Motorola’s latest Moto Mod is a snap-on 360-degree camera

The Moto 360 name is back, but not in the way you think.

Motorola’s newest Moto Mod isn’t another battery — thank goodness — nor a speaker. It’s not a wireless charging add-on nor a gamepad (though I really want that, too). It’s not even a camera — at least not in the traditional sense.

The latest Moto Mod is a 360-degree camera, similar to Samsung’s Gear 360 or Ricoh’s Theta S, except that this one snaps on to the back of any Moto Z smartphone. The benefits are many: it’s extremely thin for a camera, because the size can be distributed throughout the length of the phone. It’s also very light, because it uses the phone’s battery for power. And perhaps best of all, there’s no awkward transferring of photos to the phone using Bluetooth or Wi-Fi; the camera is connected using the pins on the Moto Z series rear ports, so files are stored on the phone (or a microSD card) for immediate editing or sharing.

The camera itself has two 13MP cameras at 1/2.8″, for a pixel size of 1.25um, identical to the new Moto Z2 Force itself. With an aperture of f/2.0, the sensors appear to be pretty capable, though we’ll have to take it out for a test run to see for ourselves. Given users’ needs for video capture, the add-on can shoot 360-degree 4K video at 24 frames per second, along with 3D sound that Motorola says is one of the camera’s best features that differentiates it from the competition.

The lenses are wide — really wide — capable of capturing 150-degrees of the world around you when using just one lens. Motorola has also worked with Google to ensure that all uploads, 3D or otherwise, are usable in Google Photos out of the box. Another benefit to users of the Moto 360 Camera is that it uses Motorola’s native camera app for shooting and editing, as well as the aforementioned Google Photos for unlimited uploads. Along with the fact that photos and videos are stored on the device and don’t need to be transferred wirelessly using the clumsy Bluetooth protocol, this should make the experience much better than the other 360-degree cameras we’ve used. There’s also support for livestreaming to Facebook, Twitter, Instagram or any number of platforms.

Of course, we have to address the name: Moto 360 Camera. The Moto 360 brand has been used since 2014 on Motorola’s smartwatches, and as we learned earlier in the year, the company has no current plans to refresh that line anytime soon. While we can’t say for sure that Motorola is out of the Android Wear game completely, that it is co-opting the Moto 360 brand for use in its new Moto Mod doesn’t instill a huge amount of confidence in its future.

The Moto 360 Camera will be available alongside the new Moto Z2 Force Edition on August 10 for a retail price of $299.99 USD. That’s not cheap, and puts it in play with standalone 360-degree cameras like the Gear 360 that is compatible with more devices.

See at Motorola

Moto Z2 Force Edition specs: Snapdragon 835, 4 or 6GB RAM, 2730mAh battery

What’s inside the Moto Z2 Force Edition?

The Moto Z2 Force Edition is the company’s most powerful, and flexible, phone ever. It’s made to take a beating, with its break-proof ShatterShield screen cover technology, but at 6.1mm thin it’s extremely easy to wield in one hand. And while the Moto Z2 Force Edition is the spitting image of the Moto Z2 Play, it features a dual camera setup and a high-resolution Super AMOLED display. The only real downgrade from the Moto Z2 Play, and the original Force, is the battery size: reduced to 2730mAh, the phone falls back on Moto Mods support to extend uptime.

Operating System	Android 7.1.1 Nougat
Display	5.5-inch 1440p Super AMOLEDShatterShield shatterproof display
Processor	Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 octa-core
GPU	Adreno 540
RAM	4GB (U.S.) 6GB (ROW)
Storage	64GB (U.S.) 128GB (China)
Expandable	Yes, up to 2TB
Battery	2730mAh
Charging	USB-C 15W TurboPower fast charging
Water resistance	Water-repellent nano-coating Not waterproof
Rear Camera 1	12MP (1.25µm pixels) color sensor f/2.0, PDAF laser-assisted autofocus
Rear Camera 2	12MP (1.25µm pixels) monochrome sensor f/2.0, PDAF laser-assisted autofocus
Front Camera	5MP f/2.2 85-degree wide-angle lensFront-facing dual-tone flash
Connectivity	Gigabit LTE (X16 baseband) 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac dual-band Bluetooth 5.0 (after Android O update) Moto Mods support
Security	One-touch front fingerprint sensor
SIM	Nano-SIM slot
Network	U.S. unlocked (AT&T / T-Mobile): LTE: B1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 8, 12, 17, 20, 25, 26, 28, 29, 30, 38, 40, 41-Japan & China, 66, 252, 255 U.S. Sprint: CDMA: BC 0, 1, 10 LTE: B1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 8, 12, 17, 20, 25, 26, 28, 29, 30, 38, 40, 41-Japan & China, 66, 252, 255 U.S. Verizon & US Cellular: CDMA: BC 0, 1 LTE: B1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 8, 12, 13, 17, 20, 25, 26, 28, 66 ROW: CDMA: BC 0, 1, 10 LTE: B1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 8, 12, 17, 18, 19, 20, 26, 28, 34, 38, 39, 40, 41-Japan & China TD-SCDMA: BC34, 39
Dimensions	155.8 x 76 x 6.1 mm
Weight	143 g
Colors	Super Black Fine Gold Lunar Grey (T-Mobile-only)

