The OnePlus 8 Series was announced earlier this month as the company’s most ambitious smartphones yet. Notably, they include many high-end display features, the latest Qualcomm Snapdragon 865 SoC, 5G support, and overall fewer compromises than previous generation OnePlus phones. While you can technically use international OnePlus 8 (review) and OnePlus 8 Pro (review) units in the U.S., the two smartphones haven’t officially been released in the U.S. yet. That changes today as the devices are on sale now from OnePlus.com, Amazon, T-Mobile, and Verizon.
Take note of some carrier peculiarities before you go online to buy a device. T-Mobile and Verizon will only carry the OnePlus 8 and not the 8 Pro. The models they will be selling have 8GB of RAM and 128GB of internal storage. The Interstellar Glow color is exclusive to T-Mobile while the Polar Silver color is exclusive to Verizon (this exclusivity only applies to the U.S. market). Verizon’s OnePlus 8 has mmWave antennas to support Verizon’s Ultra Wideband 5G network, while other versions of the OnePlus 8 do not support mmWave 5G. Interestingly, the T-Mobile and Verizon versions of the OnePlus 8 will have an IP68 rating for dust and water resistance, whereas the unlocked model purchased through OnePlus.com or Amazon does not have an IP rating. That doesn’t necessarily mean the unlocked model is less resistant to dust and water, but that the carrier models have simply gone through the certification tests necessary to attain the IP rating.
As mentioned previously, while the unlocked OnePlus 8 does work in the United States, there is one big reason why you might want to buy the Verizon model if you’re on Big Red’s network. It’s normally possible to use an unlocked OnePlus phone on Verizon as an LTE-only device by calling up the company and asking for CDMA-less provisioning. However, the unlocked OnePlus 8 Series devices do not fully support Verizon yet, which means you won’t get calls or texts on them, though 4G LTE mobile data will still work. OnePlus told Android Police that this issue will be fixed by June, so if you need calls, texts, and 5G mmWave on Verizon, you’ll want to purchase the device through the carrier.
T-Mobile is offering a number of deals for potential OnePlus 8 buyers. New and existing customers can get up to half off the OnePlus 8 5G with 24 monthly bill credits when they activate a new line of service or trade-in an eligible device. If you don’t want to do a trade-in or add a new line, you can get the OnePlus 8 5G for $29.17/month ($0 down, FRP: $699.99) for 24 months on T-Mobile’s no-interest Equipment Installment Plan.
Here’s a quick rundown of T-Mobile’s trade-in offers:
Both OnePlus 8 devices are also available from the company’s website and Amazon. Check out the chart below to see how the pricing breaks down for the different colors and storage options.
The Samsung Galaxy Buds+ are the second generation of truly wireless earbuds from Samsung. Launched beside the Galaxy S20 series earlier this year, the Galaxy Buds+ are available in four solid colors – Cloud Blue, Cosmic Black, white, and red. In addition, a special variant is also included in the limited edition Samsung Galaxy Z Flip bundle designed by the American fashion designer, Thom Browne. Based on some of the media we’ve spotted, Samsung might now release the Galaxy Buds+ in a dark, cobalt-like blue shade.
We discovered animations linked to the purported “Deep Blue” variant of the Samsung Galaxy Buds+ in version 1.7.47-22 of the SmartThings app. This is substantial evidence that Samsung is probably working on the sixth color variant.
Since these animations are from the 3D video renders from the Samsung SmartThings app, the actual color may differ. The mention of “Deep Blue” in the app does, however, endorse the tentative shade. Design-wise, there are absolutely no changes as compared to the previously launched variants.
As for the launch of these new Galaxy Buds+, we don’t have much information but alongside the Galaxy Note 20 series would definitely make sense. That’s purely based on supposition and we will only be able to confirm for sure after learning more about their launch date.
Meanwhile, to rehash your sense of the Galaxy Buds+, these truly wireless earbuds from Samsung cost $149.99 and the company endorses an 11-hour battery life for each earbud – 11 extra hours with the carrying case. The Buds+ also support fast charging within the case and just about 3 minutes of charging can give you an hour of playback.
Samsung also upgraded the driver configuration on the earbuds and the Galaxy Buds+ feature two drivers – one tweeter and one sub-woofer. Additionally, the buds also support three mics as compared to two on the previous generation of Galaxy Buds.
