A new finding suggests Samsung is throttling the performance of thousands of Android apps on Galaxy smartphones. The issue affects many popular apps, including Google and Samsung’s first-party apps.
Samsung has an app called Game Optimization Service that comes preinstalled on many Galaxy phones. Although the name suggests the app helps improve gaming performance, it’s apparently being used to limit the performance of non-gaming apps. Users on the Korean tech forum Meeco have posted a list of affected apps that are subject to performance throttling. The list includes 10,000 popular apps, including Instagram, TikTok, Netflix, Microsoft Office, Google Keep, Spotify, Snapchat, YouTube Music, and more. Samsung’s own apps such as Samsung Pay, Secure Folder, Bixby, and others are also on the list. Notably, there are no benchmark apps on this blacklist.
Samsung created an app called GOS and used the app to limit game performance, making the gaming experience worse. However, according to what the Korean community found out today, Samsung confirmed that it has put performance limits on more than 10,000 apps… pic.twitter.com/U58AreZZoo
A video posted by Korean YouTuber shows how blacklisted apps are subject to inferior performance while benchmark apps are given a free hand. In his test, the YouTuber changed the package name of the 3DMark benchmark app to Genshin Impact, one of the apps on the blacklist. The unmodified version of 3D Mark scored 2618 points in the Wild Life Extreme test. When he ran the same test with the spoofed version, there was a significant drop in the score — 1141 points. In other words, the spoofed version performed 56% worse than the unmodified version.
It’s not immediately clear if the Game Optimization Service app is installed on every Galaxy phone. Android Authority notes that they couldn’t find the app on their Galaxy S22 series units, Galaxy S20 FE and Galaxy S10s. Meanwhile, 9to5Google mentions it’s installed on their Galaxy S22 Plus unit. It’s possible Samsung may have pushed this app via a recent software update.
According to a post on Naver, it seems Samsung is aware of the issue and is conducting an internal investigation. While Samsung hasn’t clarified why it’s throttling Android apps, it’s likely in an attempt to improve battery life. OnePlus was caught doing something similar with the OnePlus 9 Pro last year. The company used an app called OnePlus Performance Service to throttle popular Android apps. The company later confirmed it had added the performance-limiting mechanism to improve the phone’s battery life and heat management.
After launching the Galaxy S22 series, Samsung is now gearing up to refresh the affordable Galaxy A lineup. We have already seen several leaks of the Galaxy A53, Galaxy A73, Galaxy A33, and Galaxy A23 over the past months. Now we’re getting more details about the Galaxy A33 and the first look at another affordable entry in the lineup: the Galaxy A13.
Galaxy A33
Fresh renders of the Galaxy A33 published by WinFuture provide us our clearest look at the Galaxy A53’s “little brother.” The renders are in line with what we saw in earlier leaks. The Galaxy A33 does away with the seamless camera design and opts for the rectangular camera module, similar to the Galaxy A53 and Galaxy A73.
According to WinFuture, the Galaxy A33 will feature a 6.4-inch OLED FHD+ display with a 90Hz refresh rate, Exynos 1200 chipset, 6GB RAM, and 128GB flash storage, 5,000mAh battery, and 5G connectivity.
Galaxy A13
The Galaxy A13 is said to be a 4G variant of the Galaxy A13 5G that launched in the US last year. However, it doesn’t look even remotely close to its 5G sibling in terms of the design.
The Galaxy A13 features a 6.6-inch PLS LCD panel with Full HD+ resolution, a step up from the HD+ panel of the Galaxy A13 5G. The panel supports a 90Hz refresh rate and has a waterdrop notch cutout for the selfie camera.
The phone will reportedly be powered by Samsung’s in-house Exynos 850 SoC, paired with 4GB RAM and 64GB storage. The quad-camera setup will be headlined by a 48MP primary shooter, accompanied by a 5MP ultra-wide camera and two 2MP depth and macro shooters. Finally, the phone will pack a 5,000mAh battery and charge via a 15W charger.
The Galaxy A13 is expected to be priced around €200 and launch first in Europe. Samsung has yet to reveal the launch timeline for the Galaxy A33 and Galaxy A13.
Smartphone-oriented websites tend to focus only on the latest devices, but a large chunk of users choose not to upgrade their phones for one reason or another. Barring hardware failure, many of these devices may still have years of use ahead of them because, to their owners, they still work just fine. While custom ROMs can keep legacy smartphones alive for ages, it can be a nightmare for the modders to keep things like the camera and graphics drivers up to date without official manufacturer support.
