The Audio Pro Addon C10 has consistently been one of our favourite wireless speakers in the three years since its arrival, winning three What Hi-Fi? Awards on the trot in its price category (‘under £500’). Now, the Swedish firm has released a sequel with enhanced functionality, sound quality and design.
The C10 MkII expands its predecessor’s feature list (which includes AirPlay, Bluetooth, aux and RCA inputs, and access to music streaming services via wi-fi) by adding AirPlay 2 and Google Cast streaming smarts. That now gives owners three ways of using the C10 MkII in a multi-room environment – with Apple devices (via AirPlay 2), Google Cast-compatible speakers, and Audio Pro’s other wireless speakers (via the Audio Pro app). These new features are, Audio Pro says, a direct response to customer demand.
In the name of improved sound quality, Audio Pro has also enhanced the electronics and revised the bass port design, while the dual tweeters and woofer that have helped make the original such a sonic class-leader in its field remain.
(Image credit: Audio Pro)
The number of preset buttons has been increased to six, too, allowing owners quick access to any playlist and radio station they wish to allocate to each one, without the need to use the control app. And last but not least, the new C10 also boasts a magnetic fabric mesh speaker grille to hide its koala-resembling frontage and bring it more in line with the firm’s latest speakers, such as the G10 and BT5.
Unsurprisingly, those extra features and improvements come at a price over the original C10, which had an RRP of £299 but can now be picked up for £259. The Audio Pro C10 MkII is now available to pre-order now at Richer Sounds for £360 in Arctic White, Storm Grey or Coal Black finishes. Will it prove to be a new favourite of ours? We wouldn’t bet against it.
MORE:
Our pick of the world’s best wireless speakers 2021
After several senators criticized the company, Apple said on Sunday it would send its chief compliance officer to an April 21st hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee, Bloomberg reported.
Leaders of the Senate Judiciary Committee sent a letter to Apple CEO Tim Cook on Friday demanding that the company send a representative to the hearing, saying Apple was refusing to participate. In the letter, Sens. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) ,and Mike Lee (R-UT) say Apple “abruptly” decided not to provide a witness for the hearing on digital markets focused on Apple’s App Store and the Google Play Store.
“Apple’s sudden change in course to refuse to provide a witness to testify before the Subcommittee on app store competition issues in April, when the company is clearly willing to discuss them in other public forums, is unacceptable,” the senators wrote in the letter. “We strongly urge Apple to reconsider its position and to provide a witness to testify before the Subcommittee in a timely manner.”
But on Sunday, it appears Apple sent a letter to the senators saying it was “surprised” by their letter and that it had intended to participate, but simply sought a change in the date. “We have a deep respect for your role and process on these matters,” the letter reads. The company will make Kyle Andeer— who Apple says has represented the company before the US House of Representatives and several states—available on April 21st.
“We look forward to sharing our perspective on our App Store,” the letter states.
Apple did not immediately respond to a request for comment from The Verge on Sunday. Its App Store practices, including the 30 percent fees it charges developers, have been under scrutiny from lawmakers in recent months. Apple also has been battling with Fortnite publisher Epic Games, which sued the iPhone maker for what it claims are violations of antitrust law. That trial is slated to get underway May 3rd.
Google is shutting down its mobile Shopping apps for both iOS and Android and directing users to its web Shopping site instead, 9to5 Googlereported. On Friday, Xda Developers discovered that the term “sunset” had been added to several strings of code in the Shopping app, suggesting the apps were being discontinued.
A Google spokesperson told 9to5 Google that the apps will continue to function through June. “Within the next few weeks, we’ll no longer be supporting the Shopping app. All of the functionality the app offered users is available on the Shopping tab,” the spokesperson said. We’ll continue building features within the Shopping tab and other Google surfaces, including the Google app.” The shopping.google.com site will remain active.
The app allowed users to choose from among thousands of online stores and make purchases using their Google accounts. to quickly shop across thousands of stores and purchase stuff using your Google Account. This user found the Android app to be working normally on Sunday, but some users were already seeing a “something went wrong” message when they tried to use the Shopping app.
The mobile Shopping app is just the latest Google product to get the axe— Reader (still bitter about that one), Hangouts, Plus— the list goes on.
We’ve reached out to Google for more information and will update when we learn more.
Personal data for some 1.3 million users of the social audio app Clubhouse has been leaked online, Cyber News reported. a SQL database with users’ IDs, names, usernames, Twitter and Instagram handles and follower counts were posted to an online hacker forum. According to Cyber News, it did not appear that sensitive user information such as credit card numbers were among the leaked info. But the information could be used in phishing attempts to get users to hand over that more sensitive info.
Last week, Cyber News reported on another data breach from a social platform: it found that personal data for 500 million LinkedIn users had been scraped and posted online. The Microsoft-owned company said that no private member account data from LinkedIn was included in the leak.
That news came just a couple of days after it was discovered that personal data for some 533 million Facebook users also was leaked online for free. The Facebook leak reportedly included users’ phone numbers, birthdates, locations, email addresses, and full names.
Clubhouse had a monster first year—despite being invite-only and available only on iOS devices— seeing more than 10 million downloads. Twitter, LinkedIn, Discord, Spotify, and Slack have all launched or are working on competing social audio platforms, and Facebook reportedly has one in the works as well.
Clubhouse did not immediately reply to a request for comment from The Verge on Sunday.
An Australian judge has ruled that Epic’s lawsuit against Apple in Australia will be temporarily suspended as the two sides prepare for a trial in the US, Gizmodo Australia reported. Apple had asked for a permanent stay of the case in Australia, arguing that the US and Australia cases were very similar, and that the matter should be settled in the original jurisdiction of the United States.
The two companies are fighting over Epic’s battle royale game Fortnite, and the fees Apple charges. In August, Epic set up its own in-game payments system, effectively circumventing Apple’s App Store payments and avoiding the 30 percent surcharge Apple collects on App Store purchases. Apple then removed Fortnite from its iOS App Store for violating its rules. Epic fired back with an antitrust lawsuit seeking to establish Apple’s App Store as a monopoly and tried to rally Fortnite fans with a protest video mocking Apple’s iconic “1984” ad.
