A Huawei logo displayed at a retail store in Beijing.
Fred Dufour | AFP | Getty Images
DONGGUAN, China — Huawei has launched its own operating system — the HongmengOS, known in English as the HarmonyOS, said the CEO of the Chinese tech giant's consumer division, Richard Yu, on Friday.
Speaking at the Huawei Developer Conference in the Chinese city of Dongguan, Yu said the operating system can be used across different devices from smartphones to smart speakers and even sensors. It's part of Huawei's play in the so-called Internet of Things, which refers to devices connected to the internet.
HarmonyOS will first be used on "smart screen products," such as televisions, later this year. Over the next three years, the operating system will be used in other devices, including wearables and car head units.
Huawei said the OS will initially launch in China with plans to expand it globally.
The United States placed Huawei on a blacklist — or the so-called Entity List — in May, which essentially restricts some U.S. companies from selling their products to the Chinese tech giant.
At the G-20 summit in Osaka in June, President Donald Trump said he would allow American companies to sell products to Huawei where national security is not compromised. But the exact details remain unclear.
The Chinese telecom equipment maker acknowledged publicly that it had its own operating system in the works. Yu told CNBC in May that the company's own OS could be ready for smartphones and laptops by the end of the year in China, and by mid year in 2020 for international markets.
At the time, Yu stressed that the OS would only be used for smartphones and laptops if Huawei could not get access to Google's Android or Microsoft's Windows operating systems.
Google's services are effectively blocked in China. So Huawei uses a modified version of Android in its domestic market that is stripped of Google apps. That means not having access to Google in China isn't that a big problem for China. However, if Huawei were to get banned from being able to use Android internationally, analysts said this could hurt the Chines firm's smartphone business abroad.
Yu reiterated that Huawei would prefer to use Android on its smartphones, but if it had to migrate to HarmonyOS, that would not be difficult. He said moving to the new OS would only take one or two days and it is "very convenient."
"If we cannot use it (Android) in the future, we can immediately switch to HarmonyOS," Yu said.
Samsung has introduced its new always-connected PC based on Qualcomm’s Snapdragon platform and featuring Microsoft’s Windows 10 OS. This time around the company went with the Snapdragon 8cx SoC, a clamshell form-factor, and a 13.3-inch display, emphasizing that its Arm-powered computers compete against mainstream x86-based laptops in terms of performance and capabilities. Like other Snapdragon-based Windows machines, Samsung is aiming for long battery lifetimes here, with the new Galaxy Book S rated to work for up to 23 hours on a single charge.
The Samsung Galaxy Book S is equipped with a 13.3-inch Full-HD LCD featuring a 10-point multi touch system and a 16:9 aspect ratio. By contrast, last year’s Galaxy Book2 used a 12-inch Super AMOLED display featuring a 2160×1440 resolution and a 3:2 aspect ratio. Unlike last year’s mobile PC, the new one is a laptop, not a convertible, so it cannot be used as a tablet. Considering that we are talking about an aluminum machine with a 13.3-inch display that weighs 0.96 kilograms, the clamshell form-factor makes more sense for mainstream users. Furthermore, the overall construction looks very solid.
The new Galaxy Book S laptop is expected to be considerably faster than its predecessor as it is based on Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 8cx processor with eight general purpose cores (four Cortex-A76 and four Cortex-A55-class cores), a 10 MB L3 cache, the Adreno 680 GPU, and an eight-channel LPDDR4X-4266 memory controller. The SoC is accompanied by 8 GB of RAM as well as 256 GB or 512 GB of NAND flash storage (expandable with a microSD card).
When it comes to wireless connectivity, the Samsung Galaxy Book S includes Snapdragon X20 LTE modem (Cat 18, 5CA, 4x4 MIMO, depending on the market and operator), 802.11ac Wi-Fi, and Bluetooth 5.0. The PC’s wired connectivity department is limited to USB Type-C that is used for data and charging, a microSD card slot, yet we do not know whether it has a 3.5-mm audio connector.
