We've been hearing that Samsung may double its flagship phone displays' refresh rate since last fall, when the option to switch between 60Hz and 120Hz was discovered in a hidden menu of the OneUI 2.0 beta update.
Since then, we've been on an emotional will-they-won't-they rollercoaster on the issue, especially when pertaining to the upcoming Galaxy S20 series flagships. Leaked firmware code tipped 120Hz for the Galaxy S20 displays indeed, but was subsequently dropped, at least as far as the full resolution of the displays was concerned.
Now, however, the leakster that stirred the most controversy on the matter, claiming 120Hz for all Samsung flagship phone fans, and then tipping that it may only apply at the virtual 1080p resolution that Samsung applies as default, seems to have made up their mind in the negative direction.
The Galaxy S20 series, it turns out, may have indeed ditched the option for 120Hz refresh at the full display resolution and left it for the default one that Samsung's high-end phones usually ship with out of the box, and the option switch may look like this.
Notice the warning about the negative impact on battery life from a screen constantly refreshing at 120Hz? Well, that might be one of the reasoning behind such a move by Samsung, even though the graphics subsystem still has to refresh the same physical number of pixels regardless of what the virtual resolution is.
We'll see if this no-120Hz-at-full-resolution restriction pans out very soon, not that this is something that will bother the average user anyway. We ran a test and the uninitiated couldn't really tell the difference between 60Hz and 90Hz in regular usage though with 120Hz they might be a bit more pronounced.
Ask not for whom the bell tolls, for it rings out for Windows 7. Microsoft’s venerable OS has officially run out of time, and with support now ended, there will doubtless be a good number of folks feeling sad about being forced to abandon Windows 7 – presumably to make tracks for Windows 10. Or possibly another operating system entirely, for the real diehard anti-Windows 10 types.
Windows 7 is certainly one of the incarnations of the desktop OS which Microsoft got right, but what really led to its success, and what clicked with its user base, making it so difficult to give up for many?
We thought we’d mull over the reasons, and rewind through a potted history of Windows 7 to highlight exactly why the OS was so well-loved – and indeed may remain so in the near future. Because if Windows XP is anything to go by, Windows 7 will retain a good chunk of users long after Microsoft has officially closed the curtains by ceasing support on January 14.
Windows 7 was born in 2009, and it followed the infamously unpopular Windows Vista. And at the other end of the OS timescale, it was superseded by the equally disliked Windows 8.
So it’s quite easy to see that part of Windows 7’s popularity is derived from the simple fact that it was sandwiched between two incarnations of Microsoft’s desktop operating system which are universally regarded as awful (arguably they’re the worst versions ever produced, alongside Windows Me of course).
Certainly, Windows 7 felt like a big step on from Vista in terms of the overall interface, which looked far more modern, and was more user-friendly and streamlined (with less nagging and interrupting your workflow in general – Vista had a nasty habit of bombarding you with User Account Control security prompts). It was clearly an immediate improvement in this respect, and even more importantly, under the bonnet too.
Windows Vista was known to be a relative resource hog, and Windows 7 ran far quicker, not to mention with much less disk churning. The performance of the OS was considerably better all-round, and that was obviously a big draw from the get-go with Windows 7. Stability was also impressive out of the gate, and again that didn’t harm the initial reception of the operating system.
Not everything ran totally smooth with Windows 7’s launch, of course – there will always be issues with any piece of software, particularly something as complex and intricate as an operating system. As we observed in our review back at the time, there were some rough edges and legacy dialog boxes lurking here and there, plus a few gremlins pertaining to battery life and performance hitches.
But the Windows 7 reviews, like ours, were all pretty impressed, and the OS got off to a good start generally speaking, with a positive critical reception.
By August 2010, only 10 months after Windows 7 was launched, the operating system had overtaken its predecessor Windows Vista – even if the majority of folks were still using Windows XP. Then in October 2011, two years after release, Windows 7 outdid XP in terms of global PC market share.
