Fortnite Developer Epic Games Takes Apple App Store Payment Fight to EU Antitrust Regulators

Fortnite creator Epic Games has taken its fight against Apple to EU antitrust regulators after failing to make headway in a US court in a dispute over the iPhone maker's payment system on its App Store and control over apps downloads.

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Samsung Galaxy F62

The Samsung Galaxy F62 brings to the mid-range segment a flagship SoC and a kind of battery life that is only been seen in the M-series. We note that the Samsung Galaxy F62 has decent performance, going toe-to-toe with the best in the segment like the OnePlus Nord, with the battery life of almost two days giving it an edge over the existing competition. Where the Samsung Galaxy F62 skims out on segment-standard features is a high refresh rate display and the lack of HDR certification. It also comes with only a mono speaker, so using earphones or headphones while consuming content on the phone is highly recommended.

The ink has barely dried on the reviews for the Samsung Galaxy S21 series of devices and the company has already launched a new phone. The Samsung Galaxy F62 is he second smartphone from the company in the F-series and is squarely a mid-ranger. Its claim to fame is the Exynos 9825 SoC which powered the Galaxy Note 10, so Samsung is pegging this is as a mid-range smartphone with a flagship SoC, only the flagship is from two years ago. While things on paper can be misleading, our test process for smartphone really separates the fluff from reality.

Samsung Galaxy F62 Performance

The review unit we’ve received is powered by the Exynos 9825 SoC that utilizes the 4-2-2 core design instead of the usual 6-2. That’s four efficiency Cortex A55 cores clocked at 1.95GHz, two Cortex A75 cores at 2.4GHz and two Samsung’s own M4 cores clocked at 2.73GHz. That’s a lot of performance packed into a 7nm chip and Samsung claims it can outdo even the most robust mid-rangers, even the Qualcomm Snapdragon 765 powered ones like the OnePlus Nord (Review).

Synthetic benchmarks testing the CPU and GPU do lend credibility to Samsung’s claim. AnTuTu scores for the Samsung Galaxy F62 come out to 392374 while the Nord’s score sits at 319717. We see the F62 outperform the Nord in Geekbench5’s single core test, but get left behind in the multi-core test by a tiny margin.

While the CPU performance might be on point, Exynos chips tend to get flack due to their use of the underpowered Mali GPUs in comparison to the Adreno GPUs on Qualcomm’s chips. On our GPU syntethic tests, the F62 once again pulls ahead, but the real-world usage pegs a slightly different story. When profiling CoD Mobile and Asphalt 9 using Gamebench, we clock a median framerate of 58fps running at 89 percent stability while Asphalt 9 did run at 30fps, but at 91 percent stability. The OnePlus Nord, on the other hand, outperforms the F62 on both those counts. While the numbers might be slightly lower, there was no visible stutter or frame drops while gaming and we are pretty pleased with this. The Mi 10i (Review) has been added for reference, to show how the Samsung Galaxy F62 stacks up against recently launched devices in this segment. We have not included the Realme X7 Pro (Review) due to the fact that the Dimensity 1000+ chipset on this particular phone was found to be artificially boosting benchmark scores.

On a day-to-day experience, the Samsun Galaxy F62 leaves little room for complaints. There were a few moments of stutter while switching apps, but it’s a minor and very infrequent occurrence.

Samsung Galaxy F62 Battery

The second USP of the Samsung Galaxy F62 happens to be its mammoth 7000mAh battery. There is no other smartphone in the mid-range segment with a battery this size, and Samsung is hoping to really capitalize on that. Watch an hour of Netflix on this phone and you lose only 8 percent battery. Navigating for an hour on Google Maps with the display on drains only 7 percent battery. In my use, the phone lasted nearly two days consistently, which is pretty great. On one occasion, the F62 also let me charge my iPhone 12 when it started to run low on battery while out and about. While the phone does last a really long time, where it sort of falters is charging time. The gargantuan 7000mAh battery supports a maximum of 25W fast charging, which means, this phone takes nearly three hours to charge fully. Thankfully, you do get a 25W fast charger in the box, so that’s a good thing.

