Now that Nothing Phone (1) knockoffs are starting to appear, how does the smartphone startup plan to make sure its next phone stands out? Well first, I doubt Unihertz has Nothing execs quaking in their boots. But second, the company is planning to make the Nothing Phone (2) a true flagship by giving it a major processor upgrade.
Meanwhile there’s more evidence that new Google Pixel phones are on the way, Sony’s WF-1000XM4 true wireless earbuds just got more useful thanks to a firmware update, and Amlogic has a new chip that could be used to bring 8K video support to low-cost Android TV boxes.
Here’s a roundup of recent tech news from around the web.
Nothing Phone 2 Is Heading to the US With Snapdragon 8 [CNET]
The Nothing Phone (1) has a striking design, but a mid-range Snapdragon 778G+ processor. But the company says its next phone will have a flagship-class Snapdragon 8 series processor. Update: Apparently it will be a Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 chip.
New Google ‘phone’ shows up at FCC [9to5Google]
A new Google phone stops by the FCC, could be a Pixel 7a (seems likely) or a Pixel Fold (maybe a little less likely, but probably coming eventually).
Amlogic S928X specifications [CNX Software]
Amlogic S928X is a 5-core procesor with 1 Cortex-A76 core, 4 Cortex-A55 cores, Mali-G57 graphics and a 3.2 TOPS AI accelerator. It’s said to support up to 8K/60Hz video in a variety of formats and could be used in upcoming Android TV boxes.
Multi-point connect for Sony WF-1000XM4 earbuds [/r/SonyHeadphones]
Sony brings support for multi-point Bluetooth connections to the WF-1000XM4 earbuds with firmware v2.0 update, allowing you to connect to two devices at the same time.
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The Amlogic S928X has quiet weak specifications. I don’t think it’s responsible to say it’s an 8K box. This happens all the time, where they get certification (it’s easy/cheap but meaningless) and say it supports the feature. Theoretically. It can’t really run it in practice.
This chipset is going to struggle to do 4K/60 as is.
If you’re interested look in the recent fiasco with the MediaTek Pentonic 1000 chipset. It’s similar to this, and was supposed to be released for high-end TV Manufacturers. Yeah, also can’t do 8K or 144Hz or many other specs that they advertised it would do last year.
Unfortunately, if you’re a media junkie you really have to stick to LG, or Samsung, maybe Sony if you’re check it properly.
Sony brought multi-point Bluetooth connections to the Linkbuds a few months back.
They can connect to multiple devices at once, but they only play sound from one at a time. They try to switch devices automatically, but occasionally you have to go and force it. I mostly use them with my phone, so I tend to just disable bluetooth on my other devices except when I specifically want to connect my linkbuds to them. That keeps them from randomly switching devices just because a notification came in or whatever. (The main problem is if I pause something, then go to resume it – if they’re connected to multiple devices, then it’s somewhat random which one gets sent the “resume” signal.)
It’s better than having to re-pair them each time you want to switch devices, but not really ideal.
You have typo in title SN?