Exclusive: Here’s our real-world first look at Realme’s MagDart charging

Apple launched a new MagSafe wireless charger with the launch of the iPhone 12 series last year. The charger made it easy for users to align the charging coil in their phones with the one in the charger, as it magnetically attached to the back of the phone in the correct location. While many Android phones support Qi wireless charging and some work with Apple’s MagSafe charger, we’re yet to see an Android OEM come out with a similar solution. However, that’s set to change soon as Realme is working on a magnetic wireless charger called “MagDart.”

Over the last few weeks, we’ve seen a couple of reports about Realme’s upcoming MagDart wireless charger. The company has secured a trademark for “MagDart” from the EUIPO, and we’ve seen renders of two magnetic wireless chargers with Realme branding. In addition, we’ve learned that the Realme Flash could be the first phone to support the upcoming MagDart chargers. Ahead of the launch, we’ve obtained a charging test video of the upcoming MagDart charger that also showcases the Realme Flash phone.

As you can see in the attached video, Realme’s MagDart charger takes around 3 minutes to charge the Realme Flash from 18-26%. Based on this figure, we speculate that the charger will likely take less than an hour to charge the phone from 0-100% (depending on the battery size).

A separate image showing the charging conditions further reveals that the battery current is 4.4A and the voltage is around 4V. Since the phone likely has a dual-cell battery, this means that the charger delivers about 35W power to the phone. The charger’s actual output voltage is 10V, with 2V being lost to the internal wired connection to each cell. This means that the charger itself outputs 50W of power. That’s quite impressive for such a small wireless charger.

At the moment, we have no further details about the Realme Flash or the MagDart Chargers. We’ll make sure to let you know as soon as we learn more.

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Exclusive: Here’s our real-world first look at Realme’s MagDart charging

Apple launched a new MagSafe wireless charger with the launch of the iPhone 12 series last year. The charger made it easy for users to align the charging coil in their phones with the one in the charger, as it magnetically attached to the back of the phone in the correct location. While many Android phones support Qi wireless charging and some work with Apple’s MagSafe charger, we’re yet to see an Android OEM come out with a similar solution. However, that’s set to change soon as Realme is working on a magnetic wireless charger called “MagDart.”

Over the last few weeks, we’ve seen a couple of reports about Realme’s upcoming MagDart wireless charger. The company has secured a trademark for “MagDart” from the EUIPO, and we’ve seen renders of two magnetic wireless chargers with Realme branding. In addition, we’ve learned that the Realme Flash could be the first phone to support the upcoming MagDart chargers. Ahead of the launch, we’ve obtained a charging test video of the upcoming MagDart charger that also showcases the Realme Flash phone.

As you can see in the attached video, Realme’s MagDart charger takes around 3 minutes to charge the Realme Flash from 18-26%. Based on this figure, we speculate that the charger will likely take less than an hour to charge the phone from 0-100% (depending on the battery size).

A separate image showing the charging conditions further reveals that the battery current is 4.4A and the voltage is around 4V. Since the phone likely has a dual-cell battery, this means that the charger delivers about 35W power to the phone. The charger’s actual output voltage is 10V, with 2V being lost to the internal wired connection to each cell. This means that the charger itself outputs 50W of power. That’s quite impressive for a wireless charger.

At the moment, we have no further details about the Realme Flash or the MagDart Chargers. We’ll make sure to let you know as soon as we learn more.

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Google Translate is testing a much-needed redesign that could launch on the Pixel 6

Google Translate is one of the most useful Google apps, allowing you to seamlessly translate text, bilingual conversations, webpages, and more between so many languages. Although the app has continued to gain new tricks such as letting you transcribe real-time speech, it hasn’t seen a major UI refresh in a long while. But that might be changing soon as Google appears to be working on a big redesign for the Android app.

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.

Google Translate 6.21 rolled out over the weekend, and it contains a new Activity titled “NewTranslateActivity” that, when launched, brings up an entirely new UI for the app. It’s still a work in progress at this point as when launching the activity directly, lots of things aren’t functional, including the “camera” button, “more” button, star button in the top left, and the account button in the top right. But this nonetheless gives us a sneak peek at the new design that Google is working on regardless.

As you can see in the screenshots below, the new UI puts a clear emphasis on one-handed usability, with the camera, mic, and language switcher buttons all now appearing at the bottom for easier access. The new UI also gets rid of the hamburger menu that currently gives access to Phrasebook, Saved transcripts, Offline translation, and Settings. It appears these options would reside under the “More” tab located in the bottom left corner.

