Author Archives: Brian Kolb

After what felt like an eternity, owners of the Galaxy S8 and S8+ were naturally overjoyed to finally receive the much-awaited Android 8.0 Oreo update. And, naturally, they were equally cross when Samsung halted and pulled out the update almost immediately. While they definitely have reason for their ill-feelings, Samsung has an even bigger reason why it did so. Apparently, the update has caused some handsets to randomly reboot, which would have been an even bigger fiasco than pulling it out before it spreads any further.

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Samsung is never one to make a U-turn on something new product or feature it has put out, no matter how useless or derided it may have become. It took years for it to finally sunset S Voice, for example, or slim down and rename TouchWiz. Of course, persistence may also pay off in giving something new and imperfect a chance to grow and potentially become better. Samsung is taking that chance with its AI assistant Bixby, which it will be pushing to anyone who buys a Smart TV or smart washing from the company this year.

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While some manufacturers like LG and HTC seems to be going on a smartphone diet, others like Xiaomi just keep on churning model after model of nearly identical smartphones. Case in point is one of two new phones it just launched in India under its Redmi line. The Redmi Note 5 might sound eerily familiar, at least to those who already met the Redmi 5 Plus last year. Good thing, then, that a surprise Redmi Note 5 Pro tagged along to spice things up.

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