Trending about Smartphones

When researchers swabbed 178 healthcare workers' phones in a Peruvian hospital in 2023, 90.5% turned up some kind of microbial contamination. That number is a clinical-setting data point, not a diagnosis of the phone in your pocket: a hospital ward is a different exposure environment than a coffee shop counter or a train seat. Still, the question of how to clean your phone safely deserves a real answer, and two hospital studies tested the same disinfectant.

How to Charge Your Phone Without a Charger: Full Guide

Type "use phone as a tape measure" into a search bar and dozens of apps promise to do exactly that. Android Authority decided to test the appetite behind that search: it asked readers which of four sensor-based toolbox jobs they'd actually hand to their phone.

Android phones carry a set of safety tools built for exactly this moment, but learning how to use Android Emergency SOS after a car accident really starts with setting it up long before any crash happens. The system can call for help and share a live location without anyone unlocking the phone or dialing a number, triggered by pressing the power button five or more times (Android, earlier this year). As Android Police put it last year, "these tools help only if you set them up beforehand." Even...

Flagship launches often foregrounded the processor: bigger cores, faster benchmarks, a new chip name printed across the marketing slide. In 2026, the component actually straining a flagship's budget isn't the chip doing the thinking. It's the chip doing the remembering.

Starting tomorrow, Thursday, August 6, T-Mobile customers will be able to spread the cost of a new phone, including taxes and activation fees, across 36 months instead of the previously available 24-month term, with well-qualified buyers paying nothing at checkout, according to WebProNews. The T-Mobile 36-month phone financing plan actually comes in two distinct versions, and the gap between them decides whether a customer walks out paying $0 or simply pays less than before.

Should you restart your phone regularly? The honest answer is: probably less often than you think, and for different reasons than you've been told. Your phone is not a 2003 Windows PC. It doesn't need a Sunday-night reboot to stay functional. Modern smartphones are built to run for weeks at a time without issue, and the idea that routine restarts keep a phone healthy is, at best, weakly supported by the evidence.

Phones with 8,000mAh to 10,000mAh batteries used to be a trade-show curiosity. Not anymore. The vivo T5 Pro shipped with a 9,020mAh cell, and the Redmi Note 17 Pro Max has already been confirmed at 10,000mAh, Gadgets Now reports. Batteries that size used to demand a phone thick enough to double as a doorstop, but the same chemistry now lets manufacturers fit 7,000mAh or more into bodies under 8.5mm, per Gadgets Now.

Leave a phone on the dashboard of a parked car on an 80°F day, and the cabin around it will hit 114°F within 30 minutes. Give it an hour, and that number climbs past 130°F, according to Meqtor. Most phones are rated to operate only up to 95°F (Meqtor). Past that point, a phone isn't just uncomfortable, it's running well outside the range it was built for.

Battery damage from heat doesn't announce itself. It builds quietly through July and August, and by the time September's heat waves roll in, a phone that used to coast to bedtime can barely make it past lunch. Summer is the season when phones take their biggest annual hit to battery health, and most of that damage happens in ways that don't feel serious in the moment, according to CNET. Knowing how to protect your phone battery from summer heat means understanding what's actually happening...

Ask why smartphones are cheaper in the US than their sticker prices suggest, and the answer usually comes down to one mechanism: carrier installment credits attached to postpaid plans.

Oukitel is heading into IFA 2026 with three rugged phones that don't just carry bigger batteries. They build in a night-vision camera, a fire starter, and a gaming cooling rig, treating the phone itself as a chassis for gear you'd normally pack separately. The headline device, the Oukitel WP70 Ultra rugged phone, packs a 16,000mAh silicon-carbon battery that Oukitel calls the slimmest in its class, Gadgets 360 reports.

Search for the best $100 smartphone in 2026 and the results won't cooperate: every phone reviewers have actually tested this year costs more than that. Samsung's Galaxy A17 5G lists at $174.99, and Motorola's cheapest 2026 model, the Moto G Play, runs $169, with the standard Moto G at $199 (Android Authority, 3 months ago). Even PCMag's "cheap phone" roundup skips $100 entirely; its budget category starts under $300 (PCMag, seven weeks ago).

Global foldable smartphone shipments are projected to rise 20% year-over-year in 2026, and industry sources point to Apple's expected entry into the category as one factor behind that growth, according to industry sources cited by DigiTimes this week. Counterpoint Research puts the figure slightly higher, forecasting 21% growth and tying the increase to Apple intensifying competition in the premium book-style foldable segment, the category of phones that open outward like a book to reveal a...

TSA counted 15 states with a mobile driver's license that worked at its airport checkpoints as of February 2025, a list that ran from California and Puerto Rico all the way to Louisiana and New York (TSA). More states have added the option since then, and checking TSA's Digital ID page is the only reliable way to know if yours is one of them today. This guide walks through how to add your driver's license to your phone: confirming your state and device qualify, completing enrollment, and...

Ask a phone maker what costs the most to build a handset in 2026, and the answer isn't the chip anymore. DRAM, the memory that runs a phone's software in real time, has overtaken the system-on-chip as the single most expensive component in a smartphone, according to Counterpoint Research, 2 weeks ago. That single fact reshapes how brands think about every other line item in the bill of materials, and it's the starting point for understanding how the RAM shortage affects smartphone audio...

WhatsApp has started activating usernames for a small number of accounts on Android and iOS, letting the first wave of users share a handle instead of a phone number when contacting someone new. The WhatsApp username feature rollout is live now, though only for a very limited cohort activated users see a banner at the top of their chat list confirming their handle is ready, WABetaInfo reported yesterday.

