The concept phone that nearly melted our eyes when we first saw it is close to being an Actual Thing.
Come June 12, Vivo will officially launch the Nex phone in Shanghai, a truly all-screen design with no notch. So, where does it put the camera? No joke, the concept phone we saw (which was called Apex back in February) has a motorized front-facing camera that rises above the phone body when you go to mug for your selfie.
The Vivo Apex concept also had an in-screen fingerprint reader that can accept two fingerprints simultaneously. We’re not entirely sure what’s changed from the Vivo Apex prototype to the Vivo Nex reality, but if Vivo keeps all the goodies, here’s what you might expect.
1. Pop-up selfie camera
The Vivo Apex concept phone we saw starts with a massive 6-inch screen that has whittled the bezels to an impossible 1.8 millimeters on three sides and 4.3 mm on the bottom. The frame around the face is so slim, there’s not even room for the front-facing camera.
Andrew Altman/CNET
This is where the first cool concept part comes in. Flip over the front-facing camera and in 0.8 second, an 8-megapixel lens will rise up from the phone’s top edge. Boom — that’s your selfie camera. (There’s still a regular dual-camera setup on the back, though.)
The practicality of a pop-up camera is iffy. The lens rises fairly slowly in the prototype, so you wouldn’t be able to take pics on the fly. A mechanical camera also introduces one more part that can get stuck, wear out or break. I’d worry about that if this were a production device, but concept phones are all about creativity and the learning process.
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Vivo’s Apex concept phone rises to the challenge
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2. In-screen fingerprint scanner for two prints
Even more secure than scanning one fingerprint? Scanning two.
Andrew Hoyle/CNET
The second unusual feature appears on the screen itself. Vivo has expanded the in-screen fingerprint reader. On the Apex, the target takes up almost half the bottom of the phone, instead of just a small circle. That opens all sorts of doors, such as simultaneously scanning two fingerprints for added security, or placing your finger down at any odd angle, instead of hitting it perfectly dead center.
It does scooch up higher on the screen than the first in-screen scanner, but lifting my thumb to use it one-handed wasn’t much trouble.
In theory, you could even have two people lay down prints, say to authorize an app overriding parental controls, but that’s just me speculating.
You’ve never seen a phone camera like Vivo’s Apex concept
The third unusual ingredient has to do with audio. Vivo gave the Apex OLED panels that vibrate to create the sound for your videos, calls and gaming.
Other phones have tried similar sound-conduction techniques, including the Xiaomi Mi Mix, which used a fancy-sounding “cantilever ceramic piezoelectric actuator” to deliver sound. In other words, the phone’s body vibrates.
Vivo calls its version SoundCasting, and the speakerphone demo we got on the prototype sounded loud and rich.
Vivo Apex concept phone specs
6-inch edge-to-edge OLED display with 1.8 mm bezel on top and sides and 4.3 mm on the bottom.
Two months ago, we learned that a new, all-screen BlackBerry phone would head our way in October, and on the last day of the month, it finally has. But “our way” has a limited meaning, and in some ways, the phone might not quite be the showstopper we were hoping for.
Called the BlackBerry Motion, it’s the first BlackBerry phone to repel water and dust with its IP67 rating. It’s also got the largest battery of any BlackBerry at 4,000mAh — that’s expected to last more than a day on a single charge.
For now it seems like the BlackBerry Motion is only headed to Canada, where it will sell online with Koodo, and in some Telus, Bell and SaskTel stores starting Nov. 10. And the cost? About $600… Canadian, which is about $465, £355 or AU$610.
While the BlackBerry Motion has decent-sounding specs, its limited availability means it isn’t going to be the BlackBerry that takes the KeyOne and its physical keyboard to the next level around the globe. For a brand that’s trying to get back on track after so many years floundering to regain its footing, these phones will have to spread far and wide — and impress.
The all-touchscreen BlackBerry Motion made its debut Sunday at an electronics trade show in Dubai, just days after images of the new phone leaked online.
The new handset features a 5.5-inch HD display, 4GB of RAM and a 4,000mAh battery with support for QuickCharge 3.0. The Motion, which was unveiled at the GITEX 2017 trade show, is also rated IP67 for dust and water resistance.
The BlackBerry Motion is a follow-up to the KeyOne, the first phone released under a licensing agreement TCL has with BlackBerry to build and sell the devices. BlackBerry has detached itself from the hardware side, focusing on business security and software.
TCL, best known for making budget televisions and phones (under the Alcatel OneTouch brand), hopes to win some business customers of its own with its take on the BlackBerry family. The Motion is intended to show that the KeyOne isn’t a one-off product, and that TCL intends to create a new portfolio of products with the BlackBerry name.
The BlackBerry Motion will initially launch in the Middle East.
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Virgin Mobile’s crazy $1-a-year iPhone plan comes with…
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Virgin Mobile has come out as a total Apple fanboy.
Virgin, one of the prepaid arms of Sprint, said at an event in San Francisco on Wednesday that it would stop selling Android phones and exclusively focus on iPhones. To sweeten the deal, Virgin said the first year of unlimited talk, text messages and data will cost $1, and customers will get perks like a free companion ticket for a round-trip flight to the UK on Virgin Atlantic.
