OnePlus, Huawei, Honor, and Realme extend smartphone warranties, and more due to COVID-19

The ripples of COVID-19 pandemic – informally known as Coronavirus – have brought almost the entire world to a halt. In these hard times when you’re forced to quarantine and stay at home, your phone might be your only physically close friend. But if you break it, there’s only so little that you can do to fix it. Fortunately enough, several smartphone brands including OnePlus, Huawei, Honor, and Realme are extending warranties on their devices for up to three more months and also offering taking relief measures to ensure smoother repairs during COVID-19-related lockdowns announced by governments worldwide.

OnePlus

To start with OnePlus, the company will be extending warranties till May 31st for devices with warranty ending between March 1st and May 30th. Besides warranty adjustment, OnePlus has also extended the replacement period from 15 days to 30 days. The existing 30-day replacement period in the UK remains unchanged.

OnePlus is offering ship-in repairs in North America and Europe with free shipping on both sides. In addition, the walk-in repair center in Helsinki, Finland, is still open until further notice. Repair services are not available in India due to the complete lockdown enforced by the central government as a preventive measure against the spread of COVID-19.

In addition, OnePlus is also working towards a backup device program. It will soon start providing you with a backup phone while your primary device goes in for repair so that you don’t need to arrange a phone yourself. The service will soon be introduced in North America and Europe on a pilot basis.

Huawei

Huawei, which is set to launch the Huawei P40 Pro later today, is also pushing the warranty further till June 30th due to COVID-19. This is applicable to devices for which the warranty expires – or has already expired – between March 21st and June 21st. It is worth pointing out that the offer is only applicable in India, UAE, and South Africa. For Qatar, the warranty will be extended until May 31st only. These offers are applicable on all Huawei products including smartphones, MateBook laptops, accessories, etc.

We’re here to support you! As a gesture of good faith, we have extended the warranty on all smartphones, smartwatches, headsets, chargers, etc. to 30th June’2020, whose warranty expires between 21st March 2020 to 21st June 2020.#HuaweiIndia #HuaweiService #Warranty #Support pic.twitter.com/EW0IOhWRpK

— Huawei India (@HuaweiIndia) March 25, 2020

In India, Huawei is also offering doorstep repair services for the Huawei Watch GT and Watch GT2. More importantly, if your watch is still under warranty, Huawei will replace it instead of repairing it. If your watch is out of warranty, Huawei will repair the watch by swapping out dead parts like strap, screen, and motherboard, strap, etc. with new ones.

Realme

More recently, Realme India also announced that it will be extending warranties till May 31st on warranties initially ending between March 20th and April 30th following COVID-19 lockdown in the country. Additionally, for purchases between March 15th and April 30th, the replacement period has been extended to 30 days. The company recently postponed the launch of the new Realme Narzo 10 and 10A due to the same lockdown.

Few supportive steps for all our users during this tough period:
-Extended warranty till 31st May for those whose warranty expires between 20th Mar- 30th Apr ’20
-Extended Replacement period to 30 days for those who purchased our devices between 15th Mar- 30th Apr ’20#StayStrong pic.twitter.com/uHlkkRZPQw

— realme (@realmemobiles) March 26, 2020

Realme Europe has also extended the refund and replacement periods to two months from the original replacement deadline.

Honor

Just like Huawei, sub-brand Honor is also extending warranties in India due to COVID-19. For warranties expiring between March 21st and June 21st, the warranty deadline has been extended to June 30th. Complying with India’s 21-day lockdown, which ends on April 14th, all the Huawei and Honor service centers will be closed in India.

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Featured image: Pexels/CDC

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Google Photos 4.45 tests ordering photo prints in Memories view, hints at premium editing features for Google One subscribers, more

Google Photos is arguably one of the best Google apps in recent times and it shows off what machine learning can do for the end-user in an experiential and tangible form. By allowing users to back up all their photos for free, Google incentivized a large bunch of Android users to use the service. It then applied machine learning magic to intelligently organize these photos, based not only on location and time, but also based on the people in the photo. Features like Memories serve to send you on nostalgia trips by showing you some of your best moments from the past. Users in certain geographical locations can also order same day prints, granting more permanence and visibility to these moments. In the latest version of Google Photos, Google is now working towards making it easier to order these prints, as well as to expand the scope of the Memories feature.

