iFixit’s Galaxy S20 Ultra teardown shows off Samsung’s 100X Space Zoom camera

The Galaxy S20 Ultra is Samsung’s most expensive smartphone in the new Galaxy S line, and it features a variety of top-tier hardware features that Samsung hopes will justify that price. The biggest selling point of the phone is its camera setup. The S20 Ultra has a huge 108MP primary sensor that supports 3×3 pixel binning, a 48MP ~4x optical zoom camera, a 12MP ultra-wide-angle camera, and a 0.2MP time-of-flight sensor. iFixit just published a teardown of this beast of a smartphone to reveal the hardware magic behind the Galaxy S20 Ultra’s 100X Space Zoom camera.

The first and most important part of the Galaxy S20 Ultra’s camera setup is the main 108MP sensor. It’s a massive sensor. The dimensions of the sensor measure 9.5mm x 7.3mm. The surface area of this sensor is actually double that of the iPhone 11 Pro’s 12MP main sensor, according to iFixit. In order to compensate for the fact that packing 108 million pixels into such a small area makes for very tiny pixels (which results in noisy images in low-lighting conditions), the Galaxy S20 Ultra uses a “new material” that separates each pixel to “[minimize] optical loss and light reflection.” Samsung’s “nona-binning” basically involves taking a set of 3×3 pixels and combining them into one ultra-detailed pixel. That’s why shots from the 108MP camera, by default, outputs at 12MP resolution.

iPhone 11 Pro 12MP vs Galaxy S20 Ultra 108MP

The ~4x optical zoom camera is a more interesting camera. It uses a 48MP Sony IMX 586 sensor but has a few forms of stabilization. Samsung is using a rail connected to the box that houses the lens array to move the sensor back and forth for focus. The prism used to reflect light 90° into the sensor is also optically stabilized. This means that pictures captured from this lens are stabilized on multiple different levels. It’s an insanely cool way Samsung is setting up this camera, and it’s a system we have yet to see from any other OEM.

The internal silicon is just as impressive. Below is a list of chips that iFixit was able to find inside the Galaxy S20 Ultra. One impressive chip to note of is the 12GB of LPDDR5 RAM layered on top of the Qualcomm Snapdragon 865 chip. This is one of the first widely available devices with LPDDR5 RAM. You even have the option of getting an S20 Ultra in up to 16GB of LPDDR5 RAM.

• Samsung K3LK4K40BM-BGCN 12 GB LPDDR5 RAM layered over Qualcomm 865 SoC
• Samsung KLUDG4UHDB-B2D1 128 GB UFS 3.0 flash storage
• Qualcomm SDX55M 2nd-gen 5G modem
• Skyworks SKY58210-11 RF Front-End Module
• Qorvo QM78092 Front-End Module
• Maxim MAX77705C power management IC
• Qualcomm QPM5677 and QPM6585 5G power amplification modules
• Qualcomm SDR865 RF Transceiver
• Murata KM9D19075 Wi-Fi & Bluetooth Module
• Qualcomm PM8250 power management IC
• Qualcomm PMX55 power management IC
• Qualcomm PM8150C power management IC
• Qualcomm QDM4870 front-end module
• Qualcomm QBT2000 000 5R90777 HK940 07
• Samsung 1951 A S6SY79AX 6877DW3

The Samsung Galaxy S20 Ultra is an insanely powerful (and expensive) smartphone, but it isn’t very repairable, sadly. iFixit only gave it a repairability score of 3 out of 10, which makes this “Ultra” phone feel a lot less ultra. iFixit gave the phone bad marks for the fragile glass rear cover, the difficulty in replacing the glued-down battery, and the difficulty in getting access to the display for repairs. If you’re interested in the full teardown, check out the post on iFixit.