In November, Epic filed a similar legal claim against Apple in Australia, saying the iPhone maker’s conduct was “unconscionable, and breaches the Australian Consumer Law as well as various sections of the Competition and Consumer Act [of] 2010.” Epic has also filed similar claims against Google and its mobile app store.
Australian Judge Nye Perram ordered Friday that the case in that country be temporarily stayed for three months. He also said the proceedings will continue to be suspended in Australia if Epic continues to pursue its case in the US, but could bring the case back to Australian courts depending on the outcome in the US.
On Thursday, Apple and Epic filed proposed findings of fact documents for the US court case, which is set to open in California on May 3rd.
Neither Epic nor Apple immediately replied to requests for comment from The Verge on Saturday.
A mobile carrier allowed anyone with one of its customers phone numbers to access their personal information, including name, address, phone number, and text and call history, according to a report by Ars Technica. The carrier, Q Link Wireless, claimed to have over two million customers in 2019.
Ars Technica noted a Reddit post saying that the app used by the carrier and its subsidiary Hello Mobile never asked for a password or any identifying information when the user was logging on with a phone number. Looking through the reviews, there are references to the poor security practices (to put it mildly) going back to December of 2020. While it’s unclear when the credential-less login system appeared, there is an update note from two years ago that mentions an “updated login process.”
The carrier has reportedly fixed the issue — though it seems it may have done so by just turning off logins to the app altogether. Before the change, Ars was able to see, but not change, a bevy of information from a Hello Mobile customer who volunteered their phone number, including their name, address, account number, email address, and which numbers they’d contacted or been contacted by. The last one is probably the most sensitive — while the contents of texts or phone calls weren’t shown, there’s still a lot of information that can be gleaned from knowing who you talked to and when you talked to them.
The app’s description mentions that it allows users to add more minutes or data to their plans, but it’s unclear if that required extra authentication. Regardless, there’s still a ton of information that was available to anyone able to get the phone number of one of Q Link Wireless’ customers. Reportedly, Q Link Wireless hasn’t notified its customers that their information had been accessible — which seems to be a worrying trend among companies that leak user data.
Ars found no evidence that the security vulnerability was widely exploited, but having to worry about others having access to a ton of their sensitive data isn’t something that anyone needs.
Q Link Wireless didn’t immediately reply to a request for comment.
Firefox will no longer support Amazon Fire TV or Echo Show devices starting April 30th, Mozilla announced on Friday (via Android Police).
“You will no longer be able to install [Firefox] on FireTV, receive security updates, or be able to reinstall the app if you uninstall it starting on April 30, 2021,” Mozilla said in a support document. “If you have Firefox set as your default browser on Echo Show, you will be redirected to Amazon Silk for web browsing starting April 30, 2021.”
Mozilla first brought Firefox to Fire TV devices in December 2017, giving Fire TV owners a way to watch YouTube in the midst of a bitter feud between Google and Amazon. In July 2019, however, Google brought the YouTube app back to the Fire TV, giving users one less reason to use Firefox.
The Mozilla-made browser first came to Echo Show devices alongside Amazon’s Silk browser with the introduction Echo Show 10 in September 2018. There’s still no YouTube app for Echo Show, so the two browsers have offered a way to watch YouTube on the Amazon-made smart displays.
Mozilla now suggests using Silk to browse the web on Fire TV and Echo show devices.
El Clásico returns on Saturday as Real Madrid host Barcelona in a pivotal La Liga clash that could help decide this season’s Spanish title. All eyes will be on the Estadio Di Stefano for the biggest Clásico in decades. Both teams need to win if they’re to have a chance of challenging table-toppers Atletico Madrid. It’s a late kick-off (8pm BST); here’s how get a Real Madrid vs Barcelona live stream from anywhere.
Real Madrid have confirmed their squad for Saturday and the big team news is that Eden Hazard will watch from the sidelines – the Belgian superstar is yet to fully recover from a muscle injury. By the looks of things, Zinedine Zidane has stuck with the same line-up that beat Liverpool in the Champions League on Wednesday, with the likes of Benzema, Modric and Vinicius all getting the nod.
The tide is starting to turn for Real Madrid, and at the perfect time. They’re currently just a couple of points behind rivals Barcelona, having fallen seven points behind top-of-the-league Atletico Madrid in January. With Atletico suffering a recent shock 1-0 loss to Sevilla, Zidane’s Real will sense an opportunity to make up ground.
Barça are unbeaten in 19 league games but it hasn’t been the best of seasons for Ronald Koeman’s men. They now have a golden opportunity to finish top of the table for the first time in two years – provided they beat Real and win the next eight La Liga fixtures.
Ready to find out which side will conquer El Clásico and move a step closer to La Liga glory? Follow our guide below to watch a Real Madrid vs Barcelona live stream from anywhere – and for free!
La Liga live stream: how to watch Spanish football
How to watch Real Madrid vs Barcelona for free
(Image credit: beIN Sports)
Rights to show La Liga matches in the USA – including the epic Real Madrid vs Barcelona clash – belong to beIN Sports. It’s easily bolted on to your existing cable package and you can watch via the beIN Sports Connect app.
Not got cable? Good news – popular streaming platform FuboTV carries beIN Sports. Better yet, FuboTV offers new subscribers a free 7-day trial. That’s right, you can watch El Clasico for nothing!
Going to be outside the US this weekend? Simply use a VPN to access FuboTV as if you were back in your home state. We recommend ExpressVPN as it comes with a 30-day money-back guarantee and 24/7 customer support.
When the free 7-day trial ends, the entry-level FuboTV package costs $65 per month but it does get you 110 premium TV channels and much more. Not for you? You can cancel any time – there’s no lock-in contract.
Real Madrid vs Barcelona kicks off at 3pm ET / 12pm PT on Sunday morning in the States.
Watch Real Madrid vs Barcelona from abroad using a VPN
Even if you have subscribed to the relevant El Clasico rights holders, you won’t be able to access them when outside your own country. The service will know your location based on your IP address, and will automatically block your access.
A Virtual Private Network (VPN) helps you get around this obstacle. VPNs are a doddle to use and create a private connection between your device and the internet. All the information passing back and forth is entirely encrypted.
