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Latest Andru Edwards Videos
The iPhone 18 Pro Might Start at $1,399, and Even the Optimists Are Giving Up
Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Apple, Smartphones, Rumors,
Two months ago the case for staying calm went like this: yes, memory prices have gone insane, but Apple runs the best supply chain on earth and has a long history of quietly eating costs to protect a price point. Analyst Jeff Pu of GF Securities was making exactly that argument in May, saying Apple could still price the iPhone 18 Pro aggressively. This week he changed his mind.
In a new research note, Pu now expects the iPhone 18 Pro and Pro Max to land $250 to $300 above their predecessors. That works out to roughly $1,349 to $1,399 for the iPhone 18 Pro and $1,449 to $1,499 for the Pro Max. The iPhone 17 Pro starts at $1,099 today. The 17 Pro Max starts at $1,199. Do that math on a Pro Max with any storage upgrade at all and you're staring at a phone that costs more than a decent laptop.
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Apple Just Raised Trade-In Values, and It’s Taking Android Phones Now
Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Apple, Smartphones, Hot Deals,
Apple raising trade-in values is normally a footnote. Apple raising trade-in values roughly a month before its biggest launch of the year, with some devices jumping close to 30 percent, is a strategy.
The company updated its U.S. trade-in estimates today, lifting the numbers for most iPhone, iPad, Mac, and Apple Watch models compared to the last revision in May. It also added several Android phones to the list for the first time.
Click to continue reading Apple Just Raised Trade-In Values, and It’s Taking Android Phones Now
Samsung Sold More Phones Than Ever and Still Lost Money
Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Smartphones, Corporate News,
Here's a sentence that shouldn't make sense. Samsung sold plenty of phones last quarter, grew its mobile revenue year over year, and still managed to lose money doing it.
The number is 800 billion won, roughly $544 million, and it's the first operating loss Samsung's DX division has ever posted. DX is the half of the company that makes things you actually buy: phones, TVs, appliances. The loss came almost entirely from the mobile side. And the reason is the one everybody in tech has been bracing for since last year. Memory got expensive.
Click to continue reading Samsung Sold More Phones Than Ever and Still Lost Money
Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 8 Hands-On: The Foldable Finally Got the Shape Right
Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Smartphones, Design, Product Reviews,
For six years, Samsung's big foldable has been shaped a little like a TV remote. Tall, skinny, and a bit awkward to hold shut. The Galaxy Z Fold 8 finally does something about that, and the fix is almost embarrassingly simple. It got wider.
That one change reshapes the entire phone. Closed, the new Fold looks and feels like a passport, with a 5.5-inch cover screen at a 10:16 aspect ratio that you can actually type on with two thumbs without popping the thing open. Samsung is calling this the biggest redesign since the original 2019 Z Fold, and after a few minutes in the hand, that reads as more than marketing. It borrows the squat, wide silhouette the first Pixel Fold pioneered, and it turns out that shape was right all along.
Click to continue reading Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 8 Hands-On: The Foldable Finally Got the Shape Right
Samsung Put Google’s Research Brain on Your New Foldable. Does It Belong There?
Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Smartphones, Google, Artificial Intelligence,
NotebookLM has quietly become the app that power users swear by, the thing you open on a laptop that already has thirty tabs fighting for space. It reads your sources, connects the dots, and answers questions about them. So here is the odd part of Samsung's latest Galaxy Unpacked pitch: that tool, now rebranded Gemini Notebook, comes preloaded on phones you fold in half.
The Galaxy Z Fold 8 Ultra, Z Fold 8, and Z Flip 8 all ship with it built in. On paper that sounds like a real upgrade over yet another chatbot shortcut. In practice, it raises a simple question worth asking before you get excited: is a deep-research desk tool something you actually want to reach for on a phone?
The Galaxy Z Fold 8 Ultra Is Samsung’s Best Foldable, and Its Own Worst Enemy
Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Smartphones, Product Reviews,
Ultra is supposed to be the word that ends the argument. It's the phone you reach for once you've decided money is no longer the point, the one with the biggest battery, the longest zoom, the most of everything. So here's the strange thing about the Galaxy Z Fold 8 Ultra: after a couple of hours holding it, the device that kept nagging at me was the cheaper one sitting right next to it on the table.
