Category Archives: Mobile

Android, Lifestyle, Mobile, News

Samsung’s Galaxy S23 Coming on the 1st February at Galaxy Unpacked!

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This should come as almost no surprise. It is 2023 and that means that Samsung’s flagship, the Galaxy S22 series is going to be a year old soon. In the world of smartphones, a year-old means that the device is outdated. It is time for an update in the form of the Samsung Galaxy S23. While Apple has not and will not be launching their latest iPhone 14 series flagship smartphone until toward Q3 of 2023, Samsung’s upcoming flagship will compete directly with Apple’s best.

Samsung’s flagship for 2023 has been anticipated since the inception of their Galaxy S22 flagship series. That is also because everyone knows Samsung’s product cycle, like Apple’s. Of course, everyone is expecting a more powerful device than before every year.

Samsung’s latest smartphone is touted to have Qualcomm’s most powerful System on a Chip (SoC) yet. It will come with the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2. You no longer get Samsung’s very own Exynos option since Samsung has given up on that idea. Still, that does not mean that Samsung might not inject their own flavour on to the high-end SoC. Rumours points to Samsung customizing and overclocking the GPU to make it even more powerful than the regular Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 you might find elsewhere.

Samsung’s mobile imaging department made some breakthroughs last year. They managed to manufacture a camera sensor that packs 200-Megapixels for smartphones. The sensor is a little larger than the regular mobile camera sensor, but it is still a feat to fit 200 million pixels in a tiny plate. Rumours points to the latest Samsung flagship packing that much pixel in their attached camera, at least for the S23 Ultra variant of the flagship, nearly double what their previous flagships pack.

In terms of design though, you can expect much of the same things from Samsung. You can expect the Samsung Galaxy S23 series to look pretty much like the Galaxy S22 series, just as the Galaxy S21 series. The Galaxy S23 Ultra will most likely share the same look as the Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra instead of the S21 Ultra. It might still offer the S Pen attached within the body too.

There are still plenty of unknowns on Samsung’s upcoming 2023 flagships too. All we can do is wait for them to finally take the Galaxy S23 to stage on the 1st of February 2023. For more information on Samsung’s Galaxy Unpacked 2023 event and their latest flagships, you can refer to their website.

Computers, Mobile, News

[CES 2023] AMD Brings the Ryzen 7000 Series Mobile! 

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AMD’s CES keynote was quite a big one. No, they did not make p15 product announcements. More like they launched just one line-up of small chips to go into small and portable products, and one huge chip meant to go into huge servers you never want to see the inside of the next 10 years. They launched the AMD Ryzen 7000 series for mobile computing devices. Yes, they did launch new Epyc server class processors, but we think that it is worth a story of its own. 

Welcome to the latest AMD mobile processor experience. This time AMD launched a few series of Ryzen 7000 processors. You have the AMD Ryzen 7045HX, Ryzen 7040HS, Ryzen 7035, and Ryzen 7030 series processors. There are also AMD Ryzen PRO 7030 series processors designed for the corporate world too. 

The AMD Ryzen 7030 Series 

Meant to find their way to the budget options, the AMD Ryzen 7030 series processors are really meant to be entry-level powerhouses. You get to opt for up to the AMD Ryzen 7 7730U with up to eight cores and 16 threads. All eight cores are finished with AMD’s 7nm Zen 3 architecture. The Zen 3 architecture may be a previous generation technology, but it is still a highly popular architecture that has proven itself over time. 

With constrained budget, most entry-level laptops will not feature their own discrete GPU. That is why the AMD Ryzen 7030 packs its own Radeon graphics that will prove to be useful in both gaming and productivity situations. Then there are the AMD Ryzen PRO 7030 series. 

The PRO processors have always been made for corporate laptops. They are more like the older Ryzen PRO 5000 series processor than the newer generation Zen 4 processors. Like the regular AMD Ryzen 7030, they pack 7nm Zen 3 architecture instead of the new Zen 4. While they will perform the same as the regular Ryzen 7030, their added security layer buikt into the chip itself should set itself apart from other AMD Ryzen 7000 series mobile processors.  

The AMD Ryzen 7035 Series 

Coming up the ladder is AMD’s 6nm processors with up to eight cores and 16 threads on the Ryzen 7035HS. It is the Zen 3+ technology that took the Zen 3 architecture and improved its power efficiency and general processing speed despite similar general architectures. It is designed for productivity machines that are meant to go everywhere. The first of many will be HP’s Dragonfly PRO coming soon. While not at the lowest end of AMD’s latest processors for the mobile computer, the AMD Ryzen 7035 series still aims to impress at a great value. 