As far as imaging and multimedia capabilities are concerned, the Galaxy Book S has a 720p webcam, a built-in microphone as well as Dolby Atmos-badged stereo speakers co-designed with AKG. The laptop also has a Windows Hello-compatible fingerprint reader.
Apart from performance, one of the key improvements of the Galaxy Book S compared to its predecessor is its longer battery life. The PC comes with a 42 Wh battery that enables it to work for up to 23 hours (based on tests conducted by Samsung), up from 20 hours for last year's device.
Specifications of the Galaxy Book S
General Specifications
Display
13.3-inch,
1920×1080
165 PPI
CPU
Qualcomm Snapdragon 8cx 4 x Kryo 495 Gold at 2.84 GHz 4 x Kryo 495 Silver at 1.8 GHz
10 MB L3
Graphics
Adreno 680 GB
RAM
8 GB LPDDR4X
Storage
256 - 512 GB
Wi-Fi
802.11ac Wi-Fi
Bluetooth
5.2
WWAN
Qualcomm X20 Gigabit LTE
Cat 18, 5CA, 4x4 MIMO, up to 1.2 Gbps DL, up to 150 Mbps UL
USB
3.0
? × Type-C
Webcam
720P
Other I/O
Microphone, stereo speakers, trackpad, MicroSD card reader, etc.
Battery
42 Wh
Battery Life
23 hours
Dimensions
Width
305.2 mm
Height
203.2 mm
Thickness
6.2 - 11.8 mm
Weight
960 grams
Price
?
Samsung will start sales of the Galaxy Book S in two colors this Fall. Pricing of the device is currently unknown.
The bottom of the phone. Note the lack of a headphone jack.
Ron Amadeo
The hole-punch camera.
Ron Amadeo
The back camera setup of the Note 10+. You can tell from the extra depth camera that lives below the flash.
Ron Amadeo
The back of both phones.
Ron Amadeo
The side volume and power buttons.
Ron Amadeo
There's now a power menu button in the notification panel, since the power button doesn't bring up the power menu anymore.
Ron Amadeo
Here you can see how much the display wraps around the side.
Ron Amadeo
The top has the card slot and not much else.
Ron Amadeo
The Note 10+ compared to the other big phone out there, the OnePlus 7 Pro.
Ron Amadeo
NEW YORK CITY—Samsung showed off its next flagship smartphone last night: the Galaxy Note 10. It comes in two variants—large (the Note 10) and larger (the Note 10+).
In person, the larger Galaxy Note 10+ is absolutely huge. And I say this not as someone who carries around a tiny phone all day, but as someone who is used to the already-giant Android phones out there. First the display is actually bigger, with the Note 10+ screen topping out at 6.8-inches diagonally, a new high-mark this year. The "smaller" Note 10 is a mere 6.3-inches, which is still extra huge. The other thing contributing to the imposing presence is the sharper display corners. The heavily rounded corners of yesterday are out, and the Note 10 is a big ol' sharp rectangle.
The front and back of the device is curved along the long edge, which helps you wrap your tiny, pathetic human hands around Samsung's giant slab of glass and pixels. Width is really the thing that makes a phone feel big in your hand, and the Note 10+'s 77.2mm-wide body has got to be a new high watermark in phone girthiness. The bigger size is actually quite nice to use with the S-Pen, which always feels like it needs as much real estate as possible for drawing or handwriting. I still never want to do any handwriting or drawing on my phone, but for those who do, bigger is better probably.
Like we saw with the Galaxy S10, Samsung's hole-punch camera design is not the greatest on the market and needlessly reduces the useful screen space. Android's compatibility rules require that apps be presented with an uninterrupted rectangle, so the system status bar needs to be tall enough to encompass any camera notch or hole on the front. It makes sense, then, to squeeze your front camera into as small a vertical area as possible, so the status bar can be the normal size.
