HoFo Blog

While we await the North American début of the Nokia 6 (come on, unlockable bootloader!) here's an early look at its bigger sibling, via some promotional materials that someone leaked to a Chinese tech blog. The blurry photo on the left shows a top-mounted headphone jack, bottom-mounted stereo speakers and a USB-C connector. The less blurry photo on the right shows what looks like an edge-to-edge display and multiple colour options.

The rumoured release for the Nokia 8 is July or August—in China, anyway—and specs are thought to be as follows:

Snapdragon 835 processor
6 inch 2K display
6 GB of RAM / 128 GB of storage

What's especially interesting is the price: 3188 CNY, which converts to about $469 USD. That's $10 cheaper than the starting price of a OnePlus 5.

Could these leaked materials be fake? Absolutely. There is ample evidence of another Nokia flagship, the Nokia 9, which seems to have a design language more in line with the already-released 6. Whatever the case, it's going to be an interesting year for Nokia and Android fans!

Sources: CNMO via BGR, Nokia Power User

---------

From The Web:

KGI: iPhone 8 features highest screen-to-body ratio in industry, but lacks Touch ID fingerprint scanner of any kind

Nokia and Zeiss brands reunite for the Android era

DxOMark Reviews OnePlus 5 Camera Quality, Gives it a Score of 87

RED Hydrogen One smartphone coming in 2018 with modular features, “holographic display”

Your location history is like a fingerprint. And cops can get it without a warrant.

From The Forums:

T-Mobile planning price increase.

$50 Year Airtime Discontinued?

Bought 1GB data but doesn't show up in account

"T-Mobile Thursdays"

switching carrier, recommendations?

---------

I'm hoping that this post will be of some use to anyone looking to purchase a OnePlus device, now or in the future. As an online-only retailer here in the Americas, there's currently no way to hold one of their products in your hands before you commit to buying it—unless, perhaps, you live near New York City and can attend one of their launch events. To put worried would-be buyers at ease, OnePlus offers a 15-day "no hassle" return, which I got to test on my recent OnePlus 5 order.

The first step in the return process is to create a service request on the OnePlus support site. If you want a refund you're asked to include some details as to why, but this is optional if I remember correctly. Anyway, almost immediately I received an email confirmation of my service request, and a few hours later I got another email from a company called FutureTel, a Canadian authorized service centre for OnePlus. Their message included an RMA number and a FedEx mailer, so all I had to do was pack up my phone, attach the mailer to the box and drop it off for shipping.

And here's where we get to the only issues with my return experience. While these FutureTel people were inspecting my phone I received two separate and cryptic emails from OnePlus that read like this:

This was immediately followed by a FutureTel email with a new RMA number and, somewhat distressingly, another mailing label. I contacted someone from OnePlus through their support chat portal, and was told that this was merely a procedural hiccup, and that FutureTel was still in the process of inspecting my device.

The process wrapped up yesterday, with separate notices from OnePlus and PayPal that my refund had been issued; when all was said and done the entire return process took about 8 days. I wouldn't go so far as to call it a no-stress return, but "no-hassle" seems fair. I have heard that U.S. returns are subject to a 10% restocking fee if there's nothing wrong with the phone (ie. if the user just doesn't like it), so keep that in mind if you're planning to order.

As for the OnePlus 5 itself, I don't think I can recommend it. The manufacturing defects that I experienced with mine, along with the reports I've read about the upside-down screen and even upside-down audio (?) makes me think that OnePlus cut too many corners in the making of what ended up being their most expensive device yet.

---------

From The Web:

Six new Moto Mod concepts announced, including DSLR lens, DirecTV, and "Moto 360 Camera" attachments

Moto Z2 Play is now available at Canadian carriers for up to $800 outright

Rogers increases data overage rate by $20 per gigabyte

Verizon Disconnects Heavy Rural 'Unlimited' Data Customers

Tom Wheeler defends Title II rules, accuses Pai of helping monopolists

From The Forums:

AT&T coverage extremely degraded!