Google-owned navigation app Waze has improved leaps and bounds over the last few years. The app has received some major updates since its launch, with Google adding highly-requested features like Google Assistant support, a dedicated motorcycle mode, support for 7 new music streaming services, and more. However, despite constant requests from the community, Google has still not added one key feature to the app so far — lane guidance. For the unaware, lane guidance shows graphical representations of lane signs, like freeway exits, to help users decide which lane they should take to reach their destination. The feature is commonly found on dedicated navigation units and, despite several requests from Waze users, Google still hasn’t added the feature to the app.
In a recent post on Reddit, a Waze map editor revealed a possible reason behind Google’s decision to skip adding lane navigation to the app. The editor wrote, “When editing, we do our best to match the text on the big screen signs for exit naming. The idea is that the voice callout will read exactly what you need to be looking for. Additional visuals are just another distraction to take your eyes off of the road.” While the reason does seem valid, another Redditor on the same post later chimed in that the feature was currently in development but revealed no information regarding its release. Now, according to a recent post from Israeli publication Geektime, Google has finally started testing lane guidance on Waze in the region.
The report reveals that lane guidance in Waze will work much like the navigation feature in Google Maps and will give you a heads up to change lanes while traveling on a multi-lane road. A description of all the lanes will appear on the navigation screen, with your particular lane highlighted on the map. The lane markings will appear about 500 meters before the next turn on city roads and about a kilometer before the next turn on highways. However, at the moment Waze doesn’t plan to add lane guidance for roundabouts. The feature will be released on the Waze beta channel in Israel in the coming days and should roll out to more users after the initial testing phase. As of now, we have no information from Waze regarding an international release.
Xiaomi officially announced MIUI 12 just a couple of days ago at the Mi 10 Youth Edition launch event in China. As expected, Xiaomi’s latest Android skin included several new features, including a new interface, a host of different animations, privacy and health features, and more. Much like previous iterations of MIUI, Xiaomi also packed in a number of cool new wallpapers in the latest release. We recently shared all the new static and live wallpapers included in the MIUI 12 firmware for the Redmi K20 Pro/Mi 9T Pro. However, the previously released live wallpaper APKs were only supported on Xiaomi, Redmi, and POCO devices. Now, XDA Recognized Contributor linuxct has successfully managed to port the Super Earth and Super Mars live wallpapers to other devices.
Ported MIUI 12 Live Wallpapers
The Super Earth and Super Mars live wallpapers from MIUI 12 are now available for most Android devices running Android 8.1 Oreo and above. If you’re interested in trying out the live wallpapers, you can download the APKs from the link below and install them on your device. Then, you can pick the live wallpapers from the stock wallpaper picker on your device. In case the live wallpapers don’t show up in the stock wallpaper picker, you’ll need to install the Google Wallpaper app from the Play Store to apply the wallpapers. As of now, we can confirm that the stock wallpaper picker on ColorOS 7.1 doesn’t recognize the live wallpaper but your mileage may vary.
Xiaomi’s new Super Earth and Super Mars live wallpapers from MIUI 12 look great! Here’s a GIF of a ported version on my OPPO Find X2 Pro. Yes, we’ll be sharing this soon https://t.co/LZupgsATNR
While the ported MIUI 12 live wallpapers should work with most devices, there are a few limitations while using the modified APKs. According to linuxct, showing the small planet in the Always-on Display won’t be possible due to limitations with signatures — the APK must be signed with the same platform key as the ROM. However, the animations are still being performed, transitioning from a small preview of the planet into a close up when you first turn on the screen and then to the fully zoomed-in view when you unlock it. To achieve this, linuxct has included custom code in the APKs that tell the wallpaper to go into AOD as soon as the screen is turned off, then transition to the lockscreen state as soon as the screen is turned on, and finally transition to desktop mode when the device is unlocked.
The Honor 30 series made its debut in China, starting off with the Honor 30S, and then following it up with the Honor 30, Honor 30 Pro and Honor 30 Pro+. The focus of the Honor 30 series is superior and versatile camera performance while maintaining the rest of the smartphone package to a standard. All four of these devices are currently available in China only, and there has been no word on their availability outside of the region. Now, we have learned that three of these four devices will be making their way to Russia, making it the first overseas market for the launch of the Honor 30 series.