Samsung doesn't do this, though—and the camera hole impinges so deeply into the display that the status bar needs to be twice as tall as normal to cover it. Better and smaller camera solutions have existed for at least a year now, and other manufacturers have moved on to front cameras that don't intrude on the display at all, relying on a pop-up system or slider mechanisms for the front camera.
The pen is mightier
Like last year, the S-Pen is packing its own internal battery and Bluetooth antenna, allowing it to be used as a remote control. Like last year, you can make the S-Pen's single button do things like take a photo in the photo app. New this year is the pen's six-axis sensor, allowing for what I'm going to call "Harry Potter Mode." You can flick the pen around to remotely do stuff, like it's a magic wand. A left or right flick will change music tracks or camera modes. There's also a circle motion you can do that will zoom in on the camera.
I tried this in person and it felt like playing an old Nintendo Wii game with waggle controls. I still don't understand the idea of remotely controlling a smartphone with the S-Pen. The screen isn't big enough, and you'd have to prop the phone up with something to see it from a distance. Like many Samsung features, Harry Potter Mode feels like something designed for a showroom demo and nothing else. The S-Pen is really the only unique thing the Note line offers anymore, and I don't think there's any technical reason for this. It's just that other companies don't seem to view it as something worth copying.
Past Samsung devices have had a "Bixby button," which was an extra physical side button that could summon Samsung's digital assistant. On the Note 10, the Bixby button is gone—or maybe it's better to say the Bixby button and power button have merged into one. You can wake and sleep the phone with a single tap of the button. A long press, which previously brought up the Android power menu, now brings up Bixby. Double tapping the button still brings up the camera. You can't summon the power menu from the side button anymore, either—instead, a software power button lives in the pulldown notification panel. The software button allows you to do things like reboot or power down the phone.
China is out-Samsunging Samsung
It's hard to see how the Galaxy Note 10 is supposed to excite me. Samsung is supposed to be the "speeds and feeds" company, but the device doesn't have the fastest Qualcomm SoC out there. Qualcomm recently took the wraps off the upclocked Snapdragon 855+ and is already shipping the part in some phones. The Note 10 only has a regular old Snapdragon 855, with no extra clocks added.
I can't say the Note 10 has the best screen, since faster, high-refresh-rate displays are hitting the market now, and they make a world of difference in the feel of a smartphone. You can get a 90Hz OLED display on the excellent OnePlus 7 Pro, and or a 120Hz OLED on the Asus ROG Phone 2. How Samsung, the smartphone industry's leading display manufacturer, missed the faster refresh rate trend is beyond me. Heck, the OnePlus 7 Pro's 90Hz display is made by Samsung. It's not like the company doesn't have the technology—just reach into the parts bin and put the better screen in your phones!
The Note line isn't the "everything" phone anymore, either—not with the removal of the headphone jack and the waffling over an SD card slot (the larger Note 10+ has one, but the still-large Note 10 does not). Samsung even killed the rear-mounted heart rate sensor this year, if anyone cares. Power users looking for the smartphone version of a Swiss Army Knife should look elsewhere. The Asus ROG phone actually feels more Samsung-y than this Samsung phone, launching as it has with new display tech, a new SoC, a headphone jack, two USB ports, and a million crazy accessories.
When I reviewed the OnePlus 7 Pro, I said that the pop-up camera, all-screen design, and high refresh rate display made it feel like something manufacturers will spend the next year chasing. After the Note 10 launch, I still feel that way. Samsung needs an answer for its competitors' devices, with faster screen technology and camera solutions that don't intrude on the display. All these companies from China are kicking Samsung's butt, and they're doing so at a lower price point. The Note 10 costs a thousand dollars, while a OnePlus 7 Pro is $670. Based on what each device brings to the table, it feels like those price tags should be swapped.
