Phone Scoop

FCC Chairman Ajit Pai announced that he will recommend the agency approve the proposed merger between T-Mobile and Sprint. To secure the recommendation, the companies have promised to divest the Boost prepaid brand and not raise prices for three years. With…

The Trump administration issued an executive order last week preventing "foreign adversaries" from doing telecommunication business in the US. Although the order's wording was vague, the implementation includes preventing Huawei from doing business with any US…

French phone maker Wiko is entering the US market this month. A statement on their new US web site states that they are "partnering with one of the leading mobile carriers to offer a smartphone ... created to simplify your life at an affordable price." The…

Microsoft is working on a new Minecraft game for phones that uses AR to overlay Minecraft as a persistent, massively multiplayer game over the whole planet. Players will be able to build with Minecraft blocks anywhere in public. Players will be able to see…

The Asus ZenFone 6 is the company's new flagship phone, sporting a 6.4-inch, full-HD display that covers the front without a notch, thanks to a motorized dual-camera module that flips up from the back to double as a selfie camera. The camera motor can also be…

Sprint's first 5G phone — the LG V50 ThinQ 5G — will launch on May 31st. Pre-orders start tomorrow, May 17th, and the company is offering special pre-order pricing on the LG V50: 50% off ($24/month with a "Sprint Flex lease"). The company is also offering…

The Steam Link app — which lets you play Steam games on your PC or Mac remotely on another device such as a phone, tablet, or TV — is now available for iPhone, iPad, and Apple TV. Unlike the Android version, it does not support new game purchases within…

The first microSD memory card that can hold 1 TB (1,000 GB) of data is now on sale for $450. The SanDisk card has a V30 speed rating suitable for recording 4K video.

At its June 6th meeting, the FCC will consider new rules giving phone companies greater power to block robocalls. Companies would be allowed to completely block calls before they reach a consumer's phone "based on any reasonable analytics designed to identify…

The OnePlus 7 Pro is the company's new flagship, and it's a looker. These days a top-end phone is expected to have an all-screen, all-glass, curvy design. The OnePlus delivers that, along with the top-end specs everyone wants. Instead of a notched or…

The new OnePlus 7 Pro puts top-end specs and features, such as three rear cameras and a notchless 6.67-inch quad-HD AMOLED display with HDR 10+ and 90 Hz refresh rate, into a new design with a pop-up selfie camera and a glass back, that's just 8.8mm thick.…

Very affordable phones with huge screens have been a relatively popular segment in the US in recent years. ZTE used to address this market well. Now, Coolpad is stepping up to offer their take. The Coolpad Legacy indeed has a massive, sharp display, plus a few…

The U.S. Supreme Court today ruled that an antitrust lawsuit can proceed against Apple for the way it runs its App Store. Today's ruling only affirms that the consumers bringing the suit have the right to do so; it does not touch on the merits of the case. The…

Metro by T-Mobile launched the Coolpad Legacy today, a $130 Android phone with a huge 6.36-inch screen and several features not usually found on phones in that price range. It has a metal frame with Gorilla Glass 3 front, fingerprint reader, full-HD display…

5G is the Big New Thing in 2019. If you haven't been blasted with 5G hype yet, you're about to be. For the phone industry, it's essential. Phone tech can't move forward without 5G, and in fact it's probably necessary just to maintain the status quo. That's why…

ZTE has been relatively quiet in the US recently for political reasons, but they're working on their comeback. They have a new flagship phone, and it may even come to the US. It has just about everything you'd want in a flagship phone, and yet ZTE is promising…

Android Q will include new cryptography software called Adiantum, which allows any device to keep user data encrypted, something that previously required cryptographic acceleration hardware. Further, Google announced that "all compatible Android devices newly…

Samsung has two new ultra-high-resolution image sensors for phone cameras, offering up to 64 megapixel resolution. The ISOCELL Bright GW1 operates in two modes: In bright light, it can produce a full 64-megapixel image. It can also utilize Tetracell…

T-Mobile will start selling the forthcoming OnePlus 7 Pro nationwide on May 17th. The phone is set to be announced on Tuesday, May 14th in NYC. T-Mobile will hold its own launch event for the phone at its Times Square store on the same day. On the 15th,…

Android Q includes a new internal architecture called Project Mainline that splits off certain OS functions into app-like modules that can be updated quickly and easily, without updating the whole OS. This will allow many security and privacy updates to be…