An APK teardown can often predict features that may arrive in a future update of an application, but it is possible that any of the features we mention here may not make it in a future release. This is because these features are currently unimplemented in the live build and may be pulled at any time by the developers in a future build.

In Google Photos v4.45, which is already rolling out on the Google Play Store, there exists a new view for the Memories feature. When enabled, it moves the menu and share buttons to the bottom of the screen. It also adds new options to the menu, such as “Order photo prints” and “Order canvas print”, in addition to “Settings” for Memories and “View all photos from this day”.

There are more features to discover within the app, as these new strings suggest new settings for Memories:

<string name="photos_memories_settings_previous_years_type_description">Photos from this week in previous years</string>
<string name="photos_memories_settings_previous_years_type_title">Previous years</string>
<string name="photos_memories_settings_recent_highlight_type_description">Photos from recent weeks</string>
<string name="photos_memories_settings_recent_highlight_type_title">Recent highlights</string>
<string name="photos_memories_settings_types_settings">Types of memories</string>
<string name="photos_memories_settings_types_summary">Select the types of memories you want to see. The memories carousel above the photo grid only appears when at least one memory type is selected.</string>
<string name="photos_memories_settings_types_title">Memory types</string>

These strings suggest that users will be able to choose which moments will be displayed within memories, ranging from “Previous years” to “Recent highlights”.

We also spotted a string that suggests that some upcoming editing features may be reserved for Google One subscribers as a premium feature:

<string name="photos_photoeditor_adjustments_premium_feature_badge">Google one feature</string>

It is unknown what editing feature this is referring to, at this stage.

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Thanks to PNF Software for providing us a license to use JEB Decompiler, a professional-grade reverse engineering tool for Android applications.

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Alleged OnePlus 8 Pro specifications leak reveal 120Hz display, 30W wireless charging, and IP68 rating

Leaks about the OnePlus 8 series started pouring in just weeks after the OnePlus 7T’s launch. Thanks to the digital renders shared by reliable leaker who is better known by their alias – OnLeaks – we have a wholesome notion about what these phones might look like. Now as we move closer to the purported launch date, a leak by another truster leaker, Ishan Agarwal, suggests the OnePlus 8 and OnePlus 8 Pro’s tentative specifications.

The OnePlus 8 is almost identical to the 7T in terms of internal hardware – save the upgraded Qualcomm Snapdragon 865 SoC, which isn’t exactly unexpected information. The OnePlus 8 Pro, on the other hand, comes with some significant upgrades to the display, RAM, and cameras. Further, for the first time, a OnePlus device is IP-rated and this suggests that the company might finally be looking to invade the territory of flagships from companies like Apple and Samsung.

OnePlus 8 Pro (left) and OnePlus 8 (right) leaked renders

To begin with, the OnePlus 8 Pro now features a 6.78-inch QHD+ AMOLED display. As hinted by the previous leaks, this will have a single hole-punch cutout at the top left corner. This display will also come with a higher refresh rate than its predecessor and the 120Hz refresh rate has already been officially confirmed. To enable smoother video playback, the phone is also likely to feature a dedicated chip for MEMC (Motion Estimation, Motion Compensation) frame insertion technique for adding frames in between and upscaling videos to 120fps. While the addition isn’t really surprising, it places the OnePlus 8 Pro much closer in competition with the recently launched Samsung Galaxy S20 series, which also features 120Hz displays.

The OnePlus 8 Pro will be equipped with 8GB or 12GB LPDDR5 RAM alongside the Snapdragon 865. In terms of storage, however, OnePlus might not upgrade to UFS 3.1 and stick to the older UFS 3.0 NAND storages for both the devices. The two devices will also get an upgrade in terms of battery. While the OnePlus 8 Pro features a 4510mAh battery, the OnePlus 8 gets a 4300mAh battery.

