Highlights: iPhone XS Max catches fire in an Ohio man’s trouser pocket The phone dissipated heat and coloured smoke The victim is “contemplating legal action” Apple is going through a difficult time. Its products have been banned for import and sale in China and Germany. It is at loggerheads with chipmaker Qualcomm and is reportedly struggling and their recent update apparently left iPhone users in a lull after several of them reported that they were no longer able to use LTE on their new iPhones. Now, an iPhone XS Max has reportedly exploded in a man’s trousers in the US, putting too much in Apple’s plate to finish. According to a report by PhoneArena, an Ohio man escaped an unfortunate incident when his three-week-old iPhone XS Max (unidentified variant) exploded while it was in his pocket. Josh Hillard says that his phone was in his rear trouser pocket when it randomly began to dissipate “a large amount of heat” as well as green and yellow coloured smoke. By the time Hillard went to a private spot to check it, the phone had caught fire. The fire left the owner unhappy as he inhaled a lot of smoke “from the time of first noticing the fire and between removal of the pants and taking the phone out of my pocket and placing it outside.” The psychological trauma forced him to contact Apple customer service and safety department specialists, both in person and by phone. Reportedly, he has been offered a new phone as reimbursement. The report said that the victim doesn’t consider this to be an acceptable way of settling this unfortunate affair, and is said to be “contemplating legal action” for this. This is not the first time that iPhones have faced such demise. In November, a user complained that his iPhone X spewed smoke while he was charging and updating the device to iOS 12.1. In January, a man was injured when the battery of an iPhone exploded at an Apple Store in Zurich. The Apple iPhone XS Max was launched in September at a starting price of $1099 (or Rs 1,09,900 in India) and goes up to $1449 (or Rs 1,44,900 in India) for the top-end model. It comes with A12 Bionic processor and a massive 6.5-inch AMOLED display, which is the biggest display that Apple has ever offered. It has a dual 12MP+12MP (Wide Angle + Telephoto) sensors at the back and a True Depth 7MP camera on the front. Related Read: People evacuated as iPad battery explodes in Amsterdam Apple Store Apple iPhone XS Max: The Good, The Bad & The Ugly
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Key Highlights: Even though the recently announced Galaxy Home speaker is yet to become available, Samsung is reportedly working on a second smart speaker The model number revealed indicates the speaker will be smaller and more affordable than the present one. The weirdly shaped Samsung Galaxy Home speaker powered by Bixby was announced alongside the Samsung Galaxy Note 9 back in August. Yet, five months after its announcement, the speaker’s status is still “coming soon” on the Samsung website. Meanwhile, another smart speaker is reportedly being developed by Samsung. All that is known so far is that the new Galaxy Home speaker will be offered in a black colour finish and will carry the model number SM-V310. Compared with the present Galaxy Speaker’s model number, SM-V510, it seems like the one under development will be a smaller speaker. It could also be more affordable than one announced so far, although the price is still not disclosed. The Galaxy Home speaker that Samsung announced earlier has a combination of AKG-tuned speakers, 8-piece far-field microphones, and Bixby AI. Perhaps the smaller speaker will have a smaller microphone array minus the AKG branding, but everything at this point is conjecture at best. Samsung does have something lined up for CES, which is due to begin on 8th January in Las Vegas. Perhaps that’s when the company will reveal more about the speaker. At CES, Samsung is expected to announce new TVs and displays along with other smart home appliances. The flagship Galaxy S10 series, however, is expected to launch on February 20th, five days before MWC commences in Barcelona. The smart speaker market is currently dominated by Amazon’s Alexa-powered devices and Google Home speakers. Both companies offer products across a broad price range. Microsoft too announced a Cortana-powered smart speaker while HomePod is Apple’s offering in the smart speaker space. The market for smart speakers, according to IDC is expected to grow in double-digits and by 2022. Over 1.3 billion smart home products are expected to be sold. Related Links: Samsung working on a Bixby-powered speaker codenamed 'Vega': WSJ
Key Highlights: The Essential Phone is now out of stock across multiple retail locations A company spokesperson said the phone will not be restocked, indicating it is now discontinued Essential is now working hard on its next mobile product and will continue to support the PH-1 with regular updates and accessories The Essential Phone (or PH-1) may have seen the last light of the day. The “modular” smartphone created by Android co-founder Andy Rubin is now out of stock on its website, and according to the company, it won’t be restocked. The PH-1 came with flagship hardware, regular updates and was the first phone to sport a notch. However, it often found itself painted negatively in the news what with delayed availability, job cuts and more. Eventually, it had to be heavily discounted to ensure the inventories are cleared. It was noticed earlier that the PH-1 was out of stock across multiple retail locations including the company’s own website. There was also a recent Fire Sale where the 128GB storage variant of the phone was offered at $340, a sharp $160 fall from its regular $500 price. Many presumed this was done to clear remaining