Samsung Galaxy F62 Camera Performance

While there are four cameras on the back of the Samsung Galaxy F62, only three of them are actually usable. The primary 64 megapixel camera definitely delivers good results when you shoot in the binned mode. The colours are typical Samsung; in that they are nice and saturated, the dynamic range is good and best of all, the photos are adequately sharp. While you can see some samples below, there are far more in our Flickr Gallery.

When you switch over to the 64MP mode, you get better details, yes, but you end up clipping some highlights, and find slightly lower contrast in the photos. A little time in Snapseed should fix these photos right up, but it won’t bring back the clipped highlights. Interestingly, the AF works splendid in photo mode, but switch over to video and it can go into a frenzy. This feels like a bug more than anything else, that’s triggered only when you try to track a subject across the frame, and one we hope Samsung can fix with a future update. The 12-megapixel ultrawide camera is average at best, producing photos with decent dynamic range, but notable distortion. There is also a notable drop in sharpness as you go from the center to the edge of the frame. When shooting in strong lighting, don’t’ be surprised if you end up seeing some purple fringing too. Lastly, we have the 5-megapixel macro camera, which you’re better off not using. This is because there’s no AF, no focus peaking and no image stabilization. When you’re 3cm from the subject, the very act of breathing will shift your focus, resulting in an out of focus shot. It took nearly 15 tries to get one shot right and of those 15, only 1 was passable.

When we move into low light situations, the primary camera delivers decent results, but only if you shoot in night mode. The default camera mode delivers decent photos but switch over to night mode and watch the scene come alive. Unfortunately, the ultra-wide camera doesn’t deliver in the same way, despite having its own night mode available.

Overall, the camera experience on the Samsung Galaxy F62 is satisfactory, but not exceptional. It’s not a camera stack that jumps out with exceptional quality or features, but is one that just about gets the job done.

Samsung Galaxy F62 Display

The Samsung Galaxy F62 rocks a 6.7-inch sAMOLED display with a resolution of 2400x1080. If you’re expecting high refresh rate, you’re not getting that here. The resolution and refresh rate limits are what perhaps help this smartphone achieve the better battery life. The display by itself has a peak brightness of 560nits as measured by us, which is pretty impressive. Outdoor usage is pretty reliable as the super bright display manages to curb the reflections to a great degree, making the contents on the screen clearly legible. However, the phone does not support HDR playback, which is a bummer.

Samsung Galaxy F62 Build and Design

The Samsung Galaxy F62 comes in a trio of colours and ours is the “Laser Blue” variant. The back is “glasstic” but scratches easily. Just a few days of being in the pocket and the back is already pretty roughed up, adding to the hurt the fact that Samsung does not include a case in the box anymore. The right side of the frame houses the volume rocker and most importantly, the fingerprint scanner that doubles up as the power button. This is a feature that’s worked very well for us in our usage. It would be nice to see this make it to more premium devices as well to be honest. The SIM tray is housed on the left frame and while you do get two SIM slots and a microSD card slot. Do note that there is no rubber ring around the SIM tray, so water resistance is out of the question. The bottom side has the USB-C port and the singular speaker. In terms of design, the best thing the Samsung Galaxy F62 has going for it is the new colour treatment, which is a refreshing change, but may not be to everyone’s liking.

Conclusion

The Samsung Galaxy F62 is a smartphone that's designed for people who want reliable performance, but more importantly, excellent battery life. The Exynos 9825 surprisingly still holds up, despite being from two years ago. The design is going to be a polarising point for this smartphone, but the side-mounted fingerprint sensor is definitely a huge draw. You also get dedicated SIM slots along with a separate MicroSD Card slot which is great. The cameras are useable for social media and such, but the only camera that works reliably in tricky conditions is the primary 64megapixel camera. If you need a smartphone with reliable performance, but segment-leading battery life, the Samsung Galaxy F62 makes perfect sense for you.

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Garena Free Fire to add new in-game Black Market event later this week

Garena has announced that the in-game Black Market store will be returning later this week. The developers state that the store will offer items with "questionable origins." The details are not yet known, but the devs note that a Cobra Motorbike will be on offer. The Black Market will start on February 19, and go on till February 25.