The service, dubbed Inner Circle, begins Tuesday, but you can preorder phones starting today.
The move marks a radical shift for what had been a ho-hum prepaid carrier steamrolled by similar competitors like T-Mobile’s MetroPCS and AT&T’s Cricket Wireless. By going all-in on iPhones, Virgin Mobile is trying to lift its reputation and go after wealthier customers. The move also gets Virgin Mobile into Apple’s retail stores, the first time a prepaid carrier has had a presence there.
Virgin’s $1 offer is less jaw-dropping after parent Sprint offered a year of free service. But the key difference is the Sprint offer is a low-key, limited experiment, while Virgin’s deal is the new norm, according to Dow Draper, CEO of Virgin Mobile USA.
“It’s not often as a brand you get a chance to reposition yourself,” he said in an interview Tuesday. “We know you gotta have a compelling offer.”
To qualify for the service, you need to buy an iPhone from an Apple store or through the Virgin Mobile site. After the year is up, the service reverts to $50 a month. After two years of service, Virgin will offer six months for $1 if customers buy a new iPhone.
The iPhone-only model could be an impediment to many of Virgin’s traditionally budget-conscious customers. The iPhone SE starts at $279, while the cheapest phone previously available at Virgin was an $80 LG phone (which ended up being $50 with a discount). In the fall, Virgin will begin selling used iPhones that range from $199 to $449, Draper said.
Virgin’s national retail partners will continue to sell Android phones under an existing agreement, but Draper said he’s working to phase that out.
Sprint’s “free” offer did include a number of fees, and Virgin’s is no different. The $1 annual fee is broken up into 12 monthly payments, and there’s a tax on that amount. In addition, customers are responsible for local, state and federal taxes typically associated with phone service.
New perks
Virgin will tout its new service with several perks available until Sept. 30. Here’s a list beyond the free companion ticket:
One night’s stay at a Virgin Hotel
A $170 savings on an introductory offer to Virgin Wines club
Up to 20 percent off flights on Virgin America
20 percent off the Virgin Sport San Francisco Festival of Fitness
“Our offer of iPhone combined with perks from a host of companies in the Virgin family plus Virgin’s world-famous service and great value will be irresistible for our members,” Richard Branson, founder of the Virgin Group, said in a statement.
Virgin Group founder Richard Branson at the launch of Virgin Mobile’s new deal Wednesday.
Josh Miller/CNET
How does this work?
Much like the Sprint offer, Virgin is able to afford to give away its service for $1 because it’s cutting several costs out of the business. By relying only on Apple’s retail presence and its own website, it doesn’t have to deal with the cost of staff. There’s no need for phone subsidies, since customers need to buy their own iPhone.
Unlike other prepaid services, Virgin’s unlimited data falls in line with Sprint’s offer, which means full 4G LTE speeds till a customer hits 23 gigabytes and a congested network.
“We tried to make this as gimmick-free and hassle-free as possible,” Draper said.
Virgin’s $50 unlimited data offer is $10 cheaper than Sprint, and lower than the rest of the industry. It’s that low price that has Draper willing to bet that customers will stick around after the first year. One of the reasons he decided to go all-in on iPhone was because Apple users tend to be more loyal.
The offer is available to both new and existing Virgin customers, but those who wish to stick with their old plan can do so, Draper said.
A badly needed shakeup
If you were looking for prepaid wireless service, you probably weren’t looking in Virgin’s direction.
Draper described Virgin Mobile’s business as “ho-hum,” and as the rest of the Virgin business evolved, mobile was stuck in a rut.
In addition to Virgin, Sprint’s other prepaid arm is Boost Mobile.
“This was not a long term, sustainable position for the brand,” Draper said about the old Virgin.
That’s when he got Virgin’s Branson and Apple involved.
“The new Inner Circle offer is a fun idea, and Virgin Mobile customers are going to love having the best, most advanced iPhones ever,” Philip Schiller, head of marketing at Apple, said in a statement.
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Over the course of an hour or so, I’m likely to get dozens of notifications — several messages from different Slack groups, a few Hangouts messages, maybe some messages or notifications on Facebook, Twitter mentions, an SMS or two and some emails.
That’s a lot to keep up with, and it forces you to constantly juggle several applications just to hold a few conversations. It shouldn’t be this difficult or complex. It’s just messaging.
Fortunately, there’s a solution. It’s called All-in-One Messenger, and it’s a Chrome app, so it’ll work on any Windows, Mac, Linux or Chrome OS computer.
Taylor Martin/CNET
To get All-in-One, click here or visit the Chrome Web Store and search “all-in-one.” All-in-One Messenger should be the top result under Apps.
After it’s installed, to launch the app, open Chrome and select the Apps shortcut. (If you can’t find the shortcut, try enabling the bookmarks bar by going to View > Always Show Bookmarks Bar. Apps should be the leftmost icon.) Locate the All-in-One icon and double-click it. Alternatively, if you’re using a Mac, you can use Command + Space to launch Spotlight and search “all-in-one” to locate and launch the app.