Moto Z2 Force Edition

• Moto Z2 Force is official
• Moto Z2 Force specs
• This is the Moto 360 Camera Mod
• Join the discussion in the forums!

Ultimate List of Moto Mods

Want to give your Moto Z an ego boost? Tack on one of these magnetic modular backs.

Motorola’s Moto Z series phones are all modular, and can take advantage of Motorola’s proprietary Moto Mods. You can buy them separately online or through your carrier. Once you snap them on, the phone knows how to utilize them from there.

Which phones are compatible with Moto Mods?

As of writing, there are five phones compatible with Moto Mods:

• Moto Z
• Moto Z Force Droid
• Moto Z Play
• Moto Z2 Play
• Moto Z2 Force Edition

Complete list of Moto Mods

JBL SoundBoost

The music is better when you’re dancing to it with your friends. Bring your Spotify playlists to life with the JBL SoundBoost speaker ($79.99), which snaps on to the Moto Z and has a built-in kickstand. The mod is comprised of two 27mm speakers with 6W of power each. You can use the speaker to broadcast conference calls and make sure everyone in the room can hear what’s being said back at headquarters. There’s also an extra 1000 mAh of battery packed in there.

See at Amazon

Moto Insta-Share Projector

YouTube is fun for everyone, but not when you have to huddle over a small screen to see what’s going on. Snap on Motorola’s Insta-Share projector ($299.99), which projects what’s on your Moto Z’s screen onto the wall of your choice. You can project up to 70 inches and adjust the device as you like with the included stand. The projector also adds on an extra 1100 mAh of battery.

See at Amazon

Hasselblad True Zoom Camera

Get up the ten times the optical zoom with the Motorola-commission Hasselblad True Zoom Camera ($299.99). This Moto Mod turns your regular old smartphone into a bonafide point-and-shoot of sorts. It features optical zoom, xenon flash, and physical buttons for zooming’ and shootin’. And if you use the Moto Z’s RAW shooting format, you can do all the editing and tweaking you need to do to make it look professional in a desktop app.

See at Amazon

Mophie Juice Pack

The battery will eventually peter out on your Motorola smartphone. Avoid living life without smartphone juice by packing something like the Mophie Juice Pack ($79.99). This snap-on module provides an extra 3150 mAh of battery and can be easily recharged when you charge up a Moto Z device.

See at Verizon

Kate Spade New York Power Pack

Kate Spade New York Power Pack ($79.99) hails the brand’s simplistic, modernist color palette while boosting the Moto Z series’ battery capacity by an extra 2220 mAh. Like the Mophie Juice Power Pack, this easily charges alongside the Moto Z when it’s plugged in for the night.

There is also a polka-dotted variant at Verizon.

See at Amazon

Incipio Offgrid Power Pack

One more power pack! This one is from Incipio and, like the Mophie Juice Pack, it’s a simplistic battery back you can tack on to the Moto Z for an extra boost of battery power. The Incipio Offgrid Power Pack ($79.99) features an additional 2220 mAh of battery. It also supports both Qi and PMA wireless charging, which will come in handy from time to time where wireless chargers might be available —this one compatible with the charging pads offered at Starbucks! It comes in both white and black.

See at Amazon

TUMI Wireless Charging Power Pack

We were clearly joking. Here’s one more power pack and it’s from trusted luggage brand, TUMI. The TUMI Wireless Charging Power Pack ($79.99) is outfitted in a cool black and adds an extra 2220mAh of battery to Moto Z devices. It also supports Qi wireless charging, so you can set it down to charge both the phone and the power pack at the same time. The TUMI Wireless Charging Power Pack will also charge with the phone when plugged in.