Garena Free Fire Black Market: What to expect

The upcoming Black Market will most probably be similar to previous such events where players will get a chance to buy items at hefty discounts. Earlier this year, Garena hosted another Free Fire event called Black Market. During this event, players were presented with a number of items arranged in three rows. Each of the rows offered a different discount. Players could choose up to three items from any row. The final discount would be the sum of all three discounts. Garena noted that only a total of 18 items could be purchased from the Black Market.

Other Project Cobra events

Garena Free Fire is already hosting two new lucky draws for players. This includes the Cobra Spin and a new Weapon Royale. The Cobra Spin gives players the chance to win a Katana with the Legendary Cobra skin. The other grand prize included is the Cobra Sprinter Bundle. Other prizes include the Ottero pet , Rainbow Dash skin for the Amphibious Quad, Titanium Gun box and more. A single spin will cost users 20 in-game diamonds. But players can buy 10 spins in one go for 180 diamonds. Buyers can also buy a Special Spin for 40 diamonds. This triples the chance of winning the grand prize.

The other draw is the new Weapon Royale. This gives players the chance to earn the AWM - Lucky Koi sniper rifle. The weapon offers a much greater rate of fire along with improved armour penetration. However, the slower reload speed balances things out.

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Xiaomi Redmi Note 10 series key features officially teased ahead of India launch on March 4

Xiaomi Redmi Note 10 series is confirmed to launch on March 4 in India and the upcoming phones have officially been teased ahead of its launch. The microsite on the official Xiaomi website has teased the key specifications and features of the upcoming lineup.

As per the microsite, the Redmi Note 10 series will be powered by Qualcomm Snapdragon processor with a lightweight profile and large capacity battery to boot. Xiaomi has also confirmed that the Redmi Note 10 series will have Gorilla Glass protection on the front and it is also IP52 rated making it resistant to dust and water.

Snapdragon AMOLED FTW Centrally-aligned single punch hole Black color variant Better haptics Hi-res#Xiaomi #redmi #RedmiNote10pro #redminote10series pic.twitter.com/kRAsMumF7A

— Mukul Sharma (@stufflistings) February 17, 2021

We can also expect one of the phones in the lineup to feature an AMOLED screen since the teaser image does not point to a side-mounted fingerprint sensor. Additionally, we can also see a centre punch-hole cutout on the top for the selfie camera.

Xiaomi Redmi Note 10 series leaked specifications

Xiaomi Redmi Note 10 series has been leaked previously hinting at the possibility of separate 4G and 5G versions of the Note 10 lineup. The Redmi Note 10 is rumoured to be offered in three colours: White, Green and Grey with 4GB/6GB RAM and 64GB storage. Meanwhile, the Redmi Note 10 Pro could arrive in three colourways including Blue, Grey and Bronze and could launch in three storage variants: 6GB/8GB RAM paired with 64GB and 128GB storage.

The Redmi Note 10 Pro has previously surfaced on different certification websites across the world, and it could have a 120Hz high-refresh-rate display. Apart from this, we expect the next generation of Redmi Note phones to run on MIUI 12 based on Android 11 out-of-the-box.

The Redmi Note 10 Pro is also rumoured to be powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon 732G processor with 64MP quad-camera setup on the back. The phone is also expected to be fitted with a 5,050mAh battery with fast-charging support.

We will know more about the Redmi Note 10 series in the heads up to the launch which is scheduled for March 4.

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Now you can send Voice DMs on Twitter in India: Heres how to use it

Twitter has introduced voice messages feature for users in India, Brazil and Japan. The new feature lets users send a voice DM (Direct Message) to their Twitter contact and the company has been testing it for a while now. Back in June 2020, the micro-blogging platform released voice tweets that enabled users to record voice clips and post them as tweets. Twitter has started rolling out the voice messages feature to its users in India, Brazil and Japan from February 17 and more users will receive it in the coming days. Twitter users can now record a 140 seconds audio clip and send it as a DM to their followers. The feature is available for both Android and iOS devices.

Twitter users received a pop-up message notifying them of the new feature that adds a new audio recording button that users can simply tap to record their message. 