Galaxy S20 Forums ||| Galaxy S20+ Forums ||| Galaxy S20 Ultra Forums

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Google releases Android 11 Developer Preview 1.1 to fix some bugs

Google released the first developer preview for Android 11 exactly 2 weeks ago. The company plans to release two more developer previews and three public betas before the stable release in Q3. However, today Google is releasing Developer Preview 1.1 to address a few bugs that were present in the initial release. Check out the changelog below.

Privacy

• Apps targeting Android 11 no longer receive an erroneous security exception if they try to request a foreground location permission, such as ACCESS_COARSE_LOCATION or ACCESS_FINE_LOCATION, and any other permission at the same time.

Android Studio and tools

• armeabi-v7a apps no longer cause x86 Emulator images to crash.
  NDK apps targeting Android 11 are no longer blocked from building because of an issue with the Android Gradle Plugin. This fix is included in both Android Studio 4.0 Beta 2 (or higher) and Android Studio 4.1 Canary 1 (or higher).

Non-SDK interface restrictions

• Greylist restrictions have been temporarily relaxed on a small number of methods used by OkHTTP and related SDKs that are in widespread use. This should provide app developers with more time to test and update their libraries before these restrictions are reinstated later in the Developer Preview.

Apps

• Fixed an issue where a fatal exception was being thrown by com.android.phone.

GSI

• Fixed an issue where using the gsi_gms_arm64-userdebug build failed to boot on Pixel 3 devices.
• Fixed an issue where the Setup Wizard would crash when running on Pixel 4 XL devices.

The updated Android 11 DP system images are available now for the Pixel 4, Pixel 4 XL, Pixel 3a, Pixel 3a XL, Pixel 3, Pixel 3 XL, Pixel 2, Pixel 2 XL, and GSIs. These builds must be flashed manually. You can find the list of known issues here.

Download Android 11 Developer Preview 1.1 System Images for Pixel Phones

Download Android 11 Developer Preview 1.1 GSI Images for Project Treble devices

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Google Assistant can now read web pages out loud in 42 languages

Earlier this year, Google announced some upcoming features for Assistant. One of those features was the ability to ask Google Assistant to read a web page out loud. The company is now ready to roll out this feature and it works with 42 languages at launch.

Using Google Assistant to read a long web page couldn’t be easier. It can be used whenever you’re looking at an article in your browser on your Android phone (it looks like this works with Chromium-based browsers, like Microsoft Edge, but not Firefox). All you have to do is trigger Google Assistant and say “read it” or “read this page.”

A page reader UI will open and the browser will automatically scroll the page while Google Assistant reads it out loud. You can use the buttons on the screen to pause the reading or skip back/forward. If the original article isn’t in your native language, Assistant can read aloud in 42 languages. You can use the translation menu to select the language you would like to hear and Assistant will always use this language.

This feature should basically work on any website with no setup. However, if webmasters would like to exclude their websites from this feature, they can use the nopagereadaloud tag. Google also wants to remind app developers that they can support this feature using Actions on Google.

Google appears to be rolling out this feature to Assistant right now. It’s already working on some of our devices here at XDA, including non-Pixel devices without the new Google Assistant. Give it a try on your phone today!

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Source: Google

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Moment’s new mount lets you use Moment lenses on any Android phone

One of the ways you can squeeze out even more functionality from your smartphone camera is a 3rd-party lens. Moment is perhaps the most popular maker of high-quality lenses for smartphones. These lenses have required cases for specific phones in order to perfectly line up the lens with the camera. The company now has a solution for any Android phone.

Previously, Moment only supported the Google Pixel lineup and several OnePlus and Samsung devices. In order to use the lenses, you would need a case that featured mounting brackets for the lenses. If you didn’t have a phone that fit one of the cases you were out of luck. Moment is now introducing the M-Series Lens Mount, which can attach to any smartphone or tablet.

The Moment M-Series Lens Mount is a pretty clever little accessory. You simply put the mount over the front or rear-facing cameras, from the top or side of the phone, and slide the lens bracket along the rails until it lines up. Once you have it positioned correctly over the camera, you can use the thumbscrew to tighten it down. The mount has soft rubber contact points to prevent scratching and movement.

