The Latest from Gadget Hacks: Page 18

Samsung is set to reveal the Galaxy Z Fold 8, Fold 8 Ultra, and Flip 8 at Galaxy Unpacked in London on July 22. Reporting from multiple outlets points consistently toward a Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 8 price increase across at least some models, with the clearest jumps in the US Fold Ultra, Korean Flip 8 pricing, and high-capacity European tiers. The more complicated part: even where base MSRP appears flat, the effective launch-day cost could still be worse than last year if Samsung reduces the...

One of the first Steam Machine Windows 11 vs SteamOS benchmarks is out, and the headline result is closer to a draw than a verdict. ETA Prime's testing across three titles shows the two operating systems within a few frames of each other, with SteamOS holding the largest single-game lead. What the benchmarks don't show is where that parity breaks down. Prior Ars Technica testing on comparable 8GB AMD hardware documented a separate, more serious problem: once a game pushes past the GPU's VRAM...

Samsung introduced the Galaxy Z Flip8, Galaxy Z Fold8, and Galaxy Z Fold8 Ultra on July 22, 2026, with larger batteries, thinner designs, and lower weights across parts of the lineup. The company's official Galaxy Z specifications list a 5,000mAh battery for the Fold8 Ultra, 4,800mAh for the Fold8, and 4,300mAh for the Flip8.

iOS 27 doesn't reinvent CarPlay. What it does is remove friction, the kind you encounter every single drive. Reaching playback controls from the wrong screen, repeating yourself to Siri, asking for directions without being able to specify "avoid toll roads."

Code changes found in Apple's Wallet backend suggest that Apple Car Key support for GWM Tank vehicles may be in development, MacRumors reported last week. None of Great Wall Motor's four current Tank models, the 300, 400, 500, or 700, support the feature today, MacObserver reported last week.

A feature years in the making crossed a concrete threshold this week: WhatsApp usernames are now active for a select group of users on both iOS and Android, marking the first live phase of the rollout. For those users, two people can connect on WhatsApp without either one ever seeing the other's phone number. That is a meaningful shift in how identity works at the moment of first contact, and India's government is already trying to stop its rollout in the country.

The Galaxy Z Fold7's preorder window closed July 24, 2025, the day before the phone launched. For buyers without a device to trade in, the Amazon Galaxy Z Fold7 preorder deal stood apart from the competition not because it carried the highest nominal credit value.

Samsung's "Free Double Storage" pre-order promotion may be about to cost buyers money. A report from Korean outlet Chosun claims Samsung will replace the Galaxy Z Fold 8 storage upgrade deal with a 50% subsidy, leaving Korean buyers paying an estimated 126,500 won—about $90 or £65 at current exchange rates—for the 256GB-to-512GB jump.

An unreleased build of Google Calendar for Android shows a new chip that would let Workspace users create Google Calendar focus time on Android directly, without touching a desktop browser. Android Authority spotted the "Focus time" entry point in version 2026.27.0-946652271-release today, sitting above the floating action button used to add calendar entries. The feature is not active, and Google has not announced a rollout date.

Chrome on Android scrolls nearly half as janky as it did three years ago. Google today published its most detailed account of how that happened, and the headline figure is specific: janky scroll frequency dropped 48% between 2023 and 2026, according to the Google Chromium blog. That metric measures how often Chrome fails to update the display before the screen refreshes a narrow, concrete definition, not a general claim about the browser feeling faster.

Reviewed by: Y. Garcia

iOS 27 will push receipt-scanning, itemized bill splitting directly into Apple Wallet and Messages, turning Apple Cash into the settlement layer for group dining tabs. Announced at WWDC 2026 last month, the feature identifies the receipt's line items, lets each participant select what they ordered, and calculates what that person owes before they pay the payer with Apple Cash. The wider iOS 27 release is expected this September.

No research data was available to verify pricing, software commitments, battery results, or cover screen specifications at the time of writing. What follows is a decision framework built around the criteria that actually separate these phones, in the order they matter. Treat it as the architecture for your own research before committing flagship money to either device.

In hands-on testing, PCMag found that the Gemini Daily Brief flagged two overlapping Airbnb reservations for the same weekend and warned of a potential duplicate YouTube Premium charge, both pulled unprompted from the tester's Gmail inbox. The example shows the feature's core pitch: usefulness through deep access to personal Google data. The broader implication is harder to dismiss than a single anecdote suggests.