So while initial sales were very impressive, it still took some time for Windows 7 to overtake the reigning Windows champion. That said, it accomplished this feat quicker than Windows 10 managed to stage its later takeover to become the main OS. Whereas Windows 7 took two years to become top dog and strip that title from Windows XP, Windows 10 took two-and-a-half years to wrest the crown out of Windows 7’s mitts (going by the most optimistic set of adoption stats available in both cases, that is).
At any rate, we’re getting a little ahead of ourselves here: the key point is that Windows 7 did very well in terms of its initial critical reception, and its early growth, managing to become the dominant OS at a respectable lick of pace.
(Image credit: Shutterstock)
Servicing switch
After its initial release, Windows 7 naturally received a service pack, back when this was still the manner in which Microsoft updated its desktop operating systems. Windows 7 SP1 arrived in February 2011, but unlike previous service packs for the likes of say Vista, it didn’t add any major new features.
In fact, SP1 was effectively a bunch of more minor updates and fixes, and not very exciting for the average user (even if it did include some more significant changes for business users). And while Windows 7 SP2, the second service pack, was expected to land before 2012 was out, it never emerged – at all. Although Microsoft did push out a sort-of-service-pack release, which stood in lieu of an official SP2, but that was much later (we’ll come on to that shortly).
(Image credit: Shutterstock)
Cementing dominance
While we didn’t see SP2 for Windows 7 emerge around the middle of 2012 as expected, what we did witness was the launch of Windows 8 in October 2012, with much fanfare – but no real fans.
The failure of Windows 8 has been well-documented, of course, so it’s not something we’re going to go into here, but suffice it to say that Microsoft’s insistence on forcing an operating system that users didn’t want – and moving too quickly in jamming a touch-friendly interface in there – did not go down well.
Where this had big repercussions for Windows 7 was in the fact that people didn’t want to leave the existing, dominant version of Microsoft’s desktop OS. As we saw after the first month that Windows 8 was released, adoption of the new operating system was five times slower than Windows 7 managed when it launched.
There was memorable horror and panic from business users when Microsoft let it be known that it wanted to end all sales of PCs running Windows 7 by October 2014, meaning all new hardware would come with Windows 8. Such was the reaction that the firm subsequently backtracked for business users wanting Windows 7 Pro, and in the end, sales of machines with this flavor of the OS weren’t curtailed until October 2016 (two clear years after the cessation of non-Pro sales on consumer PCs).
Of course, at this point in late 2016, Windows 10 had been out for a while, and doubtless Microsoft finally felt that it could strong-arm companies, as well as consumers, to move to its latest OS when buying a new PC.
(Image credit: Future)
Patch hell
Remember that we already discussed the fact that there was never any official second service pack for Windows 7? The lack of SP2 led to the situation whereby at the start of 2016, someone installing Windows 7 with SP1 – which came out in 2011, remember – would have to apply five years’ worth of patches to the operating system.
And that was more of an inconvenience than just merely waiting for a huge bunch of downloads, as the updates came in separate batches, requiring multiple staged reboots, meaning the whole installation process was a rather painful and prolonged ordeal.
Doubtless some folks’ memories of Windows 7 are blighted by such installation (or reinstallation) woes, but Microsoft did eventually fix this in May 2016, when it produced an SP1 ‘convenience roll-up’ which essentially bundled all those years of security fixes and other updates into a single package.
That rollup package was a long time coming, though…
(Image credit: Microsoft)
Scare tactics
Returning to the subject of Windows 7’s long-lasting popularity, which Windows 8 obviously failed to dent, when Windows 10 was released in July 2015, it also struggled to gain traction against the top dog OS at the time.
Even though it was a free upgrade for Windows 7 users, Windows 10 found poaching those folks a troublesomely sluggish endeavor. It’s a good bet that some of this slow going was due to the nagging tactics – some of which were controversial to say the least – which Microsoft employed to try to get users to upgrade from Windows 7 (or 8) to Windows 10.
At the time, the old operating system might not have been as secure as Windows 10, but that hardly made it a security nightmare. And really, some of the flaws that did manifest with Windows 7 in the later years were more about Microsoft seemingly taking its eye off the ball with the OS because it was too busy concentrating on pushing Windows 10.
