Microsoft realizes it has crammed Your Phone with features as of late, and it’s giving the software a rework to help you manage all that content. The company has unveiled a rebranded Windows 11 Your Phone app, now called Phone Link, that includes a redesigned interface. The updated software puts notifications out front to make sure you don’t miss an important alert. You’ll also have tabbed navigation that should help you better manage apps, calls, messages and photos.
The refresh also brings visuals more in line with Windows 11’s look and feel. It will be easier to get started, for that matter. An upcoming Windows 11 update will let you set up Phone Link by scanning a QR code.
The release comes alongside a renaming of the Android app to Link to Windows (formerly Your Phone Companion) to better illustrate its role. Phone Link won’t necessarily eliminate the urge to check your device, but it might prevent the flood of information from becoming overwhelming.
Google Meet video chats should now be more useful if you need to get work done, or just don’t want them monopolizing your screen. Google is rolling multiple Workspace updates that include offering Meet video chats directly in Docs, Sheets and Slides. You can start a virtual meeting and carry it over to the document you’re working on to help you collaborate without flipping between tabs. You can also present that content if it’s ready to go. This should be available in the “coming weeks,” Google said.
You will have the freedom to switch tabs if you want, though. Google is also introducing much-needed picture-in-picture support (at middle) to Meet sometime in April. You’ll need to use Chrome, but the feature will let you see up to four video tiles in a separate window while you jump between other tabs and apps. This will be helpful if you need to show different tabs during a presentation, but let’s be honest — it will also help you keep a video chat running when you can’t (or don’t want to) devote your full attention.
Google
Other upcoming Meet improvements include in-meeting emoji reactions (due in April) and the option to add your own video tile from the interactive Companion Mode and your laptop camera (arriving later this year). Meet hardware is starting to offer automatic noise cancellation, too. The collaborative Spaces environment, meanwhile, will finally offer inline threading to keep your conversations tidy.
The improvements are acknowledgments that remote and hybrid work are here to stay despite return-to-office plans at many companies. At the same time, they appear to be genuinely helpful features that might encourage you to use Workspace… and, of course, skip rivals like Microsoft Teams.
Instagram is making it a little easier to chat while browsing your feed. The app is adding a new multitasking feature that allows users to quickly respond to incoming messages without switching back and forth between their feed and the inbox.With the c…
Last year’s OnePlus 9 Pro was one of the best phones of 2021 – which surprised some of us. The company substantially improved the cameras and packaged a high-spec phone in a premium body. Now, after several other OnePlus phones have launched with lower prices (and lesser specs), the $899 OnePlus 10 Pro, is finally here. The phone has long been available in China and the company has been teasing its new flagship since January.
With a cheaper price, a 6.7-inch 120Hz AMOLED screen, Snapdragon’s latest processor, a bigger battery and a gorgeous new green color option, the OnePlus 10 Pro sounds like it has everything it needs to repeat the success of its predecessor, but I’m left feeling underwhelmed.
Hardware
Mat Smith/Engadget
The camera unit, which includes three sensors and a flash, is surrounded by metal which bleeds over the edge to the frame of the 10 Pro. It’s an understated design touch, but I’m glad it looks different from older OnePlus models, its Oppo stepsiblings and other phones doing the same old camera sensor layout. Different is good.
The rest of the phone’s back is covered in a translucent finish that reminds me of the back of the iPhone 13 Pro. The OnePlus logo seems to be etched into this; I actually thought it was a sticker at first. There’s still some Hasselblad branding, too, along the side of the camera unit, but thankfully it’s a little subtler than previous designs.
OnePlus’s Alert Slider has clung on for its eighth year. Once again, it’s located above the power button and switches between silent, vibrate and full volume modes, each of which can be manually adjusted to your preferred levels. There’s a USB-C port, supporting 80W SuperVOOC charging and stereo speaker grilles along the bottom edge. Finally, as usual, there’s a volume rocker on the left edge.
OnePlus has upgraded the selfie camera to a 32-megapixel sensor, but it’s still a pinhole camera set in the top left corner of the display. The front-facing camera works with face unlock, while there’s also an in-screen fingerprint scanner. Both seem faster than OnePlus’ last-gen phone, and the fingerprint sensor has been shifted higher up the phone panel, making it easier to access.