Samsung's 2026 smartwatch lineup makes the buying decision unusually clear. The Galaxy Watch9 is the better fit for most buyers because it shares the Galaxy Watch Ultra2's processor, software, core sensors, and announced health features but starts at $320 less in the US. The Ultra2 primarily justifies its premium through longer battery life, stronger water protection, a brighter display, additional storage, and tools designed for trail sports and recreational diving.

Roku has raised prices on every streaming device it sells, with increases ranging from 33% to 50% across the full lineup. No hardware was updated, no new features were announced, and the changes took effect immediately, according to The Verge today. The Roku Ultra jumped from $99.99 to $149.99. The entry-level Streaming Stick climbed from $29.99 to $39.99.

A European pricing leak suggests Samsung will introduce two Galaxy Z Fold 8 models, including a new Ultra version that could cost as much as €2,799 with 1TB of storage.

More than nine months after Microsoft ended standard support for Windows 10, millions of PCs continue to run the aging operating system. New asset data suggests those holdouts may be carrying considerably more known security exposure than devices running Windows 11.

Spider-Man is currently fighting ninjas in Long Island City, Queens, and the image sits inside Google Maps exactly the way any other street-level photograph does. Google confirmed it staged five scenes at real New York City locations as part of a promotion for Spider-Man: Brand New Day, describing them as "custom Spider-Man moments staged and captured as the Street View car happened upon Spider-Man in action," per PCMag. The campaign also includes spideytracker.com, a dedicated microsite built...

Samsung could introduce two book-style foldables at different prices this year. A new report puts the wider Galaxy Z Fold 8 at $1,899 in the U.S., while the taller Fold 8 Ultra could start at $2,099.

Google's revamped Android 17 iOS migration tool for Pixel phones is live, and two Pixel generations that qualify for the OS can't use it. The updated Android Switch utility is limited to Pixel 8 and newer, plus a handful of Samsung foldables, leaving Pixel 6 and Pixel 7 owners with the OS update but none of the upgraded process's additional transfer capabilities. Pixel 8 owners fare only slightly better: they can access the tool exclusively during initial device setup.

Microsoft today launched a limited test of Xbox free ad-supported cloud gaming, letting Xbox Insiders stream games from their existing libraries at no cost in exchange for watching a short ad block before play begins. Sessions cap at one hour. No subscription required. The owned-games requirement does the heavy lifting here: if you don't already have eligible titles in your library, the offer gives you nothing.

Google says higher memory costs will force it to adjust prices across the Pixel family, including the upcoming Pixel 11 lineup. In a July 24 interview with 9to5Google, Google Vice President of Devices and Services Shakil Barkat said the company could no longer absorb all the increases coming from suppliers.

Qualcomm has reportedly told its customers that chip prices will rise by a double-digit percentage for all products shipped after September 1, 2026. The notice came via a customer letter reviewed by Bloomberg, reported this week by The Verge, 9to5Google, and Igor's Lab. Qualcomm has issued no public statement, and no product-by-product breakdown has been published.

High-quality renders published July 8 offer the clearest look yet at Samsung's expected Galaxy Z Fold 8. The images show a shorter, wider foldable that departs from the tall smartphone shape used by the Galaxy Z Fold 7, potentially making the new model easier to carry and use for games, media, and everyday apps.

HONOR detailed the full camera system for its Robot Phone at a camera technology event in China today, confirming HONOR Robot Phone dual 200MP cameras, three-axis mechanical stabilization, and a partnership with professional cinema brand ARRI for LOGC3 encoding. The main sensor mounts on a four-degree-of-freedom titanium-alloy robotic arm that, according to Honor, enables 360-degree subject tracking a physical mechanism rather than a software compensation layer. The China launch is set for...

iOS 27 adds something Wallet has never had in fourteen years: the ability to build your own pass. Tap the "+" button you use to add credit cards or pass emails, and a new "Create a Pass" option appears alongside the existing options. It lets you digitize a paper ticket, membership card, or loyalty pass directly from your iPhone, with no developer account, no Pass Type ID, and no certificate signing required (Michael Tsai, May 2026). This guide walks you through how to use Create a Pass in Apple...

A major Xbox network outage prevented some players from signing in, viewing their libraries, making purchases, and launching games for much of July 27, 2026. Microsoft restored the affected services at approximately 2:30 p.m. PDT that day.