Updating GPU drivers on Android
Unlike the smartphone ecosystem, updating the graphics driver on your PC is something you can always think about. This is possible because of the modular architecture of PC hardware drivers, which allows power users to tinker with closed source driver packages, or even opt for open source drivers instead of OEM-provided binaries. In the case of Android, however, driver updates generally only come to your phone alongside larger OS updates.
Updatable GPU drivers can come in handy for fixing bugs, improving graphics performance, or adding new features from OpenGL or Vulkan APIs. Nowadays, smartphones are bigger and faster than ever, making them the perfect vehicle for gaming, hence porting the PC-esque driver design to them does make sense.
Matter of fact, in an effort to modularize Android via Project Treble, Google actually made it possible to wrap the graphics driver set for a particular platform as an app and update it through the Play Store. Since then, several mainstream Android OEMs collaborated with Google and major GPU vendors, including ARM and Qualcomm, to distribute updates for their phones’ GPU drivers independent of larger software releases.
Does the updatable graphics driver design reduce the fragmentation?
Yes, to some extent. Nonetheless, a few worrying questions are still left unanswered. First of all, Google’s mechanism doesn’t provide an easy way to substitute the closed-source vendor driver with a third-party open source offering. You can, of course, manually replace the driver package in the vendor partition of the target device, provided you have root access and somehow get your hands on the necessary files, but that’s not an ideal solution for many.
Next comes the stability-versus-enhancement paradox. Android maintains a hierarchical arrangement when it comes to loading the graphics driver. While one can switch between the factory-installed build and the newer updated release using Developer options => Graphics driver preferences on a per-app basis, it ultimately boils down to the OEM’s decision when to push the graphics driver update. As a result, an end user can’t utilize bleeding-edge driver builds directly from the SoC maker, as OEMs are still responsible for rolling out the updates.
Enter Adreno Tools
As mentioned earlier, updating GPU drivers is possible with root access, but nothing can beat a non-root method. Thanks to XDA Senior Member bylaws, we now have a genius solution named Adreno Tools that allows on-the-fly GPU driver modifications or replacements on Android — that too without root! The developer’s background of porting Android to the Nintendo Switch certainly played a crucial role in this venture, as the whole project has its origin in Skyline, an open source, work-in-progress Nintendo Switch emulator for Android.
Fellow Skyline developer Mark “Pixelylon” pitched the idea of runtime drive replacement to bylaws, which eventually materialized into Adreno Tools. Being a rootless library, Adreno Tools can help any regular app to load custom GPU drivers, deal with BCn textures, and redirect file operations for further complex modifications. It does so by hooking into system libraries and seamlessly swapping in the new driver. Notably, there is no support for Mali GPUs yet.
Since there is no limitation on the origin of the driver, enthusiasts can also load third-party drivers through Adreno Tools. This is particularly useful for those who want to try out Turnip — an open source Vulkan driver for Qualcomm Adreno graphics hardware that falls under the Freedreno umbrella. For example, AetherSX2, the PlayStation 2 emulator for Android already utilizes Adreno Tools to give end users the choice to opt for Turnip instead of the OEM driver for better performance.
Given the alternatives for the Android GPU driver modding scene in the past, the Adreno Tools library is a fantastic step forward. We’re looking forward to seeing how the project grows and matures in the future. Be sure to give it a try and let us know what you think in the comments!
Samsung recently announced the Galaxy Book 2 Pro family of Windows laptops, and it’s packing a few improvements, specifically upgrading to intel’s 12th-generation P-series processors. We were big fans of the Galaxy Book Pro 360 5G last year, but does the Galaxy Book Pro 2 also come with 5G support? Well, yes and no, depending on where you are and the size you want.
According to Samsung, the Galaxy Book Pro 2 will feature some configurations with 5G support, but only in the 15.6-inch model, and only in certain markets. And those markets don’t include the United States, unfortunately. As for the Galaxy Book 2 Pro 360, it doesn’t look like 5G is supported in any configuration. This is odd considering last year only the 360 model had 5G, but it looks like the opposite is happening this time.
Some Galaxy Book models still have 5G
If you need a laptop with 5G connectivity and you’re a big fan of Samsung’s devices, Samsung will continue to have some options available for you. You can still buy last year’s Galaxy Book Pro 360 5G, which is a fantastic device as you can read in our review. If you don’t need the super-premium specs, there’s also the Samsung Galaxy Book Go 5G, which is an Arm-powered laptop that also includes 5G support. It’s powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 8cx Gen 2, so it’s still a solid experience. They’re some of the best Samsung laptops you can buy today.