So again, part of Windows 7’s success in being so favored, and keeping users with it so long, was due to the general suspicion around how Microsoft was trying to shove people to Windows 10 in all manner of different (sometimes seemingly-dubious) kind of ways.
However, Windows 10 did eventually win through, succeeding where Windows 8 failed, and finally deposing Windows 7 from its throne. Believe it or not, Windows 7 held on until as recently as the very end of 2018 – at least according to one major analytics firm (the other set of statistics commonly used declared Windows 10 victorious at the start of 2018).
So really, Windows 10 didn’t overtake Windows 7 until 2019 rolled around. An impressive achievement for the old OS, and a tribute to its staying power.
(Image credit: Shutterstock)
Final curtain
So clearly we can salute Windows 7, as it rumbles into end-of-life, as a winner by all sorts of yardsticks – even if some of its fame, fortune and favor was due to being sandwiched between preceding and succeeding Windows operating systems that were distinctly below-par for many different reasons.
By no means, however, is this predominantly a story about the fortuitous timing of being a tasty filling in the middle of two bits of stale OS bread. Even now, in 2020, and nearly five years after the release of Windows 10, Windows 7 remains very popular.
Going by the most recent OS market share figures for December 2019, Windows 7 is still on 27% of PCs across the world (although a good chunk of those will doubtless be corporate users). So, still over a quarter of users are running the OS, and there’s certainly a temptation to draw comparisons with Windows XP, which hung around like a bad odor for way too long after its expiry date. But does that mean Windows 7 will become another Windows XP in this respect?
Microsoft certainly seems to be anticipating some heels being dug in: the software giant has indicated that some business users can avail themselves of an extra year of support with certain versions of Windows 7 (and a scheme whereby companies can pay for additional support on top of that was revealed a year ago). Microsoft’s also planning to wield a cattle prod in the form of full-screen nag pop-ups informing users they must upgrade (although we know how well that’s gone down in the past).
(Image credit: Shutterstock)
But is there any real reason to want to hold onto Windows 7, and resist an upgrade to Windows 10?
Not really, no. To cling onto Windows 7 after end-of-life is simply too much of a security risk to seriously consider, no matter how enamored you are with the old OS – or perhaps more to the point, how anti-Windows 10 you are.
We mustn’t forget that Windows 10 has changed a lot over the past five years, and Microsoft has made efforts to clean up many of the major bugbears around its latest OS, such as privacy worries to pick an obvious example (on that subject, remember that Microsoft back-ported its telemetry and data hoovering practices to Windows 7 and 8 a considerable time ago).
If you’re really unhappy with Microsoft’s privacy policies, or indeed other sticking points like forced updates with Windows 10, then you need to look at a completely alternative OS like a Linux distro (but that’s obviously a big change, with many ramifications in other respects).
Whatever you do, it’s not wise to stay with Windows 7. By all means raise a toast to the operating system which some regard as the finest Microsoft has ever produced, and one which blazed a memorable and long-lasting trail for sure – but don’t linger any longer.
Guess which of Microsoft’s Surface devices is on our best laptops list
Apple has launched a new replacement program for its iPhone XS, XS Max, and XR smart battery cases, after charging issues were discovered in some devices. According to the company, some of the cases may have a problem where they won’t charge when plugged into power, or may fail to charge your iPhone. If your model is affected, then Apple or one of its authorized service providers will replace it free of charge.
At $129, the battery cases aren’t cheap, but their tight integration with the iPhone means that they come with a few advantages. iOS will display the charge level of your battery case in its top notification bar, for example, and it can also pass data through the battery case’s Lightning port. If your case is eligible for a replacement, then it might be worth taking it into an Apple Store regardless of whether it’s having problems. You’ll get a newer model, and there should be less chance of it developing problems in the future.
According to Apple, the affected models were manufactured between January and October 2019 (the cases were announced in January). If you want to take advantage of the program, then Apple says you’ll need to take it into an authorized service provider or an Apple store, where it will be examined to make sure it’s eligible. If it is, then Apple says it will dispose of your old model in an environmentally friendly way. Affected cases will be covered for two years following their original sale, according to Apple.