“India is a priority market for Twitter and that is why we’re constantly testing new features and learning from people’s experience on the service here. We’re excited to bring the voice messages in DMs experiment to the country and give people a new way to express themselves and help them connect through the nuances, emotion, and empathy built by hearing someone’s voice,” Managing Director of Twitter India Manish Maheshwari said.

How to send voice DM on Twitter?

Sending a voice message as a DM to your Twitter follower is very easy. The company has introduced the new feature to let users record their message in their own voice and send it to their followers. This is not an entirely new feature as WhatsApp and Telegram have had it for ages now with people using audio clips to chat with friends and family.

To send a voice DM, open Twitter and go to the inbox. Here, tap on the purple waveform pattern at the bottom-right corner and you will be able to record an audio message. After recording the message, you can preview it or just send it normally.

Do note, however, that you can only record an audio clip for 140 seconds after which it stops automatically.

 

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OnePlus Watch design leaked as it gets listed at the German Patent and Trademark Office

OnePlus is one of the biggest consumer tech brands in the world, with the company selling not only smartphones but also smart TVs and smart wearables under its name. And now, it appears to be closer than ever to launching its first set of smartwatches in the market. The new wearables have been leaked a few times already, with the devices now also being spotted in a new patent leak. 

As per a report by Techniknews, OnePlus has patented two smartwatch designs at the German Patent and Trademark Office (GPTO). The patents reveal some interesting details about what likely could be the company's first set of smartwatches, as it suggests that both the devices could launch with a round dial.

Two OnePlus Watch models

The patent shows the first smartwatch, which the report suggests could be the Sport Version of the OnePlus Watch, could sport a round dial with flouted straps. As for the dial, there appear to be two buttons that will possibly be used for UI navigation. The patent also shows the smartwatch could come with a few sensors at the back. While there is no clarification about which features these sensors could power, there is an expectation that these could be for monitoring heart rate, blood oxygen saturation, and blood pressure. The watch also comes with two contact points which will most likely be used for magnetic charging. 

As for the second smartwatch, the patent shows the device to come with a slightly bigger frame and also with a different strap design. However, there appears to be little else in terms of changes when it comes to the design of the second OnePlus Watch when compared to the first one. Apart from this, other areas like button placements, sensors look similar as mentioned above.

It is interesting to note that the OnePlus Watch models have also been certified already and as such are likely to launch soon. While there is no confirmation yet from the company, rumors suggest that the smartwatches from OnePlus could launch in March. This also looks quite possible considering that the OnePlus Watch models have already been certified.

 

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Microsoft Launches Xbox Wireless Headset to take on the PS5 Pulse 3D headphones

Taking on the PS5 Pulse 3D headset, Microsoft has launched the Xbox Wireless Headset priced at $99 which translates to Rs 7,200 approx. directly converted. Microsoft says, “The Xbox Wireless Headset delivers best-in-class audio and chat performance, outstanding design and comfort, and unique experiences that are tailored for each gamer. We are also looking forward to bringing more value to the headset category with innovations not previously found in this price range”. 

The headset’s design may be traditional, but it is all black with green accents, making it recognisable to anyone familiar with the Xbox colour scheme. The headset has a claimed battery life of 15 hours. It has two dials - one on each earcup. The right dial can control the volume while the left dial is used to control the party chat volume. The headset is compatible with the Xbox Series X (review), Xbox Series S, Xbox One PC and mobile devices via Bluetooth 4.2. The headset supports Windows Sonic, Dolby Atmos, and DTS Headphone: X. The headset also has a mic which is not removable. However, when not in use, it can be raised to keep it out of the way. For connectivity, it has USB-C for charging and also supports 3.5mm connectivity.  

The headset also boasts of “lightweight design, ultra-soft large earcups made of polyurethane leather that distribute pressure evenly over the ears”.

When connected to the console, you can control the headphones’ settings from the console's audio settings. This includes managing things like equaliser, mute light, mic monitoring and more. 

When it comes to battery life, Microsoft says, “30 minutes of charging provides about 4 hours of battery life, with only 3 hours of charging to reach up to 15 hours of battery life when the headset is not in use”.  

To put things into perspective, Sony has the Pulse 3D headset that launched alongside the PS5. While the headset has an India price of Rs 8590, there is no information on when Sony will launch the headset.

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