 stable update to the OnePlus 8 and 8 Pro. The devices received the update just a month after the stable Android 11 build was released by Google, and are the first outside of Pixels to make the switch to the latest version of Android.

With OxygenOS 11, OnePlus is making visual changes to its skin for the first time in a few generations, and we finally get Always-on Display. Although OnePlus phones have used AMOLED panels from the beginning, the company didn’t offer an AOD mode; that’s changing now. There’s also a simplified settings page that’s akin to Samsung’s One UI 3.0, new system font with better readability, more customization options, new themes for Zen Mode, and a whole lot more.

The OxygenOS 11 stable update will be making its way to the OnePlus Nord, 7 and 7T series in the coming weeks, as well as the older OnePlus 6 and 6T. Here’s what you need to kno…