inventories. Now, the company has confirmed the phone will not be restocked. Instead, Essential will be working on the “next mobile product”. However, the PH-1 will continue to be supported by regular updates and accessories. “We are sold out of Essential Phone on essential.com and won’t be adding any new inventory. We are now hard at work on our next mobile product and will continue to sell accessories and provide speedy software updates and customer support to our existing community,” an Essential spokesperson told 9to5Google. The fact that the Essential phone is being retired shouldn’t come as much of a shock. The phone which failed to come to India in its lifetime, was shrouded in controversies. Many complained it’s minimalist take on Android wasn’t enough. The phone was also mired with a lot of bugs. However, the company did continue to support the phone with regular updates with the PH-1 becoming one of the first phones to receive the update to Android 9 Pie. It’s also unclear as to what the “next mobile product” will be from Essential. There have been some rumours about an AI-phone from the company. The company recently acquired CloudMagic, which might allow the upcoming phone to intelligently respond to texts and emails on behalf of the user. Related Links: Essential PH-1 successor to come with an improved camera Essential Phone against competition: What's Andy Rubin's phone about? Essential Phone could soon launch in India as an Amazon exclusive smartphone at Rs 24,999: Report 
Highlights: Apple’s battery replacement program ends today The company is offering battery replacement at reduced prices Apple will charge as low as Rs 2,000 for installing fresh batteries on your old iPhones last year, Apple announced its battery replacement program after it admitted throttling the performance on older iPhones whose batteries were degraded. The company is charging Rs 2,000 instead of the usual Rs 8,200 for replacing the batteries. Under this program, the iPhone 6, iPhone 6s, iPhone SE, iPhone 7 and the iPhone 7 Plus smartphones are eligible for getting the battery replaced at a lowered price. The offer also extends to the iPhone 8, iPhone 8 Plus and iPhone X, however, with iOS 12.1, the company introduced a new ‘Battery Health’ option that enables one to find out the maximum capacity of an iPhone's battery. Do note that the discounted pricing is valid only till December 31 and today is the last day to avail benefit of the discounted pricing. This is probably the final call for affected users to get their iPhone battery replaced at a discounted price. Do note that battery service at the reduced pricing may be limited to one repair per iPhone and in case your device needs some other repairs done before replacement of the battery, the user might be charged for the other repairs as well. To recall, in December last year, the smartphone manufacturer had to bear the brunt of its disgruntled customers when they found out about that Apple slowed down older iPhones. “We've been hearing feedback from our customers about the way we handle performance for iPhones with older batteries and how we have communicated that process. We know that some of you feel Apple has let you down. We apologize,” the company stated on its website. As mentioned above, Apple introduced Performance Management feature with its iOS 12.1 update. The feature is integrated with the software and enables one to lower their device’s performance in case the battery has deteriorated beyond a point. This option enables users, who have iPhones with degraded batteries, to not have their phones switch off unexpectedly. Apple said that future iPhones don’t need this feature, but it since the Performance Management feature was rolled out to iPhone 8, iPhone 8 Plus and the iPhone X, it seems that the company does not want to take any chances. Related Reads: Apple issues formal apology for slowing down iPhones 
Highlights: Press render of the Nokia 9 PureView smartphone has leaked online The image hints at an in-display fingerprint sensor There is also the alleged penta-camera setup on the back Recently, images of the Nokia 9 PureView smartphone's cover were posted online, strengthening previous claims of the device featuring a penta-camera setup. Now, a new image leaked on Twitter (via Evan Blass) shows the device with the same camera setup, reaffirming the previous reports. The image also suggests that the smartphone might be launched with an in-display fingerprint sensor, and there is also the expected "Android One” branding on the device's back panel. The render also suggests that the handset could sport noticeable bezels on the sides, and considerably thick bezel on the top and a noticeable chin. The phone seems to have just one selfie shooter and ambient light/proximity sensors on the front. There is a Nokia branding on the top bezel as well as on the rear, below the penta-camera setup. It can be seen equipped with five Zeiss lenses, a flash and an alleged optic sensor. Additionally, the renders show a mic hole above the camera setup. Till now, three Nokia phones with model numbers TA-1082, TA-1087, and TA-1094 have been spotted on Bluetooth certification websites. The TA-1094 variant of the phone was also seen on other certification websites like MIIT and 3C. The listings suggest that the smartphone might feature Bluetooth 5.0 and support 4G. Previously, reports claimed that the device would launch by the end of 2018 but later, a company executive said that the launch has been postponed. Rumours circulating the internet suggest that the handset might be launched at CES in January or MWC in February. The Nokia 9 PureView is speculated to feature a 4150mAh battery and could come equipped with a 5.9-inch, QHD resolution 3D glass OLED display. It is not known which processor this phone might be launched running on. It is rumoured to be the Snapdragon 845 or it could also be the newly-launched Snapdragon 855. The handset is said to sport a 41MP primary wide-angle camera, a 20MP secondary telephoto lens and a 9.7MP monochrome camera. Related Read: Nokia 9 launch postponed Nokia 9 may sport a 4150 mAH battery