Wireless charging support for the OnePlus flagship was already anticipated when the company joined the Wireless Consortium. But now we also learn that the OnePlus 8 Pro could feature 30W wireless fast charging along with 30W wired charging. The 30W fast wireless charging technology may be borrowed from sister company OPPO, which has already developed a commercial solution. Furthermore, it will also support 3W reverse wireless charging, indicating that the company might also be working on an accessory to benefit from the same.

The OnePlus 8 Pro gets another major upgrade in terms of the rear cameras. The phone’s quad-camera setup includes not just one but two 48MP cameras. While their purpose isn’t confirmed, we can expect one of these to be the primary and the other 48MP camera to be an ultra-wide unit if OnePlus takes the same route that OPPO took with the Find X2 Pro. The phone could also come with an 8MP tertiary camera, which is likely to be the same 3X telephoto setup as the OnePlus 7T Pro. Lastly, a fourth 5MP camera is expected to be part of this setup and that could either be a macro camera or a depth sensor. We’re not quite sure if OnePlus uses the electrochromic glass technology from the Concept One prototype device which it showcased earlier this year at CES 2020.

Lastly, the OnePlus 8 Pro is suggested to come with an IP68 rating for dust and water resistance. There are three likely color variants of the smartphone and those will be Black, Green, and lastly, Glow, which seems to be the mirror finish variant that has been leaked already in renders.

Alleged OnePlus 8/8 Pro Specifications

Specification	OnePlus 8	OnePlus 8 Pro
Display	6.55″ Full HD+ 90Hz Super AMOLED	6.78″ QHD+ 120Hz Super AMOLED Dedicated MEMC chip for frame interpolation
SoC	Qualcomm Snapdragon 865	Qualcomm Snapdragon 865
RAM & Storage	8/12GB LPDDR5 128GB/256GB UFS 3.0	8/12GB LPDDR5 128GB/256GB UFS 3.0
Battery and Charging	4,300 mAh 30W Warp Charge	4,510 mAh 30W Warp Charge 30W fast wireless charging 3W reverse wireless charging
Rear Camera	Primary: 48MP Secondary: 16MP Tertiary: 2MP	Primary: 48MP Secondary: 48MP Tertiary: 8MP Quaternary: 5MP
Front Camera	16MP	16MP
IP Rating	NA	IP68

We will keep you updated with all the new information that we keep on learning about the upcoming flagship. Meanwhile, if you’re lucky enough, you can also win a chance to review the OnePlus 8 or 8 Pro even before its launch.

We would love to know your opinions on the same, please tell us in the comments below.

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Source: Twitter/ Ishan Agarwal

Image credits: OnLeaks & 91Mobiles

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MIUI Camera code suggests the Redmi K30 Pro may launch in India under the POCO brand

Xiaomi originally spun off Redmi as an independent brand to focus on the budget segment. However, they are already vying for a share in the flagship segment, thanks to the recently launched Redmi K30 Pro (code-name “lmi”) and Redmi K30 Pro Zoom Edition (code-name “lmipro”). We even stumbled upon the names of the phone duo quite a while before the official launch event in China. We have now discovered evidence that the Redmi K30 Pro will launch in India, possibly under the POCO brand. We still don’t know if it’ll be called the POCO F2 necessarily, but since the Redmi K30 Pro is a flagship smartphone with the Qualcomm Snapdragon 865, it’s a likely possibility.

Thanks to XDA Junior Member kacskrz for first finding these hints in the MIUI 11 code. He shared his findings with us and we confirmed that all of the code and files he found are indeed present in the latest MIUI Camera app. Note that the MIUI Camera app is fairly obfuscated, so the method names we will mention below are likely not the true names of the methods.

It all started with decompiling the latest version of the MIUI Camera app in the latest MIUI 11 beta. We discovered a new method called Bi that returns true if b.kb and Build.IS_INTERNATIONAL_BUILD return true.

Digging a bit into b.kb, we have found that it returns true if the model name matches either “lmi” or “lmiin.”

“lmi’, as mentioned previously, is the code-name for the Redmi K30 Pro. Presumably, “lmiin” will be the code-name for the Indian variant of the Redmi K30 Pro, as “in” at the end of Xiaomi’s device code-names tend to signify this.

The method Bi is called in another method called getCustomWatermarkDefault, where the string identified by the hexadecimal value 0x7F1000FF is also called.