The AMD Ryzen 7040HS Series 

Coming to the more performance focused space is the AMD Ryzen 7040HS processors starting from the Ryzen 5 7640HS processor with six cores and 12 threads. You can opt for a higher end Ryzen 9 7940HS processor with eight cores and 16 threads too.  

The Ryzen 7040HS series comes with AMD’s latest Zen 4 architecture for best-in-class performance in modern thin-and-light laptops. The Zen 4 processor also comes built-in with RDNA 3 Radeon graphics too so that you can game even without a discrete GPU.  

The AMD Ryzen 7045HX Series 

If you want the best of the best, you want AMD’s latest Ryzen 7045HX series processors. Of course, it comes with AMD’s latest 5nm Zen 4 technology. The range-topping AMD Ryzen 9 7945Hz also comes with up 16 cores alongside 32 threads. They clock up to to 5.4GHz on boost and this class of mobile processors will be the closest thing to desktop computing experience you can get on laptops. That said, this could also be the most powerful laptop processors you can find when you get your hands on one.  

Because you are going to want to carry your powerhouse of a laptop, the processor must be power efficient too. The most powerful processors in the range consumes up to 75W. In that case, you might see some laptops with AMD’s Ryzen 7045HX processors that can be charged with 100W USB type-C chargers. Of course, you will not be able to use the laptop with its discrete GPU, if it comes with one.  

Availability 

AMD’s latest Ryzen 7000 series processors for mobile devices will be coming through 2023 from AMD’s manufacturing partners like Lenovo, HP, ASUS, and maybe even Razer. Alongside the new mobile processors, AMD also launched the new AMD Ryzen 9 7800X3D, Ryzen 9 7900X3D, and AMD Ryzen 7950X3D processors as a sort of 3D V-Cache technology upgrade to AMD’s existing line up of desktop processors. You can find more information on AMD’s latest Ryzen processors on their website.  

Consumer Electronics, Lifestyle, Mobile, News

[CES 2023] Samsung’s SmartThings Station is the Smart Home Hub for Everything and Everyone

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Samsung’s CES 2023 keynote and unveiling is nothing extraordinary or surprising. They have been teasing a bunch of IoT smart home integration and hardware all month long from the end of 2022. Of could there are the new TVs they launched with Micro LED technology for even better images on your Samsung TVs than ever before. Where LG tries to expand on their OLED line-up, Samsung is pushing on the display panel technology itself. Still, all of this is sitting in the product line-up within the Smart Things ecosystem. In the middle of all that new connected technology is Samsung’s brand-new Smart Things Station.

Samsung’s CEO teased IoT focus for CES 2023 before the convention even begun. If we are being honest, we expected new TVs, new home appliances, and even a new SmartThings interface for your TV and your smartphones. We also expected Samsung to announce updates for all their connected appliances and devices with Matter support alongside newly launched products. What we were not prepared to see was the new SmartThings Station.

It is not the sheer size of it that shocked us. It is not even a technological marvel or breakthrough. It looks just like any other wireless switch you can find in your home. In fact, if you mount it to the wall, you can easily mistake it as one of your light switches. It is not meant to be mounted on your wall though. Rather, it is meant to sit on your end tables, coffee tables, or even your home office table.

An All-in-One Wireless Charger

SmartThingsStation PR dl2
Source: Samsung

It is technically meant to double as a wireless charger, and it looks the part. It is a tad thicker than the run of the mill wireless chargers you might find today, but it is does more than charge your smartphone, at least if you have a compatible device (Galaxy devices only for now). It is meant to turn your smartphone into your SmartThings hub.

The SmartThings Station is not just meant to be a one-stop-shop control and connected hub for all your smart home things. Apart from seamlessly integrating all of your smart home in a single interface, it is also meant to seamlessly fit into your home and your lifestyle. In that case, as soon as your Samsung Galaxy device gets in touch with the puck, the connection prompt and process gets started automatically. That promises simple few minutes to set up as soon as you bring your new wireless charging puck home.

While Samsung did not mention Matter support in their own new release, the SmartThings Station supports Matter. That means that the Samsung SmartThings Station is not just meant for SmartThings enabled items. You can technically connect any sort of smart thermostat, lighting, power outlets, and even appliances as long as they are Matter enabled. In that case, you can buy that new ‘made for Apple Home’ or ‘supports Google Assistant’ appliances with little to no concerns of spending more money for compatibility and interoperability purposes.

