Intel to manufacture ARM chips in a bid for mobile domination
Intel is flexing its manufacturing muscle in an attempt to get inside your next phone. To do that, it has entered a licensing deal with ARM, according to a report from Bloomberg. Without this license, excess manufacturing space goes to waste. But with it, Intel can make processors for Apple, Qualcomm and Samsung — the biggest players in smartphones. This gives Intel a much-needed boost in the mobile space that it couldn’t achieve on its own.
The ARM deal also gives Intel a foot in the door with VR hardware, which might help explain the company’s new Project Alloy all-in-one headset. And if you’re playing along at home, yep, these production lines will include those making 10-nanometer chips. So, more money for Intel and possibly faster and better processors for your mobile device. ARM itself was recently picked up by Japanese tech-giant Softbank for $32 billion. So yeah, this is a pretty big deal although specifics regarding the money involved aren’t known at this time.
With the PC market declining, this gives Intel a chance to get into mobile without technically getting into mobile itself. The company is already rumored to be making the modem chips for Apple and this deal could put Intel silicon elsewhere inside future iPhones. First in line to test out Intel’s tasty production lines? LG, which, according to Intel, will “produce a world-class mobile platform based on Intel Custom Foundry’s 10 nm design platform.”
Source: Bloomberg, Intel
LG’s V20 will sound great… with wired headphones
Some portions of the technology industry would like you to think that smartphones without headphone jacks are the future. LG feels differently, and has teamed up with high-end audio firm ESS to bake in a 32-bit HiFi Quad Digital-To-Analog converter into the forthcoming V20. Unlike standard DACs, this model is promised to cut ambient noise in half and make your tunes sound as if you’re listening on some high-end separates. The bit that’s worth noting, however, is that this new-fangled audio prowess will only work if you’re rocking a set of cabled headphones.
If you’re unfamiliar, a DAC takes the music that’s been stored digitally and (wait for it) converts it into analog audio for piping into your ears. That’s reasonably easy for a smartphone because there’s some space and power to install a hardware DAC in the body for use with headphones. But Bluetooth audio gear has to process the digital signal locally, which means it has to carry its own DAC. That means that it’s got to be smaller, cheaper and less power-hungry than its smartphone counterpart. By making a big deal out of the V20’s wired audio capabilities, LG’s drawing a very public line in the sand against firms like Motorola and what Apple is presumed to be doing next month.
LG’s V20 smartphone may be as modular as the G5
Just a few days ago, LG revealed that it will introduce its first Android Nougat phone in San Francisco on September 6th. The V20 is said to come with similar dual-screen, dual-selfie camera features as its predecessor, the V10. And now, thanks to OnLeaks and Android Authority, we’re getting a first look at purported renders of the device. Most notably, the 5.7-inch V20 appears to have a modular design, based on a button placement reminiscent to that of LG’s newly minted G5.
As Android Authority points out, there appears to be a bottom lip as well, which could be a removable piece to make room for different kind of accessories. That said, the publication says its sources haven’t confirmed if the V20 is actually modular, so hold off on making any final judgements for now. Either way, we’ll likely find out more details about the handset in the weeks leading to its official announcement.
Source: OnLeaks/Android Authority
Wirecutter’s best deals: Save $250 on an LG OLED TV
This post was done in partnership with The Wirecutter, a buyer’s guide to the best technology. Read their continuously updated list of deals at TheWirecutter.com.
You may have already seen Engadget posting reviews from our friends at The Wirecutter. Now, from time to time, we’ll also be publishing their recommended deals on some of their top picks. Read on, and strike while the iron is hot — some of these sales could expire mighty soon.
LG 55EG9100 OLED TV
Street Price: $1,450; MSRP: $2,000; Deal Price: $1,200
This matches a recent deal we saw on this TV that expired shortly after it went live, which is still the best price we’ve seen on this TV. Make sure you’re registered for Ebay Bucks to get an additional 2% back.
The LG 55EG9100 is our previous upgrade pick in our best TV guide. Chris Heinonen said, “It’s the most affordable OLED display available, and it has a few strikes against it: it’s only 1080p, it’s curved, it’s only 55 inches, and it costs 50 percent more than our main pick. However, it offers perfect, pure blacks and thus produces images with contrast ratios other TVs cannot approach.”
He added, “Objects in motion look clearer, and viewing angles (how good the image looks when you’re not directly in front of the TV) are better than either the Vizio or the Samsung. The 55EG9100 won’t work as well in a brightly lit room as an LCD, but it offers far and away the best image of anything we looked at.”