0x7F1000FF corresponds to a constant named device_poco_watermark_default_text, which contains the string “SHOT ON POCO Phone”.

Thus, the device code-named “lmiin”, which we anticipate to be the Indian version of the Redmi K30 Pro, is expected to display the watermark “SHOT ON POCO PHONE”. This tells us the Redmi K30 Pro may have POCO-branding when it is sold in India. This is ultimately not surprising since the Redmi K30 4G was rebranded as the POCO X2 in India. We would hope that the true successor to the legendary POCO F1 (review) will feature a flagship SoC from Qualcomm, and it looks like that is about to happen.

Here are the specifications of the Chinese Redmi K30 Pro in case you’re wondering what to expect from the POCO F2:

Redmi K30 Pro Specifications

Specification	Redmi K30 Pro
Dimensions and Weight	163.3 x 75.4 x 8.9 mm 218 g
Display	6.67″ FHD+ AMOLED 180Hz touch response rate Max brightness of 800 nits and peak brightness of 1200 nits HDR10+ support Notchless display with pop-up camera Corning Gorilla Glass 5 on front and back
SoC	Qualcomm Snapdragon 865: 1x Kryo 585 (ARM Cortex-A77-based) Prime core @ 2.84GHz 3x Kryo 585 (ARM Cortex-A77-based) Performance core @ 2.4GHz 4x Kryo 385 (ARM Cortex A55-based) Efficiency cores @ 1.8GHz Adreno 650
RAM and Storage	Redmi K30 Pro: 6GB LPDDR4X + 128GB UFS 3.0 8GB LPDDR5 + 128GB UFS 3.1 8GB + 256GB Redmi K30 Pro Zoom Edition: 8GB + 128GB 8GB + 256GB
Battery & Charging	4,700 mAh battery 33W fast charging
Rear Camera	Photo: Primary: 64MP Sony IMX686 sensor, 1/1.7” sensor, 0.8μm pixels, EIS, OIS Secondary: 5MP, Macro Zoom Edition: 8MP, telephoto, 3x optical zoom, 30x digital zoom, support 50mm macro, OIS, EIS, four-axis image stabilization Tertiary: 13MP, Wide-Angle Camera, 123° Quaternary: 2MP, depth sensor Video: 8K video recording (resolution of 7680 × 4320)
Front Camera	20MP
Other Features	3.5mm headphone jack Wi-Fi 6 Bluetooth 5.1 IP53 water and dust resistance 5G Multi-link Game Turbo 3.0 with voice changer Multi-function NFC IR Blaster
Android Version	MIUI 11 based on Android 10

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Thanks to PNF Software for providing us a license to use JEB Decompiler, a professional-grade reverse engineering tool for Android applications.

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Kernel sources available for Motorola One Zoom and Android 10 update of Moto G7 Plus

Despite all the changes that Motorola has gone through, one aspect where the brand has continued to excel in is that their devices are suitable for custom ROM and kernel development. If you can’t get an update anymore from Motorola, then there’s a chance there may be a custom ROM for your phone on our forums. Motorola is generally good at releasing kernel source code for all the updates they put out, even if they may take some time to do so. The company has recently released the kernel source code for the Motorola One Zoom, and they’ve also released the kernel source code corresponding to the Motorola Moto G7 Plus’ Android 10 update.

The Motorola One Zoom (code-named “parker”) was announced 6 months back with features like 3x optical zoom, a Qualcomm Snapdragon 675 processor, quad cameras with a 48MP primary sensor, and more. This release corresponds to the phone’s current Android 9 Pie software, as the phone does not, as of yet, have an Android 10 update available.

Motorola One Zoom Kernel Sources | Motorola One Zoom XDA Forum

Next, the kernel source code for the Android 10 update of the Motorola Moto G7 Plus (code-named “lake”) is now available. Stable Android 10 began rolling out for the device since late January, and it is good to see that ROM and kernel developers can now work with the latest sources. Oddly, the kernel source code recently released for the device roughly 3 days ago were for the Android Pie release. We can excuse Motorola for this delay, though, since no company can currently work at full capacity due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.