See at Amazon

Incipio Vehicle Dock

This phone mount doesn’t just cradle the Moto Z, it latches on to it. Once you snap in the smartphone, the dock will fire up Android Auto so that you can have immediate access to your contact, music, and maps without being distracted from the road. The Incipio Vehicle Dock ($64.99) also offers 15-watt fast charging in your car.

See at Verizon

JBL SoundBoost 2

A sequel to 2016’s SoundBoost, this Moto Mod is a speaker that attaches to the back of a Moto Z series phone, but this one is cooler: it comes in an assortment of colors, including bright blue or red, and is more rounded than the original, making it easier to hold. With two 3-watt speakers, the SoundBoost 2 ($79.99) sounds just as good (but no better) than the original, and the 1000mAh battery lets it play for 10 hours without needing to be topped up. This one is also splashproof, just like the Moto Z phones themselves.

See at Motorola

Moto Style Shell with Wireless Charging

Style Shells — the multitidunious covers that magentically attach to the back of the Moto Z series — aren’t really Mods, since they don’t really add functionality, except for this one: the Style Shell with Wireless Charging ($39.00) does exactly what it describes. Adding a tiny 3.25mm of thickness to a compatible phone, the back adds Qi and PMA wireless charging. Available in two colors: textured black, and colorful flowers.

See at Motorola

Moto TurboPower Pack

Motorola’s fast charging technology is branded TurboPower, so it makes sense that its most powerful and expansive battery Mod would be named after it. The Moto TurboPower Pack contains a massive 3490mAh cell that charges a Moto Z series phone at 15W for incredibly fast recharge speeds. While it adds a girthy 6.58mm to the phone it’s connected to, it’s not meant to be kept on all day; instead, it’s a top-up, bringing a phone from 0% to 50% in 20 minutes or so.

Available summer 2017.

See at Motorola

Moto Gamepad

This is so cool. Motorola’s Gamepad Mod lets a Moto Z series phone fit inside the comfortable confines of a game controller, adding dual control sticks, a d-pad and four buttons, along with shoulder buttons, for an incredible gaming experience. There’s also a 1035mAh battery to power the Gamepad for eight hours of usage.

Available summer 2017.

See at Motorola

Moto 360 Camera

The newest Moto Mod is a 360-degree camera ($299.99) that attaches to the back of any Moto Z device and offers dual 13MP sensors and 4K video capture. There’s also 3D audio support using microphones from the phone and camera itself, and by attaching directly to the phone there’s no Bluetooth or Wi-Fi to struggle with when transferring photos over; they’re all on the device or microSD card itself, and can be edited on the phone and uploaded to Google Photos.

Available August 10.

See at Motorola

Update, July 25: This list has been updated with the latest Moto Mods added in 2017.

Moto Z, Moto Z Force and Moto Z Play

• Moto Z + Z Force review!
• Moto Z Play review
• The Hasselblad True Zoom is a Mod to remember
• Moto Z specs
• Moto Mods custom backs
• The latest Moto Z news
• Discuss in our Moto Z forums

Motorola
Verizon

Deal: Save 50% on a brand new LG G6 from Sprint

If you’re in the market for a new device, the LG G6 is still one of the best Android phones you can buy right now. If you sign up for Sprint’s Unlimited Freedom Plan you can snag the awesome LG G6 phone for half off. With zero down for the device, you’ll pay just $14.75 a month for 24 months (down from the usual full price of $30 per month) in addition to the well-priced $50 Unlimited data plan.

Sprint’s Unlimited Freedom Plan includes:

• Unlimited Talk, Text and High-Speed Data
  (Customers who use more than 23GB of data during a billing cycle may experience slower speeds temporarily during times of high network congestion.)
• 10GB of data usage for mobile spot
• HD video streaming with video streams at up to 1080p+ resolution and music streams at 1.5 mbps
• Virtual private network (VPN)

If you’re a fan (or soon-to-be fan) of the LG G, then this is a very sweet deal that won’t have you throwing down a heap of cash up-front. Hit the link below for more details!

Buy at Sprint

T-Mobile’s BOGO Moto Z2 Force deal may be the best out there

T-Mobile is giving up to $750 back on the purchase of two Moto Z2 Force units.

While five U.S. carriers are offering the Moto Z2 Force starting August 10, T-Mobile is offering a BOGO deal that may be worth looking into.