If you don’t need 5G speeds, Samsung also has the Galaxy Book 2 Business, a model specifically made for business users. This laptop comes with LTE support… as long as you’re in Europe. Indeed, it doesn’t look like Samsung is interested in giving US customers new cellular-enabled options this year. You’ll need to stick to last year’s models if you see value in that.
It’s certainly possible that Samsung will roll out 5G-enabled versions of its new laptops later in the year, but so far, that hasn’t been mentioned.
If you still want to buy the Galaxy Book 2 Pro without 5G, you’ll have to wait a little longer until pre-orders open on March 18, and until April 1st for it to start shipping. If you do want a laptop with 5G support, check out our roundup of the best 5G laptops. Otherwise, you can take a look at the best laptops in general to see what else is out there.
Xiaomi is known for many things, but two that are frequent points of discussion here at XDA are “Xiaomi makes the best bang-for-dollar value of anyone” and “Xiaomi’s constant rebranding of existing phones for release under another name is annoying and confusing.” On day one of the Mobile World Congress, the Beijing-headquartered tech giant once again did both, although not directly. POCO announced the POCO X4 Pro, an awesome affordable mid-ranger selling in Europe starting at just €299 (around $335) that offers more features and better components than most $500 phones selling in the US. But the phone is mostly just a rebranding of Xiaomi’s Redmi Note 11 Pro announced for another region last month. By the way, this global version of the Redmi Note 11 Pro also differs from the China version of the Redmi Note 11 Pro. Confused yet?
But anyway, perhaps we at XDA are being nitpicky — we are confused by these rebrandings because we have to keep track of the three dozen Xiaomi devices released each year across multiple regions. But for the average consumer in Europe, they will soon be able to pick up a phone for under €300 that feels like it could pass for a modern flagship. It matters little what the branding label says on the phone as long as the phone can pull its weight. And the POCO X4 Pro does that.
The POCO X4 Pro features a 6.67-inch, 120Hz FHD+ OLED panel with relatively slim bezels and perhaps the smallest hole-punch in the industry. If you are a phone enthusiast and you nitpick, of course, you can see this OLED panel isn’t at the level of, say, a Galaxy S22 Ultra or OPPO Find X5 Pro’s panel. The refresh rate can’t change on-the-fly, brightness gets up to only 700 nits so it’s not as excellent to see under harsh direct sunlight — but to most average consumers who won’t notice these things, this screen looks great. It’s vibrant, offers excellent viewing angles, and looks modern enough.
This front panel is covered by Gorilla Glass 5. Around the back is also a glass panel — but just regular glass — and while I find the black color of my unit a bit dull, there is a coating on here that gives the phone this light streak pattern when light hits it at certain angles. Still, the yellow and the blue models look more eye-catching.
There’s a large camera island up top housing a 108MP main camera, 8MP ultra-wide, and the mostly pointless 2MP macro sensor, along with an LED flash. The main camera performance is really good at this price range, and even quite capable when going against phones way above its price range. In fact, I took some side-by-side shots pitting the main camera of the $335 X4 Pro against the $1,100 Galaxy S22 Ultra, and to be honest, you’d have to zoom in and squint and pixel-peep closely to really identify where Samsung’s image “wins.” I’ll talk more about these samples in the next section.
Inside the phone is a Snapdragon 695 SoC that supports 5G connectivity, a 5,000 mAh battery that can be charged at 67W speeds — and the charger is included in the box — an excellent haptic engine that I want to say is almost flagship phone level, a headphone jack, and even IP53 water splash resistance. I have only used the phone for two days so this isn’t a definitive conclusion on battery, but on both days the phone easily lasted an entire 13-hour day on a single charge.
Like I said earlier, Xiaomi makes the best bang-for-dollar value smartphones. This phone brings clearly superior components than similarly priced devices that sell in the US (where the phone scene is far less competitive) like the OnePlus Nord 200 or Galaxy A42. It is phones like these that make markets like India so much more competitive, so seeing them reach more markets like Europe is always a good thing to have.
The POCO X4 Pro’s main camera can hold its own, but the ultra-wide is just okay
As teased earlier: here are some main camera shots captured by the $335 POCO X4 Pro against the $1,100 Galaxy S22 Ultra. It’s not really a fair comparison to make, but here it is anyway.
You can see the Galaxy S22 Ultra’s shot has better dynamic range, the shadows in the day time shot are more accurate to how the scene looked, and at night, the darkened street on the right side is a better illuminated. But considering Samsung’s flagship costs four times the price, this is a pretty impressive showing from the POCO X4 Pro. As far as the main camera is concerned, you’d have to find a pretty challenging shot like the one below just to finally see a clear win on Samsung’s part.