Once you’ve opened the application, you will need to start adding all your chat accounts to the app. There are currently 27 supported chat clients by All-in-One:
Not only can you have all your favorite chat clients in a single window, you can have multiple instances of them. This is particularly helpful when it comes to something like Hangouts, which requires you switch your Chrome user account to log in to multiple accounts, which will open one chat window per instance.
For Facebook Messenger, for example, it just wraps http://messenger.com inside the Chrome app. Likewise, it uses http://hangouts.google.com for Hangouts, the subdomain web client for each of your Slack groups, and so on. Most of these web clients are fully featured, so All-in-One doesn’t need a ton of features baked in, keeping it lightweight. Each chat app you have enabled uses roughly the same amount of resources they would in a browser tab in Chrome.
The app is still relatively new, so you won’t find a lot of settings. You can rename each instance of a messenger to avoid any confusion, and you can enable notifications or disable sounds.
All-in-One isn’t the first of its kind. Chat aggregators have existed for roughly 20 years in some form or another. I used Trillian way back in the early 2000s to consolidate AIM, MSN and Yahoo Messenger.
All-in-One is competing against two similar clients called Franz and Rambox, both of which support a larger list of chat clients. Franz and Rambox add Gmail, Inbox and Outlook support, while Rambox includes Hushmail, mysms, Voxer, Outlook 365 and many others, as well as the ability to add other chat services manually. Rambox also has Don’t Disturb and Lock features. Franz and Rambox are available as native applications, so you can’t use them from a Chrome OS computer, such as a Chromebook.
Switch between chats with hotkeys
Something many will find helpful are the hotkeys built in to All-in-One. Pressing ⌘ + 3 in All-in-One on a Mac or Ctrl + 3 on a PC, Linux or Chrome will open the third chat tab — the same works for numbers 1 through 9. To jump to the tab to the right, press ⌘ + Option + Tab or ⌘ + Option + Right arrow on a Mac or Alt + Ctrl + Tab on a PC, Linux or Chrome. Adding shift to those commands will switch to the tab to the left. These commands are especially helpful if you find yourself constantly switching between conversations in various chats.
The Opera Subscription Mobile Store interface.
Opera Software
If you’re a heavy app user in Vietnam, it’s about to be much cheaper to download a plethora of premium apps, thanks to the new all-you-can-eat subscription model from Opera Software and mobile operator Vinaphone.
Announced today in a press release from Opera, the new plan lets Vinaphone users who sign on pay a small weekly fee that entitles them to download a variety of premium apps and games from the Opera Subscription Mobile Store.
The all-you-can-eat subscription model costs VND15,000 (70 cents) per week, giving subscribers unlimited downloads across a large variety of paid and premium apps. Opera’s unconventional pay model has been available in select countries since late 2014 and is available for Android, BlackBerry, Symbian and Java operating systems.
To subscribe to the plan, Vinaphone users can simply send a text message reading “DK UD” to the number 1556, or they can confirm their subscription online at Vinaphone’s AppMarket site. The first week of subscription is free, giving people a chance to try out the service. The subscription renews automatically every week and can be cancelled anytime.
The subscription also bypasses the need for credit cards to pay for apps, which is a standard practice for many app stores.
“Downloading and purchasing premium apps and games just became much easier and more affordable in Vietnam,” said Viet Anh Nguyen, country manager of Vietnam at Opera Software. “Consumers now have the option to download premium apps without needing credit cards, directly from their operator’s storefront.”
For this particular payment model, Opera will handle the administrative backend and operations on behalf of Vinaphone. This includes rotating the app selection in the app store on a regular basis, as newer creations by up-and-coming Vietnamese app developers are added each week.
“We also hope that this model can provide increased marketing and monetization opportunities for both Vietnamese app developers and operators,” said Viet.
The new deal between Vinaphone and Opera means the Vietnamese service provider’s customers will now have access to approximately 300,000 apps and games. As of September 2014, 33 million people in Vietnam use a smartphone, with a growing app development scene for games — such as the viral Flappy Bird by Hanoi creator Nguyen Ha Dong.
Verizon will start selling an all-metal Nokia Lumia 920 variant in April, the Nokia Lumia 928, according to The Verge.
The aluminum-body Lumia 928 would rise up as Verizon’s marquee Windows Phone 8 device, larger and with more absolute features than the HTC Windows Phone 8 competitor, and with a fancier finish than the Lumia 822.
In addition to the all-metal finish versus the polycarbonate material that Nokia’s been favoring for the Lumia line, the Lumia 928 could also come with a xenon and LED camera flash and have a lighter, slimmer build.
Nokia declined to comment.
Out of all the carriers, I’d expect to see an-metal Lumia from Verizon, which sometimes holds out on a phone line until it can offer a unique variation, as with the HTC Droid DNA and HTC One X series.
The shift from polycarbonate, a type of plastic, to a more premium material would be a significant move for Nokia, which has so far positioned its Lumia line as youthful and fun, but with high-end features and a midrange price.