Samsung isn't turning over a new leaf. It's not reducing its dependence on the highest specs and wiz-bang gimmicks in exchange for a more refined experience or anything like that. The Note 10 is still shipping with Samsung's heavily reskinned version of Android with Samsung's slow updates. It's still full of half-baked redundant software like Bixby. The Note 10 is the same strategy Samsung has been doing for years—just not executed as aggressively. The smaller Note 10 seems like a particularly bad deal—you're spending $950 and you're still dealing with cost-cutting measures like the sub-par 1080p display and the missing MicroSD slot.
The competition blew past Samsung this year, and the company needs more than a mid-cycle upgrade to keep up. Other than the wide availability and the undoubtedly large marketing budget, I don't see anything special here. Hopefully Samsung has major upgrades in the works for next year's Galaxy S11.
This shows the bottom edge, which has no headphone jack and two speaker grills. Most likely there is one speaker, and the other grill is just there for symmetry.
It's pretty easy to piece the two halves together. You can see the volume button on each half of the render, so here's the whole thing assembled in Photoshop.
Pixel 4 rumor season never stops, even if Samsung is having a major smartphone launch. 9to5Google, which had its earlier Pixel 4 rumors confirmed by Google before the phone has even launched, has a fresh set of Pixel 4 rumors for us.
First up: The Pixel 4 will supposedly have a 90Hz "smooth display" feature, just like the OnePlus 7 Pro. This means the entire interface should refresh at 90 frames per second instead of the usual 60, which—on the OnePlus 7 Pro at least—proved to be an absolute revelation for UI smoothness and making the phone feel fast and responsive. Until 90Hz displays came along, Google was the leader in Android UI "smoothness," so it'll be interesting to see what the company can do with a faster display.
Quicker display refresh rates are rapidly becoming the next big upgrade for Android phones—as evidenced by the aforementioned 90Hz OnePlus phone and even a 120Hz OLED screen from Asus with the ROG Phone 2. At the Note10 launch, we were disappointed to see Samsung shipping a regular old 60Hz display on its $1000 flagship, and now it looks like even Google is going to beat Samsung to the punch.
9to5Google also lists two sizes for the Pixel 4, with 5.7-inch and 6.3-inch variants on the way. The larger version gets a 3700mAh battery, while the smaller version will supposedly have a 2800mAh battery. 2800mAh sounds pretty paltry for a 2019 smartphone, and this is actually a downgrade from the Pixel 3, which had a 2915mAh battery.
We should at least see one big Pixel problem fixed by a jump from 4GB to 6GB of RAM. The Pixel 3 was criticized last year for only having 4GB of RAM when other phones had 6 or 8GB, and the phone did end up being RAM staved for power users—to the point that Google released an update to try to tweak the phone's memory management. 6GB of RAM is still not spectacular in 2019, with some phone shipping with double that amount today, but it's better than 4GB.
If these rumors pan out like the last ones did, the Pixel 4 is shaping up to have a rare property for a Pixel device: novel and unique hardware. In the past the Pixel story has been all about the software, and you would buy a Google phone in spite of the hardware. After spending time with the OnePlus 7 Pro, we think 90Hz displays should be mandatory in flagship smartphones, and for once Google is jumping on the train early, even before Samsung. Google's Project Soli radar sensor is truly unique, but Google will have to come up with a way to make it useful in a smartphone, and not just redundant when you already have a giant touchscreen in front of you.
That's it for this latest round of rumors. Google has been blowing up the tech news cycle lately and taking the unprecedented step of confirmingrumors from the internet as they pop up. So far the company has released their own phone render after the rumor mill outed the design, and later it announced Project Soli integration after that rumor was posted at 9to5. Let's see if Google has anything to say about this one—Google, here's my rumor, so call me, maybe?
Samsung is set to launch the new Galaxy Note 10 line later today. And ahead of the big reveal, the company is introducing the heart of the device: the Exynos 9825 processor.
As usual, the Galaxy Note 10 will come with two different processors — Samsung will sell a variant with the Snapdragon 855/855+ in some markets, while the Exynos 9825 will ship in other markets.