Dell UltraSharp U3415W 34-inch monitor
Street Price: $725; MSRP: $1,200; Deal Price: $650
It’s been a long time since we’ve posted a deal on this monitor, great sales have been slow to pop up. This particular deal comes in $25 below the best price we’ve seen to date, and should also be eligible for 2% back in Ebay Bucks.
The Dell UltraSharp U3415W monitor is a larger monitor we like in our best 27-inch monitor guide. David Murphy wrote, “It’s a bit more expensive than our upgrade pick when it’s on sale ($900, when we researched it; $1,200 normally) and doesn’t have a Thunderbolt port, but it’s just about as accurate for colors, has more USB 3.0 ports, and uses HDMI 2.0 instead of HDMI 1.4. It’s also more adjustable than our upgrade pick—worth a little extra money if that matters to you, but not a ton.”
DJI Phantom 3 Professional Quadcopter with Additional Battery
Street Price: $1,100; MSRP: $1,400; Deal Price: $1,000
This sale matches the previous low that we saw a few months back, though it’s been consistently in the $1,100 range since then. While the drone itself is available for $900, that’s been going in and out of stock since that price went live, and paying $100 extra for an additional battery, one of the most useful Phantom 3 accessories, is worth it for most people.
The DJI Phantom 3 Professional is our top pick in the Best Drones guide. Mike Perlman wrote, “Our top pick combines easy flying, long range, great image quality, three-axis stabilization, and great fail-safe features. In addition to being easy to fly, the Phantom 3 Professional offers a 4K-capable camera with a low-distortion, wide-angle lens, an upgraded three-axis gimbal for effective image stabilization, and a standout wireless range that gives you the ability to see both real-time flight stats and a first-person view of what you’re shooting from up to 3.1 miles away, using a smartphone mounted to your radio controller. It also has preprogrammed flight controls with modes tailored to both beginners and advanced pilots, good battery life (23 minutes rated; 16 to 18 minutes of actual flight time while shooting in our testing), the ability to fly autonomously via Follow Me and Waypoints settings, and a fail-safe setting that prompts the drone to return to its launch site or current pilot location automatically if it loses connection with the radio transmitter.”
On the Phantom 3 Professional’s range, “The Phantom 3 Professional also has nearly 10 times the range of the Phantom 2 Vision+, nearly 3.1 miles. We were shocked at how far away we could fly the Phantom 3 Professional, watching it fly off from the Maine coast over a mile until it dwindled to a tiny speck far above the ocean (current FAA rulings demand that you keep your drone in sight). In our testing, the Phantom 2’s range would extend only to around 1,500 to 1,800 feet, depending on obstacles in the path of the Wi-Fi transmission and whatever local radio interference was present.”
Logitech K380 Bluetooth Keyboard
Street Price: $35; MSRP: $40; Deal Price: $20
The best price we’ve seen to date on this keyboard, and part of a 3 day Best Buy sale that went live today. While we’ve seen it for $22 at Amazon for a few weeks, it’s been going in and out of stock, and this price beats that one. Oddly enough, only the blue model ever gets discounted this much, the other models are consistently in the $32 to $40 range.
The Logitech K380 Bluetooth Keyboard is our pick for the best Bluetooth keyboard. Kimber Streams wrote, “The Logitech K380 Multi-Device Bluetooth keyboard has the best balance of comfort, features, and price.”
She went into some detail about the features, “Our pick can pair with up to three devices and switch between them with the press of a button, a useful feature that few Bluetooth keyboards have. The K380 is comfortable and responsive; it’s also solid enough for desktop or lap use, while being small and light enough to slip in a bag and use on the go. Logitech says our pick has up to two years of battery life with heavy use (defined as eight hours a day, five days a week), though the keyboard hasn’t existed long enough for us to test this claim. The K380’s unusual, round keys can take some getting used to, and the keyboard lacks backlit keys and the operating system-specific layouts you’ll find on our upgrade picks, but those amenities aren’t available in other keyboards in this price category either.”
Deals change all the time, and some of these may have expired. To see an updated list of current deals, please go to The Wirecutter.com.
LG unveils the first Android Nougat phone on September 6th
Earlier this month, LG announced its quirky V20 smartphone would be the first to ship with the latest Android 7.0 Nougat operating system, beating the upcoming Nexus refreshes to the nougat-y punch. Now we know the dual-screen, dual-selfie camera successor to the V10 will officially be unveiled in San Francisco on September 6, 2016.