We recommend paid-for VPN services, such as ExpressVPN because they are entirely safe, come with 24/7 customer support and can be used to watch sport and other entertainment from any part of the world on almost any device. Try it out with the link below and get three months free.
Try ExpressVPN risk-free for 30 days ExpressVPN offers a 30-day money back guarantee with its VPN service. You can use it to watch on your mobile, tablet, laptop, TV, games console and more. There’s 24/7 customer support and three months free when you sign-up. Try it – it’s easier than you think.
UK: Real Madrid vs Barcelona live stream
(Image credit: Premier Sports)
This Saturday’s clash between Real Madrid and FC Barcelona will be shown live on La Liga TV, which is available as a standalone service via Premier Sports.
The company offers a handy streaming option. The cheapest plan costs £6.99 a month and gets you access to La Liga TV. Splash out £10.99 a month and you get all four channels: La Liga TV, Premier Sports 1 & 2 and Box Nation. Either way, it sounds like a bargain.
La Liga games can also be found on Virgin Media on the recently announced LaLigaTV channel in HD on channel 554. It’s available to all Premier Sports customers but any Virgin Media subscriber can sign up for £9.99 per month through their on-screen service. Use Home > Apps & Games > All Apps > TV Channel Upgrades on the remote. Home also to Italy’s Serie A, Premier Sports is available to Sky TV customers for £11.99 per month, or a £99 annual charge.
Australia: Real Madrid vs Barcelona live stream
(Image credit: Kayo)
Streaming service Kayo Sports offers the best coverage of Real Madrid vs Barca down under.
Subscription costs $25 per month for Kayo Basic or $35 per month for Kayo Premium. The latter is a good option if you want to stream the coverage to various TVs and devices throughout your home.
Better still, Kayo Sports is giving new users a free 14-day trial.
Of course, the free trial is only available in Australia, so any Aussie stuck outside their own country will need to use a VPN to get access.
Transformers are some of the most iconic toys around — an action figure and a car! All in one! A true bargain! But as modern Transformers toys have gotten more complex, they have also become an absolutely huge pain to actually transform from car to robot and back again, often requiring multiple shame-filled trips back to the trashcan where you threw it in a fit of hubris.
Hasbro is finally fixing that problem. Not by making the toys simpler, but by making them a lot more complicated and expensive in the form of its new $700 Optimus Prime Auto-Converting Programmable Advanced Robot, which thanks to the power of real robotics technology (in the form of 27 servo motors and a mobile app) can actually transform all by itself.
The new Transformer is almost breathtaking in its complexity: Hasbro says that the 19-inch figure features roughly 5,000 components, 27 patented servo motors, and 60 connected microchips in order to pull off the automated transforming feature. In addition to a mobile app, the new Optimus Prime toy also features voice commands that allow owners to control the transforming action or drive around the vehicle form by shouting things like “roll out” or “convert.”
Image: Hasbro
The downside of owning the first Transformer that can actually, y’know, transform on its own is the eye-watering price — for $700, the new Optimus Prime toy had better be able to fight off actual Decepticons to save the Earth.
The new model is being built in partnership with Robosen Robotics, which, as noted by Polygon, has been making suspiciously Transformer-looking motorized robots for years. The new collaboration with Hasbro, though, gives Robosen the chance to bring its skills to an official Transformer product instead of a look-alike.
The Optimus Prime Auto-Converting Programmable Advanced Robot is available to preorder now from the Hasbro Pulse website for $699.99. Orders are expected to ship on August 2nd.
Senate Judiciary Committee leaders are demanding that Apple provide a witness for an upcoming hearing on app stores and digital competition after the iPhone manufacturer has refused to participate, according to a new letter to the company released Friday.
In the letter addressed to Apple CEO Tim Cook, Sens. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) and Mike Lee (R-UT) say the company “abruptly” decided not to provide a witness for an April hearing on digital markets focused on Apple’s App Store and the Google Play Store.
“Apple has been aware for weeks that the Subcommittee was planning a hearing on this topic and was engaged in discussions with our staff regarding who would testify on Apple’s behalf,” the senators wrote to Apple Friday. “Yet a little more than two weeks [16 days] before the planned hearing, Apple abruptly declared that it would not provide any witness to testify at a hearing in April.”
Apple did not immediately respond to a request for comment from The Verge Friday.
Apple’s App Store practices have been under intense scrutiny by lawmakers over the last year. In 2019, the House Judiciary Committee launched an investigation into competition in the tech industry, including Apple’s App Store. Throughout the probe, lawmakers homed in on the 30 percent fees Apple charges app developers. In a Verge interview last June, Chairman David Cicilline (D-RI) called the practice “highway robbery.”
The criticism extends to the app developers themselves. Fortnite publisher Epic Games sued Apple last year, accusing the company of violating US antitrust laws after it removed the popular battle royale game from the App Store. The trial is set to begin on May 3rd.
“Apple’s sudden change in course to refuse to provide a witness to testify before the Subcommittee on app store competition issues in April, when the company is clearly willing to discuss them in other public forums, is unacceptable,” the senators wrote. “We strongly urge Apple to reconsider its position and to provide a witness to testify before the Subcommittee in a timely manner.”
Samsung has released a new website to give iPhone users “a little taste of Samsung” from their mobile browser. When visited on an iPhone, the site prompts users to add it to their phone’s home screen, after which it turns into a shortcut to a simulated Samsung Galaxy device. The site appears to be the work of Samsung New Zealand, MacRumors reports.
The experience might be limited, but it’s a neatly designed bit of marketing. Open up the camera “app” and a video will automatically play featuring influencer Logan Dodds, who describes Samsung’s camera app features in the interface around him. Poke around the other “apps” in the home screen and Samsung happily markets its phone’s other features and accessories, while text messages and even a fake phone call outline others.
There are also a couple of Easter eggs thrown in if you dig a little deeper. I particularly liked finding the “Friends with kids” contact in the text message app, who sends you garbled nonsense whenever you send them a message. Pry too much into the settings app and you’ll be shown a tooltip that reads, “We’ve simplified the settings menu experience, just so our developer could have a lunch break.”