Nokia 6 on AT&T

Verizon roaming.?

Page Plus: "Better & faster data speeds"

Mobile Hotspot when in Canada?

---------

Evan Blass is at it again...

Yesterday he tweeted the above image of the soon-to-be-made-official Motorola Moto X4—I added in some artwork for the device that I found on a separate Blass story posted to VentureBeat. The phone's specs are purported to be as follows:

Aluminum body with IP68 dust and water protection
5.2 inch FHD screen
Snapdragon 630 octa-core processor
4 GB RAM / 64 GB storage + microSD
8 and 12 megapixel rear cameras / 16 megapixel front camera
3,000 mAh battery
Android 7.1 Nougat

The X4 will be released sometime in Q4 and, according to Blass, will be the first non-Google smartphone available to subscribers of Google's Fi network. It's hard for this Canadian to get too excited about any new Motorola handset, as in this country Moto has traditionally been more interested in selling to carriers rather than direct to consumers. It looks promising for our American friends, though.

Sources: Evan Blass (1) (2) via Liliputing

---------

4th of July Edition!

From The Web:

Apple reportedly paying LG to exclusively devote OLED production lines to iPhone orders

Samsung isn't honoring its Galaxy S8 $200 trade-in discount for many, leaving customers frustrated

OnePlus 5 display not the only thing upside down — the audio is, too

Homeland Security Will Begin “Heightened Screening” of Phones on All US-Bound Flights

Canadian cellphone startup has success stateside, but shut out at home

From The Forums:

Prepaid Service Phones locked to providers?

iPhone5S Dead for Good?

Sprint-branded phones that have been unlocked automatically work on MVNOs?

Kittywireless, PagePlus, PuppyWireless, CDMA, GSM

Cheapest GSM paygo... Anything similar to Tello for GSM?

---------

Mobile wallet fatigue. It's a thing. And perhaps my only excuse for glossing over the announcement of Paytm in Canada this past spring. Over the long weekend I finally got the chance to download the Android version of the app and have a look. In its current form it's nothing like what users in India would enjoy, but it does hold some value for Canadians.

The homeland version, viewable at Paytm.com, looks like an Indian equivalent to WeChat—that is, an entire m-commerce ecosystem where you can pay bills, buy goods online, pay for physical goods at a store and send money to friends or family. I can best describe the Canadian version by comparing it to another Canadian Fintech innovation, Plastiq.

Plastiq is a service that enables the payment of utility bills, taxes and almost any professional service by credit card. It does this by issuing and mailing a cheque on the user's behalf and charging their supported card for the same amount, plus a transaction fee. If you've ever wondered how yours truly can afford to travel so much, a big part of it is my almost fanatical obsession with earning points on my credit cards—and thanks to Plastiq I'm now earning those points on my property taxes and even condo fees.

The only problem is that Plastiq's commission is pretty high, up to 2.5% on each cheque they cut depending on which credit card you charge it to. And this is where Paytm swoops in to save the day: as part of their launch promotion you can currently use it to pay most of the same bills without incurring any extra fees. Plastiq does give you the ability to manually add a payee yourself, but Paytm has an impressive payee list of its own. So far I've been using it to pay my mom's utility bills while my brothers and I figure out what to do with her house.

Some additional factors that might sway you towards one service or the other: Plastiq is currently available in app form for iOS only (Android users can use a mobile or desktop web browser), but Paytm offers no browser login whatsoever—it's app-only for Android and iOS. And while both Paytm and Plastiq are available in Canada, Plastiq is the only available option for our friends in the USA.

Links: Paytm Canada, Paytm.com, Plastiq

---------

The Canada Day Edition!