Speaking to us last week at CES, OnePlus CEO Pete Lau confirmed that the company’s next major phones — presumably the OnePlus 8 — will feature screens with a refresh rate of 120Hz. Lau is not one for subtlety, and claimed in a note to us sent later that it would be “the best smartphone display in 2020.” Having not seen it, we obviously can’t say if that claim is more than just bombast.
OnePlus says that it worked with Samsung to develop the OLED screen, and that in addition it has done work on top of Android to improve animations (especially the core OS gestures) so they’ll look smoother at 120Hz.
OnePlus also intends to use a custom MEMC (motion estimation / motion compensation) chip to insert extra frames into videos to bring them up to 120Hz. It wouldn’t be completely inaccurate to call it motion smoothing for video on smartphones, though again we’d have to see whether it causes a “soap opera effect” in person before we called that a bad idea. MEMC will be able to be toggled on and off in settings.
The image at the top of the post, sent to us by OnePlus, doesn’t convey a ton of information but does indicate where the MEMC hardware chip would sit. It also, astute viewers will note, appears to show a pop-up camera mechanism.
Lastly, OnePlus claims its screen can hit 1000 nits peak brightness for HDR content, has a touch sampling rate of 240Hz, and supports 10-bit color. Add it all up and you have what is clearly the next front in the Android phone chest thumping battle: screen specs.
The OnePlus 8 (or whatever it will be called) won’t be the first phone to hit 120Hz. the ROG Phone 2 and Razer Phone 2 both did that last year. Nor will it be the only Android phone that has a higher-than-60Hz refresh rate to come out this year. Samsung’s Galaxy S series, for example, is expected to feature 120Hz refresh rates when announced on February 11th. The challenges facing all of those phones will include compensating for the higher battery cost of a high-refresh rate screen and convincing customers the extra cost it worth the improved smoothness.
Users should be able to switch between 60Hz and 120Hz, but it may not be a variable refresh rate as Google has tried (somewhat unsuccessfully) to do on the Pixel 4’s 90Hz screen. And while it may reduce the refresh rate in some cases when it’s not needed, it won’t be able match the refresh rate of, say, 24FPS video.
Lau believes that last part won’t be hard. “It’s something you can definitely tell” in the same way you could see 90Hz, he says, calling it a “further level” of smoothness, especially with scrolling and gestures. Lau also argues that the company has been focused on optimizing for power consumption. It’s already an issue with 90Hz screens, so it’s going to be even more of a concern with 120Hz.
OnePlus has promised to hold an event in Shenzhen, China today to show off more of this new screen technology. It seems as if companies announcing features of their phones before they announce their phones is just going to be the new normal now.
High refresh rate panels were the defining trend of 2019, with most manufacturers offering phones with 90Hz displays. It looks like that's set to continue in 2020, with 120Hz displays set to become the norm. Xiaomi rolled out the Redmi K30 series with a 120Hz display, and Samsung's Galaxy S20 series is also heavily rumored to sport a 120Hz panel.
OnePlus is now joining in on the action, with CEO Pete Lau revealing on Weibo that the company has "completed research and development" of 120Hz display tech. OnePlus is holding a Screen Technology Communication Meeting in China to show off the 120Hz display, and Lau's post today all but guarantees that the OnePlus 8 will feature a screen with a refresh rate of 120Hz.
OnePlus offered 90Hz panels on most of its phones last year, so it makes sense for the company to make the switch to 120Hz panels in 2020. Lau hasn't confirmed that the 120Hz panel will make its way to the OnePlus 8, but we should know more on that front in the coming weeks.
It will be interesting to see what other innovations OnePlus is touting at the screen technology conference. The event is kicking off later today, January 13, in Shenzhen, and I'll update the post with more information as it becomes available.
Samsung on Sunday launched the Galaxy XCover Pro, a new mid-range device that features a removable battery. It will be available in the U.S. during the first half of 2020 for $499, the company said.
The rugged phone isn’t designed to rival Samsung’s flagship Galaxy Note 10 or Galaxy S10. It’s made for the enterprise market — including industries from retail to manufacturing to health care. The company will also sell it to individual customers, according to TechCrunch.
The tech giant is working with Verizon and Microsoft to bring its new phone to the U.S. market.