The mount should work for practically any phone or tablet, but there are some technical limitations. The device must be thinner than 10.75 mm and the device’s camera can’t be more than 39 mm from any edge. The Moment M-Series Lens Mount is available for pre-order now for $29.99 (shipping March 20) and you can get it for free right now if you buy any lens and use code “freemount.”

Shop: Moment

Via: 9to5Google

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[Update: Transparent Edition] GameBench offers your first look at the Nubia Red Magic 5G and 144Hz gaming

Update (3/4/20 @ 10:00 AM ET): The Red Magic 5G will be available with a transparent back to show off the cooling fan.

Several companies have gone ahead with their announcements that were supposed to take place at Mobile World Congress this week. Nubia isn’t one of them, as they originally planned to announce the Red Magic 5G this week but have postponed the launch until a future, unspecified date. Just yesterday we caught our first glimpse at the design of the device from its TENAA listing. Now, thanks to GameBench publishing its performance tests, we’re getting our first live look at the device today.

We already knew a number of things about the Red Magic 5G. Nubia themselves announced the device would have a 144Hz display, up to 16GB of LPDDR5 RAM (likely from Samsung), support for 80W wired fast charging, and, of course, 5G (sub-6GHz) connectivity. Nubia also confirmed the device would be powered by the Snapdragon 865 SoC. GameBench confirms a number of these specifications in their blog post.

Key Specs:

• Android Version: 10
• Red Magic OS Version: 3.0
• Chipset: Qualcomm Snapdragon 865 (865+X55M) with Adreno 650 GPU
• RAM: 12GB
• Storage: 256GB
• Cooling: Active
• Battery: 5,000mAh

The design of the Red Magic 5G is very much that of a gaming phone. The back of the device features an aggressive “X” pattern with a red lit-up Red Magic logo across the middle. The frame is metallic blue and we can see one red button. We can also see the vents for active cooling and what appear to be connector pins for an accessory. GameBench says they were able to get over 5 hours of playtime on a charge while playing Real Racing 3 at 144fps. This is thanks to the big 5,000 mAh battery.

GameBench performed their testing with a pre-release version of the Red Magic 5G. This is the first handset they’ve benchmarked that delivers a stable frame rate of 144fps. They were able to record a median frame rate of 144fps with Real Racing 3, earning it their badge of Ultra-144. GameBench also tested PUBG Mobile and Arena of Valor (though they were the Chinese versions of both games).

PUBG Mobile and Arena of Valor don’t yet support 144fps, but they still performed very well on the Red Magic 5G. In PUBG Mobile, the team recorded a median frame rate of 90fps while in Arena of Valor, they recorded a median frame rate of 60fps. In the case of Arena of Valor, it was a perfect 60fps. Check out the chart below to see how all three games fared.

Source: GameBench

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Update: Transparent Edition

Nubia CEO, Ni Fei, has posted a short video of the Red Magic 5G with a fully transparent back. This is not a fake decal of the internals as you can actually see the cooling fan spinning, which is pretty neat. The Red Magic 5G is said to have a new and improved active cooling fan that can go up to 15,000 RPM. Nubia has also redesigned the air ducts and radiators with more ventilation and heat exchange capacity. It’s likely this “Transparent Edition” will cost a little more than the standard colors. We will know more when the device is unveiled on March 12th.

Source 1: Miaopai | Source 2: GSMArena

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Save up to 60% on these open box Sony headphones

Ever since the Walkman was released in 1979, Sony has been at the cutting edge of audio technology. The tech giant makes some of the best headphones around, although you usually have to pay a premium for the brand. If you are looking for a more affordable upgrade, take a look at these enticing deals on some new open box Sony headphones at the XDA Developers Depot. 