Key Highlights: NVIDIA's new graphics card, GeForce RTX 2060, will go on sale from January 15, 2019 It's expected to cost $349 in the US How about a last-minute leak before we wind up the year that's seen so many hardware leaks and rumours? According to a recent report by VideoCardz.com, NVIDIA is preparing to introduce its newest graphics card, the GeForce RTX 2060 on January 7. The base Turing model will be available for sale from January 15. It will come bundled with Anthem or Battlefield V for free. It's expected to retail for a price of $349 in the US, which is approximately Rs 24,385. Along with news about the launch, the VideoCardz.com report also proudly presents the confirmed specs of the new card. The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 comes packed with 1920 CUDA cores, 240 Tensor cores, 30 ray tracing cores, 120 texture mapping units, and 48 render output units. The GeForce RTX 2060, with its boosted clock speed of 1680 MHz, is a mid-range model replacing the GeForce GTX 1060 from the Pascal architecture. According to NVIDIA, its performance will be comparable to that of the GeForce GTX 1070 Ti. The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 will feature 6GB of GDDR6 memory on a 192-bit memory interface with a total memory bandwidth of 336GB/s. Though it's only the base model in the GeForce RTX series of graphics cards, the GeForce RTX 2060 is capable of ray tracing even if its ray tracing performance sits below that of the GeForce RTX 2070. According to VideoCardz.com, the GeForce RTX 2060 will run Battlefield V with ray tracing disabled at 90 frames per second, with ray tracing enabled at 65 frames per second, and with ray tracing at deep learning super-sampling (DLSS) enabled at 88 frames per second. Just last week, Gigabyte, one of the producers of NVIDIA graphics cards, was seen filing for the certification of forty different SKUs of the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 card. It's possible the Taiwanese company is filing for every possible configuration of the card, even if some of them may never actually see the light of day. The upcoming CES event will shed more light on NVIDIA's new card. Inline images courtesy: VideoCardz.com Related Read: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 leaked by Gigabyte's EEC filings
Highlights: LG G7 ThinQ will get the Android Pie update in Q1 2019 in South Korea The update may come to other countries in the Q2 It will bring performance-related upgrades LG has announced that it is working on an Android Pie update for the LG G7 ThinQ and according to a report, will start rolling out the stable version of the update in the first quarter of 2019 in South Korea. The report in mylgphones.com says that it assumed that it would release for other markets in the second quarter of the next year. The news comes after LG officially launched the Android 9 beta programme for the G7 ThinQ in November in South Korea. The update seems to be very important as LG has listed a number of performance-related issues that will be addressed with this update. This includes an improvement that rectifies the screen freezes when the FPS setting is repeatedly changed in the professional video mode of the camera app. It will also address an issue in which fingerprints are not recognised in some financial apps and pay apps after software update. So far, LG has not announced the Android Pie update plan for the LG V40 ThinQ, though, it said that the upcoming update for the flagship would bring PentaShot feature on camera and parking assistant function and subway notification function in the context awareness setting, among others. According to the report, LG is also testing the firmware for LM-G820N, which is said to be the model number of the LG G8. The LG G8 is expected to launch with Android Pie out-of-the-box. LG G7 ThinQ Specifications The LG G7 ThinQ comes wrapped inside a glass with Corning Gorilla Glass 5 display protection. The handset features a 6.1-inch QHD+ FullVision Super Bright Display. The display is said to have a maximum brightness of up to 1,000 nits. It offers a 19.5:9 screen to body ratio. The smartphone is IP68 dust and water resistant. The LG G7 ThinQ comes with a rear-mounted fingerprint scanner and there is also a dedicated Google Assistant button on the device. Tapping the button once will launch the Google Assistant, while tapping it twice will bring up Google Lens. The phone includes Super Far-Field Voice Recognition (SFFVR) technology and is also equipped with “Boombox Speakers”, which are said to deliver 10 times louder audio, in comparison with standard phones. The LG G7 ThinQ is powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon 845 SoC with 4GB RAM and 64GB internal storage. Storage on the phone can be expanded up to 2TB. The phone is backed by a 3,000mAh battery and runs Android 8.0 Oreo. In terms of optics, the LG G7 ThinQ is equipped with a dual 16MP rear-camera setup with one standard lens of f/1.6 aperture and another 16MP Super Wide Angle sensor with f/1.9 aperture. On the front, it is equipped with an 8MP wide-angle camera with f/1.9 aperture and an 80-degree lens. The LG G7 ThinQ is equipped with a Hi-Fi Quad DAC and also supports DTS:X to deliver virtual 3D sound for delivering up to 7.1 channel audio with earphones, has a face recognition and HDR10 support on the device. Related Read: LG G7 Plus ThinQ Review LG G7 ThinQ, G7+ ThinQ launched 