If you only want the key to open something else, PowerToys is enough. If you need it to act like Right Ctrl, skip straight to AutoHotkey. That's the whole decision, and getting it wrong means spending an hour on a remap that half-works.

A setting buried inside Samsung's Galaxy Z Fold 8 quietly acknowledges something the Android ecosystem has been slow to fix: ultra-wide foldable displays still cause problems for some apps, and someone has to compensate. Samsung's answer, at least for now, is a per-app zoom control tucked inside Settings → Advanced features → Labs. The Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 8 per-app zoom controls let users assign individual apps one of five scaling levels. Tipster Dylan H alerted Android Authority, which...

This guide tells you exactly how to watch the 2026 MLS All-Star Game live online and whether you qualify for the free trial. The game streams exclusively through MLS Season Pass on the Apple TV app. No cable broadcast, no over-the-air channel, no alternative platform. "Free" applies only in two specific situations. Figure out which one describes you, then follow the steps below to have a working stream before tomorrow's 8 p.m. ET kickoff.

Until last week, the Pixel 11 price increase was a rumor. It isn't anymore. Google's VP of Devices and Services, Shakil Barkat, told 9to5Google that the entire Pixel family will see pricing "adjustments" rolled out "dynamically to match supply realities" and that phones already on sale could be affected too, with no timeline given. Google is announcing the next Pixel generation on August 12, per The Verge. Specific numbers come then. The policy behind them is already set.

The hard part of working in Google Docs has never been writing the first sentence. It's everything that follows: reformatting a draft to match a template someone else built, fixing the voice after four contributors have left their fingerprints on it, finding an image that doesn't require a trip to another tool. Google has been shipping Gemini in Google Docs updates since March 2026 to handle most of that cleanup automatically, inside Docs, without changing the interface most users already know.

This fall, Apple's home ecosystem could finally catch up to the AI era its iPhones, iPads, and Macs already occupy, or it could wait another year. The difference comes down to one piece of software. Bloomberg's Mark Gurman reported two months ago that the next Apple TV 4K and HomePod mini have been finished and running on employee devices at Apple's Cupertino campus for months. The Apple smart home hub rumors stretch back even further: the Home Hub, internally coded J490, missed a spring 2025...

Samsung may be considering one of its most notable Galaxy S camera changes in years. Early Galaxy S27 leaks suggest the standard models are being tested with Sony main sensors, while the rumored Pro and Ultra phones could receive higher-resolution ultrawide, telephoto, and selfie cameras.

Months after reviewers docked the original Valet for its 15W wireless ceiling, Twelve South has launched a compact version that addresses the complaint directly. The new Twelve South Valet 25W MagSafe charging tray raises wireless output to 25W while cutting tray depth from 7.5 inches to 4.5 inches, making it faster but considerably more focused than what it replaces. Whether that's an improvement depends entirely on what you were using the original for.

An Amazon listing surfaced the Pixel Buds Pro 2 in an unnamed dark green colorway this week before being pulled, and Android Authority reported today that Google also appears to have been showing the same shade on its Play Store rewards page. The Pixel 11 event is confirmed for August 12, two weeks away. The leak points to no hardware changes, only a new colorway.

The Galaxy S26 FE has turned up in the UL Demko certification database with confirmed support for 45W wired charging, a spec that would put Samsung's budget-oriented handset ahead of the base Galaxy S26, which is still expected to top out at 25W. The Galaxy S26 FE 45W charging leak covers six regional model numbers and aligns with Samsung's Super Fast Charging 2.0 standard, SamMobile and Android Headlines both reported this week. The same 45W ceiling appeared on the Galaxy S25 FE, meaning the...

Google's support page now states plainly that QR code pairing for Messages on the web is "no longer available in the US." On the same day that notice appeared, reporters at Android Authority pulled up the QR option in both the Android app and the browser without any trouble. That gap between what Google's documentation says and what users are actually seeing is where this story starts.

Google's TV platform holds a six-point lead over Apple's tvOS in the latest Hub Entertainment Research survey, 14% to 8%, among U.S. respondents describing the operating system on their most-used TV or streaming player, according to Android Authority. That lead matters less than the gap separating both companies from Roku and Fire TV. Before going further, it's worth being precise about what's actually being measured here: this is a survey of primary viewing setups, not shipment figures,...