Motorola Moto G7 Plus Android 10 Kernel Sources | Moto G7 Plus XDA Forum

We hope that the release of updated kernel source code for both devices can boost development and we can see TWRP, custom ROMs, and kernels arise soon.

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Google News 5.20 tests letting you share “full coverage” links to trending news

A while back, Google took a big step to simplify their newsfeed experience with the revamped Google News Android app. It was one of the first apps to sport Google’s new Material Theme design, and even then, it has matured a lot since it first launched. One appeal of the app includes the “Full Coverage” feature, which provides you with a handful of sources from major publications on a particular topic so you can learn more about a news topic from every narrative and perspective possible. Google is now testing an option to get this Full Coverage to more people.

An APK teardown can often predict features that may arrive in a future update of an application, but it is possible that any of the features we mention here may not make it in a future release. This is because these features are currently unimplemented in the live build and may be pulled at any time by the developers in a future build.

In version 5.20 of the Google News app, Google is testing the ability to let you share the Full Coverage section of any news topic as a link. We’ve managed to activate this feature on our end, and a “share” button is now visible while checking out Full Coverages inside the app, which allows you to share that section with other users through Google apps or other third-party apps as a link.

Sharing a Full Coverage inside the Google News app (link here).

The ability to share a link to the Full Coverage page of a story is a feature known internally as “Story 360”, and Google might be introducing it soon to end-users through a server-side update after it’s announced. The featured image shown at the top of this article is a graphic that we pulled from the latest APK, and Google will show this graphic to the user in the app to explain how this works. As of now, though, this feature is not available and we don’t know when it will be. Keep an eye on our coverage to know when this feature and the other features we recently found will roll out.

Google News: Top World & Local News Headlines (Free, Google Play) →

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Samsung and Qualcomm unveil new chips to make true wireless earbuds better

Truly wireless earbuds have become one of the most popular electronics to buy since many OEMs have removed the headphone jacks from their flagship smartphones. Two of the biggest ongoing concerns over true wireless earbuds are audio quality and battery life. Thankfully, manufacturers are quick to improve their technologies for truly wireless earbuds, so they already offer much better audio quality and longer-lasting battery life than they did a few years ago. Samsung and Qualcomm are two of the biggest companies involved in making components for TWS earbuds, and both have just announced new chips for improving longevity and audio quality.

Samsung’s MUA01 and MUB01 PMICs

The first announcement comes from the Korean manufacturer. Samsung is detailing a new Power Management Integrated Circuit (PMIC) which is already present in the Samsung Galaxy Buds+ wireless earbuds. The MUA01 and MUB01 PMICs, which are respectively for the charging case and the earbuds itself, are intended to make True Wireless Stereo (TWS) devices last longer. The press release mentions that Samsung was able to put up to ten different components together into a single PMIC, cutting the size down to half compared to its earlier alternatives. The smaller size of the units leaves more room for the battery, which translates into better battery life. Both of the units come with a microcontroller unit and embedded flash storage, which makes updating and/or modifying their firmware easier. MUA01, the PMIC for the charging case, includes support for both wired and wireless charging (under the Wireless Power Consortium’s Qi 1.2.4 standard).

Source: Samsung

Qualcomm’s QCC514X and QCC304X Bluetooth SoCs

As for Qualcomm, they’re unveiling new Bluetooth system-on-chips for truly wireless earbuds. QCC514X and QCC304X are the newest SoCs from the company for premium and entry-level TWS devices, respectively. Both of them come with Voice Assistant support and Qualcomm’s Hybrid Active Noise Cancellation (Hybrid ANC) on the hardware level. The latter allows for low-latency leak-through, meaning that you’ll be able to take advantage of noise cancellation in airplanes as well as when you’re just walking down the street. Qualcomm also promises “premium wireless sound and voice quality.” In addition, the two SoCs support Qualcomm’s new TrueWireless Mirroring technology. According to the press release, with this technology, “one earbud is wirelessly connected to the phone via Bluetooth while the other bud mirrors the connected bud and is engineered to deliver a rapid swap under several scenarios.” The premium QCC514X supports always-on voice activation to trigger the digital assistant, while the entry-level QCC304X only supports push-to-talk.

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