Samsung is targeting the experience squarely at iPhone users. Try to visit the site with another Android phone and you get a message that says, “You’re on Android already,” while if you try to visit using a desktop browser the site gives you a QR code to scan with your iPhone. Yes, it’s ultimately just a bit of marketing, but it’s more creative than most other smartphone ads out there.
(Pocket-lint) – Not content with bringing its usual two-model flagship series release programme, for 2020 Huawei stepped things up by bringing not just one, not two, but three different P series handsets: the P40, the P40 Pro, and the P40 Pro+.
It’s a move that came as no surprise, in a world where many competitors have gone down a similar route – check out Samsung’s S20 series, for example – but with now three P40 series models to choose from, just how do they differ?
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Design: Colours & Finishes
P40 Pro only: Silver Frost, Blush Gold with matte-touch finish
P40 Pro+ only: Black ceramic, White ceramic
All models: Ice White, Black, DeepSea Blue
The standard P40 is smaller than the P40 Pro and Pro+, the latter two are the very same size.
But the colour options and finishes is where things differ. At the entry point there’s white, black and blue glass-backed finishes. The P40 Pro also options a silver and pink-gold finish, both of which have a matte-touch finish which is said to be fingerprint repellent – despite still being made of glass.
Lastly there’s a ceramic finish, in either black or white, for the P40 Pro+ only. Huawei tells us this “nanotech ceramic back” is comprised of ceramic beads, which are compressed at higher pressure, then kilned at 1500C for five days, creating a sapphire-strength rear with a reflective index “similar to diamond”.
Screen: Size & Resolution
P40 Pro & Pro+: Edge-to-edge ‘Overflow Display’ with curved edges / P40: Flat display
P40 Pro & Pro+: 6.58-inch OLED, 2640 x 1200 resolution
P40: 6.1-inch OLED, 2340 x 1080 resolution
P40 Pro & Pro+: 90Hz / P40: 60Hz
As we said, the P40 is the smaller handset, on account of its 6.1-inch screen. This display is also flat, not curved, with slightly larger bezels than its bigger models.
The P40 Pro and Pro+ have a 6.58-inch screen, so aren’t as ultra-massive as some current handsets, such as the Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra. We think that’s a sensible decision, to make for greater ease of use with one hand.
Whichever of the Pro and Pro+ models you choose you’ll be getting a so-called ‘Overflow Display’. That’s Huawei’s way of saying Waterfall Display, really, meaning the edges spill over, much like a waterfall, so the edge bezel is barely visible. This applies to all edges – both sides and the top and the bottom – for a real screen-dominant design.
There’s no notch as a result, instead a dual punch-hole is present on all three handsets. More info about the (extensive!) cameras is further down the page.
While the P40 offers a standard 60Hz display, the Pro and Pro+ offer a 90Hz refresh rate – which is 50 per cent greater than the typical 60Hz panels. That’s all well and good, but with OnePlus running 120Hz panels and others offering up to 165Hz panels in gaming phones (the Red Magic 6 the first example of that), you might wonder why Huawei hasn’t reached to the stars here. The answer, we suspect, is cost, battery performance, and, frankly, that this extra rate won’t make a huge difference in the way most people see apps and content perform anyway.
Performance
All models: Kirin 990 processor, 8GB RAM
P40 Pro & Pro+: 4,200mAh battery
P40: 3,800mAh battery
P40 Pro+: 40W fast-charging (incl. 40W wireless)
P40 Pro: 40W fast-charging (incl. 27W wireless)
P40: 22.5W fast-charging (no wireless charging)
All three P40 models will deliver a similar experience, given their Kirin 990 processor, 8GB RAM, and 5G connectivity across the board.
None of the three will come with Google Services, though, which means no access to Google Play Store (instead there’s Huawei’s App Gallery, which lacks some of the majors at present, such WhatsApp (you can download it as an APK using a browser though – but no Google Drive will mean no backup), and more. That’s despite the P40 launching on Google’s Android 10 operating system, with Huawei’s EMUI 10.1 user interface.
What apps can you actually get on Huawei’s App Gallery?
It’s in the battery department where the three models differ a little more. The P40 has a 3,800mAh cell, which is fairly small by today’s standards, while the Pro and Pro+ up that to 4,200mAh – which is about on par with what current competitors offers.
The recharging of those batteries is speedy too. The P40 sticks to the well-established 22.5W fast-charging, while the P40 Pro and Pro+ up this to 40W – which is quick, but not the very fastest available (that goes to OnePlus with its 65W Warp Charge 65T for the OnePlus 9 Pro).
However, Huawei is introducing 40W wireless charging to the Pro+. It means wire-free charging of the handset in little more than an hour – which is impressive. The standard P40, however, has no wireless charging capability.
Cameras
P40: Leica triple camera system
P40 Pro: Leica quad camera system
P40 Pro+: Leica penta camera system
Main camera:
All models: 50MP SuperSensing (RYYB) sensor, 1/1.28in size
f/1.9 aperture, optical stabilisation (OIS)
Focal length (approx): P40 at 27mm, Pro at 25mm, Pro+ at 24mm
Ultra-wide camera:
P40: 16MP, f/2.2, 17mm equiv.
P40 Pro & Pro+: 40MP cine lens, f/1.8, 18mm equiv.
Always the P series’ big-hitting feature is its camera setup. We thought the P30 Pro set a new bar when it launched in 2019 – something that the P40 series bettered.
It’s a little complicated, though, as the camera setup for each device is rather different. The P40 has a triple camera rear, the P40 Pro a quad setup, the Pro+ a penta system.
However, all three offer one consistent thing: the same main camera. This is a 50-megapixel SuperSensing sensor – the same red, yellow, blue (RYYB) technology as in the P30 Pro – and, at 1/1.28in size, it’s a lot larger than a typical camera sensor.
That make-up and physical size work to its benefit in delivering a clean signal for better image quality overall. Not to mention the use of four pixels into one on-screen pixel means oversampling for even better quality (12.5MP output) – a method used by many others already. And there’s 100 per cent on-sensor phase-detection pixels for autofocus too.
There’s a wide-angle camera on each P40 model, too, but it’s one of two variants: the P40 has a 16-megapixel sensor at a 17mm focal length, while the Pro and Pro+ offer 40MP at 18mm (so it’s slightly less wide, likely for the sake of edge/corner quality). The higher-resolution offering is described as a ‘cine lens’ as it’s also used to cater for video, at up to 4K.
