Pocketnow Daily: Google Pixel Fold Coming Soon? Steam Deck Announced & more!(video) Leave a comment
The official news today begin with deals, and let me just say, no one does deals like Samsung.. I mean, their trade-in deals are still going on for every device you can think off. Starting with the S21 Series, you can still get the S21 5G for as low as 99 bucks, the S21+ for 200 or the S21 Ultra for 400 dollars. And hey, if you’re looking for a foldable the Galaxy Z Fold 2 is still available for as low as 900 dollars but, you need to have an eligible device to trade-in for all of these devices. If you’re into really expensive headphones, the AirPods Max just hit a new low. Again. With an 83 dollar discount, leaving them at 465 bucks. At this pace, why not $350 and call it a day Apple. Anyways, If regularly priced headphones are your jam, the Jabra Elite 85hs are still some of my favorites, they are water resistant and 100 bucks off, meaning you can get them for 150 dollars. Now that is a good buy. Finally, the Nokia 8.3 5G is 200 dollars, so you can grab it for 400 bucks. We have more deals on Blue Yeti mics, other Samsung phones and more in the links in the description.
For the first time in a minute, let’s switch focus on to Huawei and hold it cause this is good news for anyone that’s not in China. The company clearly seems to be having a hard time releasing the P50 Series this year. We all know that these haven’t been the best past couple of years for them after they got banned from the US, and to add on top of that, we’re also going through a global chip shortage which is why they’re not able to produce enough of their Kirin 9000 chips any more. Well, according to a new report from GSM Arena, Huawei may resort to using Qualcomm chips for the P50 Series after all. And I know what you’re thinking, with the trade ban how would Qualcomm supply these chips for Huawei but it turns out there’s a loophole here. Huawei is banned from using 5G technology from companies like Qualcomm, which they actually helped develop but, they’re still able to use the LTE variant of the Qualcomm Snapdragon 888, at least for the regular P50 model. Apparently they do have enough Kirin 9000 chips for the Pro model to last until December but after that they would have to resort on to using 4G Qualcomm chips. We can reportedly expect the P50 Series in August with an interesting design but, let’s see how they pull this off. Thing is, with Honor doing Google Apps and Snapdragon phones, maybe this is the first step into Huawei making a comeback. We’ll see.
But alright, how about if we switch into the unexpected by talking about Steam.. After months of speculation the company took to Twitter to announce that they will be launching the Steam Deck. They’re describing it as “powerful, portable PC Gaming that starts at 399.” It is designed by Valve and powered by Steam and it’ll start shipping this December. Apparently we’re getting three different tiers that go based on storage, with the first one getting 64 Gigs of eMMC storage but then the other 2 tiers bring up to 512 Gigs of NVMe SSD. I know, it’s as if they really don’t want you to go 64 gigs cause the speed differences are major, though yes, you can use an SD card. Their website claims that the Deck brings Steam Games and features to a powerful and convenient form factor which actually consists of a 7-inch touch screen, multiple trackpads, and gyro controls. Valve is partnering with AMD for a custom APU to optimize the Deck for handheld gaming but, you can dock it like the Switch, allowing for more power, external displays and USB peripherals. Now, the website isn’t too explicit on whether these games are being streamed but, it mentions that it runs the latest triple A games and actually does it pretty well with no difference in frame rates or performance between the 3 tiers.. Again, you can expect it in December starting on 399 and, let’s hope it can disrupt like the Switch in a less of a walled garden.
But guess what, we get to continue with the unexpected. Let’s stick to even more official news and talk about Windows once again which isn’t too common for this show. See, Microsoft just had their Inspire live event where they just announced Windows 365, which is the company’s first subscription-based Windows operating system. If you’re confused on how it works, think of Google Stadia where it you can “stream your games” with the only requirements being a subscription and a stable internet connection.. Well, Windows 365 let’s you pretty much stream Windows through a stable connection, letting you get the full Windows experience that can also be customized like a PC. Users can choose how much storage and memory they’ll get on their Cloud PC and will be able to configure it any way they want with the max storage being half a terabyte, and up to 16 Gigs of RAM. The good thing here is that it can run on any device through a browser, giving you an “instant-on boot experience” with a full Windows Experience. So, just think about the idea of getting real work done on your iPad during the day, but then having it become your media device for the rest of it. Microsoft is also saying that the stored data goes through their network and will be encrypted by default.. Windows 365 will be available in August 2nd according to their website, allowing users to enjoy Windows 10 or 11, but there’s a catch. For the most basic 4 gigs of RAM and 128 gigs of storage you have to pay $31 a month. Like oh man.. All was going well. Good luck Microsoft.
Finally, for the hottest news today, let’s go back to talking about Google and their Pixel devices but this time, we won’t be discussing the Google Pixel 6. As yes, foldables are becoming more and more mainstream and it seems like Google doesn’t want to stay behind on this realm. I mean, we even saw how the company has taken Android to support it seriously ever since the previous Google I/O. Well, according to a new report from the Elec, Samsung’s Ultra Thin Glass will finally be available for wide-spread use in the second half of 2021, meaning we should be getting more information on upcoming foldables from companies like OPPO, Vivo and Google. Speaking of those upcoming foldables, previous rumors suggested that at least one of these will be Google’s Passport. And actually, the report doesn’t give too much information on it but, it reveals that the Google Pixel Fold, aka Passport, could arrive with a 7.6-inch display and that also matches the information we’ve gotten with previous reports. Other leaked documents from Google that surfaced back in August of last year claimed that Google plans to release this foldable in Q4 of 2021 and the fact that Samsung is ready to ship these displays just adds some more confirmation to the matter. We don’t have much information on the Pixel Fold yet other than the display size, but even if there are no design leaks, with Google being the one that actually enables the software for foldables.
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