Opinion: Exynos is bad, but it shouldn’t be killed

After numerous leaks and endless rumors, Samsung’s newest Galaxy S23 series has now been officially unveiled, confirming several of those leaks we stumbled upon in the past couple of months. One of those leaks that particularly caught the eye was Samsung ditching its in-house Exynos SoC, going all-in on Qualcomm’s latest offering, bringing parity to its customers across all the different markets we all craved for so long. Not only that, the Galaxy S23 series will feature a special beefed-up version of the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 SoC, featuring the “For Galaxy” moniker. At first, this might sound spectacular, especially for those in the EU and MENA regions contemplating the idea of upgrading to the newest flagship from Samsung this year. However, I’d like to argue that ditching Exynos altogether might not be the best news to hear in the long run.

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After 5 months, just 5% of Android devices run Android 13

Six months ago, Google pushed its latest Android 13 update to its fleet of Pixel phones, ticking the clocks on everyone’s desk as they wonder when this update would hit their phones. Fast forward to this month and, unsurprisingly, many still continue to wonder when they will finally taste Google’s latest flavor of Android. Of course, at this point, an iPhone user will probably chuckle a bit before feeling kinda sorry for his friends with a non-Pixel Android phone in their pockets. For years, fragmentation has been the stick to beat Android with. Despite Google’s numerous endeavors to cut down on slow updates, there is no sign that it will cease to exist. However, Google’s latest OS distribution stats paint a slightly brighter picture.

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New Year. New Google, hopefully.

As a bright new year beckons us, it is always a good time to reflect on the past year as everyone writes down their resolution for the next one. It has been a mixed bag for Google, with some impressive highs and underwhelming lows steered by some questionable decisions. In light of these highs and lows, we thought we could lend Google a hand with their new year’s resolution. Here is what we hope to see from Google this year.

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Google Pixel 7: There’s more to a phone than just a CPU

Not so long ago, a new leak of Google’s upcoming Pixel 7 devices has done the rounds, shedding a lot of light on what to expect from Google’s 2nd iteration of their custom-built Tensor SoC. To the surprise of many tech enthusiasts, it appears that Google’s upcoming Pixel 7 phones will not boast the same raw horsepower as its counterparts from Qualcomm. Thanks to some clever tracking from the eagle-eyed developer Kuba Wojciechowski, it is all but confirmed that the 2nd gen Tensor SoC would stick to the same CPU configuration as last year, albeit boasting a slight bump in frequencies. Of course, such news is likely to put off a lot of the people keeping tabs on Google’s much-anticipated flagship phones of this year. Yet, I would like to argue that this seemingly underwhelming leak could be the very same reason the Pixel 7 can be a gem of a phone.

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The latest Google Messages beta fixes Apple’s annoying iMessage reaction texts on Android

For so long, Apple has had a sizeable lead over Google when it comes to texting, with iMessage featuring a number of exclusive features such as per-message emoji reactions and end-to-end encryption. In response, Google released RCS, bringing the messaging experience on Android much closer to that of Apple. However, one big problem that remained unresolved was cross-platform texting. For every reaction on iMessage, the same message is returned again to the other Android user, prefixed by their reaction, clogging up the chat thread with meaninglessly long messages, just because it’s not an iPhone-to-iPhone conversation. Well, it looks like those days will be over pretty soon. In fact, you could end this peril as soon as now.

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Google could finally hit the nail on the head with the Pixel 6 — here’s why

For years, Google’s ambitious Pixel project has ceased to impress, failing to mark its stamp on the mainstream market, specifically in the flagship space. Rather ironically, Google’s biggest success was the Pixel 3a — Googles’ last-ditch attempt to save the day after the Pixel 3’s epic fail. Of course, at this point, many people would rightfully write them off, with last year’s Pixel 5 resembling the spec sheet and features of a fancy/posh mid-ranger more than a fully-fledged flagship smartphone. This year, however, Google seems to be gearing up to make a comeback with the Pixel 6 series. Here’s how Google could turn the market on its head.

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[Update: Patch rolling out] Several phones plagued by spontaneous app crashes, here’s how to fix them

Many users have been complaining about how their phones have been plagued by random app crashes this afternoon, particularly those who own more recent Samsung flagship and mid-range smartphones. Other phones such as the Google Pixel and OnePlus phones seem to be also affected albeit not as heavily. It’s been a cause of headaches for hundreds of users so far, with seemingly no particular reason.

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Google’s new Pixel Buds are plagued by quality control issues that need to be addressed

Google announced the second-generation Pixel Buds way back in October of last year, but only the white color was first made available to consumers in late April of this year. The three other colors — black, orange, and mint — were just released this month. I’d been wanting a pair of these ever since they were announced last year to replace my current pair of 2018 Samsung Gear IconX earbuds. So, as soon as the “Almost Black” variant was made available this past week, I splurged at bought a pair. Unfortunately, the quality control (QC) issues are real, and I’ll be returning mine.

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