Samsung Galaxy M31 with 64MP quad cameras, One UI 2.0 based on Android 10 launches in India

Last year, Samsung’s mobile division took the radical step of reorganizing its priorities for the price-sensitive markets such as India. The electronics giant introduced a new series – the M Series – to tackle intense competition from brands like Xiaomi and Redmi. It began 2019 by launching the Galaxy M10, Galaxy M20, and the Galaxy M30. Later on in the year, the Samsung Galaxy M30s was launched as an upgrade to the Galaxy M30 and it was followed by the Galaxy M40. Almost five months after the Galaxy M30s, Samsung is now bringing the Galaxy M31 to India with minor upgrades – most importantly, a 64MP camera.

The Samsung Galaxy M31 now features a quad camera setup on the back, with a 64MP Samsung ISOCELL Bright GW1 sensor for the primary camera. The other cameras include an 8MP wide-angle camera with a 123º field of view, a 5MP macro camera, and a 5MP depth sensor. The front camera has also been upgraded from 16MP on the Samsung Galaxy M30s to a 32MP sensor on the Galaxy M31.

Internally, not much has changed; the Samsung Galaxy M31 is also powered by Exynos 9611 like its predecessor but 6GB RAM now comes as the standard option. In terms of storage, there’s an option between 64GB and 128GB of UFS 2.1 NAND flash storage. The smartphone also retains the massive 6,000mAh battery along with 15W charging while the 6.4-inch Super AMOLED display also remains the same.

In terms of software, the Galaxy M31 now comes with One UI 2.0 based on Android 10 out of the box. Samsung hasn’t made any promises on future updates but the state of software updates appears to be improving significantly. The Galaxy M20 and the M30 received the Android 10 update in December last year, so there’s hope for Android 11 on the Galaxy M31 as well.

Samsung Galaxy M31 Specifications

Specification	Samsung Galaxy M31
Colors	Ocean Blue, Space Black
Display	6.4-inch Super AMOLED 1080 x 2340 91% screen-to-body ratio
Dimensions & Weight	159 x 75.1 x 8.9 mm 191g
SoC	Exynos 9611 4 x ARM Cortex-A73 @ 2.31GHz 4 x ARM Cortex-A53 @ 1.74GHz Mali G72 GPU
RAM and Storage	6GB + 64GB 6GB + 128GB
Expandable Storage	Up to 512GB
USB	Type-C
Battery and Charging	6,000 mAh 15W Fast Charging
Fingerprint Sensor	Rear-mounted
Rear Camera	64MP primary, Samsung GW1, f/1.8 8MP 123° ultra-wide angle sensor, f/2.2 5MP depth sensor, f/2.2 5MP macro camera
Front Camera	32MP

Price & Availability

The Samsung Galaxy M31 will be available in India via Amazon and Samsung’s online store starting March 5th, 12PM IST.

The 6GB/64GB variant is priced at ₹15,999 whereas the 6GB/128GB variant will be priced at ₹16,999. However, for the first few sales, there is an additional discount of ₹1,000 if you purchase the phone on Amazon.

The post Samsung Galaxy M31 with 64MP quad cameras, One UI 2.0 based on Android 10 launches in India appeared first on xda-developers.

from xda-developers https://ift.tt/2wLJ8Hs
via IFTTT

Leaked EU proposal reveals plan to make smartphone batteries easier to replace

Replacing a dead battery on smartphones used to be quite easy not so long ago. It didn’t require any professional help and users could easily pop the back cover open to access the replaceable battery. And having a replaceable battery on your smartphone was more of a norm than an exception. These days, however, replacing a dead battery on your smartphone is a herculean task that requires specialized equipment and poses the risk of voiding the warranty. But this might change soon as the EU is currently mulling over a plan to make smartphone batteries easily replaceable once again.

