Jurang Tayo

Jumat, 18 Oktober 2019

OnePlus 7T Pro review: small updates make a great phone slightly better - The Verge

In the right circumstances, there’s nothing wrong with a minor spec bump, especially when it comes just six months after the device it’s improving on. That’s exactly what OnePlus has done with the £699 OnePlus 7T Pro, a newly upgraded version of the OnePlus 7 Pro from earlier this year. It’s coming to Europe and Asia but not the US.

If you’ve already read The Verge’s OnePlus 7T review, you’ll know what sort of improvements to expect from the Pro model. There’s a new macro camera mode, a bigger battery, and the phone’s processor is also slightly faster at rendering graphics. There’s nothing mind-blowing here, but it’s also a list of improvements that’s been added without having to make any compromises.

Then again, if you’ve already read our OnePlus 7T review, you’ll also know that we called that phone “the best of the 7 Pro, for less” because with it, OnePlus took the Pro’s super-slick 90Hz refresh rate, and included it on a device that costs between $70 and $100 less. The OnePlus 7T Pro is objectively a better phone than the OnePlus 7 Pro, but it’s now got much stronger competition from its own maker in the form of the OnePlus 7T.

The OnePlus 7T Pro is a very similar device to the OnePlus 7 Pro that was released earlier in the year. In fact, if you go back and read our OnePlus 7 Pro review from May, almost all of the points still apply to this new device.

In particular, the 7T Pro’s OLED screen is every bit as stunning as it was on the 7 Pro. It’s still got a super-smooth 90Hz refresh rate, it’s still super crisp, colorful, and bright, and it still curves elegantly around the edges of the device. It’s also still completely notchless, thanks to the phone’s small 16-megapixel pop-up selfie camera and an in-display fingerprint scanner that’s still wicked fast.

When it comes to the changes OnePlus has made to the new phone, they can be a little hard to quantify. Take the processor spec bump as an example. OnePlus has equipped its latest device with a Qualcomm Snapdragon 855 Plus processor, which, in theory, means it’s 15 percent faster at rendering graphics.

Every smart device now requires you to agree to a series of terms and conditions before you can use it — contracts that no one actually reads. It’s impossible for us to read and analyze every single one of these agreements. But we’re going to start counting exactly how many times you have to hit “agree” to use devices when we review them since these are agreements most people don’t read and definitely can’t negotiate.

While you’re setting up the OnePlus 7T Pro, you need to agree to the following in order to use your phone:

Additionally, there are a couple of optional agreements that you need to get past during setup:

Participation in the User Experience Program
System stability reporting
Push notifications for surveys and product updates
Built-in app updates for the phone, contacts, and settings apps

That leaves us with four mandatory agreements and four optional agreements for the OnePlus 7T Pro.

In practice, however, the actual improvement is hard to discern. What I will say is that I never once experienced slowdown while using the phone. The recently released Call of Duty: Mobile ran brilliantly, despite the phone’s high-resolution 1440p display, and there were no hiccups as I switched between apps. Is this an improvement over the 7 Pro? It’s hard to say, but I’m certainly not complaining.

It’s a similar story when it comes to battery life. The OnePlus 7T Pro has a 4,085mAh battery, which is technically a whole 85mAh more than the 7 Pro. Does this make a measurable difference? Who cares. What matters is that I struggled to drain the phone by more than 50 percent in a day. When I let the phone run down to zero, I found that it lasted me from 8AM until 4PM the following day. These were two comparatively light days of usage filled with mainly email reading and Twitter browsing, but you get the idea.

The OnePlus 7T Pro uses the company’s new Warp Charge 30T, which is apparently 23 percent faster than the Warp Charge 30 standard found in the 7 Pro. It works well, and it could charge my device quickly without it getting excessively warm. When charging a completely powered-down device, I found that I got 28 percent of charge after just 12 minutes, 46 percent after 20 minutes, 96 percent after an hour, and I was left with a fully charged device roughly one hour and five minutes after plugging it in. It’s still a bummer that OnePlus is using its own proprietary fast-charging technology (so you won’t get these same results from third-party chargers), but at least it works well.

The camera hardware inside the 7T Pro is basically unchanged from the 7 Pro, so I’m not going to spend too much time covering old ground. We went over this triple-camera array pretty extensively in our original 7 Pro review as well as when we compared it to the Pixel 3A. Suffice it to say, you’ll get reasonable photos out of the OnePlus 7 Pro, but they won’t be class-leading like the Pixel’s photos.

That’s not to say the camera is completely unchanged, though, because the OnePlus 7T Pro has inherited a couple of tricks from the 7T. There’s a new macro mode that will let you focus on objects that are as little as 2.5cm away, and the Nightscape mode now works when you’re using the wide angle camera. Both modes produce reasonable images, but it’s nothing mind-blowing.

In terms of software, you’re getting the same OxygenOS-flavored version of Android 10 that was present on the OnePlus 7T, and you can get a full rundown of its features in our previous review.