SmartThingsStation PR dl1
Source: Samsung

You can also trigger your ‘routines’ via the SmartThings Station too. Of course, you want to edit your Routines on your SmartThings app before the hub can activate any of your routines. The Station can store up to three routines with three separate interactions with the puck.

If you misplaced your smartphone in your home, for example, a double press of the button on the puck can trigger SmartThings Find. Your smartphone will start ringing, even if it is in silent mode, so that you do not have to spend hours turning your house upside down to find your smartphone. At the same time, all registered Galaxy devices can be kept track via SmartThings so that you know where your things are within your home at all times, or even when a member of your household gets in and out of your home.

Availability

For now Samsung only mentions a U.S. availability in February 2023. Smart home adoption in Malaysia is admittedly at its infancy, which also means that your might not see Samsung’s SmartThings Station in Malaysia anytime soon. There are no mentions on its official pricing just yet too. You can choose between Black and White when it is available. We also expect Samsung Bespoke to get their hands on it and then you can have your Station in any colour you can imagine.

Computers, Gaming, Mobile, News

[CES 2023] NVIDIA Brings RTX 40 Mobile – RTX 40 Series Studio Laptops, Here We Go!

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NVIDIA’s RTX 40 series GPUs are finally making their way to the mobile computing space, just as Intel’s 13th generation CPUs are also making their way to the mobile computing space. Alongside the new hardware, Ada Lovelace on mobile also comes with a slew of updates that was also brought along from the RTX 40 series for the desktop market. Alongside NVIDIA introducing the laptop market to Ada Lovelace, they also launched their new NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 Ti.

Unsurprisingly, the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 40 series for laptops focus more on the content creation aspect more than anything. To be fair, while gaming performance on a laptop has never been better with the RTX 40 series, content creators are the ones who will get the biggest bump in benefits with Ada Lovelace this time around. That said, there are still some interesting developments from NVIDIA for games with the new Max-Q Ada Lovelace architecture.

Thanks to some clever implementation for the Studio platform, NVIDIA brings RTX Remix made mostly for gamers. The technology allows more creative gamers to quickly create mods for older titles with full ray tracing technology to modernize those games. You even get enhanced details ad materials with DLSS3 and NVIDIA Reflex. All of these and you never needed to learn to code or knowledge to work in the 3D design space in the first place. NVIDIA is also bringing official RTX support to Portal Prelude, a Portal mod.

Back to the more content creator aspect of things. NVIDIA is introducing a new Studio driver to update their new and existing GPUs too. With The new Studio platform comes an improved NVIDIA Omniverse, a connected world where 3D artists can collaborate in real-time with the power of NVIDIA’s RTX engines. The have expanded the Omniverse with better support for Blender, a rather popular 3D rendering tool. Users can also experiment with regenerative 3D tools alongside Universal Scene Description assets added into Omniverse to create even more life like 3D scenes than ever before.

If you are more of a videographer, or a streamer, the new NVIDIA Studio suite offers improved NVIDIA Broadcast and Canvas apps. Broadcast new features a new eye-tracking and replacement tool that cleverly and naturally makes it look like you are actually looking into your webcam instead of your screen in both video conferences and game streams. Canvas allows you to work with 360-degree images that can be used as environment maps in 3D apps like Blender. On top of all of these, Ada Lovelace also comes with AV1 support which should allow for a more efficient video workflow in compatible apps.

If you are not into any of that, there are still some benefits to using NVIDIA’s RTX 40 and RTX 30 series GPUs. They are bringing their upscaling technology to the masses with RTX Video Super Resolution. The feature uses AI to improve videos from any sources, including your browser. The algorithm removes compression artifacts and upscales video resolutions to improve its sharpness and even overall detail so that you watch online contents at your display’s native resolution even if the YouTube video only offers up to 480p in resolution. The feature will only be available for Chrome and Edge browsers in February 2023, for now.

The other added benefit of Ada Lovelace is its power efficiency. That also means that gaming and studio class laptops can be made thinner with smaller and more power efficient fans. On top of enhanced battery life as well, the power bricks can be made smaller than ever.

Availability

NVIDIA has teased the first few laptops that will get their RTX 40 series treatment. They named the Razer Blade, MSI’s Stealth series, and ASUS’s Zenbook Pro series laptops for now. For now, NVIDIA has teased the availability of the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 and GeForce RTX 4090 series for mobile computing, but we are convinced you will see the likes of the GeForce RTX 4080, and GeForce RTX 4060 series Max-Q GPUs when laptop manufacturers release more details about their next-generation content creator and gaming laptops soon. More about Ada Lovelace architecture can be found on their website.