The POCO X4 Pro’s 108MP sensor with a 1/1.52-inch sensor punches way above its price range. It pulls in light naturally due to the large-ish sensor, so I rarely needed night mode; there’s that shallow depth-of-field that we associate with professional cameras; and the X4 Pro even uses the same 9-in-1 binning technology Samsung uses. Here are more POCO X4 Pro samples.
The ultra-wide sensor is not going to be able to keep up with $1,000+ flagships, as it’s noticeably softer on details and no longer able to pull off strong HDR, but it’s still a pretty good ultra-wide for this price.
Video performance is where the phone shows its $335 price tag roots. Resolution maxes out at 1080p, and there’s no stabilization at all. Any walk and talk videos will look jerky and shaky.
Despite the noticeably smaller hole-punch, the X4 Pro’s selfie camera is fine; it can expose my face properly in low light or against harsh backlight scenes.
The POCO X4 Pro’s hole-punch compared to the Galaxy S22 Ultra’s hole-punch.
Despite the small hole-punch, the selfie camera is solid too, and is able to properly expose my face in low light or against backlight situations.
Unless you regularly will be comparing it with a flagship camera smartphone and pixel peeping for details, the POCO X4 Pro should serve you just fine for your casual photography needs.
The POCO X4 Pro is pretty good as a mid-tier gaming/movie machine too
Gaming or watching videos on the POCO X4 Pro has been enjoyable, considering the large-ish screen that’s also flat, thus making it easier to hold. The Snapdragon 695 SoC and Xiaomi’s liquid cooling system inside kept the phone churning as I leveled up in Max Payne or Modern Combat 5. The latter, did see occasional framerate stutters, but nothing unbearable.
Still on Android 11, however
The POCO X4 Pro runs on MIUI 13 over Android 11. It’s disappointing that this phone did not get the upgrade to Android 12 considering there are Xiaomi phones out there running Android 12 already. But for Xiaomi-based smartphones, the MIUI version is a lot more important than the underlying Android version. We would have still liked to see it based on Android 12, though.
The software experience is fine — if you’ve used a Xiaomi phone in the past couple of years, you will know what to expect. Xiaomi’s UI is colorful and full of whimsical animations, but there are quirks, like the settings page having overly complicated layers. For example, the phone ships with on-screen navigation buttons, and if you want to switch to gesture navigation, you have to find it in “Full Screen Display” part of settings, which is separate from the main “Display” part of settings. If I haven’t used MIUI in a couple of months, it always takes me an extra 20-30 seconds of browsing through settings to make simple changes I do to every Android phone.
A lot of people do like MIUI for all the settings it offers. So if you are used to seeing lots of features and customizations, you should feel at home with MIUI.
Hard to find something better at this price
At ~$335, the POCO X4 Pro punches way above its price range, and anyone on the market for a phone who cannot or does not want to pay more than $400 will have a hard time finding something better than this. The main camera and display in particular are impressive and feel like they belong on a phone costing $600 or above. If Xiaomi has not announced this phone for your region yet, fret not, because as we said, this is just a repackaged Redmi Note 11 Pro, so chances are you can pick up that device instead and get very similar performance.
Samsung has finally unleashed its latest lineup of flagship tablets upon the world — the Galaxy Tab S8 Series. These three devices come in different sizes and specifications to match various needs and budgets. They’re some of the best available options in this department right now. Though, if you buy one, make sure to check out our best cases for the Galaxy Tab S8, Galaxy Tab S8 Plus, and Galaxy Tab S8 Ultra. They’re delicate tablets, and it’s always better to be safe than sorry. Now, you must be wondering how to go through the initial boot after unboxing the device. All three tablets share the same process — here’s how to set up the Samsung Galaxy Tab S8 Series.
How to set up the Samsung Galaxy Tab S8 Series
When you first turn on your Samsung Galaxy Tab S8 device, click the arrow right above the big blue button to change the language — if you want to set it to a language other than the default one.
Scroll through the languages and select the one of your choice, then click the big blue Start button shown in the first screenshot.
Agree to the End User License Agreement and the Privacy Policy — otherwise, you won’t be able to proceed and use your Galaxy Tab S8. If you’d like Samsung to collect diagnostic data to improve their products, you can enable the third option — you’re not forced to, though.
Choose which of the sensors and data Samsung can access to personalize your experience. Note that denying access to some of these could cause certain stock apps to function in a limited manner. The company explains briefly why it needs access to each of them, so you can decide accordingly — depending on the relevance of the features to you.