According to a recent report from Dutch financial publication Het Financieele Dagblad (FD), the EU wants to force electronics manufacturers to facilitate easier battery replacements. Sustainability seems to be the core idea behind this proposal, as easier battery replacements will allow people to use their smartphones for a longer duration, thereby generating lesser electronic waste. A leaked draft for the proposal was recently procured by FD and it reveals that Frans Timmermans, vice-president of the ‘Green Deal’ at the European Commission, will be presenting it mid-March. The EU is reportedly adding the finishing touches to the proposal, which will reportedly enforce wider product recycling, re-use of raw material, and more sustainable production.

The report comes just a couple of weeks after the EU voted in favor of forcing smartphone manufacturers to adopt USB Type-C as the standard port on all devices. The standardization of ports, coupled with easily replaceable batteries, is expected to greatly reduce e-waste. As per the proposal, the onus of reducing e-waste will fall on the manufacturers, who will have to ensure that their devices are easy to repair. They will also need to ensure that replacement parts are made available to the masses which, in turn, is expected to help repair companies. Furthermore, Timmerman has also proposed an EU-wide ban on the destruction of unsold items, which will promote the re-use of raw materials and reduce the waste exports to other countries.

Additionally, in a bid to promote recycling/reuse of old electronics, the EU will work on a European collection system for old mobile phones, tablets, and chargers. On top of all that, the proposal reveals that the EU also wants to focus on more extensive recycling of packaging materials and limit the use of microplastics in products and packaging.

---

Source: Het Financieele Dagblad

Via: tweakers

The post Leaked EU proposal reveals plan to make smartphone batteries easier to replace appeared first on xda-developers.

from xda-developers https://ift.tt/37QMt4Q
via IFTTT

Leaked EU proposal reveals plan to make smartphone batteries easier to replace

Replacing a dead battery on smartphones used to be quite easy not so long ago. It didn’t require any professional help and users could easily pop the back cover open to access the replaceable battery. And having a replaceable battery on your smartphone was more of a norm than an exception. These days, however, replacing a dead battery on your smartphone is a herculean task that requires specialized equipment and poses the risk of voiding the warranty. But this might change soon as the EU is currently mulling over a plan to make smartphone batteries easily replaceable once again.

According to a recent report from Dutch financial publication Het Financieele Dagblad (FD), the EU wants to force electronics manufacturers to facilitate easier battery replacements. Sustainability seems to be the core idea behind this proposal, as easier battery replacements will allow people to use their smartphones for a longer duration, thereby generating lesser electronic waste. A leaked draft for the proposal was recently procured by FD and it reveals that Frans Timmermans, vice-president of the ‘Green Deal’ at the European Commission, will be presenting it mid-March. The EU is reportedly adding the finishing touches to the proposal, which will reportedly enforce wider product recycling, re-use of raw material, and more sustainable production.

The report comes just a couple of weeks after the EU voted in favor of forcing smartphone manufacturers to adopt USB Type-C as the standard port on all devices. The standardization of ports, coupled with easily replaceable batteries, is expected to greatly reduce e-waste. As per the proposal, the onus of reducing e-waste will fall on the manufacturers, who will have to ensure that their devices are easy to repair. They will also need to ensure that replacement parts are made available to the masses which, in turn, is expected to help repair companies. Furthermore, Timmerman has also proposed an EU-wide ban on the destruction of unsold items, which will promote the re-use of raw materials and reduce the waste exports to other countries.

Additionally, in a bid to promote recycling/reuse of old electronics, the EU will work on a European collection system for old mobile phones, tablets, and chargers. On top of all that, the proposal reveals that the EU also wants to focus on more extensive recycling of packaging materials and limit the use of microplastics in products and packaging.

---

Source: Het Financieele Dagblad

Via: tweakers

The post Leaked EU proposal reveals plan to make smartphone batteries easier to replace appeared first on xda-developers.

from xda-developers https://ift.tt/37QMt4Q
via IFTTT

Huawei Mate Xs First Impressions – A different take on Foldable Smartphones

It’s the year of foldable smartphones, it seems. The Samsung Galaxy Z Flip, a Samsung Galaxy Fold 2 in the works, the Motorola RAZR, and now the Huawei Mate Xs want a slice of the pie. Huawei is no stranger to foldable smartphones, though their first device, the Huawei Mate X, only ever launched in China. Its successor, the Mate Xs, just got announced in Barcelona, and we got to spend some hands-on time with it. The foldable Mate Xs does not have Google Mobile Services pre-installed since Huawei is still on the U.S.’s Entity List. Instead, the device includes Huawei Mobile Services, which is the company’s alternative to Google Play Services. Despite this setback, Huawei is going full steam ahead without Google and with their own vision on what foldable smartphones should look like.