While the OnePlus 10 Pro looks different from last year’s 9 Pro, there’s an awful lot of spec overlap. Both models have the same size screen and run at 1,440 x 3,216 resolution, with adaptive refresh rates of up to 120Hz. This year’s phone does have an upgraded LTPO display, however, which OnePlus says is better optimized for dynamic changes in refresh rates. But you’d be hard-pressed to notice any difference between the 10 Pro and 9 Pro’s screens; both are crisp, bright and colorful. While more and more phones are beginning to arrive with adaptive refresh rates, OnePlus does it better than most, dipping as low as 1Hz for static content on your phone screen, meaning less power drain. According to OnePlus, the upgraded screen should translate to 1.5 hours of additional use versus last year’s OnePlus 9 Pro.
Cameras
Comparisons with last year’s OnePlus 9 Pro come up yet again with the cameras. The company heralds this as its second-generation Hasselblad camera, with improvements to the OnePlus Billion Color Solution (which still struggles to sell itself as a compelling feature) and an updated Hasselblad Pro mode, which I’ll explain later.
Glancing at the spec sheet, even if the camera array itself looks notably different, the OnePlus 10 Pro has very similar camera sensors – and in fact there’s actually one less than last year’s OnePlus 9 Pro. Yes, we’ve lost the monochrome sensor, which shouldn’t be a big deal. It was a low two-megapixel sensor and I didn’t miss it at all. Otherwise, all the numbers match: a 48-megapixel primary sensor, a 50-MP ultra-wide lens – this time capturing across 150-degree views, and – like the OnePlus 9 Pro – a middling 8-megapixel telephoto option that tops out at 3.3x optical zoom.
My experience matches what Chris Velazco said last year in his review of the 9 Pro. The primary sensor captures detailed images, especially in well-lit surroundings. OnePlus has further refined the sensor to improve dynamic range and noise reduction in images, and you’ll still get the best shots from the pixel-binned 12-megapixel mode. If you do want to capture all the detail you can, however, there’s a high-res shooting mode that’s easily accessible through most of the camera app’s modes.
The new ultrawide camera gets a few tricks, too, including a new fish-eye capture mode that’s a bit of a gimmick, but it’s fun nonetheless. You can switch between a mild and strong fish-eye effect. I’m not going to win photography awards but the results are clean and it’s a harmless addition.
Mat Smith/Engadget
The telephoto camera remains the weakest part of the OnePlus camera setup. Given the 8MP resolution, shots seem blurry and low on detail. Sometimes my photos just lacked color and vitality, which is a shame because I use the telephoto cameras on phones a lot as it offers some degree of compositional freedom when framing my shots. (I can’t believe I just wrote the phrase “compositional freedom.”)
OnePlus’ flagship held its own against an iPhone 13 Pro and Pixel 6 Pro, but it wasn’t the best. The cameras occasionally struggled with scenes with high dynamic range.
When shooting this scene, with a plant in front of an open fire and a bright neon sign in the background, the 10 Pro couldn’t quite tame the aggressive lighting, blowing out the neon light a little too much. The iPhone captured the scene in slightly warmer tones, while the Pixel seemed cooler. When I compared the photos, however, it was the OnePlus 10 Pro, even if it lacked the detail and dynamic range, that had nailed the colors of the room. Perhaps that Hasselblad partnership is actually working? Even then, would I prefer a more accurately colored shot or a wider dynamic range? The latter.
I had to see if anything had truly changed between the two OnePlus flagships, so I compared a few sample photos. While many were indistinguishable from each other, the 10 Pro edged out last year’s 9 Pro when it came to nighttime photography, which could be due to computational improvements and a faster chip – or OnePlus’ own internal calibrations and tweaks. Having said that, OnePlus’ night photography and AI assistance are a little too heavy-handed for my liking; they made some low-light scenes look artificially bright.
Software-wise, the new Hasselblad Pro mode works across all three camera sensors, adding fine control like ISO levels as well as 12-bit RAW capture for those willing to dive deep into image editing. OnePlus’ RAW+ image format is also here, which attempts to combine all the information of a photo, but it’s augmented by the computational image capture we’ve seen in most phones over the last few years. Was I using RAW+ capture over the stripped-down auto mode? Most of the time, no. But it’s more flexible for users willing to push the 10 Pro’s cameras to their limit.