Although LG has yet to share many details about the new phone’s features, we do know it will be once again sporting dual displays: a main 5.7-inch display, plus a second, always-on ribbon display at the top for notifications and quick app access. In practice, Engadget found the V10’s second screen to be one of the best implementations to date, with easy access to audio controls or a quick glance at an email subject line. Other features, like those two front-facing cameras seemed like overkill for anyone who doesn’t need two lens options when shooting a selfie.
As for the rest of the internals, those details will land next month, when we expect the V20 to start retailing around the same $600 price point as its predecessor.
Watch the Olympics in 4K Ultra HD on Comcast, DirecTV or Dish
The 2016 Summer Olympic Games are almost here, and despite the issues present in Rio, watching from home should be better than ever. If you’re in need of something else to display on your brand new Ultra HD television then we have good news — NBC will have 4K, HDR footage with Atmos surround sound available that’s actually downsampled from 8K (which you can see for yourself, if you live in Japan). The only problem? Not every TV provider will be pushing it to viewers, and it will be on 24-hour tape delay.
US viewers have four choices for Ultra HD broadcasts from the Olympics: DirecTV, Dish, Comcast and EPB. Chattanooga residents will have to contact EPB for details on how to get channel 803, while DirecTV is promising a linear broadcast on channel 106. Dish Network will not have the Opening Ceremony available initially, but promises a broadcast on channel 146 and video on-demand highlights that will be in 4K, but won’t feature HDR. For Comcast, you should be able to see all the clips, but it isn’t pushing any Ultra HD via its cable boxes at all. Instead, footage will only be available to people who have Samsung or LG Smart TVs with the Xfinity preview app built-in.
Source: NBC
LG’s V20 will be the first Android Nougat smartphone
LG will launch the V20 smartphone in September, and it will be the first to get Android 7.0 Nougat. It’s the successor to LG’s wacky V10 phone, and will have the same dual-screen, dual-selfie camera features (no other specs were revealed). The news means that the V20 will likely be released before any Nexus phones, which are usually the first with the latest Android operating systems. That would be an unusual move by Google, but LG has confirmed the news with Engadget.
LG has built the lion’s share of Nexus phones for the search giant, including the Nexus 4, 5 and 5X. With the generally low prices of Nexus models (the 5X is $349, for instance), it’s understood that companies like LG and Huawei are willing to take smaller profits to work with Google. With the V20, LG gets it both ways — it can sell the handset at a profitable price (the V10 is $600) and still be first to market with a new Android OS. Considering that the V10 was a rare bright spot for LG, that could give its flagging mobile division a boost.
Source: LG (translated)
When will LG’s smartphone patience run out?
LG is happy to announce that, thanks to its home appliance and entertainment divisions, it’s made a record quarterly profit. But the company is less delighted to concede that its mobile division has suffered another weak quarter, ostensibly down to lukewarm sales of the LG G5. But LG’s problems run a lot deeper than just an underwhelming flagship: It hasn’t booked a profit since the second quarter of 2015. Even then, it was making a measly 1.2 cents in profit on every handset it sold, which wasn’t much to write home about.
Of course, LG’s mobile division has been written off before. Back in 2013, profits fell off a cliff, but the company was able to pull back from the brink the following year and make some cash once again. But there’s a substantial difference between what happened then and what’s going on now. Firstly, this drop is deeper and longer than the last one. More importantly, the smartphone market is radically different from how it was just a year or two ago.
IDC has published its latest research on the state of the smartphone industry and the results don’t bode well for companies like LG. Growth has effectively stalled, mirroring reports from earlier in the year claiming that the smartphone boom is effectively over. The issue is simple: Everyone who can afford a smartphone already owns one, and they aren’t worried about upgrading on a fixed, 24-month cycle. People are holding onto their devices for an average of 30 months, because most decent handsets don’t turn into hot garbage precisely 730 days after buying it.
Lg handset sales vs. operating income
Samsung, LG’s Korean rival, has been able to ride through the rough tides to see its quarterly shipment volumes increase. But for the most part, a lot of the handset business is now being subsumed by a handful of Chinese companies. As a result, once-hallowed brands like HTC, LG and Sony no longer make “top five handset makers” list, having been replaced by Huawei, Oppo and Vivo, the latter two of which have the same parent company, BBK Electronics.