Huawei Mate Xs Forums

Specifications

The Huawei Mate Xs is definitely top-tier when it comes to specifications, though you’d hope that’s the case at a price of €2,499. Huawei’s take on the foldable form factor is different than Samsung’s or Motorola’s. Huawei’s devices involve a display that wraps around the outside, rather than being protected on the inside of some kind of a clamshell design. The Mate Xs has a plastic screen that doesn’t feel any different from the Huawei Mate X. In contrast, the new Galaxy Z Flip notably features an ultra-thin layer of glass, though we’ve seen that the glass is more for form than function. Because the screen of the Mate Xs wraps around the device, there’s no need for a secondary display. Huawei claims that the Mate Xs has a durable “quad-layer” display along with a redesigned hinge mechanism to further prevent any accidental damage. The display is composed of two layers of polyamide film, followed by the flexible OLED display, a soft polymer for cushion, and finally a layer that connects the display to the body.

The Huawei Mate Xs is also powered by the HiSilicon Kirin 990 chipset, which launched alongside the Huawei Mate 30 last year. It has 8GB of RAM, 512GB of storage, and a 4,500 mAh battery.

Camera-wise, the Huawei Mate Xs is packing a main 40MP camera, an 8MP telephoto camera, a 16MP wide-angle camera, and a depth-sensing camera. All of these cameras are housed on the “rear,” but when the screen is folded, they can face the user. Speaking of the display again, it’s 8-inches in tablet mode and 6.6-inches when folded.

Huawei Mate Xs design

Huawei is very proud of the Mate Xs design, particularly when it comes to the lack of a notch, the design of the hinge internally, and the lack of a gap when the device is folded over. While there is indeed no notch and no gap, it can be quite annoying to take selfies, and it can also be quite a thick device. When trying to take a selfie, you need to fold the device, open the camera, activate the selfie camera, and then turn around the device to use the other screen. You can then keep using it like this if you want, though the phone will leave a large annoying message at the bottom of the display so that you don’t.

As for how the actual folding part of the Huawei Mate Xs works, it’s rather simple. When the device is folded entirely over, you can press an ejection button on the back (the button with a red stripe) which will release it and flip it halfway out. You then just need to pull it to open the rest.

The four stages of opening the Huawei Mate Xs

From there, you can use the Huawei Mate Xs just like you would any other Android tablet. Watch YouTube, play games, browse the internet, etc. When you want to put it away again, simply fold it back up again into its phone form.

Unlike with the Samsung Galaxy Fold, the Huawei Mate Xs doesn’t really have any compromises when it’s in phone mode. The screen isn’t a tiny placeholder to be used only when you can’t unfold the device – it’s entirely serviceable by itself. Sure it’s plastic and that’s a downside, but if you’re careful with the device things should be okay. However, nobody has had one of these for long enough to pass the test of time quite yet.

Entering the fold

The Huawei Mate Xs is, more or less, the same device as the Huawei Mate X but with one or two key upgrades. It feels basically the same but has a newer chipset, redesigned hinge, and a better hinge mechanism. While I didn’t get enough time with the Mate Xs to test more than just the pre-installed applications, it was a lot of fun to play with to see how apps reacted to the device folding and unfolding. For example, the settings application would change from tablet mode to phone mode when you folded and unfolded the device; simple stuff that you’d expect to be the case, but may not necessarily have been implemented by Huawei. The Huawei Mate Xs is certainly a unique take on the foldable smartphone, but with Huawei pushing a launch without Google Apps on board, it might be a tough sell, especially at its €2,499 price.