Android, Mobile, News

Xiaomi 13 series unveiled in China, challenges for top spot

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Xiaomi’s latest flagship devices, the Xiaomi 13 series, have been announced in China and challenges to be a top device in 2023.

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Xiaomi 13 series aims to be at the top of the 2023 smartphone line.
Image source: Weibo Xiaomi via Android Authority

Xiaomi’s announcement revealed two devices, the Xiaomi 13 and Xiaomi 13 Pro as part of the series. Both devices will be powered by the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 chipset for top-of-the-line performance. Shared features between the devices include the Android 13-based MIUI4 out of the box, 50W wireless charging, IP68 rating, Dolby Atmos sepakers and WiFi 6E support.

True flagship experience of the Xiaomi 13 Pro

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The Sony IMX989 50MP sensor gives the Xiaomi 13 Pro the edge. Image source: Weibo Xiaomi via Android Authority

The Xiaomi 13 Pro offers the true flagship experience, with a 6.7-inch, 120Hz curved OLED with QHD resolution. The display features an LTPO panel, which allows dynamic adjustment of the screen refresh rate from 1Hz to 120Hz to save battery. There is also support for HDR10+, Dolby Vision and has good visibility with 1900 peak nits of brightness. Rear cameras are a 50MP 1-inch Sony IMX989 main sensor with Leica lenses, 50MP 3x telephoto lens and 50MP ultrawide. The front camera is a 32MP shooter that sits in a punch hole cutout in the front. The battery has 4820 mAh capacity with 120W wired charging, 50W wireless charging and capable of 10W wireless reverse charging. All devices come with ceramic backs colors options of Ceramic Black, Ceramic White, and Wilderness Green.

The Xiaomi 13 concedes in hardware but still packs a punch

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Smaller,, more affordable but no less a flagship. Image source: XiaomiUI

The standard Xiaomi 13 has a smaller 6.39-inch flat OLED panel with FHD resolution with no LTPO panel. Cameras are a slight step down too with a 50MP IMX800 main shooter, a 12MP ultrawide sensor and a 10MP 3x telephoto lens. The battery is understandably lower capacity with 4500 mAh and has 67W wired charging. Overall, the standard variant only falls behind the Pro by display, cameras and to a lesser degree, battery life. It does however offer a smaller form factor with a flat design that some may prefer to the curved design of the Pro, along with a smaller price tag. Color options are Black, White, and Wilderness Green, but with glass backs this time. Both the standard and Pro variants will also be available in a sky-blue color with a leather finish.

Pricing and availability

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Both Xiaomi 13 phones get 3 colours and a fourth leather finish option with sky blue colour.
Image source: Weibo Xiaomi via Android Authority

The standard and Pro variants of Xiaomi 13 is currently available in China only. Both devices come in four memory configurations: 8 GB RAM +128 GB storage, 8 GB RAM + 256 GB storage, 12 GB RAM + 256 GB storage and 12 GB RAM + 512 GB storage. Pricing for the Pro variant starts at 3999 yuan (approx. RM2534) and the standard variant at 3999 yuan (approx. RM3168) for the respective 8 GB + 128 GB variant.

Sources: Android Authority, TechNave, XiaomiUI

iOS, Mobile, News

iPhone 14 Crash Detection and Emergency SOS saves lives

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Apple’s Crash Detection and Emergency SOS via Satellite service has saved the life of an iPhone 14 user involved in a car crash in the USA.

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A potential life saver in your iPhone 14.
Image source: Apple

Intelligent crash detection and vital information sharing

According to a Twitter post by law enforcement and first responders, a vehicle with two passengers swerved off the Angeles Forest Highway and plummeted 300 feet into the canyon of in the Angeles National Forest. This fall was detected by the users iPhone 14 through the Crash Detection feature. This feature detects crashes with the help of the gyroscopes, accelerometer,barometer and even microphone to detect elements of the crash such as abrupt motion and the sound of glass breaking.

When a severe crash is detected, an alert will appear with a slider to make an emergency call. You can slide to call emergency services or dismiss this alert if not required. If no response is received in 10 seconds, a further 10-second countdown will start. At the end of it, emergency services will be contacted immediately. Siri will then read out the automated message “The owner of this ‌iPhone‌ was in a severe car crash and is not responding to their phone”. It will then relay your approximate location with latitude and longitude. It will also send a message to your emergency contacts after another 10 second countdown, if you have them set up.