Interestingly, the Manifest entry for this new Activity suggests this redesign is tied to the Pixel 6 series, Google’s upcoming smartphone lineup rumored to launch in October. The label for the Activity refers to a string named “app_name_p21”, where “p21” likely refers to the 2021 Pixel phones. The actual value for the “app_name_p21” string is “P21 Translate”, so it seems this new design may launch on the Pixel 6 running Android 12. The Manifest entry also suggests this design is the “Material You” redesign for the Translate app, with the style labeled as “Translate_MaterialNext” — Material Next is the internal code-name for Material You.

The new UI being exclusive to Pixel phones wouldn’t all be that surprising, as we have seen Google done that on multiple occasions. In any case, the new UI hasn’t rolled out to any existing Pixel phone. We’ll continue to dig into the APK for more info and let you know if we find anything worth sharing.

Google Translate (Free, Google Play) →

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Google Translate is testing a much-needed redesign that could launch on the Pixel 6

Google Translate is one of the most useful Google apps, allowing you to seamlessly translate text, bilingual conversations, webpages, and more between so many languages. Although the app has continued to gain new tricks such as letting you transcribe real-time speech, it hasn’t seen a major UI refresh in a long while. But that might be changing soon as Google appears to be working on a big redesign for the Android app.

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.

Google Translate 6.21 rolled out over the weekend, and it contains a new Activity titled “NewTranslateActivity” that, when launched, brings up an entirely new UI for the app. It’s still a work in progress at this point as when launching the activity directly, lots of things aren’t functional, including the “camera” button, “more” button, star button in the top left, and the account button in the top right. But this nonetheless gives us a sneak peek at the new design that Google is working on regardless.

As you can see in the screenshots below, the new UI puts a clear emphasis on one-handed usability, with the camera, mic, and language switcher buttons all now appearing at the bottom for easier access. The new UI also gets rid of the hamburger menu that currently gives access to Phrasebook, Saved transcripts, Offline translation, and Settings. It appears these options would reside under the “More” tab located in the bottom left corner.

Interestingly, the Manifest entry for this new Activity suggests this redesign is tied to the Pixel 6 series, Google’s upcoming smartphone lineup rumored to launch in October. The label for the Activity refers to a string named “app_name_p21”, where “p21” likely refers to the 2021 Pixel phones. The actual value for the “app_name_p21” string is “P21 Translate”, so it seems this new design may launch on the Pixel 6 running Android 12. The Manifest entry also suggests this design is the “Material You” redesign for the Translate app, with the style labeled as “Translate_MaterialNext” — Material Next is the internal code-name for Material You.

The new UI being exclusive to Pixel phones wouldn’t all be that surprising, as we have seen Google done that on multiple occasions. In any case, the new UI hasn’t rolled out to any existing Pixel phone. We’ll continue to dig into the APK for more info and let you know if we find anything worth sharing.

Google Translate (Free, Google Play) →

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Study: Dark Mode can extend your phone’s battery life, but there’s a catch

Enabling dark mode on your phone can increase your phone’s battery life, which is something we’ve heard for a while. According to researchers from Purdue University, though, the battery life increase isn’t as great as you may have thought. Plus, a pure black background doesn’t yield many benefits over the dark gray background found in most apps when dark mode is enabled. The study found that enabling dark mode doesn’t give you any major efficiency gains unless you’re looking at it from specific scenarios. The most fruitful battery life gains were found when switching from light mode at full brightness to dark mode.

In the Purdue study (via Android Authority), researchers looked at dark mode power usage from six different applications. Calculator, Google Calendar, Google Maps, Google News, Google Phone, and YouTube were all tested on a Pixel 2, Moto Z3, Pixel 4, and a Pixel 5 — all phones with OLED screens, of course. The researchers tested the power draw when running each of these apps in dark mode for 60 seconds. The researchers said they built a set of tools to accurately measure power draw in pixels.

“When the industry rushed to adopt dark mode, it didn’t have the tools yet to accurately measure power draw by the pixels,” said Charlie Hu, Purdue’s Michael and Katherine Birck Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering. “But now we’re able to give developers the tools they need to give users more energy-efficient apps.”

At around 30%-50% brightness, the researchers found that switching from light mode to dark mode only saved between 3% and 9% power on average. However, switching the other way around at 100% brightness can save as much as an average of 47% battery power.

“Tests done in the past to compare the effects of light mode with dark mode on battery life have treated the phone as a black box, lumping in OLED display with the phone’s other gazillion components. Our tool can accurately isolate the portion of battery drain by the OLED display,” said Pranab Dash, a Purdue Ph.D. student who worked with Hu on the study.

