The Morning After: OnePlus gets even closer with Oppo

OnePlus just launched a cheaper 5G phone and then slipped some major business news alongside it. After working for some time with Oppo (which is owned by the same company – BBK), OnePlus CEO Peter Lau announced that after the “positive impact” of the collaboration, the team gets even closer.

Although OnePlus will live under the Oppo umbrella, Lau said it will remain But if you’ve peered into the world of smartphones – especially BBK players like Oppo, Vivo, Realme, OnePlus – there has been a lot of overlap in features and specifications. For example, the OnePlus 8 Pro looked a lot like the Oppo Find X2 Pro.

Some of these phone brands focus on China and India, while OnePlus is pushing (and often thriving) in Western countries and putting its phones in European and American hands. More recently, Oppo and Vivo have moved to some countries in Europe, but they also lack the branding power of OnePlus. Will this closer partnership result in even more similar phones with different badges? Or another great mobile powerhouse capable of competing against Samsung and Apple?

– Mat Smith

With a 1 inch camera sensor and a “240 Hz” screen.

Speaking of same phones, different badges, Leica’s first smartphone is one device that’s pretty much already launched. After collaborations with Huawei and the most recent Sharp Aquos R6, Leica is finally launching its own smartphone. The Leitz Phone 1 is the first Leica-branded mobile phone (and, yes, it’s an Aquos R6 under that red Leica logo), and it will launch in Japan next month. While there are some cosmetic tweaks to the camera UI, the phone also comes with a “largely monochrome” version of Android 11, which looks pretty cool. Much like the Aquos R6, the Leitz Phone 1 packs a 1-inch 20-megapixel sensor for its f / 1.9 main camera, as well as a 12.6-megapixel selfie camera on the other side. Continue reading.

It opens in New York today.

This isn’t Google’s first physical retail space, of course – the company has run several pop-ups showcasing its hardware products in the past. But a new store on 76 Ninth Avenue, which will open today at 10 a.m. ET, occupies the lower Google building in Chelsea. Not only will it sell Google hardware (through the Pixel, Nest, and Fitbit wallets), but it will also provide technical support across a broad ecosystem of products to you, at Apple’s Genius Bar. Continue reading.

The first will appear inside “Blaston”.

In the coming weeks, Facebook plans to start testing the ads Oculus Quest owners see when they play games and use apps with their headsets. The first of these will appear in blaston, a hellish first-person title from Resolution Games, followed by software from two other anonymous developers over the next few weeks. “For now, this is a test with a few apps,” the company said in a blog post. Continue reading.

Available for drivers as young as 14 years old.

Car manufacturers have been talking about urban mobility solutions for years, but have you ever seen one on the street? French automaker Citroën has finally done something about it by transforming its adorable Ami concept into a real adorable car with two seats and a top speed of 28 MPH.

By a quirk of French law, the Ami is not technically a car but a “quadricycle”, so users across the country as young as 14 can drive it. But unlike Renault’s Twizy quadricycle, it is a fully enclosed vehicle. Associate editor based in Paris Steve Dent had to try it out. Continue reading.

We played “Stranger in Paradise: Final Fantasy Origin”.

Square Enix’s New Approach to the Very First Final fantasy did not get off to a good start. The trailer was rough and perhaps the most memorable video from E3 this year. Sometimes it’s good. Usually it is bad. It was the latter, with absurd dialogue and a game that looked rather dated considering it’s coming to the PS5. I played the demo (which also had its own issues), and while there is room for improvement – the developers are looking for player feedback – there could be a very enjoyable, albeit difficult, game that offers a different perspective on the universe of Final Fantasy. Continue reading.

But wait, there is more …