Then there’s the zoom element. All three P40 models have an optical zoom lens: the P40 a 3x zoom, the P40 Pro a 5x zoom, the P40 Pro+ a 10x zoom. That 3x is the same as we’ve seen in the P30, with just 8-megapixels of resolution for the P40 and P40 Pro+. The 5x is different to the one found in the P30 Pro, as Huawei is also utilising the RYYB SuperSensing technology here for the P40 Pro’s zoom. The 10x was the first time we’d seen such a periscope zoom, as reserved for the P40 Pro+ only (and used in tandem with the 3x zoom optic to offer the ability to step through zoom levels to deliver the most appropriate tools for each job).
The P40 Pro and Pro+ also come with a Time-of-Flight depth sensor, which derives distance information, which the software can utilise in layers to help create background blur (bokeh) in portrait mode.
All three P40 cameras will offer familiar modes, from Artificial Intelligence shooting, to Night Mode. However, these have been advanced, with the AI tech now able to shoot multiple frames before during and after pressing the shutter to select the best of a burst and suggest a top three selection.
The front cameras can be found in a dual punch-hole or ‘pill’ cut-out in all three P40 models. The main camera is 32-megapixels, which also uses four-in-one oversampling for 8MP output by default, paired with a depth sensor for background blur software effects and more.
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Price, Release Date & Conclusion
P40: €799 (at launch)
P40 Pro: €999 (at launch)
P40 Pro+: €1399 (at launch)
Once again the P40 series looks to be grappling for camera dominance. And that variety of versatile cameas – especially on the Pro+ model – make for great reading.
That said, the absence of Google Play Store on these devices is a major pain point. Sure, there’s App Gallery, and consumers have choice in what’s important to them. But, right now, it makes the P40 series difficult to recommend.
(Pocket-lint) – The gaming phone market shows no signs of slowing down. Indeed, just 20 hours prior to revealing our verdict on this very device, the Red Magic 6, Lenovo revealed its next-gen Legion Duel gaming monster.
Except, interestingly, the Red Magic 6 has a bit of a headline feature that the Lenovo lacks: there’s a 165Hz screen refresh rate, which, at the time of writing, is the fastest you’ll find in a gaming phone – or, indeed, any phone to date – to make for super smooth visuals.
The Red Magic 6 is all about its gaming focus elsewhere, too, thanks to a top tier processor, stacks of RAM, plus a built-in cooling fan. So does all that make it a case of game on, or should you go game elsewhere?
Design & Display
6.8-inch OLED panel, 1080 x 2400 resolution, 20:9 aspect ratio
165Hz refresh rate, 500Hz touch sampling rate
Dimensions: 170 x 77 x 9.7mm / Weight: 220g
Finish options: Eclipse Black, Aurora
Dedicated switch for Game Space
Under-display fingerprint scanner
Built-in shoulder triggers
3.5mm headphone jack
Visually speaking the Red Magic 6 looks much like the Red Magic 5G and 5S devices that came before it. Except it’s actually a little bit bigger. Yup, as if those aforementioned slabs weren’t substantial enough, Nubia has gone and installed a yet bigger screen – up from 6.65-inches to 6.8-inches – making for a slightly wider overall package (although, thankfully, it’s a slither thinner than its predecessors).
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In this Eclipse Black finish it’s also approaching subdued for a gaming phone. Perhaps that’s because the 5S we had came in a so-called ‘Pulse’ colourway. Which was loud to say the least. Not that the Red Magic 6 lacks some flashy “look at me” moments – helped along for the most part by rear lighting that can be set to various colours and patterns based on notifications, calls, gameplay and more (or switched off entirely, if you prefer).
The principal attraction of the Red Magic 6, we think, is its screen. This 6.8-inch OLED panel is quite the monster, plus it’s equipped with some headline-grabbing features. First, it’s flat, not curved, which makes it very practical for gaming (and anything, really, which is why we see curved screens on the decline). Second, it’s got a 165Hz refresh rate, meaning it can refresh that many times every second if you want – or select from 60Hz, 90Hz, 120Hz from the settings instead to conserve battery. It’s bright, too, with a 630 nits peak brightness claimed.
We’re always a little on the fence about fast-refresh panels, though, as the Red Magic 6’s sell over the 5S is basically 144Hz vs 165Hz. Will your eyes notice those extra 21 cycles per second? No, it’s not humanly possible. But it’s there, so it’s “one better” on paper nonetheless. You’ll most certainly see a big jump from the base 60Hz, though, so there’s obvious benefit to having a higher refresh rate panel. Plus, with 500Hz sampling rate, it’s super responsive to finger taps.
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Not that you have to just tap the screen. Being a gaming phone, Red Magic continues with its gaming focus, which includes integrated shoulder triggers to one edge, which you can programme for certain games. You can even adjust the screen’s responsiveness in zones using the Game Space application.
Activating Game Space is a simple case of flicking the red switch to the upper left side (facing) of the device. It’s a nice touch, able to transport you into a games carousel, along with the ability to select various key options – such as do not disturb (DND), permitting specific apps to notify (such as Discord in a pop-up overlay), controlling lighting, the cooling fan, and screen refresh rate.
We just wish that switching into Game Space would automatically apply selected presets. For example, we’d (perhaps) activate 165Hz when in the space, but drop that to 90Hz once done and flicking the switch back to ‘normal’ for our everyday activities. But that doesn’t happen – the selected refresh rate remains in play, so you have to manually adjust it.
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Elsewhere in terms of design, the Red Magic 6, rather unusually, features a 3.5mm headphone jack. So you can plug in your wired headphones. That’s an increasing rarity for high-end devices, although we suspect most will just use Bluetooth anyway.
Performance & Battery
Qualcomm Snapdragon 888 platform, 12GB LPDDR5 RAM
128GB UFS 3.1 storage, no microSD card slot
5050mAh battery capacity, 66W fast-charge
Turbofan and liquid cooling system
Dual-Core Cooler accessory
Wi-Fi 6E (802.11 a/b/g/n/ac)
5G connectivity
So why is the Red Magic 6 so chunky, at almost a full centimetre wide? There’s a number of reasons: the massive battery capacity (5,050mAh), the integrated physical cooling fan, the spatial capacity to ensure airflow won’t overheat the processor inside. And that’s just three reasons.