CES 2020: Samsung's rotating TV, The Sero
The 6.3-inch XCover Pro is built for all-day use, with a 4,050 mAh replaceable battery. The device features 4GB of RAM and 64GB of storage with a dual rear camera that includes a standard 25 megapixel lens and an 8 megapixel wide-angle lens.
Your smart TV is watching you: Will Samsung, LG, Vizio do more to protect privacy?
The phone, which is capable of withstanding drops of nearly 5 feet, also offers a walkie-talkie capability in Microsoft Teams, a chat-based workspace in Office 365.
“Microsoft and Samsung have a deep history of bringing together the best hardware and software to help solve our customers’ challenges,” Satya Nadella, chief executive at Microsoft, said in Sunday’s announcement. “The powerful combination of Microsoft Teams and the new Samsung Galaxy XCover Pro builds on this partnership and will provide firstline workers everywhere with the technology they need to be more collaborative, productive and secure.”
The annual CES electronics show in Las Vegas is a fantastic launchpad for the most exciting, futuristic tech companies can dream up. But phones aren't typically part of that equation.
Phone-makers are far more likely to save their whiz-bang features and high-powered specs for Mobile World Congress, the world's largest mobile show, which takes place from Feb. 24-27 in Barcelona.
But that doesn't mean CES was bereft of handsets. The phones that we did see, as you can see in the gallery below, hint at important trends we'll see in 2020.
Foldable phones are an emerging category that shakes up an otherwise static world of phones by bending the display in half. The high cost of research and development and new manufacturing techniques make these early foldable designs at least double the cost of their 4G counterparts. The "privilege" of owning a cutting-edge device may also contribute to the price.
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This foldable phone will cost less than the Razr
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But the high price of these first foldables means that few people will actually be able to buy one. Lowering the price will also mean lowering the barrier to ownership, which foldable phones need if they're going to stick around.
At CES, TCL showed us a working prototype of a foldable phone that's designed to cost less than the Motorola Razr. It features a 7.2-inch display and three rear cameras and will support 5G.
5G phones aren't as expensive as foldables, but they still cost more per device than 4G handsets with the same specs. The same rule also applies to the faster 5G data technology -- cheaper 5G options will get more people using these devices.
And for carriers, the faster data speeds could translate into more profits as customers use more data per person.
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Galaxy Note 10 Lite and S10 Lite: All about Samsung's...
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Cameras continue to be a design element
Camera tech has always been essential for phones, but even the look and placement of the lenses elicit strong opinions.
The Galaxy Note 10 Lite and Galaxy S10 Lite both feature square and rectangular black camera mounts respectively, mimicking the Google Pixel 4. Some industry-watchers think that Samsung is taking the bold road to counter the iPhone 11, whose large, protruding cluster of rear lenses makes Apple's phone immediately identifiable.
On the opposite end of the spectrum, the OnePlus Concept One phone uses an electrical current to either hide or reveal the phone's multiple cameras on its back. The concept is to make the phone look sleeker, especially at a time when camera lenses are proliferating.
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OnePlus Concept One phone has a 'disappearing' camera
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Gaming phones continue to carve a niche
Phones aimed at gamers have made up a small but steady contingent of handsets. 5G data has a huge implication for gaming, promising far more immersive and sophisticated graphics through the kind of on-the-fly rendering that can be achieved through 5G's increased data delivery.
Processors, too, are getting into gaming, with the Snapdragon 765G, a midrange chipset that's specifically made for gaming phones. And more phone-makers are set to embrace displays with 120Hz refresh rates for smoother animations.
The Black Shark 2 Pro has neither of the first two things, but it's still possibly the best gaming phone we've seen, complete with a case that makes it work a little like the Nintendo Switch. A helpful gaming mode also makes this handset specifically geared toward gaming, rather than a mainstream phone that's powerful enough to play long sessions of resource-heavy games.
CES may be over, but for phones, the year is just beginning.
Now, however, the leakster that stirred the most controversy on the matter, claiming 120Hz for all Samsung flagship phone fans, and then tipping that it may only apply at the virtual 1080p resolution that Samsung applies as default, seems to have made up their mind in the negative direction.