Our findings come from a Russian source that wishes to remain anonymous. Russia is one of Honor’s most prioritized markets outside of China. The brand occupied a quarter of the market share in Q4 2019 in the region, according to IDC. So it does make sense that the brand would be eyeing a release in the country.
According to our source, Honor will also be working on localizing the devices heavily for the Russian market. This is likely to include a localized voice assistant with support for the Russian language. The devices are also expected to launch with a “localized” version of the HiSilicon Kirin 985, possibly called as the “Kirin 985R”. It isn’t immediately clear what differences will exist between the standard Kirin 985 and the localized “Kirin 985R”. To note, only the Honor 30 in China launched with the Kirin 985, while the elder siblings Honor 30 Pro and Pro+ opted for the Kirin 990 — however, we do not know if all three of the devices will get the localized Kirin or whether it will be available only on the regular non-Pro variant.
Our source also mentions that the launch event for the Honor 30 series in Russia will take place near the end of May 2020. The devices that launch will also feature Huawei Mobile Services, HMS, which is Huawei’s alternative to Google Mobile Services.
We do not know when the phones will go on sale, or which three of the phones in the series will be launched (other than the regular variant). We also do not know the exact hardware specifications of the phones that will be made available — whether they will feature any other changes or localization or not. Information regarding sale and availability of the phone in other overseas markets like Europe are also unknown at this stage.
In a blogpost, the CarbonROM team has announced the release of first official Android 10 based builds for Xiaomi, OnePlus, Essential and Nexus devices. The new CarbonROM revision 8.0 is codenamed PAX, after the Latin word for peace. This new release not only bumps up the Android version officially, but it also brings along the latest security patches from the month of April 2020.
CarbonROM 8.0 builds are now live for 13 devices including the OnePlus 7 Pro, OnePlus 6 / 6T, POCO X2, Redmi Note 7, and more.
The full list devices that have received the official build of Android 10-based CarbonROM are as following.
In case you couldn’t find your device on the list, don’t worry; the team says they are working to bring the CarbonROM 8.0 to many more devices which will be released soon once they have found a proper recovery solution for these devices.
As for what’s new, the new release is bringing back custom fonts from previous versions which can be applied system-wide. And if you need more options you can always create your own at fonts.carbonrom.org and download the generated resource APK.
Custom battery styles have been ported over from Android 9 release and they have been rewritten in Kotlin to match the code-style of Android 10. Moreover, users will be greeted with a new setup wizard screen when setting up their phones for the first time.
The updates will be delivered in a weekly manner and will arrive every Wednesday. Head over to the linked page below to download the latest build of CarbonROM for your device.
Xiaomi’s custom Android skin, MIUI, may not even remotely look or function like stock Android, but that’s what makes it one of the most popular third-party skins out there. MIUI is full of useful features, which are sometimes much better than their stock Android counterparts. Xiaomi also adds exciting features that often inspire Google to adapt them for all Android users—one can argue MIUI’s full-screen navigation swipe gestures is one of those features. Despite the continuous improvements and routine additions of new features in existing versions of MIUI, Xiaomi continues to bring loads of exciting new features in each incremental MIUI update. Xiaomi announced the latest version, MIUI 12, recently, and it brings a slew of aesthetic improvements and beautiful animations for Mi and Redmi-branded devices. Xiaomi also included several new features for privacy and health.
While stable builds of MIUI 12 will not be available until the end of June 2020, we were able to install the MIUI 12 China Beta ROM on a Redmi K20 Pro (or the Xiaomi Mi 9T Pro, as it is known in Europe). This article contains a brief overview of the new and most striking elements that we see in MIUI 12.
Before we dive into discussing the new features in MIUI 12, here is the full changelog for the update.
MIUI 12 update full changelog
MIUI 12 Full Changelog
System animations
New: All-new physically based animation engine with advanced architecture will refresh your device’s look.
New: Dynamic window technology takes switching screen orientation to a new level.
System visuals
Brand new visual design works for all types of content and languages.
Magazine-level layouts bring important things into the spotlight and make content structure clear.
Privacy protection
New: MIUI 12 is the first Android-based mobile OS that went through the rigorous enhanced privacy protection testing.