Performance and software
Mat Smith/Engadget
OnePlus has long been able to balance a streamlined Android experience close to stock while adding its own tweaks and features. The OnePlus 10 Pro continues that approach despite the closer collaboration with Oppo and a shared codebase. In fact, the latest version of OnePlus’ OxygenOS, version 12, was apparently one of the reasons that the 10 Pro took so long to arrive after its debut, with more time needed to tweak the software for regions beyond China.
I still appreciate the ability to easily switch off OS additions I don’t need. The OnePlus Shelf is a pop-up menu that can be pulled down from the top right corner of the phone. It groups together several adjustable tiles – like those widgets you’ve been able to add to your homescreen on Android phones for about a decade.
In short, I don’t need it and would get frustrated when it pops up instead of the standard Android drop-down menu containing setting toggles and my notifications. Thankfully, I can just tap the settings cog inside the Shelf, and turn the entire feature off.
One addition I won’t be disabling is a new AI adaptive brightness feature. The OnePlus 10 Pro can learn your display brightness preferences and make adjustments, hopefully before you do. Artificial intelligence features inside smartphones are often hard to notice in day-to-day use (think: battery optimization features that are meant to adapt to how you use your phone and reduce power consumption). But OnePlus’ adaptive brightness soon appeared when I would check the 10 Pro in the early hours of the morning, helping to shield me from an unnecessarily bright screen before I’d even had my coffe
There are also a few gaming improvements to make the most of the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 chip. The HyperBoost game engine, courtesy of Oppo, tries to stabilize frame rates during gaming sessions, while also increasing the responsiveness of the touchscreen through a new feature called O-Sync. Both suffer from my issues with behind-the-scenes AI optimizations. It’s also not compatible with streaming games from Xbox Cloud Gaming or Stadia, which is how I game on smartphones most of the time.
The OnePlus 10 Pro wasn’t fazed by anything I threw at it – which has been true for most phones powered by Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 8 Gen 1. When playing a video on repeat, the 5,000mAh battery took over 14 hours to run down – which isn’t great compared to roughly 17 hours from Samsung’s Galaxy S22+.
Benefiting from Oppo’s R&D, the OnePlus 10 Pro supports 80W SUPERVOOC charging. Yes, fast charging isn’t anything new for OnePlus, but damn, this is genuinely fast. With the appropriate charger (don’t worry, there’s one included with the phone), the 10 Pro can be fully charged in a mere 32 minutes. If you want even faster charging, OnePlus says 80W SUPERVOOC can charge the phone from 0 to 61 percent in just 15 minutes; I got around the same figures when recharging the phone myself. It’s a strong feature, and importantly, something that the OnePlus 9 Pro doesn’t have.
Unfortunately, US owners won’t get an identical experience. In a forum discussion on the OnePlus site, the company clarified: “In North America, the OnePlus 10 Pro supports 65W SUPERVOOC – this is because 80W SUPERVOOC does not currently support 110 or 120-volt AC power – the typical standard for power outlets in the region.” A 65W charging speed would still be the fastest phone charging standard in the US, but it’s hard not to feel a bit short-changed compared to other regions.
Wrap-up
Mat Smith/Engadget
OnePlus was on a roll. Last year, it proved it could deliver a true high-end smartphone rival to the likes of the iPhone and the Galaxy S series with the OnePlus 9 Pro. But with the OnePlus 10 Pro, the company has struggled to push the envelope further.
The OnePlus 10 Pro has impressive fast-charge capabilities, a gorgeous screen that’s incrementally better than last year’s model, while OxygenOS continues to add more to the Android experience without derailing it. I especially like how the green version looks, but at the same time, the smartphone competition moves fast.
(In the US, OnePlus is selling the black and green models with 8GB of RAM and 128GB of storage for $899 in the US. The company says the versions with 12GB of RAM and 256GB of storage will arrive later, though the price is still TBC.)
