News
Honor 9 challenges the Huawei P10 and Mate 9
It seems like every Honor smartphone is designed to disrupt the market. The Honor 9 is the latest to do so.
The funny thing is, the Honor brand (which is a subsidiary of Huawei) often goes as far as making its parent company look less desirable. It happened a couple of months ago with the Honor 8 Pro looking like a fantastic alternative to Huawei’s P10 and Mate 9 flagships. And now, the Honor 9 makes another solid case for choosing the online-only sold handset.
Technically a successor to last year’s Honor 8, the Honor 9 starts at a reasonable price of a CNY 2,299 or about $340 for the variant owning 4GB of memory and 64GB of storage. That’s a steal considering it comes with the same high-end Kirin 960 processor found in the P10 and Mate 9.
Two more options exist: one with 6GB of memory and 64GB of storage for CNY 2,699 ($400) and another with 6GB of memory and 128GB of storage for CNY 2,999 ($440). So yes, these could beat Huawei’s best smartphones spec for spec.
All it’s lacking is the Leica branding for its cameras, although the trademark dual-camera setup (a pair of 20-megapixel monochrome and 12-megapixel color image sensors) is still there. A less impressive 8-megapixel front-facing camera exists, but this isn’t being marketed as a selfie-centric phone in the first place.
What you’re actually buying into is a well-oiled Android 7.0 Nougat-powered smartphone with a sleek body encasing the 5.15-inch Full HD display in front. Add a decent 3200mAh battery to the package, and we don’t see why this won’t be a hit.
Well, the only hindrance would be its Chinese exclusivity. Until Huawei decides it’s worthy enough to ship internationally like it did with the Honor 8, we’re left looking down for the honor of owning one.
SEE ALSO: Honor 8 Pro is better, cheaper than Huawei P10
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News
Next year’s iPhone might have a curved Liquid Glass screen
A lot of plans are in store for the iPhone’s 20th anniversary.
Apple’s Liquid Glass design marked a return to the three-dimensional aesthetic of Windows Vista. Not content with letting the new design thrive solely on the software side, Apple is reportedly bringing “Liquid Glass” to the iPhone’s hardware.
Next year is important to the history of the iPhone as the ubiquitous phone will celebrate its 20th anniversary. Apple will definitely have major plans to herald the milestone.
According to rumors (via Ice Universe on X), the 20th anniversary iPhone will have a “curved display,” much like the aesthetics of Liquid Glass. However, the device will not be “anything like the curved screen solutions we have seen on Android phones over the years.”
Instead, the iPhone’s curve will be subtle and will rely on “optical refraction” to produce the illusion of a truly curved screen. The ultimate goal is to reduce the bezel as much as possible, creating an all-screen iPhone.
Naturally, such a form factor comes with questions. For example, where will Apple store the Dynamic Island and its hardware underneath? How will cases work if there are no bezels?
It’s still very early in the news cycle of next year’s iPhone. In fact, reports about the iPhone 18 series are just getting started. As with all rumors this early on, take it with a grain of salt. However, if anything, incorporating “Liquid Glass” into the iPhone’s hardware feels poetic.
With so many rumors coming out as of late, it’s fair to assume that the first foldable iPhone is really coming this year. Right now, there’s still so much time before its projected launch date in the fall, meaning a lot of chances for more rumors to pop out. Case in point, today sees the rumored name for this upcoming device show up: the iPhone Ultra.
We’ve been calling the foldable iPhone as the iPhone Fold for a while now. After all, what else would you call a foldable in a world dominated by the Galaxy Z Fold and Flip series?
According to a new rumor from Macworld, Apple will resurrect the Ultra moniker, which last made an appearance in the Apple Watch Ultra series, for its upcoming premium iPhone model. The foldable iPhone will be called, very simply, the iPhone Ultra.
Much like the iPhone Air, the iPhone Ultra will not have a number in its name, making it distinct from the upcoming iPhone 18 series. As a foldable, it makes sense for Apple to establish its own series for the form factor.
Additionally, Apple will reportedly use the same Ultra naming convention for a new series of MacBooks with a touchscreen OLED display. The MacBook Ultra might come out next year.
Both the iPhone Ultra and the MacBook Ultra will likely occupy top spots in Apple’s gallery of devices. Apple has even reportedly pushed the regular iPhone 18 duo’s launch to next year, clearing the room for the Pro duo and the Ultra for this fall’s event.
SEE ALSO: Apple’s iPhone Fold reportedly hits engineering delays
The best part of the Steam Deck is its portability. However, an underrated aspect of the handheld console is its button layout. Unlike its contemporaries, the Steam Deck has two trackpads on either side of the device. Now, that same layout is coming to the Steam Controller.
The Steam Controller was part of the trio of innovative devices that Valve announced late last year. While the spotlight is on the Steam Machine, the Controller is also enough to whet any gamer’s appetite.
Besides the convenient layout, the Steam Controller offers easy integration with Steam. The peripheral can communicate with any device — PC or mobile — that has Steam or the Steam Link app installed. As such, it’s easy to take control of your gaming library straight from the controller.
The only catch, though, is that it works solely on Steam. Any other game that has its own separate launcher, such as Genshin Impact, cannot be used with the Steam Controller unless they’re added directly to Steam.
The Steam Controller is launching on May 4 globally. It will retail for US$ 99.
On the flip side, Valve has not announced when the rest of its hardware will launch. Both the Steam Machine and the Steam Frame have not made appearances yet, reportedly because of the ongoing issues with RAM production all over the world. However, the company is still optimistic about releasing these devices within the year.
SEE ALSO: Valve announces its own console called the Steam Machine
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