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There’s no doubting the Red Magic 6 has got the goods when it comes to power. Utilising Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 888 platform, alongside 12GB RAM, there’s nothing more powerful inside phones right now. Which makes the asking price of this phone all the more phenomenal.
Motorola’s new Moto G9 Plus is a stunner of a phone – find out why, right here
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For most people the difference between a Snapdragon 888 and, say, 870 isn’t going to make much difference for casual use. But the Red Magic 6 is all about gaming – so it has a processor that can put in the extra work to eke out those extra frame-rates and graphical options that you might otherwise not get elsewhere.
That said, only so many games are able to really tuck in. The same goes with the refresh rate debate: which games will genuinely benefit from 165Hz? Not many, perhaps none at all. Running Red Magic’s own FPS checker in real-time showed that many of our favourites – South Park: Phone Destroyer being the main, PUBG Mobile being the other – apparently max out at 31fps. Surely an error on Red Magic’s software? Because PUBG Mobile can run at 90fps.
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That self administered punch to the face aside, however, and the Red Magic 6 does a darn good job when it comes to playing games. There’s no delay, no fuss with fidelity, no issues with graphics textures, and so forth. It’s about as good as it gets.
However, that cooling fan doesn’t half make a lot of noise. It’s whirring sound whistles quite irritatingly. Having it on will undoubtedly use up power, too, so we’ve opted for leaving the standard cooling system minus the additional fans to take care of things. It’s a good job you can manually adjust this from the settings shade – because the fan also activates when fast-charging kicks in, unless you tell it not to.
The reason for that is the fast-charging, at 66W, is really quick. You can fill it from dead in under 40 minutes, assuming you have the correct plug at the wall, which is borderline ridiculous. Pop it on a slower recharge and you’ll be kinder to the battery’s health, but it’ll take a fair lot longer.
As for realistic longevity per charge. With this phone, more than most, that’s going to depend on how much you game. We’ve found the battery life a little unpredictable in general, with a day of ‘normal use’ (at 90Hz, note) and some gaming thrown in delivering close to 15 hours. That’s fine for a single day, except there are some moments when the battery will bomb and that’ll leave you reaching for the charger when you might not usually expect so – and that can render the 165Hz plus cooling fan as limited time options.
It would also be remiss to not speak on software, which here is Red Magic OS (V4.0), built over Google’s Android 11 operating system. It’s fairly harmless, in that it has various obtuse Themes, but there are some fundamentals that are just broken.
Notifications, for one, are scruffy, filling up layers per app in a not-too-useful format. But at least, unlike with the Poco X3 Pro, we get consistent notifications, eh?
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The home screen also can’t accept new apps being dragged from the app drawer and onto it as icons – they just vanish, unless you load multiple apps into a folder and drag them from there. It’s a ridiculous and irksome bug. That, in a sense, is indicative of what to expect when it comes to software experience: a unique yet unpredictable one.
Cameras
Triple rear system:
Main (26mm): 64-megapixel, f/1.8 aperture, 0.8µm pixel size
Wide (13mm): 8 MP, f/2.0, 1.12µm
Macro: 2MP
Selfie camera: 8MP, f/2.0
One area where we’ve been critical of previous Red Magic devices is with the cameras. Although the Red Magic 6 doesn’t get away Scot-free by any means, its main camera is fairly decent – outshining the likes of the Moto G100, that’s for sure.
Thankfully the rear of this phone is slightly curved so it slots into the hand pretty elegantly. There’s no giant camera bump in the way. No unwarranted protrusions or oddities. But that’s because the cameras here simply aren’t as high-end as you’ll find in some devices.
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According to the specification, the Red Magic 6 has a 64-megapixel main sensor (a S5KGW3 – which is Samsung’s GW3 sensor) that squeezes images down to 16-megapixels by using one-in-four processing. Then there’s an 8MP wide-angle (a HI846, so a typical Hynix sensor). Lastly there’s a 2MP macro for close-ups (the OV02A10, supplied by OmniVision).
Thing is, the camera app doesn’t offer any wide-angle shooting. It’s not to be found anywhere. So you can already forget about getting any ultra-wides out of this device. Yet another problem of the software, perhaps?
The macro, given that it’s just 2-megapixels, is also of really poor quality – so we doubt you’ll ever want to use it. At least the system does prompt you to use it when very close to a subject, though, and the magnifying glass-style focus symbol on the screen is particularly useful to get in-focus shots. Not that they’ll be all that sharp, given the limit in quality.
So it all falls to the main lens to sell the camera system. Think of the Red Magic 6 as a single camera and it’s reasonably successful. The real-time phase-detection autofocus is snappy at showing what it’s focusing onto. The quality of images is fairly decent in a variety of conditions, too. Oversharpened, sure, but there’s detail here that could easily be negated by a lesser setup.
Just make sure you turn off the watermark feature (as you can see from the gallery above, we didn’t) – because it’s on by default, will plaster your images with unwanted words that you can’t remove, and it’s still beyond perplexing to us that this is an acceptable practice. Kill the watermark default already.
Not that you’ll be taking pictures, right? You’ll be playing games. Because, ultimately, that’s what the Red Magic 6 is all about.
Verdict
If you’re in the market for a gaming phone then the Red Magic 6 has a lot going for it: it’s well priced, it’s seriously powerful, and it has a faster screen refresh rate than you’ll find on any other phone right now.
Thing is, whether you’ll get genuine use from 165Hz is a whole other matter. And with it active the cooling fan’s whining drone sound isn’t delicate on the ears. Plus it rather affects the battery life for the worse.
That there is physical fan-based cooling, however, is testament to how gaming-focused this phone is. With its Game Space dedicated switch, too, there’s quick-access to controls and gaming-specific settings.
Just like its predecessors, the Red Magic 6 does what it sets out to achieve: being an alluring gaming phone. But while it’s “game on” in that regard, it’s “game off” for everyday use – where the software comes up short, the sheer size approaches unwieldy, and the cameras are way off their billing.
