Recent content by Dave Haynie

You all really need to stop misusing the term "zoom". None of these phones have an optical zoom lens. They have several different cameras, each with a fixed focal length lens, and they use software tricks to provide a software "zoom," not an optical zoom. Yeah, many pundits use the term...

Largan makes most of the lenses for most of the smartphone industry. They're injection-molded plastic. And no, smartphone lenses don't take any abuse. You never get to touch the lens. Because they're molded of soft plastic, they're always protected behind a flat sheet of hard glass, sometimes...

Folks writing articles about phone cameras should really learn a few things about cameras as a prerequisite. Not a single phone on the market today has a "optical zoom" lens. They all have fixed focal length lenses. An optical zoom lens is a lens that has a variable focal length. None of these...

Intel mostly bailed from the smartphone market in 2016, cancelling the future Atom processors for smartphones. In fact, I think Atom directly from Intel is only available for embedded systems at present. https://www.theverge.com/2016/5/3/11576216/intel-atom-smartphone-quit However, they did...

The main concern with buying a Chinese phone is whether or not they're selling you a US or International version. The International version is probably lacking a number of North American LTE bands, which could cripple your network coverage or just run the radios hotter as they're forced to hit...

The only real concern is if you're buying old-stock refurbished. With today's locked-in batteries, any older phone is something of a gamble. But there should be no concern over buying a present-year refurbished phone from a reputable company.

Camera sensitivity isn't only from the lens aperture... Samsung wins both on lens and on using a larger sensor than Apple.

A 2017 phone not made entirely of glass -- how refreshing!

I'm not sure an LTE modem qualifies as a "hidden cost"... I think just about everyone on the planet knows that hooking up a device to your phone carrier's network involves a monthly fee.

Front-facing 3D camera... really? Otherwise, it's just software, and thus, if they actually are doing something unique, it'll be possible on any other device.

Roku's on what, their third generation 4K device... probably time for Apple to get in the act.

Nothing like a $1,000 phone that smashes the first time you drop it. All glass is the stupidest idea yet... I thought Apple had learned lesson with the iPhone 4.

The "probably won't explode" feature is great as well, but you sort of expected that to be included with all smartphones. On the other hand, the glass back idea that's catchy lately, despite Apple having dumped that years ago, is one of the stupidest things ever. I can see the designer meeting...

The Note series has never been "mainstream". This is a "phablet", and actually a useful one with that Wacom digitizer and pen. That's typically, by itself, been a $100 premium over devices with only a touchscreen. So you're basically getting the larger display for free versus the S8. Though a...

"ditch the physical home button"... uh, yeah, they did that in 2015 with the very first LG V10. The V-series has never had a physical home button. Ok, sure, that's trendy now, but it even made sense back then when I bought my V10. As for the dual displays, the main reason they're separate on...