Those three Chinese companies managed to ship 32.1, 22.6 and 16.4 million handsets in the last three months, a combined total of 71.1 million smartphones. LG, which is backed by an enormous manufacturing conglomerate and has significant brand recognition, managed just 13.9 million in the same period of time. These firms are even stealing Apple’s lunch, whose shipments dropped 15 percent since the same quarter in 2015.
iCharts
LG has said that it’s working on a new V-Series device, which is likely a follow-up to the V10 from last year. That phone earned some middling praise when it first came out, but even so, is one new handset likely to recapture LG’s fading glory? These days, almost all smartphones are good enough, and it’s not as if highly profitable flagship devices have a monopoly on exciting features anymore. If most people are satisfied with a OnePlus 3 that costs $399, then why spend another $50 or so on a G5?
Unlike HTC, LG is backed by an enormous manufacturing conglomerate, so it’s not likely it’ll need to ever pull out of the smartphone business. But there’s a question as to how long its leadership will tolerate triple-digit losses before taking action. Sure, Nokia, Blackberry and others all hung on for years of pain, hoping that things were about to turn around. But history has shown that it’s difficult to pull out of a death spiral once you’re already in one.
Perhaps it won’t be long before someone decides to scale back its mobile arm to Sony-esque proportions, releasing one or two devices each year to keep the factories working. What’s clear, however, is that a lot of these companies that were once considered pillars of the Android market have found themselves slow to adapt to a new world order.
Source: IDC, LG
LG Display invests $1.75 billion for flexible OLED demand
The South Korean-based LG Display announced it will be investing $1.75 billion in an attempt to meet the growing demand for flexible OLED displays, which are expected to replace LCDs for smartphones and other similar tech in the future.
Flexible OLEDs are already being utilized in several different pieces of tech, and LG is the largest creator of LCDs in the world. It’s been actively working on creating additional OLED screens for TVs and mobile phones, though it’s fallen behind Samsung Display Co Ltd., which happens to be the largest creator of OLEDs for phones. In response to this, LG Display is creating a new production line for small and medium flexible OLED screens in South Korea.
The new production line, E6, is scheduled to begin mass production in the second half of 2018 and is set to produce 15,000 inupt sheets per month. It looks like we’ll be seeing a lot more out of LG Display in the future as far as flexible OLEDs go, however this is an intriguing turn of events as the company announced Wednesday that its second-quarter operating profit had fallen a whopping 91 percent from the previous year.
Source: LG Display
Without a new Apple Watch, smartwatch shipments decline in Q2
Until now, the smartwatch market had seen year-over-year growth each quarter since the devices made their debut. For Q2 2016 though, that wasn’t the case. Global smartwatch shipments were down 32 percent, totaling 3.5 million gadgets during the period. That figure is down from 5.1 million of the wearables shipped during the second quarter of 2015. Apple still led the pack with 1.6 million units, but it was the only top-selling company to experience an annual decline. It’s worth noting that Q2 2015 was when the Apple Watch launched and there hasn’t been an updated model yet.
Speaking of new devices, the lack of updated hardware is a key reason the for the drop in numbers. Improvements to Apple’s watchOS were announced back at WWDC, but they won’t arrive until this fall. There’s a new version of Android Wear on the way as well. Combine that with no new model from the top company and buyers are waiting to nab a wearable if they haven’t done so already. As IDC points out, Apple’s share of the market is nearly half (47 percent), so when it sees a decline that shift significantly impacts the entire segment of devices.
IDC also notes that only a select few traditional watchmakers have delivered a more modern spin on the timepiece. The likes of Casio, Fossil and Tag Heuer have done so, but the analytics company expects the smartwatch market stands to benefit if more of those companies join the tech OEMs that are cranking out the devices at a solid pace. A little brand recognition goes a long way.
That 32 percent figure may also seem like a significant drop, but that has to be considered alongside the overall size of the smartwatch market. 3.5 million total units shipped in a quarter for all vendors is still quite small when compared to other gadgets like phones. Sure, smartwatches have yet to take hold like handsets have, but the comparison shows that those wearables continue to be a niche item. In terms of other top-5 companies, Samsung still ranks number 2 behind Apple thanks to the Gear S2 and its ability to function without being tethered to a phone. Lenovo sits in third after nabbing Motorola as the Moto 360 continues to be a top choice for Android Wear fans who prefer a circular display.
Source: IDC (Business Wire)
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