The carrier’s putting the phone up for pre-order today, July 25, at 12:30pm ET and offering a rebate on the second purchase of a Moto Z2 Force valued at $750.

Buy one, get one! Purchase two Z2 Force Editions on EIP and add a new line of service and we’ll send you a Prepaid MasterCard® Card for $750, covering the cost of one of your new flagship phones. Plus, Motorola is offering a new Insta-Share Projector (a $299.99 value) to anyone that purchases a Z2 Force Edition through September 9 (or while supplies last). You can take advantage of both deals, but only one projector per account.

This isn’t a new deal from T-Mobile — the company did it with the Galaxy S8 and other phones before it — but if you’re thinking of adding an additional line, it’s definitely worth spending the time investigation, especially with the addition of the $300 Insta-Share projector (which is pretty darn good).

The phone is available for $750 overall, which translates to $30 and $30 a month for 24 months, or $0 down and $34 a month for 18 months on JUMP on Demand.

T-Mobile’s version also supports Gigabit Wi-Fi in certain parts of the country, thanks to the Z2 Force’s X16 baseband from Qualcomm.

See at T-Mobile

Moto Z2 Force Edition

• Moto Z2 Force is official
• Moto Z2 Force specs
• This is the Moto 360 Camera Mod
• Join the discussion in the forums!

Honor 6X is now one of the best phones under $200

The Honor 6X was a pretty great phone at $250. Now it’s an essential buy at under $200.

The Honor 6X had a rough start to its life, mainly because it was running an older version of Android that had a few problems. But that was quickly corrected with an update to Android 7.0 and EMUI 5.0 back in May, and since then things have been smooth sailing for the mid-range value handset — even at its former price of $250.

Now, the Honor 6X is receiving a permanent prince drop to $200 — well, $199.99, since every penny counts — make it even more affordable and accessible to the average buyer looking for an unlocked phone.

There aren’t a lot of really compelling devices at that price range in the unlocked space — really, only the Moto G5 Plus comes to mind, and it starts at $229.99 for a model that isn’t as well-equipped as the Honor 6X. Here’s what Florence Ion said about the phone in her review back in January:

I like the look of and feel of this thing. Whereas most smartphones under $300 feel like bottom-of-the-barrel clearance bin finds, the Honor 6X’s solid construction tricks you into thinking you actually paid more for it.

She also said that the camera was above average for the price, and that the phone’s battery life was fantastic — which you’d expect given its 3340mAh size. The 5.5-inch display is big and bright, and there’s plenty of power in the Kirin 655 chip along with 3GB of RAM and 32GB of storage.

As for the software, now that it’s running Android 7.0, we’re a lot happier with the phone. EMUI 5.0 on the Honor 6X is the same as on the now-$499.99 Huawei Mate 9 (which is receiving a permanent $100 price drop of its own), and while it’s not perfect, it’s so much better than it used to be.

At $199.99, there isn’t a whole lot out there that comes close to competing with the Honor 6X from a price-to-performance standpoint. It’s available at Amazon, Best Buy and other online retailers.

See at Best Buy

Moto Z2 Force Edition pre-orders have begun, priced from $750

A new phone is only as good as how easy it is to buy.

In the year since the original Moto Z launched, Motorola made big improvements to its launch strategy. Not only is the Moto Z2 Force Edition coming to all major U.S. carriers, it’s available for pre-order right away after the announcement with deliveries just two weeks away on August 10. Here’s where, when and for how much you can buy the Moto Z2 Force.

U.S. carriers

Complete U.S. carrier support, you say? Absolutely, take your pick of the top five.

Verizon

Verizon has the best pricing at launch, with a total retail price of $756 but also a really great deal if you choose to finance the phone. Customers with unlimited data plans can get the Z2 Force for just $15 per month, or $360 in total, assuming they finance over the course of two years. The free Projector Mod you’ve been hearing about still applies.

You can pick from black or gold at Verizon.

See at Verizon

AT&T

AT&T has quoted a price of $27 per month for the Moto Z2 Force … but on its 30-month installment plan, which adds up to a hefty $810 in total.

Pre-orders have kicked off, with in-store availability on August 11. As is the case most other places you buy it, if you buy the Z2 Force from AT&T the carrier will offer a free Insta-Share Projector Mod (a $299 value) — the offer stands until October 6.

See at AT&T

T-Mobile

T-Mobile has set its price at $30 down and $30 per month for 24 months, or a total of $750 outright. Those with JUMP plans will pay $0 down and $34 a month for 18 months. T-Mobile has an exclusive Lunar Grey color of the Z2 Force.

