Author: Ewan Spence / Source: Forbes
Taking a look back at seven days of news and headlines across the world of Android, this week’s Android Circuit includes new Galaxy Note 9 leaks, release date thoughts on the Galaxy S10, OnePlus 6 reviews and waterproofing discussions, Pixel 3 design leaked by Google, HTC launching the U12 Plus, Nokia 1 going on sale in UK, and BlackBerry Mobile teases the KEY2.
Android Circuit is here to remind you of a few of the many things that have happened around Android in the last week (and you can find the weekly Apple news digest here).
Latest Galaxy Note 9 Leak
Although the under-screen fingerprint may have been dropped, the upcoming release of the Samsung Galaxy Note9 is expected to showcase Samsung’s latest efforts in the AI space with an updated digital personal assistant. Gordon Kelly reports:
Speaking to The Korea Herald, Gray G. Lee, head of the AI Center Under Samsung Research, revealed the Galaxy Note 9 will be the launch device for Bixby 2.0. This may trigger sneers given the Bixby smart assistant has been widely derided since it launched with the Galaxy S8 last year, but not so fast.
Lee says Bixby 2.0 will be more than just a personal assistant. Instead, it will be an “artificial intelligence platform” which enhances the performance and user experience across the phone. The Assistant itself will also have enhanced natural language processing, improved noise resistance capability and faster response times.
How much of an impact that will have on the day-to-day use of the phablet remains to be seen. More here on Forbes.
Is Samsung Accelerating Galaxy Release Dates
If the Galaxy Note 9 is going to be released early (with indications that a late July launch is possible) what does that mean for the rest of the flagship line up over the next device cycle? It could be the South Korean company is getting ready to launch three key devices over twelve months, as I speculated earlier this week:
Perhaps the early Note 9 appearance opens up the window for the Galaxy S10 to make an early run – and if it did that’s going to provide a lot of sales in Q1 2019.
Of course, this only works if Samsung has a third handset that will wow the press with a new design, show off a new user interface, with a radical approach to new technology, that could be revealed at MWC in late February 2019 to go on sale at the start of the second quarter.
At which point I’ll point out the Galaxy X and the mythical Samsung folding phone. More here on Forbes.
OnePlus 6 Reviewed
This week saw the OnePlus 6 go on public sale, and the first full reviews of the Shenzhen-based manufacturers latest device were published. You can read the highlights here, before I sum up the internet’s impression:
Although the camera has improved it still misses out on that certain something to push it into challenging the top-line handsets. There is no IP rating for water or dust ingress and while it should survive a quick immersion I would have liked to have seen OnePlus reach the by-now defacto IP67 standard. And while the move to a glass-backed device brings it into line with other fashionable phones, it also robs OnePlus of the signature metal back. But it still has a headphone jack, it retains Dual-SIM capability, and the OnePlus ‘three way’ slider for muting alerts or vibrations remains present.
This is a solid iteration on the OnePlus…
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