The OnePlus 7T Pro is every bit the great phone that the One Plus 7 Pro was when it released earlier this year. While a lot of upgrades — like its bigger, faster-charging battery and faster processor — are minor, none of them come with any noticeable downsides. In pretty much every way, the 7T Pro is a better device than the 7 Pro was — although the difference is small enough that I don’t think any 7 Pro owners out there need to worry about upgrading.

It’s a better device, but I don’t know if that means it’s the better purchasing decision. Last time around, you basically had to buy the OnePlus 7 Pro if you wanted its lovely high refresh rate screen. But this time, you can get a 90Hz display on the OnePlus 7T, and it costs £150 less. Sure, if you opt for it, you’ll have to put up with a notch, a lower resolution display, and a screen that doesn’t curve around the edges of your device, but those seem like reasonable compromises considering the price difference. There’s also the recently announced Google Pixel 4. At £669, it doesn’t offer you as much savings, and it’s got much bigger screen bezels, but given Google’s track record, it could get you a better camera.

The OnePlus 7T Pro is a high-spec phone with a reasonably good camera at a price that’s still cheaper than many other flagships. I don’t think it’s quite the steal it was now that the OnePlus 7T has inherited what I think is the 7 Pro’s best feature, its 90Hz refresh rate. But if you want to make sure you’re getting the absolute best phone that OnePlus currently produces (and one of the best smartphone screens, full stop), then the 7T Pro could yet earn its price premium.

Photography by Jon Porter / The Verge

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https://www.theverge.com/2019/10/18/20918732/oneplus-7t-pro-review-specs-features-price-camera-battery-life

2019-10-18 07:00:00Z
52780412255736

Kamis, 17 Oktober 2019

Samsung: Anyone's thumbprint can unlock Galaxy S10 phone - BBC News

A flaw that means any fingerprint can unlock a Galaxy S10 phone has been acknowledged by Samsung.

It promised a software patch that would fix the problem.

The issue was spotted by a British woman whose husband was able to unlock her phone with his thumbprint just by adding a cheap screen protector.

When the S10 was launched, in March, Samsung described the fingerprint authentication system as "revolutionary".

Air gap

The scanner sends ultrasounds to detect 3D ridges of fingerprints in order to recognise users.

Samsung said it was "aware of the case of S10's malfunctioning fingerprint recognition and will soon issue a software patch".

South Korea's online-only KaKao Bank told customers to switch off the fingerprint-recognition option to log in to its services until the issue was fixed.

Previous reports suggested some screen protectors were incompatible with Samsung's reader because they left a small air gap that interfered with the scanning.

Thumb print

The British couple who discovered the security issue told the Sun newspaper it was a "real concern".

After buying a £2.70 gel screen protector on eBay, Lisa Neilson found her left thumbprint, which was not registered, could unlock the phone.

She then asked her husband to try and both his thumbs also unlocked it.

And when the screen protector was added to another relative's phone, the same thing happened.

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https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-50080586

2019-10-17 08:53:27Z
52780409816827

Intel driver update for Windows 10 causing display aberrations - Neowin

While it seems that we are on the precipice of the Windows 10 November 2019 Update being rolled out to the general public in its finalized form, a good number of us may be using the May 2019 Update, particularly after Microsoft gave it the rubber stamp for broad deployment last month. However, it seems that an Intel display driver update delivered via Windows Update is causing problems that, at the time of writing, may mainly impact HP computers such as the ProBook 450 G6.

According to a post on Microsoft's community forum, KB4517389 included Intel Display Driver Update 26.20.100.7157 and led to a variety of poor user experiences. One user on Reddit reported Chrome becoming blacked out and Edge crossing out images and search boxes while another user on Twitter reached out to Microsoft Support after observing pixelation issues.

Let's check all the possible factors that's causing the issue after the update, Sai. We have to know the troubleshooting steps that you've done on your end first, so we can skip those and proceed with the things that you haven't done yet.
-Levi
— Microsoft Support (@MicrosoftHelps) October 14, 2019

Although the problem with display glitches is inconvenient, it doesn't appear to render affected machines completely inoperable. As a result, this provides users the opportunity to simply roll back the driver update to avoid the issue until the offending update is automatically downloaded again. However, you can now pause updates for up to 35 days if you've installed the May 2019 Update as follows:

Press Win + I (for India)
Click "Update & Security"
Click "Pause updates for 7 days"
Repeat to pause updates for up to 35 days as desired

Of course, if you want to resume updates for your affected machine, simply click on "Resume updates" on the Windows Update screen which will then force an immediate check for available updates. In the meantime, Microsoft has yet to acknowledge the issue but users may be able to obtain a later driver directly from their device manufacturer to remedy the problem.

Via: Windows Latest, TechDows, Image via jba2876 (Reddit)

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https://www.neowin.net/news/intel-driver-update-for-windows-10-causing-display-aberrations

2019-10-17 09:20:00Z
52780411418253

Google Stadia controller's wireless capability will be limited at launch - Engadget

Rabu, 16 Oktober 2019

Can the Pixel 4 win back Google’s camera crown? - The Verge

After Apple’s iPhone 11 event, I noted that while the company was catching up on features like ultrawide and night mode, it was unclear whether it’d be able to get on the Pixel’s level in terms of basic image quality. Over the course of our review process, it became clear that Apple had indeed achieved that. Apple says it has a class-leading camera every year, but this time it actually does.