New: Reset your device ID and control how it’s used based on virtual ID technology.
New: Grant permissions that will be used only while you’re using an app.
New: You can also grant permissions just once, and decide again next time a permission is required.
New: Restrict access to telephony to third party apps.
New: Return blank messages to the apps that require personal information.
New: Receive notifications whenever apps record audio, use camera, or access your location.
New: Use secure sharing to control what additional data is sent along with shared items.
New: Get comprehensive stats on how apps use permissions in app behavior history.
New: Visit privacy.miui.com to learn how MIUI protects your privacy. Optimization: Apps aren’t allowed to launch other apps in the background now.
AI Call Assistant
New: Mi AI can answer your calls now!
New: You can record a customized greeting that will be played to the other person during AI calls.
New: Customized greetings are also supported for outgoing calls.
Xiaomi Health
New: All-new Xiaomi Health gives you more options and makes your health stats more accurate.
New: Put your device next to you before falling asleep to analyze your sleep cycle and record talking and snoring.
New: You can sync data with supported wearable and smart home devices.
New: Xiaomi Health can remind you to stand up and move when it detects that you’ve been sitting down for too long.
New: The app also analyzes your stats and gives you simple health advice.
Control center
New: Swipe down from the upper right corner of your screen to open Control center.
New: Animated icons are a joy to look at!
Accessibility
New: Mi Ditto combines dictation and speech output, making mobile devices more convenient for people who have difficulties using conventionally designed smartphones.
Trips
New: Traffic and suggested routes to airports and train stations.
New: You can track your previous trips now.
New: Checklists for trips.
New: Alarms for train arrivals.
Mi Carrier Services
New: View your SIM balance and mobile data usage stats.
New: Save frequently used phone numbers to top up balance and buy mobile data later.
New: Buy SIM cards and services.
Messaging
New: Promotional messages are grouped according to their content now.
Status bar, Notification shade
New: All-new design.
Weather
New: New animations bring the weather from outside directly to your screen.
Settings
New: Security introduces new comprehensive privacy protection mechanisms.
New: Lite mode simplifies your device and brings essential features upfront.
File Manager
New: Use the floating shortcut to filter and sort items, as well as switch view.
Calendar
New: New layout tailored for landscape orientation is available now.
New: We added lots of fresh animations that will accompany your actions.
New: Calendar cards will remind you about important events and anniversaries.
Notes
New: You can create folders with notes now.
New: New dynamic backgrounds look gorgeous!
New: Tasks are completed with a satisfying animation now.
New: Checklists of subtasks make managing your agenda much simpler.
Security
New: New animations feel natural and refreshing.
New: Keep your home safe with smart home device alerts.
New: Binging your favorite shows will be more convenient with our new video toolbox.
Xiaomi Cloud
New: Shared family storage plan is available now.
Now, let’s start with the top 12 exciting features (and 1 bonus feature) you can find in MIUI 12:
1. New icons, fonts, and animations
The first striking aspect of MIUI 12 that we wanted to bring your attention to is the new set of animated icons. There are subtle changes to the standard icon packs that are part of MIUI’s pre-installed “Classic” and “Limitless” themes.
In MIUI 11, the app launch animation originates and terminates along the center of the screen. But in MIUI 12, the window expands right out of the app and goes back into the icon when you open or exit an app. Along with the window launching and closing animations, we also see a slight transition in the icons for system apps.
MIUI 12 also brings a more spaced-out and modern-looking font that goes well with the new UI. Even though the system shows “Roboto” as the default font, the new and rounder font style is quite evident.
Additionally, while there aren’t many changes to the status bar icons, the battery icon is now much cleaner, and you can choose from among four different ways to show the remaining battery percentage.
2. New “Control Center” replaces the classic quick settings menu
MIUI 12 brings a new Control Center, which is quite evidently inspired by recent versions of iOS. With this version, the quick settings tiles and the notifications shade have also been separated. So now, when you swipe downwards from the right, the redesigned Control Center opens and it features bigger, rounder icons begging to be compared to the toggles in iOS 12 and above.
The icons also follow a color scheme quite similar to the iOS control center. You can access the settings by tapping the cog icon on the top right or edit the quick settings menu using the edit button. Similar to the system app icons, the quick settings buttons also show minor animations when interacted with.
