Phones

Privacy screen protectors that appear black when viewed to the side aren’t new. Neither are ones that display logos or messages. But I’m tickled by the “Intimacy Shield” from Joi AI. The pitch makes its screen-dimming effect seem like a breakthrough, though I guess it gets credit for injecting some corny graphic T-shirt energy into the screen protector space.

35 crystals have once again been “hand-positioned” in the flip phone’s body, with a larger 32-facet crystal on the hinge, all finished with a quilted, leather-inspired texture in Pantone’s “Meteorite” color. It launches September 10th for $899.99, a $100 premium over the regular Razr — but what says luxury like Swarovski-studded quilted pleather?

It’s short, it’s wide, and it’s red. It’s also powered by Xiaomi’s new in-house Xring 03 chip, so it’ll be interesting to see how performance stacks up. Oh, and it’s launching in China on September 7th, which I’m sure has nothing to do with upcoming events in California.

Acer, which has owned the historic PC brand since 2008, has resurrected it in a line of cheap, cheerful, and exceedingly colorful hardware, ranging from a 14-inch laptop to a portable food steamer. It all goes on sale in Q4 this year, though for now it’s only hitting the market in Europe.

The Mate XT was the world’s first trifold smartphone when it launched last year but the sequel has debuted with a major change. Instead of the original’s Z-shaped arrangement of folding panels, the Huawei Mate XT 2’s side panels each fold inwards meaning you can only use its larger screen when the device is fully unfolded. Preorders are now open in China, but full pricing won’t be known until September 7th.

Foldables tend to struggle with the bend test, but the smaller Galaxy Z Fold 8 survived it, and this year’s Pixel foldable didn’t go up in smoke. Will Apple’s rumored ‘iPhone Ultra’ foldable fare any better?

That’s what the fairly reliable leaker Digital Chat Station thinks Oppo has planned for its Find X10 Pro Max, tipped to launch in either September or October. It’s a different approach to the Find X9 Ultra, which leaned into a 10x periscope lens to stand out.

The new midrange Android phone has almost exactly the exact same design and internals as last year’s Xperia 10 VII apart from two meager upgrades: a brighter display and louder speakers. Oh, and at €599 / £549 (around $700-750), it’ll also be € / £150 more expensive when it launches in Europe in “mid-to-late September.” Thanks, RAMageddon.

The Xring 03 is, a little confusingly, the follow-up to last year’s Xring 01, which appeared in the China-only 15S Pro phone and Pad 7 Ultra tablet. The 3nm chipset, apparently produced by TSMC, has the usual CPU and GPU bumps, plus mobile-first support for LPDDR6 RAM.

The Pura X View will launch next week in China, but Huawei has already revealed its design, including a broad 16:9.5 aspect ratio display. It looks a little like Huawei’s Pura X flip phone did when unfolded, but in a regular slab format. After last month’s Galaxy Z Fold 8, we’re truly in the wide phone era.

Given it’s a minor hardware refresh of last year’s Fairphone 6 it comes as no surprise that the new Fairphone 6 Plus (the company’s first smartphone it will sell directly in the US) was awarded a perfect 10/10 score in iFixit’s teardown test. Disassembly of everything from camera modules to the screen was straightforward using just basic tools.

Sales dropped 64% year-on-year in Q2, according to research from Counterpoint, as manufacturers raised prices or simply stopped shipping cheaper models. Samsung and Motorola have been the only brands to benefit, as smaller companies became unable to undercut them on price. That helped both grow their market share in prepaid phones.

We live blogged almost 90 minutes of a show that was, honestly, better than expected. Our video team cut it down to eight.

The Made By Google keynote, hosted by Trevor Noah, kicks off at 6PM ET. Stay tuned to this website starting at 5:30PM for our live blog. Victoria Song will be there live, with Jay Peters, Jake Kastrenakes, and myself following remotely. Let’s see what happens.

Samsung’s online-exclusive “Pistachio” version of the Galaxy Z Fold 8 looks great, and has apparently been selling well. But I’m a much bigger fan of Google’s Pixel 11 finish by the same name. It looks a lot closer to the color of a good pistachio gelato, unlike whatever minty nonsense Samsung is up to.

Windows Central shared photos showing what appears to be a prototype of a rumored, unreleased Windows phone “that was expected to ship in 2014 under the Surface moniker.” It even has a design similar to a Surface laptop and reportedly included a Qualcomm chip and a 720p display.

Co-founder Akis Evangelidis told Times Now Tech that the company may double the number of phones it launches next year while “expanding its product portfolio across multiple categories,” including audio. He also says Nothing’s “looking at different ways” to launch a new CMF Phone next year, after this year’s was cancelled.

Woot has the unlocked 256GB Google Pixel Fold discounted to $459.99, coming close to its lowest price ever. While the 2023 model can’t hang with the latest in terms of performance or durability, it’s a way to try out a foldable without spending $1,000 or more. Plus, it will get software updates until June 2028. Read our review.