OnePlus might have nailed its cameras last year, but it’s not at the same level of the best phone cameras in 2022. Its computational photography seems overly aggressive and the telephoto camera, again, disappoints compared to the competition. When the Pixel 6 Pro costs the same, the OnePlus 10 Pro is hard to recommend over Google’s own flagship, even to die-hard OnePlus fans looking to upgrade from the OnePlus 9 Pro. At least it’s slightly cheaper.
Correction, 3/31/22 10:50AM ET: Clarified that the US version of the OnePlus 10 Pro will only support 65W SuperVOOC charging. Also updated this article to clarify that both the green and black models with 8GB of RAM will be available in the US.
You’ll most likely never buy a GoPro camera for its battery life. As we mentioned in our review of the Hero 10, it has never been the brand’s strong suit — in fact, the Hero 9 outlasted the Hero 10 by almost half an hour when we tested out the new model. Now, the company has launched a new grip called Volta that could extend a GoPro camera’s battery life by up to three times. Combined with the GoPro’s own battery, the Volta grip can deliver up to 4 hours of 5.3K recording at 30 fps. When we took the the Hero 10 for a spin, it only lasted for an hour and 15 minutes.
In addition to its built-in 4900 mAh battery, Volta also comes with integrated camera buttons to give you access to one-handed controls while the GoPro is mounted. You can even use it as a remote control for up to 98 feet away. And if you need a tripod for your shoot, you can flip out its built-in legs anytime. Volta is compatible with both Hero 10 and Hero 9, but it will also charge any USB-C device, including the GoPro MAX and older models.
Alone, the Volta grip will set you back $130, or $91 if you’re a GoPro subscriber. However, it also comes bundled with the new GoPro Hero 10 Black Creator Edition. The company has put together a neat package for creators to make it easy to grab everything they need in one go. In addition to the camera itself and a Volta battery grip, the bundle comes with GoPro’s Media Mod and Light Mod. Those modifications add a built-in directional microphone, 3.5mm mic and HDMI-out ports, as well LED lighting with four level of brightness up to 200 lumens to the camera.
As you can guess, the bundle is cheaper for subscribers that pay the company $50 a year. New members will even be able to get the package for $532, which represents quite a substantial discount from the $760-or-so total price of the items when purchased individually.
If you’re looking for a new Windows laptop, you may find what you need in Amazon’s one-day ASUS sale. Today, the online retailer has a number of ASUS laptops on sale, with some up to $250 off. Likely best for most people are the ASUS ZenBook 13 OLED and the ZenBook 13 Flip OLED, which are down to $650 and $745, respectively. You can also grab the ZenBook Duo 14, a dual-screen laptop that earned a score of 84 from us, for $906, which is $194 less than usual.
If you go for the standard ASUS ZenBook 13, you’re getting an AMD Ryzen 7 5700U processor, 8GB of RAM and 512GB of storage, along with a 13.3-inch 1080p OLED display. The Flip version shares the same display, RAM and storage, but runs on an 11th-gen Core i5 processor. While we didn’t review these exact models, we did put the ZenBook Flip S through its paces and gave it a score of 84 for its sleek design, powerful performance and lovely OLED display.
The main difference between the Flip S and the Flip on sale today is that the former runs on a Core i7 processor and has a 4K OLED panel. Otherwise, you’ll get a similarly premium Windows experience from both machines. Also, both the standard ZenBook and the Flip have ASUS’ unique and convenient NumberPad 2.0, which is combined with the trackpad and illuminates only when you need it.
As for the ZenBook Duo, it’s best for those who want something a bit different in their next laptop. Its main screen is a 14-inch 1080p touch panel and it also includes a 12.6-inch matte touchscreen that sits above the keyboard and lifts up slightly when you open the laptop. That’s one of the new features ASUS built in to this second-gen laptop that makes it easier to use and more viable as your daily driver. The latest ZenBook Duo also has better dual-screen software and much improved build quality than the previous version. The keyboard and trackpad area are still a bit cramped for our liking, but if you’re going to invest in a dual-screen notebook, this is one of the few solid options available right now.
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After 355 days aboard the International Space Station, astronaut Mark Vande Hei returns to Earth both a NASA record holder and a changed man. Though his run was not as long as Peggy Whitson’s 665 cumulative days spent in microgravity, Vande Hei’s accomplishment is still one of the longest single stints in human spaceflight — and makes him the subject of intensive research into the effects of zero-gravity on humans.