There were other interesting findings too, including that using the Google News app in light mode at 20% brightness on the Pixel 5 draws the same amount of power as when the phone is at 50% brightness in dark mode. Therefore, if the bright display bothers you, then you can increase the brightness when using it without using much more power overall.

The study also mentions that Android’s battery consumption details do not take dark mode into account, so the team developed a tool called “Android Battery+” which does. The researchers want to open source their display profiling tool and also add the Android Battery+ feature into AOSP.

Featured image credits: Purdue University photo/John Underwood

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Study: Dark Mode can extend your phone’s battery life, but there’s a catch

Enabling dark mode on your phone can increase your phone’s battery life, which is something we’ve heard for a while. According to researchers from Purdue University, though, the battery life increase isn’t as great as you may have thought. Plus, a pure black background doesn’t yield many benefits over the dark gray background found in most apps when dark mode is enabled. The study found that enabling dark mode doesn’t give you any major efficiency gains unless you’re looking at it from specific scenarios. The most fruitful battery life gains were found when switching from light mode at full brightness to dark mode.

In the Purdue study (via Android Authority), researchers looked at dark mode power usage from six different applications. Calculator, Google Calendar, Google Maps, Google News, Google Phone, and YouTube were all tested on a Pixel 2, Moto Z3, Pixel 4, and a Pixel 5 — all phones with OLED screens, of course. The researchers tested the power draw when running each of these apps in dark mode for 60 seconds. The researchers said they built a set of tools to accurately measure power draw in pixels.

“When the industry rushed to adopt dark mode, it didn’t have the tools yet to accurately measure power draw by the pixels,” said Charlie Hu, Purdue’s Michael and Katherine Birck Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering. “But now we’re able to give developers the tools they need to give users more energy-efficient apps.”

At around 30%-50% brightness, the researchers found that switching from light mode to dark mode only saved between 3% and 9% power on average. However, switching the other way around at 100% brightness can save as much as an average of 47% battery power.

“Tests done in the past to compare the effects of light mode with dark mode on battery life have treated the phone as a black box, lumping in OLED display with the phone’s other gazillion components. Our tool can accurately isolate the portion of battery drain by the OLED display,” said Pranab Dash, a Purdue Ph.D. student who worked with Hu on the study.

There were other interesting findings too, including that using the Google News app in light mode at 20% brightness on the Pixel 5 draws the same amount of power as when the phone is at 50% brightness in dark mode. Therefore, if the bright display bothers you, then you can increase the brightness when using it without using much more power overall.

The study also mentions that Android’s battery consumption details do not take dark mode into account, so the team developed a tool called “Android Battery+” which does. The researchers want to open source their display profiling tool and also add the Android Battery+ feature into AOSP.

Featured image credits: Purdue University photo/John Underwood

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Here are the games coming to Amazon Luna+ in August 2021

Amazon has announced which games are coming to its Luna+ streaming platform in August. Luna is Amazon’s attempt to compete in the growing cloud gaming market that’s currently being cornered by Microsoft’s Xbox Cloud Gaming, Google’s Stadia, and NVIDIA’s GeForce Now. The difference between it and other services is that it offers games on different “channels” that users can subscribe to separately, rather than everything being covered under a single subscription price.

Amazon Luna+ is the channel on the Luna streaming platform that Amazon personally curates. Users can subscribe to it for $5.99 a month. It’s one of only two channels available at the moment, the other being the beta Ubisoft+ channel that costs $14.99 a month. Luna+ games can be played on PC, Mac, Fire TV devices, and iOS and Android via web apps.

Amazon has announced which games will be coming to Luna+ in August:

• Hokko Life: This community life sim game is set to launch on the platform sometime in August. Set in the village of Hokko, the player must help build the village up while partaking in farming, fishing, and other things that Animal Crossing and Story of Seasons fans will recognize.
• Open Country: This open-world hunting game casts the player as The Ranger, a survivalist attempting to escape urban life. Hunt on behalf of your mentor Gary in a remote hunting lodge or rough it on your own. It’s also coming to Luna+ at some unspecified time in August.
• Bridge Constructor: The Walking Dead: This spin-off of the original Bridge Constructor is coming to Luna+ on August 5. It’s basically exactly what the title suggests: a bridge-building physics simulator, but with the added twist that you’re attempting to fend off a horde of zombies during construction.

As stated last month, Amazon Luna is still in beta, so if you want to play these games and are not already part of Luna, then you can request access on the service’s landing page.

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