Find your home network and click on it. Your device needs internet access to communicate with Samsung and Google servers to complete the setup. In some regions, you do get Cellular options for the Tab S8 series, so you may be able to pop in your SIM card and use data. But for the most part, you’d need to connect to a WiFi network. We’d advise a WiFi connection anyway since the setup process can chew through your data limit.
Type the password of your Wi-Fi password and click the Connect button when you’re done.
Give your Galaxy Tab S8 a few minutes. Don’t attempt to turn the tablet off or click any buttons — just wait for the process to complete on its own.
Decide if you want to copy apps and data from a device you’re already using. If you want to start fresh, click on Don’t copy. Otherwise, hit Next.
If you decide to copy your data, choose whether you have access to it or not. If you don’t, you will need to restore an old backup from the cloud. Otherwise, follow the steps below.
Select whether your current device runs Android or iOS/iPadOS. If it’s an Android device, you will be able to copy more of your personal data, including paid app purchases from the Google Play Store.
Sign in to your Google account to use the company’s services, such as the Google Play Store to download apps and games. Start by typing your Gmail address, followed by its password.
Go through the authentication process as instructed. This is to confirm that it’s indeed the account owner signing in.
Agree to Google’s Terms of Service and Privacy Policy after thoroughly reading them. If they sound fishy to you, you can simply skip adding your Google account to the Galaxy Tab S8. You will miss out on some of the company’s features and services, though.
Give your tablet a few moments to communicate with Google servers after agreeing to the terms.
Choose which sensors and data Google is permitted to access. You can also enable Google Drive backups to secure your data in the cloud and make moving to a new device in the future a faster process.
Optionally protect your tablet with a password, PIN, pattern, or through biometric authentication. Going for fingerprint or face recognition protection will require you to set another non-biometric protection method. Note that the base Galaxy Tab S8 comes with a side-mounted fingerprint scanner, while the Tab S8 Plus and Ultra have an in-display fingerprint sensor.
Choose your desired password or PIN and confirm it. Make sure it’s not too easy to prevent potential thieves or snoopers from accessing your data if they gain physical access to your Galaxy Tab S8.
Optionally enable the Hey Google hot word. This would allow you to control your tablet and ask for information by using your voice only.
Decide if Google Assistant is permitted to work when your device is locked. If you leave your tablet at home at all times, there’s no harm in enabling that if you trust the people you live with.
Give your Galaxy Tab S8 a few minutes. Again, don’t click any buttons or attempt to turn it off at this stage.
You can optionally sign in with your Samsung account to take advantage of more of the company’s services, such as the Galaxy Store and Samsung Members — which can be used to run device diagnostic tests.
Voila! Once you’re done with the previous step, you’re ready to start using your new tablet! You can either click Finish to use your Galaxy Tab S8 or tap on Explore your Galaxy to read through more tips.
After clicking Finish, you’re taken to the familiar home screen — where you can start personalizing and using your new device.
Motorola is gearing up to launch a new affordable smartphone under its Moto G series. Dubbed the Moto G22, the phone will reportedly succeed the last year’s Moto G20. Now ahead of the official launch, a new leak has revealed the design and key specifications of the device.
WinFuture has shared high-res renders of the Moto G22, giving us a closer look at the phone’s design. There are some notable cosmetic changes here. The rear-mounted fingerprint scanner is gone, replaced by a side-mounted sensor embedded into the power button. The rectangular camera module on the back sports an updated design; the primary sensor and the LED flash module are placed together inside a ring, with the remaining three sensors sitting just below. Over on the front, the phone sports an OLED panel with a centered hole-punch cutout for the selfie camera.
While the Moto G20 had an LCD panel, the Moto G22 reportedly sports an OLED display. At 6.53-inch, it’s roughly the same size as the last year, and the screen resolution (HD+) and refresh rate (90Hz) are also unchanged. Under the hood, the phone is powered by MediaTek’s Helio G37 chipset, a step up from the Unisoc T700 chip on the Moto G20. The primary camera has been upgraded from a 48MP sensor to a new 50MP f/1.8 sensor, and it’s joined by an 8MP ultra-wide camera and two 2MP depth and macro shooters.
The Moto G22 reportedly packs a 5,000mAh battery and charges via a 10W charger. Finally, we’re told the phone will run Android 12 out of the box, offers Bluetooth 5.2 and 4G LTE support, and has a microSD card slot.
Motorola hasn’t officially confirmed anything about the Moto G22 at this point. WinFuture says the phone will be priced under €200 and will be available in only black color initially.