Though NASA’s Human Research Program has spent 50 years studying the effects of spaceflight on the human body, the full impact of long-duration space travel has yet to be exhaustively researched. As humanity’s expansion into space accelerates in the coming decades, more people will be going into orbit — and going much farther — and the medical needs obviously increase along with this. Andrew Tarantola outlines where the research is headed.
It’ll demand “at least” 20 percent zero-emissions sales by 2026.
Canada has outlined its Emissions Reduction Plan, which will require all new passenger car sales to be zero-emissions models by 2035. The government will gradually put pressure on automakers, requiring “at least” 20 percent zero-emissions sales by 2026, pushing steeply to 60 percent by 2030. Officials didn’t say whether this applied to a make’s product mix or simply the volume of cars sold.
A Reddit user wrote to Craig Federighi, Apple’s Vice President of Software Engineering, to ask how iOS auto-updates work. Federighi responded, revealing that Apple gradually releases “new iOS updates by first making them available for those that explicitly seek them out in Settings, and then 1-4 weeks later (after we’ve received feedback on the update) ramp up to rolling out devices with auto-update enabled.” Generally, this means it takes a few weeks for iOS auto-updates to reach everyone’s iPhone and, in the case of iPadOS, iPad.
Google has begun rolling out a new update for its iOS YouTube TV app. Now both iPhone and iPad users have picture-in-picture functionality. To watch something in PiP mode, swipe up from the bottom of the screen. The video will automatically resize and move across your device’s display. You’ll need to be running iOS 15 or newer — and make sure your app is up to date.
It’s taken its time: Apple’s mobile operating system has supported picture-in-picture functionality on iPad since iOS 13 and iPhone since iOS 14. The feature has also been available on the company’s main YouTube app since last year.
Intel’s finally offered a glimpse of its Arc A-series Limited Edition video card, which is arriving sometime this summer — yes, that means another delay. There are no specs or prices, unfortunately, but the double-height design and twin-fan cooling make clear this aims directly at gamers. Early Arc desktop GPUs are expected to support a raft of modern features, including hardware-accelerated ray tracing and AI-based supersampling. It’s still too soon to say if Arc desktop models will offer truly competitive performance. NVIDIA should deliver its first Ampere Next-based GPUs (likely the RTX 40 series) later this year, and AMD will follow suit with the Radeon RX 7000 series.
TweetDeck — a version of Twitter beloved by journalists, social media pros and other power users — might soon become a paid app,The Verge has reported. A new version of the app redirects to the Twitter Blue subscription signup page, according to code discovered by security researcher Jane Manchun Wong. It promises “a powerful, real-time tool for people who live on Twitter” and would be an “ad-free experience,” according to screenshots.
The new @TweetDeck might become a paid feature, exclusive to @TwitterBlue subscribers according to the code I’ve come across in the app
The code gates the access of TweetDeck on whether the user has Twitter Blue subscription and redirects them to the sign-up page if they don’t pic.twitter.com/cylyrV3Iwv
TweetDeck is already an essentially ad-free experience, so the inclusion of that language strongly implies that it would become a paid service. The new version would be a “complete rebuild with the parts from the new Twitter app,” Manchun noted in a reply. However, she also spotted a link for a “legacy version” which could still be free.
Twitter launched its Twitter Blue subscription service last November for $2.99 per month. Some features like top articles were seen as positives, but users also criticized Twitter for hiding key features like an “undo” button behind a paywall.
Twitter has been testing a new version of TweetDeck since last year, with significant changes like “a full Tweet composer, new advanced search features, new column types, and a new way to group columns into clean workspaces,” the company wrote. Some power users haven’t exactly embraced it, however, due to user interface and other issues.
The company has also pondered a TweetDeck subscription service, asking users in 2017 if they’d be willing to pay up to $20 per month for a “more advanced TweetDeck experience.” And last year, Bloomberg reported that Twitter was considering a subscription fee for the app.
The move would make sense for Twitter internally, as TweetDeck has always been a black sheep product that lets users bypass ads. Adding it to Twitter Blue would finally allow the company to monetize it and offer a true ad-free experience — since Twitter Blue itself still includes ads.