Also consider
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Lenovo Legion Phone Duel
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Ok, so it’s the first-gen model – the second-gen has just been announced – and it’s pricier than the Red Magic. But with the Lenovo’s side-positioned pop-up camera and dual charging facility, it’s a super-powered gaming device unlike anything else on the market.
As a Freeview PVR, the Humax Aura is hard to beat , but its incomplete smart platform requires a pause for thought
For
Excellent recording and playback
Full-bodied, exciting sound
Useful Aura mobile app
Against
No Netflix app
HDR picture could be better
User interface a touch convoluted
Even without an Oxbridge education, the Humax Aura PVR has managed to achieve a double first. It’s the first Freeview set-top box from Humax to use the Android TV operating system and also the first to be 4K HDR-enabled. How could we not be intrigued?
The Humax Aura can be a number of things to different people and it feels as though it has been priced to interest everyone. The most obvious use is as a Freeview Play recorder, with enough internal storage options to capture hours of live Full HD and standard-definition television.
With its Android TV platform, you can also use it as a Chromecast with benefits – a way of adding over 5000 apps and streaming services to feed your television or projector with plenty of 4K fun. With its USB sockets, hi-res audio and 3D home cinema codec support, there’s an option to use it for local film file playback too – it’s quite the box of tricks.
Pricing
The Humax Aura costs £249 for the 1TB model, which can store up to 250 hours of HD (or 500 of SD) programming, and £279 for the 2TB model, which can store up to 500 hours of Full HD (1000 of SD) programming.
If you’re serious enough about live TV to want to record it on a regular basis, then the extra £30 for double the amount of space feels like a no-brainer.
Features
(Image credit: Humax)
Humax has had great success with its What Hi-Fi? Award-winning FVP-5000T set-top box and, four years down the line, a replacement has been long overdue. For both specs and looks, the Aura is the upgrade we’ve been waiting for.
Stand the two next to one another and the sculpted lines of the low slung Aura more easily fit into the category of contemporary industrial design.
The Aura is a tidy 26cm by 20cm box that takes up about the same space as your wi-fi router. Its gloss black body is accented by an LED strip on the underside, which changes from red to blue to violet to orange depending on whether it’s off, on, recording or recording in standby. It’s a useful indicator and reminiscent of K.I.T.T from Knight Rider in standby mode.
But if it’s a party at the front of the Aura, then around the back is the serious business. Here you’ll find the single HDMI 2.1-out along with USB 3.0 and USB 2.0 (Type A) sockets for local media. There’s also an optical audio-out and a LAN connection if you’d rather leave the 2.4/5GHz wi-fi alone.
The Aura remote is fully featured, with dedicated buttons for just about everything you could need, including shortcuts to streaming services, recordings, the guide, the Freeview Play platform and the Android TV homepage too. You’ll need to pair the remote with the Aura box using Bluetooth for the Google Assistant voice system to work.
Humax Aura tech specs
(Image credit: Humax)
Tuners x3
Ports HDMI 2.1, USB 3.0, USB 2.0, optical-out
OS Android TV 9
Freeview Play Yes
Storage 1TB/2TB
Dimensions (hwd) 4.3 x 26 x 20cm
Weight 764g
The Humax Aura’s three Freeview Play tuners bring access to over 70 non-subscription live TV channels and over 20,000 hours of on-demand entertainment through the catch-up services, with BBC iPlayer, ITV Hub, All 4 and My5 all present. Those tuners allow you to pause and rewind TV, as well as record up to four channels while watching a fifth one live.
Unlike the older FVP-5000T, there’s no built-in app for streaming live TV or your recordings from the box to other devices around your home, though Humax says the same DLNA support will be added to the Aura in a forthcoming firmware update. The Aura mobile app will detect any DLNA or Chromecast-enabled devices on the same network as your box and allow you to play recordings or live channels to those, sourcing it from the Aura as a server.
For the time being, the Aura mobile app is a handy tool in its own right. It brings a full view of the electronic programme guide (EPG) to your small screen and allows users to schedule recordings, watch recordings and even enjoy live TV on mobile – just the ticket for keeping track of Countdown while you put the kettle on.
The Aura’s big-screen offering is also bolstered by Android TV, and that means another 5000 or so apps from Google Play are at your disposal, with subscription services such as Disney+ and Amazon Prime Video, alongside more UK-specific apps, such as BT Sport and UKTV Play.
(Image credit: Humax)
There are significant gaps, though, including Britbox, Now TV and the Netflix app. Somewhat ironically, Netflix is actually one of the few non-catch-up apps available on the older FVP-5000T. Fortunately, the Aura’s built-in Chromecast functionality allows users to cast these missing apps from mobile, tablet or browser instead, but that solution won’t suit everyone. It’s also worth noting that casting won’t work for either Apple TV or Apple Music, which are also missing from the Aura.
Away from the video side, the hi-res audio support is a welcome addition. It means those connecting the Aura to a decent external speaker system can get a strong performance from locally stored or streamed audio files, even if connecting through the HDMI, which can handle up to 24-bit/192 kHz levels.
You’ll need to download a third-party app such as VLC to play local media and Plex if you want to connect a NAS drive or similar from your home network. The Aura’s support for 4K HDR (HDR10 and HLG) and 3D audio codecs offers the potential to do justice to any high-quality movie files you own.
Thanks to the quad-core 1.8GHz CPU and 3GB RAM combo, the whole experience feels snappy and well put together. From the remote to the on-screen navigation, the user experience will bend to your bidding without complaint.
The twinning of Freeview Play and Android TV 9.0 doesn’t make for the easiest of combinations, though. Each offers its own home page experience, leaving the user unsure as to which one to use. You’ll find some apps on both, but others just on one, and both home pages have their own settings menus. Fortunately, the shortcuts on the remote mean that you can sometimes go straight to whatever it is that you’re looking for, but that doesn’t really excuse the poor integration of the two interfaces.
Each interface is good in its own right, at least. We particularly like Freeview Play’s Kids’ Zone – a brightly coloured area with TV programmes specially selected for younger viewers. Content can be searched according to duration and timeslot, and parents can use this to block certain apps and channels from appearing.