The post Huawei Mate Xs First Impressions – A different take on Foldable Smartphones appeared first on xda-developers.

from xda-developers https://ift.tt/2HPiJe6
via IFTTT

WhatsApp for Desktop’s latest update contains hidden dark mode

We first saw evidence of a dark theme coming to WhatsApp back in March last year. The Facebook-owned messenger, which boasts of over 1.5 Billion monthly active users as of early 2018, kept dropping hints of the upcoming dark theme all the way until late last year in November. While other apps from Facebook, including Messenger and Instagram, received dark themes on Android, WhatsApp’s dark theme was still nowhere to be seen. Then, earlier this year in January, WhatsApp on Android finally received a dark theme on the beta channel. But sadly, there was still no dark theme for the desktop version of the app. Now, it seems like the developers are finally coming around to including a dark theme on the desktop version.

If you’ve been following our coverage of WhatsApp’s elusive dark theme, you’d already know that there’s a styling mod for WhatsApp for desktop that themes the desktop client with a dark theme. The mod in question was developed by XDA Member m4heshd, who has now uncovered evidence that suggests that the desktop version could soon get a dark theme officially. In a recent post on our forums, m4heshd shared screenshots of strings of code in the source of the latest WhatsApp desktop build (v0.4.930) that point towards a native dark theme for the messenger.

As you can see in the screenshot above, the native dark theme for WhatsApp for desktop looks a lot like the dark theme we’ve seen on Android devices. However, since the feature is still in development as of this moment, WhatsApp might make some changes to it before it’s released to the public. As of now, there’s no official information from WhatsApp regarding the upcoming dark theme for desktop.

---

Source: XDA Forums

The post WhatsApp for Desktop’s latest update contains hidden dark mode appeared first on xda-developers.

from xda-developers https://ift.tt/2wFKMu0
via IFTTT

Huawei Mate Xs First Impressions – A different take on Foldable Smartphones

It’s the year of foldable smartphones, it seems. The Samsung Galaxy Z Flip, a Samsung Galaxy Fold 2 in the works, the Motorola RAZR, and now the Huawei Mate Xs want a slice of the pie. Huawei is no stranger to foldable smartphones, though their first device, the Huawei Mate X, only ever launched in China. Its successor, the Mate Xs, just got announced in Barcelona, and we got to spend some hands-on time with it. The foldable Mate Xs does not have Google Mobile Services pre-installed since Huawei is still on the U.S.’s Entity List. Instead, the device includes Huawei Mobile Services, which is the company’s alternative to Google Play Services. Despite this setback, Huawei is going full steam ahead without Google and with their own vision on what foldable smartphones should look like.

Huawei Mate Xs Forums

Specifications

The Huawei Mate Xs is definitely top-tier when it comes to specifications, though you’d hope that’s the case at a price of €2,499. Huawei’s take on the foldable form factor is different than Samsung’s or Motorola’s. Huawei’s devices involve a display that wraps around the outside, rather than being protected on the inside of some kind of a clamshell design. The Mate Xs has a plastic screen that doesn’t feel any different from the Huawei Mate X. In contrast, the new Galaxy Z Flip notably features an ultra-thin layer of glass, though we’ve seen that the glass is more for form than function. Because the screen of the Mate Xs wraps around the device, there’s no need for a secondary display. Huawei claims that the Mate Xs has a durable “quad-layer” display along with a redesigned hinge mechanism to further prevent any accidental damage. The display is composed of two layers of polyamide film, followed by the flexible OLED display, a soft polymer for cushion, and finally a layer that connects the display to the body.

The Huawei Mate Xs is also powered by the HiSilicon Kirin 990 chipset, which launched alongside the Huawei Mate 30 last year. It has 8GB of RAM, 512GB of storage, and a 4,500 mAh battery.

Camera-wise, the Huawei Mate Xs is packing a main 40MP camera, an 8MP telephoto camera, a 16MP wide-angle camera, and a depth-sensing camera. All of these cameras are housed on the “rear,” but when the screen is folded, they can face the user. Speaking of the display again, it’s 8-inches in tablet mode and 6.6-inches when folded.