From The Web:

Virgin, Fido, Koodo and Vidéotron compete on 6GB and 8GB promo plans in Quebec

Public Mobile Extends $38/4GB Promo Targeting Freedom Mobile to July 6

Rogers $50 Loyalty Plan with 4GB Data and Canada-Wide Calling Returns

Bell/Virgin Price Hikes Coming: ‘Connection Charge’ Jumps to $25, SIM Cards Now ‘Free’

SyrupCast Podcast Ep.126: Farewell to Canada's telecom wizard

From The Forums:

PBS will remain on the air in rural areas thanks to T-Mobile

Old Verizon Phones & memories

Vzw drops service for too much unlimited use.

Moto X Pure on Tracfone EVER getting Android 7.0 ??

Canada150 Special

---------

In case you didn't hear the news, Nokia is indeed bringing their mid-range Android-powered 6 to the USA. It will sell through Amazon.com starting July 10th. Amazon will even deliver to Canada—with extra shipping and import fees, of course. Here's the rundown in case you're not familiar with the device:

Qualcomm Snapdragon 430 processor
5.5 inch FHD display (LCD)
16 MP rear-facing and 8 MP front-facing cameras
32 GB of storage, expandable to 128 GB via microSD
3 GB of RAM
Android 7.1 Nougat

A quick glance at the specs on Nokia.com shows support for LTE bands 1, 3, 5, 7, 8, 20, 28, 38 and 40. According to Amazon their unlocked version is compatible with AT&T and T-Mobile at the very least, but there's no band 66 support for Freedom Mobile in Canada.

It will sell for a pretty reasonable $299.99 USD, with a special Prime version—that is, Amazon apps and lock screen ads—coming later this summer. The Prime version should pique the interest of Android modders. I imagine that the XDA crowd would eagerly apply their mad skillz to liberate the phone of its Amazon cruft. Unfortunately things don't look too promising on that front; Nokia has yet to release the kernel source for the 6, and overseas versions seem to have a locked bootloader.

I really hope that isn't the case with what Amazon ends up selling on the 10th. Nokia would do very well to follow the path of Nexus and OnePlus, to embrace the Android modding community with their first American Android release. I think it would pave the way for even more interest in their flagship model 8, at least among early adopters and enthusiasts. Root access on a device with Nokia's legendary build quality and camera tech would be a pretty killer combo.

Come on, Nokia... I WANT TO BELIEVE!

Links: Amazon, Nokia, XDA

---------

From The Web:

Happy 10th anniversary to the iPhone, ‘a revolutionary product that changes everything’

'Tonight there's gonna be a jailbreak:' A poor man's guide to the first iPhone

How the iPhone won over Japan and gave the world emoji

Love in the Time of iMessage

Because Of Steve Jobs’s First Public iPhone Call, Starbucks Still Gets Orders For 4,000 Lattes

From The Forums:

Cricket Experience?

Let's start an old AT&T/Cingular phone thread!

Cancun coverage?

Need help with phone upgrade

VoLTE working for some on other TracFone MVNOs

---------

Ten years ago today the first-generation iPhone went on sale in the USA, changing smartphones forever. However... As this post will end up being the 3,390th front page entry on these forums, the undying Nokia fanboy within me must insist on observing this auspicious number with an excerpt from a fantastic book about the Finnish phone-maker, and how it all went wrong for them.

Nokia had little to worry about in the summer of 2007; their N95 was a triumph, and their roster of Eseries and Nseries smartphones was deep. Anecdotally, yours truly imported an E61i in July of that year, and stuck with S60 until switching to Android in late 2010. That's where we pick up the story, with Stephen Elop newly-installed as Nokia's CEO, and the growing realization that Symbian, Nokia's smartphone OS, is doomed. Something had to be done, and soon...

The infamous Burning Platform Memo would be published a few months later.

Nokia's fear of Samsung, however justified it may have been, demonstrates that they had already lost the fight. They ended 2010 with a 37.6% share of the worldwide smartphone market, but as we all know, that wouldn't last long.