Samsung’s Exynos 9825 is the first processor built with its 7nm EUV (extreme ultraviolet lithograph) process that apparently allows for a faster and more power-efficient processor. The octa-core processor comes with Samsung’s custom dual-core CPU cores, as well as a dual-core Cortex-A75 and a quad-core Cortex-A55. It features the Mali-G76 MP12 GPU.
Samsung says the new processor is built for “HyperFast” 5G connectivity thanks to the Exynos Modem 5100, and it also offers up to 2Gbps download speeds thanks to the 4G LTE-Advanced Pro modem.
The processor comes with a built-in NPU for AI processing that can also be used by a phone’s camera to improve its image processing capabilities. On the video side of things, the processor is capable of encoding and decoding 8K UHD video. The chip also features UFS 3.0 storage.
The new Exynos 9825 is a fairly decent upgrade and seems perfect for a device like the Note 10. Samsung will likely share all the stats on the performance and efficiency gains with the new processor at the Note 10 launch later today, so stay tuned for more details.
Today's big news will be the Galaxy Note 10, so tune in to our liveblog from Samsung's event at 4PM ET to get all the details. Until then, we're digging into Disney's bundle for cord-cutters, the Apple credit card and Instagram's big problem.
It looks like a Ferrari, behaves like one and definitely sounds like one. Roberto Baldwin says the Ferrari 812 Superfast lives up to its name and the hype, with a mix of raw power and tech. Like most supercars, the infotainment system is lacking, and it's going to cost more than a house to purchase. But you knew that already.
The critically acclaimed Journey has suddenly appeared on iOS, and I can't complain. The game has kept cooperative stranger play in tact as you make your way through a rolling landscape, avoiding threats and collecting iconography to, well, make your scarf longer. I'm underselling what is a rather miraculous game -- and now even more people can experience it.
When Disney+ launches on November 12th, you can sign up and start streaming all of the Disney, Fox, Pixar, Marvel and National Geographic content you can stand for $6.99 per month or $69.99 a year. However, the company's bigger hook is a bundle plan that throws in Hulu (with ads) and ESPN+ streaming for $12.99 -- $5 less than their price individually.
Facebook says it is fully aware of spam/porn bots on Instagram, noting that it is investing more in research to better understand how these bad actors are evading its systems. And yet one look at the comments on a popular post or account shows how much work it has left to do.
When Fortnite's Season X kicked off last week, Epic Games brought back some well-loved locations, as well as introducing the B.R.U.T.E. mech. Normally, the arrival of new vehicles is welcomed, but in the five days they've been in the battle royale shooter, they've left gamers frustrated and angry. You see, not only does a B.R.U.T.E. have 1,000 health -- roughly five times the maximum health and shield of regular players -- it also has incredible movement abilities, which can close gaps of hundreds of in-game meters in a few seconds. If the rockets don't get you, the mech's stomp ability will. The mech is overpowered and ruining the game for high-level players.
We'll meet the Galaxy Note 10 at Samsung's launch event later today, but the company has already unveiled a chip that will be inside it. The Exynos 9825 is the first smartphone chip built using 7-nanometer EUV (extreme ultraviolet) silicon manufacturing, which is supposed to increase both power and energy efficiency.
Apple's latest foray into finance is rolling out to its first users, and it's made a YouTube tutorial for pretty much every step of the application process. If you applied for a notification when the Apple Card first became available, you'll be among the first to get access, but an expanded release to the wider public should happen later this month.
Apple plans to offer security researchers special iPhones and finally launch a bug bounty program for Mac, according to a Forbesreport. Cupertino will reportedly announce those security measures at the Black Hat security conference in Las Vegas later this week in an effort to strengthen its flawed bug bounty program -- and security.
These iPhones won't be as locked down as the consumer version, and they apparently won't be as open as the ones reserved for the company's employees. But they might give researchers a way to look at the device more closely and the ability to inspect parts of the OS or specific components, such as the memory, to look for vulnerabilities.