Emergency SOS uses satellite when cellular

reception is unavailable

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Emergency SOS sends a text to Apple relay centers by satellite. Image source: MacRumors

However, during the car crash at Angeles Forest Highway, there was no cellular reception for Crash Detection to call emergency services. So, Apple’s Emergency SOS via Satellite feature came in to play. It sent an emergency text message to an Apple relay center via satellite. An employee then called the LA County Sheriff’s department to relay that information. With this, rescuers were able to locate both passengers and get them to a hospital for treatment. Apple’s features have definitely come in clutch to save the lives of at least these two people.

For more information on how to set up Crash Detection on your iPhone, visit the Crash Detection feature page on Apple’s official website. This feature is available on iPhone 14 and iPhone Pro, Apple Watch Series 8, Apple Watch SE (2nd generation), and Apple Watch Ultra.

Source: MacRumors, 9to5Mac

Android, Mobile, News

OPPO Goes Long with Four Major Updates and Security Update for Five Years

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Buying a new smartphone is not necessarily the biggest decision of your life. There is still a long list of considerations though when you want to invest in one. There is the basic problem of budget.

There is more at stake in choosing the right smartphone for than your budget though. You need to think about manufacturer support for your smartphone. That means you want to ensure that they have official presence in your region. You also want proven track record and consistency from the manufacturer of your chosen smartphone.

We are not necessarily talking about Apple or Samsung. We are pointing to OPPO really. While OPPO have not exactly been sitting in the same limelight as Samsung and Apple, they have a proven track record of making quality smartphones that are reliable and lasts forever. They can also be proud of the fact that they have been consistently making great smartphones in every market segment at an accessible price. In our opinion, their smartphones offer some of the best value for your money.

Recently OPPO has verified that they have delivered their ColorOS 13 update to 33 of their smartphone models universally. In the timeframe that ColorOS 13 existed, there are 3 times more device covered with ColorOS 13 than ColorOS 12 globally. For them, it is a big win – ColorOS 13 is their biggest and fastest distributed Operating System (OS) update they ever had.

The next thing to do is to extend their update policy and they might be able to compete with the best in the industry. That is what they are about to do 2023 onward.

They have just made a commitment to updating ColorOS for selected flagship models for up to four ColorOS iterations. That also means that you get at least three Android iterations for OPPO’s flagships that announced in 2023, most likely the next OPPO Find X model. At the same time, you can be assured that your smartphone will remain relevant for the next five years with up to five years of security update support.

Why is this important? Buying a flagship smartphone is not a small decision. A flagship smartphone in is not exactly the cheapest thing you can buy. You want to make sure that you get your money’s worth when you spend that much on a small slab of electronics you carry around in your life. In that case, you want to ensure that you can stretch your budget out as much and long as you can. That also means that you need to ensure that you can hold on to your smartphone for as long as you can. That also means consistent updates for as long as the smartphone manufacturer supports it. In this case, you can hold on to your next OPPO flagship for at least the next 5 years before it becomes obsolete, and that is a mighty good thing for your wallet.

iOS, Mobile, News

Apple’s Freeform helps you collaborate creatively

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Apple releases a brand-new app for creative brainstorming and collaboration called Freeform.

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Apple’s Freeform is a flexible canvas to share ideas in a creative way. Image source: Apple

Freeform is available now and comes included with iOS 16.2, iPadOS 16.2 and macOS Ventura 13.1. Apple describes the app as a “flexible canvas” with an emphasis for sharing and collaborating visually. Think of it as a digital whiteboard, where you can draw or write freely without being limited by things like layouts or page sizes.

Sketch and share with easy-to-use tools

To express your creativity on its blank canvas, Freeform comes with a variety of tools that are easy to pick up. Building on the canvas theme, the app comes with various brush styles and color options for freeform writing, enhanced with built-in gesture support. iPhone and iPad users can use their fingers for freeform sketching and support for Apple Pencil is a plus for iPad users in this regard.

The app supports a wide variety of files that can be used in your canvas. Apart from the expected photos, videos and audio, you cand add links to websites and map location, sticky notes, preset shapes and diagrams and even PDF files. Adding content is easy too with drag-and-drop support for Files app and Finder on macOS. You can even add photos or scanned documents directly with iPhone and iPad cameras.