The notifications shade can be accessed by swiping on the display along the top left side. The notifications from the same app are listed together and can be expanded individually either by swiping downwards on the bubble or by long-pressing the notifications group.
You can also activate the option to open the Control Center or the notifications panel by swiping down along the center of the display instead of the upper edge.
3. Navigation gestures
MIUI 12 finally embraces Google’s Android 10 full-screen navigation gestures, which have been blatantly heisted from iOS with the additional back gesture. This was inevitable as Google mandates the inclusion of their full-screen gestures as part of the process of standardizing navigation controls throughout the variety of Android devices on the market.
MIUI received an app drawer in the MIUI launcher with the stable MIUI 11 China build in November of last year. The app drawer is also available natively in MIUI 12 and can be activated from Settings. The launcher is very similar to the POCO Launcher in terms of appearance and operability but lacks the option to sort and group apps on the basis of the color of their icons. While the global builds currently don’t have the app drawer in MIUI 11, we expect this feature to be available for all users globally with MIUI 12. This is important as Xiaomi plans to expand further in markets like Europe.
However, if users are comfortable with iOS-style horizontal scrolling, you can continue using the standard launcher style as has always been available in MIUI.
5. Live wallpapers
MIUI 12 introduces several new live wallpapers inspired by outer space. Among those, there are two new wallpaper bundles called “Super Wallpapers” which include backgrounds at four levels of zoom, from the always-on-display to the homescreen background. Depending on whether you choose the Earth or Mars live wallpaper as the background, you can see the planet from a far off distance on the always-on-display to a close-up on the homescreen.
The level of magnification increases at the lockscreen bringing you much closer to the orbit of the planet. When the screen is unlocked, you see an aerial view of the planet and scrolling left or right on the homescreen also moves the background. Lastly, when you enter a folder, the view zooms slightly closer to the surface and retracts back to the same height above the planet when you exit the folder.
You can select from among three different locations for Earth Super Wallpaper
Animations in MIUI 12 are not just limited to the homescreen and the control center but also accentuate different menus within Settings. For instance, there are new animations to highlight the battery capacity and battery usage graphs. In addition to the standard plot that shows battery percentage across time, you can now also view the battery consumption for each hour.
In the About Phone menu too, you see a splatter of animations, especially on the storage tab. When you tap on it, you see the entire internal storage represented as a cylinder with different colored disks stacked on top of each other, representing the different items that occupy the storage. You can swipe your finger to scrub through these different elements and tap on each individually to view items under each category.
7. Floating windows
MIUI 12 adds floating windows with the objective of offering the same multi-window experience as on a desktop. Supported apps can be opened in the form of floating windows that occupy only a small section of the display and can be opened on top of other apps. The Samsung Experience UI and its successor One UI have supported a similar feature called “Pop-up view” for many years now. Xiaomi’s version, on the other hand, feels much smoother and responsive, even in the beta build.
The floating windows in MIUI can be resized so you can continue working on another app in the background. To initiate a floating window, you can go to the Recents menu and tap on the Floating windows option on the top left. Alternatively, you can also launch floating windows by long-pressing on an app preview in the Recents menu and then tapping the picture-in-picture icon or by tapping on the floating window option in the Control Center.
MIUI 12 brings an improved Dark Mode which can now be applied selectively over certain apps. For apps that don’t natively support a Dark Mode or Google’s Dark Theme, the new dark mode can either invert colors or force dark backgrounds which are normally supposed to be light. This is similar to the forced dark mode we saw on some Realme devices running ColorOS 6. Above is an example comparing MIUI 12’s new Dark Mode forced upon WhatsApp (with its light theme enabled) versus WhatsApp’s native dark theme.
9. Mi Share
A cross-platform file-sharing platform, which was jointly announced by Xiaomi, OPPO, and Vivo a few months back, has been available in select Xiaomi, OPPO, Realme, and Vivo devices for quite some time under different names. On Xiaomi devices, it is called Mi Share. With the MIUI 12 update, the Mi Share interface also gets a visually enhanced redesign.
Additionally, Mi Share also allows sharing files with Mi Notebooks and RedmiBook laptops. This feature, however, may be limited to China since the laptops aren’t available elsewhere.