Source: The Decline and Fall of Nokia

---------

From The Web:

Never Settle: OnePlus dodges questions on the company's Reddit AMA

OnePlus 5 Indian Variant is Made by OPPO

T-Mobile Launches Faster LTE-U Service in Six Markets

Android Pay now supports American Express cards in Canada

The Life, Death, and Legacy of iPhone Jailbreaking

From The Forums:

GoPhone name change?

New Smartphone code, 53629, adds 1 GB data bonus to smartphone plans

"Stream More" not working?

Call Quality Complaint

Shaw's Q3 2017

---------

Remember the OnePlus 5 that got delivered to me a week ago? I finally got around to unboxing it over the weekend, and on Monday sent it back.

Follow the arrow in the image above and you'll hopefully see the long scratch along the bottom of the camera lens assembly. And while the photo doesn't really show it, I'm fairly certain that the lens assembly itself is misaligned, like it was jammed into place by someone who had neither the time nor inclination to do it properly. I went straight for a refund instead of a repair, as I honestly can't remember ever buying a phone with such an obvious manufacturing defect out of the box.

Apparently I'm not the only affected user; there are at least two separate threads on the OnePlus reddit filled with details of similar defects. To be fair, there are a number of redditors mistaking the NFC antenna itself for a scratch—the antenna is a small groove extending upwards from the top of the lens assembly to the antenna bands along the top of the device. But there are other reports of scratches around the camera, on the SIM card tray cover and other places where they clearly should not be.

Here's the big one: a number of users are experiencing a strange, jelly-like effect when scrolling through their app drawer, a website, etc. Apparently this is because the screens on some OnePlus 5s have been installed upside down.

It's a big change from the OnePlus 3; I ordered a pair of those on launch day and both units were flawless. I can even remember watching Carl Pei in interviews boasting about their manufacturing process. Hopefully the company hasn't diverted funds from quality control to Bollywood star endorsements, but if you're thinking of ordering a OnePlus 5 you might want to hold off until they get these issues sorted out.

Links: reddit (1) (2) (3)

---------

From The Web:

EU fines Google record $2.7 billion in first antitrust case

Galaxy Note8 gets revealed from all angles in render form, sports dual rear cameras and a 6.3" display

Samsung’s UI fluidity problem needs fixing

What I Learned By Talking to 201 iPhone Case Factories

We review CNET's original iPhone review

From The Forums:

need instruction activating Total Wireless Iphone SE on Tracfone

What's the best "deal" for moving from AT&T to T-Mobile?

Blocking a Specific Number from Voicemail

AT&T Launches Fixed Wireless Internet in Rural and Underserved Areas in 8 More States

MVNO for Puerto Rico

---------

Here's a fan render of the forthcoming Galaxy Note 8 from Samsung. Evan Blass reports in VentureBeat that it will be the Korean conglomerate's first dual-camera smartphone, with a Snapdragon 835 processor (or Exynos equivalent), a generous 6 GB of RAM and a 6.3 inch AMOLED edge-to-edge screen, at an 18.5:9 aspect ratio.

It will also retail for a thousand Euros. So in that regard, it will share the same problem as other 2017 flagships: they're all just too expensive.

This troubling trend first came to my attention with the Google Pixel late last year, and has continued with the Galaxy S8/S8 Plus and Andy Rubin's Essential Phone. Even OnePlus is hopping on-board—the deluxe $539 USD OnePlus 5 is only a bargain when you compare it to everything else at the high end of the market.

It also doesn't help that most people in North America are still getting their hardware financed or subsidized by their carrier. I have a friend with a teenage daughter who's been begging for more data, but when I told him about a decent prepaid offer he couldn't take it, because she's locked into a contract until the end of the year. In other words, she (more likely her dad) is trading years of affordable service for a one-time discount on an overpriced phone.

This "kill the bezel" trend is at least part of the problem, enough so that it's interfering with what I still believe is the inevitable commoditization of smartphone hardware. Maybe it's time to stop chasing specs and start putting value above all else.

