Last week focused on the rumors, this week we got the announcements. Oppo and Samsung both launched new phones on April 10 while a day earlier, Qualcomm launched two new chipsets – the 11nm Snapdragon 665 and the 8nm Snapdragon 730 (and the 730G with better graphics).
Starting with the last one – the Qualcomm 665 will see the biggest improvement over the 660 in graphics performance while the 730/730G promises a CPU performance boost of 35%.
Oppo settled all the leaks by unveiling two Reno smartphones – the Reno 10x zoom with a Snapdragon 855 and a periscope 5x optical zoom camera and the Reno with a Snapdragon 710 and a slightly-smaller 6.4-inch screen.
Samsung unveiled a couple of phones – the Samsung Galaxy A20e and the Galaxy A80. The new A-series top dog is the most innovative Samsung phone since the Galaxy Fold. It packs a motorized pop-up area with a spring-loaded rotating camera array that has a 48MP f/2.0 main sensor, an 8MP ultra-wide angle unit and a 3D time of flight camera. The Galaxy A80 also houses a 6.7-inch screen without a notch.
The final Samsung-related news were the official end of the Galaxy J series, confirmed by Samsung itself and a follow-up story to the one about the smaller Galaxy Note 10. It seems that there will be a 6.28-inch and a 6.75-inch Galaxy Note 10 along with two 5G models – resulting in no less than 4 distinct Galaxy Note 10 devices in the fall.
We saw more of the OnePlus 7 this week too. A bunch of case renders gave us a look at the triple rear camera and the pop-up selfie snapper while two photos revealed what looks to be a OnePlus 7 Pro with curved screen edges and 5G.
Sharp made waves by demoing its first vertically-foldable. Sadly the company won’t bring a market-ready device with this tech any time soon.
Those are the major stories of the week. Have a great week and see you in seven days!
The pop-up mechanism lifts the rear camera and rotates it to face forward. This leaves the 6.7″ AMOLED screen free of notches and holes.
The top part of the slider will house a dual selfie camera with a powerful flash, the bottom can be a loudspeaker or extra camera controls.
The 730 is up to 25% faster than a 710, but the G version disappoints despite higher clocks. The 665, meanwhile, struggles to beat the old 660.
The Galaxy A20 has a 6.4″ Super AMOLED, this one has 5.8″ LCD. It does have the same chipset and camera, though.