I'm a senior editor at XDA Developers. I have been a journalist for a decade, the last five years covering the mobile tech scene closely, reviewing just about every phone and attending trade shows and launches. I also run a gadget review channel on YouTube.
Xiaomi officially confirmed today what had been rumored for a while: the Beijing-headquartered tech giant will begin a "long term strategic cooperation" with German camera maker Leica, and the first Leica-branded Xiaomi smartphone will launch this July.
The news was announced via a press release Monday morning in Asia and comes after rumors of Leica and...
When it comes to Chinese phone brands' reputation on an international stage, Vivo probably isn't as well known as Huawei, Xiaomi, OPPO, or OnePlus. But those of us who follow the smartphone scene closely know Vivo has been making really good phones for a couple of years now, and last fall's Vivo X70 Pro Plus...
When foldables first came into existence in 2019, there were two forms: the book-like inner fold established by Samsung's Galaxy Fold, or Huawei's wraparound outer fold as seen in the Mate X. While I've always thought the inner fold made more sense because the design protects the main screen when not in use, there were...
Sony's smartphones have always differed from other handsets on the market, in that they never seemed to care about industry trends. This could be something as superficial as bezel sizes -- Sony has never bothered to chase the all-screen look the way other Android brands have -- to something as crucial as digital imaging philosophies....
Most tech reviewers and unbiased consumers agree Apple’s iPad has been the standard-bearer for tablets, mainly because both Android and Windows aren’t nearly as optimized for the form factor (the latter particularly more so). But Samsung has been working hard to fix the problem — to make Android apps run better on a tablet screen...
Every new foldable phone that gets released should and will be compared against Samsung's latest foldables. Samsung is the pioneer and originator of the product category, and for most of the world, Samsung's foldables are still the only foldables they have access to. The latest challenger is the Vivo X Fold, which brings much of...
I used to think gaming phones were gimmicks. I'm not talking about the initial batch of pre-iPhone era devices like the Nokia N-Gage or Gizmondo, nor early 2010s-era devices from Sony and Samsung with slide-out controllers. Those devices actually brought something new and different to the mobile market. I am instead referring to the recent...
The foldable phone scene can still be considered nascent in the majority of the world. But inside mainland China, it's already reached a status of normal, with Huawei, OPPO, Xiaomi, Honor, Motorola, and even little-known brands like Royole all selling foldables alongside Samsung. With so much competition, brands really can't rest on their laurels, and...
When it comes to comparing phones, there is no comparison more apt than Apple's iPhone against Samsung's Galaxy, because they are the two biggest and most prominent phone brands in the world, and in chunks of the world including and especially the US, they represent iOS vs Android for the average consumer. We've already pitted...
Between Xiaomi and its various sub-brands, the company seemingly has a new phone out every few weeks. This would be annoying if these releases were mediocre, but that's not the case. Xiaomi's flagship phones have gotten very good over the years -- not just a contender to challenge for the top spot of our Best...
Picking the phone with the best camera used to be an easy exercise. In the early days of the smartphone, the iPhone's camera was leaps and bounds better than Android's offerings. Then big-name Android brands caught up and for a couple of years in the mid-2010s Samsung held the crown.
Towards the latter part of the...
Vivo launched a pair of new smartphones -- one slab, one foldable -- last week that are so far exclusive only to the mainland China market. While everyone's attention has been drawn to the foldable device, the more conventional slab, named the Vivo X Note, has a couple of interesting features that set it apart...