Picture
(Image credit: Humax)
The picture quality through the Freeview Play tuners in both SD and Full HD is every bit as good as that of the FVP-5000T. Watching Put Your Money Where Your Mouth Is on BBC2, we get some inviting shots of a French antiques market on a cloudless summer’s day. The cobbled streets and stalls are bright and colourful, but with a realistic sense of tonality and texture.
The Aura trades a touch of detail for this better blending and, while some might prefer harder edges to stone walls, it feels like a well-judged decision from Humax. There’s a proper sense of complexity to the bright blue TV shelf as one of the bargain hunters haggles over a few Euros. It makes for a more natural aesthetic to the picture and feels believable when upscaled to 4K.
That arrangement is justified even further when switching to SD on the BBC News channel. Low-res content can seem particularly harsh and blocky when upscaled, but the Aura’s slightly softer approach smooths out a few more of those unwanted edges than its predecessor and adds some much-needed subtlety to clothing colours and skin tones.
However, the app platform is not quite as adept. Compared with a budget streaming stick, the Aura’s skill with a 4K HDR app is a little less assured than it might be. We watch The Boys on Prime Video and while the picture is punchy and dynamic, some of the finer detail is lost, particularly at the brightest and darkest extremes of the contrast spectrum. Viewing a scene set in the White House, the backlit silk curtains are missing folds in the material and the Aura doesn’t reveal the number of freckles on ex-CIA Deputy Director Grace Mallory’s skin that we might expect.
The other slight drawback is that not all users will find the dynamic range and refresh rate content matching system easy to use. There are a few options and, without the right ones selected, app TV shows and films are often displayed incorrectly; motion is juddery and streams are often jumpy. It can be fixed using the remote while viewing, but it isn’t easy to do. Quality standalone streamers have options to automatically match the dynamic range and refresh rate of the source material, and the Aura should really have the same.
Sound
(Image credit: Humax)
The Aura’s hi-res music support offers an excellent opportunity to get good quality sound from this box through both locally stored files and streamed music services. Plugging it into our reference system, we fire up the Tidal Masters version of Fortunate Son by Creedence Clearwater Revival and, by the standards of PVRs and video streamers, we’re struck by how well it captures the recording.
There’s a spacious sound to the vocals and guitars that gives a fabulous feel to the acoustics of the room where the recording was made. Compared with other, similarly priced streaming products, there is an added dimension to the track. There’s a good dose of dynamics that brings excitement and character to all of the instruments. We can visualise the drums at the start of the track and every time the first snare of each bar is hit with an accent.
The back and forth between the guitar and the vocals is like listening to a conversation. It’s a cohesive sound from top to bottom and we feel confident that there’s little we’re missing in the music. Some streamers at this level might offer a touch more crispness to the rhythm, but not without some loss of the excitement we get with the Aura.
All of that translates to an enjoyably emotional feel for home cinema as we switch to AV with the Live Aid scene at the end of Bohemian Rhapsody on Prime Video. The thuds of the kick drum are wonderfully solid and offer a genuine sense of timbre and resonance as the pedal first hits the skin at the beginning of the set.
When Brian May plays his solo at the end of the piece, it’s like he’s making his guitar sing. Again, the sense of place is captured brilliantly in a credible rendition of the sound of the old Wembley Stadium full of 72,000 people clapping in time and singing along to Radio Ga Ga.
Sound such as this is a huge leg up for any home cinema device. Whether capturing the atmosphere of a rock concert or the special effects of an action scene, the Aura really delivers on this front.
Verdict
The Humax Aura does its main job well. It’s an excellent Freeview recorder for both Full HD and standard definition with an easy-to-use TV guide, plenty of space and handy remote recording features. The problem is that Humax has offered – and is charging – more this time around and this box doesn’t deliver these extras quite so well.
If you’re going to promise more apps, then the omission of the most popular one of all is an issue. You also need to make sure your handling of streamed TV and film content is up to the same high standards as the competition, and that isn’t quite the case with the Aura. Tacking on the Android TV platform also means that the overall user interface loses a little focus.
While the Aura is spot on for sound, opting for the cheaper but still brilliant Humax FVP-5000T and buying a Google Chromecast with Google TV as well is a better option in terms of overall performance. The experience won’t feel much more split than the Aura already does but, more importantly, the smart offering will be more complete and a little better for picture quality too.
That said, if you have your heart set on a single box solution for your TV recording and video streaming, the Aura is a solid choice.
Apple knows that iMessage’s blue bubbles are a big barrier to people switching to Android, which is why the service has never appeared on Google’s mobile operating system. That’s according to depositions and emails from Apple employees, including some high-ranking executives, revealed in a court filing from Epic Games as part of its legal dispute with the iPhone manufacturer.
Epic argues that Apple consciously tries to lock customers into its ecosystem of devices, and that iMessage is one of the key services helping it to do so. It cites comments made by Apple’s senior vice president of Internet Software and Services Eddie Cue, senior vice president of software engineering Craig Federighi, and Apple Fellow Phil Schiller to support its argument.
“The #1 most difficult [reason] to leave the Apple universe app is iMessage … iMessage amounts to serious lock-in,” was how one unnamed former Apple employee put it in an email in 2016, prompting Schiller to respond that, “moving iMessage to Android will hurt us more than help us, this email illustrates why.”
“iMessage on Android would simply serve to remove [an] obstacle to iPhone families giving their kids Android phones,” was Federighi’s concern according to the Epic filing. Although workarounds to using iMessage on Android have emerged over the years, none have been particularly convenient or reliable.
According to Epic’s filing, citing Eddie Cue, Apple decided not to develop iMessage for Android as early as 2013, following the launch of the messaging service with iOS 5 in 2011. Cue admits that Apple “could have made a version on Android that worked with iOS” so that “users of both platforms would have been able to exchange messages with one another seamlessly.” Evidently, such a version was never developed.
Along with iMessage, Epic cites a series of other Apple services that it argues contribute to lock-in. Notably, these include its video chat service FaceTime, which Steve Jobs announced would be an open industry standard back at WWDC 2010. FaceTime subsequently released across iPhones, iPads, and Macs, but it’s not officially available for any non-Apple devices.
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