Canadian news (CTV News) reported an epic tale of extreme iPhone survival this week. Ice Fishing on Waskesui Lake in Saskatchewan one Angie Carriere dropped her iPhone 11 Pro down the fishing hole. About a decade ago, even the newest model smartphones in the world would've been an immediate lost cause. Here in 2021, there's more room for hope.
OnePlus has a love-hate relationship with the official dust and water resistance rating, better known as IP (Ingress Protection) rating. Although an industry standard and a feature much-touted by other smartphone makers, OnePlus has steered clear out of its way, explaining the unnecessary cost of the certification when its phones are just as dust and water-resistant anyway. That changed earlier this year with at least the OnePlus 8 Pro and it seems that its 2021 successor will likewise be favored by an official IP pair of digits.
Samsung has quite a lot packed for its Unpacked event next month and it won't just be about phones. The Galaxy Tab S7 and Galaxy Tab S7+ are poised to be more than just your regular annual Samsung tablet. Based on earlier leaked specs, this year's Android slates are poised to go head to head with Apple's iPad Pros not just in specs but especially in size. What those specs don't mention, however, are also important and at least one of the unspoken details might not be that reassuring.
So you like the look of classic Marshall guitar amplifiers, and you wish you had one that you could use at the beach. Marshall just revealed a speaker called the Marshall Emberton. This device connects wirelessly with your smartphone or tablet to deliver "360-degree sound" in a speaker that's IPX7 water resistant.
OnePlus may be unapologetic when it comes to bucking trends when it compromises the user experience, but it also seems to be just as unapologetic in backtracking from previously held opinions. We saw that a few years back when OnePlus, after ridiculing its peers, also ditched the headphone jack. This year, it might be falling in line with not one but two most-requested features, finally giving at least the OnePlus 8 Pro some formal dust and water resistance certification.
Most smartphone users probably presume that their phones are water resistant to some degree. After all, it has become a common feature on most but not all smartphones. However, not all water resistance ratings are created equal and even then there are important caveats to those figures. It's hard enough for regular consumers to remember such things but according to Australia's consumer watchdog Samsung isn't helping at all. In fact, it has accused it of false claims that eventually lead to headache and heartaches for unsuspecting customers.
OnePlus boasts of many things about its phones but the one thing that it never put into writing is their water resistance. For generations, it has refused to get OnePlus phones IP-certified, something that its own users have complained about. The OnePlus 7 Pro won't be breaking the mold but the company is assuring customers that it will be water-resistant enough. Just don't try to intentionally drown it in water or any other liquid.
There is no shortage of Wear OS smartwatches these days but, not so long ago, Mobvoi made a name for itself by being Google’s entry into the Chinese wearable market. These days, the company is making headlines with Wear OS products that are often half the price of their nearest competition. Announced earlier this month at CES 2019, the TicWatch E2 and TicWatch S2 are finally available for purchase and its bringing more than just swim monitoring.
The newly launched OnePlus 6 has already been torn down once, and that didn't exactly end on a high note. That said, iFixit's process was more interested in checking out how easy, or hard, it is to repair the smartphone outside of official channels. JerryRigEverything's Zach Nelson, on the other hand, had a specific question in mind when he took his OnePlus 6 apart: just how water-resistant is the OnePlus 6. The answer might just surprise you.
The Apple Watch may soon tell swimmers where to go using radionavigation technology to pinpoint their location. This technology was patented this week by Apple in a document called "Radionavigation for swimmers." This might well be the first use for a smartwatch - any smartwatch - that's unique to a wearable device. Just a hint of this technology was revealed during the first presentation of the Apple Watch Series 2 by Apple back in September of 2016.
This week the folks behind Insta360 revealed their full waterproof housing accessory for their next-gen spherical camera. The camera is made to be able to capture images and video from whatever angle the user wishes, without the user having to point the cameras lens at their intended subject matter. The waterproof housing allows this camera to be mounted and kept entirely safe from the elements at the same time.
Google was largely criticized last year when its first ever “Made by Google” Pixel phone didn’t come with a suitable IP dust and waterproof rating. Although still not the highest possible, the Pixel 2 this year does considerably better with an IP67 score. It seems, however, that Google has done one small extra step in that direction, which was revealed when JerryRigEveryhing’s Zack Nelson took the already battered Pixel 2 apart. Fortunately it ends on a somewhat good note this time.