Sources: BGR, VentureBeat

---------

From The Web:

Nokia 6 coming to the United States in early July for $229

Some specs for the Google Pixel 2 may have leaked, point to 5" and 6" displays

Apple’s AR is closer to reality than Google’s

Virgin, Fido, Koodo and Vidéotron compete on 6GB and 8GB promo plans in Quebec

Shaw Go WiFi Hotspots Now Free Until July 3 for Canada 150 Celebrations

From The Forums:

Speed Cap

Corporate stores now charge for sim cards!?

QVC Todays Special Value Samsung Galaxy J7 -$139

Cutting SIM Card A Risk?

Blocking a Specific Number from Voicemail

Problem with Chat?

---------

... Vivo?!!

It's true, a little-known Chinese Android OEM is expected to succeed where Samsung failed, and beat Apple to market with the world's first optical fingerprint sensor. The teaser above was tweeted from Vivo India last week, and this YouTube upload is currently blowing up over on r/Android. Don't blink or you'll miss it:



According to Gizmochina the video was originally uploaded to Weibo about two weeks ago, and is a prototype device looking similar to the Vivo X9 Plus. This might not even be the first time Vivo has been first to market with new mobile phone innovations; Gizmochina also claims that the X9 and XPlay 6 Dual were the world's first "Hi-Fi" smartphones, though the late-2016 release date of those two devices don't exactly jibe with earlier audiophile efforts from the likes of LG.

The Shanghai edition of Mobile World Congress is set to kick off Wednesday, so we won't have too long a wait to see if Vivo makes good on their promise. Funny thing is, Vivo is a subsidiary of BBK Electronics, who also run Oppo and OnePlus. Can you imagine the #HYPE if it was the OnePlus 5 that brought an embedded fingerprint sensor to its worldwide audience of rabid fans?

Links: @Vivo_India, Gizmochina, MWC Shanghai, reddit, ZDNet

---------

From The Web:

T-Mobile customers have a tough day as the network goes down in 12 states and D.C.

The US Government Wants to Permanently Legalize the Right to Repair

Foxconn narrowed US factory locations to seven states, will decide next month

Samsung Preparing to Launch The Galaxy Note 8 in September for €999

Unicode 10 Officially Released with 56 New Emojis and a Host of New Characters

From The Forums:

FreedomPop account renewal snag?

South Florida Issues?

Cricket now selling iPhone SE 16GB $169 and iPhone SE 64GB for $229

Does T-Mobile Need TV to Compete!?

Sprint MVNO data SIM / plan. Galaxy Tab S. Freedom Pop or Tello?

---------

Taking a break from the OnePlus hype, here's something completely different: a post mortem by a developer for Ubuntu Phone listing their reasons for why that platform failed. Of course you could argue that it was doomed from the start; if BlackBerry and Windows Phone couldn't compete against Android and iOS, what chance could a smartphone version of Ubuntu possibly have?

It turns out that Canonical, Inc. only ever wanted 1% of the mobile market, and obviously failed to even capture that. Here are some explanations:

1. It didn’t target a profitable niche.

It started with the promise of a super-phone but the reality ended up being a couple of cheap handsets and tablets from a Spanish OEM. Pretty hard for Linux nerds to get excited about that.

2. Bad user experience and skewed priorities.

I've said it before and I'll say it again: nobody really cares about plugging their smartphone into a desktop monitor and keyboard.

3. The devices were too hard to get.

I can attest to this. I once inquired about Ubuntu Phone at Sincere House, the mall in Hong Kong devoted entirely to mobile phones. No one there had the slightest idea what I was talking about.

4. Focusing on irrelevant tech.

See #2 above.

5. Life as an app developer was too hard.

Ubuntu Phone had its own SDK, with no abilities to cross-compile from Android, iOS, Windows, even X11. Oh, and apparently it also broke frequently when updated, sometimes for weeks on end.

If you're a desktop Linux user like myself, or just want some dirt on the smartphone OS that never was, you can read the full story below.

Source: LIEBERBIBER

---------