Huawei Mate Xs design

Huawei is very proud of the Mate Xs design, particularly when it comes to the lack of a notch, the design of the hinge internally, and the lack of a gap when the device is folded over. While there is indeed no notch and no gap, it can be quite annoying to take selfies, and it can also be quite a thick device. When trying to take a selfie, you need to fold the device, open the camera, activate the selfie camera, and then turn around the device to use the other screen. You can then keep using it like this if you want, though the phone will leave a large annoying message at the bottom of the display so that you don’t.

As for how the actual folding part of the Huawei Mate Xs works, it’s rather simple. When the device is folded entirely over, you can press an ejection button on the back (the button with a red stripe) which will release it and flip it halfway out. You then just need to pull it to open the rest.

The four stages of opening the Huawei Mate Xs

From there, you can use the Huawei Mate Xs just like you would any other Android tablet. Watch YouTube, play games, browse the internet, etc. When you want to put it away again, simply fold it back up again into its phone form.

Unlike with the Samsung Galaxy Fold, the Huawei Mate Xs doesn’t really have any compromises when it’s in phone mode. The screen isn’t a tiny placeholder to be used only when you can’t unfold the device – it’s entirely serviceable by itself. Sure it’s plastic and that’s a downside, but if you’re careful with the device things should be okay. However, nobody has had one of these for long enough to pass the test of time quite yet.

Entering the fold

The Huawei Mate Xs is, more or less, the same device as the Huawei Mate X but with one or two key upgrades. It feels basically the same but has a newer chipset, redesigned hinge, and a better hinge mechanism. While I didn’t get enough time with the Mate Xs to test more than just the pre-installed applications, it was a lot of fun to play with to see how apps reacted to the device folding and unfolding. For example, the settings application would change from tablet mode to phone mode when you folded and unfolded the device; simple stuff that you’d expect to be the case, but may not necessarily have been implemented by Huawei. The Huawei Mate Xs is certainly a unique take on the foldable smartphone, but with Huawei pushing a launch without Google Apps on board, it might be a tough sell, especially at its €2,499 price.

The post Huawei Mate Xs First Impressions – A different take on Foldable Smartphones appeared first on xda-developers.

from xda-developers https://ift.tt/2HPiJe6
via IFTTT

WhatsApp for Desktop’s latest update contains hidden dark mode

We first saw evidence of a dark theme coming to WhatsApp back in March last year. The Facebook-owned messenger, which boasts of over 1.5 Billion monthly active users as of early 2018, kept dropping hints of the upcoming dark theme all the way until late last year in November. While other apps from Facebook, including Messenger and Instagram, received dark themes on Android, WhatsApp’s dark theme was still nowhere to be seen. Then, earlier this year in January, WhatsApp on Android finally received a dark theme on the beta channel. But sadly, there was still no dark theme for the desktop version of the app. Now, it seems like the developers are finally coming around to including a dark theme on the desktop version.

If you’ve been following our coverage of WhatsApp’s elusive dark theme, you’d already know that there’s a styling mod for WhatsApp for desktop that themes the desktop client with a dark theme. The mod in question was developed by XDA Member m4heshd, who has now uncovered evidence that suggests that the desktop version could soon get a dark theme officially. In a recent post on our forums, m4heshd shared screenshots of strings of code in the source of the latest WhatsApp desktop build (v0.4.930) that point towards a native dark theme for the messenger.

As you can see in the screenshot above, the native dark theme for WhatsApp for desktop looks a lot like the dark theme we’ve seen on Android devices. However, since the feature is still in development as of this moment, WhatsApp might make some changes to it before it’s released to the public. As of now, there’s no official information from WhatsApp regarding the upcoming dark theme for desktop.

---

Source: XDA Forums

The post WhatsApp for Desktop’s latest update contains hidden dark mode appeared first on xda-developers.

from xda-developers https://ift.tt/2wFKMu0
via IFTTT