Don't get me wrong, the Z Fold 8 Ultra is a genuinely lovely piece of hardware. But Samsung has quietly built itself a problem. For the first time there's a standard Z Fold 8 and an Ultra sitting side by side, and the roughly $200 you pay to move up buys you less than you'd expect. Working out whether that gap is worth it is the whole story of this phone.
Samsung Is Betting Titanium Can Finally Flatten the Galaxy Z Fold 8’s Crease
Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Smartphones, Design, Displays,
Every foldable phone comes with an asterisk, and it sits right in the middle of the screen. The crease. That soft valley where the display bends has been the one thing keeping foldables from feeling like the future they keep promising to be, the little dip your thumb finds every time you scroll. Samsung has spent seven generations trying to make it go away. With the Galaxy Z Fold 8, the company says it finally has a real answer, and its name is titanium.
Ahead of its July 22 Unpacked event, Samsung revealed a new display technology it’s calling Flex Titanium, built to flatten the crease on the Z Fold 8 and the higher-end Z Fold 8 Ultra. Notice the careful wording, though: Samsung is promising “reduced crease visibility,” not a crease that’s gone for good. That gap between “better” and “invisible” is the whole story here, so it’s worth understanding what the titanium is actually doing inside the phone.
Apple’s Long-Promised New Siri Is Finally Here, If You’re Willing to Beta Test iOS 27
Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Apple, Smartphones, Software, Artificial Intelligence,
Apple has been promising a smarter, more personal Siri for so long that it started to feel like a running joke. The assistant that was supposed to understand your life, dig through your apps, and actually get things done kept slipping - announced, delayed, quietly pushed to “next year.” Well, next year is here. The new Siri just made its public debut in the iOS 27 beta, and for the first time you can actually try the thing Apple has been talking about for what feels like forever.
There’s a catch, though. A few of them, actually. This isn’t a switch that flips on your iPhone tomorrow. You have to opt into a public beta, join a waitlist, own a fairly recent iPhone, and live in the right part of the world. The upside, though, is that once you get in, the new Siri is...actually really good. For Apple, that would be a first.
The OPPO Find X9 Ultra Is a Warning Shot to Every Flagship (Video)
Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Smartphones, Product Reviews, Videos,
Every flagship phone has a compromise, but the OPPO Find X9 Ultra makes that compromise surprisingly hard to find. This is OPPO’s first Ultra model launching globally, and it arrives with the kind of hardware that makes the usual Samsung, Apple, and Google playbook feel a little too safe. A massive camera system, a 7,050 mAh silicon carbon battery, 100W charging, a 144Hz AMOLED display, and Hasselblad tuning all come together in a phone that feels more like a camera with apps than a phone with a good camera.
Click to continue reading The OPPO Find X9 Ultra Is a Warning Shot to Every Flagship (Video)
Xiaomi 17 Review: The Compact Flagship That Forgot to Act Small
Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Smartphones, Features, Product Reviews,
The global Xiaomi 17 arrives in a market where “small phone” usually means “some compromises included.” Smaller battery. Smaller camera ambition. Smaller sense of occasion. Xiaomi clearly did not get that memo. This thing shows up with a 6.3-inch display, a Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 chip, three 50-megapixel rear cameras, and a 6,330mAh silicon-carbon battery, all in a body that still reads as compact by 2026 standards. It launched globally on February 28, starting at €999 and £899, which puts it directly in the ring with Samsung, Google, and Apple’s smaller flagships.
And that is the whole story of the Xiaomi 17. It is not trying to be the weird one in the lineup. It is not the camera monster, and it does not have the Ultra’s headline-grabbing hardware. It is the phone for people who want a top-tier Android device that still fits in a real pocket, and according to multiple reviews, it mostly nails that brief. The consensus is simple: excellent battery life, strong overall camera performance, a great display, and the usual Xiaomi software mess that stops the whole thing from feeling truly effortless.
Click to continue reading Xiaomi 17 Review: The Compact Flagship That Forgot to Act Small