10. Memories in Gallery & File Manager sorting
MIUI 12 also brings two new handy features in the Gallery as well as the File Manager apps. The first one is Memories, which can be used to create collages or short videos using the existing images or videos you have. For collages, you can choose the orientation, add text, and edit each image individually. For short videos, you can choose from several templates and background scores or download more from the same menu.
Coming to the File Manager for sorting, there is a new icon at the bottom right. Tapping the icon reveals a new sorting menu that allows you to arrange different files and folders by name, size, date of creation, or file type. Along with sorting, you can also change the view between list and grid options. In MIUI 11, these options are available without options and can be accessed using the three-dot menu button on the Internal Storage page in File Manager.
11. Health features
MIUI 12 gets new features to help you improve your fitness and mental wellness. Starting with the former, the pre-existing, built-in step counter is now supplemented by automatic tracking for running, cycling, and stair-climbing. Furthermore, there’s a new sleep tracker that records the time and quality of your sleep based on the movements and sounds you make at night. It uses the microphones on a Xiaomi or Redmi smartphone to record your snoring and any sounds you might make while sleeping to account for REM sleep. In addition to tracking workouts, the Mi Health app also tracks the number of times you stood up and sends you sedentary reminders if you haven’t moved around in awhile.
When it comes to mental wellness, Xiaomi has also redesigned the Screen time dashboard with new graphs for daily and weekly usage. Additionally, as we saw in a leaked MIUI 12 build, you can now add a custom time duration for the Focus Mode. These features aren’t yet available in global builds and are substituted by Google’s Digital Wellbeing. However, Xiaomi’s own version is visually pleasing – although, once again, fairly identical to screen time feature in iOS.
12. Privacy features
There’s a lot of emphasis in MIUI 12 to apprise users of the permissions accessible to any app. These prompts for every time an app requests access for the camera, microphone, or location are shown in big fonts and occupy nearly one-third of the display. In addition, when you launch a system app for the first time, MIUI 12 commands your attention towards the information the app will be accessing. This feature has been named “Barbed Wire” by Xiaomi for its protective nature.
In addition, there’s “Flare” which raises an alarm every time an app is trying to use the camera, microphone, or location without your permission. This feature also maintains a log of every time any app uses certain permission.
Finally, there’s another feature called Mask System, which returns dummy or empty messages by default when any third-party application is trying to access your call log or messages. This is done in order to prevent untrusted apps from reading your private data.
Bonus: AI calling but only in China
Remember Google Assistant’s Call Screen? Xiaomi is doing something similar with its XiaoAI voice assistant but instead to help users with speech or auditory disabilities. The feature can be enabled from the Accessibility settings, and every time you make a call after that, you see an AI Calling button right in the middle of the display. You can toggle this feature and a computer-generated voice talks to the person on the other side.
The AI also transcribes the conversation and attempts to answer some questions itself. Alternatively, you can answer choose from a list of suggested responses or write your own response in the text box, and the AI will speak it out for the person on the other side. You can also choose between male and female voices.
Since this feature is currently available in the Mandarin language, we couldn’t verify its accuracy. Further, XiaoAI is limited to mainland China and only supports the local language, and so, we do not expect it to be available in other regions, but we hope that Xiaomi develops it for other key regions such as India and parts of Southeast Asia.
MIUI 12: Final Impressions
These thoughts are just after a single day of using the MIUI 12 closed beta ROM from China. We’ve chosen only the 12 most interesting features even though there are many more new features to talk about. Due to language restrictions and geographical factors playing a role in the availability of features, we cannot confirm which of these features will make it into the global variants of MIUI 12. The stable rollout of MIUI 12 is slated to begin at the end of June but that’s only the case in China as we don’t have a global rollout announcement yet.
Xiaomi has also shared the update schedule for the rollout of stable builds and listed the devices that will be receiving this update initially, but it must be noted that the following list only applies to China and not other regions.
The current build, being a closed beta, is very unstable, and the system UI crashes often and some features like the floating window or the Super Wallpaper stop working often. Thus, we don’t recommend installing this build on a daily driver. If you have a spare smartphone that can be used for testing, you can download the MIUI 12 close beta builds for Xiaomi and Redmi devices here.