On top of the free Insta-Share Projector Mod, T-Mobile is also running a limited time buy-one, get-one deal where you’ll receive a $750 prepaid card after buying two Moto Z2 Forces with a second line.

See at T-Mobile

Sprint

Sprint’s pricing breaks down to $792, with options for financing or an 18-month lease at $33 per month. You can get it in black or gold, and get in on that free Projector Mod as well.

See at Sprint

Motorola

Motorola is selling the Moto Z2 Force unlocked directly from its website at $799, or $33.33 per month for two years. Motorola’s listing currently only offers the Verizon, T-Mobile, Sprint and US Cellular models, but should also have an unlocked model available soon. These prices are subject to change, since Motorola hasn’t finalized the price of the unlocked version.

See at Motorola

Best Buy

As is typical, Best Buy is offering carrier versions of the Z2 Force but with some pricing incentives. It’s worth checking out Best Buy’s deals to see if they can undercut going directly to the carrier of your choice.

See at Best Buy

International

Motorola’s official line on international availability of the Moto Z2 Force is that it will start hitting more countries “later this summer,” though no time table is offered. This is typically because each country (or even specific retailers) is likely to announce its own date independently. You can count on availability in select countries across Europe, the Middle East, Africa and Asia, and Motorola specifically names Mexico and Brazil as launch countries as well.

Moto Z2 Force Edition

• Moto Z2 Force is official
• Moto Z2 Force specs
• This is the Moto 360 Camera Mod
• Join the discussion in the forums!

YouTube: Ultimate Guide

YouTube started as a simple video site, but today it’s much, much more.

YouTube is so much more than cute cats and mindless pranks; it’s where millions come for education, information, and live, late-breaking news. YouTube streams more than just Google keynotes; it streams important political debates and allows users to stream from almost anywhere in the world with an internet connection. It’s important to understand YouTube and how to use it, and whether you’re just looking to watch your videos without Autoplay plaguing you or you’re looking to turn your feed into a legitimate cord-cutter cornucopia of enticing entertainment, we’re here to help you get it done.

Finding your way around

First things first: let’s find where we find videos on YouTube and how we start curating our content so that YouTube’s algorithms can start working to bring us more of what we want. Want to get started with YouTube? Start here.

How to use YouTube for Android

Managing YouTube

YouTube can run away with you (and your mobile data) if you don’t keep it in check. From managing what kinds of content can pop up in your results to what networks you use to stream in HD, these are settings you can use to keep YouTube manageable.

How to manage the YouTube app for Android

Saving YouTube videos

See a fun video that you want to watch later? We’ve all been there. Here’s how to save videos for later — and to save them for watching offline, depending on where you live.

How to save videos in YouTube for Android

Managing your YouTube history

We all search for things we’d rather not fess up to. We stumble upon videos we wish we hadn’t seen. It’s okay, you don’t have to burn your digital identity — we just need to clean up our YouTube histories.

How to pause and clear your YouTube history

Uploading videos

Making the jump from consumer to creator on YouTube is a breeze. Here’s how to get videos from your Android phone onto YouTube. Getting them on the front page, however, is another matter entirely.

How to upload videos to YouTube

Taming YouTube’s annoyances

Like any site or product, there are ways that YouTube can annoy and irritate. Luckily, here’s the way to stop some of the more visible annoyances on the app.

Best tricks to fix YouTube’s most annoying features

A Wallflower smart plug means you’ll never forget to turn off the stove

There are two kinds of people in this world: those who know they turned off the stove and everyone else.

For the latter group (at least for those with electric stoves), there’s a new product that aims to give some peace of mind. Wallflower turns your dumb range into a semi-smart (more on that in a second) stove that provides some insurance should things be left cooking.

It takes about 2 minutes to make your dumb stove smart.

This whole thing is cleverly simple: Wallflower is a plug that fits between your stove and the power outlet and can tell when juice is flowing. You set up an account with Wallflower, and it lets you know via your phone — Android and iPhone, of course — when the stove is in use or when you’ve left it on.

That’s it.

The hardest part of all this is getting to your stove’s plug. For me, that was simply a matter of pulling out the drawer underneath and then plugging everything in. (Note that Wallflower is a little larger than a standard plug. I needed an extension to get the proper clearance.) You set up the Wallflower via Wi-Fi Direct, and you’re on your way. All in all, it took about 2 minutes.