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Collaborate easily with support for up to 100 people and built-in FaceTime and Messages features.
Image source: Apple

Work creatively and collaboratively

Apple’s vision is for Freeform to be a collaborative space and has added features to support this. The app supports up to 100 collaborators in a single board. Getting those other 99 people is made easier with the new collaboration features in Messages. You can invite others by dropping a board into a Messages thread to invite all the people in that thread. All changes made to the board will also be tracked in the same thread. If messaging is not enough, FaceTime is built-in with the app too. FaceTime calls to all collaborators can be started by tapping the collaboration button at the top right of the screen. You can also view edits by all collaborators in real-time via FaceTime call. Freeform also allows boards to be shared via email, exported as a PDF or even a screenshot.

Source: Apple

Computers, Consumer Electronics, Lifestyle, Mobile, News

Amazon Brings 17 Different Echo Devices to Matter

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What is Matter? At least we think that is what some of you might be asking before anything else. It is an Internet of Things (IoT) thing. It is, in our opinion from our research, the future of connected devices.

There are plenty of in-depth explanations out there about what Matter is and why it will be a good thing for universal connected devices. We are not going in-depth, but we do need to explain Matter a little bit.

Matter is a standard for IoT hardware developed by Connectivity Standards Alliance. The Alliance is a sort of collaboration and standardized guidelines to all things IoT, connected, and smart home. Collaborators include Google, Samsung, Apple, and Amazon. In short, they aim to make all IoT and connected devices universally available to every person no matter what device they own. For example, you should be able to connect to a Samsung washing machine even if you do not have Smart Things on your Apple iPhone or Google Pixel. Your Samsung TV should also be able to control that new Amazon light bulb you just bought for your smart home ecosystem.

Matter is rather new though, and not every device is compatible with it yet. While there are new smart home products that comes with Matter compatibility, it is the older stuff that needs some attention. For example, Amazon’s various Echo devices.

A month after Amazon announced that they have committed to add Matter compatibility to their Alexa compatible devices, they delivered with 17 of their existing products including their plugs, switches, and bulbs. This is only Amazon’s first wave of Matter compatibility update though, and they are bringing the update to their most popular devices first. They added that they will roll out Matter update to other devices later.

There is a small caveat with the new Matter compatibility from Amazon though. While it now works with Matter, you still must have an Android smartphone and you can only connect to the devices via WiFi. That also means that if you have an Apple iPhone and an Amazon Echo device, you still might not be able to access Alexa via your iPhone. The Echo devices that works with Matter now are the 3rd, 4th, and 5th Generation Echo Dots, the Echo Show 8 (2021), Echo Show 10 (3rd Generation), Echo Show 5 (2021), Echo Show 15, v3 Echo, Echo Input, and Echo Fex. More information on Amazon’s Alexa ready Matter compatible devices can be found on their developer blog.

Android, Mobile, News

Sony’s Android 13 roll out for Xperia smartphones begins

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Android 13 will be available soon to Sony smartphones according to a leak from Reddit.

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Android 13 rollout begins for Sony Xperia devices. Image source: Sony

A post on r/SonyXperia has named at least five flagship Sony devices to be receiving Android 13 thought no dates have been specified. The devices are Xperia 1 IV, Xperia 1 III, Xperia 5 IV, Xperia 5 III and Xperia Pro-I. The availability of these updates for the devices are also confirmed on update tracker website Xpericheck.com. No specific dates on availability have been mentioned yet. As pointed out by 9to5Google, these updates are region-limited by Sony, so expect different varying arrival periods.

New features for Xperia with Android 13

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A new Quick Panel feature improves management of apps and functions. Image source: Sony

Sony themselves have announced the release of Android 13, highlighting some of the new features it brings. The update features a new Quick Settings panel is to manage running apps, helping to improve efficiency and battery life. There is also a dedicated button on the panel to access the QR code scanner. Customization is also diversified with color theming now available to change your icon colors to match your wallpaper.

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Use your Xperia as a viewfinder and now stream with it on the External Monitor app. Image source: Sony

A new livestreaming feature is now available to the External monitor app too, allowing you to share live video from your compatible Sony camera. With the Bluetooth LE Audio feature, you can share audio wirelessly to multiple compatible headphones and receive audio from another Bluetooth LE enabled device. Language settings have also been simplified with a unified language settings option that applies immediately to all Xperia apps. No more changing the language individually for each app. While not as feature packed as expected, the new Android 13 update brings good quality of life improvements for Xperia devices.

Sources: 9to5Google, Android Central