For the uninitiated, new open box items are usually considered excess inventory from store shelves. They might have some assorted stickers on the packaging and/or have been exposed to customer contact. Plus, the packaging sometimes shows signs of extra handling. Regardless, the products will still be verified to be in new condition and put in clean packaging, so you can trust they’ll work like new while enjoying a fairly significant discount.

Sony MDR-XB650BT Extra Bass™ Wireless Headphones

Described by Trusted Reviews as “technically impressive”, the MDR-XB650BT headphones can keep going for 30 hours on a full charge. They connect to your phone via Bluetooth or NFC, with Extra Bass technology for richer sound and a built-in mic for hands-free calls. Normally $129.99, the headphones are now $59.99 open box.

Sony ZX220BT Wireless On-Ear Bluetooth Headphones

Thanks to 1.18″ dome drivers, these on-ear headphones deliver dynamic audio for eight hours straight. They work on Bluetooth, or you can tap them against any NFC device for an instant wireless connection. They also have a unique swiveling design that makes them great for travel. They are usually $79.99, but you can grab them now for just $34.99 open box.

Sony MDR-XB450AP Extra Bass™ Headphones

Featuring 1.18” drivers with an extended low-frequency range, these Extra Bass headphones are rated at 4 out of 5 stars on Amazon. An acoustic seal helps to keep that bass contained, while the Smart Key app allows you to make adjustments with a tap. In addition, they weigh only 5.82 ounces. Normally priced at $79.99, they are currently just $29.99 open box.

Sony ZX110AP Extra Bass™ Headphones

For audiophiles on a budget, the ZX110AP headphones offer impressive specs. They have 1.38″ neodymium dynamic drivers that deliver crisp highs and a powerful bass, with a closed-back design to lock the sound in. You also get plush ear cushions, an inline remote, a mic for hands-free calls, and a folding design. They retail for $29.99, but they are now reduced to $16.99 open box.

Prices subject to change 

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Motorola Moto G8 Power Lite leaks with basically the same design as the Moto G Power

Motorola’s G series of budget and mid-range smartphones have been a fan favorite ever since the company launched the original Moto G back in 2013. The company has since launched well over 20 devices as part of the Moto G series, with the Moto G Power and Moto G Stylus joining the lineup early last month. The latest devices in the Moto G family feature decidedly mid-range specifications, with a Snapdragon 665 SoC, 4GB of RAM, and up to 128GB of internal storage. Now, Motorola seems to have taken some inspiration from other smartphone manufacturers and is launching a “lite” version of the Moto G Power (previously referred to as the Moto G8 Power).

Motorola Moto G8 Power Lite. pic.twitter.com/4WiKSWG4eX

— Roland Quandt (still going to Not-MWC) (@rquandt) March 3, 2020

Images of the upcoming Motorola Moto G8 Power Lite have now surfaced online, thanks to renowned leakster Roland Quandt (@rquandt).  The images reveal that the upcoming device features basically the same design as the Moto G Power, with a triple camera setup on the back, a capacitive fingerprint scanner with the Motorola logo, and a hole-punch display with a single cutout for the selfie camera.

Motorola One Mid
-Snapdragon 675
-6.53″ 2340×1080 display
-4000mAh battery

Motorola Moto G8 Power Lite (who comes up with these names?)
-MediaTek Helio P35 (mt6765)
-5000mAh battery

— Mishaal Rahman (@MishaalRahman) February 25, 2020

The images also reveal that the device will feature a headphone jack on the bottom edge, along with what looks like a micro USB port for charging and data syncing. As far as the specifications are concerned, the Moto G8 Power Lite is expected to pack in a MediaTek Helio P35 (mt6765) SoC, coupled with a massive 5,000 mAh battery. While Motorola hasn’t revealed any official information about the device yet, we expect the company to divulge more details as we get closer to its launch. It’s worth noting that Motorola is also working on a flagship device called the Motorola Edge+ which will be powered by Qualcomm’s flagship Snapdragon 865 chip and feature 5G support.

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