Every foldable phone complaint worth reading traces back to the same two design facts: the screen has to bend, and something mechanical has to make that happen. Those two requirements create engineering tensions that no manufacturer has resolved. The common foldable phone problems owners report most consistently screen failure, hinge contamination, steep repair bills, and contested warranty claims aren't random. They're downstream consequences of the same underlying tradeoff.

A Xiaomi 18 Pro Max camera leak reported by Notebookcheck last week has been widely interpreted online as describing a phone with three 200MP cameras. The source doesn't say that. Tipster Digital Chat Station describes a 200MP main sensor and a 200MP telephoto. The third lens, the ultra-wide, may use a 50MP sensor based on a separate, earlier leak. Two high-resolution cameras, not three.

Bigme's Hibreak Dual 2 dual-screen phone launched on Kickstarter today with pledges starting around $560, pairing a 6.13-inch color E-Ink front panel with a 5-inch 720×1280 LCD on the rear, Notebookcheck reported. Both screens are rectangular and sized for genuine use a direct response to the watch-face-sized rear panel on Bigme's previous attempt, which never shipped.

Bigme announced the Hibreak Dual 2 in late June 2026, roughly two months after its predecessor failed to reach customers. The original HiBreak Dual was listed for preorder starting at $359, per The Verge, but available reporting shows no retail release followed. Bigme subsequently issued a public "reflection and apology" acknowledging the design's shortcomings, according to Heyup. The Bigme Hibreak Dual 2 is the company's answer to those criticisms and the core hardware change is significant...

Some market watchers expect a sharp decline in sub-$400 shipments this year, according to Omdia data reported by Android Authority. The cause is a memory supply crunch driven by AI infrastructure demand, and the segment taking the worst of it is precisely the one with the least room to absorb it.

A Bigme HiBreak Dual 2 competitor arrived within days of Bigme's Kickstarter launch: a new Hisense e-paper phone with a detachable color LCD. Hisense had recently debuted its own E Ink phone with a fundamentally different design choice: its secondary color LCD detaches magnetically. That single difference defines the central question worth asking right now: should an E Ink display be a permanent part of a phone, or something users can choose when they want it?

Most people assume they check their phones often. What they almost never do is measure it. When researchers have tracked actual pickup behavior, the numbers consistently exceed self-reported estimates by a significant margin. A 2016 analysis cited by Stanford's Change Lab put average daily phone interactions at roughly 2,617. The methodology behind that figure is imprecise what counts as an "interaction" varies considerably but it points at something real: for most people, phone use is not...

HONOR detailed the full camera system for its Robot Phone at a camera technology event in China today, confirming HONOR Robot Phone dual 200MP cameras, three-axis mechanical stabilization, and a partnership with professional cinema brand ARRI for LOGC3 encoding. The main sensor mounts on a four-degree-of-freedom titanium-alloy robotic arm that, according to Honor, enables 360-degree subject tracking a physical mechanism rather than a software compensation layer. The China launch is set for...

Three in four U.S. adults support banning phones during class in middle and high schools. Support for that policy has climbed nine points over two years, from 68% in 2024 to 77% today, with just 18% opposed, according to a Pew Research Center survey published today. The all-day version tells a different story: 48% support, 43% oppose.

Two phones. A steep price gap. A decision that comes down to one honest question: do you actually need a tablet in your pocket, or do you just want one?

Most people now replace their phones every three to four years. Carriers have helped normalize that timeline with 36- and 48-month contracts, but most buyers still shop using a two-year mental model (Android Authority, this week). If you want to know how to buy a phone that lasts 3 years without turning into a security liability, the answer isn't better specs it's asking different questions before you buy.

WhatsApp has started letting users reserve usernames before a wider launch later in 2026, giving people a way to connect without sharing their phone number. The Associated Press reported that WhatsApp began the reservation phase on June 29, 2026, with the full username feature expected later this year.

No verified global rollout for the Vivo X Fold 8 exists in current sourcing. No confirmed carrier partnerships, no regional pricing, no GMS certification status for international builds. That is the actual situation, and it matters because the foldable market is forecast to grow around 20% in 2026, with competitive pressure identified as a primary driver, according to Counterpoint Research. There is genuine demand for a Galaxy Z Fold 8 rival global launch from a manufacturer with real...

Oppo launched the Bubble globally yesterday alongside the Reno 16 series: a detachable wireless puck with a 1.73-inch circular OLED touchscreen, a 550mAh battery, and a silicon bumper case and star-shaped lanyard included in the box. The Verge called it the best execution of this concept they'd tested. The problem is structural: Oppo built a magnetic accessory for phones that contain no magnets.

Motorola Razr Fold: 6,000mAh Battery, 4.6mm Thin, Stylus Included

Poplar Group, the media relations firm that had handled Trump Mobile's T1 Phone press operation since at least June 2025, is no longer working with the company. Poplar founding partner Chris Walker told The Verge on June 19, 2026, that his team is "not assisting Trump Mobile any further" and said he did not know whether a replacement firm had been retained.

Motorola Razr Plus 2026: Price, Battery Upgrade, and Alternatives

Apple plans to raise prices, but CEO Tim Cook did not say which products will get more expensive, when the increases will happen, or by how much. But in a Wall Street Journal interview published June 17, he made one thing clear: Apple can no longer shield buyers from surging memory and storage costs.

Vivo executive Han Boxiao announced on Weibo this week that the X Fold 6 will carry a 7,000mAh battery, making it one of the largest batteries ever confirmed for a foldable phone, according to Android Authority. That's a direct statement from inside the company, eight days before the phone launches in China on June 26 not a leak, not a certification estimate.