The next question, then, is how big a leap will come with Google’s new Pixel 4. We still can’t answer that yet, just as we didn’t know how good the iPhone 11 was the day after its announcement. (You can see some quick comparisons here, but stay tuned for the full review.) We can, however, take a lot from what Google did — and didn’t — have to say on stage yesterday.

“We didn’t forget about the camera,” Google’s Sabrina Ellis said near the end of the presentation. “With Pixel 4 we’re raising the bar yet again, and it all starts with this little square.” “Little” is perhaps a charitable description of the Pixel 4’s conspicuous camera bump, but that bump does of course house what should amount to the biggest change to the Pixel camera.

Let’s just get this out of the way: it’s weird that Google went for a telephoto lens as its second option. “Wide angle can be fun, but we think telephoto is more important,” computational photography lead Marc Levoy said on stage. That’s not an unreasonable position — Apple certainly agreed during the last three years it put out dual-camera phones before switching to ultrawide with the iPhone 11. But Google spent a lot of time last year touting its Super Res Zoom feature that uses multi-frame algorithms to improve the quality of traditional digital zoom. It wasn’t better than an optical telephoto lens, of course, but it was better than nothing, and Google is continuing to use it for the Pixel 4’s extended zoom range.

An ultrawide lens, on the other hand, can’t be faked in software. The reason to include one is because it’s the only way to achieve that perspective. Why, when finally deciding to add a second lens after years of insisting it wasn’t necessary, would Google choose glass that solves a problem it already had a passable solution for, instead of something that makes entirely new types of photos possible?

Or, and hear me out here, why not just add an ultrawide and a telephoto? These are expensive phones. That is a big camera bump. Every single one of Google’s competitors in the premium market now sells phones with triple-camera setups — it’s not that exotic a feature any more. I’m sure we’ll see it on the Pixel 5.

Overall, Google had almost nothing to say about the Pixel 4’s camera hardware on stage beyond the acknowledgement of the second lens. It turns out the main lens has received a slight aperture increase, going to f/1.7 from f/1.8, while the sensor remains 12 megapixels and is presumably the same size as before.

“But the hardware isn’t what makes our camera so much better,” Ellis went on. “The special sauce that makes our pixel camera unique is computational photography.” That is certainly true, and what followed was an engaging presentation from Levoy on how the Pixel works its magic. Or, as he described it in a wry swipe at Apple: “It’s not mad science, it’s just simple physics.”

After explaining the basic principles of HDR+, Levoy detailed four new computational additions to the Pixel 4 camera. The first was Live HDR+, which uses machine learning to calculate HDR+ in real time so you can see it in the viewfinder. This also allows you to control the camera’s exposure with sliders for brightness and shadows, which could make it a lot easier to lock in the results you want.

Elsewhere, the Pixel 4 now uses machine learning for white balance in all modes, instead of just Night Sight — the examples Levoy used included a snow scene, which trips up traditional cameras all the time. The Pixel 4 portrait mode uses the telephoto lens to create a better depth map and work with a wider range of subjects. And Night Sight now has an astrophotography function that merges images across four-minute exposures to produce pin-sharp photos of stars.

All of these features sound cool, and I could watch Marc Levoy talk about HDR algorithms for hours. But it’s hard to know whether the announcements will add up to meaningful, noticeable improvements in pure image quality for the types of photos we take every day. I’m looking forward to taking pictures of stars on my phone, but I don’t know if it’s a selling point. What matters is the extent to which Google has managed to push its core photographic results forward.

This is basically what I thought about the iPhone 11 after its launch, of course, and it turned out to be the biggest leap for Apple in several years despite what appeared to be near-identical hardware. We won’t know how good the Pixel 4 camera really is until we’ve spent more time with it. But the Pixel 3 camera is still one of the best in the world, so there’s no reason to expect anything short of greatness.

We just wonder about that missing ultrawide.

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https://www.theverge.com/2019/10/16/20916938/pixel-4-camera-vs-iphone-11-pro

2019-10-16 12:00:00Z
52780406029379

Jurang Tayo

Jumat, 18 Oktober 2019

OnePlus 7T Pro review: small updates make a great phone slightly better - The Verge

Kamis, 17 Oktober 2019

Samsung: Anyone's thumbprint can unlock Galaxy S10 phone - BBC News

Air gap

Thumb print

Intel driver update for Windows 10 causing display aberrations - Neowin

Google Stadia controller's wireless capability will be limited at launch - Engadget

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Google Stadia controller's wireless capability will be limited at launch - Engadget

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Rabu, 16 Oktober 2019

Can the Pixel 4 win back Google’s camera crown? - The Verge

'League of Legends: Wild Rift' will land on mobile and consoles in 2020 - Engadget

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