Mobile

Years of irate comments have hammered home that not all our readers want us to cover politics. And hey, I’m just a humble phone reviewer, so I should stick to what I know. Now, let’s see if there are any new players in the phone industry this year...

Just... not the actual phones. Instead, it’s 2023’s repairable Fairbuds XL headphones that will go on sale on Amazon this month. As for the excellent Fairphone 6, CEO Raymond van Eck tells me launching that is a “complicated process,” but one he hopes will be sorted “in the near future.”

Taking a page out of the automakers’ playbook, the 2026 editions of the Moto G Play and Moto G will arrive before the start of the new year. The $169 G Play comes with 5G for the first time but a measly 64GB of storage; the $199 Moto G has a 50-megapixel camera and 128GB of storage.

If you buy the OneXSugar Sugar 1, please tell me how it goes! It’s one of the most popular Today I’m Toying With videos I’ve filmed, and I’m so curious if they nailed it. (I’m also very curious about its new competition.)

O2 Satellite won’t launch until the first half of 2026, and only with messaging and data for maps and location services at first, but it’s expected to expand. O2 customers can register their interest now, though pricing is still to come.

That’s when the company’s new flagship gets its global launch. We already know what to expect thanks to this week’s China launch event, including a huge 7,300mAh battery and fast 165Hz display, we just don’t know how much it’ll cost in the US and Europe.

Android Headlines and leaker OnLeaks have shared CAD renders of next year’s affordable Pixel handset based on leaked info, and you’d be hard-pressed to spot the difference between it and this year’s 9A. Hopefully Google has some upgrades planned under the surface if the design really is going to change so little.

The oh-so-hip phone manufacturer will launch what it’s calling its “first entry-level smartphone” this Wednesday, the Phone 3A Lite. The teaser confirms the return of some form of Glyph lighting, but we don’t know much more than that. Expect it to cost less than the $379 / £329 Phone 3A, though I suspect a US launch is unlikely.

Qualcomm’s new chip brings its 4nm process to the lowest end of its 6 series chips. It packs four Cortex-A78 performance cores at up to 2.4 GHz and four Cortex-A55 efficiency cores clocked at 1.8 GHz, a nice bump from the 2-and-6 arrangement of the 6s Gen 3. You won’t find too many phones out there running the 6s, but maybe a future version of the Moto G Stylus can benefit.

Frustrated that Xiaomi’s new flagships, with second screens on the back, aren’t launching in the US? Nuu Mobile says its B40 is the first US phone with a second screen, though at $299.99 this is no flagship. Its Dimensity 7050 chip is basic, and the 64-megapixel main camera is joined only by a macro.

Bloomberg reports Samsung is finally ready to show off its first trifold phone — well, nearly. It will apparently appear at the APEC summit at the end of the month to demonstrate South Korea’s technological prowess in front of a few world leaders. But will we see it first at next week’s XR headset event?

The GT 8 Pro launches in China next week, but we already know about its most unique new feature: interchangeable camera mounts, replaceable with just a couple of Torx screws. Realme shows off a lot of options in the teaser video, the question will be how many actually ever launch.

That’s what both Korean site Newspim and fansite SamMobile report. Rumors had claimed Samsung would swap the Plus for the Edge in next year’s S26 trio, but low sales for the first slim phone may have changed those plans, bringing the Plus back into the lineup.