I called Wallflower a semi-smart product. That’s maybe selling it a little short. It tells you when the stove is turned on. It’ll learn your cooking habits to try to guess when you’ve actually intended to leave the stove on (you know, for cooking) versus when you might have accidentally left it on. You can set an alert timer if it remains on after a certain point. You can set cooking timers within the Wallflower app. (Or, ya know, just use your phone or Alexa or whatever.) And you can geofence the whole thing and get an alert if you move more than 1,000 feet away from a defined location while the stove is on. Or you can do all of the above.

Or you could just remember to turn off the stove.

Now’s a good time to talk about what Wallflower doesn’t do. It can only tell you when the stove is off or on. (It also tells you when it’s “hot” by guessing that it’ll remain hot for 15 minutes after it was last on.) But it can’t actually turn off the stove. That would truly make this a smart product. Instead, it’s meant to warn you in plenty of time to turn things off before a fire starts.

Have an aging relative or a young chef? You’ll want this.

Will that be good enough? Maybe.

I want to say that $169 is too much to pay for that sort of peace of mind, but my better half very much disagrees. While you can get this sort of functionality in a new $2,000 oven, that’s maybe a pretty small price to pay to retrofit an older one. And maybe it’s not for me. Maybe it’s for that forgetful (but oh-so-lovable) spouse. Or maybe it’s for an aging relative. Or for someone who just doesn’t want to worry.

OK, my wallet is starting to open up.

What I do want to see, however, are more options for notifications. You can invite family members to join in via the Wallflower app, but Wallflower needs external notifications, too. SMS alerts, for starters. I’d love to see integration with Amazon Alexa, IFTTT, Google Home, and the like. Leave your stove on? Start flashing ALL THE LIGHTS. If we’re really going to use this thing as a layer of fire protection, I want more than just a standard push notification. (Because, if you’re anything like me, you already get too many notifications. And if everything’s an emergency, then nothing is an emergency.)

But, yeah. This is a pretty quick and easy way to see if someone left the stove on. It’s still up to you to prevent the fire, though.

See at Wallflower.com

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Here’s why some OnePlus 5s rebooted when calling 911, and how OnePlus fixed it

This is what you’d call a ‘showstopper’ bug … if you actually find it.

OnePlus has offered up more information on the worrisome bug found by some OnePlus 5 owners that would reboot the phone when trying to place an emergency call. After some investigation, it turns out a confluence of issues combined to cause phones to sometimes reboot when calling over VoLTE to emergency numbers that supported OTDOA positioning information.

OTDOA, as you likely aren’t aware, is a system that uses LTE signals to determine a phone’s location by pinging multiple cell towers and measuring how long it takes each signal to reach the tower. If the emergency number you’re calling supports the system, the phone will report the its approximate location using OTDOA. As you can imagine, that kind of location information is extremely useful in an emergency situation.

An immensely helpful OnePlus 5 owner helped the company quickly pinpoint and fix the problem.

As we found out in the days following the initial reports of 911 reboots, the issue wasn’t happening on all OnePlus 5 models or in all countries. This is pretty simply explained by the fact that not everyone is making calls with VoLTE (the OnePlus 5 only supports it for certain networks), and not all emergency numbers necessarily take OTDOA information even if you are. It’s still a really bad bug no matter what, but OnePlus was thankfully able to act quickly to fix it. After contacting the user who initially reported the issue, OnePlus was actually able to obtain device logs that pinpointed the core problem.

It turns out the root of the whole problem wasn’t just the OnePlus firmware, but rather how it interacted with the actual cellular modem in the phone that’s part of the larger Qualcomm system-on-a-chip powering the OnePlus 5. The process of obtaining and sending OTDOA data caused a memory issue in the modem that eventually caused the reboot. Without the device log information from someone who saw the issue, it would’ve been notably harder to determine the real problem — and, indeed, the bug did make it through software testing all the way to production. OnePlus and Qualcomm are confident now, though, that this bug has been fixed via the OTA update that rolled out on July 21.

This isn’t the sort of bug we ever want to see make it into any phone, but it’s great to see OnePlus — with the help of the users who first spotted it — fix the issue in just a few days and help out the people who may call emergency services on their OnePlus 5 in the future.

OnePlus 5

• Complete OnePlus 5 review
• OnePlus 5 specs
• Which OnePlus 5 model should you buy?
• Camera comparison: OnePlus 5 vs. Galaxy S8
• The latest OnePlus 5 news
• Join the discussion in the forums

OnePlus